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> However it's more like putting up a sign on a hotel > saying "Murder and mayhem will not be tolerated." I have previously held that view, but now think t

> However it's more like putting up a sign on a hotel > saying "Murder and mayhem will not be tolerated." I have previously held that view, but now think that was mostly a function of my white male privilege. If you go to a hotel proprietor and report murder and mayhew, you have a reasonable expectation that it will be dealt with properly. Many people apparently did not have this expectation of technical conferences, based on their experiences. Many people like myself - who hadn't had those experiences - assumed it was so obvious it didn't need saying. > This draws in predators I think that's right, but is a massive simplification. I think good people can act in ways that make other people feel uncomfortable, without meaning to, and that also needs some consideration. > The term "code of conduct" is itself a problem as it > strongly suggests "behave or else!" Really? To me it says "these are our expectations". > Do you have a better explanation for the antagonism > many feel (and I personally used to feel) towards > codes of conduct? I think many men growing up have negative formative experiences with certain women who have considerably more social power than them (for simplicity: the popular girls!) exerting it to make them feel ashamed. They see potential for what they see as a safe space being used against them. They have a genuine fear of their well-intentioned actions being used to label them as a bad person. They see the Adria Richards and Pycon examples as a realization of their worst fears in this area.

PieterH 11y ago
Honestly, accidental discomfort is part of being grown up. To try to regulate that is IMO both patronizing and counter productive. We need some level of friction to socialize. A CoC that lets well-meant actions become crimes is worse than no CoC at all. I explain this in my article: certain people will use poorly-designed tools to harass. The key to solving this mess is, and I stick by it, to separate accidental clumsiness from predatory behavior. There is no grey overlap. Once you separate these two, you can teach people to trust each other much more, while being properly cynical of the small slice of predators. This isn't hypothesis: we use this approach in our open source communities to encourage and thrive on honest mistake while watching for, and blocking predatory actions. I may add a piece to the protocol along the lines of, "Tolerance means accepting that people make mistakes, and working with them instead of treating this as a violation."
masklinn 11y ago
> Many people apparently did not have this expectation of technical conferences, based on their experiences. Or they did and were quickly disillusioned. > Really? To me it says "these are our expectations". Indeed. "Murder" is strictly legally defined and the definition is relatively universal, not so for some other behaviours. CoCs simply take the RFC option of defining what they're going to talk about beforehand so all participants can be on the same page.

PieterH 11y ago

Honestly, accidental discomfort is part of being grown up. To try to regulate that is IMO both patronizing and counter productive. We need some level of friction to socialize. A CoC that lets well-meant actions become crimes is worse than no CoC at all. I explain this in my article: certain people will use poorly-designed tools to harass. The key to solving this mess is, and I stick by it, to separate accidental clumsiness from predatory behavior. There is no grey overlap. Once you separate these two, you can teach people to trust each other much more, while being properly cynical of the small slice of predators. This isn't hypothesis: we use this approach in our open source communities to encourage and thrive on honest mistake while watching for, and blocking predatory actions. I may add a piece to the protocol along the lines of, "Tolerance means accepting that people make mistakes, and working with them instead of treating this as a violation."

masklinn 11y ago

> Many people apparently did not have this expectation of technical conferences, based on their experiences. Or they did and were quickly disillusioned. > Really? To me it says "these are our expectations". Indeed. "Murder" is strictly legally defined and the definition is relatively universal, not so for some other behaviours. CoCs simply take the RFC option of defining what they're going to talk about beforehand so all participants can be on the same page.