Dear Enrico,
if I didn't love you so much, I would call you a witty troublemaker.
I fully agree with you on everything you say and the link to
emotional correctness is spot on.
However, neither you nor I are the target audience. And the
existence of a code of conduct does not make any change to our
participation of any conference, because we'll fit right in, anyway,
without having read it.
But there are two good reasons why such a code of conduct is helpful
and sometimes even necessary.
First, it creates an expectation for those people who would like to
attend DebConf but who are too afraid, be that whether they were
previously bullied, molested or don't need to be exposed to juvenile
humour. We aim to boost these peoples confidence by promising to
them that our conference does not consitute a forum where abuse is
tolerated.
And second, there are people unlike you who just don't get it. And
when push comes to shove, it's far easier to be able to point to
a document and cast a ruling than to struggle and discuss and delay
a decision. I remind you of the events around DC6, which went on for
*days*, and it didn't give us a lot of credibility that we weren't
able to act on the spot.
Of course, this code of conduct does not permit us to do that
either, it's purposely worded loosely and by example, but it does
serve the purpose to align expectations all around a bit better than
if no such document exists.
I don't think the existence of such a document should make you think
twice about participating, nor is it reasonable of you to say that
you would feel patronised.
It does not forbid mistakes, it only sketches what participants can
expect to happen.
It also does not state anywhere anything that would prevent the
logical first step in the face of misconduct, which would be to talk
to the people involved.
But it does create a basis upon which it'll be easy for everyone to
take action if the offender doesn't stop.
And it communicates this to potential participants, the hope being
that they then feel comfortable enough to attend when otherwise they
might not.
> Please let me attend a conference where you don't need to have
> a rule written down in advance to be able to do that.
Please read the proposed code of conduct. There are no rules,
really. These are guidelines. Similar to Sally Kohn's suggestions on
how we should create a basis for communication rather than talk
past each other.
--
.''`. martin f. krafft <madduck@debconf.org>
: :' : DebConf orga team
`. `'`
`- DebConf14: Portland, OR, USA: http://debconf14.debconf.org
DebConf15: Heidelberg, Germany
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