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Comment by brohoolio | Hacker News Reader

One of Tron guy's complaints about penguicon was the code of conduct. If you read the code you'll see it's very reasonable. It asks folks to respect each other and if there is a disagreement talk it out. If it can't be resolved escalate. If you commit harassment the con reserves the right to kick you out.

Seems reasonable. You might think you can go back to the old days without a code of conduct but with 2000 people attending there will be issues. It's best to have everything documented and rules in case something goes wrong. That's why a convention like penguicon keeps going after 15 years.

My friends both liberal and conservative enjoyed the con this year. Both sides also said fuck these guys, if they can't have a good time at a great convention which features all sorts of perspectives, then maybe they can't enjoy themselves anywhere outside of their social bubble.

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    > "if there is a disagreement talk it out. If it can't be resolved escalate."

Haven't read it, so maybe I'm being unfair. But why do you need to "talk it out" ? Can't people just disagree and continue living? And "escalate", what does that even mean? Do you have an example?

https://2017.penguicon.org/code-of-conduct/

My example is from the harassment section.

I should say we all said fuck these guys because of the amount of effort goes into running a convention and dealing with folks who are just never going to be satisfied.

If they'd volunteer and put the time in to organize I'd probably take them more seriously.

I was thinking about making this my first con, and I didn't go because the first thing I saw looking for info was the code of conduct. That's now The Sign. Caring too much about your code of conduct, instead of just being welcoming as the con has always been from what I've heard, means far left politics are the order of the day.

Better form committees about inclusion and rape culture too, before people accuse you of being (insert buzzword)!

Hacker groups have always been the most welcomeling places I've ever experienced for people from "odd" walks of life, and paradoxically it's people fighting for inclusion who threaten that. You tell everyone this is a culture of toxic masculinity, and guess who are the only people left in it?

You need a code of conduct when you have 2000 people drinking in a hotel, having parties etc. Someone is going to be an asshole and having policy ahead of time means you don't need to think of a solution on the spot. It's a fair system.

Read it here. It's pretty low key for a code of conduct.

https://2017.penguicon.org/code-of-conduct/

Didn't those use to just be called "the rules"? I think a lot of people's resistance to a CoC is that it's a Dog whistle for a lot of the issues discussed in this post.

Edit: Instead of down voting me, rebuttal the idea. CoC are on their face not bad, but in my experienced are pushed by people with other agendas.

I think you've hit the point when you say "dog whistle".

What point did I hit?

Is there a better word/phrase? I purposely used "dog whistle" because of the political connotations as a signal that implies more than just what's on it's face.

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