Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[Olav Vitters]

On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 04:40:29PM +0200, Benjamin Berg wrote:
> Codes of Conduct (CoC) and especially the policies surrounding them are
> a very political issue (which easily becomes emotional). Unfortunately,

I reviewed the latest CoC proposal. My feedback is below.



https://wiki.gnome.org/Diversity/CoCWorkingGroup/DraftEventsCoC/DraftPhotographyPolicy

In summary: please choose if you want pictures to be taken or not. At
the moment the rules are written in a strange way. E.g. half of them
assume that by default picture taking is ok (need a badge to show you
don't want your picture to be taken). But there's also rules where
everyone's permission needs to be asked. So why the badge?

I think this policy needs to be much clearer. Currently most people are
fine with their pictures being taken. I'd suggest to make it easy to see
which ones don't want their pictures to be taken and keep the bits where
it's not complying with this preference means you're out of the
conference/ hackfest/ similar.

I am well aware that we have attendees which do not want their picture
to be taken plus do not want to have everyone know this.

| Guidelines for attendees
| 
| If you don't want to have your picture taken, please make this known to
| event organizers before or near the beginning of the event. During some
| events, you will be issued a special badge to indicate that your picture
| should not be taken. There may be a photo-free zone where you can sit
| during talks - feel free to ask event organizers about this.

This implies that most people are fine with their picture being taken.
It also implies that some people might not be.

| Photographers should ask your permission either before or after taking
| your picture.

If most people are fine with having their picture taken, why should
permission be asked? I think this is too much of a burden (asking and
being asked) and not practical.

|   If this doesn't happen, you should feel free to ask them
| to stop or to delete any pictures they have taken. If you don't feel
| comfortable doing this, just ask an event organizer and they will assist
| you.

The bit about being entirely comfortable and it being ok to ask for
deletion of a picture seems reasonable.

| There are some cases where all attendees should expect to have their
| picture taken. This includes if you participate in a group photograph,
| or if you give a talk.

This seems odd, either permission should be asked or it shouldn't be. I
think it's too much of a burden. But if you want permission to be asked
then it should be asked _every_single_time_. The exceptions are basically
the ones which are difficult for the organizers of an event. However,
it's also a heavy burden for all participants taking pictures.

It seems way easier to assume that by default picture taking is ok while
at the same time it's mandatory to adhere that some people do NOT want
their pictures to be taken. Much easier!

| Guidelines for photographers

I use my phone for taking pictures and I'm an attendee, not a
photographer I think.

| If you are taking photographs at a GNOME event, make yourself available
| to those you are taking pictures of. Ensure that you get permission from

I don't understand what's meant with 'make yourself available'. I could
imagine that after a picture I need to hang around for 5 minutes or
something? Usually people don't notice that I take their pictures. The
best pictures are when people are not noticing their picture being
taken.

| your subjects either before or after you have taken their picture.

That's not practical and I'm going to break that rule. I've been to
Germany last weekend and observed (at least in Cologne) that most people
actually wait for a traffic light. It's not practical nor reasonable
request to ask a hundred times/day if you can take someones picture.
Especially if you take a lot of pictures it'll be impossible. If someone
would actually follow these rules it's a huge burden.

Imagine coding where for every line someone interrupts you with a
question. You'll not be able to concentrate nor get anything done. While
taking pictures it's unreasonable to do a lot of red tape just for the
sake of it (IMO).

Another practical bit: I've taken pictures of a big group. E.g. in
Manchester where people were sitting on the stairs. You cannot really
make anyone out or anything. According to this rule I'd need to spend
time to track them around and ask permission? It seems impractical. Same
for e.g. the 20 year party even, I have various pictures with around 50
people on there.

| Permission from parents or guardians should be requested for all minors.

Is the "should be" like an RFC? Meaning I can just ignore it? If so, why
even have it in there?

| If someone asks you not to take their picture, don't. If someone asks
| you to delete or unpublish a picture you have taken of them, politely
| comply.

