Friday's Unscientific Poll: Chatham House Rules

[nanila]

Poll #21430 Chatham House Rules

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 55

If I say "Chatham House rules", you say

But of course.
33 (60.0%)

Er, gesundheit?
22 (40.0%)

To invoke Chatham House rules in a meeting is to say that if information about that meeting is disclosed to non-attendees, the informant may not identify (i.e. name) the source of that information.

Comments

[caulkhead]

Actually, what I say is "Your article says the conference was held under the Chatham House Rule, but proceeds to name every single speaker. AS the conference organiser, would you mind telling me what you think the Chatham House rule actually is?"

[nanila]

HA! Well played. (By you, not them!)

[caulkhead]

They thought it meant you could quote people provided you attributed the quotes, so pretty much 180 degrees from the original.

[davidgillon]

Laughs helplessly.

[tree_and_leaf]

Aaargh!

[recessional]

Slightly more accurately: "sounds shady."

[nanila]

My most recent experiences of meetings where Chatham House rules have been invoked have been in the rather pettier context of "and now we're going to talk trash about people we don't like". And this was by allegedly professional people. *eyeroll*

[recessional]

Honestly that is EXACTLY the shady-vibe I mean. XD my immediate sense was "...you're trying to get away with something."

And talking shit counts. I mean it is very PETTY shadiness indeed but. It's still totally "and now we're going to get away with bad behavior due to using a serious sounding name."

[nanila]

To be fair, I have also seen it invoked in legitimate contexts, at more formal meetings where discussion of sensitive (e.g. defence technology, patent) information has taken place.

[recessional]

Fair! And that makes total sense.

But yeah I still have a very automatic reaction of "....shady". XD

[legionseagle]

I've heard it invoked in SASIG contexts, where obviously it's useful for someone to say, "And we had this absolutely horrible security breach, and the lessons we learned for security best practice were..." and know that Chatham House rules apply.

[davidgillon]

Seems to happen all too often when invoked over meetings involving politicians discussing how to ru(i)n other people's lives.

[highlyeccentric]

I will frown and try to remember if that's the rules for deciding who speaks in a meeting

[legionseagle]

Trust me, if you've ever been (even briefly) to one of the technical meetings at a Worldcon, you'll know it isn't and what is.

[pbristow]

My answer would have been "Yes it does!". =:o}

[nanila]

DING DING DING WINNER

[cmcmck]

As Chatham is one of the Medway Towns in Kent where I grew up, I always find the term rather insulting!

[davidgillon]

I find it somewhat bewildering to associate Chatham and high level discourse!

[cmcmck]

You won't find a Rochester lass disagreeing with you! :o)

[davidgillon]

Having lived in both, that's no surprise!

[siliconshaman]

I did a therapeutic counselling degree... I think they're my default setting now.

[thekumquat]

Half my life is probably under Chatham House Rules... Basically totally off the record and definitely no publicity of anything said or who said it. Though a list of who was at a meeting or that the meeting occurred wouldn't necessarily be covered. (that gets you into proper 'can neither confirm nor deny' territory!)

May or may not lead to scurrilous gossip, though when I used to attend industry forum dinners to take notes I was always relieved when we got to CHR bits, because I could stop scribbling...

[bryangb]

Nope, the Chatham House Rule is that you can use information from the meeting - typically this includes reporting what was said - but you can't say who said it. So it is on-the-record but non-attributable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham_House_Rule

[rmc28]

I know the term and what it means, but it irritates me because it is unnecessary jargon that excludes people Not Quite The Right Sort. "oh we are all such sophisticates, we have a Special Word for not identifying a source of information outside the meeting". Especially one that references such a specific place of political power and discussion.

Obviously I love my Significant References (mostly to stuff about which I am fannish) but honestly the older I get the more I value direct, straightforward communication about what is desired. The indirect referentialness of CHR just annoys me in a professional context.