
Let's get a little louder - SeanOC
http://juliaelman.com/blog/2012/jun/3/lets-get-little-louder/
======
stfu
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
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.

~~~
Jach
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
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.

------
dpeck
Maybe I'm missing something but why not handle it with the safeguards at the
venue? The conference is not in the business of protecting its attendees from
unwanted advances, especially outside of the conference areas/sponsored
events.

Why not speak to the manager of the bar and have him escorted out? If it
happens at the hotel, do the same with the hotel manager. People in the
service/hospitality industry know how to deal with these situations and do so
all the time. If it happens again call the law.

There are much better mechanisms for dealing with harassment than a conference
organizer.

~~~
Hytosys
Agreed. Why is the development community (this conference in specific) being
held responsible for the acts of an individual who happens to reside within?
This is clearly something that should be taken care like an adult of outside
of a private community. The story is a bummer, but the author's response to
the situation is quite childish and this blog post seems somewhat irrelevant.

~~~
mtrimpe
And the response from the organizer should have been very simple and straight-
forward: Ask the person to leave the conference and ideally, if it still had
to take place, canceling their talk as well.

I doubt anything but praise would have resulted from that, even though the
best outcome would be that it was kept private and became a little piece of
background gossip floating around the Django-community.

~~~
sneak
Sorry to go all patriarchy here, but the little Schneier on my shoulder just
explained to me how to get anyone's talk cancelled at a conference that
institutes this sort of policy.

I'm not sure that's a workable fix, either. This is sort of a hard problem.

~~~
mtrimpe
Judging from the organizer's response there was little doubt concerning the
validity of her claims in this case though.

In other cases, pulling said person into a room, asking him if the claims are
true and _if so_ asking them to leave is already a big step forward.

~~~
sneak
It seems like you assume everyone to be honest.

------
lambda
I am really quite disturbed by all of the people who are responding something
along the lines of "this isn't the conference organizer's problem, it's
happening outside of the conference." I've seen several such replies, so
rather than responding to one, I'm responding to the whole sentiment here.

At a conference, there is a lot that goes on during unofficial off-hours, that
is really an integral part of the conference. We shouldn't consider it
acceptable for women to feel unsafe going to such off-hours events. If there
is someone who is a guest at that conference, and showing up to off-hours
events associate with the conference, that is still the conference's problem,
as it significantly negatively affects an important part of the conference,
and could be avoided by making that person unwelcome at the conference.

And this is not a court of law. We regularly ban people from online
communities with a much lower bar of proof than would be required in a court
of law, because those people are harmful to the community. Yes, any particular
process could, in theory, be abused. But that isn't, as far as I know, a
problem here. I have never heard of someone being banned from a conference
unjustly. And we have a lower bar in these cases because the consequences are
not as severe as criminal sanctions. We are not trying to lock someone up. We
are not trying to get them arrested. We are just saying "this behavior is
unacceptable, and you are not welcome in our community if you are going to
behave this way."

All the original post is asking is that conferences have a clearly defined
policy on what is unacceptable, and what will happen if someone crosses that
line. It doesn't sound like there's any dispute about what happened. It sounds
like the person in question had a history of problems, as the organizer said
he shouldn't have allowed this person to come to the conference.

There isn't a problem here of people being unjustly accused and cut off from
conferences because of it. There is a problem of women being harassed,
seriously creeped out, feeling unwelcome and unable to do anything about it
because of the actions of a few, and the lack of any clear policy or action on
the part of conference organizers. And heck, a clear policy can help. Perhaps
it can specify that the first time, someone will be warned, and only banned if
they have already been warned. Perhaps it can specify a dispute resolution
procedure. A clear policy will help everyone. We need to do better, because
this keeps coming up and it is a serious problem.

~~~
JohnBooty
> It sounds like the person in question had a history of > problems, as the
> organizer said he shouldn't have allowed > this person to come to the
> conference.

Even then, it may be far from clear-cut. We don't know what those problems
are. Have there been reports of harassment regarding this guy? If so, that's
fairly clear-cut. But maybe this is just kind of a jerk, but hasn't done
anything over the line before.

While conference organizers certainly shouldn't put their heads in the sand,
realistically they're a small part of the potential solution. The community at
large really has the most power here - it has many more eyes and ears than the
(usually overworked) conference organizers.

I'm wondering where the rest of the community was when this harassment was
going on at the bar. The victim says they were there in a group. So a whole
group of conference attendees was just standing around, letting this victim be
harassed?

Unlike the conference organizers, they were there. At the bar. In close
proximity.

