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Debugging conference anti-harassment policiesDebugging conference anti-harassment policiesPosted Feb 4, 2011 21:35 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510)In reply to: Debugging conference anti-harassment policies by dneary Parent article: Debugging conference anti-harassment policies
there are lots of potential photos you can use on animal welfare, AIDS awareness, children's charities, landmine awareness, etc. You seem to be repeating the unfortunately popular social convention that sex is offensive while violence is not. It is coercive sex which is offensive, which is of course a form of violence. Many of us would be more put off by imagery of violence to animals than, for example, Aaron's Railsconf presentation on Arel in which he composited pictures of himself kissing popular Rails developers (who I doubt all share Aaron's apparent orientation).
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Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 5, 2011 3:10 UTC (Sat) by shmget (subscriber, #58347) [Link]
"It is coercive sex which is offensive, which is of course a form of violence."
Well, apparently that depend on the mood of the day. Not so long ago the up-in-arms was about the so-called 'soft-porn' in the CouchDB presentation.
"You seem to be repeating the unfortunately popular social convention that sex is offensive while violence is not"
I may be unfortunate, but it is a very real state of affair and not a 'popular' myth.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 5, 2011 5:11 UTC (Sat) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
As has already been pointed out to you, this is unrelated to cultural perceptions of sex. Does the US have an entirely maladjusted view of the relative damage caused by sexual images compared to violent ones? In my opinion, yes. Is this what we're talking about? Not in the slightest.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 5, 2011 6:50 UTC (Sat) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Is this what we're talking about? Not in the slightest. Not so sure. Unfortunately ours is a warlike society and thus values coercive behavior. You could take much of the ambiguity out of the process of determining what is appropriate at a conference by considering whether it is in some way coercive (and thus violent). Obviously touching is directly coercive behavior. It's the "take" in "take their emacs virginity" that makes it language about a coercive act. Speakers can use imagery and language that makes you uncomfortable or offends you to make a point. It is when the language or imagery depict or encourage coercive behavior that they are unfair to the parties to which such coercion is directed. If a future conference policy were to focus on coercion rather than what makes one uncomfortable or offends, it would be much less ambiguous and much more fair.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 5, 2011 17:42 UTC (Sat) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
"Speakers can use imagery and language that makes you uncomfortable or offends you to make a point. It is when the language or imagery depict or encourage coercive behavior that they are unfair to the parties to which such coercion is directed."
I don't think this is an accurate characterisation of the situation. It's entirely possible to use imagery of women in bikinis in a non-coercive manner, but that doesn't mean that doing so is acceptable in a technical presentation. The reasons for this have been explained at length.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 5, 2011 18:00 UTC (Sat) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] It's entirely possible to use imagery of women in bikinis in a non-coercive manner, but that doesn't mean that doing so is acceptable in a technical presentation. Or men in thongs. But the point there is that objectifies people (treats them as sexual objects). Which is easy to describe and identify as a category of material to be avoided, as is material that depicts or encourages coercion. This still seems 1000 times more specific, unambiguous, and easy to identify than guidelines based on being offensive or making uncomfortable.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 5, 2011 18:16 UTC (Sat) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
No. The problem with the images is not that they objectify people. The problem with the images is the effect they have on the audience, which has nothing to do with objectification.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 5, 2011 18:28 UTC (Sat) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] The problem with the images is the effect they have on the audience, which has nothing to do with objectification.Really? I was thinking that the images were offensive because they objectified a person. If you are merely objecting to them because they titillate, then state that clearly. "Effect they have on the audience" doesn't even state what effect, which I am sure you can produce. And of course it's an auteur's job to effect the audience, so it gets you into territory that can never be disambiguated. Just classifying based on discomfort or offense is really "I know what it is, but I can't describe it". And you really don't know what it is in that case, because it's subjective.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 5, 2011 18:41 UTC (Sat) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
What? I'm not objecting to them because they titillate. I'm objecting to them because of the atmosphere they create, which disproportionately affects a specific group in the community.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 5, 2011 19:32 UTC (Sat) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] I'm objecting to them because of the atmosphere they create, which disproportionately affects a specific group in the community. You really can arrive at a concrete statement, I'm sure you can see how vague this still is. How does it effect them, what specific group, why is it disproportinate?
