Which signs are appropriate?

[helene_t]

Jimmy, I'm just talking about my personal subjective criteria for appropriateness. I do not believe in, let alone care for, objective criteria. If the question was "which signs satisfy objective appropriateness" my answer would not have been "all", "some" or "none". It would have been "the question is meaningless to me".

 

Anyway, whatever such a committee would be able to decide, that would be just as subjective.

[Echognome]

it really has nothing to do (in my mind) with what actually happened, i am arguing philosophically... so if you think noone has to define the meaning of 'appropriate' in this context, you must see that the 'some signs' answer and the 'all signs' answer are the same

I think I see the difference here.

 

What seems to be argued in order to be in the "some" camp, you have to go through the painstaking process of determining exactly what is appropriate and what is inappropriate. However, I don't believe that is to be the case. I brought up earlier how we have a Code of Conduct at work. If you read it, you would see that it contained a lot of questions you have to ask yourself about whether something would be appropriate. We also had to have training on sexual harassment. Do you think that is all black and white? Of course not.

 

So how does one judge after-the-fact whether something was inappropriate and worthy of some disciplinary action? Well, here there is reasonableness. We were taught that you don't have to cater to the hyper-sensitive person, but you do need to cater to the reasonable person. If a reasonable person could take offense, then you should probably not take such an action.

 

The added complication is the very international nature of bridge. What might be fine to reasonable people in one country, might not be to reasonable people of another country. Thus, the WBF might want to make a few guidelines with additional restrictions depending on the host nation.

 

As an example, I can imagine that if the BB were held in Hawaii, it would be perfectly reasonable for everyone to wear shorts on the podium. It might not be reasonable at all if held in some other places. How do you address the difference?

[mycroft]

OK, I'll bite.

 

What does being gay or having gay friends (either) have to do with not caring so much for Hitler? Because he bumped off Ernst Roehm of the SA in connection with the Night of the Long Knives?

 

Well, I'm contrarian by nature. And while the Jews were the largest and most aggressively targeted group of the Holocaust, they weren't the only ones by any means - and I know no Roma or Jehovah's Witnesses.

 

And it wasn't just Roehm, it was the many many who were arrested, and somewhere between 4 and 10 thousand who died in the Holocaust.

 

See The Pink Triangle on Wikipedia for more of an explanation. Side note - I didn't realize until just now that that particular legacy of the Nazis wasn't repealed until the 1960s.

 

And .... uh .... I'm sure you didn't mean that was your best reason for not being so fond of Hitler.  :)

 

If I had meant that, I would have said it (and yes, I know that was a joke). As I said I'm a bit of a contrarian, and will happily pick a reason that makes my point that also comes out of left field.

 

Michael.

[Walddk]

So how does one judge after-the-fact whether something was inappropriate and worthy of some disciplinary action?  Well, here there is reasonableness.  We were taught that you don't have to cater to the hyper-sensitive person, but you do need to cater to the reasonable person.  If a reasonable person could take offense, then you should probably not take such an action.

Then we surely need another committee or three. The WBF Reasonableness Committee, with two sub-committees to define what a reasonable, unreasonable and hyper-sensitive person is.

 

This is a never ending story, my friend. Get rid of all signs and you avoid all this nonsense.

 

Roland

[blackshoe]

"Signs"

[Echognome]

So how does one judge after-the-fact whether something was inappropriate and worthy of some disciplinary action?  Well, here there is reasonableness.  We were taught that you don't have to cater to the hyper-sensitive person, but you do need to cater to the reasonable person.  If a reasonable person could take offense, then you should probably not take such an action.

Then we surely need another committee or three. The WBF Reasonableness Committee, with two sub-committees to define what a reasonable, unreasonable and hyper-sensitive person is.

 

This is a never ending story, my friend. Get rid of all signs and you avoid all this nonsense.

 

Roland

You are side-stepping the issue.

 

What are you going to do about acceptance speeches? Player's attire? How about their hygiene?

 

You can't make it just about signs as signs are only one aspect and our solutions are meant to be broader.

 

You think it needs a committee. Myself (and others) do not necessarily agree. I'm sorry, but this is a quite normal state of affairs for businesses. Some have to have groups dedicated to things like sexual harassment and codes of conducts. Smaller businesses might not. But it makes no sense to just make a blanket statement like "no signs" as it ignores the broader issues. What if the ladies had shouted out in unison during the ceremony "We didn't vote for Bush"? Are you going to treat that differently?

[cherdano]

So how does one judge after-the-fact whether something was inappropriate and worthy of some disciplinary action?  Well, here there is reasonableness.  We were taught that you don't have to cater to the hyper-sensitive person, but you do need to cater to the reasonable person.  If a reasonable person could take offense, then you should probably not take such an action.

