Hello,
I noticed in http://debconf.org/codeofconduct.shtml, that is required to
be accepted by speakers in DebConf, that is still says "All presentation
material should be suitable for people aged 12 and above."
I would like that bit to be clarified, for two reasons:
1. last year that rule was broken at least for Biella's talk and for
Linus's Q&A, and it seemed to me that there was value in that,
rather than discomfort.
2. I intend to submit either a "Debian and BDSM[1]" talk or a "Debian
Stand-Up comedy show" talk (including material from the former),
and although *I* would consider them suitable for people aged 12 or
above, several people I know would not. They will contain sexual
imagery, imagery that could be considered violent by some, and adult
language.
The main point of those talks will be to introduce ideas and
examples including, but not limited to, how to embrace diversity,
how consent culture works, how to detect and deal with abuse. I
believe that they are important contributions to the Debian
community, and that they could bring great value (and hopefully also
amusement) to the conference.
I gave a similar talk in Vaumarcus and there seem to have been no
problems with that. Actually, some of my most memorable and
treasured moments in DC13 were not really compliant with that
specific CoC requirement.
Because many of the things that I treasure most in my life might be
considered by some people unsuitable for an audience of 12, I
considerably limited the scope of my social interactions in Portland,
limiting myself to only discuss technical issues. It has been an
unpleasant experience to me, and I hope that I won't have to do it ever
again in a DebConf, which until last year has been one of those places
where I could feel at home in a large social circle.
It could be ok if that section was changed in something like "By
default, all presentation material should be suitable for people aged 12
and above. If you want to submit an event that some people may not
consider suitable for such an audience, please state it explicitly in
the submission notes, so that it can be taken into account while
scheduling it, introducing it, and broadcasting it".
You could also add "This is limited to presentations and presentation
material: personal interaction between adults in the conference should
just be safe, sane and consensual".
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDSM
Enrico
--
GPG key: 4096R/E7AD5568 2009-05-08 Enrico Zini <enrico@enricozini.org>
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature