Re: Code of Conduct at events [and 1 more messages]

Many of SPI's Associated Projects hold conferences or other kinds of
real-world meetups, often with SPI assistance.

Recently I've been very disturbed to see that some FLOSS conference
organisers apparently don't think it's their business to see that
attendees to their events aren't sexually assaulted by other
attendees. (And the blogospheric victim-blaming heaped upon the most
recent victim[0] to come forward has been utterly vile.)

I remember attending my first BiCon[1] and found a very clear section
in the front of the programme setting expectations of behaviour by
BiCon members and promising that the con committee would take
complaints seriously. I had assumed that this was necessary because
BiCon is on a topic related to sexuality and this had brought out
undesirable behaviours in some people.

I'm sad to say that it appears that I was wrong and that unwanted
sexual attention up and to including fairly serious assaults is not
unusual at at least some FLOSS events.

I think SPI could usefully play a role here by encouraging and helping
our Associated Projects take more responsibility for these issues.

I think we should at the very least draft a Model Conference Code of
Conduct and encourage our Associated Projects to adopt or adapt it for
their events.

As an example of the kind of thing I'm thinking of, see my initial
draft below. I shamelessly cribbed and then hacked-and-slashed the
BiCon 2010 CoC.[2]

Ian.

[0] http://blog.nerdchic.net/archives/418/
[1] UK national bisexual convention.
[2] http://www.bicon2010.org.uk/bicon/code-of-conduct/

DRAFT MODEL CODE OF CONDUCT FOR FLOSS CONFERENCES AND EVENTS

Why do we need a code of conduct ?
----------------------------------

Over the years we've found that while most people will be able to have
a fun and constructive time, there are unfortunately occasions when
some people's behaviour falls short of the standards we expect.

This Code applies not just to the formally organised venue and
accomodation, but also to fringe and offsite activities associated
with the conference, including informal social meetings.

Violence
--------

No-one, under any circumstances, should threaten or use violence or
force.

Personal Space
--------------

Please don't invade people's personal space without invitation. This
includes sexual touching and hugs, but it also includes any other form
of touching. Ask first.

No means _no_
-------------

No-one should be put under any pressure to join in with things they
don't want to. This includes any sexual behaviour, but it also
includes hugs, touching, playing a game, or being in a photo.

It's fine to ask someone once if they would like to do something.
Pestering someone counts as harassment; if someone asks you to leave
them alone, do so.

"No", "Stop", and "Don't do that" are final and will be taken at face
value by the organisers and volunteers.

Your responsibility
-------------------

It's everyone's event, so everyone has a part to play. If you notice
an incident of harassment, or anything else that doesn't belong here,
please report it to the organisers as soon as possible.

Respecting Difference
---------------------

People come to Free and Open Source Software from a variety of
backgrounds and beliefs. You are welcome to share and explain your
own beliefs, but we ask that you allow others the space for theirs.

Racism, sexism, homophobia and other such behaviour will not be
tolerated.

Access is not just a matter of wheelchairs. Different aspects of the
environment affect different people. (Some people may be lipreading;
some need smoke-free space; some find busy crowds difficult.) You
can't always know without being told, but try to be aware of what the
people around you might need to make the event accessible to them.

The Organisers' Responsibility
------------------------------

We will try to deal fairly and respectfully with any complaints,
suggestions or feedback which you bring to us.

We will log every complaint brought to us and will pass those records
on to the next conference.

Breaches of this Code of Conduct will in most cases be met with a
warning from a member of the organising team.

In the event of serious breaches of this Code of Conduct, or multiple
warnings, the organisers will normally ask the offending person to
leave the event. This will void the offending person's registration
and they will not receive any refund of registration fee or
accommodation costs. Refusal to leave will be referred to the venue
security and/or police.

The conference organising team reserves the right to pass on to the
relevant project leadership, and any relevant future event organisers,
the name of any person given a warning, or asked to leave, including
description of the circumstances.

--

On Tue, November 9, 2010 16:07, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Recently I've been very disturbed to see that some FLOSS conference
> organisers apparently don't think it's their business to see that
> attendees to their events aren't sexually assaulted by other
> attendees. (And the blogospheric victim-blaming heaped upon the most
> recent victim[0] to come forward has been utterly vile.)

> I think SPI could usefully play a role here by encouraging and helping
> our Associated Projects take more responsibility for these issues.

I do not want to say anything about this specific case you cite as I do
not know anything about it. However, you seem to want to generalise.

In general, the majority of the accusations of sexual harassment reported
to the police turn out to be false, but also a significant number is sadly
indeed true; both very sad situations. This leads me to believe that it's
wise to (a) not take such accusation to be false out-of-hand, but (b) also
not to take it to be true in the same way. There are authorities who can
and will deal with these situations and conference organisers need to do
nothing more with such an accusation than to refer it to those who are
equiped to find out what really happened and can take all approriate
actions.

Your proposed code seems to request an active role of organisers while I
think the best way is just to leave it to professionals to resolve.
Organisers should facilitate this but nothing more.

There's already a code of conduct and it's called the legal code.
Violence, threats, racism, homophobia all are already illegal and putting
it into a code is not going to be more deterrent than the law. It seems
rather strange to me to recodify certain illegal behaviours while leaving
out other similarly undesirable and illegal ones.

Writing into a code which is already not allowed and for which exists an
entire system of enforcement professionals and fact finding procedures,
seems superfluous at best.

Thijs

Thijs Kinkhorst writes ("Re: Code of Conduct at events"):
> Writing into a code which is already not allowed and for which exists an
> entire system of enforcement professionals and fact finding procedures,
> seems superfluous at best.

It seems that you may be unfamiliar with the context surrounding
sexual assault and rape. I don't know where you live, but in most
places only a very small proportion of even rapes result in a
conviction, let alone serious or minor sexual assaults.

A few years ago Harlan Ellison, a very famous SF author, committed a
sexual assault by groping a well known and prominent female SF writer
_on stage in front of hundreds of witnesses_, _captured on video_, and
he was not even thrown out of the convention, let alone prosecuted.

So it is wrong to point to the official criminal authoritises,
because they are not solving the problem.

Also note that criminal punishment is enormously more severe than
censure or even exclusion by a conference organiser. It is therefore
right that criminal punishment should have a higher standard of
proof.

Put it like this: if I'm hosting a party and one of my guests reports
being assaulted by another of my guests (whether it's a sexual eg a
nonconsensual grope, nonsexual eg or pushing or shoving, or whatever),
I'm not going to say "let me call the police". I'm going to listen to
both sides, and if I believe the complainant I will probably ask the
attacker to leave and never invite them back.

I think that the conference organiser stands in the role of the host
here. Because it's a large and diverse group, we need to do things
formally, but that doesn't mean that the organisers don't have a
responsibility to everyone - a responsibility which includes asking
people to leave when their behaviour is unacceptable.

In Ellison's case he issued a statement (which you can read quoted on
Wikipedia) which is more of a defence than an apology. Astonishingly,
after this, he still seems welcome on the US SF convention circuit!

> In general, the majority of the accusations of sexual harassment reported
> to the police turn out to be false, [...]

I don't know why you have turned this from "sexual assault" (which is
a crime, and similarly defined, pretty much everywhere) into "sexual
harassment" (which varies a lot from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and
is something of a moveable feast).

Nor do I believe that most reported sexual assaults turn out to be
false. If you mean that most don't produce a conviction, that is true
but it does not occur because the reports are false.

> It seems rather strange to me to recodify certain illegal
> behaviours while leaving out other similarly undesirable and illegal
> ones.

The reaction to the most recent incident seems to show that there are
a substantial number of people who think that, and are willing to
loudly and cleary say that, it is somehow OK to touch someone sexually
without their permission, or that victims of sexual assault bring it
on themselves, or other such nonsense.

One of the key factors that makes people willing to report these kinds
of attacks is the knowledge that they will receive appropriate support
from their community. That's a big part of the point of having a
code of conduct.

The other part is to make sure that everyone knows that at least in
our spaces, nonconsensual touching, not taking no for an answer, etc.,
are completely unacceptable.

Ian.

On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 11:59:19AM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Thijs Kinkhorst writes ("Re: Code of Conduct at events"):
> > Writing into a code which is already not allowed and for which exists an
> > entire system of enforcement professionals and fact finding procedures,
> > seems superfluous at best.
>
> It seems that you may be unfamiliar with the context surrounding
> sexual assault and rape. I don't know where you live, but in most
> places only a very small proportion of even rapes result in a
> conviction, let alone serious or minor sexual assaults.