Then we surely need another committee or three. The WBF Reasonableness Committee, with two sub-committees to define what a reasonable, unreasonable and hyper-sensitive person is.

 

This is a never ending story, my friend. Get rid of all signs and you avoid all this nonsense.

There is another way not to have an endless number of committees: just don't bother to form a committee unless there a serious, blatant violation of sportmanship at the event.

 

I suppose you are arguing that adopting my point of view, there would be an endless need for committees. Well, your point of view makes it necessary to have committee meetings right now, mine doesn't. Well, for now I am leading 1-0 in terms of number of committees (probably 2-0 in fact, as you want both a WBF and a USBF committee to consider sanctions), and I still claim that if the WBF just wouldn't bother to do anything about this "incident", there wouldn't be a need for a sign committee at any point in the next ten years. Wanna bet?

 

(And you keep ignoring the fact that signs or not, there may always be cases where the WBF has to draw a line about which kind of inappropriate behavior at a victory ceremony warrants punishment.)

[ralph23]

What are you going to do about ..... Player's attire?

We're not going to get back into Michael Moore's appearing nude again at the Oscars, are we ?? :)

[ralph23]

Then we surely need another committee or three. The WBF Reasonableness Committee, with two sub-committees to define what a reasonable, unreasonable and hyper-sensitive person is.

Wait, isn't that three sub-committees? (1) Reasonable; (2) Unreasonable; (3) Hyper-sensitive?

 

The "reasonable man" is a common legal concept in the US and we have a simple method for figuring out what such a hypothetical person would do (or would have done) in any given set of circumstances: We get 12 people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty, and ask them.

[Echognome]

Maybe I can put this another way for the "No" camp. Suppose that this whole discussion were not about signs. Just about "inappropriate" behavior. It seems that the proposed solution to deal with inappropriate signs is to say "no signs". But behavior is wider and there will always exist the possibility that someone will cross the line. I gave the example of the ladies shouting "We didn't vote for Bush." Then you might say "no shouting." What if they had a temporary tattoo that said "Bush" with a Ghostbusters-like slash through it? "No tattoos." This seems a very odd way to go about solving the problem. Why not just set out some guidelines that players are expected to behave themselves in accordance with? The guidelines can be determined by the WBF, their Zonal Organization, and the host country.

[Walddk]

Anyway, turn your attention to the other thread now ("We didn't vote for Bush"). USBF minutes (part 1) published.

 

Roland

[luke warm]

Jimmy, I'm just talking about my personal subjective criteria for appropriateness. I do not believe in, let alone care for, objective criteria. If the question was "which signs satisfy objective appropriateness" my answer would not have been "all", "some" or "none". It would have been "the question is meaningless to me".

 

Anyway, whatever such a committee would be able to decide, that would be just as subjective.

helene, i'm positive that i'd agree with whatever your definition of 'appropriate' might be .. i'm also (fairly) certain that someone somewhere would disagree with us

it really has nothing to do (in my mind) with what actually happened, i am arguing philosophically... so if you think noone has to define the meaning of 'appropriate' in this context, you must see that the 'some signs' answer and the 'all signs' answer are the same

I think I see the difference here.

 

What seems to be argued in order to be in the "some" camp, you have to go through the painstaking process of determining exactly what is appropriate and what is inappropriate. However, I don't believe that is to be the case. I brought up earlier how we have a Code of Conduct at work. If you read it, you would see that it contained a lot of questions you have to ask yourself about whether something would be appropriate. We also had to have training on sexual harassment. Do you think that is all black and white? Of course not.

 

So how does one judge after-the-fact whether something was inappropriate and worthy of some disciplinary action?

but that's the point, matt... it's true that your workplace has CoC and sexual harassment rules, but it's also true that if you were reported for violating either of those then *someone* (or some group) would have to determine whether or not your actions breeched the rules... so you can ask yourself all the questions you want about those things, the fact remains that if another employee disagrees with you, and says so by way of a complaint, someone other than you will say whether or not your understanding was correct... right?

[jonottawa]

"Signs"

We folks from Ottawa have a pretty good track record on this subject.

 

EDIT: Link added subsequent to officeglen's post.

[Echognome]

but that's the point, matt... it's true that your workplace has CoC and sexual harassment rules, but it's also true that if you were reported for violating either of those then *someone* (or some group) would have to determine whether or not your actions breeched the rules... so you can ask yourself all the questions you want about those things, the fact remains that if another employee disagrees with you, and says so by way of a complaint, someone other than you will say whether or not your understanding was correct... right?

Sure. If that *someone* (or some group) didn't exist, then there would be no discussion of sanctions either. This is what I don't understand. Is the concern that we need to have a separate group for a "trial" and for "sentencing"? If the behavior were not signs, but something else, someone would have to get involved. Imagine someone using all kinds of profanities in their speech or punching another player in the face. Why would the group for those offences be any different for this? I think the difference is that I'm bundling all of the behavior into one oversight. I'm not trying to add any extra layers of complexity.

