Will Donglegate Affect Your Decision To Attend PyCon? 759
theodp writes "Its Code of Conduct describes PyCon as 'a welcoming, friendly event for all.' But will the post-conference fallout from this year's 'Donglegate' debacle and proposed remedies affect your decision — one way or the other — to attend next year's PyCon in ironically naughty Montreal? And even if not, could 'Donglegate' influence the-powers-that-be whose approval you'll need to attend? How about conference sponsors?"
Nope (Score:5, Informative)
At least part of the reason I go to Pycon is for recruiting; that means that I wear a company-branded t-shirt, and -- obviously -- my name tag has my company's name on it. I expect that I should always behave in a way that is consistent with representing my company well, and part of that means keeping my conduct strictly professional.
I don't see anything here that makes Pycon less useful, or interesting, or relevant to me, nor do I see any action on the part of the Pycon folks that I disagree with. And, having just talked with my management last night about Donglegate, I know they feel the same.
Now, Pycon being in Montreal is a different matter -- I don't really want to cross borders for Pycon.
Re:What the hell (Score:3, Informative)
Or you know - click on the provided links?
Re:Put simply; yes (Score:3, Informative)
Which will make these women notice the subconscious cues that they are unwanted and unwelcome because of what Adria Richards did, leading to a drop in women attendees, which people like Adria Richards will then blame on the overbearing masculinity of the leadership until the leaders are expelled for their non-existent problem with women so that people loyal to Adria Richards can take over the group. The fake feminists did the exact same thing to the atheist community. [dreamwidth.org]
Re:What the hell (Score:4, Informative)
My thoughts too. What the fuck is submitter talking about?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=donglegate [lmgtfy.com]
Basically, a nosy bitch at a tech conference overheard two guys make a "dongle" joke (and possibly a "forking" joke), and instead of acting like an adult and ignoring them or asking them to stop, or even complaining privately to the conference organizers, she took their picture, and tweeted it to the world.
Guys were kicked out, one was fired from his job. Upon hearing this, certain parts of the Interwebs that shall remain nameless (okay, it was 4chan) started DDOSing her site and the site of her employer. She ended up being fired herself.
Sheesh.
Re:Donglegate? Really? (Score:5, Informative)
Nice play. For once it didn't work out quite as she expected
Actually I think she knew exactly what would happen, the same thing as always, people rape threatning her and calling her all kind of things. Amanda Blum's excelent blog post [wordpress.com] highlights the problem with Adrias behaviour but hopefully give you some insight to the larger problem.
If this has thought us something it is that there are some serious problem with sexism at tech conferences, even if you don't like what she did the backlash kind of proved her point IMHO.
Montreal (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not sure what the "naughty Montreal" comment is about; Montreal is an ideal location to get over this episode. Women in general, and women in industry in particular, are treated fairly and equitably. While there aren't 50% female developers, the numbers are higher than I've seen elsewhere in North America.
I just hope conference attendees are ready for 51% of the sessions to be held in French, and all printed materials being predominantly in French, as required by law.
Re:Donglegate? Really? (Score:5, Informative)
Informative link.
"Money Shot" does not mean porn. Yes. Porn made the term famous, but the meaning isn't quite "semen being ejected." It's "this is what people came here to see!" Steve Jobs holding up a new iThing was "the money shot."
The woman has a serious problem in that she makes her problem a problem for everyone else.
Very enlightening.
She was not going to be re-trained. And the blogger demonstrated that she has a history of choosing the stir up trouble rather than trying to work things out. Clearly the company that fired her made the right choice.
I'm rather surprised she even attended PyCon. After all, pythons and snakes in general are often used to describe penises.
Re:No dongles and connectors! (Score:3, Informative)
They told a joke
...almost certainly equivalent to one she clearly has no problems with [twitter.com].
Interesting Twitter feed, as it were, full of sexism and racism.
But of course, it doesn't count - because she's black and female. And joking, clearly, oh, certainly.
Re:Human Beings (Score:5, Informative)
If someone can come up with a disparaging name to call a female that is not sexist, please suggest one
There are plenty...'idiot' works for me. If you want extra strength, 'nasty, hypocritical attention-seeking idiot' would seem to apply in this case.
Why do you feel the need for something gender-specific?
Note that you can just as well call a female a 'bastard' if you like, it's just slang for 'illegitimate'.
Strangely enough, just about the stongest word you can use against a man in the English language is of course 'cunt'; go figure.
Overall, though, swear word tends to detract from the overall message. I once worked for a boss that I never, ever heard use a swer word.
But when he (rarely) felt he had to, he could take verbally take people to pieces like I've never seen.
Now get off my fucking lawn.
Re:What the hell (Score:5, Informative)
Once a bitch always a bitch. Here's some backstory [wordpress.com] on the problem told from the perspective of a decent and respectable woman.
Re:What the hell (Score:3, Informative)
She wasn't eavesdropping.
Avdi Grimm [google.com] said it best:
If that doesn't help, how about Richards' own blog post:
I'll make this real simple: the PlayHaven guys weren't making private jokes, they were responding inappropriately to public comments.
Re:What the hell (Score:5, Informative)
I posted a bunch of details here [slashdot.org] but the main point is :
Richards had pissed off people by pulling similar publicity stunts before [wordpress.com]. Amanda Blum was one of those people Richard had pissed off. She sent a constructive email to SendGrid suggesting how one keeps such loose cannons under control. SendGrid simply read Blum's email as past behavior and fired Richards rather than taking Blum's constructive advice.
It's worth noting that Richard actions constitute libel in the U.K. I donno if her accusation of the forking remark constitute libel in the U.S., perhaps given that it's false. I'd assume that her accusation of the dongles remark does not constitute libel in the U.S., being true.
Re:Imagine a world where... (Score:4, Informative)
Well they did update their code of conduct to disallow public shaming of anyone.
She did inform the organisers. They privately dealt with it, the jokers sincerely apologised, and the organisers left it at that. The tweeting of their photo was in addition to that.
I can't fault the PyCon organisers for anything in this. If anything, they now have a more robust code of conduct now. Future events should hopefully be free of any of this nonsense.
Re:What the hell (Score:4, Informative)
We need to attract women like Adria because of their immense tech skills
http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-dont-belong-at-tech-conferences/ [butyoureagirl.com]
The stuff about the dongles wasn't even logical and as a self professed nerd, that bothered me. Dongles are intended to be small and unobtrusive. They're intended for network connectivity and to service as physical licence keys for software. I'd consulted in the past with an automotive shop that needed data recovery and technical support. I know what PCMCIA dongles look like.
No wait, we need to attract them because of their superior people skills. Like tweeting a picture of someone and getting them fired over a stupid comment because they were too passive to confront them and too aggressive to just let it slide and then making up a bullshit but-think-of-the-children justification to make it seem like they were doing it for some higher purpose than self promotion.