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
<sumanah(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
Thanks, Danese. Right now this policy is limited to
technical-only
events for the reason you describe; I'm talking with other Wikimedia
conference organizers to adjust wording for Wikimania and other
not-just-technical events.
-Sumana
On 01/12/2012 04:40 PM, Danese Cooper 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 <sumanah(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
> The Wikimedia Foundation is dedicated to a harassment-free conference
> experience for everyone. I'm proposing a fairly short and standard
> anti-harassment policy of the type that's becoming best practice for
> tech conferences and hackathons.
>
> Draft:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Sumanah/AHP
>
> I don't imagine I'll get much response on this, but just wanted to put
> it out there before implementing. I intend on putting this into place
> by the middle of next week, in time for the San Francisco hackathon
> (starting January 20th).
>
> Comments on the talk page, please.
> --
> Sumana Harihareswara
> Volunteer Development Coordinator
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
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