[OSGeo-Discuss] Code of Conduct in Real Case

[Charles Schweik]

OK, I raised the question of appropriate content to Jeff after I looked at
the FOSS4G website for a reference for a grant proposal I am writing at a
time when I was thinking specifically about diversity recruitment to
GeoForAll.

By asking Jeff about it offline, I was raising the question that those
slides could turn some women off who are considering attending and I think
those kinds of signals are moving the community the wrong direction, and
that perhaps the author should consider this. I raised this because I have
been in conferences where I've witnessed women being offended by things
happening on stage and I think as a community we want to be sensitive to
this since we are hopeful for more women to become engaged in FOSS4G.

>From my eye going through the slides, I didn't understand (and still don't)
why zoom in on the Dali image needed to be on the slideshow. After a more
careful examination -- that other viewers won't likely do -- I see that the
first slide is an enlargement of part of that painting and then a second
picture of it hanging in some building, under the group heading of 'Seoul
is far away.' I still don't get why the enlargement is needed... but
perhaps that is just me. But I think I am still right -- some women might
be turned off to the conference by that zoom-in.

Sangee, your explanation of the side of the female models is helpful. But
some people around the world will not understand it or misinterpret its
meaning or why it is there. The 'Culture' heading helps I suppose. So at
least consider having something on those slides explaining to readers what
they represent better than they do currently.

I'll close by saying, with all due respect to Sanghee and the others in
this community who disagree with me, is that if you are trying to encourage
people to come, and especially if your email footer says 'Towards
Diversity' as a goal of the conference, then the 'Precautionary Principle'
might be wise to follow. If I was doing the advertising to recruit people,
I'd be conservative and wouldn't put up imagery that could turn off
potential attendees.

I'm not advocating any kind of censorship here, and I am not judging
whether a COC is necessary or not. I just was simply raising a concern
about underlying or subtle messages embedded in a 'commercial' being used
to recruit people to our global conference.

It appears that others disagree with this view.

Charlie Schweik


On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 11:35 AM, Pedro-Juan Ferrer Matoses <
pferrer at osgeo.org> wrote:

> Hello Sanghee,
>
> > I was asked to remove a few slides from my presentation "7 Reasons why
> you should come to FOSS4G 2015 Seoul”[1], which is at the main page of
> FOSS4G Seoul, as being possibly offensive to women. Specifically to say,
> slide #6 (nude female in painting) and slide #20 (row of female models) are
> those controversial ones.
>
> I'd like to have a little bit more of context to make up my mind
>
> * Who asked to remove the slides?
>
> * Is «being possibily offensive to women» the only reason it was given to
> you?
>
> On the other hand, obviously you have you own reasons to keep the
> slides, but those reasons are not clear in the presentation because it
> lacks of... well, it lacks of someone *explaining* what are we seeing.
>
> May be a less-dependant-on-someone-explaining-presentation is more
> suitable for being in the landing page of the Conference.
>
> But this is just my POV.
>
> Best regards,
> --
> Pedro-Juan Ferrer Matoses
> Valencia (España)
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss




-- 
Charlie Schweik

Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Dept of Environmental Conservation and Center for Public Policy and
Administration

Personal website: http://people.umass.edu/cschweik
Publications: http://works.bepress.com/charles_schweik/

Author, Internet Success: A Study of Open Source Software (MIT Press, 2012)
- see http://tinyurl.com/d3e4545

--------------------------------------------
Q: Why is this email five sentences or less?
A: http://five.sentenc.es
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20150624/b7d5dbae/attachment-0002.html>