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Is that something to do with Geek Feminism and the imposition of "codes of conduct" on conference attendees? And doing so has politicized the events? If that is

Is that something to do with Geek Feminism and the imposition of "codes of conduct" on conference attendees? And doing so has politicized the events? If that is true, then it's yet another example of pressure groups imposing their agenda on these events. It started roughly in 2014. Or was there a general political shift which coincides with this, at the time? Anyway, I have stopped going to these events because of the politics, particularly the censorship aspect. These "codes of conduct" go against my fundamental principles of freedom of speech and liberty, the whole reason I got involved in open source in the first place. They prohibit far more than rude or aggressive behavior. And they are a specific political group's attempt to control what we can say at these events and on occasion, even outside them. Whatever it was, something changed politically in 2014 - 2016 timeframe or so. Maybe a major social media platform changed it's policies which allowed this behavior to flourish? I'm wildly speculating here. Prior to that we didn't really care about anything political, other than civil liberties at these conferences? But there wasn't really this left-wing / right-wing divide back then. At least not from what I remember. After thinking about it for a while, yes, nobody cared if you were liberal or conservative before that. I'm not going to allow any chilling effect to prevent me from speaking up about it, and I'm taking any downvotes and flagging as well. It will be interesting to see what happens. It's good that this site doesn't delete flagged posts, it just hides them from view by default. That way we avoid the "spiral of silence" effect that leads to self-censorship. If we all did the same, then this problem, assuming it is valid, would not have existed in the first place.

schmidtleonard 3y ago
> I'm not going to allow any chilling effect to prevent me from speaking up Please pick your battles. In any case, good luck.
- 1827163 3y ago
  Someone has to speak up, otherwise we will remain in the present situation, which sounds very dire indeed. OK, whatever it is, it's my first foray into it, and I hope I'm treading carefully enough?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
slily 3y ago
At face value, most of the codes of conduct that popped up recently look reasonable, but they were introduced in response to a movement that has replaced this simple, straightforward and truly inclusive idea of treating everyone respectfully with an obsession about labels, group representation and calling out any remote perceived slight towards protected groups. Sometimes I wonder if I would have better professional opportunities or job safety if I specified that I am homosexual on LinkedIn and behaved flamboyantly instead of keeping it to myself. This call for participation reinforces that feeling with language like "[We] especially want to encourage FLINTA* (Female, Lesbian, Inter, Non-Binary, Trans, Agender) and Queer individuals, BIPOC and humans from the Global South to submit their talks, workshops or Lightning Talks." Once, I saw a regular attendee in another conference complain that there are too many white males, suggesting that they should refrain from attending, and perhaps send a woman or a person who is not white to represent their company instead, and "threatening" to withdraw himself because he is also a white male. Of course no one openly disagreed with him. The risk to personal reputation and even employment is too high. The conversation definitely turned quiet after this, however. I do think we are being led around by extremists, and I am happy to eat some angry replies, downvotes, and flags to have a chance to express this as well.

schmidtleonard 3y ago

> I'm not going to allow any chilling effect to prevent me from speaking up Please pick your battles. In any case, good luck.

1827163 3y ago
Someone has to speak up, otherwise we will remain in the present situation, which sounds very dire indeed. OK, whatever it is, it's my first foray into it, and I hope I'm treading carefully enough?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

slily 3y ago

At face value, most of the codes of conduct that popped up recently look reasonable, but they were introduced in response to a movement that has replaced this simple, straightforward and truly inclusive idea of treating everyone respectfully with an obsession about labels, group representation and calling out any remote perceived slight towards protected groups. Sometimes I wonder if I would have better professional opportunities or job safety if I specified that I am homosexual on LinkedIn and behaved flamboyantly instead of keeping it to myself. This call for participation reinforces that feeling with language like "[We] especially want to encourage FLINTA* (Female, Lesbian, Inter, Non-Binary, Trans, Agender) and Queer individuals, BIPOC and humans from the Global South to submit their talks, workshops or Lightning Talks." Once, I saw a regular attendee in another conference complain that there are too many white males, suggesting that they should refrain from attending, and perhaps send a woman or a person who is not white to represent their company instead, and "threatening" to withdraw himself because he is also a white male. Of course no one openly disagreed with him. The risk to personal reputation and even employment is too high. The conversation definitely turned quiet after this, however. I do think we are being led around by extremists, and I am happy to eat some angry replies, downvotes, and flags to have a chance to express this as well.