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ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

electronconf.com

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Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#81

Post by TeMPOraL »

Baeocystin wrote: post #72
DeusExMachina wrote: post #45

As a European, I keep getting baffled about how out of hand these things seem to be in the USA. I live in the Netherlands, a very open-minded country with same-sex marriage, equal rights and were women seem to me to be even slightly more dominant over men (but this is just my perception). All this without safe spaces, forced quotas at conferences, codes of conduct and people that police every word you say. There are…

Come now. What would you say to an academic who didn't want to go to the whole of Europe, just because he saw some scary news about something that happened in Prague once? The US is a huge, multifaceted place, and like anywhere so large, you will find things both awful and wonderful. But life is a lot less chaotic than the news agencies claim. And the histrionic folks, while loud, are a lot fewer in number than the a…

I second the line of thinking, but please rein in the TSA a bit. That's literally the only thing I'm scared about going to US. All the other things seem like a purely local phenomena that shouldn't be generalized to the whole 300M country. But I am scared I'll get into trouble on the border because of my HN and Facebook posts (e.g. against US drone strikes).

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#82

Post by TeMPOraL »

abtinf wrote: post #73
DeusExMachina wrote: post #45

As a European, I keep getting baffled about how out of hand these things seem to be in the USA. I live in the Netherlands, a very open-minded country with same-sex marriage, equal rights and were women seem to me to be even slightly more dominant over men (but this is just my perception). All this without safe spaces, forced quotas at conferences, codes of conduct and people that police every word you say. There are…

> All this without ... people that police every word you say. Is that a joke? There are literally laws, with actual prosecutions, in the Netherlands designed to police every word you say.

[citation needed]

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#83

Post by DanBC »

Veen wrote: post #54
frozenport wrote: post #9

At face value this is poor communication. It's not clear what kind of diversity they aimed for: was it gender, racial, economic? What are they taking a stand for?

Diversity is defined negatively: it means anyone who isn't white, straight, and male.

Untrue.

In the UK there are nine protected characteristics, and you've only listed 3 of them.

And assuming that only those 3 are important you've ignored trans men.

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#84

Post by viraptor »

smokeyj wrote: post #74
viraptor wrote: post #69

I'm disappointed in how many comments here are just kneejerk reactions. Reaching for weird comparisons, getting angry at the idea of diversity and social justice, and many others. This wasn't enforced from outside. It's the organisers who agreed: yup, that's not what we want to do ( https://twitter.com/nmsanchez/status/870811022306574336 ) Stop for a moment, think of how you'd organise a conference. Is it different?…

> but if I heard my talk was delayed so the conference can be rebalanced / less of a white sausage party, I'd be glad Maybe the solution is to stop being racist and sexist.

You seem to imply that being happy to be surrounded with a more gender/race diverse crowd than the typical 90s IT conference is either racist or sexist. I just don't understand that argument.

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#85

Post by muninn_ »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #81
Baeocystin wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come now. What would you say to an academic who didn't want to go to the whole of Europe, just because he saw some scary news about something that happened in Prague once? The US is a huge, multifaceted place, and like anywhere so large, you will find things both awful and wonderful. But life is a lot less chaotic than the news agencies claim. And the histrionic folks, while loud, are a lot fewer in number than the a…

I second the line of thinking, but please rein in the TSA a bit. That's literally the only thing I'm scared about going to US. All the other things seem like a purely local phenomena that shouldn't be generalized to the whole 300M country. But I am scared I'll get into trouble on the border because of my HN and Facebook posts (e.g. against US drone strikes).

Very unlikely that they would care. Frankly, they don't have the resources to care about people (including myself) who protest and don't like drone strikes. The TSA is annoying but the worst part is just long lines.

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#86

Post by TeMPOraL »

viraptor wrote: post #84
smokeyj wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but if I heard my talk was delayed so the conference can be rebalanced / less of a white sausage party, I'd be glad Maybe the solution is to stop being racist and sexist.

You seem to imply that being happy to be surrounded with a more gender/race diverse crowd than the typical 90s IT conference is either racist or sexist. I just don't understand that argument.

Calling something a "white sausage party" is racist and sexist, and if you said something equivalent against women or minorities on-line, you'd end up in a huge shitstorm. This assymetry is a big part of the problem.

