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Conferences may be more trouble than they are worthConferences may be more trouble than they are worthPosted Mar 22, 2013 14:35 UTC (Fri) by epa (subscriber, #39769)Parent article: Blum: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost
One has to conclude that if you value your job - or just being able to get on with your work quietly without the distractions of Internet outrage - the safest way is just not to attend conferences. Maybe you could still go as a private individual, but not if it relates to your work.
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Conferences may be more trouble than they are worth Posted Mar 22, 2013 15:47 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
Or just find a job not working for people that are not so brain-dead that they get flustered over a twitter post.
Conferences may be more trouble than they are worth Posted Mar 23, 2013 4:07 UTC (Sat) by sjj (subscriber, #2020) [Link]
I would have thought that the best way to get on with your work in a professional conference is to behave like a professional, especially during a presentation.
Conferences may be more trouble than they are worth Posted Mar 23, 2013 17:14 UTC (Sat) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link]
You mean by not unsolicitedly listening to other people's private conversations, violating their right to their own picture by posting it on twitter and publicly humiliating them? Yes, that indeed sounds like a good idea. I'm glad that the person who behaved that way got what she deserved.
Conferences may be more trouble than they are worth Posted Mar 24, 2013 0:13 UTC (Sun) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link] listening to other people's private conversations A conversation in a crowded room is not private. If you don't want people to hear what you say, don't say it where it's inevitable that other people will hear you. violating their right to their own picture There is no right not to have your picture taken and publicized when you are in a public area. You have some right to limit the use of your image for commercial purposes, but not to prevent it from being used to highlight your bad behavior. by posting it on twitter and publicly humiliating them? Unless their statements were misrepresented, their public humiliation was their own fault. If you don't want to be humiliated for what you say in public, don't say things in public that you would find humiliating were they publicized. Is this such a hard thing to grasp? I'm not trying to excuse Adria Richards. She escalated a situation that could have been handled more deftly. But the men she humiliated are hardly innocent victims. They were engaging in behavior that was against both the ordinary bounds of workplace behavior and the PyCon code of conduct. I don't know if firing was the right outcome (though it could be if this was not a first offense) but it sounds as if was at least worth a public shaming.
Conferences may be more trouble than they are worth Posted Mar 24, 2013 1:37 UTC (Sun) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link]
> There is no right not to have your picture taken and publicized when you are in a public area.
There is in more civilised countries than the US.
> But the men she humiliated are hardly innocent victims.
Conferences may be more trouble than they are worth Posted Mar 24, 2013 17:15 UTC (Sun) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]
> The fact that such a big deal is being made of it tells more about the pathetic prudery of american society than about those two guys.
While I don't agree with everything HelloWorld said I can't resist reminding that the US has one the highest crime rate in the world and about 0.5% of its population behind bars: very few of them with a white skin.
To me these issues sound important enough not to waste any time or energy or electrons on futile things like increasing the chances of little girls to work in IT (assuming working in IT is a good thing at all)
Maybe some minorities have a "web presence" problem...
Now to take a break from any kind of political correctness I recommend: http://www.theregister.co.uk/data_centre/bofh/
Conferences may be more trouble than they are worth Posted Mar 24, 2013 20:21 UTC (Sun) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link] To me these issues sound important enough not to waste any time or energy or electrons on futile things like increasing the chances of little girls to work in IT (assuming working in IT is a good thing at all) The polite thing I have to say here is: Activism effort is not fungible.
Conferences may be more trouble than they are worth Posted Mar 25, 2013 8:17 UTC (Mon) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]
> Activism effort is not fungible.
Existing activism effort hardly is. On the other hand, putting things in perspective can possibly change the mind of people not involved yet, affect fund raising, etc.
Conferences may be more trouble than they are worth Posted Mar 24, 2013 23:45 UTC (Sun) by sjj (subscriber, #2020) [Link]
I don't really understand what you're trying to say here. I choose to be charitable and think "futile things like increasing the chances of little girls to work in IT" is some kind of misapplied sarcasm. Little girls or little boys seldom work in IT - adult women and men do. Are you referring to women in IT as "little girls"? Because if that's what you think, here's my advice: get a clue and grow up.
Your post sounds to me like you reached into your Bag of Derailment Arguments and pulled out paragraphs at random. In order: what is the relevance of American crime rate and incarceration statistics (which are appalling) to this discussion? Second graf, see above. Third graf is gibberish. And just in case some young up and coming sysadmins are still reading this thread: please don't take BOFH stories as professional advice (yes, I've had to make this point to people in my career, and I've had people from outside of IT/Operations come to me and tell me they think it's great they don't have to be afraid of talking to our department anymore). You don't want to be That Guy.