Where I come from (Germany) there have been cases where after years in
prison it was shown that the alleged rapes that resulted in a conviction
never existed.

Or cases where even a clear acquittal resulted in a ruined career of the
accused man due to the publicity surrounding the trial.

And I as a man feel pretty vulnerable to wrong accusations of sexual
assault.

Men are pigs and women are damn good liars.

It can be pretty hard to impossible to figure out which side is the
victim.

>...
> Also note that criminal punishment is enormously more severe than
> censure or even exclusion by a conference organiser. It is therefore
> right that criminal punishment should have a higher standard of
> proof.
>
> Put it like this: if I'm hosting a party and one of my guests reports
> being assaulted by another of my guests (whether it's a sexual eg a
> nonconsensual grope, nonsexual eg or pushing or shoving, or whatever),
> I'm not going to say "let me call the police". I'm going to listen to
> both sides, and if I believe the complainant I will probably ask the
> attacker to leave and never invite them back.

Who are you to think you can judge better than the experts called by a
court?

And if you believe someone is guilty, why are you sparing him from a
year in jail, allowing him instead to go straight to the next party
assaulting the next woman?

>...
> > It seems rather strange to me to recodify certain illegal
> > behaviours while leaving out other similarly undesirable and illegal
> > ones.
>
> The reaction to the most recent incident seems to show that there are
> a substantial number of people who think that, and are willing to
> loudly and cleary say that, it is somehow OK to touch someone sexually
> without their permission, or that victims of sexual assault bring it
> on themselves, or other such nonsense.
>
> One of the key factors that makes people willing to report these kinds
> of attacks is the knowledge that they will receive appropriate support
> from their community. That's a big part of the point of having a
> code of conduct.

Is the same support also available to the victim of a false accusation?

In other words, will the community support both sides until it is clear
who is the victim and who the offender?

> The other part is to make sure that everyone knows that at least in
> our spaces, nonconsensual touching, not taking no for an answer, etc.,
> are completely unacceptable.

You don't need a code of conduct for going to the police and report a
crime.

> Ian.

cu
Adrian

--

"Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
"Only a promise," Lao Er said.
Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

On Wed, 10 Nov 2010, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> You don't need a code of conduct for going to the police and report a
> crime.

I come down firmly only the side of Adrian on this.

It is totally inappropriate for any event organisation to have to put out
a code of conduct that says "you must follow the law." That code of
conduct exists. In fact, it is called "the law."

David

- -
David Graham
cdlu(at)railfan(dot)ca

* Adrian Bunk <bunk(at)stusta(dot)de> [101110 13:50]:
> > Also note that criminal punishment is enormously more severe than
> > censure or even exclusion by a conference organiser. It is therefore
> > right that criminal punishment should have a higher standard of
> > proof.
[...many lines deleted...]
> > The other part is to make sure that everyone knows that at least in
> > our spaces, nonconsensual touching, not taking no for an answer, etc.,
> > are completely unacceptable.
>
> You don't need a code of conduct for going to the police and report a
> crime.

There still is an organizer and that one has a responsibility. Of course
an important part of every such code should be to make sure that the
issue is also escalated to the law enforcements and that the organizer
makes sure to offer help in that (making sure the police will be able to
reach all possible witnesses and making sure no information is lost by
simply not recording something, and so on).

But as Ian wrote, criminal punishment is one thing. The police and
the court system will take a long time to come to decisions. Until
they decide to remove someone, the organizers have to decide who is
allowed to stay and how to proceed. They can and have also to decide
how to handle those things that might not be pusnishable under local
law.

Bernhard R. Link

On 11/10/10 14:00 , David Graham wrote:
> On Wed, 10 Nov 2010, Adrian Bunk wrote:
>> You don't need a code of conduct for going to the police and report a
>> crime.
>
> I come down firmly only the side of Adrian on this.

Amen. I would boycot events which try to be stricter than the law or
which try to make themselves be a judge; there is too much room for
error with possibly disastrous results.

Wichert.

On 11/10/2010 07:00 AM, David Graham wrote:
> On Wed, 10 Nov 2010, Adrian Bunk wrote:
>> You don't need a code of conduct for going to the police and report a
>> crime.
>
> I come down firmly only the side of Adrian on this.
>
> It is totally inappropriate for any event organisation to have to put
> out a code of conduct that says "you must follow the law." That code of
> conduct exists. In fact, it is called "the law."

I am mostly in agreement with you, David. But what the law says, and
how well it is implemented, varies widely across the world. While in
much of the west, we can count on police help, can the same be said of
every country that might host, say, Debconf?

I'm still not sure that a "code of conduct" is really the right thing.
I think that the more appropriate thing would be training for conference
organizers on how to deal with various situations. This is obviously
one that they should be prepared to deal with. There are others:
medical emergencies, disruptive behavior, etc. How to deal with them is
probably going to be different in different places.

I am in complete agreement that it should not be up to conference
organizers to attempt to adjudicate allegations. They have the right to
ask someone to leave, but ought to do so without leveling allegations at
that person. There will obviously be judgment involved in such cases.
But to attempt to declare someone's guilt or innocence opens one up to
serious potential for lawsuits, at least in the USA (libel, slander,
discrimination, etc.) Plus, it's not something that tech conference
organizers are trained to do well.

-- John

On 11/10/2010 07:15 AM, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> On 11/10/10 14:00 , David Graham wrote:
>> On Wed, 10 Nov 2010, Adrian Bunk wrote:
>>> You don't need a code of conduct for going to the police and report a
>>> crime.
>>
>> I come down firmly only the side of Adrian on this.
>
> Amen. I would boycot events which try to be stricter than the law or
> which try to make themselves be a judge; there is too much room for
> error with possibly disastrous results.

The law various from country to country, as does the effectiveness of
its enforcement. Do we find it acceptable to permit this sort of
behavior when conferences are held in countries that don't effectively
prohibit it?

- John

>
> Wichert.
> _______________________________________________
> Spi-general mailing list
> Spi-general(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
> http://lists.spi-inc.org/listinfo/spi-general
>

On Wed, Nov 10 2010, John Goerzen wrote:

> I am mostly in agreement with you, David. But what the law says, and how
> well it is implemented, varies widely across the world. While in much of
> the west, we can count on police help, can the same be said of every country
> that might host, say, Debconf?
>
> I'm still not sure that a "code of conduct" is really the right thing. I
> think that the more appropriate thing would be training for conference
> organizers on how to deal with various situations. This is obviously one
> that they should be prepared to deal with. There are others: medical
> emergencies, disruptive behavior, etc. How to deal with them is probably
> going to be different in different places.
>
> I am in complete agreement that it should not be up to conference organizers
> to attempt to adjudicate allegations. They have the right to ask someone to
> leave, but ought to do so without leveling allegations at that person.
> There will obviously be judgment involved in such cases. But to attempt to
> declare someone's guilt or innocence opens one up to serious potential for
> lawsuits, at least in the USA (libel, slander, discrimination, etc.) Plus,
> it's not something that tech conference organizers are trained to do well.

I agree with John that the code of conduct is probably not the right
thing in its current form.

I can't see how it can be useful to say to people in a code of conduct
what to do and not to do, like e.g. do not kill anyone.

If killing is not prohibited in the country of the event, therefore you
are just threatening them to be kicked out in response of such an
action.
I would not come to an event where I could be killed, even if I'm
protected by a code of conduct telling people not to do it. YMMV.

OTOH, if it's prohibited by the country law, I don't see the point to
write a code of conduct which says that you can't do anything that is
prohibited by the law of the country.

A solution is to make sure events are organized in countries where every
participant estimates that the law is sure/good enough.

Writing your own set of laws and make the organizers have judgement
calls sounds like western.

My 2¢,

--
Julien Danjou
// ᐰ <julien(at)danjou(dot)info> http://julien.danjou.info

On Wed, 10 Nov 2010, John Goerzen wrote:
>>> I come down firmly only the side of Adrian on this.
>>
>> Amen. I would boycot events which try to be stricter than the law or
>> which try to make themselves be a judge; there is too much room for
>> error with possibly disastrous results.
>
> The law various from country to country, as does the effectiveness of its
> enforcement. Do we find it acceptable to permit this sort of behavior when
> conferences are held in countries that don't effectively prohibit it?

