10 ms·

O'Reilly to adopt anti-harrassment Code of Conduct for Oscon

51 points by jdp23 15y ago

shubber 15y ago
Much as I'm glad to see something along these lines, I'm a little taken aback that it took this long to publish. Even the original post refers to "last Oscon," and O'Reilly runs a lot of conferences. Last Oscon wasn't the first time "something happened."
- kscaldef 15y ago
  This OSCON is the first (that I know of) where speakers started withdrawing their talks over the lack of a policy.
  - pyre 15y ago
    That somehow seems worse. It took community pressure from the speakers to get O'Reilly to have some sort of a policy against harassment/stalking/offensive behavior?
    - yardie 15y ago
      You can sort of see why. Some of the commenters in this post equate having a modicum of decency to, "they're takin' our freedoms!". I'm sure the OSCON staff tried to ignore the situation and not assume it was a big deal until it became a big deal.
    - dfxm12 15y ago
      I get your point, and I understand why this happened, but before recent events, O'Reilly's viewpoint was probably: Why would O'Reilly think it needs to have policies outlawing unprofessional and possibly illegal behavior in a professional conference?
      - jimwise 15y ago
        Yes -- one could argue this opens the door for other bad behavior at OSCon, since it's not on the (new) list of things not to do. That's the problem with putting these things in writing -- the more rules you write down, the stronger the impression that whatever's not on the list isn't against the rules.
        pyre 15y ago
        > one could argue this opens the door for other bad > behavior at OSCon It's already been happening though. It's not like leaving it out of writing preventing incidents from happening.
  - vanadium 15y ago
    It was done largely in solidarity with Noirin Plunkett, Director and Executive VP at the Apache Software Foundation, who had to deal with harassment at OSCON and physical assault at ApacheCon: http://blog.nerdchic.net/archives/705/ http://blog.nerdchic.net/archives/705/
    - tzs 15y ago
      Has this alleged assault been proven? I don't recall reading about any charges being filed. Based on her original blogging about the alleged incident, I suspect we are not getting the full story.
      - rbanffy 15y ago
        This implied accusation of the victim to be, somehow, the cause of the misconduct (as in "you can't expect to be dressed like this and not attract unwanted attention") is one of the reasons such attacks are sometimes not reported. Imagine if someone breaks into your home and steals your TV and, when you file the report at the police station, the cops implies that, by having a simple lock, you actually invited people in to steal your TV.
        tzs 15y ago
        There's a big difference between dressing suggestively and going around at a drunk party touching a bunch of men intimately, and then moving off with a group to a restaurant and continuing to drink and touch people.
        rbanffy 15y ago
        And that's what I said about implying the victim, somehow, caused the abuse, that the victim actually wanted to be abused.
        tzs 15y ago
        When you go around actually touching people intimately, you are not a victim nor abused if some of them interpret that as you wanting to be touched back and act on that. It only becomes abuse if they don't back off if you tell them to stop at that point.
suprgeek 15y ago
It is a sad state of affairs that Tech conferences are now having to institute acceptable behavior guidelines. Looking at some of the Past events, I suspect that at least some of this behavior is because some of the presenters want to be seen as "edgy". They will throw up a provocative image or make a sexist or borderline racist/Offensive comment to depict how much of a rebel they are. Does this really add to the Technical weight or clarity of their talk? Personally speaking, I would never work with anybody who did this - no matter if they were a 10X productive super rockstar who invents new languages on the side.
- diolpah 15y ago
  "Personally speaking, I would never work with anybody who did this - no matter if they were a 10X productive super rockstar who invents new languages on the side." Thank you for volunteering to help those of us who prefer to hire on merit. More for us.
  - Uchikoma 15y ago
    I wish you much fun with hiring such a guy and exploding your team.
  - michaelchisari 15y ago
    Appropriate behavior doesn't factor into your definition of merit? Do you hire purely on code quality?
  - pyre 15y ago
    So as long as someone is a 'rockstar' coder, it doesn't matter if he/she destroys the morale for the rest of your employees? <sarcasm> I guess it's just their loss. They should feel privileged to be working with <rockstar coder>! </sarcasm>
    - diolpah 15y ago
      Any organization that maintains an institutional fear of saying the "wrong thing" destroys its ability to effectively communicate such that the morale will have already hit rock bottom by the time someone actually does get offended.
mkn 15y ago
I'm all about anti-harassment guidelines, but the following is just as offensive as harassment: I’d like to borrow a line from the Flickr Community Guidelines, which use the term Creepiness as follows: "You know that guy. Don’t be that guy." If we hear that you are that guy, we will investigate, and you may be asked to leave. That's not a clear guideline, and it's sexist, to boot. Consider: We all know that prudish woman. Don't be that prudish woman. That wouldn't fly, and for the same very good reasons that their guidelines need more work. They need first to remove the gender language, since unwanted advances and inappropriate behavior can come from either side, and second to spell out clearly what is prohibited, since that is the only way the rules can be fairly applied.
- diolpah 15y ago
  mkn, it is rarely a good idea to question the thought police. Prepare to be informed about how your male privilege invalidates any point you make.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
  - michaelchisari 15y ago
    Maybe some feminists see it as payback for thousands of years The people pushing for a change in dynamics and acceptable behavior in male dominated conferences or social situations that they find oppressive or threatening are not doing it as a form of payback, I can assure you that.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
  - M1573RMU74710N 15y ago
    > really sexually harass someone - with touching involved I think your post is mostly fair..however, this particular sentence to me seems to imply that if there is no touching involved it's somehow not "real" sexual harassment, and that's something I would disagree with. This is overall a very very tricky subject. I think one thing a lot of people lose track of (not saying you are one, just commenting in general) is that it's something that needs to be considered on multiple levels. There are certain things that are "rude" to do, for example using curse words. If you want to promote an open community where everyone can feel welcome, you probably should have policies against using such words. That doesn't mean that if someone uses those words they are a bad person, or should be arrested, or condemned, or any such thing as that... However if they are contributing to creating a negative environment for some people, and if you want those people to be a part of the community that needs to be squashed and the person who did it might need to be spoken to or even reprimanded (appropriately). There's nothing wrong with having sexual feelings, but I think some people have an over-inflated sense of entitlement when it comes to expressing those sexual feelings. Women are constantly being reminded that they are Women, and being constantly reminded that they are viewed (at least to some extent) as sexual objects...when really they just want to feel like any other person and talk tech. It can be not only very exhausting, but insulting and even frightening. Many crimes against women begin with sexual overtures. So, I don't think it's a lot to ask to leave the attempted pick-ups to places like online dating sites, singles bars, dance clubs, etc...and leave sexual expression in general at home or when you're hanging out with friends and what-not. I think there certainly are some people who want to lock it down to an impractical level of political correctness, but I think it's more common for someone to make a reasonable suggestion that is met with comments about "men/sexuality being criminalized" (again, not referring to you...just commenting in general). I agree that it's something that needs to be spelled out more explicitly than "don't be a creep", if only because one of the reasons we have the problem is because some people don't understand or know what that means (and perhaps they shouldn't be expected to).
tzs 15y ago
I hope their rules will apply to both men and women. There is sometimes a tendency to overlook when women harass men.
lhnn 15y ago
I can easily see innocent and benevolent dark humor being overreacted to with all this buzz about 'awareness' at conferences. Ironically sexist though it is, simply saying "don't be that guy" should be the extent of the conversation. This says to me, "There are people ready to be offended at your talk. Walk on eggshells."

