[teacup50]

"Harassment includes offensive verbal comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, religion, sexual images in public spaces, deliberate intimidation, stalking, following, harassing photography or recording, sustained disruption of talks or other events, inappropriate physical contact, and unwelcome sexual attention."

That's extremely open ended, based on perception rather than objectivity, and how we got donglegate.

As for physically threatening language online -- that's not being codified as a cultural ideal.

Also, trigger warnings? Really? The amount of coddling of easily bruised egos here is mindboggling.

Every race, creed, gender, and nation has members who have seen events that are a burden on the psyche and could "trigger" on any number of imaginable things. You, however, are focused on first world, tech industry, mostly white women.

Are you going to also post trigger warnings for discussions of Soviet era politics? Lots of people lived through some pretty horrendous stuff. What about apartheid? Rwanda? Serbia? Growing up with a single parent? Childhood bullying? Poverty? Substance abuse? Where does it end? How do you even keep track of it all?

You don't. You're selfishly focused on a comparatively wealthy, privileged subgroup that apparently has nothing better to do -- despite a world filled with real problems, including sexism -- than bludgeon people for failing to highlight "triggers".

This sort of disproportionate nonsense is exactly why I can't feel safe or comfortable around your segment of the tech industry. Your sense of ethics and rectitude is skewed far outside the norm, objectively unsupportable and irrational.

[lambda]

> That's extremely open ended, based on perception rather than objectivity, and how we got donglegate.

You realize that the PyCon organizers talked to the attendee in question to let him know that some of his comments had cause offense and left it at that, right? It was the internet hate machine (on both sides), his employer, and her employer, who took any actions. You can't really blame the policy for what happened; as far as I can tell, the conference did everything right, it's everyone else who overreacted.

> As for threatening language online -- that's not being codified as a cultural ideal.

I have no idea what you're talking about. What are you saying is being "codified as a cultural ideal"? What are you saying isn't?

> Also, trigger warnings? Really? The amount of coddling of easily bruised egos here is mindboggling.

And yet you're so afraid that someone might accuse you of mansplaining? I can't imagine how you can complain about a thin skin while in the same breath complaining about that term. If your mind boggles at coddling, maybe you should complain about such terms being used as rhetorical baseball bats; because all you're really doing there is asking for the same coddling in return.

By the way, I had added the trigger warning when I had originally planned on actually including some of the rape and death threats in my post; I then decided against it, and to only mention them, but neglected to remove the warning.

> Every race, creed, gender, and nation has members who have seen events that are a burden on the psyche and could "trigger" on any number of imaginable things. You, however, are focused on first world, tech industry, mostly white women.

Um, we're talking about first world tech industry stuff, among a first world tech industry audience, about topics that are more likely to be sensitive for such an audience as they involve rape and death threats against members of the first world tech industry. I don't know why the fact that other groups have other triggers has anything to do with this; it's something that's generally considered polite to do in these kinds of discussions, as someone following the discussion may be someone fairly directly affected by the topics discussed.

The comments I was considering quoting are not things that I would likely repeat in person to a group of people without knowing who was around and listening, as there are some people who are more sensitive to such things than others (I've had a friend faint at a graphic description of a medical procedure before; you never know when someone will be more affected by your words than you had expected). On the internet, you can never know who will be listening, so it's polite to provide at least a warning so those people who may be affected can skip over it or prepare themselves if necessary.

> This sort of disproportionate nonsense is exactly why I can't feel safe or comfortable around your segment of the tech industry.

Exactly what makes you feel unsafe? That I'm trying to show a certain amount of respect for other people? Or that you're being asked by the code of conduct to act in a polite and professional manner? I'm not really sure how that's supposed to make you feel unsafe.

[teacup50]

> Um, we're talking about first world tech industry stuff, among a first world tech industry audience, about topics that are more likely to be sensitive for such an audience as they involve rape and death threats against members of the first world tech industry.

So do you adjust your trigger warnings for all contexts and all people? Stay up-to-date so you can avoid the "trigger" du jour?

Or do you accept that nannying people in all contexts and all subjects is beyond any reasonable ken, and people are responsible for their own welfare?

> I have no idea what you're talking about. What are you saying is being "codified as a cultural ideal"? What are you saying isn't?

Rape and death threats are not being codified into conference codes of conduct, are not considered to be, by any rational observer, acceptable behavior, and -- let's be perfectly honest -- are not actually strong threats. Public figures receive hateful correspondence, often from unbalanced or broken people, and especially regarding more controversial topics.

That occurrence is not representative of the population at large, nor is it representative of the industry, and occurring outside the bounds of the industry and without any acceptance as part of our culture, it's certainly not relevant to the conversation other than as a footnote on the broader lack of cultural civility.

On the other hand, when members of the industry, with their name attached, with a large following, who participate in conferences by setting or helping form codes of conduct, women-only conference services, and otherwise inhabit a privileged industry position that gives them the opportunity for discrimination, use sexist, racist, and exclusionary words, terms, and language, then I'd say it's being codified in industry culture.

> On the internet, you can never know who will be listening, so it's polite to provide at least a warning so those people who may be affected can skip over it or prepare themselves if necessary.

That's ridiculous. You can never know what will be a "trigger", either, and you're myopically focused on a narrow and selfish definition.

> Exactly what makes you feel unsafe? That I'm trying to show a certain amount of respect for other people? Or that you're being asked by the code of conduct to act in a polite and professional manner? I'm not really sure how that's supposed to make you feel unsafe.

That perceived offensive is now more important than objective truth, and alone is enough to cause one to be pulled aside at a conference, lose your job, or libel a company or person publicly.

That's more than enough to be made to feel unsafe and unwelcome, and "trigger" warnings only serve to reinforce the appearance of Orwellian groupthink, with-us-or-against-us, that your position embodies.