~~~
lambda
> Even then, it may be far from clear-cut. We don't know what those problems
> are. Have there been reports of harassment regarding this guy? If so, that's
> fairly clear-cut. But maybe this is just kind of a jerk, but hasn't done
> anything over the line before.

All of this is idle speculation that is really besides the point. The point is
that conferences should have a policy for how to deal with these kinds of
situations. Those policies are probably going to depend on a certain amount of
judgement from the conference organizer. They make all kinds of other
judgements, about who to include as keynote speakers or accept for talks. One
of their criteria should, perhaps, be whether the person in question has
stepped seriously out of bounds at previous events.

> I'm wondering where the rest of the community was when this harassment was
> going on at the bar. The victim says they were there in a group. So a whole
> group of conference attendees was just standing around, letting this victim
> be harassed?

You have been to a bar before, right? Many of them are dark, and loud. There
can be many conversations going on at once. It's pretty easy, even with a
large groups present, for people to have a conversation that no one else can
hear, because there's music playing, and they are involved in their own
conversation.

If people did overhear, there's always the bystander effect. In groups, people
are sometimes less likely to intervene in a situation, because they expect
someone else to intervene, or because they see no one else intervening and
feel some social pressure not to break the ice.

And we've seen several other incidents like this. Sometimes, it happens off in
a corner where no one else is around; or in a hallway in the conference hotel.
Those are situations we need to deal with just as much, and we can't depend on
there being a helpful bystander.

The only point is that we need a policy. The policy does not need to be
bulletproof. These are human situations. There will always be cases that slip
through the cracks. Some of them might just turn into a he-said, she-said that
can't be resolved. Some people might never come forward to the conference
organizers. Some people might abuse a policy to just get someone kicked out
that they don't like. But you do your best to try and provide the best, most
accepting environment that you can.

And right now, we have a real problem. We have people abusing the lack of any
policies, the lack of will of organizers to do anything, to continue coming to
events without repercussion for repeated behavior that is clearly
unacceptable. We can do better.

You know, the policy might be a warning at first. It might include some form
of adjudication if the events are in dispute. It might give someone a cooling
off period, and allow them back after a certain amount of time. There are lots
of options, and a large space to explore. But it is fundamentally unacceptable
that we just say "well, we can't tell what really happened with a legal level
of proof, so we're going to keep inviting creeps to our conferences and let
anyone who feels uncomfortable with that stay away."

~~~
booty
Sure, I perfectly understand how bars work. Like you say, it's totally
possible nobody at the bar knew this woman was being harassed. Especially if
this guy has plenty of experience being a creep and has gotten good at doing
without attracting attention.

What I'm saying, though, is that the people around them at the bar are far
more likely to be able to assist than a conference organizer who's not
physically there.

"The point is that conferences should have a policy for how to deal with these
kinds of situations. Those policies are probably going to depend on a certain
amount of judgement from the conference organizer."

I totally agree that there need to be policies. But policies are just words,
and they won't get the job done alone.

What will get the job done is looking out for each other. In social
situations, particularly bars, we should all be looking out for each other,
especially women, since they're disproportionally the ones on the receiving
end of predatory/harassing behavior.

If she went to the bar with a group, every single one of them ought to have
been looking out for each other. And yes, I've been in scores of similar
situations where I and others have looked out for the welfare of others. You
don't need to be an obnoxious "white knight" about it; you don't even need to
be overt. Creeps tend to look for girls whose friends aren't paying attention.

Example: Your female friend is caught in a conversation with a potential El
Creepo. Play dumb and introduce yourself to the guy in a purely friendly way.
Heck, maybe buy a round of drinks. Just knowing that somebody noticed him will
often nip things in the bud.

~~~
lambda
OK, sure. If your response is not "it's not the conference organizers problem"
but "we should also try to look out for each other in social situations," I
will agree wholeheartedly with that.

Yes, there are things that we should do while we are there in person. And
there are things that should be handled at the conference organizer level, if
there is someone who has demonstrated unacceptable behavior at the conference.
And, of course, there is also the police level, for things that go so far
beyond the bounds as to be able to make it to that level.

