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KatieConf

katieconf.xyz

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Re: KatieConf

#51

Post by lsiebert »

rwmj wrote: post #13
untog wrote: post #9

In case anyone was wondering as to the point of the parody: > If you are looking for speakers for your conference, why not ask one of the wonderful people featured here? They are all listed with their Twitter accounts, and a link to some of their prior talks. > Do you really need another conference lineup of all men? Or as many female speakers as speakers called Steve? I suspect it is a direct rebuttal to the argumen…

It's incredibly patronising. Edit: Controversial comment, so let's say something positive here. I found this site to be unfunny and unclear about its message. However it's easy to improve it. The first thing I would add to the site at the bottom would be a list of recommendations for avoiding bias in selection of candidates. These would include things like always doing blind evaluation of speaker candidates. Secondly…

I'd just note that blind evaluation could be hard because of systematic discrimination biasing how you evaluate a candidate. For example, if you look at who has spoken at conferences before in your blind evaluation, it's blind, but biased by previous discrimination. it's the same sort of issue that crops up regularly in machine learning, where people assume that the data isn't the result of bias.

I'd say the correct way to avoid bias is to set a blind baseline of expectations (Like 3+ years in industry working with the topic) and then reach out to minorities. That said, even someone who doesn't have experience can be a good presenter if given the right support, I've seen great conference talk made by total newbies to a technology who were encouraged to write code making use of a new feature. They presented what they learned, problem spots that they found that might trip up someone new to the technology, and open sourced their app as a learning tool.

Re: KatieConf

#53

Post by strictnein »

mikeash wrote: post #41
strictnein wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Do you really need another conference lineup of all men?" If they are the subject matter experts, then yes, I would prefer they are all present, and none of them be excluded because we are searching for faux diversity. When the subject is one's technical knowledge, the actual genetic makeup of the person making the presentation doesn't matter. It's strange that, to some, this is somehow a controversial statement.

Implying there are no female subject matter experts. The problem isn't that people choose expertise and skill over gender. The problem is that men greatly outnumber women for no discernible good reason, despite the availability of qualified women speakers. It's not faux diversity. The fact that you just assume any change from the all-male status quo must be a step down is amazingly sexist and insulting.

> "The fact that you just assume any change from the all-male status quo must be a step down is amazingly sexist and insulting."

I never said anything of the sort and it's quite interesting that you read that into what I wrote. It's very clear what I meant: I don't consider the gender makeup of the people presenting to have any value, as long as the people presenting are the best people available.

> "The problem is that men greatly outnumber women for no discernible good reason"

The reason is simple: there's a lot more men in tech. For instance, StackOverflow found that 92% of devs are male. So one would expect that ~90% of presenters on software dev topics would be male. http://fusion.net/story/115998/survey-says-92-percent-of-sof...

Even today, women only receive ~20% of engineering and CompSci degrees. So, unless things change dramatically, you're still going to be looking at a pool of candidates that's significantly more male than female.

Re: KatieConf

#54

Post by floodyberry- »

rwmj wrote: post #13
untog wrote: post #9

In case anyone was wondering as to the point of the parody: > If you are looking for speakers for your conference, why not ask one of the wonderful people featured here? They are all listed with their Twitter accounts, and a link to some of their prior talks. > Do you really need another conference lineup of all men? Or as many female speakers as speakers called Steve? I suspect it is a direct rebuttal to the argumen…

It's incredibly patronising. Edit: Controversial comment, so let's say something positive here. I found this site to be unfunny and unclear about its message. However it's easy to improve it. The first thing I would add to the site at the bottom would be a list of recommendations for avoiding bias in selection of candidates. These would include things like always doing blind evaluation of speaker candidates. Secondly…

5th, the slaves could've tried maybe, freeing themselves? Weird that it took a white man to come along and do it for them..

Re: KatieConf

#55

Post by mikeash »

strictnein wrote: post #53
mikeash wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Implying there are no female subject matter experts. The problem isn't that people choose expertise and skill over gender. The problem is that men greatly outnumber women for no discernible good reason, despite the availability of qualified women speakers. It's not faux diversity. The fact that you just assume any change from the all-male status quo must be a step down is amazingly sexist and insulting.

> "The fact that you just assume any change from the all-male status quo must be a step down is amazingly sexist and insulting." I never said anything of the sort and it's quite interesting that you read that into what I wrote. It's very clear what I meant: I don't consider the gender makeup of the people presenting to have any value, as long as the people presenting are the best people available. > "The problem is t…

In response to the idea of an all-male speaker lineup, you said:

> If they are the subject matter experts, then yes, I would prefer they are all present, and none of them be excluded because we are searching for faux diversity.

I assumed that hypothetical was meant to be plausible, because otherwise what's the point? So yes, you're strongly implying that an all-male lineup is likely to be because of qualifications, and that including women would make it worse.

