4 ms·

Somehow I see no causation between a conference and the drunken comments by its attendees at a bar. Trying to argue that a conference organizer should hold some

by stfu 14y ago

Somehow I see no causation between a conference and the drunken comments by its attendees at a bar. Trying to argue that a conference organizer should hold some moral responsible for the people attending seems to me just ridiculous. He looked at me and sighed, confessing that he never should have allowed this guy to come to the conference. Here the Wait. What? Really? seems to be better placed - is there somebody really demanding the banning people from conferences who potentially may or may not be saying stupid things while being drunk at a bar? Apparently the world is full of idiots, but it makes a difference if something is said/done/etc in a closed work environment or at some random bar among random people who just meet at some random event. Just because they like the same kind of things (music, coding languages, other "stuff") doesn't make them having some supreme ethical and moral standard. Demanding stronger sexual harassment laws is a legitimate request, but trying to paint the tech community as misogynist because of some random bar encounter is in my opinion unacceptable.

shadowfiend 14y ago
It is hardly “some random bar encounter”. This is the latest in a string of publicly described issues with sexual harassment in the tech community, both at conferences and elsewhere. The same rule applies here as with bugs reported by users: if one person is talking about this out loud, it means dozens are probably running into it and staying silent. That is unacceptable. And to consider conference organizers responsible for expelling people who are tarnishing the experience of their conference is hardly out of line. Conferences are not something that stops when you leave the conference area, because people travel to them. They are social experiences both on the conference grounds and outside of them. Nobody is saying it should be illegal for a conference organizer to allow people like this. But it's perfectly fair as a developer going to a conference or as a company sending developers to a conference to require that they have a policy of banning such members. Oh, and “he was drunk” is not an excuse. It is never an excuse. It is never an excuse for anything. I cannot stress this enough. Drunkenness is an excuse only because we allow it to be, not because there is any legitimacy to it. If you know you're an ass when you're drunk, well, it turns out, you can work on not being an ass when you're drunk, or, alternatively, you can simply not drink. If you do neither of these things, then you are responsible for every stupid thing you say and do while drunk. To be clear, I am aware you did not explicitly mention drunkenness as a valid excuse; however, your phrasing strongly implied it by correlating the saying of stupid things with being drunk at a bar. As such, I picked at that point because it's an attitude I've seen before, and I think it's a problem. My apologies if you didn't explicitly mean it that way.
- stfu 14y ago
  The drunk aspect was more to contrast the context. It just seems ridiculous to me to apply the same standard of sexual harassment at a bar scenario as the one that is in place in a work environment. Some cheesy pickup line might loose someone his job at day but get laid at night. It is clearly about context and social appropriateness. Both people in the story are in my opinion having some odd expectations in that regards.
  - jakobe 14y ago
    The blog post was clearly not talking about "a cheesy pickup line". Please don't make a pretty obvious case of sexual harassment seem harmless.
  - lambda 14y ago
    This went far, far beyond a cheesy pickup line. This was repeated harassment far beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior, even at a bar. She made it very clear that she wasn't interested, and he continued. She moved away, and he followed her and continued. She brought up the fact that he was married, and he continued. She brought up his daughter, and he made sexually disparaging comments about his own daughter. We should not confuse ambiguous situations in which someone makes a slightly off-color joke with serious, repeated harassment. That does nothing to help the situation.
- Jach 14y ago
  The other uncharitable interpretation is: "What did you expect when you get drunk men and women together at a bar?" But focusing on the GP's general point, I feel like this was more of a failure of the bar (shouldn't they be on the lookout for these things?) than the conference. Also, if you're being harassed at a bar, why don't you immediately tell the bar owner/tender/bouncer or police instead of waiting a full day before telling the conference organizer? (You can do the latter too, but the former was left out of the given narrative which makes me think it wasn't done.) [Edited for clarity.]
  - neilk 14y ago
    The OP doesn't specify, but her alleged harasser is well known in the community already. So I would assume he's not just a regular conference attendee; he's probably got some technical reputation, and may be a featured speaker. That's usually what makes these things extra extra difficult. As for whether the bar is really part of the conference, I agree it's a bit of a grey zone. But in every such gathering, the unofficial parts are where most of the important stuff happens. If you have a conference where the women feel unwelcome doing that stuff, you don't really have a woman-friendly conference.
harryf 14y ago
> Trying to argue that a conference organizer should hold some moral responsible for the people attending seems to me just ridiculous. morally responsible perhaps not but certainly there's a question of the reputation of the conference where it would be in the organisers own interest to set a tone and a policy on decent behaviour. > trying to paint the tech community as misogynist I didnt read that out of the post or have even the impression that was the goal. What made you draw that conclusion ?
saturdaysaint 14y ago
"Somehow I see no causation between a conference and the drunken comments by its attendees at a bar." So could you just as easily imagine the conversation going down this way if they were coworkers? It still seems possible to me, but also more than a little bit less likely, like better judgement and potential long term repercussions would start popping into this guy's head. "Oh, she'd probably talk to HR and that sounds like a pain in the ass." No "ethical or moral standard" necessary - just the basic discretion that normal people in a social ecosystem usually exhibit. The reason that these situations seem to be repeatedly playing out at tech conferences aren't hard to deduce, but mostly they just remove the need to have discretion. It's not alcohol or sexuality or immorality - it's an atmosphere with limited institutional memory and inherently short-term social contracts. Conferences are great places for assholes to take cover - you get to be introduced to many people, social capitalize on your work reputation, and sexually "roll the dice" with limited fallout. Fixing this at conferences isn't a trivial matter of an accuser blowing a whistle once, just as it isn't in the workplace, but neither is a defeatist attitude warranted.
wpietri 14y ago
> Trying to argue that a conference organizer should hold some moral responsible for the people attending seems to me just ridiculous. Part of creating a conference is trying to get the right people to attend. The reason many people come to the conference isn't the content of the sessions, which could be delivered much more efficiently on-line. It's the conversations. As an example, consider TED. I'm not sure how it is now, but at least in the early days, things were carefully arranged to encourage a ton of interaction. Speakers were strongly encouraged to stay for the whole thing. There was plenty of time for interaction, and the locations and events were chosen to keep people there and mingling. Certainly the things I remember most fondly are my personal encounters, not the admittedly great talks. So yes, any smart conference organizer is going to be very concerned with who's attending, if only because that's a major part of the product being sold.
wpietri 14y ago
> trying to paint the tech community as misogynist because of some random bar encounter Could you show me where that happened? If anything, I think her feeling comfortable speaking up about this is a great sign that she thinks it's not irredeemably misogynist.
lambda 14y ago
> Demanding stronger sexual harassment laws is a legitimate request, There are some things that can be dealt with more appropriately at a different level than the legal level. In the US, we have a fairly strong concept of freedom of speech. There are certain hurtful, hateful things that you are legally allowed to say. But that doesn't make them welcome at a private event. And that doesn't mean that people who say them to other people at a bar meetup related to an event should continue to be welcome at that event. We can put higher standards on what is acceptable behavior than merely that which is legal. > but trying to paint the tech community as misogynist because of some random bar encounter is in my opinion unacceptable. I am very unclear where you saw anyone painting the tech community as misogynist. One person complained about one event, and the fact that the organizers didn't have an effective policy in place for how to deal with that situation. She is recommending certain changes that could avoid this problem in the future, and her employer is supporting her by lending some weight to her complaint. This isn't painting the tech community as misogynist, and if we want to solve these kinds of problems, we need to avoid making those kinds of sweeping generalization and brushing off real problems just because someone misperceives a fairly narrow complaint as painting an entire wide group of people as misogynist.

