The reason I think specifying people by name would have been OK is that 1 - they were presumably an issue for a number of attendees due to (prior) publicly stated positions and 2 - they apparently made subsequent statements via "broadcast" media such as Twitter, for anyone to peruse. This would be quite different if the people were more private, and if all discussions had been private and/or via non-broadcast tools like SMS or WhatsApp. Plus naming names could cause me to read what they had said and even disagree with the OP, at least on the baseline of non-inviting them. However the anonymity made the post much more interesting.
As he is pursuing legal options, I’m guessing his counsel told him not to.
Yes, OP had a good reason not to do so! and it made for an interesting essay.
At this point, I think it's more to avoid further escalation, as said in the article.
[1]https://twitter.com/unbalancedparen/status/11223070591548702...
The conferences were small (<200 people) but I don't remember the organization being as stressful as the article describes.
For me, the key sources of stress were:
1. hoping that tickets and sponsorship would cover our costs (at some point you have to pay for your venue, flights for your keynotes, etc. and this happens before ticket sales open). I think that we lost a few hundred dollars on the first conference and donated a few hundred dollars to the Python Software Foundation on the second one.
2. the BBQ. For both years, I arranged a beach BBQ but didn't have enough budget to deal with contingencies in the event of rain (remember this is Vancouver so the chance definitely exists). My plan was to refund attendees if we canceled the BBQ but that would have been thousands of dollars out of my pocket and lots of disappointed people. Fortunately, it didn't rain in either years.
I would say that convening a conference in a city where you have lots of connections really helps. For example, I was able to buy salmon direct from the docks for the BBQ because I knew someone who was willing to help me. I also used my family as the chefs (https://photos.app.goo.gl/C6yNzqMnBG98GxE36).
What I do remember being hard was not the planning but going without sleep during the conference itself. As a convener, I had to be at the venue before any attendees arrived, had to leave after the last attendee left and then still had to deal with issues, etc. for the next day.
Still it was tonnes of fun!
You can buy special event rain-out insurance for situations like these. Definitely recommend it.
Well the article describes a very shitty and problematic situation that sure doesn't look like the norm anyway (but is good to keep in mind just in case it could happen).
(You're probably looking at 1.5 to 3 years before you obtain any final orders - and then there's the issue of enforcing any orders you might obtain!)
If the audience has an issue with one speaker out of 10, they can take a lunch break then.
If it's one out of 2, I can see why they might not want to attend.
Using inclusion or exclusion to punish someone for past actions I would try to avoid at all costs. If someone has broken the law, the legal system is there to do punishment. It isn't your role as conference organiser/colleague/etc. to punish. You are not qualified to make decisions as to the veracity of the claim.
Perhaps the furthest I'd go is saying to them "you (rightly or wrongly) have a reputation for X. Please make sure none of that happens during the conference."
I had a similar experience in a class recently. I couldn't help but keep thinking "my 9 year old knows better than to behave like this" (and my 9 year old has his own developmental challenges). The behavior was really shocking considering everyone in the room was an adult.
Unfortunately there wasn't much I felt I could do. It was a short class, and I had the impression that this person was well versed in pulling the appropriate levers to protect themselves from any negative reaction to their behavior whatever they didn't like by claiming privilege, race, sex etc whenever possible (this person made lots of conspicuous references the very first day and the second .. .and so on before trouble started). They were also always just some terrible victim of something or other ... but as time went on it was pretty clear that it was all just a system that allowed them to behave poorly, make outbursts and bully others.
I specifically asked not to be in any groups with this person and my request was honored thankfully.
To be clear I mentioned privilege, race, and sex, any consideration of those things was NOT the source of the problem, had there been none of that I'm certain that the person in question would have found other ways to manipulate the situation, their behavior was the real issue.
It sounds like the proper response to this is to tell the individual to "fuck off and never come back", but looks like popularity mattered too much to the Derbycon organizers:
> Admittedly, we had no idea how to handle this person, and in fear of repercussion of removing this person, allowed them to stay at the conference in order to “not upset the masses”.
Guys, the response to adults acting like children is to completely ignore them and kick them out of your discussions. They do not deserve to be a part of your forum. Perhaps tell them why you're doing so, so they can improve themselves, but there is no need to deal with their shit.
At that point you know you made the right choice... the rest is mind boggling.
I’d be interested if her husband has a similar reputation in his field. Shame we don’t have any names, if only so their actions yield some sort of consequence.
Hopefully court pans out in the author’s favor (assuming what he said is indeed the true rendition of events).
As another person mentioned, DerbyCon got tired of dealing with it (https://www.derbycon.com/blog/derbycon-9-0-every-beginning-h...). And then had to respond to a bullshit storm related to their integrity a month later (https://www.derbycon.com/blog/derbycon-clarifications-inclus...).