Conferences may be more trouble than they are worth Posted Mar 25, 2013 9:48 UTC (Mon) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link] Are you referring to women in IT as "little girls"? I think it's obvious that they were not, especially from the broader context of the discussion. I recommend not looking for offence at every opportunity, instead giving people the benefit of the doubt even if you don't agree with their general position.
Conferences may be more trouble than they are worth Posted Mar 26, 2013 0:16 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Curious. I read precisely the opposite from context than do you. Do you really think anyone is arguing that six-year-old children of any gender should work in IT?! Talk about straw women...
Conferences may be more trouble than they are worth Posted Mar 26, 2013 0:51 UTC (Tue) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]
> Do you really think anyone is arguing that six-year-old children of any gender should work in IT?!
http://www.google.com/search?q=adria+richards+little+girl
(I wonder where you got the "six-year-old" part from)
Conferences may be more trouble than they are worth Posted Mar 26, 2013 12:14 UTC (Tue) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link]
Did you reply to the wrong post here? No-one was arguing that six-year-old children should work in IT. The encouragement of little girls and boys to become interested in computers (and one day in the future perhaps work in IT) was a theme at PyCon US, especially as they had tutorials for children and gave out Raspberry Pis to everyone. That's the wider context, not what the Internet mob had to say about it afterwards.
Conferences may be more trouble than they are worth Posted Mar 25, 2013 10:06 UTC (Mon) by micka (subscriber, #38720) [Link]
I think (but can be sure that) "little girls" was refering to the alleged cause of Adria Richards' snapping.
Conferences may be more trouble than they are worth Posted Mar 24, 2013 23:22 UTC (Sun) by sjj (subscriber, #2020) [Link]
Excuse me, but how does bringing out the broad brush about American society bring "something new to say and demonstrate the highest level of respect for others" (as the Grumpy Editor asked) in this discussion?
There may indeed be more civilized countries than the US. You may think that "the pathetic prudery of american society" is to blame. But the fact is that the conference we're presumably talking about here was held in Santa Clara, California, which is part of the US. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" has been part of Western civilization since at least 390 CE.
St. Augustine said it pretty well: When I go to Rome, I fast on Saturday, but here [Milan] I do not. Do you also follow the custom of whatever church you attend, if you do not want to give or receive scandal.
Conferences may be more trouble than they are worth Posted Mar 25, 2013 1:16 UTC (Mon) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link]
> Excuse me, but how does bringing out the broad brush about American society bring "something new to say and demonstrate the highest level of respect for others" (as the Grumpy Editor asked) in this discussion?
I don't think anyone brought up the point before that the problem may not be the developer who made a dirty joke but society's attitude towards it. I should have phrased it differently, but I still think it's a valid point to make.
Conferences may be more trouble than they are worth Posted Mar 25, 2013 12:03 UTC (Mon) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link] I wonder how all this will affect the tendency of various people in the different Python communities to use Monty Python references in their materials. Making references to Romans, particularly visiting dignitaries, might be more trouble than it's worth.
Conferences may be more trouble than they are worth Posted Mar 26, 2013 0:19 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
I dunno. Adria *is* a plausibly Latinate name, heck very close to that of at least one notable emperor. (I can't help noticing the social context of names here. The whole personality of said emperor seems to shift if you modernize his name by removing the first letter: Emperor Adrian...)
Conferences may be more trouble than they are worth Posted Mar 24, 2013 17:28 UTC (Sun) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]
> > listening to other people's private conversations
> A conversation in a crowded room is not private. If you don't want people to hear what you say,...
There is difference between hearing and listening which I think is quite relevant here.
Conferences may be more trouble than they are worth Posted Mar 26, 2013 0:14 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] There is no right not to have your picture taken and publicized when you are in a public area.A quote seems relevant here. As usual, he hits it out of the park: "You know, when I was in Paris, seeing Linter for the first time, I was standing at the top of some steps in the courtyard where Linter's place was, and I looked across it and there was a little notice on the wall saying it was forbidden to take photographs of the courtyard without the man's permission. [...] They want to own the light!"-- Iain M. Banks, The State of the Art, chapter 6.3 Halation Effect But, of course, Iain is one of those Scottish socialists...
Conferences may be more trouble than they are worth Posted Mar 26, 2013 10:55 UTC (Tue) by fb (subscriber, #53265) [Link]
@rgmoore
While the whole thread is somehow depressing and somehow instructive in its arguments, I would like to thank you for the cool headed and rational look at the situation. I mean it.
Kind regards,
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