> (Completely ignoring that local, state, and federal laws all already exist to handle all of it.)

Except that they don't. If I walk around a conference saying that all the women at this event are filthy whores who should go back to the kitchen, what law am I breaking? Do you really think that's acceptable behavior at a conference?

I've said it elsewhere: management sets the tone, not the code of conduct. If there is a random arsehole behaving badly, they get ejected, with or without code of conduct. But is a person of power behaves like an arsehole, then it's up to management to decide if proper behaviour is mandatory or optional.

My feeling is that codes of conduct mainly serve the salesmen and workshop providers. The thankfully defunct Ada Initiative was the worst actor, but others have stepped in.

Did you ever actually see anything like that? Because I've been attending to many of IT conferences and never ever seen something even remotely close.

http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassmen... - here is a very reasonable CoC that mostly deal with behavior that is actually law breaking.

https://www.python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

I know you weren't replying to me but I've never seen it. I also would never condone that kind of behavior, or even be associated with people who did that.

Someone actually flagged my comment, which to me is pretty jaw dropping. This isn't a topic we can discuss? Okay.

Only diversity in looks and skin color is endorsed. Not the diversity of ideas (at least when it comes to online discussions on the subject) or backgrounds or experiences ;-) Which seems to be the opposite of what the original goal was i think.

Please don't create new accounts to violate the guidelines with. Not only do we ban them (which we've done), but we ban the main account if it continues.

Dunno - I never met a person like that in real life either. Maybe I'm lucky to only deal with reasonable balanced people at conferences.