Either way, this is an excellent example of why the Twitter Justice System is a bad idea.
Telling this story this way isn't likely to be seen as attacking someone else / not a huge benefit to them / perhaps LESS of an incentive to lie..
Believe the author or not, but there are some fucking Looney Tunes folks out there. If you go gathering a crowd of people above a critical mass, you're going to have to deal with a few of them at some point. That should be your take-away.
Maybe I'm missing something. Can you enumerate what he allowed people to do to her, and what she did to him? That way we can compare directly.
The person and a third-party engaged (allegedly) in doxxing and public shaming.
Even if the conference organizer was in the wrong, there's a world of difference between those two things.
Please explain that. What did he 'allow' 'other people' to 'do' to her?
Not quite the same thing.
> conferences tend to net to a loss.
If you put out a lot of energy, for "free", then you often get shit in return. If you don't take responsibility for what you are getting back for all your hard effort, things can easily go pear-shaped. This seems to be one of those mystical laws of the universe. I'm not saying you should be selfish, or charge big bucks for your time. There are plenty of ways for people to give something back, and you need to make sure that is happening too.
I think the Industry has invited this sort of bad behavior by rewarding Cry Bullies at conferences. People act enititled and they're not willing to put up with speakers who they may have political or philosophical problems with. Similarly, speakers are expecting privileged treatment too, like the spurned speaker in this blog posting.
When there is a real problem, we're unsure who or what to believe. People will complain with the same force whether the problem is big or small. And everyone tries for a "gotcha" and then to have a Trial by Twitter.
Sure sounds like a "cry bully" to me. Despicable behavior for sure, and it does validate his decision to not have her at the conference (after he was made aware that her participation at the conference would be highly problematic to others - particularly women, in fact).
Edit: Also a representative example from the twitter threads that were linked elsewhere in this comment thread: `"uh these people are like that, be careful. they take it out on someone, they see em as the enemy and they start to fuck legally, and you also start getting anonymous complaints". I feel like a fool, many knew and I did not. That's why these things have to be SPOKEN about, they shouldn't be hidden`
As a conference organiser, handling social media fires is especially hard, because you're at peak load already. You're organising a conference!
I'm surprised to hear a conference organizer say this, because I think it's an unrealistic goal.
There's a difference between people feeling as if their safety is being directly threatened by someone at a conference and someone feeling uncomfortable with a speaker because of, for instance, some of their personal views that they strongly disagree with.
(Edit: In the original version of OP's blog post, it did not say why people were uncomfortable with the speaker. It said, "My team and I were contacted by different people to warn us that they were uncomfortable with the participation of a speaker and her partner in our conference. They told the organization of the conference that we would have problems with the speaker and his partner. his communication took us by surprise since we had performed a basic background check on the chosen speakers to avoid these kinds of issues." The blog post was later updated to clarify, "They told the organization of the conference that this couple had caused problems to women in the community," which is still pretty vague.)
Obviously, conference organizers should be taking attendees' safety seriously and making sure they're not being subjected to harassment or unjust discrimination.
But if you take a "comfort is priority #1" mindset, it gives a lot of ammunition to people who dislike a speaker's political views or choices they might make in their personal life.
HN has had a bunch of previous threads about how welcoming conferences should be to speakers who hold unorthodox or unpopular opinions -- stuff that potential attendees might object to.
I think the general consensus has been:
If there is real evidence (e.g. past conduct at similar events) that they are likely to engage in conduct that directly threatens the safety of other attendees or otherwise violate the conference's code of conduct, it's a no-brainer. Disinvite.
If they hold unorthodox, potentially objectionable opinions, but there's no evidence that they're going to violate the code of conduct, and the issue is that people merely feel uncomfortable being around someone who holds such views (or they feel as if the conference is implicitly endorsing such views by having the person as a speaker) then you take one of several paths:
If the opinion is unquestionably beyond the pale, like something that 9 out of 10 attendees would say, "Yeah, that's truly awful," then it's a pretty easy decision. Disinvite.
If the opinion is about an issue that is merely controversial -- meaning that in mainstream society, there is a wide range of opinions (e.g. any strong opinion about abortion or guns) -- then you have to do some weighing of principles vs. practical considerations. If maintaining the person as a speaker is going to tank your conference, then even if you don't support disinviting them as a matter of principle, you might decide it's necessary on a practical level. But if it's not going to tank your conference, then you might be able to lean more heavily on principles.
Personally I know of someones who behaved a bit like was described in the article. I would not be comfortable being around them either, even though I was never a target of their wrath.*
*For the record I've no idea who the people in the article are and I'm 100% sure the people I'm thinking of are not them.