by stfu 14y ago

shadowfiend 14y ago

It is hardly “some random bar encounter”. This is the latest in a string of publicly described issues with sexual harassment in the tech community, both at conferences and elsewhere. The same rule applies here as with bugs reported by users: if one person is talking about this out loud, it means dozens are probably running into it and staying silent. That is unacceptable. And to consider conference organizers responsible for expelling people who are tarnishing the experience of their conference is hardly out of line. Conferences are not something that stops when you leave the conference area, because people travel to them. They are social experiences both on the conference grounds and outside of them. Nobody is saying it should be illegal for a conference organizer to allow people like this. But it's perfectly fair as a developer going to a conference or as a company sending developers to a conference to require that they have a policy of banning such members. Oh, and “he was drunk” is not an excuse. It is never an excuse. It is never an excuse for anything. I cannot stress this enough. Drunkenness is an excuse only because we allow it to be, not because there is any legitimacy to it. If you know you're an ass when you're drunk, well, it turns out, you can work on not being an ass when you're drunk, or, alternatively, you can simply not drink. If you do neither of these things, then you are responsible for every stupid thing you say and do while drunk. To be clear, I am aware you did not explicitly mention drunkenness as a valid excuse; however, your phrasing strongly implied it by correlating the saying of stupid things with being drunk at a bar. As such, I picked at that point because it's an attitude I've seen before, and I think it's a problem. My apologies if you didn't explicitly mean it that way.