John, I see what you're saying but the trouble with this from my
perspective is two-fold:

1. The catch-22: Codes of conduct for attendees will only be followed by
people who would behave appropriately anyway. If such people behaved the
whole world industry known as 'law enforcement' and the court system would
be completely superfluous as writing laws would be more than enough to
ensure the good behaviour of the citizens.

2. The enforcement conundrum: the enforcement of a code of conduct
ultimately depends on the use of force by the very same police whose
enforcement we are questionning the abilities of. To remove someone who
violates the code of conduct from the premises who does not go voluntarily
(in which case this whole discussion is moot, as people who go voluntarily
needn't a code of conduct to behave, per point 1), a police force is
ultimately needed as an option. If they are able to perform that role,
they can also generally enforce local laws (although in some cases for a
non-declared fee).

In any case, conventions are subject to the local laws and customs where
they take place, not ours. It is up to member projects to choose venues
that are reasonably subject to the rule of law in an appropriate
jurisdiction. We can safely assume that no member projects are going to
hold a convention in Mogadishu any time soon.

If we must have a Code of Conduct, it should only be a code of conduct to
our member projects not to hold their conferences in such a way as to
place undue liability on SPI in the interests of all of our projects.

My $.02

David

On 11/10/10 16:11 , John Goerzen wrote:
> On 11/10/2010 07:15 AM, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
>> On 11/10/10 14:00 , David Graham wrote:
>>> On Wed, 10 Nov 2010, Adrian Bunk wrote:
>>>> You don't need a code of conduct for going to the police and report a
>>>> crime.
>>>
>>> I come down firmly only the side of Adrian on this.
>>
>> Amen. I would boycot events which try to be stricter than the law or
>> which try to make themselves be a judge; there is too much room for
>> error with possibly disastrous results.
>
> The law various from country to country, as does the effectiveness of
> its enforcement. Do we find it acceptable to permit this sort of
> behavior when conferences are held in countries that don't effectively
> prohibit it?

Yes. Do you want to pretend to enforce (part of) US law in other
countries? That would be odd.

Wichert.

David Graham writes ("Re: Code of Conduct at events"):
> 1. The catch-22: Codes of conduct for attendees will only be followed by
> people who would behave appropriately anyway. If such people behaved the
> whole world industry known as 'law enforcement' and the court system would
> be completely superfluous as writing laws would be more than enough to
> ensure the good behaviour of the citizens.

I don't think this is true at all. Explicitly stating, for example,
that nonconsensual touching is not OK, will by followed by most
attendees - even those who might be used to more lax standards of
behaviour elsewhere. And where lapses occur it provides clear support
for bystanders to intervene.

> 2. The enforcement conundrum: the enforcement of a code of conduct
> ultimately depends on the use of force by the very same police whose
> enforcement we are questionning the abilities of. To remove someone who
> violates the code of conduct from the premises who does not go voluntarily
> (in which case this whole discussion is moot, as people who go voluntarily
> needn't a code of conduct to behave, per point 1),

Have you ever hosted a party ? This seems like an absurd contention.

Very few people will be prepared to physically defy an explicit
expulsion by the conference organisers. Many more, sadly,
occasionally overstep the bounds of proper behaviour - in ways which
often fall short of needing an expulsion.

Your contention seems to lead to the unpalatably absurd conclusion
that despite your claim that there are people at our conferences who
are so unreasonable and asocial that they would defy an expulsion by
the organisers, the organisers should nevertheless avoid trying to get
rid of sociopaths!

Finally, a determined troublemaker will know that when the police are
called (as they will be) the police will not ask complicated questions
about whose fault anything is, but will just confirm that the
organisers are the authorised hosts and then eject (or possibly eject)
the troublemaker. "Leave now or we call the police" is very effective.

> In any case, conventions are subject to the local laws and customs where
> they take place, not ours. [...]

I don't think this is a reasonable position. Any community gathering
makes its own mores in its own space.

Ian.

Wichert Akkerman writes ("Re: Code of Conduct at events"):
> On 11/10/10 16:11 , John Goerzen wrote:
> > The law various from country to country, as does the effectiveness of
> > its enforcement. Do we find it acceptable to permit this sort of
> > behavior when conferences are held in countries that don't effectively
> > prohibit it?
>
> Yes. Do you want to pretend to enforce (part of) US law in other
> countries? That would be odd.

No, we want to enforce our communities' own moral standards at our own
events.

This is something that every community should expect to do and I'm
frankly astonished to see people seriously suggesting that any
behaviour which would go unpunished by the civil authorities should
necessarily be tolerated at our events.

Indeed if I remember rightly, a few years ago a person was expelled
from Debconf (and from Debian) as a result of their behaviour at
Debconf. I wasn't there myself so I can't second-guess the decision
of the conference organisers, but I fully support their authority to
ask an attendee to leave based on what the organisers obviously felt
was unacceptable behaviour.

I don't know if people attending Debconf are frequently subjected to
unwanted touching, sexual harassment, racism, or whatever. I hope not
but as a fit and healthy white man I'm not likely to have experienced
it directly, and for the reasons we have seen public reports are rare.

Reports of people having serious difficulty at other events and
matters not being handled properly by conference organisers show that
at the very least the larger free softwae community has some work to
do.

Ian.

On 11/10/2010 10:35 AM, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> On 11/10/10 16:11 , John Goerzen wrote:
>> On 11/10/2010 07:15 AM, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
>>> On 11/10/10 14:00 , David Graham wrote:
>>>> On Wed, 10 Nov 2010, Adrian Bunk wrote:
>>>>> You don't need a code of conduct for going to the police and report a
>>>>> crime.
>>>>
>>>> I come down firmly only the side of Adrian on this.
>>>
>>> Amen. I would boycot events which try to be stricter than the law or
>>> which try to make themselves be a judge; there is too much room for
>>> error with possibly disastrous results.
>>
>> The law various from country to country, as does the effectiveness of
>> its enforcement. Do we find it acceptable to permit this sort of
>> behavior when conferences are held in countries that don't effectively
>> prohibit it?
>
> Yes. Do you want to pretend to enforce (part of) US law in other
> countries? That would be odd.

No, you misunderstand me.

What I'm saying is that there are certain behaviors that we should find
unacceptable at a conference, regardless of where it is held. What I'm
saying is that morality isn't, in practical terms, defined by legality.
If we consider it unethical for certain things to happen, then we need
to try to prevent them from happening everywhere. *How* we do that may
vary. Maybe in New York we call the cops, and in some other location we
simply make the person leave.

But the point is that if we hold a conference in a place where the law
protects women (or whomever) less, it is unethical for us to say "Well
here that's legal, so we won't do anything to stop it." We'd have an
obligation to step in and do what we can to stop it anyhow.

-- John

>
> Wichert.
>

John Goerzen writes ("Re: Code of Conduct at events"):
> I'm still not sure that a "code of conduct" is really the right thing.

I'm not attached to the "Code of Conduct" phrase. Another way to put
it would be "Policy on Behaviour at the Conference".

But I think it is very valuable that there is a written document which
sets out the standards of behaviour expected. As community we come
from many different places, with different cultural expectations.
And, sadly speaking, in the wider societies of many of our homes
(including mine), of violence and sexual assault - particularly by men
against women - are not as culturally unacceptable as they are to me
personally.

A written policy does a number of things:

* It clarifies to everyone what is and is not OK. In particular, I
feel strongly that we should explicitly state that nonconsensual
touching is not OK. In some cultures it is considered acceptable
under some circumstances, but in general it can be very intrusive
or even threatening particularly for people from a different
culture.

* It clearly states that the conference organisers are prepared to
take responsibility.

* It gives the conference organisers clear guidelines for how they
should act. This is helpful both because conference organisers
have a lot on their minds and don't want to be making difficult
decisions in a vacuum, but also because it can otherwise be
difficult for organisers to justify sufficiently strong action. A
written policy makes it much easier to take action, and is of
course fairer because no-one can say they weren't told.

> I think that the more appropriate thing would be training for conference
> organizers on how to deal with various situations.

That would be a nice ideal but in practice if we say "conference
organisers should have more training" nothing willl happen.