51 points by jdp23 15y ago

Much as I'm glad to see something along these lines, I'm a little taken aback that it took this long to publish. Even the original post refers to "last Oscon," and O'Reilly runs a lot of conferences. Last Oscon wasn't the first time "something happened."

kscaldef 15y ago
This OSCON is the first (that I know of) where speakers started withdrawing their talks over the lack of a policy.
- pyre 15y ago
  That somehow seems worse. It took community pressure from the speakers to get O'Reilly to have some sort of a policy against harassment/stalking/offensive behavior?
  - yardie 15y ago
    You can sort of see why. Some of the commenters in this post equate having a modicum of decency to, "they're takin' our freedoms!". I'm sure the OSCON staff tried to ignore the situation and not assume it was a big deal until it became a big deal.
  - dfxm12 15y ago
    I get your point, and I understand why this happened, but before recent events, O'Reilly's viewpoint was probably: Why would O'Reilly think it needs to have policies outlawing unprofessional and possibly illegal behavior in a professional conference?
    - jimwise 15y ago
      Yes -- one could argue this opens the door for other bad behavior at OSCon, since it's not on the (new) list of things not to do. That's the problem with putting these things in writing -- the more rules you write down, the stronger the impression that whatever's not on the list isn't against the rules.
      - pyre 15y ago
        > one could argue this opens the door for other bad > behavior at OSCon It's already been happening though. It's not like leaving it out of writing preventing incidents from happening.
- vanadium 15y ago
  It was done largely in solidarity with Noirin Plunkett, Director and Executive VP at the Apache Software Foundation, who had to deal with harassment at OSCON and physical assault at ApacheCon: http://blog.nerdchic.net/archives/705/ http://blog.nerdchic.net/archives/705/
  - tzs 15y ago
    Has this alleged assault been proven? I don't recall reading about any charges being filed. Based on her original blogging about the alleged incident, I suspect we are not getting the full story.
    - rbanffy 15y ago
      This implied accusation of the victim to be, somehow, the cause of the misconduct (as in "you can't expect to be dressed like this and not attract unwanted attention") is one of the reasons such attacks are sometimes not reported. Imagine if someone breaks into your home and steals your TV and, when you file the report at the police station, the cops implies that, by having a simple lock, you actually invited people in to steal your TV.
      - tzs 15y ago
        There's a big difference between dressing suggestively and going around at a drunk party touching a bunch of men intimately, and then moving off with a group to a restaurant and continuing to drink and touch people.
        rbanffy 15y ago
        And that's what I said about implying the victim, somehow, caused the abuse, that the victim actually wanted to be abused.
        tzs 15y ago
        When you go around actually touching people intimately, you are not a victim nor abused if some of them interpret that as you wanting to be touched back and act on that. It only becomes abuse if they don't back off if you tell them to stop at that point.

