It's definitely a difficult balance to strike, to provide guardrails for diverse groups of individuals, that ensure everyone can behave and be treated civilly.
I applaud you for your ability to stand up for yourself in moments of discomfort or where you feel others are being mistreated. Unfortunately, not everyone is as confident or as self-advocating as you, and a CoC can help protect those who are more likely to weather abuse in silence. Codes of Conduct serve several critical roles in large community gatherings but specifically they are a method for an event organizer to set expectations for acceptable behavior, this serves to:
1. Signal to attendees the atmosphere of inclusivity and tolerance which they can expect to experience (as a marginalized group or not)
2. Provide clear examples of inappropriate behavior so that individuals who are less proactive and self-confident do not dismiss their feelings for fear of being 'over-sensitive'
3. Ensure that transgressors cannot plead ignorance when they are admonished or removed for abusive behavior.
I applaud you for your ability to stand up for yourself in moments of discomfort or where you feel others are being mistreated. Unfortunately, not everyone is as confident or as self-advocating as you, and a CoC can help protect those who are more likely to weather abuse in silence. Codes of Conduct serve several critical roles in large community gatherings but specifically they are a method for an event organizer to set expectations for acceptable behavior, this serves to:
1. Signal to attendees the atmosphere of inclusivity and tolerance which they can expect to experience (as a marginalized group or not)
2. Provide clear examples of inappropriate behavior so that individuals who are less proactive and self-confident do not dismiss their feelings for fear of being 'over-sensitive'
3. Ensure that transgressors cannot plead ignorance when they are admonished or removed for abusive behavior.