stfu 14y ago
The drunk aspect was more to contrast the context. It just seems ridiculous to me to apply the same standard of sexual harassment at a bar scenario as the one that is in place in a work environment. Some cheesy pickup line might loose someone his job at day but get laid at night. It is clearly about context and social appropriateness. Both people in the story are in my opinion having some odd expectations in that regards.
- jakobe 14y ago
  The blog post was clearly not talking about "a cheesy pickup line". Please don't make a pretty obvious case of sexual harassment seem harmless.
- lambda 14y ago
  This went far, far beyond a cheesy pickup line. This was repeated harassment far beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior, even at a bar. She made it very clear that she wasn't interested, and he continued. She moved away, and he followed her and continued. She brought up the fact that he was married, and he continued. She brought up his daughter, and he made sexually disparaging comments about his own daughter. We should not confuse ambiguous situations in which someone makes a slightly off-color joke with serious, repeated harassment. That does nothing to help the situation.
Jach 14y ago
The other uncharitable interpretation is: "What did you expect when you get drunk men and women together at a bar?" But focusing on the GP's general point, I feel like this was more of a failure of the bar (shouldn't they be on the lookout for these things?) than the conference. Also, if you're being harassed at a bar, why don't you immediately tell the bar owner/tender/bouncer or police instead of waiting a full day before telling the conference organizer? (You can do the latter too, but the former was left out of the given narrative which makes me think it wasn't done.) [Edited for clarity.]
- neilk 14y ago
  The OP doesn't specify, but her alleged harasser is well known in the community already. So I would assume he's not just a regular conference attendee; he's probably got some technical reputation, and may be a featured speaker. That's usually what makes these things extra extra difficult. As for whether the bar is really part of the conference, I agree it's a bit of a grey zone. But in every such gathering, the unofficial parts are where most of the important stuff happens. If you have a conference where the women feel unwelcome doing that stuff, you don't really have a woman-friendly conference.

harryf 14y ago

> Trying to argue that a conference organizer should hold some moral responsible for the people attending seems to me just ridiculous. morally responsible perhaps not but certainly there's a question of the reputation of the conference where it would be in the organisers own interest to set a tone and a policy on decent behaviour. > trying to paint the tech community as misogynist I didnt read that out of the post or have even the impression that was the goal. What made you draw that conclusion ?

saturdaysaint 14y ago

"Somehow I see no causation between a conference and the drunken comments by its attendees at a bar." So could you just as easily imagine the conversation going down this way if they were coworkers? It still seems possible to me, but also more than a little bit less likely, like better judgement and potential long term repercussions would start popping into this guy's head. "Oh, she'd probably talk to HR and that sounds like a pain in the ass." No "ethical or moral standard" necessary - just the basic discretion that normal people in a social ecosystem usually exhibit. The reason that these situations seem to be repeatedly playing out at tech conferences aren't hard to deduce, but mostly they just remove the need to have discretion. It's not alcohol or sexuality or immorality - it's an atmosphere with limited institutional memory and inherently short-term social contracts. Conferences are great places for assholes to take cover - you get to be introduced to many people, social capitalize on your work reputation, and sexually "roll the dice" with limited fallout. Fixing this at conferences isn't a trivial matter of an accuser blowing a whistle once, just as it isn't in the workplace, but neither is a defeatist attitude warranted.

wpietri 14y ago

> Trying to argue that a conference organizer should hold some moral responsible for the people attending seems to me just ridiculous. Part of creating a conference is trying to get the right people to attend. The reason many people come to the conference isn't the content of the sessions, which could be delivered much more efficiently on-line. It's the conversations. As an example, consider TED. I'm not sure how it is now, but at least in the early days, things were carefully arranged to encourage a ton of interaction. Speakers were strongly encouraged to stay for the whole thing. There was plenty of time for interaction, and the locations and events were chosen to keep people there and mingling. Certainly the things I remember most fondly are my personal encounters, not the admittedly great talks. So yes, any smart conference organizer is going to be very concerned with who's attending, if only because that's a major part of the product being sold.

wpietri 14y ago

> trying to paint the tech community as misogynist because of some random bar encounter Could you show me where that happened? If anything, I think her feeling comfortable speaking up about this is a great sign that she thinks it's not irredeemably misogynist.

lambda 14y ago

> Demanding stronger sexual harassment laws is a legitimate request, There are some things that can be dealt with more appropriately at a different level than the legal level. In the US, we have a fairly strong concept of freedom of speech. There are certain hurtful, hateful things that you are legally allowed to say. But that doesn't make them welcome at a private event. And that doesn't mean that people who say them to other people at a bar meetup related to an event should continue to be welcome at that event. We can put higher standards on what is acceptable behavior than merely that which is legal. > but trying to paint the tech community as misogynist because of some random bar encounter is in my opinion unacceptable. I am very unclear where you saw anyone painting the tech community as misogynist. One person complained about one event, and the fact that the organizers didn't have an effective policy in place for how to deal with that situation. She is recommending certain changes that could avoid this problem in the future, and her employer is supporting her by lending some weight to her complaint. This isn't painting the tech community as misogynist, and if we want to solve these kinds of problems, we need to avoid making those kinds of sweeping generalization and brushing off real problems just because someone misperceives a fairly narrow complaint as painting an entire wide group of people as misogynist.