suprgeek 15y ago

It is a sad state of affairs that Tech conferences are now having to institute acceptable behavior guidelines. Looking at some of the Past events, I suspect that at least some of this behavior is because some of the presenters want to be seen as "edgy". They will throw up a provocative image or make a sexist or borderline racist/Offensive comment to depict how much of a rebel they are. Does this really add to the Technical weight or clarity of their talk? Personally speaking, I would never work with anybody who did this - no matter if they were a 10X productive super rockstar who invents new languages on the side.

diolpah 15y ago
"Personally speaking, I would never work with anybody who did this - no matter if they were a 10X productive super rockstar who invents new languages on the side." Thank you for volunteering to help those of us who prefer to hire on merit. More for us.
- Uchikoma 15y ago
  I wish you much fun with hiring such a guy and exploding your team.
- michaelchisari 15y ago
  Appropriate behavior doesn't factor into your definition of merit? Do you hire purely on code quality?
- pyre 15y ago
  So as long as someone is a 'rockstar' coder, it doesn't matter if he/she destroys the morale for the rest of your employees? <sarcasm> I guess it's just their loss. They should feel privileged to be working with <rockstar coder>! </sarcasm>
  - diolpah 15y ago
    Any organization that maintains an institutional fear of saying the "wrong thing" destroys its ability to effectively communicate such that the morale will have already hit rock bottom by the time someone actually does get offended.

mkn 15y ago

I'm all about anti-harassment guidelines, but the following is just as offensive as harassment: I’d like to borrow a line from the Flickr Community Guidelines, which use the term Creepiness as follows: "You know that guy. Don’t be that guy." If we hear that you are that guy, we will investigate, and you may be asked to leave. That's not a clear guideline, and it's sexist, to boot. Consider: We all know that prudish woman. Don't be that prudish woman. That wouldn't fly, and for the same very good reasons that their guidelines need more work. They need first to remove the gender language, since unwanted advances and inappropriate behavior can come from either side, and second to spell out clearly what is prohibited, since that is the only way the rules can be fairly applied.

diolpah 15y ago
mkn, it is rarely a good idea to question the thought police. Prepare to be informed about how your male privilege invalidates any point you make.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
- michaelchisari 15y ago
  Maybe some feminists see it as payback for thousands of years The people pushing for a change in dynamics and acceptable behavior in male dominated conferences or social situations that they find oppressive or threatening are not doing it as a form of payback, I can assure you that.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- M1573RMU74710N 15y ago
  > really sexually harass someone - with touching involved I think your post is mostly fair..however, this particular sentence to me seems to imply that if there is no touching involved it's somehow not "real" sexual harassment, and that's something I would disagree with. This is overall a very very tricky subject. I think one thing a lot of people lose track of (not saying you are one, just commenting in general) is that it's something that needs to be considered on multiple levels. There are certain things that are "rude" to do, for example using curse words. If you want to promote an open community where everyone can feel welcome, you probably should have policies against using such words. That doesn't mean that if someone uses those words they are a bad person, or should be arrested, or condemned, or any such thing as that... However if they are contributing to creating a negative environment for some people, and if you want those people to be a part of the community that needs to be squashed and the person who did it might need to be spoken to or even reprimanded (appropriately). There's nothing wrong with having sexual feelings, but I think some people have an over-inflated sense of entitlement when it comes to expressing those sexual feelings. Women are constantly being reminded that they are Women, and being constantly reminded that they are viewed (at least to some extent) as sexual objects...when really they just want to feel like any other person and talk tech. It can be not only very exhausting, but insulting and even frightening. Many crimes against women begin with sexual overtures. So, I don't think it's a lot to ask to leave the attempted pick-ups to places like online dating sites, singles bars, dance clubs, etc...and leave sexual expression in general at home or when you're hanging out with friends and what-not. I think there certainly are some people who want to lock it down to an impractical level of political correctness, but I think it's more common for someone to make a reasonable suggestion that is met with comments about "men/sexuality being criminalized" (again, not referring to you...just commenting in general). I agree that it's something that needs to be spelled out more explicitly than "don't be a creep", if only because one of the reasons we have the problem is because some people don't understand or know what that means (and perhaps they shouldn't be expected to).

tzs 15y ago

I hope their rules will apply to both men and women. There is sometimes a tendency to overlook when women harass men.

lhnn 15y ago

I can easily see innocent and benevolent dark humor being overreacted to with all this buzz about 'awareness' at conferences. Ironically sexist though it is, simply saying "don't be that guy" should be the extent of the conversation. This says to me, "There are people ready to be offended at your talk. Walk on eggshells."