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Honestly I don't think you're operating from the same baseline for behavior that I and others do. If you're at a conference, you're there amongst your peers an

Honestly I don't think you're operating from the same baseline for behavior that I and others do. If you're at a conference, you're there amongst your peers and colleagues, there is a certain level of respect and decorum that I would like to assume would be present amongst a community that aspires at least to some modicum of collegiality. You can say that the security community (which granted isn't particularly my scene) is rough and tumble, but surely there should be some expectation of some basic human respect. I guess put more succinctly, just because it's held at a night club, doesn't make a conference party any less a conference related function.

ricardobeat 14y ago
Isn't his point that a party is a party? Being a party at a night club, conference or not, makes all the difference.
obituary_latte 14y ago
It's not just a conference, but a conference of mostly socially inept and humanly horny gentle(or less-so)men. Not at all to excuse the behavior, but as always, buyer beware. Perhaps a partial solution would be to have a track dedicated to social relations (not engineering!). Maybe include some of the finer points of a stay in Las fucking Vegas. Again, and I can't reiterate this enough, I'm not excusing inappropriate or damaging behavior. It is important, though, that situational awareness be accounted for. In a conference for cops, of course this behavior wouldn't be expected. In a conference of mostly lonely males... What I'm saying is that perhaps education may warrant a better outcome rather than furthering the perpetrators into a social black hole. That is if we are talking about otherwise "normal" folk in a drunken state rather than something more pathological--which I think we are. Goons can should an do deal with those others handily afaik. -- Edit: here we go with the downvotes. If you feel that way, and read past the first paragraph, please expand beyond an anonymous click of the mouse. How do you ever expect anything to progress without discussion? I may very well be far off base, and am more than happy to discuss. I'd also be more than happy to admit I'm wrong if that's the case. But please, I beg of you, let's talk about it.
- selenamarie 14y ago
  My experience is that tech conferences are mostly comprised of socially competent people. In a group of 20 people, for example, I might find that one person in a group is truly inept. So, to do the arithmetic for everyone, that's 5%. Unfortunately, that's often about the same percentage as the number of women present. :/ I won't lay out all of the problems with identification, getting the "socially inept" into one room and educating them, making sure that whoever is teaching this (as yet undefined) social skills curriculum is a good teacher, making sure the education sticks, etc... Instead, I'm just going to share that I don't think education of socially incompetent people will significantly improve my conference experience. Things that help include: * An assumption on the part of conference staff, speakers and attendees that women are there to participate, not just observe or tag along * Swift, friendly, supportive responses from staff if verbal or physical harassment is reported - often made possible by staff who are aware of an anti-harassment policy, and are trained in what to do (LCA did a great job of this in 2012) * Allies who help stop hostile, harassing and inappropriate comments if they occur And there's other stuff that helps too. There's some good stuff in the "what can allies do" section of the Geek Feminism wiki. Anyway, I appreciate your willingness to converse about this issue and hope I've shed some light on why people might be down-voting your comment.
  - obituary_latte 14y ago