OP is saying a false accusation turned into a witch hunt because people believed an allegation posted on the Internet without question.
What makes you confident you're better at detecting the truth than the people who believed the woman's story?
But the orthodoxy is generally sincere in wanting to promote their preferred behavior, e.g. diversity or inclusivity, so they tend to write it into the code of conduct.
My sympathies go out to him, and I hope he get support in this, and it doesn't suck up their will to do good things for the community like organise conferences.
> Several people who knew both of them confirmed that they had had problems with them in the past. We also talked with the organizers of other conferences and with dev that are part of gender groups focalized in technology and all of them recommended us to take distance from them.
A woman alone, well, it could be the same if she's homosexual.
A couple? No problem figuring out they behave like idiots with everyone, as the article describes they did with the autor. But he says that they make women unconfortable specifically.
I'm not implying that this detail is suspicious, just that it stands out when you have incomplete information. Of course you can't ask jerks not to be weird :)
> My team and I were contacted by different people to warn us that they were uncomfortable with the participation of a speaker and her boyfriend in our conference. They told the organization of the conference that this couple had caused problems to women in the community.
There is a conference I've gone to twice now and really enjoyed, so I'm going again this year. But I expect as this conference grows, eventually this stuff will come along with it and I'll stop attending.
It's a shame, but I don't really pin this hostility on any particular group (ie, I'm not mad about "SJWs" or whatever). A lot of people acted in bad faith for a lot of years for us to reach this point. There is another poster in this thread talking about how "cry bullies" caused the problem. That kind of shit is not helping.
It's a hostile environment either way - even the male speaker in this whole drama was widely known as "a male chauvinist who persecutes and intimidates women at sector conferences" - which is why he was so unwelcome in the first place! But sunlight is the best disinfectant - throw out with prejudice ANYONE who is publicly known to engage in intimidating behavior, whether they're of the "male chauvinist" or the "SJW" sort. Let the pox fall on both houses.
(edit for the avoidance of doubt: I mean the dude who was disinvited by OP, of course.)
Edit: I already regret making this post.
My point is: on the one hand, if you disagree with the ideology, then... that's just that. You disagree about what is most decent to do. But I don't believe that you are confused about what other people's ideologies are -- you know perfectly well why they are doing the things they do, what value system informs their actions. So what's the point of protesting it here like you're bewildered about it? The only result is people shouting their stances at each other -- not a debate, or even an argument, at all.
I mention this, and risk making things worse, because I think it is important to recognize this thread as one of those pointlessly destructive ones, which changes nothing except to make people more annoyed at each other. It just amounts to people saying what they think and trying to make it sound abundantly reasonable so the other side sounds wrong. It's a fake argument; what's the point of starting it?
For me, it's fascinating how people can adhere to an ideology that is so overtly inconsistent. I like to hear the ways people try to reconcile such obvious inconsistencies. And one person's "bewilderment" is another person's "giving the benefit of the doubt that the ideologue is not so stupid as to espouse obviously self-defeating beliefs" which is necessary if the conversation is to have any hope of being productive.
Software development is no exception here. Yes, it is a safe desk job. Yes, it pays well. It also has a pretty brutal and risky filtering process on hiring, significant cyclicality, high amounts of skill and learning requirements, and the role very often demands high performance. Oh, and you spend your time on work that tends to be less intrinsically rewarding and meaningful than something like nursing. These are pretty natural tradeoffs that make a lot of people decide that the field isn't for them, and the same sort of self-selection processes wind up with things like "roughly 90% of workplace deaths are male" too. I don't think it's fair to put your hand on the scales here for only one gender.
NB: I actually kind of regret getting into programming - I suspect I'd have been much happier if I went with my second choice and became an electrician.
0% of midwives in Ontario are men. What's the right number? How should we endeavour to fix that? When do we know when to stop and be satisfied with the ratio?
It's so well documented at researched at this point that the imbalance is at least partially driven by differences in fundamental interests between genders ("things" vs "people"). You see this with nurses just as much as you see it with engineers.
But, these are all averages and distribution, so plenty of work to do to make sure those that aren't in the average can still pursue their interests without facing such an uphill battle. Conference speaking seems like a good way to help. But the goal of "balance" as 50/50 is not a good goal.
I understand that perhaps to some people this may sound like a statement made in an effort to counteract identity politics, but isn't it really its own brand of identity politics?
You're calling on the OP to ignore a thing, while you cannot ignore this other thing. It's weird.
I was with the author until the UX part. Why does everything have to boil down to color themes and padding? I don't see why you need to focus on this for a software program. It should be about correctness and performance.
I think that would probably make women feel unsafe.
