Change in wording?
Currently this has
- If a participant engages in harassing behavior, the conference organizers may take any action they deem appropriate, up to and including expulsion from the conference [with no refund]
"up to" makes it sound like this is the worst possible action. A couple of alternative wordings:
- "... may take any action they deem appropriate, including expulsion from the conference [with no refund]"
- "... may take any action they deem appropriate, including expulsion from the conference [with no refund]. Law enforcement may be contacted in the event of criminal harassment or assault."
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Housing Arrangements A Neglected Topic?==
In the last 3 years, I have been invited to attend two conferences by my immediate superiors, at two different jobs. In both cases, only one hotel room booking had been made, a fact I discovered ahead of time in both cases by calling the hotel to determine what kind of internet connectivity and security on the same they provided.
The first time, I just made excuses not to go -- first that we had a release coming up and I had code to write and test. He didn't accept that excuse, so finally I told him in meeting, in front of about half a dozen people (where he announced that I was going to said conference with him) that I couldn't go -- I had "band practice." He quizzed me on what kind of "band" it was I belonged to, and I couldn't resist. I told him -- "Oh it's a country and western band. You know, cheatin' songs...murder ballads ... that sort of thing." He blushed beet red, and did not pursue the conference thing after that.
The second time, I made arrangements to stay with a girlfriend who lived in the same city, on public transportation lines -- and then informed him and bcc'd to HR that since only one room was booked, I would be happy to stay with my GFF's family. He went freaking ballistic, because of course he got called on the carpet by HR.
Which brings us to the topic of housing arrangements. Conference organizers are at least partially responsible for providing enough hotel rooms at a reasonable enough price that people are not pressured to "double up" with -- well you know, people with penises. What are the recommendations? It seems to me that this sort of expectation has got to be fairly common if it happened to me twice in the past three years.
Privacy of Reports
One reason for not reporting incidents to the organizers is because few people who need a whistle blown on them relish the whistle-blower. Assuring people when reporting an incident that their report will be kept private is probably ideal... except that one generally has to share it at least with the person in charge of collating such things. I want more eyes before putting something in the main article.
Ideally any identifying information of the reporter or the subject of any harassment (not always the same person) would remain private except to uninvolved people directly dealing with anti-harassment enforcement, or law enforcement if their presence becomes necessary.
Barring the horrible what-if in "what if one of the anti-harassment enforcement team is themselves reported harassing someone", I just know that eventually someone's going to demand to know who accused them, especially if they're being ejected from the conference. It is probably best to maintain the privacy of the reporter even under those circumstances. Azurelunatic 08:33, December 8, 2010 (UTC)