I stand by my "no reason." The StackOverflow survey is obviously flawed (women often get treated badly online, so tend to be discouraged from participating in communities like SO) and if 20% of relevant degrees go to women, why do conferences typically have far less than 20% women?

Re: KatieConf

#56

Post by geofft »

Ianvdl wrote: post #23

People here are saying that this page is trying to create awareness that there are enough females in technology to ensure greater numbers of female speakers at conferences, and that conferences should try harder to achieve that. Why is that the responsibility of the conference? As far as I'm aware most conferences call for proposals to be submitted. Whether or not anyone of a particular group applies to speak at that…

In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat reviewing talk proposals for PDP-6-Con.

"What are you doing?" asked Minsky.

"I am training a randomly wired neural net to review talk submissions," Sussman replied.

"Why is the net wired randomly?" asked Minsky.

"I do not want it to have any preconceptions of who should present," Sussman said.

Minsky then shut his eyes.

"Why do you close your eyes?" Sussman asked his teacher.

"So that the room will be empty."

At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.

Re: KatieConf

#57

Post by teamhappy »

mikeash wrote: post #55
strictnein wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The fact that you just assume any change from the all-male status quo must be a step down is amazingly sexist and insulting." I never said anything of the sort and it's quite interesting that you read that into what I wrote. It's very clear what I meant: I don't consider the gender makeup of the people presenting to have any value, as long as the people presenting are the best people available. > "The problem is t…

In response to the idea of an all-male speaker lineup, you said: > If they are the subject matter experts, then yes, I would prefer they are all present, and none of them be excluded because we are searching for faux diversity. I assumed that hypothetical was meant to be plausible, because otherwise what's the point? So yes, you're strongly implying that an all-male lineup is likely to be because of qualifications, a…

He's saying that if the top 3 people in the field happen to be male, then yes, he'd prefer them over 2 of them and 1 random women added for the sake of diversity.

Also, all of you are acting like children. This is getting pretty ridiculous.

Re: KatieConf

#58

Post by mikeash »

teamhappy wrote: post #57
mikeash wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In response to the idea of an all-male speaker lineup, you said: > If they are the subject matter experts, then yes, I would prefer they are all present, and none of them be excluded because we are searching for faux diversity. I assumed that hypothetical was meant to be plausible, because otherwise what's the point? So yes, you're strongly implying that an all-male lineup is likely to be because of qualifications, a…

He's saying that if the top 3 people in the field happen to be male, then yes, he'd prefer them over 2 of them and 1 random women added for the sake of diversity. Also, all of you are acting like children. This is getting pretty ridiculous.

Conferences usually have way more than three speakers, and the context is clearly talking about actual real-world conferences, where indeed the lineup is often 100% male. And they're implying that this typically happens because they're the most qualified.

Agreed that this is ridiculous. This is a pretty mild bit of satire, but a ton of people here are going out of their way to be offended by it. It's a great example of how many men are completely oblivious to the advantages they receive.

Re: KatieConf

#59

Post by teamhappy »

mikeash wrote: post #58
teamhappy wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's saying that if the top 3 people in the field happen to be male, then yes, he'd prefer them over 2 of them and 1 random women added for the sake of diversity. Also, all of you are acting like children. This is getting pretty ridiculous.

Conferences usually have way more than three speakers, and the context is clearly talking about actual real-world conferences, where indeed the lineup is often 100% male. And they're implying that this typically happens because they're the most qualified. Agreed that this is ridiculous. This is a pretty mild bit of satire, but a ton of people here are going out of their way to be offended by it. It's a great example…

I had a panel in mind, not an entire conference (we had a similar discussion in Germany a year or two ago about all-male panels). I got them mixed up for some reason.

-- edit --

I just remembered something; wasn't there a post going around the web some time ago about a woman (in Britain?) who got her talk accepted (in some sort of academic setting?) because she's a woman and not because of her talk and she didn't know that this kind of thing was going on and got really upset about it when she found out? Might be interesting to look at the situation from her angle as well. (Interesting to those of you who didn't read her story back then.)

Re: KatieConf

#60

Post by stevetrewick »

incongruity wrote: post #35
Ianvdl wrote: post #23

People here are saying that this page is trying to create awareness that there are enough females in technology to ensure greater numbers of female speakers at conferences, and that conferences should try harder to achieve that. Why is that the responsibility of the conference? As far as I'm aware most conferences call for proposals to be submitted. Whether or not anyone of a particular group applies to speak at that…

While I think your point is superficially valid, I'd ask you this – what if you had the power to change something that you admit is less than ideal (i.e.: the lack of a wide variety of speakers, or even the exclusion of a group) – if you had that power and didn't use it, wouldn't you be part of the problem? All of this is a vicious circle – women don't apply to be speakers at many tech conferences in equal numbers as…

Aren't amongst peers? I mean I get the concern about gender imbalance, really I do, but to feel that someone is a 'peer' in a professional context really shouldn't require identical genital configurations, surely?
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