> I am in complete agreement that it should not be up to conference
> organizers to attempt to adjudicate allegations. They have the right to
> ask someone to leave, but ought to do so without leveling allegations at
> that person. There will obviously be judgment involved in such cases.
> But to attempt to declare someone's guilt or innocence opens one up to
> serious potential for lawsuits, at least in the USA (libel, slander,
> discrimination, etc.) Plus, it's not something that tech conference
> organizers are trained to do well.

I agree that conference organisers should not be passing public
judgement. However, they must privately make a judgement about
allegations, so that they can decide what the appropriate response
is.

Julien Danjou writes ("Re: Code of Conduct at events"):
> I can't see how it can be useful to say to people in a code of conduct
> what to do and not to do, like e.g. do not kill anyone.

Not put your hand on someone's breast without asking first, for
example ? Some people apparently think that this is just fine!

Clearly stating that (a) it is not and (b) the conference organisers
will not tolerate it, will probably help a lot.

> Writing your own set of laws and make the organizers have judgement
> calls sounds like western.

Again, this is a bizarre idea. When you hold a party, do you not hold
your guests to standards of behaviour that are stronger than those
which the police will enforce in a public bar ?

Conferences are not fundamentally different. There is a serious
question about what our community's mores /are/ but to say that we
don't have any is absurd.

Ian.

On Wed, Nov 10 2010, Ian Jackson wrote:

> Julien Danjou writes ("Re: Code of Conduct at events"):
>> I can't see how it can be useful to say to people in a code of conduct
>> what to do and not to do, like e.g. do not kill anyone.
>
> Not put your hand on someone's breast without asking first, for
> example ? Some people apparently think that this is just fine!

I was not using this as an example because I know that is what is
motivating you, and I wanted to use absurdity for my demonstration.

> Clearly stating that (a) it is not and (b) the conference organisers
> will not tolerate it, will probably help a lot.

But couldn't be too "light"? Maybe putting a hand of someone breast can
be worth the risk being kicked out the event? Even more if I do not risk
anything by the country law.

That's why I don't like the idea to substitute to local laws.

My proposal would be rather to write a set of rules that each country
has to pass to be eligible to host an event. That would have more sense
IMHO, and will be probably more effective.

> Again, this is a bizarre idea. When you hold a party, do you not hold
> your guests to standards of behaviour that are stronger than those
> which the police will enforce in a public bar ?

Honestly, I can't think of anything.
I even think it would rather be the opposite. :)

--
Julien Danjou
// ᐰ <julien(at)danjou(dot)info> http://julien.danjou.info

On 11/10/2010 11:26 AM, Julien Danjou wrote:

> My proposal would be rather to write a set of rules that each country
> has to pass to be eligible to host an event. That would have more sense
> IMHO, and will be probably more effective.

That is incredibly difficult to evaluate, because you get into
distinctions between what laws are "on the books" and what laws are
routinely ignored by authorities, what laws are enforced but *not* on
the books due to precedent, etc.

-- John

On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 11:35:08AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote:
> On 11/10/2010 11:26 AM, Julien Danjou wrote:
>
> >My proposal would be rather to write a set of rules that each country
> >has to pass to be eligible to host an event. That would have more sense
> >IMHO, and will be probably more effective.
>
> That is incredibly difficult to evaluate, because you get into
> distinctions between what laws are "on the books" and what laws are
> routinely ignored by authorities, what laws are enforced but *not*
> on the books due to precedent, etc.

You also have the more basic problem of defining the "set of rules".

E.g. I'd strongly support adding "no inhuman punishments like the
capital punishment" to such rules - and that's already fulfilled
in all 47 member states of the Council of Europe (including Russia).

But I'm sure you would never add that to the set of rules for political
and practical reasons.

> -- John

cu
Adrian

--

"Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
"Only a promise," Lao Er said.
Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

On Wed, 10 Nov 2010, Ian Jackson wrote:
> A written policy does a number of things:

For a guy who comes from a stable western democracy without a written
constitution you place an awful lot of value on the written word. ;)

My position stands that it is unnecessary and unreasonable for us to
dictate how member projects conduct their business beyond asking them to
keep us away from liability.

I am, as they say, not a lawyer, but I would think a document saying that
we don't permit these practices makes us liable when they happen because
we have accepted that they are within our jurisdiction.

This is a common misperception that if you warn someone that something bad
will happen, you have done your duty. However, if you put a sign on your
house saying "vicious dog" and a crook gets bitten, you have actually made
yourself liable by admitting you know the dog is vicious. You would not be
if it was just your cute and cuddly dog that you innocently left in your
house that happened to eat your home invader's right arm.

You can overthink and overlegislate but ultimately it can end up causing
SPI as an organisation more harm than good. The duty of SPI's board is to
protect the organisation from liability and problems arising, it is up to
our member organisations and their members to act reasonably. So I say
again that if we want to put out any kind of document of this nature, it
simply be a statement that any SPI member organisation acting as an SPI
member organisation commits to doing what it can to not put itself and
therefore SPI in a position of liability, and we strongly recommend that
you only hold your conferences in countries where the rule of law applies.

D

- -
David Graham
cdlu(at)railfan(dot)ca

On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 11:03:01AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote:
> On 11/10/2010 10:35 AM, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> >On 11/10/10 16:11 , John Goerzen wrote:
> >>On 11/10/2010 07:15 AM, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> >>>On 11/10/10 14:00 , David Graham wrote:
> >>>>On Wed, 10 Nov 2010, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> >>>>>You don't need a code of conduct for going to the police and report a
> >>>>>crime.
> >>>>
> >>>>I come down firmly only the side of Adrian on this.
> >>>
> >>>Amen. I would boycot events which try to be stricter than the law or
> >>>which try to make themselves be a judge; there is too much room for
> >>>error with possibly disastrous results.
> >>
> >>The law various from country to country, as does the effectiveness of
> >>its enforcement. Do we find it acceptable to permit this sort of
> >>behavior when conferences are held in countries that don't effectively
> >>prohibit it?
> >
> >Yes. Do you want to pretend to enforce (part of) US law in other
> >countries? That would be odd.
>
> No, you misunderstand me.
>
> What I'm saying is that there are certain behaviors that we should
> find unacceptable at a conference, regardless of where it is held.
> What I'm saying is that morality isn't, in practical terms, defined
> by legality. If we consider it unethical for certain things to
> happen, then we need to try to prevent them from happening
> everywhere. *How* we do that may vary. Maybe in New York we call
> the cops, and in some other location we simply make the person
> leave.
>
> But the point is that if we hold a conference in a place where the
> law protects women (or whomever) less, it is unethical for us to say
> "Well here that's legal, so we won't do anything to stop it." We'd
> have an obligation to step in and do what we can to stop it anyhow.

I'm seeing two problems here:
1. What if the code of conduct conflicts with the law?
2. Formally defining what is correct and what is not is hard.

Let me try to explain these:

1. What if the code of conduct conflicts with the law?

Sounds strange, but Ian's proposal says "homophobia ... will not be
tolerated".

What happens if a conference is in a country like Singapore or
Saudi Arabia where sex between men is illegal?

You cannot punish someone for reporting a major crime [1] to the police.

2. Formally defining what is correct and what is not is hard.

Ian's proposal says "This includes sexual touching and hugs".

The common way of mixing two very distant things making them appear
similar - there are a few clear cases and there are many harmless or
borderline cases.

It reminds me of when major British ISPs blocked a cover image of an
(in Germany freely available) album of the German band Scorpions in
Wikipedia due to alleged child pornography. [2]

"sexual touching" is a clear case.

People from many different cultures meet at conferences, and if things
like hugs that are normal for some people are considered inappropriate
for others you need to inform people, not implement rules for passing
information about a cultural misunderstanding forever to future
conference organisers.

> -- John

cu
Adrian

[1] according to the local law, e.g. capital punishment in Saudi Arabia
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Watch_Foundation_and_Wikipedia

--

"Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
"Only a promise," Lao Er said.
Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 05:10:58PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
>...
> A written policy does a number of things:
>...
> * It gives the conference organisers clear guidelines for how they
> should act. This is helpful both because conference organisers
> have a lot on their minds and don't want to be making difficult
> decisions in a vacuum, but also because it can otherwise be
> difficult for organisers to justify sufficiently strong action. A
> written policy makes it much easier to take action, and is of
> course fairer because no-one can say they weren't told.
>...

Woman accuses man of sexual assault or rape.
Man denies it or says it was consensual.
No witnesses.