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 5, 2011 19:35 UTC (Sat) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
Have you read the rest of the discussion? I'd perhaps naively assumed that you wouldn't be offering solutions without having done so, but I'm now beginning to suspect that you haven't.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 5, 2011 19:42 UTC (Sat) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Yes. I see a problem in that discussion that you still seem to be missing, which is that the problems come from a lack of specificity and a subjective nature.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 5, 2011 19:47 UTC (Sat) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
And you're proposing solutions that don't actually demonstrate any understanding of why the existing policy exists. It's not about coercion. It's not about titillation. It's not about objectification. It's about how the audience feels, and it's not practical to come up with an exhaustive list of things to avoid in order to prevent them feeling that way. It's inherently subjective, because so are people.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 5, 2011 22:47 UTC (Sat) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] It's about how the audience feels You can go to jail for rape, or assault, or maybe even some form of harassment, and in some countries for hate speech, but not for simply hurting someone's feelings or making them uncomfortable with your words. Ever think about why? It's simply the difference between objective and subjective. We have no good way of fairly ruling on the subjective. That's why policies that rely on subjective parameters must, simply by their nature, be oppressive and unjust.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 5, 2011 22:57 UTC (Sat) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
We're talking about a policy that's analogous to a corporate sexual harassment policy, not a law. The original paper selection process was subjective too.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 6, 2011 0:14 UTC (Sun) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] We're talking about a policy that's analogous to a corporate sexual harassment policyOK, let's look at some corporate sexual harassment policies, then. First, it's important to recognize that they are regarding the environment in which a person has to spend much of their life working, not just a conference. But they have a lower standard that we seem to have for conferences, and real rules. This is from http://www.elinfonet.com/human-resources/Sexual-Harassment/
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 6, 2011 0:17 UTC (Sun) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
...which appears to be a list of a variety of subjective rules. What point are you actually trying to make?
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 6, 2011 0:27 UTC (Sun) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] The one that stands out most is: whether the discriminatory conduct is physically threatening or humiliating or a mere offensive utterance The point here is that an environment where obscentity is used is not for that reason alone a sexually harassing environment. The presence of a physical threat or humiliation is evaluated. Certainly we must entirely prohibit physical threats and humiliation at our conferences, and we can do so with much more precise language than we are using. But "mere offensive utterance" is so subjective that whether or not you are guilty is not based upon a "reasonable person" standard but upon the specific people who make the decision.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 6, 2011 0:36 UTC (Sun) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
With the difference between "humiliating" and "mere offensive utterance" being precisely and objectively defined?
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 6, 2011 0:48 UTC (Sun) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] With the difference between "humiliating" and "mere offensive utterance" being precisely and objectively defined? Obviously whether a communication is directed toward a person or class of people would be a determination. Calling a woman "b***h" is intended to humiliate her. Undirected obscentity is merely offensive. But this is not to say that courts or corporate sexual harassment policies have really grappled with the subject, either. In fact, there is one place where they seriously blow it, which is that they consider harassment to be only unwelcome advances. Making it entirely dependent upon something the recipient decides after the message has already been sent. A fair rule would simply direct employees not to make such advances to their co-workers.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 6, 2011 0:55 UTC (Sun) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
Well, that would be one determination - but it's hardly the only one. Which seems to support my point. The rest of the world doesn't rely on precise and objective definitions of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, and so your argument that a conference anti-harassment policy should doesn't seem to be terribly grounded in reality.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 6, 2011 1:00 UTC (Sun) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] So because those deciding a loosely-related topic don't do better, you think you don't have to either. And thus ignoring the fact that you could have drafted a fair policy, and still can is in some way OK, even though people are being oppressed and treated unfairly. That hardly seems ethical.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 6, 2011 1:10 UTC (Sun) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
It is impossible to simultaneously achieve your definition of a fair policy and for that policy to achieve its desired goals for reasons that have been previously explained. While it's clear that conference organisers can take advantage of the fact that we're working in a grey area in order to unfairly punish individuals, the reality is that conference organisers can do whatever they want at their conference anyway. I haven't seen any evidence that they tend to do so, and I don't think I've seen any cases where the anti-harassment policy has been used to oppress or treat people unfairly.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 6, 2011 23:20 UTC (Sun) by shmget (subscriber, #58347) [Link]
"I don't think I've seen any cases where the anti-harassment policy has been used to oppress or treat people unfairly."
