Re: Suggestions, questions and concerns about DebConf19?

[John Paul Adrian Glaubitz <glaubitz@physik.fu-berlin.de>]

On 08/11/2018 05:00 PM, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
>> It's a matter of liability. If your event surpasses a certain size, you
>> will not be able to make sure that everyone who attends is of good will,
>> for example.
> 
> Right, and that's completely irrelevant.

Responsibility is irrelevant?

>>>> If, for example, an attendee of the conference has a serious accident
>>>> and other folk call emergency services, they will have a problem when
>>>> asked for the name and street address of an attendee.> Or, even worse,
>>>> if an attendee died, organizers will not be able to contact someone
>>>> from the circle of their family etc.
>>>
>>> For this kind of issues, there's government organizations like
>>> consulates and so on.
>>
>> And? How is the consulate going to identify them?
> 
> By way of a government-issued document, like a passport?

Passports can go missing, like it just happened during DebConf (saw the mail?).

>>>> Or imagine an attendee commits a felony, you need to be able to
>>>> identify them as well.
>>>
>>> Talk to the police.
>>
>> Even the police cannot identify a foreigner without passport documents.
> 
> We cannot either.

No, but you can at least make sure that you at least know who is
attending your conference.

>> There have been numerous cases in the past where police found someone
>> unconscious without an ID and amnesia and they were unable to identify
>> them for months. Just happened here recently in Berlin.
> 
> That does happen, yes, and in such cases it's something we might be able
> to help with if we know in detail who a particular person is.
> 
> But there's nothing that *requires* us to be able to do that. "We run a
> conference" doesn't mean "we babysit everyone who attends". Nor should
> it; if (adult) attendees decide that they value their privacy more than
> their personal safety, then that's their problem, not Debconf's.

It can also be at the cost of the safety of others. If someone at the
conference steals your laptop, you don't want to know whose name it
is?

Or what happens if one anonymous attendee decides to randomly destroy
other people's property?

>>>> There are probably countless occasions where
>>>> it's simply not enough to identify as "trumpet232" at the registration
>>>> desk.
>>>
>>> I don't agree. That's not Debian's job to do the one of the police and
>>> other governmental organizations.
>>
>> So you're saying that taking care of each other is not important for
>> Debian?
> 
> It would be useful if you stopped coming up with extreme hyperbolic
> examples and then accusing the people who don't agree with you of
> something ethically unjust. It's not helpful, nor constructive.

It's simply naive to assume that nothing can happen if you are hosting
such a big conference. And I have the impression that many people take
privacy on an ideological level that they're willing to dismiss even
the most basic safety precautions.

Adrian

-- 
 .''`.  John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' :  Debian Developer - glaubitz@debian.org
`. `'   Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaubitz@physik.fu-berlin.de
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