You cannot set any clear guidelines for figuring out in this case which
person is the offender and which person is the victim.

And any "strong action" has a high probability of punishing the victim
even further - there's nothing "fairer" about that.

> Ian.

cu
Adrian

--

"Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
"Only a promise," Lao Er said.
Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 05:00:47PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Indeed if I remember rightly, a few years ago a person was expelled
> from Debconf (and from Debian) as a result of their behaviour at
> Debconf. I wasn't there myself so I can't second-guess the decision
> of the conference organisers, but I fully support their authority to
> ask an attendee to leave based on what the organisers obviously felt
> was unacceptable behaviour.

What happened was the opposite: two developpers manhandled a third one.
The third one get expelled from Debconf. The two did not get real sanction
beyond being sermoned. But of course the public memory of the event is different.

This is the problem with your proposal: your proposal is more about defining a
set of rules that events organizers have to follow than rules that participants
have to follow. But how the organizers will be held accountable ? What information
will be used to make the decisions ?

Cheers,
Bill.

On Wed, 2010-11-10 at 15:57 -0500, David Graham wrote:
> On Wed, 10 Nov 2010, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > A written policy does a number of things:
>
> For a guy who comes from a stable western democracy without a written
> constitution you place an awful lot of value on the written word. ;)
>
> My position stands that it is unnecessary and unreasonable for us to
> dictate how member projects conduct their business beyond asking them to
> keep us away from liability.

We are not a policing organization and as reprehensible as these
problems are, they are not within our domain.

JD

--
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Command Prompt, Inc: http://www.commandprompt.com/ - 509.416.6579
Consulting, Training, Support, Custom Development, Engineering
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On Wed, 10 Nov 2010, Ian Jackson wrote:
> A written policy does a number of things:
>
> * It clarifies to everyone what is and is not OK. [...]
>
> * It clearly states that the conference organisers are prepared to
> take responsibility.
>
> * It gives the conference organisers clear guidelines for how they
> should act. [...]

This is unfortunately the sort of thing that is very hard to work out,
and I don't think SPI is the right group to work it out for our member
projects.

I would instead suggest that SPI recommend to its member projects that
they be aware of their responsibility to reducing the liability of SPI
by advising attendees of expected standards of behavior (following the
law, respecting other attendees, etc.), and implementing an action
plan when for attendees and organizers to follow when a problem is
observed or reported. Specific recommendations of a code of conduct
and pre-formulated action plans can be made to make this easier for
conferences.

Additionally, I am uncertain that a code would have helped mitigate
this situation. I refuse to believe that the alleged behavior is
considered acceptable in any extant culture. [Even though I fear it
may be common.]

Don Armstrong

--
Your village called.
They want their idiot back.
-- xkcd http://xkcd.com/c23.html

http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu

On 11/10/10 18:10 , Ian Jackson wrote:
> John Goerzen writes ("Re: Code of Conduct at events"):
>> I'm still not sure that a "code of conduct" is really the right thing.
>
> I'm not attached to the "Code of Conduct" phrase. Another way to put
> it would be "Policy on Behaviour at the Conference".
>
> But I think it is very valuable that there is a written document which
> sets out the standards of behaviour expected. As community we come
> from many different places, with different cultural expectations.
> And, sadly speaking, in the wider societies of many of our homes
> (including mine), of violence and sexual assault - particularly by men
> against women - are not as culturally unacceptable as they are to me
> personally.
>
> A written policy does a number of things:
>
> * It clarifies to everyone what is and is not OK. In particular, I
> feel strongly that we should explicitly state that nonconsensual
> touching is not OK. In some cultures it is considered acceptable
> under some circumstances, but in general it can be very intrusive
> or even threatening particularly for people from a different
> culture.

So hypothetical situation: suppose there is a group of people who do
brilliant open source work and would like to become a SPI project. But
they happen to come from a culture with acceptable behaviour that you
disagree with. Does that mean you want to prevent them from joining SPI,
because your mores trump theirs?

Wichert.

Bill Allombert writes ("Re: Code of Conduct at events"):
> What happened was the opposite: two developpers manhandled a third
> one. The third one get expelled from Debconf. The two did not get
> real sanction beyond being sermoned. But of course the public memory
> of the event is different.

That's unfortunate, if true. I wasn't there so I can't comment.

> This is the problem with your proposal: your proposal is more about
> defining a set of rules that events organizers have to follow than
> rules that participants have to follow.

It's not about "rules that organisers have to follow". When an event
organiser writes "this is our policy about XYZ" in the README, that
means that they are /choosing/ to set out these rules and /promising/
to follow them.

> But how the organizers will be held accountable ? What information
> will be used to make the decisions ?

In the usual ways that project organisers are held accountable.
(Or, are not, in some contexts.)

Ian.

Adrian Bunk writes ("Re: Code of Conduct at events"):
> 2. Formally defining what is correct and what is not is hard.

We don't need a complete list of everything which is acceptable or
unacceptable. It suffices to mention the things which cause trouble.

> People from many different cultures meet at conferences, and if things
> like hugs that are normal for some people are considered inappropriate
> for others you need to inform people, not implement rules for passing
> information about a cultural misunderstanding forever to future
> conference organisers.

If someone nonconsensually hugs me at a conference I will be very
angry. (And I speak of someone who is often amenable to a hug.)

The point of having a written down policy and printing in the README
is so that the innocent cultural misunderstandings can be avoided. In
practice no-one is going to take an isolated minor incident, without
any aggravating factors, to the conference organisers.

I would expect that if someone oversteps the mark they'll be told it's
not OK, referred to the policy in the README, and then they will
apologise to the aggrieved and that will be the end of it. If such a
thing does get to the organisers they need do no more than make sure
that the misunderstanding is now resolved.

If the apology isn't forthcoming, or inappropriate behaviour
continues, I would hope that the organisers, if they are told, would
explain clearly to the perpetrator that they must stop. In which case
the next conference obviously need to be told that this has happened
so that the conrunning community isn't memoryless.

> 1. What if the code of conduct conflicts with the law?
>
> Sounds strange, but Ian's proposal says "homophobia ... will not be
> tolerated".
>
> What happens if a conference is in a country like Singapore or
> Saudi Arabia where sex between men is illegal?
>
> You cannot punish someone for reporting a major crime [1] to the police.

Have you ever been at a party where people smoked cannabis ? [*]
If I were at such a party and decided that I ought to call the police,
I would expect that the host would throw me out and never invite me
back. I think no-one who heard about it would invite me at all any
more.

> [1] according to the local law, e.g. capital punishment in Saudi Arabia

So, you are supposing a conference in Singapore, where two same-sex
attendees who had been getting it on in their hotel room were reported
to the police by another attendee and possibly executed ?

I very much hope that this would result in the police's informant
being completely ostracised from our community. I would find it
impossible to be civil to such a person.

Luckily this is all hypothetical.

Ian.

[*] I have no idea whether that would be illegal in your jurisdiction,
so feel free to answer hypothetically. Simply attending such a party
is not a crime in Britain.

David Graham writes ("Re: Code of Conduct at events [and 1 more messages]"):
> On Wed, 10 Nov 2010, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > A written policy does a number of things:
>
> For a guy who comes from a stable western democracy without a written
> constitution you place an awful lot of value on the written word. ;)

The experience of other conference organisers who have actually dealt
with these kind of problems (rather than ignoring them and hoping
no-one notices) seems to be this: by setting out a written policy, and
taking on some moral responsibility, the organisers can significantly
reduce the incidence of problems.

I don't know of any formal research, but I do know that events which
have these kind of policies are generally reported to feel much safer
and to have a much lower incidence of trouble. Perhaps there's
reverse causation at work - I don't know - but these kind of policies
are being seen nowadays outside sexuality-related events. I was at an
SF convention in the UK recently which had such a policy.

> My position stands that it is unnecessary and unreasonable for us to
> dictate how member projects conduct their business beyond asking them to
> keep us away from liability.

I'm not saying SPI should dictate anything to anyone. I'm suggesting
that we should collectively develop a model policy, and publish it.
We can then encourage our associated projects to adopt or adapt it for
their own use. "Encourage" is not the same as "dictate".

I thought I made this very clear in my introductory posting.

> I am, as they say, not a lawyer, but I would think a document saying that
> we don't permit these practices makes us liable when they happen because
> we have accepted that they are within our jurisdiction.