[glen]

"Signs"

We folks from Ottawa have a pretty good track record on this subject.

Jon is noting that the rock group who wrote and recorded the signs track is from Ottawa.

[helene_t]

but it's also true that if you were reported for violating either of those then *someone* (or some group) would have to determine whether or not your actions breeched the rules...

Are we talking about the same kind of committee? If your point is that

IF "some" signs are allowed

AND someone shows a disputed sign

AND the incident may warrant a formal reaction from the WBF

THEN some WBF body (committee or whatever) must be given a mandate to interpret the "some" thing,

 

then I agree with you. But my whole point is that it may not be necessary (FWIW IMHO it is not necessary) to give formal approval of signs before they get disputed. Dealing with conduct issues afterwards on an ad-hoc basis saves a lot of work because even if a sign is shown and it pisses a lot of people off, a formal reaction from WBF may not be elicited.

 

In general I think having "simple" rules like "no signs" leads to more bureaucracy, not less. This is because it creates an (IMHO completely unnecessary) need for defining if a particular symbol (inscription on clothes, jewelry etc.) counts as a "sign". Even worse, Fred limited the subject to "political signs" so it may even create a need for clarification of whether a particular sign is "political".

 

Of course there are many situations in which such "simple" rules are really simple (without quotation marks) and helpful. I don't think the issue of political (and similar) displays at the award ceremony of the Venice Cup is such a situation, but if you think it is, fair enough.

[jikl]

As Helene has said, (well very much distilled) it is all about pre-approval. If you take a sign up that is not approved you face a sanction. Simple as that. Even it is of the purest intentions for a sick or dead team mate etc.

 

Let me put it this way, if someone was about to get up on the stage to accept a medal with a tshirt that said (Insert multiple profanities here or any derogatory comment), would they be stopped? Yes.

 

Same situation.

 

Sean

[helene_t]

hu? I thought one of the things we could all agree on is that pre-approval is a ridiculous idea (Fred was sarcastic when he introduced the idea). Do you seriously support pre-approval, or are you being sarcastic as well?

[luke warm]

but it's also true that if you were reported for violating either of those then *someone* (or some group) would have to determine whether or not your actions breeched the rules...

Are we talking about the same kind of committee? If your point is that

IF "some" signs are allowed

AND someone shows a disputed sign

AND the incident may warrant a formal reaction from the WBF

THEN some WBF body (committee or whatever) must be given a mandate to interpret the "some" thing,

 

then I agree with you.

that's it, helene... there has to be some group and any action taken has to be after the fact... it would be impossible beforehand, which is why without such a group the "some" voters and the "all signs" voters are saying the same thing (given that there is nobody deciding)

but that's the point, matt... it's true that your workplace has CoC and sexual harassment rules, but it's also true that if you were reported for violating either of those then *someone* (or some group) would have to determine whether or not your actions breeched the rules... so you can ask yourself all the questions you want about those things, the fact remains that if another employee disagrees with you, and says so by way of a complaint, someone other than you will say whether or not your understanding was correct... right?

Sure. If that *someone* (or some group) didn't exist, then there would be no discussion of sanctions either.

that's it in a nutshell... if that group didn't exist, the appropriateness of any action is left up to the individual's interpretation of the CoC... but that group, luckily, does exist, be it a boss, a committee, whatever

[the hog]

Surely this whole discussion is totally pointless. The decision to display a sign or make a statement or whatever should be totally up to the individual. If your governing body doesn't like it, then fine, they have the option of not selecting you again.

 

You made the decision, you wear the consequences; it depends how strongly you feel about an issue.

[helene_t]

OK so we were talking about two different comitees.

 

But you seem to say that "no fomal rules", "no formal rule enformcement" and "no rules" is the same. I voted "no signs" but I'm against a formal ban. I suppose you think I'm saying the same as the two other groups, then ... but I beg to differ.

[geller]

Surely this whole discussion is totally pointless. The decision to display a sign or make a statement or whatever should be totally up to the individual. If your governing body doesn't like it, then fine, they have the option of not selecting you again.

 

You made the decision, you wear the consequences; it depends how strongly you feel about an issue.

The problem is the protester is not representing herself, she is representing the USBF (in this case) in a WBF championship being held in China, hosted by the CCBA. So if her holding up the sign is inappropriate (let's say this is the case for the sake of argument) then not only the individual protester but also the USBF can be held accountable. Therefore it behooves the USBF (and all other federations) to exert control over the actions of players who represent them.

