On Wed, Aug 1, 2018 at 5:57 PM, Nathaniel Smith <njs@pobox.com> wrote:
On Wed, Aug 1, 2018 at 8:37 AM, Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:
>

>> For another perspective on this issue see
>> https://where.coraline.codes/blog/oscon/, where Coraline Ada describes her
>> reasons for not speaking at OSCON this year due to a similar clause in the
>> code of conduct.
>
> There's a lot of very unrealistic examples in that post. Plus retracting a
> week in advance of a conference is, to put it mildly, questionable. So not
> sure what to think of the rest of that post. There may be good points in
> there, but they're obscured by the obvious flaws in thinking and choice of
> examples.

Ralf, I love you, but this paragraph sounds like a parody from "How to
suppress women's writing" or something.

Coraline Ada is a prominent expert on code-of-conduct issues, and also
a trans woman, so she gets death threats and other harassment
constantly and "will the conference organizers protect me if someone
comes after me?" is a real question she has to ask. She wrote a blog
post about how O'Reilly's handling of this (not just the language, but
the totality of circumstances -- the way it was added, the response to
her queries, etc.) made her feel that attending would be unsafe for
her, so she didn't attend. (And about how distressed she was to
realize this just a week before the conference.)

It seems like you're taking her post as some logical argument about
CoCs in the abstract, with the withdrawal as some kind of
brinksmanship, and judging it by those standards?

No. For one, from experience as a previous EuroSciPy program chair where we had a pretty similar case. Keynote speaker accepted invitation, then shortly before the event says "I cannot speak unless you introduce a CoC". There was little discussion possible. It felt like blackmail to the whole committee. Because, well, that's what it was. If existence or exact wording of a CoC is that important to you as a speaker, you should check it carefully before accepting an invitation. (and for the record, a CoC was adding the next year after there was time for a serious discussion)

Also, I probably agree with all or almost all of her political views. However, starting with unrealistic hypotheticals like people with neo-Nazi insignia just ruins the credibility of the rest of the post for me.

I'm not too interested in continuing this particular discussion, it won't be very productive. For the record, I don't much appreciate the parody comment.

Cheers,
Ralf