This is FUD. Plenty of events have behaviour policies of one kind or
another; that doesn't mean they accept legal liability for breaches.

If someone beats you up in bar, can you sue the barkeeper for failing
to enforce their "be nice in our bar" policy ? No, of course not.
(Assuming that the barkeeper didn't serve the attacker while drunk, or
something.)

> The duty of SPI's board is to protect the organisation from
> liability and problems arising, it is up to our member organisations
> and their members to act reasonably.

In the past SPI has been able to undertake activities which weren't
strictly related to shielding itself from lawsuits. For example, SPI
has explicitly lent its support to certain campaigns (eg, related to
software patents).

I don't see that this is any different.

> and we strongly recommend that
> you only hold your conferences in countries where the rule of law applies.

So, not LA then ? Nor London ?

I agree that it would be nice to hold all our conferences in
enlightened Scandinavia, but perhaps not entirely practical ?

Ian.

Adrian Bunk writes ("Re: Code of Conduct at events [and 1 more messages]"):
> Woman accuses man of sexual assault or rape.
> Man denies it or says it was consensual.
> No witnesses.
>
> You cannot set any clear guidelines for figuring out in this case which
> person is the offender and which person is the victim.

Is this kind of thing common at Free Software events ? I suggest not.

Ultimately, I think it is up to the conference organisers to make a
decision about who they believe and how strongly convinced they are.

If they are sufficiently convinced by the alleged victim's version of
events, given all the information available, then they should
expel the alleged attacker. Surely you agree ?

If they are not sufficiently convinced then they should still make
sure that this serious allegation is communicated to the next
conference. Most rapists are serial offenders, and if a similar
incident occurs in the future then the information about the previous
event will be invaluable to the conference team who have to deal with
it then.

Ian.

Don Armstrong writes ("Re: Code of Conduct at events [and 1 more messages]"):
> Additionally, I am uncertain that a code would have helped mitigate
> this situation. I refuse to believe that the alleged behavior is
> considered acceptable in any extant culture. [Even though I fear it
> may be common.]

In the situation which prompted me to raise this subject, a published
policy would certainly have meant that the conference organisers
wouldn't have washed their hands of the problem as they apparently
did.

If Worldcon had such a policy, Harlan Ellison's behaviour would not
have gone unpunished. Are you also saying that you refuse to believe
that Harlan's behaviour is considered acceptable in any extant culture ?
Harlan has publicly stated that he thinks it was acceptable!

If Harlan Ellison can get away with it on stage, then drunk or
lecherous idiots in bars will naturally think they can get away with
it too - and the evidence seems to be that, in general, they are
right. That needs to change.

Ian.

Wichert Akkerman writes ("Re: Code of Conduct at events [and 1 more messages]"):
> So hypothetical situation: suppose there is a group of people who do
> brilliant open source work and would like to become a SPI project. But
> they happen to come from a culture with acceptable behaviour that you
> disagree with. Does that mean you want to prevent them from joining SPI,
> because your mores trump theirs?

No, once again, and as I said right at the beginning: I'm saying we
should develop a policy and encourage projects to adopt or adapt it.

Ian.

On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 02:19:06PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Don Armstrong writes ("Re: Code of Conduct at events [and 1 more messages]"):
> > Additionally, I am uncertain that a code would have helped mitigate
> > this situation. I refuse to believe that the alleged behavior is
> > considered acceptable in any extant culture. [Even though I fear it
> > may be common.]
>
> In the situation which prompted me to raise this subject, a published
> policy would certainly have meant that the conference organisers
> wouldn't have washed their hands of the problem as they apparently
> did.

I disagree. If the conference organisers want to wash there hands of the problem,
a written policy will not prevent it. They will just frame the event in a way that
make the policy not apply. This happens so often. It is very hard to get an objective
view of the event after the fact so it is easy for them.

Cheers,
Bill.

Bill Allombert writes ("Re: Code of Conduct at events [and 1 more messages]"):
> I disagree. If the conference organisers want to wash there hands of
> the problem, a written policy will not prevent it.

This is a very strange way of looking at things. You seem to be
positing the conference organisers as some kind of evil people who are
determined to give free reign to thugs and rapists. I think that's
far from true.

I think rather that the conference organisers were unexpectedly placed
in a stressful situation, for which they were unprepared, had not
previously discussed an approach, regarding which they had not
previously promised made any public statements, and where anything
they did (or failed to do) was sure to be strongly criticised. In
such a situation it is natural human nature to act tentatively if at
all, and to try to avoid taking responsibility.

There is an obvious way for anyone to improve their response to a
difficult, stressful and controversial situation: to consider and plan
in advance what the considerations and responses should be, and to
publish the results of that planning as a public statement.

As an approach it is widely adopted by all sorts of bodies, in a
formal way. And as individuals we do the same thing: we tell
ourselves - and we publicly tell our friends - "I could have done that
better; next time I would do XYZ instead".

In other words, I'm trying to help conference organisers do better in
future, rather than trying to create a stick to beat them with. After
all, _adopting_ a Model Code of Conduct or Model Policy or whatever,
whether in whole or part, is a decision that has to be taken by the
organisers themselves.

This wouldn't be worthwhile if incidents needing attention from the
organisers were vanishingly rare. However, we have a lot of testimony
from victims that they aren't. Under the current circumstances such
victims are not going to be encouraged to go to the organisers to ask
for help; they are likely to go and hide with their friends, or
perhaps, if they are feeling particularly strong, to make a public
statement.

Personally I think in the current climate public denounciations of
attackers are valuable and I applaud victims who are willing to speak
out. But those of you who think such public statements are wrong
should see that providing an actually effective route for complaints
will probably make such public statements even rarer than they are
now.

Ian.

On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 02:14:06PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Adrian Bunk writes ("Re: Code of Conduct at events [and 1 more messages]"):
> > Woman accuses man of sexual assault or rape.
> > Man denies it or says it was consensual.
> > No witnesses.
> >
> > You cannot set any clear guidelines for figuring out in this case which
> > person is the offender and which person is the victim.
>
> Is this kind of thing common at Free Software events ? I suggest not.

It is a common pattern in cases comparable to the one that triggered
your suggestion.

And these are the cases that would be a real problem for an organiser.
You don't need a code of conduct for knowing what to do when one
participant smashed a bottle on the head of another participant.

> Ultimately, I think it is up to the conference organisers to make a
> decision about who they believe and how strongly convinced they are.
>
> If they are sufficiently convinced by the alleged victim's version of
> events, given all the information available, then they should
> expel the alleged attacker. Surely you agree ?

No.

They should call the police.

And it is interesting that you don't even mention the similar likely
option of expelling the alleged victim if the organisers believe the
alleged attacker more than the alleged victim.

> If they are not sufficiently convinced then they should still make
> sure that this serious allegation is communicated to the next
> conference. Most rapists are serial offenders, and if a similar
> incident occurs in the future then the information about the previous
> event will be invaluable to the conference team who have to deal with
> it then.

"Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed
innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at
which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence."

In case you don't know, that's a quotation from the United Nation's
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Either you can prove someone's guilt (and in the cases we are talking
about that implies a conviction at court) or you have to treat him as
non-guilty and not pass discriminating information about him to others.

> Ian.

cu
Adrian

--

"Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
"Only a promise," Lao Er said.
Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

Adrian Bunk writes ("Re: Code of Conduct at events [and 1 more messages]"):
> Either you can prove someone's guilt (and in the cases we are talking
> about that implies a conviction at court) or you have to treat him as
> non-guilty and not pass discriminating information about him to others.

So Harlan Ellison is entirely innocent then, despite the videos which
show otherwise ?

Ian.

I give up.

You're all a bunch of patriarchal reactionaries.

Ian.

On Thu, 11 Nov 2010, Ian Jackson wrote:
> I give up.
>
> You're all a bunch of patriarchal reactionaries.

That is somehow ironic given the proposal this comment abandons.

D

- -
David Graham
cdlu(at)railfan(dot)ca

On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 06:18:05PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Adrian Bunk writes ("Re: Code of Conduct at events [and 1 more messages]"):
> > Either you can prove someone's guilt (and in the cases we are talking
> > about that implies a conviction at court) or you have to treat him as
> > non-guilty and not pass discriminating information about him to others.
>
> So Harlan Ellison is entirely innocent then, despite the videos which
> show otherwise ?

Did the victim report the offence to the police?

If yes, why wasn't he convicted at court?