I was just concerned that a lot of people were saying things like "well, she
doesn't have proof, so we should do nothing" or "well, this should be a police
matter, so we should do nothing," and I thought that your comment might be
along those lines, "the other people in the bar should have done something, so
we shouldn't do anything." Sorry for having misinterpreted you, and yes, I
agree that we should fight this kind of behavior at all levels.

~~~
JohnBooty
I'll drink to that!

As somebody who's organized community gatherings himself (and made plenty of
mistakes in this area himself) I do feel that organizers play an important
role as you say.

To put it in really literal terms, when I organized my first meetup, we had a
mix of under- and over-21 members. I was really concerned about underage
drinking. I really strongly let our members know what was expected of them. I
think I stopped just shy of threatening to beat them up and/or report them to
the FBI if I caught one whiff of something bad happening to anybody,
especially the underage members. I definitely got the message across, at
least.

While that kind of approach obviously doesn't directly scale/translate to a
professional conference, I think the overarching principle is the same. The
organizers set the tone, outline accountability, and (if it's a multi-year
event) weed out repeat offenders. The rest is up to the community.

------
jnoller
This sucks, period - there's no two ways about it. Things like this are why I
am glad PyCon (us.pycon.org) has a code of conduct in place
(<https://us.pycon.org/2012/codeofconduct/>) which is enforced by staff. There
is no place for this type of behavior, anywhere.

I am sorry this happened to you Julia, it should not have, and the conference
organizers should not have blinked before ejecting the responsible party from
the conference.

~~~
tatsuke95
> _"and the conference organizers should not have blinked before ejecting the
> responsible party from the conference."_

So just assume guilt and throw him out, sans investigation?

That's completely unreasonable and why these are sticky situations. It isn't
black and white. Even with an air-tight sexual harassment policy, you can't
automatically assume that the accused is in the wrong.

~~~
wpietri
Not blinking doesn't mean that one can't investigate. It just means that one
shouldn't flinch at it.

~~~
jnoller
What wpietri said - conference and other event organizers need to not balk at
taking action, investigation, etc. This is a problem, and not a world I want
my wife or two daughters to be part of, that simple.

~~~
tatsuke95
Original quote:

> _"the conference organizers should not have blinked before ejecting the
> responsible party from the conference."_

Shoot first, ask questions later?

This is a problem, and not a world I want my wife or children to be part of,
that simple.

~~~
wpietri
That's one way to interpret that, but not the only way. You shouldn't complain
about someone potentially rushing to judgment at the same time you're rushing
to judgment.

~~~
tatsuke95
Oh, I see. You're interested in having an argument about the semantics of a
straight forward sentence.

> _"the conference organizers should not have blinked before ejecting the
> responsible party from the conference."_

Not much to "interpret" there. I've been wrong before, but I'll bet he meant
exactly what he said; this individual should have been removed from the
conference immediately. That's all well and good for a discussion on an
internet message board, but in reality it could be extremely harmful to
reputations, both of the accused and the conference.

Now, if jnoller meant what you are _implying_ he meant, he could have easily
written:

 _the conference organizers should not have blinked before [taking
action/investigating/speaking with/questioning etc] the [accused] party._

or even:

 _the conference organizers should have investigated, then not have blinked
before ejecting the responsible party from the conference if determined to be
guilty._

And that's something I could support. I think the conference representative's
reaction to such a major accusation was reprehensible. But that isn't what he
wrote. And I really don't think that's what he meant, either. Note the
language. Responsible? At what point was that determined?

And by the way: jumping to conclusions about a sexual harassment charge is
dangerous, and not _at all_ analogous to doing the same with regards to a
sentence on HackerNews.

~~~
jnoller
Even though it's against my better judgement to keep this thread going, I'll
hopefully clarify something for people reading this later.

In short; you're right - I could have spent more time wording it differently,
and your second proposed text:

> "the conference organizers should have investigated, then not have blinked
> before ejecting the responsible party from the conference if determined to
> be guilty."

Is closest to my thoughts on this. However, I feel the second half of that -
"determined to be guilty" puts a flair on the statement that ignores the
knowledge expressed in the article from the conference organizer - namely they
expressed to the author prior knowledge that this individual might be a _known
issue_ and therefore, the second portion of your sentence puts an undue burden
of doubt on the author's claims.

