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Comment by f0code | Hacker News Reader

"That I shall not talk or act in ways that could make minority groups feel bullied, harassed, intimidated, stalked, stereotyped, or belittled; examples of minority groups include women, people of color, lesbians, gays, and people who are disabled, bisexual, transsexual, asexual, intersex, transgender, and gender-variant;"

So as a member of the majority, I'm expressly the only person bound by these rules of behavior in this pledge. My allowed attendance would be contingent on remaining silent the entire time on premises.

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You will need to remain silent if you bully, harrass, intimidate, stalk, stereotype, or belittle. It's contingent on actual behavior. Which was kind of the point of the whole article.

See Donglegate.

Since you're apparently talking about how unreasonable LambdaConf's code of conduct is, "donglegate" seems totally irrelevant given that it didn't involve the consequences of violating any conference's code of conduct, much less this one.

"Donglegate" involved person a being offended by what another person said whilst at a conference, and somebody else - not the conference organizer, or indeed anyone at the conference at all - punishing the person who caused offence.

They were reported to staff, who escorted them to a private area to shame them for saying something that someone found offensive.

You don't see that as having a chilling effect?

You're moving the goalposts.

Donglegate isn't about conference staff having a quiet word with people in private. It's about one person getting fired for offending another, and that person eventually getting fired because of community lacklash.

If all that had happened was that somebody got offended, privately told a staff member, and then the person causing offence had been privately spoken to - which is what the PyCon code of conduct required - we would never have heard about it.

Now, the possibility that the offendee might shame me publicly and cause me to get fired might have a chilling effect. But that's nothing to do with codes of conduct. If anything, publicly shaming somebody that offends you would be in violation of the code.

No, I'm not. If anything, you're splitting hairs.

Your assertion was "You will need to remain silent if you bully, harrass, intimidate, stalk, stereotype, or belittle." The guys in donglegate did none of those things, and yet they were in fact reported to staff. Over private words.

My point is that you never know what is going to offend someone. This CoC says that you agree to be removed from the premises if someone gets offended, provided they are of proper minority status, which in itself invalidates the whole idea that this is a non-political CoC.

One could argue that the guys in Donglegate did belittle and sterotype based on their tasteless jokes.

If one did that one would, of course, be wrong, both in the general case (the jokes were silly grade-school level puns that would concern no well-balanced person) and the specific case (if anyone was being stereotyped or belittled, it would be males, given that they were telling the jokes about a male presenter.)

Why? The "jokes" were clearly in bad taste, and meant to belittle women.

> Why? The "jokes" were clearly in bad taste, and meant to belittle women.

Can you quote the jokes and explain how they were meant to belittle women?

This is exactly the point I'm making. Their problem was that they spoke aloud in a manner that does not properly reflect the sensibilities of someone they weren't even addressing.

EDIT: Herein lies the rub, and some might say the whole purpose behind CoC's. As a cop might say, you might beat the charge, but you won't beat the ride. Even if you've been tried by event staff for wrongspeak and found innocent, your whole experience is ruined.

(That was a different poster's assertion.)

The code actually says that you agree to be removed if you "wantonly behave in a manner inconsistent with" it, and only one of the paragraphs mentioned minorities: they chose to lead with a general requirement to treat others with respect, dignity and empathy, regardless of who they are.

This is not a code of conduct designed to punish accidental "thought crime" against minorities: it is designed to prevent intentionally or recklessly offensive behaviour towards any and all conference attendees.

I do not doubt the good intentions of the authors. They clearly spent a lot of time thinking it through, and came up with something they felt was the most inclusive, and opened it up for comment. None of that was required of them, yet they did it, and that is admirable.

Sure, it was just one paragraph (or 1 of 5 bullet points in the pledge). Let's look at another:

"That if I become aware of any behavior by others which is inconsistent with this pledge, I shall take immediate action to report such behavior to event organizers;"

Coupled with this in particular from the previous quote: "examples of minority groups include..."

40% of this pledge says: If an event-goer commits and/or witnesses a behavior that could be offensive to a minority group of some sort, thanks for your money but we'll be taking those badges back, unless this hourly event staff member thinks you're cool.

Sorry for mis-attributing that comment.

Far worse.

You, like many others, miss the most important part of DongleGate. She shamed the supposed dongle-joke offender on Twitter with their picture, which was unambiguously against the Code of Conduct, for it bans harassing photography. She did not only fail to see the hypocrisy, her actions were deemed heroic and she compared herself to Joan of Arc.

This was a clear sign to anyone paying attention that Codes of Conduct were never about policing behavior objectively, but instead were to be wielded as a weapon to shame and attack particular groups of people based on a political ideology of victimhood.

No, one member of such a group is also bound to conduct themselves relative to members of another such group.

One way that one could attend is to not say offensive things. Yes, anything could be offensive and you have no way of knowing a priori. But a reasonable person should be able to sort things out.

A reasonable person doesn't need to be told to be respectful.

"But a reasonable person should be able to sort things out."

We have two articles on the front page condemning a two second soundbite at a keynote which was vetted by one of the most image conscious companies on the planet. I don't think your statement is true. If a code of conduct does not treat everyone as equals then it sets up a dynamic that will cause some group of people to shutdown and not participate.

Are you aware of the concept of "intersectionality"? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality )

"My allowed attendance would be contingent on remaining silent the entire time on premises."

Only if you are incapable of acting like an adult human being. As someone who is also a member of the majority, I would find no problem in being able to follow the rules, because I can behave like an adult.

That is already expected of people. Why do we need to take a pledge before going to hear some people talk about code?

If it's already what you feel is expected of you, why object to agreeing to it?

Because people like you claim that you'd never be able to speak, implying that you cannot act like an adult in public.

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