[Battlemesh] Code of conduct

[Nemesis]

Although I don't like the name "Code of conduct", I support the practice
of protecting individuals from harassment.

I am really tired of participating to wireless community initiatives and
being harassed verbally or via mail.

At the battlemesh this has not happened - YET. Yes there have been
heated discussions but that's ok and we need that!

But we should be able to deal with harassment it if it happens.

What do I mean for harassment? Stuff like yelling, bad sexist jokes,
racism, bullying, threaths and I would go as far as to mention seeding
discontent and mistrust in the community.

The bad thing about harassment is that it will make your community lose
genuine participants while the harassers and the bullies remain, in the
long run you'll have a group of bullies and passive people that tolerate
them, while the rest who can't tolerate the bullies will leave. I've
seen this situation happening several times already over the years and
it's very demotivating.

The event organizers and hosts can deal with it - if they want. It's
just a matter of will. And it is surely much easier to enforce such
giudelines during an event that happens in a week rather than an entire
wireless community that needs ongoing effort.

I think the price to pay for enforcing a code of conduct it's much
cheaper than the price to pay for tolerating harassment, which
ultimately leads to the death of a community.

+1 for a code of conduct, or if you like a better name, participation
guidelines.

Federico



On 07/30/2015 04:00 AM, Mitar wrote:
> Hi!
>
> OK, I hopped it is clear why code of conduct is needed.
>
> Code of conduct is to empower individuals who experience conduct
> violation. Not for the community as a whole. If community as a whole
> experience something problematic, community can handle it. But the
> question is what are we providing to individuals to feel safe and
> welcome? Are we providing for them some "rules of the space" to give
> them such safe space? So that they can know what to expect, that their
> backs are covered, and what are steps they can take if they feel violated.
>
> Also, having code of conduct is useful because it can make violations be
> handled privately, without victim having to expose themselves publicly,
> making the whole thing public. Sometimes it can be a pretty easy
> solution (apologizing and recognizing the issue), but if the issue gets
> pumped to the whole community, because this is the only way we know how
> to deal with things, it can get out of hands (victim blaming/shaming, etc.).
>
> We want our conference to be inclusive and safe space. And existence of
> code of conduct is a signal that we are at least trying to make it so.
>
> If you feel that it is not needed, congratulations, you are lucky and/or
> privileged. But can you imagine a situation when something happens to
> somebody/they experience something and they do not know what to do? To
> whom to talk? What, the best option is to send a public e-mail to the
> mailing list?
>
> If your answer is, "no, they should just go and talk to XY", exactly,
> then we have a code of conduct, so let's just write it down.
>
> This one is a good code of conduct for events:
>
> http://opensourcebridge.org/about/code-of-conduct/
>
> Another great resource:
>
> http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassment/Policy
>
> (See the answer under "Why have an official anti-harassment policy for
> your conference?")
>
> http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Code_of_conduct_evaluations
>
> See also section under "diversity":
>
> https://opensource.com/life/15/7/how-to-plan-an-open-source-event
>
>
> Mitar
>
>>
>> On 29/07/15 20:48, Gio wrote:
>>> I agree with Antonio, in the past we had an incident with a talk that was
>>> military propaganda, almost everyone boycotted the talk as soon as she/he
>>> realized it was military propaganda, there was no code of conduct but
>>> community expressed his will, and from that moment everyone know that
>>> military
>>> stuff are not welcomed at Battlemesh
>> You should probably rephrase that to 'any propaganda / marketing talk is
>> not welcome, and that includes from government, companies and everyone
>> else'.
>>
>>
>>