As one of the author's of the conference anti-harassment policy
template, I would like to comment. The policy is here:
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassment/Policy
When we first published it ~4 years ago, I discussed the CoC vs an
event anti-harassment policy with a Red Hat employee, who I will not
name because this person might not work for the company. I was told
that Red Hat legal discussed it and decided that the CoC was enough. I
said that I was fine with that as long as it was clearly identified as
to who were the event organizers or board members at in person
gatherings. I would also want a reminder that the CoC was in effect as
not everyone at a FUDCon or FAD has necessarily become an officially
signed up as an official Fedora contributor.
I had been brought into the discussion of banning someone from future
events for a non-Fedora, Free-Software-related project. The incident
itself, in my opinion, warranted a demand for a written apology but
not a full-bown perma-ban. However, due to the discomfort level of the
greater the community, it would not be a good idea to welcome this
individual to be in this space. To be clear, this was more than one
person who felt unsafe around the offender, it was half the community
having unpleasant interactions with this person. Events could not
resume until this person was told that they were not welcome. It took
awhile to draft such as message as the ban impacts more that just the
accused. I felt that this offender's associates, two others who were
innocent by all accounts, would be unfairly excluded too. A compromise
was worked out for the associates and they are most welcome to
participate.
As an Ohio LinuxFest board member, we have zero blacklisted
individuals from our events due to prior event misconduct. However, we
do honor requests when an attendee has a restraining order or similar
protections, to keep an eye out for the harasser's registration and
deny entry.
The power to ban someone from your project and its events, in my
opinion, in rightfully given to the Fedora Board. It is not a matter
to be taken lightly or with haste. The power to eject the offender
from the event rightfully is with the event organizers to handle the
immediate situation.
On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 8:16 AM, Amit Shah <amitshah(a)gmx.net> wrote:
Hello all,
While organising the recent FUDCon in Pune we included a code of conduct, similar to the
previous Flocks and other conferences worldwide.
I was wondering if we have any mechanisms in place where we can blacklist someone if
indeed there was a violation.
I'm thinking of a Fedora project specific blacklist as well as a shared blacklist for
major conferences worldwide.
The CoC would be pretty useless if there's no way to ban (from future gatherings)
someone indulging in activities unwelcome to the project.
Also, we should include what steps we would take as a project depending on the nature of
the violation in the CoC text itself.
If we already have such a mechanism in place, please point me to it. If not, would there
be interest in setting up a service at least for Fedora events?
Amit
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http://amitshah.net
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Thanks,
Beth Lynn Eicher