This seems great.

| Don't harass people by repeatedly taking their picture without
| 

Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[Nirbheek Chauhan]

On Mon, Apr 30, 2018 at 9:31 PM,   wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 30, 2018 at 8:15 AM Tobias Mueller  wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> On Mon, 2018-04-30 at 15:48 +0100, Allan Day wrote:
>> > The big picture here is that the working group went to great effort to
>> > make sure that everyone was able to participate, and that we had a
>> But it sounds like it was made sure that "everyone" was having the same
>> opinion rather than allowing dissent.
>
> Wow, there's really a lot of jumping to conclusions going on in this thread,
> isn't there?
>
> None of us know what went on except the participants, which as I've said
> before renders this entire discussion meaningless. But, Allan did
> specifically say earlier in the thread:
>
> "Large parts of the current draft were directly influenced by Ben's
> contributions, and we've expended a great deal of energy trying to
> accommodate his views."
>
> Doesn't sound like cracking down on dissent. Then again, I really have no
> idea. Please, can we stop the wild speculation and preferably just end this
> discussion? I don't see anything beneficial coming out of it.
>

I agree with Philip. From what I can tell, this thread has from the
beginning been rather vague about what it's trying to accomplish.
Seems like a we have a public conversation that should've been
private, and without any context attached which means it's just noise
to those of us who are not in the know.

It is obvious that there are some disagreements here, but I can think
of several productive ways to handle them and this thread is not one
of them.

Cheers,
Nirbheek
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Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[philip . chimento]

On Mon, Apr 30, 2018 at 8:15 AM Tobias Mueller  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Mon, 2018-04-30 at 15:48 +0100, Allan Day wrote:
> > The big picture here is that the working group went to great effort to
> > make sure that everyone was able to participate, and that we had a
> But it sounds like it was made sure that "everyone" was having the same
> opinion rather than allowing dissent.
>

Wow, there's really a lot of jumping to conclusions going on in this
thread, isn't there?

None of us know what went on except the participants, which as I've said
before renders this entire discussion meaningless. But, Allan did
specifically say earlier in the thread:

"Large parts of the current draft were directly influenced by Ben's
contributions, and we've expended a great deal of energy trying to
accommodate his views."

Doesn't sound like cracking down on dissent. Then again, I really have no
idea. Please, can we stop the wild speculation and preferably just end this
discussion? I don't see anything beneficial coming out of it.

Regards,
Philip C
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Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[Tobias Mueller]

Hi,

On Mon, 2018-04-30 at 15:48 +0100, Allan Day wrote:
> The big picture here is that the working group went to great effort to
> make sure that everyone was able to participate, and that we had a
But it sounds like it was made sure that "everyone" was having the same
opinion rather than allowing dissent.

Cheers,
  Tobi
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Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[Allan Day]

Alexandre Franke  wrote:
...
> The WG is a group working on a document that invites people involved
> in a conflict to seek assistance from a third party. Yet it seems
> that, when a conflict arised, they didn’t call for external
> arbitration, and even went as far as issuing warnings to one of the
> parties involved on their own. I find this highly disturbing.

I don't think that this is a fair or accurate summary of events within
the working group, and I'd suggest not jumping to conclusions or
making inaccurate claims without knowing the facts.

The big picture here is that the working group went to great effort to
make sure that everyone was able to participate, and that we had a
full and rigorous drafting process. Considering how much effort went
into this, a little appreciation for the work done by the working
group would be nice.

Allan
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Re: Proposal for an Events Code of Conduct and Policy Referendum

[Allan Day]

meg ford  wrote:
...
> On Fri, Apr 27, 2018 at 4:54 PM, Alexandre Franke  wrote:
>>
>> Did you mean to quote a specific part of Allan’s email? Because my
>> email was about what happened during the time when discussions were
>> still within the WG (and the conflict that emerged from it) and yours
>> is about what happened after that, so you replying to my email this
>> way is misleading.
>
>
> That's actually not true. Allan was saying (correct me if I'm wrong, Allan) 
> that he and Neil finishing the final draft without Ben was "direct response to
> repeated unacceptable behaviour on Ben's part." By that point in time Allan, 
> Ben and Neil were the only members of the group who were active. In my email 
> I was saying that most of us became inactive in response to the atmosphere in 
> the working group, before Ben was excluded from the final drafting.
>
> In addition, I was saying that I don't agree with Allan that Ben was the only 
> member of the working group who was not included in the final drafting (both 
> before and after the time that the discussions were still happening within 
> working group). I can't speak for other WG members, but I was not included in 
> the discussion surrounding the final drafting process that Neil and Allan 
> completed. The only time I have seen the final draft has been as a member of 
> the Board.

It's true that saying who was or wasn't included does get a bit tricky
due to the fact that not all members of the WG have been active all
the time. My view is that Ben, Neil, Nuritzi, Rosanna and myself were
the "active" members of the group at the point we published the draft
for community consultation, since these were the people who were still
attending meetings.

When I stated that the members of the WG were able to review the draft
as part of the board group, these were the people that I was referring
to.

Allan
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