Have you read the article your are commenting on?
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 6, 2011 23:30 UTC (Sun) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
The policy states that no sexual images should be displayed in public places. Mark's keynote displayed sexual images in public places. There's nothing subjective whatsoever about the decision that followed, and Bruce's statement was related to the distinction between subjective and objective decision making. So on that basis, no, it wasn't used to oppress or treat anyone unfairly.
Mark's made no indication that he believes that the organisers' decision to apologise was unfair. In fact, without being required to in any way whatsoever, he made a personal apology. So even on the grounds that you're arguing, there's no evidence that anyone was oppressed or treated unfairly.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 5, 2011 21:36 UTC (Sat) by shmget (subscriber, #58347) [Link]
"Have you read the rest of the discussion?"
he seems to have, and so did I, but the problem here is that you take a fallacy, turn that to an 'absolute and undeniable' Truth(tm)' and then demand that everybody subscribe to your unsubstantiated misandric position.
I challenge you to produce a study that demonstrate the causality that you claim. (namely that showing a girl in a bikini to a group of 'male' turn them into uncontrolled sex-maniac that are going to jump any female in the immediate vicinity, or even better in that case, showing them a cartoon of a pig doing a goose or a fake road-sign with some sexual content achieve the same result)
Furthermore, I did not read you or other proponent of your thesis demanding strict dress code for female at conference, after all if the mere sight of a sexy picture can have the devastating effect you claim they have, imagine what a good looking garment could do. Of course good looking female should also, by the same logic , be banned from conference, since they put - still by the same logic - every women in the audience in dire risk of rape.... stupid isn't it ? yeah I thought so.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 5, 2011 21:54 UTC (Sat) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
Oddly, that's not the argument I'm making. I don't think it fundamentally matters whether or not showing reasonably mild sexualised images at a conference results in a statistically measurable increase in the number of sexual assaults carried out by participants[1]. What matters is that the audience are able to enjoy the presentation without sections of it being made to feel distinctly different from other sections of it.
[1] There's various pieces of work that indicate that there's some level of association.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 6, 2011 6:52 UTC (Sun) by AdamRichter (guest, #11129) [Link]
"[1] There's various pieces of work that indicate that there's some level of association." I, for one, would consider your credibility increased if you would provide a little more detail in your citations, even it's just "I think a friend told me last year" or "I thought I saw it on a television advertisement in the United States about twenty years ago." If you don't remember a single reference at all, it would still help your credibility with me if you would explicitly admit it.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 6, 2011 16:36 UTC (Sun) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
Sure. Haavio-Mannila et al is repeatedly cited for sexual harassment being linked to the degree to which an environment is sexualised - sadly it doesn't seem to be online and most of the referring articles are also behind paywalls (such as Pryor et al, 1993, from which the relevant line is "If local norms are more permissive with regard to sexual behaviour, sexual harassment is more likely to occur"). There's also a fair amount of research into the role of sexism and rape proclivity, such as http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20042541 (exposure to sexist jokes tends to increase men's willingness to self-report willingness to engage in rape, but this is influenced by their attitude towards sexist jokes in the first place)
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 11, 2011 18:39 UTC (Fri) by AdamRichter (guest, #11129) [Link]
Thank you for the references. This response may seem nit-picking at first, but I way to honor your taking the trouble to provide references by providing a serious response, and also I think it is important to fight public misconceptions and moral panics, so here goes.