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#87

Post by corey_moncure »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #81
Baeocystin wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come now. What would you say to an academic who didn't want to go to the whole of Europe, just because he saw some scary news about something that happened in Prague once? The US is a huge, multifaceted place, and like anywhere so large, you will find things both awful and wonderful. But life is a lot less chaotic than the news agencies claim. And the histrionic folks, while loud, are a lot fewer in number than the a…

I second the line of thinking, but please rein in the TSA a bit. That's literally the only thing I'm scared about going to US. All the other things seem like a purely local phenomena that shouldn't be generalized to the whole 300M country. But I am scared I'll get into trouble on the border because of my HN and Facebook posts (e.g. against US drone strikes).

As we know from history, and as was confirmed during the debacle over "naked scanners", TSA and such institutions will never, ever yield an inch. At best we can hope for a side step.

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#88

Post by muninn_ »

viraptor wrote: post #84
smokeyj wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but if I heard my talk was delayed so the conference can be rebalanced / less of a white sausage party, I'd be glad Maybe the solution is to stop being racist and sexist.

You seem to imply that being happy to be surrounded with a more gender/race diverse crowd than the typical 90s IT conference is either racist or sexist. I just don't understand that argument.

Because at the same time you're implying that being surrounded by a specific skin color or sex is undesirable. That's racism and sexism. That's like me going to Japan and getting upset because I went to a conference and everybody was Japanese and there wasn't any diversity.

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#89

Post by Tehnix »

DeusExMachina wrote: post #45

As a European, I keep getting baffled about how out of hand these things seem to be in the USA. I live in the Netherlands, a very open-minded country with same-sex marriage, equal rights and were women seem to me to be even slightly more dominant over men (but this is just my perception). All this without safe spaces, forced quotas at conferences, codes of conduct and people that police every word you say. There are…

I definitely agree with this view, and it's perhaps also why I really can't understand choices like these, to cancel an event, because of the genders of the people speaking? Why does that even matter?

If what another commenter mentioned[0][1], that they did blind-reviews of the papers, then this is actually quite appalling to me and sends the reverse signal that we don't really care about your paper, as long as you fill up our quota.

I also deeply believe that this is inherently the wrong way to fix this kind of problem. It's like treating symptoms instead of actually treating the underlying disease. If the papers accepted were all male, then why not ask "why was it only papers from men that were qualified enough?" or "why did only men submit papers for our event?". If the former is true than we need effort into investigating why more women aren't writing these papers (be it quality or just plain quantity), and if the latter then look into the marketing/awareness on the paper submitting process.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14480918

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14481098

EDIT: Included links to the comments that mentioned the blind-reviews.

--

Semi-related: While I haven't seen it, I saw an interview with Jordan Peele about the movie "Get Out". He mentions that he wanted to tackle the fact that while Obama definitely helped the US move to less racist tones, it was never really solved, it is just there hiding under the skin with super-awareness to not be racist, which arguably is not the desired effect - there shouldn't be awareness at all about race period. I feel like this effect is somewhat similar to what is happening here, and the fact that the US is not able to hold any reasonable discussion at all on these topics doesn't make me optimistic on their capability to handle these issues. I feel like PC culture is causing way more harm than good.

Re: ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered

#90

Post by Normal_gaussian »

legostormtroopr wrote: post #28

It seems that most people are crediting the cancellation with this tweet - https://twitter.com/fox/status/870761439094489088 "Congratulations @Github for hosting an all male conference!"

Of note the still visible 'Event Terms' contain:

> This Code of Conduct was forked from the example policy from the Geek Feminism wiki, created by the Ada Initiative and other volunteers.

And their request for speakers at https://cfp.githubapp.com/events/electronconf-2017 contains:

> Selection Process > Submissions will be initially blind reviewed by a panel of GitHub employees from a range of departments and backgrounds. Speaker information will be used in any final reviews necessary to break ties and bring a balance to the speaking line-up. Final selections should be complete by June 6, 2017.

GitHub has a history of turning pro-minority & pro-women into anti-white-male and even anti-white-female. For journalists to have a pop at them when they fail to meet the set goals of their own politics should be expected.

They are fighting a political battle and the open source community has found itself in the middle.

GitLab and BitBucket are both great places to host your code and neither hate my guts for the way I was born.

http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/56b3d2462e526543008...

http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/56b3d2f12e526555008...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11049067

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