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Comment by milesf | Hacker News Reader

Not true. There have been issues at conferences that have been talked about on places like HN, and now many conferences are adopting anti-harassment policies, like at the Cascadia Ruby Conference http://cascadiaruby.com/policies

It's a mess, yes, but change does happen.

There are many people who are very skilled at talking about tough issues like this one who simply need to be given an opportunity to address the community. I for one hope the Ruby community steps up and changes, for the better, because of this one.

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Lest we mention PyCon...

What about it?

Here: http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/21/a-dongle-joke-that-spiraled...

I'm familiar with the incident (I current serve as the co-chair of the PyCon Program Committee, as well as a board member for the Python Software Foundation). I'm just curious if the OP was implying that anything would have been better without a CoC?

Things would have been better if everyone in the situation acted like adults. No matter how detailed and specific the Code of Conduct, Adria probably would have done what she did anyway.

Rather than worrying about the effects of shaming people publicly, conferences are basically putting up "no glass in pool area" and announcing their triumph at conquering this problem.

At a recent PyCon a couple of attendees made a weak joke about forking a repository that came off as sexual humor (I don't know if it was intended that way or not). Someone was offended by it and tweeted a picture of them rather than approach the conference organizers. Things escalated from there.

As I recall it, by the end of everything, the jokesters had been asked to leave the conference and subsequently lost their jobs, and the community blowback after that resulted in the originally offended person also losing her job because the controversy would have made it basically impossible for her to act as a developer community liason.

There were no winners, but PyCon apparently does now make procedures for handling sexual harassment, etc. much more clear in conference materials.

edit: though clearly my recollection was flawed in some ways - among other things, only 2 lost jobs and I was incorrect about them being asked to leave the conference.

This is inaccurate. The individuals making comments were not ejected from the conference, they were informed that their words were having effects they might not be intending, they apologized, and returned to the conference.

I can in no way speak for anyone's employer, but it's worth noting that only one of the individuals lost their job.

I currently serve as the co-chair for the PyCon Program Committee, and as a director of the Python Software Foundation.

I think I'd already noted part of this (that there were 2 job losses not 3), but Adria Richards' job certainly counts as part of the fallout from the whole thing as well.

Thanks for what you do for Python.

Probably worth mentioning that Adria Richard's probably lost her job because she dragged(drug?) her employer into the fray on twitter.

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