Change communication channel immediately.
Don't invite someone and when they arrive tell them they are not welcome to speak. Post a list of speakers before, get your feedback and live with your decisions.
This is the best thing that could happen to your event. Use this time wisely to boost your event.
Is it just me or is there a group of people who seem to go to every conference?
Many things were learned. More research was probably warranted. Also, it's not the same to organize a conference for an existing community organized around some technology, e.g. Ruby, Python, NodeJS, etc and organizing an event that tries to span industry topics, it's much harder to know everyone or get references.
The speaker was notified in April 25. The conference will happen in mid-June. She was given fair warning.
Why? Part of diversity means being able to cooperate with people who have different viewpoints and ideologies.
Further reading about this person's aggressive and retaliatory behavior implies that this person has issues that should keep her out of conferences. But, I still think it's important to understand why attendees ask that she be removed.
If they're continuing to harass them as described, it seems like a prudent choice.
Experience tells me author is probably in the wrong here based on this sentence alone. This screams of those extreme lefties that want to police everybody else with their safe spaces and trigger warnings, then deplatform and unperson anyone who doesn’t agree with their agenda or worldview. Author should have disinvited those people instead.
”It was a difficult decision in which we prioritized the participation of the public that had reached out to us while also knowing that many people, especially women, wouldn’t come to the conference if we did nothing about this situation.”
This reeks of BS to me. We are supposed to believe that the presence of this particular woman at a conference will discourage women from attending? What the hell?
The reason for the extreme reaction was likely because it pissed them off that these extremists got their way, and successfully censored and unpersoned another victim. Admit it, you’d be pissed too.
If you don’t like one of the speakers, and you’re an adult, you skip that talk. Stop creating drama and find a real purpose in life other than being a professional victim.
Sure, I’d be pissed. I’d also not harass the organizer, their friends, and their employers as revenge. I’d also consider doxxing and false accusations to be beyond the pale even if I felt angry about losing a conference spot.
In fact, the act of doing that would prove that the organizer was completely correct in kicking this person out, and that the extremist was the speaker and not the organizer.
Being able to deal with people that make you very uncomfortable without creating a fuss is a fundamental requirement of adulthood. Regardless of the callous reaction of the un-invited person, it was not OK to un-invite them, at least for the reasons exposed in this article.
The organizer says:
> Being accused like that caused me harm.
of course it did. Just like the harm you did by cancelling invitations on behalf of a hypothetical discomfort of other people. It is exactly the same behavior.
The people removed from the conference have a history of disruption and harassment in the community. They were removed because of previous behavior that the organizer was not aware beforehand. He relied on the testimony of people he trust.
--
> Being able to deal with people that make you very uncomfortable without creating a fuss is a fundamental requirement of adulthood
The only people who engaged in "creating a fuss" were the speaker and a third-party related to her. They decided to come forward and "out" themselves. Up to that point, everything had been handled in private. There was no need to involve other people such as the organizer's girlfriend or other speakers.
--
> It is exactly the same behavior.
The organizer denied a speaking position and did so in private, without incurring any shame or denying participation in general.
The speaker and a third party started a campaign of doxxing, harassment and, as other commented put it: "public shaming using false allegations of stalking and harassment".
There's a world of difference between those two behaviors.
> Generally, the best scenario is to talk with the involved parties, to cooperate and to seek a solution that doesn’t make the problem bigger. This isn’t always possible. In this case they went public and accused me and I had to explain what happened.
One of the parties involved wasn't interested in civilized collaboration, but making false accusations instead.
I agree that, in the end, it is true that this person was a troublemaker that should not have been invited in the first place. However, it seems from the text that the organizers decided to cancel the invitation before receiving any input whatsoever from the concerned person. I cannot see how this is ok.
Imagine that this person has been bullied in such a way out of a dozen conferences by a concerted effort of a few colleagues that hate her. And for this last conference, she exploded with great and not completely unjustified ire. Whatever, it is a bit absurd to have an opinion on this question without information from both sides.
There wouldn't be much of a collaboration if people bail or a bad incident happens at the conference.
The fact that multiple people went out of their way to warn the conference organisers suggests this goes well beyond a normal difference of opinion.
In that context it was a difficult but correct call in my opinion.
Plus frankly if staying away from such people is uncivilized, then I'm ok with being uncivilized.
What she accused him of doing was entirely false while uninviting her was based on something entirely true. You are comparing harm caused by false accusation to one caused by actual grievance.
This is certainly true, looking at the unfolding of the events. Yet, this information is missing in the text, where it seems that the organizers actions were guided solely by the "discomfort" manifested by other participants, that pressured them to reject another invitee. This sounds pretty much "giving in to undue pressure".
