And what was a dumb decision on the part of the conference organisers. It doesn't really have anything to do with why codes of conduct are a good or bad idea, though.
Whether they are a good or bad idea, maybe not, but whether they should be supported, opposed, or ignored, it is relevant. The group of people actively pushing for codes of conduct and the group of people making decisions like the one above have significant overlap, and empowering one empowers the other. It's kind of like the police. We need police and I want to like the police. But until they can police themselves and keep police abuse to an absolute minimum, supporting them should not be a foregone conclusion.
> The group of people actively pushing for codes of conduct and the group of people making decisions like the one above have significant overlap
That's just vague hand-wavy logic. One time, a group of people vaguely aligned with X did something stupid, therefore X is a fundamentally bad idea. Obviously that's not true. If a conference organiser puts together a bad conference do you say that conferences as a concept are terrible? Of course not. You say "that was a bad conference". When an organiser overzealously applies inclusive rules you don't say "inclusivity rules are bad", you say "that rule is bad".