[jikl]

As Helene has said, (well very much distilled) it is all about pre-approval. If you take a sign up that is not approved you face a sanction. Simple as that. Even it is of the purest intentions for a sick or dead team mate etc.

 

Let me put it this way, if someone was about to get up on the stage to accept a medal with a tshirt that said (Insert multiple profanities here or any derogatory comment), would they be stopped? Yes.

 

Same situation.

 

Sean

 

hu? I thought one of the things we could all agree on is that pre-approval is a ridiculous idea (Fred was sarcastic when he introduced the idea). Do you seriously support pre-approval, or are you being sarcastic as well?

 

OK, note to self, do not respond on forums when watching TV, reading the forums, and in the middle of chatting online to someone. It just doesn't work, I have skipped whole sentences and I now understand why I got some strange responses in the chat. Anyway...

 

I did not mean to mention you Helene in the first sentence at least.

 

I started off in the "some" camp.

 

My analogy of the person with a t-shirt saying (Insert anything really bad here to any culture/religion or all of the above etc) is still valid. They would be stopped getting on the stage or forced to change the said piece of clothing. This could range from the mildly offensive (depending on context), to generally offensive. For instance, let's say it was the planets Jupiter and Neptune in the SSBC (Solar System Bridge Championships; Neptune lost, so when they come up for their silver medals they all wear t-shirts (or bodysuits in the strangely universal sci-fi genre) bearing the message "Jupiter only won because ABC and DEF cheated throughout the whole competition", would this be acceptable? No.

 

Would they be allowed to get onto the stage wearing that? That is an interesting question; who could stop them? Is there some sort of security at a BB/VC/SB (or in my particular case the SSBC) that could stop them? Maybe this is not a relevant point. If they could be stopped with our current measures, they would. As would anyone with a message saying that we should nuke a certain country, ot one that wants to obliterate a certain religion.

 

So now we have the possibility that even clothing can not be properly pre-approved. Which means, (going back to an earlier example I used), anyone could have decided to wear a "Free Tibet" t-shirt to the award ceremony under a jacket then opened the jacket to display it (if it got through customs in the first place).

 

Let's get to signs; any sign can be hidden. Any person displaying any sort of sign without some sort of pre-approval after this event knows that there will be probable sanctions. (On a side note here, this gets VERY complicated where a country might overturn a WBF sanction by their local authority, WBF appeals, but loses in the Court of Arbitration for Sport [if we are defined as a sport, or if hobbies fall into this jurisdiction, again more complicated by recent attempts for Olympic accreditation]). So, will pre-approval work? No, it won't. It will only work for those signs that everyone would agree to, the dying or dead team-member etc argument. Would this need a committee? Politically, probably yes. The team captain or country representative at the event, a WBF representative and the hosting country. If it is purely a dying or dead team member, this will always get through, and it will take them 3 seconds to approve it. If it is anything that takes them longer than 3 seconds then it should probably be disapproved (unless this 3 person committee now needs a 6 person committee so that each have independent translators as it is completely politically incorrect to insist all signs be in English [and then it is possible that not all members can read English, but may be able to speak it to a limitted extent]).

 

Damn, this got very complicated, very quick.

 

OK, now to where I mentioned Helene, she mentioned this:

 

Are we talking about the same kind of committee? If your point is that

IF "some" signs are allowed

AND someone shows a disputed sign

AND the incident may warrant a formal reaction from the WBF

THEN some WBF body (committee or whatever) must be given a mandate to interpret the "some" thing,

 

then I agree with you. But my whole point is that it may not be necessary (FWIW IMHO it is not necessary) to give formal approval of signs before they get disputed. Dealing with conduct issues afterwards on an ad-hoc basis saves a lot of work because even if a sign is shown and it pisses a lot of people off, a formal reaction from WBF may not be elicited.

 

Let's use an ambiguous but extreme example that lurks in a weird part of law. "I saw the Chief Tournament Director and the Head of the Appeals Committee spending $1,000 bills last night after the SSBC final"; the silver medallists wear this, but it is actually true, they were. What is the motivation behind this sign? Is it litigious? The sign-bearers can always claim truth, the defendants will always claim defamation. Both are true, but probably untrue in a court of law.

 

The safest thing is no signs. Otherwise someone will take a sign too far in the future and it will end up in court. (This is even though I would like the "Get well soon" or R.I.P. one for a teammate).

 

Sorry for the lenghty post.

 

Sean

[geller]

Sorry for the lenghty post.

 

Sean

You can edit it at any time if you want to Just click on "edit."

[hotShot]

The safest thing is no signs. Otherwise someone will take a sign too far in the future and it will end up in court. (This is even though I would like the "Get well soon" or R.I.P. one for a teammate).

 

Sorry for the lenghty post.

 

Sean

It may be safest, but the only the home of the brave can be the land of the free.

 

"He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither"

"People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both."