For the sake of clarity; here's the exact steps I would have taken as a
conference chair for a conference sitting at around 2500 attendees:

1> Once approached, I would have immediately noted the code of conduct
outlining our policy and thoughts on issues such as this, and explained that
we would immediately look into the situation, as the accusations are indeed
serious, and taken seriously.

2> I would take copious notes and asked the author to confirm my summary of
the events. If they were serious enough, I would then ask if the author wished
for me to summon law enforcement.

3> If a No was indicated to #2 - I would ask for any witnesses and immediately
pull the accused party aside, without the attendance of the accuser, with at
least one other senior staff member to ask the accuser about the events, and
once again point out the stated code of conduct and ask for their side of
events. During the investigation portion of this, the accused would not be
allowed to speak or represent the conference in any way, to allow that would
further open the door to further risk or an implicit endorsement of the
actions under investigation.

4> If, upon discussing with senior staff, and any witnesses we felt that the
issue being faced violated with our outlined code of conduct and indeed
created a hostile environment, I would ask the accused to leave the conference
per the stated code of conduct.

"Without blinking" was indeed meant to "take action" without blinking -
whether that is to immediately pull all parties aside to investigate and
discuss, or eject the accused.

However with the evidence provided in the post - most notably the fact that
the conference organizer(s) seemingly knew that this individual posed a
problem prior to the events occurring, _I would have a responsibility to
immediately act and isolate the accused to discuss, and in all probability ask
them to leave._

A "zero tolerance policy" has a bad name in the news due to the concerns you
outline. It does not, however, have to be enacted in the way we are all
familiar with - namely skipping the investigation and discussion portion.

I wouldn't want my child or myself ejected from school stupidly from school or
an event due to some written zero tolerance policy without discussion and
proper investigation - I would not do that to anyone else.

I hope that helps.

~~~
roopeshv
No matter how it is modified to fit the context, that is not how it's taken
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_tolerance>

------
xutopia
I've gotten into a bar fight to protect a woman I did not know. I almost got
into a fight in the subway for the same reason, twice. However I can't stand
these kinds of stories. All I hear is one socially awkward guy trying really
hard in the worst possible way.

I'm conflicted because on the other hand the guy seemed like an asshole but I
have only one side of the story and feel like it would be jumping to
conclusions to judge this guy just from this.

~~~
FuzzyDunlop
It seems to me that it might have been worthwhile talking to a bouncer or
other member of staff to warn the guy to stay away from her, or risk being
thrown out.

Whether or not that's reasonable, I don't know; but if the guy was a real
problem for her (and from her side it sounds like he was), then "telling
people" at that point in time, rather than afterwards, would have been more
prudent.

There's absolutely no reason for _anyone_ to put up with this kind of shit
from someone else.

But further to that, this can't and shouldn't be painted as another story
about sexism in tech. This is a story (from one side) about a guy having a few
drinks and trying it on in his own cringeworthy way, and lacking the
forethought to quit with some dignity intact. His choice of career has fuck
all to do with that, and neither does the conference.

(I'm all for policies and legislation that prohibit this sort of thing, by the
by, but they're not going to stop some guy who thinks he's god's gift from
making pervy remarks on a night out. Neither is walking away and hoping you
get left alone.)

~~~
theorique
_His choice of career has fuck all to do with that, and neither does the
conference._

It kind of does, though. According to Julia's account, this was not simply an
isolated incident.

When she talked to the organizer, he admitted that this individual who behaved
in a harassing way had shown a previous pattern of behavior of this type.
Since the organizer knew of this, this behavior presumably took place at other
events related to this professional community. It makes sense for this
community to expel people who behave this way.

~~~
FuzzyDunlop
I may have read the organiser's quote the wrong way, so I'll concur on that
count, and agree that some degree of responsibility is required so that this
behaviour is weeded out.

However, I'm still loathe to apportion blame or make anyone except the
individual accountable for their own behaviour, insofar as it's suggested that
the organiser doesn't condone that behaviour, and merely wasn't sure what to
do in lieu of the ability to refer to existing policy.

That problem, with this particular conference, has been solved, I would think.
However the individual will still very much be under the impression that he's
not being a dick. Because he wasn't properly called out on it as and when it
was happening.

(Given that we only have one account of this, I want to keep this general,
because even if the story doesn't add up at the end, we know that such people
do exist and that it does go on.)

