[OSGeo-Discuss] Code of Conduct in Real Case

[Andy Anderson]

Ah! Anecdotes! Let me provide one from my personal experience that’s more relevant. A female friend of mine attending a school *was* offended by the gratuitous insertion of nude pictures in a slide presentation in one of her classes. That school was soon thereafter subjected to an investigation for sexual harassment by the Office of Civil Rights of the US Department of Education, followed by a resolution agreement.

Anecdotal cases aside, in the West these sorts of things are generally known to be offensive to many, many women in the wrong context. The right context would certainly include art museums and art classes. But at a GIS conference? Generally speaking, I think potentially offensive items must not only be germane but necessary, and if they aren’t presenters should consider alternatives, especially if they are presenting on behalf of a larger organization.

So while the Dali portrait may be germane, I don’t see it as in any way necessary. Sanghee writes “I just used that image to stress the importance of long distance from the object or sometimes from the too experienced ordinary culture.” But there are many, many other images that could be used instead to emphasize the same thing; they’re all over the place (see, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XElUS201fM8 or https://www.vat19.com/item/abraham-lincoln-penny-portrait — you could even make your own, with a geographic basis).

Regarding the girl-group picture, Sanghee writes “I believe as symbolic icon of wide spread of Korean culture(K-Culture) in/around Asia” — again possibly germane to this point, and perhaps by far the best representation and therefore necessary, but I have never heard of them and the point would be lost on me. A photo of a bowl of kimchi would be more effective in my case :-)

At the very least, I agree with Pedro-Juan Ferrer Matoses when he writes “May be a less-dependant-on-someone-explaining-presentation is more suitable for being in the landing page of the Conference.” Looks like it was a presentation for the 2014 meeting in Bangkok, where I assume the context was verbalized, but the Web is a different medium. On general principles of effectiveness, I’d recommend putting the context directly into the slides. Otherwise their inclusion does seem gratuitous.

— Andy

On Jun 24, 2015, at 10:19 AM, Milo van der Linden <milo at dogodigi.net<mailto:milo at dogodigi.net>> wrote:

Hahaha!

I appreciate this. Maybe we need to add some statistics to your political-correctness-o-meter to measure how much of the world population is potentially still "on board" at the final slide. This will give a clear insight of how many people will come to the event. ;-)

On Jun 24, 2015 3:41 PM, "Iván Sánchez" <ivan at sanchezortega.es<mailto:ivan at sanchezortega.es>> wrote:
El Miércoles 24. junio 2015 12.42.40 Charles Schweik escribió:
> [...] I was raising the question that those slides could turn some women off
> who are considering attending and I think [...]

I feel obliged to jump in the thread, because this looks just like a recent
case of "the limits of joking" in Spanish media.

Imagine this: Person A makes a joke involving person B who was a victim of a
terrorist bombing. Person C throws a tantrum and tells the media "I'm sure B
finds A's jokes insulting, thus A must resign from his job"[1]. Then, person B
jumps in and publicly states that she never felt offended by A's jokes at
all[2].

[1] http://ccaa.elpais.com/ccaa/2015/06/13/madrid/1434219265_951793.html
[2] http://www.larazon.es/opinion/columnistas/mas-fuerte-que-el-odio-AF10047124


In other words: Saying "Person A should take this down because I find it
offensive" is perfectly OK. Saying "Person A should take this down because it
is possibly potentially offensive to a third party" is not OK (and actually
erodes the right to freedom of expression).


I need to ask for **evidence-based policy** here. There is a big difference
between a Dali painting *maybe* turning someone off FOSS4G and a Dali painting
*actually* turning someone off FOSS4G.



Furthermore, there is such a thing like too much political correctness. I will
illustrate *ad absurdum* by turning my own political-correctness-o-meter up to
eleven for a second:

Sanghee should remove slide 15 because blood sausages are maybe potentially
offensive to muslims and vegans.

Sanghee should remove slide 17 because the kerning can maybe potentially make
the eyes of experience typesetters bleed.

Sanghee should remove slides 18 and 19 because they might be potential
triggers for agoraphobics.

Sanghee should remove slide 22 because it might be potentially insulting to
astronomers concerned by light pollution.

Sanghee should remove slide 23 because it might be potentially insulting to
"grammar nazis".

I should remove the previous sentence because someone might potentially find
"nazis" offensive.

Sanghee should remove slide 25 because it might be potentially insulting to
geodesists who know circles don't have a meaning outside of distance-
preserving projections (incidentally, these are the same people offended by
EPSG:3857 being used everywhere) and find that FOSS4G is not representative of
the professionalism required to attend such an event.

Sanghee should remove slide 30 because the alignment might be a potential
trigger for people with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Sanghee should remove slides 37-42 because they might be potentially offensive
to alcoholics and former alcoholics.


</rant>

--
Iván Sánchez Ortega <ivan at sanchezortega.es<mailto:ivan at sanchezortega.es>> <ivan at geonerd.org<mailto:ivan at geonerd.org>>
<ivan at mazemap.no<mailto:ivan at mazemap.no>>
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