> Ian.

cu
Adrian

--

"Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
"Only a promise," Lao Er said.
Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 01:56:55PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Adrian Bunk writes ("Re: Code of Conduct at events"):
>...
> > 1. What if the code of conduct conflicts with the law?
> >
> > Sounds strange, but Ian's proposal says "homophobia ... will not be
> > tolerated".
> >
> > What happens if a conference is in a country like Singapore or
> > Saudi Arabia where sex between men is illegal?
> >
> > You cannot punish someone for reporting a major crime [1] to the police.
>
> Have you ever been at a party where people smoked cannabis ? [*]
> If I were at such a party and decided that I ought to call the police,
> I would expect that the host would throw me out and never invite me
> back. I think no-one who heard about it would invite me at all any
> more.

A conference is different from a private party where the host is
completely free to choose whom to invite and whom not.

And for making an even more extreme example:
When it annoys me when someone smokes cigarettes in a place where it's
forbidden by law I have a very low threshold for calling the police.

> > [1] according to the local law, e.g. capital punishment in Saudi Arabia
>
> So, you are supposing a conference in Singapore, where two same-sex
> attendees who had been getting it on in their hotel room were reported
> to the police by another attendee and possibly executed ?

No, in Singapore they would only face up to 2 years in prison.

> I very much hope that this would result in the police's informant
> being completely ostracised from our community. I would find it
> impossible to be civil to such a person.

If you like it or not, you have to adapt to the local laws - even the
Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor of Germany left his boyfriend (who
often travels with him on state visits) at home when doing a state visit
in Saudi Arabia.

If you have sex with another man while on a conference in a country
where that's illegal you are incredibly stupid.

And in the worst case people not reporting such an incident might also
face prison sentences.

Don't blame the person who obeys the law.

If you want to avoid that, don't organise or attend conferences in
countries where you dislike the local laws.

>...
> Ian.
>...

cu
Adrian

--

"Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
"Only a promise," Lao Er said.
Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 09:00:45PM +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote:
>
> Did the victim report the offence to the police?
>
> If yes, why wasn't he convicted at court?

If I have a party, I can invite whomever I like. It's a private
event, and no one has a fundamental human right to attend a private
party. "Innocent until proven guilty" is a concept which applies to
criminal court proceedings. It is not something that needs to apply
to a decision I make about whether or not I invite someone to a party
at my house.

The same is true for a conference. A conference, whether it is the
Kernel Summit, Linux Plumbers's Conference, DebConf, or any other
conference, is a private event. It is something where the conference
organizers have the right to decide who is allowed to attend, and
where the conference organizers can make a decision to eject an
attendee --- all without any kind of court proceeding. Doing so does
not violate anybody's human rights.

It also follows that a conference may use whatever standards it likes
for deciding whether or not someone should be allowed to attend, or be
allowed to continue to attend, a conference. Obviously, a conference
can not allow attendees to break the local laws, but even if the local
laws allows an eminent science fiction author to paw the breasts of
another science fiction author on stage, in full view of all attending
(something which was captured on video tape and available for all to
see on the internet) --- it is completely up to the conference
organizers whether or not said science fiction author should be
allowed to attend future conferences, and they would have been fully
within their rights as the conference organizers to eject him from the
event.

Ian has suggested that we urge conference organizers take a stringent
view about not allowing sexual harassment. It is very sad to me that
we need to remind geeks that following a female around until that
female felt uncomfortable, and ducked into a women's bathroom (at
which point said male geek attempted to follow her into the women's
bathroom --- this happened at OLS a number of years back), but I think
that is a good thing.

And if the conference organizers believes that reports of such
activity are credible, in their best judgement, they can and they
should eject said miscreant from the conference. The terms of service
of the conference should say that the conference organizers are free
to eject anyone from the conference for doing something which in their
judgement violates certain basic principles of civility. If we need
to explicit tell male geeks that certain acts are unacceptable, as
examples, then fine, let's do that.

/me sighs....

- Ted

Ian Jackson <ijackson(at)chiark(dot)greenend(dot)org(dot)uk> writes:

> Bill Allombert writes ("Re: Code of Conduct at events [and 1 more messages]"):
> > I disagree. If the conference organisers want to wash there hands of
> > the problem, a written policy will not prevent it.
>
> This is a very strange way of looking at things. You seem to be
> positing the conference organisers as some kind of evil people who are
> determined to give free reign to thugs and rapists. I think that's
> far from true.

That's not how I read Bill's statement above. He's not imputing a
determination to give free rein.

Rather, I took Bill's words as accusing conference organisers of no more
than what you say here:

> I think rather that the conference organisers were unexpectedly placed
> in a stressful situation, for which they were unprepared, had not
> previously discussed an approach, regarding which they had not
> previously promised made any public statements, and where anything
> they did (or failed to do) was sure to be strongly criticised. In such
> a situation it is natural human nature to act tentatively if at all,
> and to try to avoid taking responsibility.

I think that's merely a re-statement of what I read in Bill's statement.

And for what it's worth, I agree that a written policy isn't much good
in the face of human ingenuity to avoid responsibility for difficult
situations. So the solution isn't more policy.

--
\ “It is the responsibility of intellectuals to tell the truth |
`\ and to expose lies.” —Noam Chomsky, 1967-02-23 |
_o__) |
Ben Finney

Ian Jackson <ijackson(at)chiark(dot)greenend(dot)org(dot)uk> writes:

> Adrian Bunk writes ("Re: Code of Conduct at events [and 1 more messages]"):
> > Either you can prove someone's guilt (and in the cases we are
> > talking about that implies a conviction at court) or you have to
> > treat him as non-guilty and not pass discriminating information
> > about him to others.
>
> So Harlan Ellison is entirely innocent then, despite the videos which
> show otherwise ?

No. He is not proven guilty. That is different from innocence.

--
\ “Why am I an atheist? I ask you: Why is anybody not an atheist? |
`\ Everyone starts out being an atheist.” —Andy Rooney, _Boston |
_o__) Globe_ 1982-05-30 |
Ben Finney

On Thu, 11 Nov 2010, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Don Armstrong writes ("Re: Code of Conduct at events [and 1 more messages]"):
> > Additionally, I am uncertain that a code would have helped
> > mitigate this situation. I refuse to believe that the alleged
> > behavior is considered acceptable in any extant culture. [Even
> > though I fear it may be common.]
>
> In the situation which prompted me to raise this subject, a
> published policy would certainly have meant that the conference
> organisers wouldn't have washed their hands of the problem as they
> apparently did.

I have no problem with such a policy. I just reject arguments that
such behavior is acceptable, and therefore should be forgiven or that
merely writing down a set of rules will put a stop to it.

If a model policy of conduct is enacted, it should also include a
recommended plan of action for conference organizers so that
conference organizers can fall back on a work flow to handle the
situation.[1]

> If Worldcon had such a policy, Harlan Ellison's behaviour would not
> have gone unpunished. Are you also saying that you refuse to believe
> that Harlan's behaviour is considered acceptable in any extant
> culture?

It's certainly not acceptable in the US. Nonconsensual touching is
battery.

> Harlan has publicly stated that he thinks it was acceptable!

If Harlan Ellison thinks that nonconsensual touching is acceptable,
he may not be sane.