    I agree setting up a track for it would be difficult. I imagine, though, any married dude could speak at the track. And wasn't thinking so much a mandatory class, but a track like any other. Could be humorous/fun interspersed with nuggets of info. Perhaps some tips and tricks as to where there may be a local setting (not at the con) where the attendees could start to ply their new skills. Another possibility would maybe be a page in the booklet detailing unacceptable behavior--or a request from con founder or such. I think almost all the people attending are very smart; if they were to hear/see a request from someone they look up to very highly, it might be enough to stifle bad behavior even through a drunken lens. To your points: 1) I think this comes back to the education thing. Be it a page in a booklet, on the website, or something else--sometimes people need to actually see/hear it. It's dangerous to assume that just because people are smart, they know how to behave and how to be respectful to others. 2) I only have experience at the big 2 in Vegas, but thought the staff were trained on such... Don't know. I agree, though, that having them trained to be responsive would be a huge help. 3) Yes. I actually (unfortunately) had the opportunity to do as much this year. I know people I was with would be more than willing to step in as well. But, again, perhaps it would help for everyone to know that they can be on the lookout for this behavior and step in/get help when necessary. We can't just assume that people will do the right thing, either. Thank you for the well though-out response. I very much hope that in the future your con experiences improve dramatically regardless of what makes that happen.
rdtsc 14y ago
> Honestly I don't think you're operating from the same baseline for behavior that I and others do. Exactly. This is not just a minor annoyance, in the examples above we should be talking about sexual battery, and sexual assault charges. There should be a mechanism to identify and point out the perpetrators, call the police, get them booked in etc. For other non-criminal but just discriminatory and harassing behavior there should be a quick and easy mechanism to shame, weed out, exclude and expel perpetrators. Take a picture with a phone and post on a public board (maybe a bad idea, haven't thought this through...). The sad part is the lack of outrage from the majority and form the organizers. This apathy indicates some complicity. And that's probably why not much happens to fix this.
david_shaw 14y ago
> If you're at a conference, you're there amongst your peers and colleagues, there is a certain level of respect and decorum that I would like to assume would be present amongst a community that aspires at least to some modicum of collegiality. I would agree. The difference is that unlike, say, Black Hat or RSA, DEFCON is not a security conference. DEFCON is (and is advertised as) a hacker conference. Sure, the speakers are generally in the industry (though not always) and there is no blatant illegal activity happening (most of the time), the target audience for DEFCON is not the infosec community. I think that leads to the problems that happen at cons like DEFCON, HOPE, and CCC vs. Black Hat (mostly), RSA, USENIX, CRYPTO, SANS training, etc. However: > just because it's held at a night club, doesn't make a conference party any less a conference related function. Totally agree with you there; I was not trying to excuse the behavior, simply indicate a possible explanation therein. The issue is perhaps not only behavior at conferences, but the predatory behavior that is fairly common of males in that environment.
- knowtheory 14y ago
  Yes, you're absolutely right. I've always associated DEFCON with security stuff, mainly because that's all the interesting stuff I remember reading coming out of DEFCON (and I've never been). Thanks for the clarification.

