Source Code of Conduct
When you’re not the audience for “security theatre,” it’s all too easy to dismiss its effectiveness.
The great and respected user experience guru Jared Spool wrote a long and thoughtful piece about the usefulness (or lack thereof) of conference codes of conduct, which you can read here.
This comes after a week of relatively polite uproar when some people — all white men, for the record — declared codes of conduct to be toothless, namby-pamby, politically-correct feel-good pablum.
The idea of a conference code of conduct is to create a social contract around permissible behaviour at an event. It’s not a legal contract, and that is where some people miss the point. It’s not about promising specific remedies (although in theory they can) or setting the conference organizer up for liability in case of “jerks being jerks,” or worse.
What a conference code of conduct is really about is setting a tone, and sending a message: We are watching and listening, and we are here to help, we’re all in this space together, so let’s be our best selves when we interact.
In a sense, Mr. Spool is correct when he says that codes of conduct promote the “feeling” of safety. That is the intent.
As a frequent flyer, he has experienced TSA security checks more than most people. He draws a straw comparison to them, however, when he calls them “theatre.” The point is, he is not the intended audience. It is designed to shake the confidence of smugglers in how they have hidden their contraband, or of terrorists that they will not get selected for a special search.
Similarly, a code of conduct by itself may be “theatre,” but it has a psychological impact, and studies by no less a light than Dan Ariely show that ‘honor codes’ statistically reduce cheating. Similarly, other studies show that environmental elements can also affect people’s willingness to cheat. In short, if we think we’re not being watched or no one can see, we might risk trying to get away with it.
What a Code of Conduct does is send the psychological signal that yes, you are being watched; you agreed to this; and in turn, you will watch out for bad behaviour on the part of others.
Mr. Spool mentions his company’s meticulously-thought-out preparations to minimize harm and ensure safety — and I commend him for sharing them with us. I think he would do even better to publicize some of these preparations as a message to potential conference-goers that their safety is important.
To have well-trained staff and emergency plans is excellent. But as the testimony of thousands who shared their stories under the #BeenRapedNeverReported hashtag shows, if you don’t know who to go to, who you can trust, or even if you’ll be believed, all that staffing and preparation can be for naught.
Simply saying “trust us” is no comfort to someone with trust issues stemming from past incidents. Their fear is legitimate. A Code of Conduct demonstrates your good intent and invites attendees to publicly avow this intent. Without intent, there can be no design.
To draw another air travel parallel: As a frequent flyer, he is likely totally inured to the inflight safety demonstration, but someone who has never flown before needs to know this information. What good are all the safety features of this Embraer regional jet if you don’t know what they are, what to do, or who can help?
I think there’s great potential to back up the social promise of a Code of Conduct with the detailed planning expertise that veteran conference organizers like Mr. Spool and his team have. Maybe, as the GeekFeminism team have done with their creative-commons boilerplate Code, UIE, An Event Apart, and other groups can open-source what they know into a wiki guidebook for how to run safe and secure events. It can only help.