I got one hit on Google Books, zero on Google web, and zero on Google scholar for your quotation from "repeatedly cited" Elina Haavio-Mannila, whose wikipedia page is only available in Finnish, which I find surprising for someone being used used as an authority on a subject of such universal interest.
That quotation from Haavio-Mannila, "if local norms are more permissive with regard to sexual behavior, sexual harassment is more likely to occur", does not necessary even support your claim tht "showing reasonably mild sexualised images at a conference results in a statistically measurable increase in the number of sexual assaults carried out by participants", since showing an activity does not necessarily indicate that that activity is the local norm. Come to think of it, the opposite can be true. Quite often an activity is interesting enough to show because it is the not the norm, such as a news presentation. I think it's fair to say that a common theme among the other images in mark's presentation was that they were showing images outside of the "local norm", so the inclusion of an image in that set does not imply that is is the local norm, and would not, by the logic of Evina Haavio-Mannila's statement, necessarily make sexual harassment more likely to occur.
Moving to your second reference, the link to the abstract that you include only describes sexual jokes as making subjects more willing to confess, which is different from making people more willing to commit an act. Just to illustrate with a speculative scenario, it's not entirely implausible to me that seeing something made light of might make one feel revulsion, think introspectively about it and be more willing to confess as a path toward self improvement.
So, I'm not convinced yet that "there's various pieces of work that indicate that there's some level of association" for your claim that "showing reasonably mild sexualised images at a conference results in a statistically measurable increase in the number of sexual assaults carried out by participants."
However, I am digressing with this argument. As I acknowledged at the outset, you did say that you "don't think it fundamentally matters", and what I really objected to was that you then made an utterly untraceable reference to try to support your claim. It is important to me to reduce attempts to make vague untraceable references to authority, which I see as argument by intimidation, which I suspect contribute to public misconceptions (but I don't know of any studies to support this).
Anyhow, thank you very much for providing references. Even though I find the references unconvincing so far (maybe I need to go read Havvio-Mannila's book), your proving references of any kind has substantially increased your credibility in my view.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 11, 2011 9:49 UTC (Fri) by Seegras (subscriber, #20463) [Link]
> But the point there is that objectifies people
> (treats them as sexual objects). Which is easy > to describe and identify as a category of material > to be avoided, as is material that depicts or > encourages coercion.
I absolutely concur with that. THIS is what
And this is of course the prime example for it:
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 7, 2011 14:15 UTC (Mon) by dneary (subscriber, #55185) [Link]
> You seem to be repeating the unfortunately popular social convention that
> sex is offensive while violence is not.
On the contrary, I explicitly said that violence is offensive, and bothers me more than a bit of profanity or sex - "blood & gore bothers me a hell of a lot more than a bit of tit or some bad language might".
What I am saying is that it's not covered by the policy. So if your goal is to shock people, or offend people, then you still have a lot of scope to do that, without using sexual imagery.
This is by way of rebuttal to the point that the sexual harassment policy has imposed some sort of political correctness standard on presenters and attendees - I am not arguing that you should offend people, merely pointing out that it's possible to do so in a way which is consistent with the policy.
