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although I try to force myself to focus on productive tasks I just
have to briefly respond.<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 06/24/15 18:46, Andy Anderson wrote:<br>
</div>
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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.
</blockquote>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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?<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:30436B53-421F-4BD2-9869-6FCB42787D7F@amherst.edu"
type="cite">
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Anecdotal cases aside, in the West these sorts of things are
generally known to be offensive to many, many women <i>in the
wrong context.</i> 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 <i>germane</i>
but <i>necessary</i>, and if they aren’t presenters should
consider alternatives, especially if they are presenting on
behalf of a larger organization.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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.
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XElUS201fM8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XElUS201fM8</a>
or
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.vat19.com/item/abraham-lincoln-penny-portrait">https://www.vat19.com/item/abraham-lincoln-penny-portrait</a>
— you could even make your own, with a geographic basis).</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:30436B53-421F-4BD2-9869-6FCB42787D7F@amherst.edu"
type="cite">
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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 :-)</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
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? <br>
<br>
Do we have an issue of Diversity here?<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:30436B53-421F-4BD2-9869-6FCB42787D7F@amherst.edu"
type="cite">
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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.</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Freedom of speech?<br>
<br>
"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 <span
class="mw-redirect">chalkboard</span>, maliciously noting one
violation after another. (Wikipedia:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Meistersinger_von_N%C3%BCrnberg">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Meistersinger_von_N%C3%BCrnberg</a>)<br>
<br>
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".<br>
<br>
-Peter<br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:30436B53-421F-4BD2-9869-6FCB42787D7F@amherst.edu"
type="cite">
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<div>— Andy</div>
<div><br>
<div>
<div>On Jun 24, 2015, at 10:19 AM, Milo van der Linden <<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:milo@dogodigi.net">milo@dogodigi.net</a>>
wrote:</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<p dir="ltr">Hahaha!</p>
<p dir="ltr">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.
;-)</p>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Jun 24, 2015 3:41 PM, "Iván
Sánchez" <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:ivan@sanchezortega.es">ivan@sanchezortega.es</a>>
wrote:<br type="attribution">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
El Miércoles 24. junio 2015 12.42.40 Charles Schweik
escribió:<br>
> [...] I was raising the question that those
slides could turn some women off<br>
> who are considering attending and I think [...]<br>
<br>
I feel obliged to jump in the thread, because this
looks just like a recent<br>
case of "the limits of joking" in Spanish media.<br>
<br>
Imagine this: Person A makes a joke involving person B
who was a victim of a<br>
terrorist bombing. Person C throws a tantrum and tells
the media "I'm sure B<br>
finds A's jokes insulting, thus A must resign from his
job"[1]. Then, person B<br>
jumps in and publicly states that she never felt
offended by A's jokes at<br>
all[2].<br>
<br>
[1] <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://ccaa.elpais.com/ccaa/2015/06/13/madrid/1434219265_951793.html"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">
http://ccaa.elpais.com/ccaa/2015/06/13/madrid/1434219265_951793.html</a><br>
[2] <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.larazon.es/opinion/columnistas/mas-fuerte-que-el-odio-AF10047124"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">
http://www.larazon.es/opinion/columnistas/mas-fuerte-que-el-odio-AF10047124</a><br>
<br>
<br>
In other words: Saying "Person A should take this down
because I find it<br>
offensive" is perfectly OK. Saying "Person A should
take this down because it<br>
is possibly potentially offensive to a third party" is
not OK (and actually<br>
erodes the right to freedom of expression).<br>
<br>
<br>
I need to ask for **evidence-based policy** here.
There is a big difference<br>
between a Dali painting *maybe* turning someone off
FOSS4G and a Dali painting<br>
*actually* turning someone off FOSS4G.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Furthermore, there is such a thing like too much
political correctness. I will<br>
illustrate *ad absurdum* by turning my own
political-correctness-o-meter up to<br>
eleven for a second:<br>
<br>
Sanghee should remove slide 15 because blood sausages
are maybe potentially<br>
offensive to muslims and vegans.<br>
<br>
Sanghee should remove slide 17 because the kerning can
maybe potentially make<br>
the eyes of experience typesetters bleed.<br>
<br>
Sanghee should remove slides 18 and 19 because they
might be potential<br>
triggers for agoraphobics.<br>
<br>
Sanghee should remove slide 22 because it might be
potentially insulting to<br>
astronomers concerned by light pollution.<br>
<br>
Sanghee should remove slide 23 because it might be
potentially insulting to<br>
"grammar nazis".<br>
<br>
I should remove the previous sentence because someone
might potentially find<br>
"nazis" offensive.<br>
<br>
Sanghee should remove slide 25 because it might be
potentially insulting to<br>
geodesists who know circles don't have a meaning
outside of distance-<br>
preserving projections (incidentally, these are the
same people offended by<br>
EPSG:3857 being used everywhere) and find that FOSS4G
is not representative of<br>
the professionalism required to attend such an event.<br>
<br>
Sanghee should remove slide 30 because the alignment
might be a potential<br>
trigger for people with obsessive-compulsive disorder.<br>
<br>
Sanghee should remove slides 37-42 because they might
be potentially offensive<br>
to alcoholics and former alcoholics.<br>
<br>
<br>
</rant><br>
<br>
--<br>
Iván Sánchez Ortega <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:ivan@sanchezortega.es">ivan@sanchezortega.es</a>>
<<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:ivan@geonerd.org">ivan@geonerd.org</a>><br>
<<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:ivan@mazemap.no">ivan@mazemap.no</a>><br>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="80">--
Dr. Peter Baumann
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