On 12 January 2012 16:00, Sumana Harihareswara <sumanah(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: Nice one :-) A candidate for WMF and wider Wikimedia events in general, too. - d.

On 12 January 2012 17:09, Chad <innocentkiller(a)gmail.com> wrote: Is amazing how this whole wikimedia thing as changed since 2002. I don't understand half the messages on this mail list. This is really a complex and professional organization, that has advanced a lot in the past years. I lurk on the mail list, tryiing to find a way to help, but is really hard, because there are here top-notch profesionals doing things the best way that is possible. You guys rocks. -- -- ℱin del ℳensaje.

What if you need more attention and want to be harassed? Amir: Also, SVN does kinda suck :P Seriously though, this looks great. I've been fortunate enough to not have been harassed at a conference much more than being trolled on occasion, but I think that's a more borderline case that doesn't quite warrant any serious actions. That said, I think there's an excuse game that gets played a lot. When I've expressed concern in the past I've often been told things like like "yeah, but they are a really good contributor, that's just how they are, deal with it" or "they're [enter country of origin here], that's just how they are, deal with it". This lays some ground rules that are fair in any venue around the world. Thanks for putting this together. - Trevor On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 8:35 AM, Amir E. Aharoni < amir.aharoni(a)mail.huji.ac.il&gt; wrote:

Well done, Sumana. I especially like the start of the exception list. Presumably situations such as academic discourse on body function (at a WMF conference on improving content), or depictions of artifacts (in the GLAM context) would be exceptions. Danese On Jan 12, 2012, at 8:00 AM, Sumana Harihareswara &lt;sumanah(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote:

Hi! So, I am pro this policy. It's clean, neat, and easy to understand. However, in some ways, I feel that while a policy like this is a(n) (unfortunately) necessary tool to prevent discrimination and harassment at tech events, I do not think that it is sufficient. Let me explain. In my mind, policies such as this are useful when you either a) want to kick someone who's actions are unacceptable out of your event or b) something bad happened and the organizer wants to be able to point to the policy and say "that was against our policy." These are both good things. Having conditions for ejection from an event is useful. However, in my mind, it does not address underlying issues, the variety of -isms, that contributed to harassment and discrimination. It has also been my experience in being around various folk at tech conferences (such as um... myself) that geeks like me often do not have 100% developed social skills and may already deal with feelings of isolation. Thus, what I would love to see would be, in addition to a policy such as this, activities specifically designed to foster closer community, connection, and to bring home that everyone at such an event is valuable, as well as establishing basic social expectations which can be very useful in social situations where participants come from a wide range of cultures and countries. I am, at this moment, not sure what form this thing that I am advocating would take, but I would definitely be interested in working with others to come up with such activities/models/etc. It would probably happen at the beginning of an event, and it would need to be enjoyable, so that people would actually want to come. This is as far as I've managed to get in my brainstorming. Thoughts? Ideas? Comments? -peter On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 4:47 PM, Sumana Harihareswara &lt;sumanah(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote:

Well, I think if you look at conferences as a whole, the biggest cases have been in presentations. Here's a list of examples: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents Of course these are just examples that are sexist. I'm positive there are way more examples out there. In general, the social events are optional, but that doesn't mean we should allow them to be free-for-alls either. The anti-harassment policy should also involve social events. If you've had too much to drink, then you should be cut off. If you harass someone at a social event, even a non-sponsored one, you should also fall under this policy. - Ryan

Thanks to all of you for your feedback on this. We've now finalized the policy and it now lives at https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Friendly_space_policy -- Sumana Harihareswara Volunteer Development Coordinator Wikimedia Foundation