Dave.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 7, 2011 17:06 UTC (Mon) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] If you are using the guideline that says "Avoid things likely to offend some people.", "Avoid unnecessary subjects." and "If someone in your audience is uncomfortable with something you've said, you're not doing your job." there is no telling what is in scope and what is not. It's subjective.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 7, 2011 17:52 UTC (Mon) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
Rules involving social interaction tend to be subjective. People tend to manage for the most part.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 7, 2011 19:39 UTC (Mon) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Subjective rules are fine for parties. Although conferences have parties, their main function is a more serious one for which party rules are not appropriate.You really should be made uncomfortable at times by a good speaker, because that speaker's purpose is to make you think of things you would not have otherwise. And thus it's no surprise that the most controversial speaker in our industry is the one whose message was entirely swamped by reaction to a well-meant joke about "emacs virginity" by the folks who have since imposed party rules. I would much rather have conferences tell that speaker not to talk about "taking" any sort of virginity, as "taking" from someone is easy to construe as a violent act, than I would tell him not to make people uncomfortable!
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 7, 2011 19:54 UTC (Mon) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
If you're defining problematic behaviour in terms of whether or not it could be easily construed as violent, how do you objectively make the determination of whether a given behaviour is problematic or not?
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 7, 2011 20:34 UTC (Mon) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] If you're defining problematic behaviour in terms of whether or not it could be easily construed as violent, how do you objectively make the determination of whether a given behaviour is problematic or not?You need to analyze past situations and build rules based on how the actions violate an individual's civil rights rather than how they create feelings in that individual. Don't touch because it violates the right to safety. Don't portray or encourage violence or coercion because it encourages violation of the right to safety, even in so mild a form as jokes about taking virginity. Don't demean or humiliate racial, religious, ethnic, or sexual (including sexual orientation, not just gender) classes of people for being themselves. Such things tend to excuse discrimination against those classes, the violation of their right to safety, or repression of them. But also do not tolerate the imposition of religious or sexual rules upon others against their will, because it violates their freedom from repression. Understand that people can be very different from you, and you may parse their actions incorrectly because you have not understood them. Unless you are in immediate physical danger, consider how their intent may not have been to violate your rights. Make the rules specific. And if you find that one has been left out that should have been there, add it and make that specific too.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 7, 2011 20:47 UTC (Mon) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
You still seem to be trying to solve a different problem. I don't have any objection to that, and if you honestly think that you can codify a set of rules that covers every problematic behaviour we're likely to see without any subjectivity (such as "encourages" - who decides whether it encourages or not?) and without forbidding things that should be allowed, and if said rules aren't so long that it's impossible for anyone to reliably adhere to them, then I'd really encourage you to do so. It'd be a useful thing to have. But it wouldn't be a replacement for what we're talking about here, which is seeking to ensure that conference attendees enjoy a safe and relaxed atmosphere and as such requires consideration of human reaction rather than speaker motivation.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 7, 2011 20:59 UTC (Mon) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] But it wouldn't be a replacement for what we're talking about here, which is seeking to ensure that conference attendees enjoy a safe and relaxed atmosphere and as such requires consideration of human reaction rather than speaker motivation.I am pretty confident that I can define rules about keeping them safe. I think "relaxed" is vague, what we want is for all attendees to be confident that all in the event will respect and not violate their civil rights.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 7, 2011 21:03 UTC (Mon) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
"I am pretty confident that I can define rules about keeping them safe. I think "relaxed" is vague, what we want is for all attendees to be confident that all in the event will respect and not violate their civil rights."
Why do you keep using "we"? I'm pretty sure that that's not what the authors of the AHP want.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 7, 2011 21:10 UTC (Mon) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] "We" would include both speakers and attendees, the two parties whose rights are to be protected. I feel at least the speakers rights are endangered at present. The AHP authors simply missed the mark.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 7, 2011 21:14 UTC (Mon) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
...so by "We" you mean the speakers and attendees other than the speakers and attendees who have explained to you that your approach doesn't achieve the desired goal?
