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PyCon Code of Conduct changed to avoid public shaming

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Re: PyCon Code of Conduct changed to avoid public shaming

#31
post #20

I disagree. Public shaming is the right way to make harassers actually fear the consequences (to their career, for example).

She complained to the PyCon staff, who quickly mediated a discussion between her and the guys she complained about. They apologized and everyone was OK. No career-related consequences necessary.

I believe that the PyCon staff noticed the tweet and took action, I don't think she complained to them.

Re: PyCon Code of Conduct changed to avoid public shaming

#32
post #17

I'm a little confused, what about privacy laws? Yes, you are at a conference, but that doesn't give anybody the right to take your picture and post it on twitter, without asking your permission, right? (Sorry, German here, so if the laws in the US are completly different, please ignore).

With very constrained exceptions, in most jurisdictions of the United States, it's entirely legal to take a photograph of an individual in a public place and post it to the Internet without their permission.

Re: PyCon Code of Conduct changed to avoid public shaming

#33

I disagree. Public shaming is the right way to make harassers actually fear the consequences (to their career, for example).

Which gets to the definition of harassment, right?

Were these guys in a private, joking conversation harassing or simply overheard by accident?

Think fast ... your job could depend on it.

Re: PyCon Code of Conduct changed to avoid public shaming

#34

Instead of a learning opportunity, this has turned into an enormous fustercluck. It would have been better for Adria Richards to address the matter directly rather than post a photo on twitter, but it was not wrong for her to address the matter. Similarly, nearly everyone can agree - including Richards - that the employer who allegedly fired one of the people involved in the incident clearly overreacted. There are le…

It got crossposted on various places that have little/nothing to do with programming, so hopefully most of the nasty stuff was just from random dickheads rather than the python community.

The threats and lewdness is certainly coming from elsewhere, and that's not just a "no true scotsman" statement. It's run-of-the-mill Internet Hate Machine stuff, happens whenever a politically-motivated event occurs. /b/ filled multiple threads with battle cries last night.

Re: PyCon Code of Conduct changed to avoid public shaming

#35
post #32
post #17

I'm a little confused, what about privacy laws? Yes, you are at a conference, but that doesn't give anybody the right to take your picture and post it on twitter, without asking your permission, right? (Sorry, German here, so if the laws in the US are completly different, please ignore).

With very constrained exceptions, in most jurisdictions of the United States, it's entirely legal to take a photograph of an individual in a public place and post it to the Internet without their permission.

Bear in mind they were not in a public place, but a conference venue - which would almost certainly be private property. It is totally legal to prohibit photography in such cases.

However, normally this has to be made explicit (through signs, or the like) - it's assumed it is allowed unless otherwise stated.

I wonder if going forward conferences will consider banning photography in future, for better or for worse.

Re: PyCon Code of Conduct changed to avoid public shaming

#36

Instead of a learning opportunity, this has turned into an enormous fustercluck. It would have been better for Adria Richards to address the matter directly rather than post a photo on twitter, but it was not wrong for her to address the matter. Similarly, nearly everyone can agree - including Richards - that the employer who allegedly fired one of the people involved in the incident clearly overreacted. There are le…

Not to mention the spaz going on in the other thread about sendgrid's outage...

It doesn't matter if its a DDOS attack or some other outage. A quick scan of the comments leads me to believe quite a few people are actually happy with sendgrid's outage.

Re: PyCon Code of Conduct changed to avoid public shaming

#37
post #17

I'm a little confused, what about privacy laws? Yes, you are at a conference, but that doesn't give anybody the right to take your picture and post it on twitter, without asking your permission, right? (Sorry, German here, so if the laws in the US are completly different, please ignore).

The operative phrase here is "reasonable expectation of privacy," as in, you're fair game to have your photo taken unless you have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Re: PyCon Code of Conduct changed to avoid public shaming

#38
post #17

I'm a little confused, what about privacy laws? Yes, you are at a conference, but that doesn't give anybody the right to take your picture and post it on twitter, without asking your permission, right? (Sorry, German here, so if the laws in the US are completly different, please ignore).

IANAL, but I believe it does. In the US, what matters is whether you have the expectation of privacy, and sitting in a conference room you obviously don't.

(There's other stuff that comes into play when you try to profit off such photographs, so the situation can get more complicated than that.)

Re: PyCon Code of Conduct changed to avoid public shaming

#39
post #7

Should this open the door to a discussion about the ethics of public shaming?

Public shaming is a tool in the kit, but in this case it was the first one that she reached for. From her blog post, it sounded like it was out of frustration over other incidences (maybe even worse cases of offence / harassment) that she had also ignored. It was the 'straw that broke the camel's back' so to speak, and unleashed her pent up anger/frustration.

Personally, I think that there were other avenues to pursue this, without resorting to public shaming. It adds nothing to the generic goal of 'improving the community for women (present and future)' which seemed to have been on her mind (at least from her blog post). Talking about it in public promotes that goal, but naming names does not.

Re: PyCon Code of Conduct changed to avoid public shaming

#40

Instead of a learning opportunity, this has turned into an enormous fustercluck. It would have been better for Adria Richards to address the matter directly rather than post a photo on twitter, but it was not wrong for her to address the matter. Similarly, nearly everyone can agree - including Richards - that the employer who allegedly fired one of the people involved in the incident clearly overreacted. There are le…

> But the extreme outburst of misogyny - the insults, abuse, and physical threats including threats of rape [...] entire community to recognize that it is still dysfunctional in terms of gender equality.

Do you mean community of internet trolls?

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