Miscommunication, error, and harassment are all legitimate concerns. Sometimes one person says something and another person hears it as offensive where no offense was intended. Sometimes people say things based on assumptions that they should have questioned but didn't. Sometimes they set out to dominate or hurt another person. These are three different things, and treating them as equivalent is more likely to make the situation worse than to help.
Creating the category of "unintentional harassment" diminishes the nature of actual harassment. If the statement "I was harassed" means only "someone said something with good intent that made me feel bad," then harassment is a minor thing, not worth bothering with. When words are stretched, they're stretched in both directions; if harassment has nothing to do with intent, then it's a relatively minor issue, and people who harass in the normal sense of the word can hide behind the dilution of the term. If the stretched meaning of the word becomes normal, they can say, "Hey, what's the big deal? All I did was harass her a little." Speech that "offends" simply on the basis that someone claims to be offended is a fourth category apart from miscommunication, error, and harassment. If it's a private conversation and someone says "Stop talking to me, hanging around me, etc.," that request should be respected regardless of the reason. But if we're talking about public speech, a requirement to stop amounts to granting anyone's emotions a veto on other people's public statements, and I've already discussed the problem with that. On 1/27/13 4:27 PM, Fitchett, Deborah wrote: > There's a reason the code isn't oriented around intent: which is that it's > perfectly possibly to think one's an upstanding equitable-minded person but > still make offensive comments that do in fact constitute harassment. This is > another thing I can say "been there done that" about, in various contexts. I > *thought* I was being respectful - but I wasn't. On at least one occasion I > was saying something racist; on at least another I was demeaning a friend. > Completely unintentionally, but if you accidentally step on someone's foot > it's still your responsibility to back off and say sorry the instant you > become aware of the fact. > > (There may not be a universal objective consensus as to what is or isn't > offensive, but nor is there a universal objective consensus as to what > someone's intent is. People say "I didn't mean to be offensive therefore I > didn't harass you" all the time, sometimes ingenuously, sometimes (as I did) > absolutely sincerely, and how are we to tell the two apart? Meantime someone > still got hurt.) > > So a code of conduct needs to allow for unintentional harassment in a way > that protects the person who got hurt without being unduly censorious to the > person who hurt. Which this code does: it says ~"If you're asked to stop > harassing behaviour you're expected to comply". Because if you didn't intend > offense then you'll want to stop as soon as you're aware you've offended. So > stop, and everyone moves on. You're not going to be banned for accidentally > stepping on someone's foot. > > If you persist or if your actions were really egregious then that's another > matter and that's why we need to mention other possible sanctions. But these > aren't things you're likely to do accidentally, so there's no need to be > stressed. > > Deborah > -- Gary McGath, Professional Software Developer http://www.garymcgath.com
