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I don't think anyone takes issue with talking to the PyCon organizers and even having them removed from the conference. The employer made a mistake for sure, b
by peterhunt 14y ago
I don't think anyone takes issue with talking to the PyCon organizers and even having them removed from the conference.
The employer made a mistake for sure, but so did your friend. Skewering someone in public on the Internet like that is immature and irresponsible. There are a million better ways she could have dealt with this.
- lukeman 14y ago> I don't think anyone takes issue with talking to the PyCon organizers and even having them removed from the conference. They were not removed from the conference.
- peterhunt 14y agoOops! My point was that had stayed within PyCon it would not have been an issue (or at least not as big of one).
- djcapelis 14y ago> Skewering someone in public on the Internet like that is immature and irresponsible. There are a million better ways she could have dealt with this. I'm pretty sure relating and disclosing a situation that happened in a public place fully to the best of her ability shouldn't be something we call irresponsible. In fact, women who do otherwise are often asked to disclose in exactly the manner she did. No matter how a woman chooses to address something like this, there's always someone who wants to talk about how she should have addressed it differently.
- peterhunt 14y agoThis is not about her being a woman. This is about responsibly dealing with a situation. "Exactly the manner she did?" No one has ever been asked to disclose a photo with faces on Twitter to 9k followers. The right thing to do is either deal with the person directly or escalate above them, whether you're a woman or not. Going straight to the mob is never the right answer.
- paranoiacblack 14y ago> The right thing to do is either deal with the person directly or escalate above them, whether you're a woman or not. Going straight to the mob is never the right answer. Isn't this exactly what happened though? She posted on her feed and asked if someone could speak to them and the Pycon officials saw her post and did exactly that. You're treating this as if she posted on her feed something like, "Can the people who employed these guys please fire them? Also, I want each of my followers to retweet this and make sure they get fired."
- AnIrishDuck 14y agoI think that the PyCon staff would have been a better group to escalate to, not a 9000 person mob (one of whom presumably did the intelligent thing and notified the staff)
- moistgorilla 14y agoI said this in another post and I'm going to repeat myself here. Social media is powerful (look at the recent Steubenville fiasco) and if you are going to put somebody out to hang you better be right. Considering she is part of the pr group for her company (developer evangelist?) I believe she has an understanding of what a twitter account with 9000 followers can do. >Isn't this exactly what happened though? Also, don't try to play with words, she did that and more. The sensible response would have been to tell them to stop and then if they didn't, contact one of the staff. A post on twitter saying "Conference etiquette: Sexual innuendos about forking and dongles are not cool" without a picture would have been much MUCH more tasteful.
- nonrecursive 14y agoShe had many options. She could have gotten out of her seat and found a staff member to talk to. She could have sent an email. She could have called one of the numbers listed in the pycon code of conduct. Instead, she posted a photo of some men on the Internet in order to publicly humiliate them. Are you advocating that people act this way whenever they get offended at a conference?
- djcapelis 14y ago
- josh-j 14y ago"I'm pretty sure relating and disclosing a situation that happened in a public place fully to the best of her ability shouldn't be something we call irresponsible. In fact, women who do otherwise are often asked to disclose in exactly the manner she did." That doesn't follow -- you're begging the question. Why is disclosing something public, if well detailed, not irresponsible when it can cause harm (as this situation did)? And why should people being previously asked to disclose such information make it a responsible action? Furthermore, do you have an example of such disclosures -- you speak as though you do?
- wpietri 14y agoI don't think it's fair to hold witnesses and reporters responsible for the consequences of telling the truth. The only person responsible for the speech that was reported are the people speaking. I can't quite understand your last sentence, but if you are looking for people telling women that they are irresponsible for not speaking up, just read the comments on this recent discussion of the Steubenville rape: http://www.underthegunreview.net/2013/03/18/henry-rollins-comments-on-steubenville-rape-verdict/ http://www.underthegunreview.net/2013/03/18/henry-rollins-co... There are quite a number of people there telling women that they are morally obligated to speak up when something bad happens.
- camelite 14y agoOf course it's fair to hold "witnesses" and "reporters" responsible for the consequence of what they say. The person responsible for the speech that was reported are the people speaking; the person responsible for the reportage of the speech is the person who did the reporting. The former resulted in a woman being uncomfortable while the latter lost a father of three his livelihood. You've got a problem with apposite context and proportionality. A techie at a conference making a dongle joke is not a gay biker in a bar telling anal virginity jokes, is not the frat-boy gang rape of an unconscious teen girl. True, they are all "bad things happening" - but that is such a large category that to act as if or argue any specific response is justified due to it belonging in that category is likely to lead to damaging over-reactions. In the context of corporate public relations and harassment lawsuits in the workplace, which became relevant the second the tweet was sent, what she did was an extremely damaging over-reaction - which given the woman's background and role we can conclude was committed with malice aforethought. Your entire argument is based upon wildly inappropriate contextualisation.
- rdtsc 14y ago> elating and disclosing a situation that happened in a public place fully to the best of her ability If the _best_ of her ability is to take a picture, put it on a public forum then tag it with an insult "ass clown" I don't know what to say. Maybe she should lose her job a "developers' advocate"
- WatchDog 14y agoI would take issue with it, I think the sane course of action would be to either ignore it, or to ask the people in question to refrain from further innuendo. If they continue to make the jokes then more drastic action like removing them from the event might be appropriate.