[OSGeo-Discuss] Code of Conduct in Real Case
Peter Baumann
p.baumann at jacobs-university.de
Thu Jun 25 00:19:02 PDT 2015
although I try to force myself to focus on productive tasks I just have to
briefly respond.
On 06/24/15 18:46, Andy Anderson wrote:
> 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.
indeed, I have heard about such cases, mainly in the central US I believe. Such
kind of institutionalized censorship and "political correctness" unfortunately
is happening again and again - we've had that with McCarthy in the US, Stalin in
Russia, and I am sure we find legions of cases where, "justified" by some
doctrine, a few people abused their power to indoctrinate the rest.
Further, let me emphasize the "diversity" aspect. Different cultures have
different views. Nudity was common in ancient Greece on the one hand. On the
other hand, "Western" women tend to dress in a way (with tank tops and what was
once called "hot pants") which is outrageously offensive to some cultures. So I
(or some Oriental person, for that matter) might well approach a woman at a next
FOSS4G and ask her to come in long pants, or otherwise ask the committee to
expel her. Fully concordant with discussion here. Do we want that?
I sense that this thread is always about enforcement of some rules based on
"Western" (often meaning: US) concepts. Frequently, there seems to be a naive
assumption of "my rules are right". Who states what is "right" and "wrong", and
based on what justification? I just fail to see a _common_ sense in these
matters. Doomed to fail.
>
> 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).
Science (and good talks!) live from thinking the unanticipated, not so obvious,
from putting things into a new context. Ideologic constraints always have been
harmful to science and art. I am sure under the regime proposed many of our most
famous artwork would not have occurred - Venus by Milo, for example.
>
> 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 :-)
Hm, so because a North American has not heard about a group famous in Korea it
should not be mentioned in a talk given by a Korean about Korea?
Do we have an issue of Diversity here?
>
> 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.
Freedom of speech?
"The Master-Singers of Nuremberg") is a German music drama first performed 1868.
Part of it plays during the guild's song contest. Walther, an external
contestant, launches into a novel free-form tune, breaking all the
mastersingers' rules, and his song is constantly interrupted by the scratch of
Beckmesser's chalk on his chalkboard, maliciously noting one violation after
another. (Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Meistersinger_von_N%C3%BCrnberg)
Since that time, "beckmesserish" is used in German as a synonym for judging
solely on abstract rules, without understanding of the matter as such. On this
occasion I found the English synonym "carping".
-Peter
>
> — 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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--
Dr. Peter Baumann
- Professor of Computer Science, Jacobs University Bremen
www.faculty.jacobs-university.de/pbaumann
mail: p.baumann at jacobs-university.de
tel: +49-421-200-3178, fax: +49-421-200-493178
- Executive Director, rasdaman GmbH Bremen (HRB 26793)
www.rasdaman.com, mail: baumann at rasdaman.com
tel: 0800-rasdaman, fax: 0800-rasdafax, mobile: +49-173-5837882
"Si forte in alienas manus oberraverit hec peregrina epistola incertis ventis dimissa, sed Deo commendata, precamur ut ei reddatur cui soli destinata, nec preripiat quisquam non sibi parata." (mail disclaimer, AD 1083)
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