Re: Code of Conduct plan

On Fri, Jun 8, 2018 at 7:09 AM, Christophe Pettus <xof(at)thebuild(dot)com> wrote:

>
> > On Jun 7, 2018, at 21:00, Gavin Flower <GavinFlower(at)archidevsys(dot)co(dot)nz>
> wrote:
> >
> >> I have to say that this seems like a red herring to me.
> > Not entirely. American web sites tend to insist on weird date format,
> and insist on the archaic imperial units rather than the metric system that
> most people in the world use.
>
> Then you will be pleased to know that neither writing dates day-of-month
> first, nor using meters, will be Code of Conduct violations. :)
>

However, this is a symptom of a much larger and deeper set of issues.
Americans, particularly in the cities, tend to take deep offense to
political disagreements and this happens on both sides, because in the US,
politics is often extremely binary.

A closely related problem here is that in the US, this often constitutes a
sort of signaling as to whether someone is going to get a fair chance or
not. This is very different from Europe, where political discrimination is
barred under the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.

>
> > For example try defining something simple, like what is a car!
> [...]
> >
> > Try defining success at university
>
> It is equally unlikely that the Code of Conduct committee will need to
> decide what a car is, or whether or not someone has succeeded at university.
>
> I'm not trying to be snide, but this does seem to be exactly what I was
> talking about: When asked for examples of cultural differences that might
> run afoul of the CoC, the examples don't seem to be either relevant (i.e.,
> they are not things the CoC committee will have to address), or are clearly
> contextual in a way that a human will have no trouble understanding.
>

I think they are likely to have to decide whether wearing a MAGA hat at a
conference is allowed (and now that I know the people who did this were
South Africans I personally feel bad about not conversing with them).

They might also have to decide whether statements like the following is
disparaging based on protected group characteristics:

"I am enough of a Marxist to see gender as a qualitative relationship to
biological reproduction, and this is something GLBT groups don't fit into
very well."

>
> > I've called a friend of mine a bastard, but he took it as a mark of
> respect in the context of our discussion.
>
> This is why we have human beings, rather than a regex, forming the Code of
> Conduct committee. It's important to remember that the CoC committee is
> not going to be going around policing the community for potential
> violations; their job is to resolve actual situations between real people.
> It's not their job to define values; it's their job to resolve situations.
> In my experience in dealing with CoC issues, the situations (while often
> complex) are rarely of the form, "This word does not mean anything bad
> where I come from."
>

This is true but it is needed that the committee is culturally diverse and
advertised as such. Otherwise I am concerned that it would signal to some
people that a certain sort of abuse would be permitted.

>
> --
> -- Christophe Pettus
> xof(at)thebuild(dot)com
>
>
>

--
Best Wishes,
Chris Travers

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