------
bnegreve
Honestly, I don't think the conference should be in charge of this (specially
when it doesn't happen where the conference takes place). This is a very
general problem and should be handled by state/federal laws rather than
arbitrary decisions taken by conference organizer.

~~~
jamesaguilar
Surely it doesn't hurt to have the conference take a stand?

~~~
supernooneo
Take a stand against what? Unproven claims?

~~~
neilk
Pretty much. This isn't a court of law or a public gathering. This is a
privately organized event. It's totally okay to exclude disruptive people, and
to act on stuff you're reasonably sure is true.

Imagine there was some emacs guy who routinely went around harassing people
who used vim. To the point where he got so offensive that the vim people felt
they weren't being respected as professionals, even humiliated and demeaned.
Some were hounded by him at offsite gatherings. The conference organizers had
multiple reports of this occurring. Do the vim people need to "prove"
something before it's appropriate for conference organizers to take action?
Should their claims be more suspect than anyone else's?

I suggest that you re-examine why the 'unproven claims' thing is so important
to you. If you start with the assumption that women and men, just like emacs
and vim users, have equal interests in having a good technical conference, and
are equally competent to determine when someone's being disruptive, why
wouldn't you trust their reports?

~~~
PakG1
Let's look at the flip side. Someone who _does_ go around making life
miserable for others by falsely accusing them of things. In a case where
nobody knows both parties well, what are you supposed to do? I'm not saying
what happened was OK. I'm saying the flip side is something we need to beware
of also.

~~~
neilk
I think the OP is arguing that there should be a procedure in place, so you're
not improvising, or making arbitrary rules that aren't fairly applied.

If nobody saw it happen and nobody knows either party well, I would say,
record it and move on. If you have multiple reports, have a planned way to
escalate, involving friendly warnings, going all the way up to removing the
person and/or banning them.

Where it gets really bad - and I think everyone has seen this situation before
- is when the guy is some sort of alpha geek, and may even be the kind of
person that draws attendees. Everyone is inclined to bend the rules. I think
that's why a standard procedure would be important.

------
stdbrouw
That really sucks, and maybe the conference organizers could have been better
at coming up with a way to deal with this, but I don't know what a sexual
harrassment policy would solve. Sexual harrassment is immoral and depending on
the nature punishable by law. Spelling that out would be like spelling out
that you'd prefer people not to defecate in the hallways. We need to find
solutions, not add organizational scar tissue (see
[http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/dont_scar_on_the_first_cu...](http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/dont_scar_on_the_first_cut.php)).

~~~
pinko
The difference is that defecating in the hallways isn't a routine practice in
our industry, but sexual harassment of the sort she describes is. There's a
need for more awareness and action _within_ the community -- and a hands-off
"let the law take care of it" attitude ignores that a lot of this happens out
of the public eye, and can only be stopped when people close to it take a more
public stand against it.

~~~
jen_h
The point is that sexual harassment shouldn't be routine and we shouldn't
tolerate it. I sort of understand where the anti-harassment policy folks are
coming from, but I vehemently disagree that it's appropriate to codify common
decency and respect, especially in technical circles, where we should all know
better. We should strive to treat each other with respect regardless of
gender, race, or anything else for that matter and where we fail, we should
call each other out and work to fix it.

~~~
wpietri
I don't think a policy is just about codifying respect. It's also about
putting together a mechanism for handling the inevitable failures. Consider
the model policy from the Ada Initiative:

[http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/index.php?title=Conference_ant...](http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/index.php?title=Conference_anti-
harassment_policy)

A good chunk of that is about how the working-to-fix part works. I think
that's really valuable to have thought through in advance. I have banned
people before (never for this, thank goodness) and in the moment it's
incredibly hard to avoid over- or under-reacting if you have to think
everything through from first principles.

~~~
jen_h
Yeah, I get that--in crisis mode, a playbook is almost required to make sure
you make no missteps as someone in charge. This is pivotal in, say, security
incident response, or a corporate setting where there are all kinds of legal
issues, but at a conference, which is mostly among friends, I don't know.
Maybe if you can appropriately genericize the policy, but most of the policies
I've seen have almost unilaterally been specifically tailored to protect women
(which is great, for me--but maybe not for others who are being singled out).
Or they'll talk about "feeling safe."

But, you know, when that guy walked up to me when I was talking to my (male)
colleagues and specifically singled me out to ask that I allow him to
photograph my "tits" as part of a conference "scavenger hunt," I told him off.
Then he came back, and I told him off again. I never felt "unsafe," just angry
and humiliated. If you're looking at "reporting someone if you feel fear,"
then it's likely that poor guy had a high possibility of being the one
reporting it had he come back a third time.

tl;dr: Most of these policies make women and minorities out to be victims vs.
ensuring that people just treat each other with common decency and respect.
Not a fan of singling any of us out and I don't think it's productive.

------
supernooneo
Careful that she is making an accusation here, but it is not proven, and prior
bad behaviour (that's also an unproven accusation) is not an indicator of
present guilt.

I don't think we should ban people from conferences based on unproven
accusations.

