Thanks for kicking this off Beth. By the way - I do not remember the reply/quoting format you all like on the O-List. Could someone remind those of us who have rarely posted here about top-posting, etc?
I do have some thoughts on this. Not just what should be in a CoC, but what should NOT be in a CoC. The background is that since the first person asked us about one a little over a year ago we have had maybe six people make what range from suggestions to demands about what should be included. The reason I pushed back so strongly was some of those demands. There are large parts of this that we can all easily agree on - the two extremes. First is anything that is an actual crime. Assault of any kind, violence, threats of violence etc. If anything like that occurs then the police should be involved. If someone reports the incident to admins, and no one has yet called the police then that should be done, but anyone can call the police. Second is the other extreme - classroom etiquette. The rules about not disrupting a class, the statement that anyone in the class should come get an admin to deal with disruption. Not touching someone's work without asking first. The rules that really apply to origami, separate from normal group guidlines. So - those two I think everyone can agree on very easily. Now...the most difficult area is what I would call "social injustice" rules. Some of the suggested CoC sent to us have long enumerated sets of ways you should not offend people. Problem with that is that on the one hand you are listing a lot of things that only a very small subset of people will care about, and on the other can never list them all. There is a reason that "murder" is against the law, not "murder by shooting, murder by stabbing, murder by manual strangulation, murder by garrote, murder by poison". If you list "things that are bad" you sort of imply that things not on the list are not bad. And you will continually be asked to add to the list. To be specific, one person asked that the CoC include "Mis-gendering someone, even accidently is tantamount to physical violence. Therefore please refrain from any use of gender pronouns". That is one of the things I was referring to when I stated that I did not want to be the "PC Police", or have an "overly PC CoC", which people took real offence to. I would prefer a more general statement - something along the lines of "If anyone does or says anything that is making you or someone else uncomfortable please report it to an admin and we will make a determination and take appropriate action". Not a promise that "if you report it we will take action",because some people report very odd things. A few years ago a man who had come into the exhibit approached Monica and complained that we "were allowing people to walk around half-naked". When she inquired what he meant by that he pointed to some people in sandals and told her that "Naked feet are disgusting and unsanitary". She politely told him that sandals meet the health regulations for restaurants, so they are certainly fine at a convention. He left in a huff. Please do not think that I am conflating reports of real harassment with silly things like that - I am just pointing out that the CoC must allow common sense to apply. Second issue I had was several people asking for people to be able to anonymously report others for bad behavior at our convention or other events "So that we can take action". But without specifying what that action should be. I took that to mean blacklisting, because I honestly do not know what other action you can take at a future event based on a report of something from a past event. Oddly, some of these pointed to the OUSA CoC as an example. But it does NOT say "anonymously". It says your identity can be kept confidential, which is entirely different. I asked straight up "Are you saying that we should allow anonymous reports of bad behavior at other events as well as at our own, and based solely on those reports blacklist people?". I never got a real reply to that, so I am not sure that is what they meant, but that was the request. And that was from several different people separated by months. I would like to see some real discussion here of those several general categories: 1) Should incidents at other events be reported through these same channels as real time incidents at our events? 2) Are we talking about blacklisting people? If so, based on what exactly? Note that I have no issue with that other than the opportunity for abuse of it. I mean - if Person X is disruptive and a problem (much less guilty of criminal conduct) at multiple events, why would anyone want them at future events? 3) Do we want to be acting as micro-managers of what is and is not allowable etiquette, or just broad statements that boil down to "don't be a jerk" (not in those words). Remember - this is specifically NOT about harassment, assault or any other serious offence. Keep in mind that this cuts both ways. One person who has been pushing for an anti-harassment policy which would include any insult as harassment has publicly stated that "Everyone who voted for Trump should be put through the woodchipper" accompanied by a shot from the movie fargo with Steve Buscemie's foot sticking out of the woodchipper. No one should be making deliberately insulting/inflammatory statements like that at a convention, but is it our place to take action if they do, and if so, what action? Where/how do we draw that line? I do know that most of you would reply to this and say "That is not what we are talking about!", but that is very much what has been requested of us by a few (like two) people. "confidential" I have no issue with. " Anonymous" I do. 4) What reporting mechanisms should there be? Stated escalation path? i.e. you report it to someone, they say "eh...not going to get involved". Should there be a next level contact? That is what I am planning. I feel that there should be a clear differentiation between potentially criminal conduct and "things that make you uncomfortable", with a statement that you can report the former directly to the police if you are not immediately satisfied by the response from the convention admins. I also think any non-direct contact method such as email needs a strong disclaimer that it should not be used to report anything urgent. i.e. "'emails may not be seen for hours. If you are reporting something that requires immediate action please report it in person or by calling xxx". Back to the question of "not acting on every report" because some will not require any action...should we log those in some way, along with the reason we did not take action? Or I suppose I am saying we should log any report, with action taken or reason none was taken. John Scully On Sun, May 16, 2021 at 4:03 PM Elizabeth Johnson <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello everyone! > > > Anne thought it would be helpful if I presented an intro to this topic, in > the interest of kicking off the discussion. As a somewhat neutral party > that was not directly involved in any of the precipitating events, and who > was also not a major player in the Facebook discussion, I’ve done my best > to try to represent this issue, and the concerns of those involved, fairly > and accurately. > > > ....... >
