Presumably someone for whom the "low fragrance" Beantown Stomp policy was insufficient would not show up in the Beantown Stomp registration data. They would have opted out of Beantown Stomp. There is no option on the survey for "this policy is insufficient for me and I will not be registering because of it" (and the registration form would be a weird place to capture non-registrants anyway).
I'll add one other thought: contra expects or even requires very close contact with everyone in the room. Experienced dancers can sometimes swap with their partners in real time to avoid certain moves that prolong contact, and in large halls folks can try to stay to lines that avoid folks they prefer to avoid, but barring agreed-upon deals where, say, two folks only dance in different lines after a breakup, you should expect to be touching everyone in the room for potentially multiple minutes a night and have their face within 1-2 feet of yours for multiple minutes a night. I've even had a caller come and physically walk me from the line I was in to the line containing someone I had been trying to avoid.
I think this is relatively uncommon in other public situations, even other dance forms. Usually you have more discretion about who touches you or breathes on your face. An exception might be a very crowded bus or subway car, but in my experience skin to skin contact even there is fairly rare.
I think this expectation of universal semi-extended close contact does rightfully change the social norms a bit.
1Just an anecdote: I've looked with envy at some of the Pinewoods week advertising and wondered if there is a way I could Tetris a Pinewoods week into my life for some future summer. Then this year I read a friend's post about the steps to replace every product in their routine with an unscented version in the lead-up to Pinewoods and all I could think was that I simply don't think I will be able to Tetris Pinewoods in for many summers into the future if this additional task is a requirement. I don't know what a reasonable estimate is of the burden. 5 hours and $200? More? Less?
I'm fortunate to have relatively forgiving skin, hair, etc. If someone handed me a bag of unscented products to start using a week ahead and use through Pinewoods I would not be feeling or looking like my best self (I prefer the feel of the sunscreen and lip balm and lotion I'm used to, I prefer how I look with my normal conditioner, etc.) but I could manage. Maybe I could pay to have this shipped to me? That's the only way I can imagine making it work for me as a time constrained and slightly budget constrained rule-follower who would be maxing out on spoons and flex time to get to Pinewoods itself at all. But many people would be much more uncomfortable than me committing to using products someone else issued them.
I'm aware of at least one prominent community member (travels for many events a year, well known and well liked, etc.) who is sensitive to fragrances and takes many steps to make things as safe as practical. I don't think this is founder effect, exactly, but something related.
I've shared this post with several friends who are considering smart watches for their kids. I'm curious if your kids have hit the contact limit and if so, how you've dealt with that.
The other thing I keep coming back to is: why doesn't it use T9? As someone who used to wear a 16-button Casio calculator watch daily and who was texting in the T9 era, that seems to me like an obvious improvement.
We did this growing up. We brought sleeping bags to dances and set them up somewhere safe. Under the hall's piano was a frequent choice if the band had brought a keyboard. No one would step on us there. Bedtime was at the end of break, which was later than normal bedtime. Lots of good memories of falling asleep to contra music and contra feet. I don't know that we would have fallen asleep at our normal bedtimes in that environment. My kids will, I hope, do the same in a few years.
For the results of a different survey, 10 years ago, asking similar questions: https://reason.com/2014/08/20/helicopter-parenting-run-amok-most-ameri
Nearly half of respondents think it should be illegal for a 12 year old to play solo at a park. It's over 2/3 for a 9 year old. Those are tough numbers.
1I'm glad this worked for you, but would your thought be to use unique signs for each kid if each had a multi-month signing phase?
In particular, I would not use this approach too extensively if your kid may want to be able to communicate with others who work with kids - teachers at daycare, speech pathologists, many nannies, other pediatric medical professionals etc. I do agree that straight ASL isn't quite right either. Our kid's speech pathologist uses a lot of signs but chooses for example to use "car" - a fairly easy sign - for all vehicles since bus, train, etc. are more abstract or complex. This approach has allowed our kid to communicate with a range of people over the relevant time period, not just our household.
I'm fairly surprised to read this, as I continue to be surprised by the number of my friends and acquaintances who have flown home with COVID despite having the means not to. Every flight I've taken since the pandemic started, I've taken the time to game plan what would happen if I or someone in my party were to test positive during the trip. Did you not do this? On the scale of the incomes you have posted on your blog previously, $2000 or so is not very much.
And from the JetBlue policy you linked to, I guess you bought Basic Blue fares?
It seems like you chose to be your own insurance policy and then decided not to pay out.
Several airlines, at least as of a few months ago, required me to check a box confirming that I had not tested positive for COVID in some recent amount of time, or had a fever. Is this no longer the case, or did you choose to check that box?
Maybe the risk numbers make sense here, but planes/airports are one of the hardest places to avoid to be able to participate in society normally and I am surprised by your choice given all the other posts in which you seem exceedingly concerned about not spreading COVID.
I appreciate that this particular issue is one you have to grapple with personally, but it is of a type that I come across nearly daily and I think it's probably a better use of our time to try to establish a better common understanding of the balance between what is said and what is meant than to advocate fully detailed policies for every social interaction.
Two examples from my life:
These examples illustrate my point that it is very common in society to be left to interpret the true meaning of a stated rule. In example (1) I could tell they couldn't mean it as written and could infer what they almost certainly did mean. In (2) I was left to my best judgement.
I think your point is that more places should have detailed, explicit, and reasonable policies, because there exists too many possible interpretations of the current policy some of which are too burdensome and some of which are too permissive. For something like a dance weekend or a daycare, a fuller policy could be provided in a somewhat functional format. For a single dance, a full set of rules (cologne bad, shampoo OK as long as an average person can't smell it from 3 feet away, etc.) would quickly turn into a waiver type situation that probably 5% of people would read which doesn't make it a particularly practical solution.
What would be better? A world in which everyone was like you and me and approached every social interaction like a new board game with its own rule book is not the world we live in. In the end it's probably up to us to learn what we need to in order to make the burden-community wellness tradeoffs that others are perhaps able to make more instinctively.
The problem is that the folks that fail in the "didn't do enough" direction are easier to identify and correct. The "did too much" or "saw it so big a burden they opted out entirely" direction is harder to correct for. But probably "so burdensome that no reasonable person would attend" is a clue that we've gone too far.