Don Armstrong

1: I worked for a while in Campus Housing, and we were always drilled
on responses to all kinds of issues, including this one. We had a
policy which was written, and more importantly, we had a method (and
had practised) dealing with violations of that policy (and other
problems.)
--
After the first battle of Sto Lat, I formulated a policy which has
stood me in good stead in other battles. It is this: if an enemy has
an impregnable stronghold, see he stays there.
-- Terry Pratchett _Jingo_ p265

http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu

On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 14:53, Don Armstrong <don(at)donarmstrong(dot)com> wrote:
> If a model policy of conduct is enacted, it should also include a
> recommended plan of action for conference organizers so that
> conference organizers can fall back on a work flow to handle the
> situation.[1]

For reference, linux.conf.au's policy is:

> Discrimination
>
> lca2011 is proud to support diverse groups of people in IT, and will
> not tolerate in any fashion any intimidation, harassment, and/or any
> abusive, discriminatory or derogatory behaviour by any attendees of
> lca2011 and/or lca2011-related events.
>
> Any complaints can be made to the lca2011 Organisers by contacting
> the Registration Desk during lca2011. All complaints made to lca2011
> Organisers will remain confidential, will be taken seriously and
> investigations will be made. Where lca2011 Organisers consider it
> appropriate, lca2011 may take any or all of the following measures:
>
>  - the alleged offender may be told to apologise
>  - the alleged offender may be told to stop/modify his/her behaviour
>    appropriately
>  - the alleged offender may be warned that enforcement action may be
>    taken if the behaviour continues
>  - the alleged offender may be asked to immediately leave the venue
>    and/or will be prohibited from continuing to attend lca2011
>    (without reimbursement)
>  - the incident may be reported to the Australian Police and/or
>    Human Rights Commission
>  - any other measure the lca2011 Organisers see fit

(from https://conf.linux.org.au/register/terms_and_conditions)

There are two instances where something like this came up, to my
recollection. One was in Jan 2007, while Hans Reiser's trial was
underway, where some attendees went around a conference party with a
number of faces on sticks (Bruce Perens, and Hans Reiser, iirc), doing
faux interviews with random people as a joke (in the spirit of
Everyone Loves Eric Raymond; iirc they'd done rms and esr the previous
year). A number of attendees found it a bit uncomfortable to have some
strangers with a Reiser mask and a camera coming up to them asking
questions like "Do you think I killed my wife?" while they were trying
to relax. The organisers ended up expelling them from the conference,
and making an announcement before the keynote the next morning that
those sorts of jokes aren't okay. The people who got expelled weren't
publicly named, though it wasn't hard for their friends to figure out
who they were when they didn't show up at the conference for the rest
of the week. I don't think they've been discouraged from attending lca
since then, at least if they leave any faces on a stick at home.

The other I'm aware of was in January this year, when Sam Varghese
(who was covering LCA for ITWire) was quoted in Matthew Garrett's
slides as a "what not to do" example in his talk on "Making yourself
popular: a guide to social success in (and for) the Linux community".
The other "what not to do" examples in his slides were all of Matthew
himself, AIUI. The end result was that the organisers didn't sanction
Matthew, and Sam posted an article on the topic in his coverage of
LCA, which you can find at:

http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analysis/open-sauce/36850-lca-2010-using-a-public-platform-for-personal-attacks

LWN's coverage of Matthew's talk is included in http://lwn.net/Articles/371044/

I think it's a bit optimistic to expect to have a procedure that will
handle these things -- in my experience each case tends to be
different enough from each other to need to be handled uniquely, and
doing a good job of balancing imperatives like "innocent until proven
guilty" and "the right to not be harrassed, hurt, or defamed" isn't
terribly easy. Having organisers not take up any responsibility to
help define what's acceptable both before and after events doesn't
make things better from what I've seen.

FWIW, YMMV, etc.

Cheers,
aj

--
Anthony Towns <aj(at)erisian(dot)com(dot)au>

On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 06:28:58PM -0500, Ted Ts'o wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 09:00:45PM +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> >
> > Did the victim report the offence to the police?
> >
> > If yes, why wasn't he convicted at court?
>
> If I have a party, I can invite whomever I like. It's a private
> event, and no one has a fundamental human right to attend a private
> party. "Innocent until proven guilty" is a concept which applies to
> criminal court proceedings. It is not something that needs to apply
> to a decision I make about whether or not I invite someone to a party
> at my house.
>
> The same is true for a conference. A conference, whether it is the
> Kernel Summit, Linux Plumbers's Conference, DebConf, or any other
> conference, is a private event. It is something where the conference
> organizers have the right to decide who is allowed to attend, and
> where the conference organizers can make a decision to eject an
> attendee --- all without any kind of court proceeding. Doing so does
> not violate anybody's human rights.
>...

What we are discussing is not only what conference organisers are
legally allowed to do.

We are discussing what SPI should recommend to organisers based on a
proposal by Ian - and for what SPI should recommend Human Rights are
a baseline for me.

And there are several points where I disagree with Ian
(even though I support preventing sexual harassment):

I think such a Code of Conduct is too abstract if part of it's purpose
is to educate people about cultural misunderstandings (these are likely
a more frequent problem than harassments with bad intentions) you'd need
something more concrete describing common pitfalls (like "do not hug
strangers").

Ian's proposal does not recommend calling the police, even though in the
event that triggered his proposal all other punishments would be
marginal compared to the punishment at court. [1]

And no matter what an organiser might be legally allowed to do, I would
not like seeing SPI recommending to allow treating someone as guilty who
has been acquitted at court.

As a lesson from the incident that triggere Ian's proposal, I'd like to
see a Code of Conduct to also condemn publically accusing other people
of crimes. A public mud battle is neither good for the people involved,
nor for their employers ("G employee assaulted by T employee"), nor for
the conference and the project(s) behind the conference. And publically
denouncing someone else might backfire and can even bring you into jail
if you cannot prove it at court. [2]

I also dislike the information-passing parts in Ian's proposal, and I
have some doubts on the universal legality of telling other people of
alleged crimes someone did if you cannot prove that. [2]

> - Ted

cu
Adrian

[1] When I try to match the description of the incident in the blog post
with German laws I end up at "at least one year in jail" - and I
guess the USA are not much more liberal on that.
[2] I have no idea about US laws here (but we are not discussing
something US-only) and IANAL - that's based on my amateur
understanding of German laws

--

"Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
"Only a promise," Lao Er said.
Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

On Fri, 12 Nov 2010, Anthony Towns wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 14:53, Don Armstrong <don(at)donarmstrong(dot)com> wrote:
> > If a model policy of conduct is enacted, it should also include a
> > recommended plan of action for conference organizers so that
> > conference organizers can fall back on a work flow to handle the
> > situation.[1]
>
> For reference, linux.conf.au's policy is:

[...] This seems reasonable, and I'd be happy with a resolution which
recommended it and/or a few similar policies that organizers could
adopt and/or modify as they saw fit.

> I think it's a bit optimistic to expect to have a procedure that
> will handle these things [...]

I personally wouldn't expect a procedure to handle these sorts of
things perfectly, but a framework which could be used as a guide would
be useful. [In the very few times I've been involved in similar
situations, I've been able to fall back on similar procedures as a
guide, mainly to make sure that the proper people had been notified,
and I hadn't forgotten anything important.[0]] It's always hard in the
heat of the moment to keep everything in perspective.

Even if the procedure ended up being "Contact foo; in cases where foo
cannot be contacted, or there is an immediate threat to life or
property, dial 911[1]", it would be an improvement. Contingency
planning is hard,.

> Having organisers not take up any responsibility to help define
> what's acceptable both before and after events doesn't make things
> better from what I've seen.

Certainly. I'm probably too naïve, and just expect people to know that
they should behave excellently to each other.[2]

Don Armstrong

0: Like resources I should be putting the victim in contact with,
information I should be collecting, etc.

1: Or whatever the appropriate emergency number is coupled with
instructions on how to reach an outside line.

2: Even though I know I've failed to behave excellently on some
occasions myself.
--
It can sometimes happen that a scholar, his task completed, discovers
that he has no one to thank. Never mind. He will invent some debts.
Research without indebtedness is suspect, and somebody must always,
somehow, be thanked.
-- Umberto Eco "How to Write an Introduction"

http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu

On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 01:37:41PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Bill Allombert writes ("Re: Code of Conduct at events"):

> > What happened was the opposite: two developpers manhandled a third
> > one. The third one get expelled from Debconf. The two did not get
> > real sanction beyond being sermoned. But of course the public memory
> > of the event is different.

> That's unfortunate, if true. I wasn't there so I can't comment.

There's a fairly detailed writeup in the debian-private archives if you
wish to look; FWIW the incident referred to above was one of a series of
incidents that occurred over an extended period.

>
> > This is the problem with your proposal: your proposal is more about
> > defining a set of rules that events organizers have to follow than
> > rules that participants have to follow.
>
> It's not about "rules that organisers have to follow". When an event
> organiser writes "this is our policy about XYZ" in the README, that
> means that they are /choosing/ to set out these rules and /promising/
> to follow them.
>
> > But how the organizers will be held accountable ? What information
> > will be used to make the decisions ?
>
> In the usual ways that project organisers are held accountable.
> (Or, are not, in some contexts.)
>
> Ian.
> _______________________________________________
> Spi-general mailing list
> Spi-general(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
> http://lists.spi-inc.org/listinfo/spi-general
>

--
"You grabbed my hand and we fell into it, like a daydream - or a fever."