~~~
Avenger42
This isn't the stock market. Past behavior _is_ an indicator of present/future
behavior. It's not the only indicator, certainly, but when a large number of
people are telling you the same thing, then you have a responsibility to
discover why that is.

The organizer's reaction made it sound like he had reservations about inviting
this person, due to older reports similar to the author's.

~~~
blubbar
>Past behavior is an indicator of present/future behavior.

But a pretty bad one. I wouldn't mind if a murderer would give talk (if it was
good). And not about the murdering, but about let's say ReiserFS.

------
booty
I've been in this conference organizer's shoes before.

On one hand, running a conference/convention is difficult enough without being
asked to referee personal conflicts. It almost inevitably devolves into a he-
said/she-said kind of argument.

But on the other hand, if we take that kind of an attitude, that's essentially
a signal for predatory men to go ahead and harass women (or worse). That's
pretty much what predatory men have been doing since the beginning of history
- acting with impunity since claims of rape or harassment are almost
impossible to prove if there are no additional witnesses or physical evidence.

What we've done is to stress proper conduct before the event, and if there are
repeat complaints about somebody they're removed from the community
permanently.

It's not a perfect process and we've given some "second chances" to people
that we've later regretted.

~~~
blubbar
No, that's just the signal "That's beyond my scope", a sign of
professionalism. If you try to be hobby cop and judge you will fail. That's a
job for the pros.

------
petercooper
_it is clear to me that there is a definite lack of policies and procedures in
place for sexual harassment at conferences and events._

FWIW, O'Reilly has had a policy - <http://conferences.oreillynet.com/code-of-
conduct.csp> \- for a while now. RailsConf also has one and I saw discussion
about another Ruby event's policy recently on HN too (where people were saying
'is this really needed!?'.. answer is yes).

------
aardvark179
So, if the response from the conference director was that they should never
have allowed the guy to come then it sounds like he was a known quantity in
this regard.

When I've run conventions there has always been a note that the committee
reserved the right to reject anybody's membership and did not have to give a
reason. We've never had to use this but we've always had it as the nuclear
option and had one person who we were ready to use it on.

If the person is already at the conference then you may need an acceptable
behaviour policy that allows you to act, and you need it to be worded such
that it applies to all conference attendees for the duration of the conference
regardless of whether they are in conference facilities at the time. It's also
best if it is short and broad, it's very easy to spot acceptable behaviour
policies that have grown in response to specific events, and they are deeply
discouraging when viewed by newcomers and outsiders.

------
breadbox
If someone started a fistfight in the conference's bar after hours, would you
be surprised if the conference chose to not invite that person back again,
ever? Would you come to his defense by saying "It's not the conference
organizers' responsiblity what happens in the bar afterwards!" Some of the
commenters have this idea that if you behave like a jerk to someone, ONLY that
person has the right to distrust you. WTF?

------
sneak
> Let's stop talking about apologies too. "After the fact" doesn't really do
> any good. Sexual harassment should not happen in the first place. There
> should be a clearly-defined set of standards in place to prevent it.

I'm not sure how standards in place at a conference can prevent individuals
from deciding to break the law.

Sure, you might deter the weak-willed or fearful, but these sorts of asshole
moves aren't generally perpetrated by those kinds of people.

Unfortunately, for a lot of this kind of stuff, after-the-fact is all we have.
I would love a better solution but the items listed don't actually _prevent_
this.