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 8, 2011 0:24 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] I mean the speakers and attendees other than the ones who, in my honest opinion, came up with an unfair and discriminatory strategy. It doesn't protect the people it is intended to protect well because it is so vague, and what protection they get is at another party's expense. The fact that it is "what you wanted" doesn't give you any special rights, but it does give you the responsibility to take the blame. You're violating people's civil rights, including mine. You could have done better. "Man up" and take responsibility.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 8, 2011 0:55 UTC (Tue) by sfeam (subscriber, #2841) [Link]
Bruce, are you seriously suggesting that the organizers of a conference are violating your civil rights if they do not choose to invite you as a speaker? Or by not choosing to invite a particular speaker you would like to hear?
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 8, 2011 1:22 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Bruce, are you seriously suggesting that the organizers of a conference are violating your civil rights if they do not choose to invite you as a speaker? Or by not choosing to invite a particular speaker you would like to hear? Let's not be silly, please. Were you to speak as much as I have, you would not really want to go to yet another conference and deprive your 10-year-old of his daddy for another week. I make sure Stanley gets lots of my time, and consider conference opportunities very carefully. I turn down opening keynotes more often than not. However, I have seen opportunities where I would have submitted a paper, were the speaker guidelines not in place. But a policy that violates my rights is not acceptable, so I refrain from submitting. I understand the problem the guidelines are meant to address and wish to solve it fairly.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 8, 2011 2:02 UTC (Tue) by sfeam (subscriber, #2841) [Link]
That is a distinction without a difference. If you choose not to submit a talk that you think will be turned down as being contrary to the guidelines for selected presentations, that is a rational choice that saves everyone involved from a hassle. But nowhere in that scenario is there any violation of your civil rights.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 8, 2011 2:12 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] You don't seem to have parsed my reason. I am not refraining from submitting because I believe I would be rejected. I know how to produce speech proposals that are reliably accepted and have keynoted a conference of the organization behind the policy in question.I am refraining from submitting because I would have to be subjected to a policy that violates my rights, and is arbitrary and non-deterministic in the way it does so because of its vagueness and subjective nature - so there is no telling what will "offend" or "make someone uncomfortable" and no way to defend myself. For you to tell me "just don't submit" is like saying "That lady should simply have stayed in the back of the bus".
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 8, 2011 3:35 UTC (Tue) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
"You don't seem to have parsed my reason. I am not refraining from submitting because I believe I would be rejected. I know how to produce speech proposals that are reliably accepted and have keynoted a conference of the organization behind the policy in question."
You're confusing the Gnome Speaker Guidelines (which I wrote the first draft of) with the Anti-Harassment Policy adopted by LCA (which I had nothing to with).
"I am refraining from submitting because I would have to be subjected to a policy that violates my rights"
Given that you don't have any right to appear at a conference in the first place, and given that conferences have the right to terminate presentations at any time for any reason and issue whatever apologies they want to, I'm struggling to see how this violates your rights in any way whatsoever.
'For you to tell me "just don't submit" is like saying "That lady should simply have stayed in the back of the bus".'
You're genuinely arguing that a private event's requirement that speakers and attendees be conscious of the effect that their behaviour may have on others is equivalent to state-backed discrimination against its own citizens in their public life on the basis of the colour of their skin? There's... rather a lot of ways in which these things aren't analogous.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 8, 2011 4:05 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] You are correct, I am connecting the AHP with the GSP erroneously - at least if the AHP is not in any way derivative of the GSP. They both seem to embed the same problem of not being rights-based. Given that you don't have any right to appear at a conference in the first place, and given that conferences have the right to terminate presentations at any time for any reason and issue whatever apologies they want to, I'm struggling to see how this violates your rights in any way whatsoever. Suppose the conference decided to handle the problem of bad things happening to women by prohibiting women from attending. By your theory, the women's rights would not be violated. Apply your statement to the women instead of me: "they don't have any rights to attend in the first place". Sounds wrong, doesn't it? The plight of a speaker who values intellectual freedom (within clear limits designed to protect others) may be a lesser plight than the plight of women (or Blacks, in my previous example) but his rights are still worthy of protection.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 8, 2011 14:07 UTC (Tue) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
"Suppose the conference decided to handle the problem of bad things happening to women by prohibiting women from attending. By your theory, the women's rights would not be violated. Apply your statement to the women instead of me: "they don't have any rights to attend in the first place". Sounds wrong, doesn't it?"
