[kde-community] FOSDEM Organisation

[Carl Symons]

On 12/08/2014 08:14 AM, Thomas Pfeiffer wrote:
> On Saturday 06 December 2014 08:36:35 Carl Symons wrote:
>
>> At least some of the FOSDEM organizers believe that it's important. They
>> have a social conduct policy. It's published in the front of the program
>> brochure. Apparently John doesn't think that it is proper (whatever that
>> means):
>>
>> "Social conduct policy
>>
>>     The FOSDEM organisers were surprised to hear that
>>     harassment is a common problem at open source conferences
>>     around the world. While we have no evidence of antisocial
>>     behaviour ever having been a problem at FOSDEM, we would
>>     like to remind everyone that harassment of any kind will
>>     not be tolerated.  Please report any concerns to a FOSDEM
>>     staff member (yellow shirts), or contact our coordinator
>>     Wynke on (telephone number)"
>> from the 2014 conference in plain view
>> (https://archive.fosdem.org/2014/assets/booklet-a1fec82960ed17ed7974bc2e9951
>> dfc898c83318f8634f7ee046d952ada8ecb7.pdf)
>
> That sounds pretty much exactly what at least I would be looking for in a code
> of conduct, I think it is quite well written and balanced.
> However, the important disadvantage of making your CoC available only to
> people who are already _at_ the conference is that people for whom the
> presence of a CoC is a criterion for joining the conference will never know
> there is one.
> So if they just put their social conduct policy on their website in addition
> to the brochure, I think it would be fine.
> Could you maybe ask your FOSDEM contact if they could do that, Carl?
> Thanks,
> Thomas

Closing the loop on this request...

About 2 hours after this message, I wrote to the FOSDEM contacts. 
Message below [1].

I did not receive a reply, and I can't find anything about the Code of 
Conduct on the FOSDEM site.

My colleague (a woman) wrote:
"Not that I am personally against a code of conduct, but being a FOSDEM
attendee for the last 3 years, I don't feel that FOSDEM is not
welcoming to women, or that it discriminates in any way.

"I might be biased since I am one of FOSDEM organizers, but I truly
think that FOSDEM is the foss event with less, if any, discrimination.
But I would also be truly sorry if someone had a bad experience we
don't know of."

Carl

[1] Message to FOSDEM contacts
------------------------
Mon, 08 Dec 2014 09:49:29 -0800

This issue has generated some interesting conversations within KDE.

One person who supports your social conduct policy asked if it would be 
possible to have that statement on the FOSDEM website for people who 
don't actually attend and receive the attendee booklet. Perhaps a link 
on the About page.

That person wrote:
"That sounds pretty much exactly what at least I would be looking for in 
a code
of conduct, I think it is quite well written and balanced.

However, the important disadvantage of making your CoC available only to
people who are already _at_ the conference is that people for whom the
presence of a CoC is a criterion for joining the conference will never know
there is one."

Do you think that there could be a website link to the policy?
------------------------