------
Loic
Excuse me but I am surprised. I read a lot on HN and on several planets (feed
aggregation) about harassment, but in my field (engineering) I have never
seen/experienced/heard about such cases even if the ratio female/male is
pretty low is some of these conferences. Is it something specific to the coder
community? Or maybe chemical/process engineers are just an exception? Or is it
specific to the US in this field (I have been to a couple of coder oriented
conferences in Europe without experiencing such cases but only engineering
confs in the US)?

~~~
jakobe
Sexual harassment does happen, but very few people talk about it in public. In
fact, most people don't even talk about it in private. It's very much possible
that it is common, but noone ever told you about it (except for bloggers who
are not ashamed of speaking up).

------
johngalt
Maybe the reason that there is no policy at the conference is that harassment
doesn't happen as often as its portrayed?

Going to a bar and then being hit on is hardly the end of the world. Its one
thing to respect office/professional decorum, its another to start setting
rules where men can only speak when spoken to.

~~~
theorique
Did you read the blog post? The guy was rebuffed multiple times and turned up
his verbal offensiveness each time, finishing off by describing his daughter
as a slut.

Discouraging men from speaking this way - in a professional community - to
women who are their peers, is hardly equivalent to "setting rules where men
can only speak when spoken to".

Hitting on woman = fine.

Turning up the verbal heat when she's already turned you down = obnoxious.

------
Tichy
Would a harassment policy spell out the appropriate ways to approach a woman?
Or would flirting become some kind of Russian Roulette?

~~~
petercooper
In most of these stories, someone does something stupid, and the target
doesn't immediately blow up.. they instead ask the other person to stop or
leave them alone _first_.

So "flirt" by all means but as soon as someone tells you to leave them alone,
that's the absolute end of it. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be happening in
most of these stories.

~~~
Tichy
That's true - in a story like this it seems obvious. I just worry that it
might not always be so obvious in effect. In fact looking to the US across the
pond, some of the rules around dating and sexual harassment already seem quite
scary. Basically it seems really easy to ruin somebody's life with twisted
interpretations of their behavior.

Another example of such laws gone wrong is maybe the sexting teenagers who are
now on file as pedophiles.

------
nosse
I'd like to note that "groping" is not mentioned in the article. No other
touching either. Just that some creep started to make "inappropriate sexual
advances" towards the writer.

So it seems to be one time unpleasant conversation. I'd hardly call that
harassment.

If one time unpleasant conversation with persistent person is harassment, then
I was once police-harassed. This officer wanted me to go to police academy. I
said no but he didn't stop. He was quite drunk. And last weekend I was oil-
change-harassed, my dad kept insisting that I'd do an oil change to my car
this summer. He was drunk too.

But I have to admit that this kind of behavior towards women should stop. What
is causing it? Let's go after the source, not just try to heal the symptoms.

~~~
natrius
FYI, if, within the realm of reason, you ask someone to stop doing something
that bothers you and they continue to do so, that's usually harassment.

~~~
nosse
"within the realm of reason" Thats the point I was making.

"Although the law doesn’t prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or
isolated incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it is
so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment
or when it results in an adverse employment decision"
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_harassment>

So in my view, if the author would go to another conference, and the same
creep would try again, that would be harassment. There should be a pattern of
some kind. If you count single incidents as harassment, your going to have
serious problems with freedom of speech.

FYI, using "FYI" feels arrogant to me. Please stop, you would not want to FYI-
harass me?

~~~
natrius
You refer to it as a single incident; she does not.

 _"My colleague started making inappropriate sexual advances towards me. He
singled me out and would not leave me alone, even when asked. I tried to shake
it off, change the conversation and even moved away. He would not stop."_

I'm not suggesting laws were broken, but there is no question in my mind that
harassment is the proper term to use here.

"FYI" was an unproductive way to begin my comment. My apologies.

~~~
nosse
Apology accepted. I'm sorry I didn't find a more mature way to respond.

------
jeremyarussell
Since this does happen, (even if we don't _know_ that this guy did anything to
this girl.) then I think a bigger question to ask is pretty simple and will
surely do better in the long run. When someone around you acts like a pig,
girl or guy (I've seen some girls act downright crazy when alcohol gets into
the mix, it's the thing to do when you want to act out your deepest desires,
liquid courage I call it.) call them out at it. If you see someone groping
someone else when they don't want, let them know it's not cool and you won't
stand here while they do it. Same thing for any sexual advance that is
unwelcome. You can usually tell when it's unwelcome when the receiving party
looks nervous and tries to politely get out of the situation.