If a conference chose to discriminate along those lines, it's not a conference I'd choose to attend. But as a privately-run event, the organisers would be within their rights to discriminate in that manner.
"The plight of a speaker who values intellectual freedom (within clear limits designed to protect others) may be a lesser plight than the plight of women (or Blacks, in my previous example) but his rights are still worthy of protection."
And that speaker has the right to speak at a different conference, or to organise a competing conference with a different set of behavioural policies. But since that speaker never had a right to speak at this conference in the first place, putting boundaries on their behaviour within the context of the conference is not limiting their rights.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 8, 2011 4:36 UTC (Tue) by sfeam (subscriber, #2841) [Link] Your position may be more nuanced, but if so you are not explaining it very well. From where I sit, it comes across like a parody:
Organizers: We welcome talks that meet the conference theme and guidelines.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 8, 2011 5:03 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] I do want the conference to accept topics that make people uncomfortable, like "why you should not use mono". I don't feel the conference is doing its job otherwise. I do feel that speakers (doesn't have to be me) have a right to present on that sort of topic and that intellectual freedom is harmed if they can't. I want to be able to present my speech without being judged using rules that I can't parse and can't prepare for. I accept that there should be rules to protect other's civil rights. They just have to be clear.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 8, 2011 17:45 UTC (Tue) by shmget (subscriber, #58347) [Link]
"who have explained to you that your approach doesn't achieve the desired goal?"
since you picked on the Bruce's 'we' usage: not "the" desired goal, but 'their' (the speaker and attendee you speak off) desired goal.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 8, 2011 0:35 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] I should have added to this one problem I've already discussed. Don't present people as sexual objects. Specifically, don't use images or live persons meant to direct attention mainly through sexual attraction, because 1) that deprives a person or class of people (often women) of their right to be treated as human beings and 2) the recipients of such messages (often men) are manipulated sexually for business purposes, which is molestation, thus violence. This deals with the T&A graphic and "booth babe" issue without imposing a dress code upon attendees, etc.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 7, 2011 19:58 UTC (Mon) by dneary (subscriber, #55185) [Link]
Hi,
> it's no surprise that the most controversial speaker in our industry is
That's exactly the point. He made plenty of people unconfortable that day with his history lesson on the origins of GNOME and the reasons why we should avoid depending on Mono. What do people remember? The well, meant but ill-phrased emacs virginity joke.
Cheers,
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 7, 2011 20:40 UTC (Mon) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] I think that walking out of the hall, many more people remembered what he had to say about mono.The fact that people now remember the emacs joke is a result of subsequent beating of political drums about it, IMO way over the top and I still believe that one of the parties beating drums used the women's issue to promote his own agenda.
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 7, 2011 20:03 UTC (Mon) by neilbrown (subscriber, #359) [Link]
Even though it is is subjective, most people will get it "right" most of the time. Aren't people amazing!
And when people don't get it "right", someone will complain (politely I hope as I think was the case at LCA), an apology can be offered, and the incident becomes information that future speakers can use to guide their subjective decisions.
Thus workable guidelines get defined largely by a set of examples.
Sure: the mathematician in me would rather precise guidelines, but the community member in me knows that it not possible and tends to create as many problems as it fixes (and hence is only valuable if the problems it fixes are much more severe that the problems it creates).
Debugging conference anti-harassment policies Posted Feb 7, 2011 20:43 UTC (Mon) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] It is possible to create working, precise guidelines from past incidents, based on analysis of the violation of civil rights in those incidents. I sat down and wrote down a start of this in another LWN message. Don't be lazy.
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