[saintPirelli]

After reading the "code of conduct" on their homepage I would assume that you have unknowligly broken something like

> "Using gendered terms like “dude” or “guys” to address a mixed-gendered group of people contributes to furthering exclusion of underrepresented individuals."

The fact that they included an option to "make an anonymous" report furthers the assumption that you just got under the political wheels of the conference.

[rplnt]

I'm fairly certain I saw "guys" used to address even women-only groups in American movies and TV.

Conference that wants to be internationally inclusive, which I assume a conference in English held in Germany wants to be, should not ostracize people based on grammar technicalities.

That's just one word, but pronouns in particular differ greatly across languages. Objects can have genders, occupations can have genders, plurals can differ or be the same, etc.. Someone who is not a native speaker can easily make a mistake that is related to gender.

It's always the intent that should be taken into account, not whether someone was offended.

[c12]

I've never assumed "guys" to be gendered, here it just refers to a group of people.

[Xylakant]

That's why it's pointed out in the CoC - to make people aware that not all people feel included by "guys". I know quite a few that don't.

[dsajames]

They may not feel included, but it's proper English to use guys as an ungendered reference to a group. It's been in the dictionary a very long time.

[Xylakant]

It’s also correct to use a male gendered pronoun in German to refer to a group of mixed gender, even though other options exist. But why do you insist on using a term of which a substantial group of people says that it makes them feel excluded once you’ve been made aware of that fact. What does it cost you to avoid that term? Stomping you right feet and yelling that “But it’s correct! The dictionary says so!” just makes you look like an insensitive jerk. Obviously it’s your call to make - it’s not against the law to behave like an insensitive jerk and nobody wants to deprive you of that right. But I totally can relate that people prefer not to be around other people that insist on behaving like an insensitive jerk just because a dictionary says it’s correct. So if you insist, you have to accept the consequences.

[tekknik]

Spend any amount of time with an ESOL person and you’ll understand why. This is only an issue in primary english speaking countries. English is a complicated language to learn because of all these “rules” primary speakers make up that aren’t actually defined in the language. Also at what point is there a line? should we remove all words that a group of people find offensive? should the people finding the words offensive adjust their viewpoint? i’ve known people finding words like “petty” (as in petty officer) and even “sir”/“ma’am” offensive so should we also stop using those?

[marme]

websters defines it as being genderless when being used to refer to a group of people https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/guy

[Avamander]

Especially if the person's native language might not even have genders.

[tekknik]

It’s proper english to refer to a mixed gender group as male. Whether that is “oppressive” or not and whether we should change the english language is another subject and should be outside the realm of a JS conference

[Xylakant]

Your quote is disingenious since it cuts the following, quite crucial sentence. The full paragraph reads:

  Sexism
  
  Using gendered terms like “dude” or “guys” to address a
  mixed-gendered group of people contributes to furthering 
  exclusion of underrepresented individuals. We strongly
  advise avoiding gendered pronouns as well as gendered
  terms.

The whole short paragraph is listed in the "please pay a little attention to this" section of the CoC under the following introduction:

  Inclusive language
  
  In our commitment to a harassment-free and inclusive
  environment we strongly believe it’s important to pay
  attention to harmful language patterns.

It's a fair assessment. It's certainly not obvious to foreign speakers - it certainly wasn't for me - but isn't it fair to ask people to think about the words they're using? To point out common speech patterns that may make other people unwelcome and ask them to avoid them? Why not use "folks" or "people" instead of "dudes" and "guys" to refer to groups of people of all genders? Would you as a presumably male person feel included if someone refers to your group as "girls" or "ladies"? Would you prefer if people used that in their talks?

Now, that this pattern has been pointed out to you, you can still feign ignorance and deliberately still use "guys" and "dudes" to refer to people that do not identify as guys and dudes but that would just make me refer to you as "boneheaded impolite dick" even though you might not identify as such.

[saintPirelli]

No, boneheaded impolite dick is fine dude.

[aembleton]

At least they make it clear, but that is quite a lot to consider https://2018.jsconf.eu/code-of-conduct/

[saintPirelli]

I really don't get how and - more importantly - why we moved from a common sense of "don't be a dick to other people" to the need to spell out pages and pages of behavioural guidelines.

[struppi]

OK, this is now totally off-topic WRT the original blog post, but... We had a very short code of conduct at SoCraTes Austria.

Then we thought about what might happen when we have a violation (endless discussions about whether that was actually a real violation and whether our response was justified, maybe even within the team).

So, we sat down and wrote a slightly longer version, which tries to spell out some unwanted behaviour and some guidlines for conference stuff ( http://socrates-conference.at/code-of-conduct/ ).

We also wanted to explain why we have the CoC in the first place and how we'd like people to behave. It surely is not perfect (probably too long and too short at the same time).

But if you think "don't be a dick to other people" would suffice as a CoC, imagine you are the organizer of an event, and then try to list all the things that might go wrong. Be creative - I'm sure you can imagine situations where it does not suffice.

[saintPirelli]

Fair enough, but can you imagine a CoC that suffices in any situation? You will have situations where someone is acting out and at the same time you didn't think of it in your CoC and you will still be able to identify the behaviour as unacceptable, in most cases rather quickly.

So if I say "well actually..." on your conference I might get escorted out even if nobody took offense, but if I race around on my skates and make people uncomfortable because they are afraid I might run into them, that's fine because it doesn't really fall under any point mentioned in your CoC?

That's obviously nonsense. Just don't be a dick. And if you are, be a dick somewhere else.

[sgift]

- Moderating communities sucks

- At some point you will have to make a judgement call as a moderator, if you have no written rules every decision is a judgement call

- Someone will not like your judgement call, you then get a discussion

- To make sure you don't waste time having the same conversation again you write it down

- Rinse 'n repeat, you now have a CoC, whether you like it or not

[saintPirelli]

I never had to moderate a community, but I that chronology makes perfect sense to me. I guess it is what it is then.

[krainboltgreene]

Yes, I too wonder why all social issues can't easily be solved by 7 word phrases. I also find myself, like you, thinking that everyone has the same "common sense"!

[saintPirelli]

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know this conference was aiming to "solve all social issues" with their code of conduct.