The below kinda-quote (it's disputed if it was Burke, or if it was said
exactly thus.) comes to mind and rings pretty loud.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" -
Edmund Burke

As an exiting thought, the pressure to be civil needs to come from peers.
Meaning, guys don't let guy friends harass, and girls don't let girl friends
harass.

------
tomjen3
That is a bit redundant, as it would fall under the general don't be an
asshole policy.

Also this happened at a bar. So it would seem the problem is that the bar
didn't handle it, not that the conference didn't.

------
s_baby
Since when are "zero tolerance" policies a good idea. They always end up
marginalizing someone.

------
roopeshv
i am only here to look for a reference to "lighten up"

------
fezzl
He must have been ugly.

~~~
ToesByNoon
Common ground.

------
stefantalpalaru
If the lady says she was harassed we should totally ban the criminal from any
future conferences, jobs and parties. Forget the due process, she was
disgusted by everyone associated with the rapist. Disgusted! Zero-tolerance
means we don't even need Obama to look over the kill-list. The pedophile must
pay.

P.S.: at last year's EuroPython conference in Italy we were greeted by a
menacing organizer threatening to call the cops if we make inappropriate
jokes. I blamed it on the fascist ideology still present in this country, but
it seems to run deeper. Let's see how it will escalate this year:
<https://ep2012.europython.eu/code-of-conduct>

~~~
roopeshv
from the CoC is fuck a sexual language?

~~~
stefantalpalaru
fuck yeah

------
sparknlaunch
Unfortunate story and only recommend that others walk away sooner and try not
to provoke the situation. Alcohol is a dangerous drug and can seriously impair
people's decision making. It is always best to walk away.

I always wonder what would happen if a man was subjected to the same
treatment. Sadly I doubt anyone would take them seriously. But we should...

------
ToesByNoon
Everyone deals with / runs into assholes in their lives, this guy was just
another one. If you politely told him to fuck off several times and he did
not, why not call the cops rather than crying about it on the internet? Oh
yeah, free publicity for your blog and business.

------
Daniel_Newby
Pics or it didn't happen.

Seriously. YouTube is worth a thousand zero tolerance policies.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
Why the downvote hate? A few videos demonstrating the problem would eliminate
the controversy, as well as let the offenders punish themselves in their own
words.

~~~
LeafStorm
Because if I was being sexually harassed, I wouldn't stay around the harasser
long enough to pull out a camera phone and record the (horribly vulgar)
advances - especially considering the risk of the harasser becoming violent
when recorded. I would get the heck away.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
But she did not flee. She engaged and escalated. He attempted a 5 second
caveman courtship, and she _responded_ to it, teasing him about his wife to
check if his testosterone really was turned up to 11. Soo-prise, it was! Maybe
even 12. So then she teased him about his daughter, to see if he would
virtually castrate himself to impress her. Soo-prise, it turns out Mr. Caveman
does not live to sexually impress his daughter.

What she should have done was to record his overtures for public amusement,
then turned her back on him.

~~~
sojourner
Sigh. She mentioned his daughter and wife not to engage and escalate, but to
remind him he was a human being. Fail.

Personally, this guy deserves filming and posting, but a lot of women like
being nice. Even with people being utter and complete sociopaths. She gave him
some consideration, like a lot of women would. He was drunk, and she kept
nicely attempting to redirect his attention away from her. Even now, she is
not outing him. She has kept the details vague enough so that few probably
could guess who this was.

Not everyone enjoys being obnoxious. Even with determined assholes, even with
dangerous sociopaths (not saying he was one, just saying in general).

That wasn't a tease or a challenge she was throwing out to him. That was a "I
said no. And by the way, you're married, so even if I was attracted to
assholes, it would still be a no. And by the way, you're married with
children, so even if I was attracted to assholes, it would still be a no. Oh,
and by the way, have I mentioned, no? No? Then, let me say it again no."

I think it's interesting that you see her actions as engaging and escalating.
I'm sure there are a significant number of males who would agree with you on
that. I'm curious, because I've encountered a fair number of guys who don't
seem to hear the word "no" or follow-up phrases that indicate "no": say I'm
having a great time in a bar after the conference, and here comes the father
with a slut for a daughter looking for some action. Are my only options to get
the bartender to throw the guy out, or to leave the bar in order to have this
guy -- if not to hear and respond to my "no" -- act as if he did? Or is there
something magical phrase that a woman can tell a guy where he will hear "no"
and actually respond as if he respected that?