ricardobeat 14y ago

Isn't his point that a party is a party? Being a party at a night club, conference or not, makes all the difference.

obituary_latte 14y ago

It's not just a conference, but a conference of mostly socially inept and humanly horny gentle(or less-so)men. Not at all to excuse the behavior, but as always, buyer beware. Perhaps a partial solution would be to have a track dedicated to social relations (not engineering!). Maybe include some of the finer points of a stay in Las fucking Vegas. Again, and I can't reiterate this enough, I'm not excusing inappropriate or damaging behavior. It is important, though, that situational awareness be accounted for. In a conference for cops, of course this behavior wouldn't be expected. In a conference of mostly lonely males... What I'm saying is that perhaps education may warrant a better outcome rather than furthering the perpetrators into a social black hole. That is if we are talking about otherwise "normal" folk in a drunken state rather than something more pathological--which I think we are. Goons can should an do deal with those others handily afaik. -- Edit: here we go with the downvotes. If you feel that way, and read past the first paragraph, please expand beyond an anonymous click of the mouse. How do you ever expect anything to progress without discussion? I may very well be far off base, and am more than happy to discuss. I'd also be more than happy to admit I'm wrong if that's the case. But please, I beg of you, let's talk about it.

selenamarie 14y ago
My experience is that tech conferences are mostly comprised of socially competent people. In a group of 20 people, for example, I might find that one person in a group is truly inept. So, to do the arithmetic for everyone, that's 5%. Unfortunately, that's often about the same percentage as the number of women present. :/ I won't lay out all of the problems with identification, getting the "socially inept" into one room and educating them, making sure that whoever is teaching this (as yet undefined) social skills curriculum is a good teacher, making sure the education sticks, etc... Instead, I'm just going to share that I don't think education of socially incompetent people will significantly improve my conference experience. Things that help include: * An assumption on the part of conference staff, speakers and attendees that women are there to participate, not just observe or tag along * Swift, friendly, supportive responses from staff if verbal or physical harassment is reported - often made possible by staff who are aware of an anti-harassment policy, and are trained in what to do (LCA did a great job of this in 2012) * Allies who help stop hostile, harassing and inappropriate comments if they occur And there's other stuff that helps too. There's some good stuff in the "what can allies do" section of the Geek Feminism wiki. Anyway, I appreciate your willingness to converse about this issue and hope I've shed some light on why people might be down-voting your comment.
- obituary_latte 14y ago
  I agree setting up a track for it would be difficult. I imagine, though, any married dude could speak at the track. And wasn't thinking so much a mandatory class, but a track like any other. Could be humorous/fun interspersed with nuggets of info. Perhaps some tips and tricks as to where there may be a local setting (not at the con) where the attendees could start to ply their new skills. Another possibility would maybe be a page in the booklet detailing unacceptable behavior--or a request from con founder or such. I think almost all the people attending are very smart; if they were to hear/see a request from someone they look up to very highly, it might be enough to stifle bad behavior even through a drunken lens. To your points: 1) I think this comes back to the education thing. Be it a page in a booklet, on the website, or something else--sometimes people need to actually see/hear it. It's dangerous to assume that just because people are smart, they know how to behave and how to be respectful to others. 2) I only have experience at the big 2 in Vegas, but thought the staff were trained on such... Don't know. I agree, though, that having them trained to be responsive would be a huge help. 3) Yes. I actually (unfortunately) had the opportunity to do as much this year. I know people I was with would be more than willing to step in as well. But, again, perhaps it would help for everyone to know that they can be on the lookout for this behavior and step in/get help when necessary. We can't just assume that people will do the right thing, either. Thank you for the well though-out response. I very much hope that in the future your con experiences improve dramatically regardless of what makes that happen.

rdtsc 14y ago

> Honestly I don't think you're operating from the same baseline for behavior that I and others do. Exactly. This is not just a minor annoyance, in the examples above we should be talking about sexual battery, and sexual assault charges. There should be a mechanism to identify and point out the perpetrators, call the police, get them booked in etc. For other non-criminal but just discriminatory and harassing behavior there should be a quick and easy mechanism to shame, weed out, exclude and expel perpetrators. Take a picture with a phone and post on a public board (maybe a bad idea, haven't thought this through...). The sad part is the lack of outrage from the majority and form the organizers. This apathy indicates some complicity. And that's probably why not much happens to fix this.

david_shaw 14y ago

> If you're at a conference, you're there amongst your peers and colleagues, there is a certain level of respect and decorum that I would like to assume would be present amongst a community that aspires at least to some modicum of collegiality. I would agree. The difference is that unlike, say, Black Hat or RSA, DEFCON is not a security conference. DEFCON is (and is advertised as) a hacker conference. Sure, the speakers are generally in the industry (though not always) and there is no blatant illegal activity happening (most of the time), the target audience for DEFCON is not the infosec community. I think that leads to the problems that happen at cons like DEFCON, HOPE, and CCC vs. Black Hat (mostly), RSA, USENIX, CRYPTO, SANS training, etc. However: > just because it's held at a night club, doesn't make a conference party any less a conference related function. Totally agree with you there; I was not trying to excuse the behavior, simply indicate a possible explanation therein. The issue is perhaps not only behavior at conferences, but the predatory behavior that is fairly common of males in that environment.

knowtheory 14y ago
Yes, you're absolutely right. I've always associated DEFCON with security stuff, mainly because that's all the interesting stuff I remember reading coming out of DEFCON (and I've never been). Thanks for the clarification.