Re: [Debconf-team] DebConf anti-harassment policy
I'm ambivalent about this -- I'd be glad for Debian/DebConf to give
our support to this effort, but on the other hand I'm not sure how
well the proposed text fits DebConf (and I'm not yet full of concrete
ideas for how to make it better).
I certainly agree with Herman on this specific point though:
On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 8:10 PM, Herman Robak <herman@skolelinux.no> wrote:
> 1) I suggest that the scope and meaning of "harrassment" can be
> kept simple and limited, and fairly neutral.
I don't think that making a long list of things-not-to-harrass-about,
given as an option in square brackets in the proposed text, is
helpful. At best it will be incomplete, and it increases the chance
of "legalistic" objections to any intervention while having the
potential to cause offence to someone by what we've left out.
> 2) Social rules are not quite like the rules of Debian packaging
> policy manual. They are highly context sensitive, and have to
> refer a lot to concepts of decency and common sense.
Which are of course themselves concepts that are rather
culture-dependent. Of course, people should stop their behaviour once
others declare that they feel its harrassment, even if it wasn't
intended that way, and at that point any difference in cultural
assumptions becomes irrelevant.
> The policy should reflect the prevalent attitudes within the
> Debian community, not what we wish the attitudes were like.
> This may require the scope and ambition of the policy to be
> pruned a bit.
Note as a comparison that there has been huge resistance on Debian IRC
to restricting the use of potentially-offensive language. I would
expect much greater resistance if we tried to prevent attendees
offending others in their comments on, for example, religion. Yet
what one person sees as a sharp discussion of a topic may feel like
harrassment to the person on the other side of the argument.
Similarly, it's clear that there's a grey area where one person's
"sexualized images" are completely innocent to another. While I'd
rather that people erred on the side of caution where they might cause
unintended offence, many Debian people are strongly on the side of
free expression against what they would view as undesirable
conservative assumptions.
> 3) Supporting the ones who feel awkward, insulted or threatened
> may be more fruitful than fighting their foes. Context is key,
> as what feels threating in one environment can be downright
> hilarious in another.
Ideally, an announced harrassment policy (or code of conduct) would
give people more confidence to complain when they perceive behaviour
as harrassment, and make people realise that they should stop at that
point, even if they thought their behaviour was fine and even if it
would have been fine in another context.
--
Moray
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