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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

#141

Post by Nursie »

pfortuny wrote: post #73
pfortuny wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you are a geek and attend a conference, you are certainly going to tweet everything relevant about it. Well, Adria Richards decided that silly joke was worth tweeting. I am sad for the person evicted from his job, but then again: f you do not know your environment, you should not work in it. And tweeter is as strong as it gets. It is hard, but these are real life jobs and real life conferences and real life educ…

Have I said anything wrong?

You seem to say that publicly calling these guys out on twitter was OK and to be expected. Some people will disagree with that. I'm not sure downvoting is strictly supposed to be for registering disagreement though.

Also not everyone tweets all the time. I don't know anyone technical that does, only non-tech folks.

Re: PyCon Code of Conduct changed to avoid public shaming

#142

Post by monksy »

OoTheNigerian wrote: post #26

After reading all sides of the story, I see why there is so much anger towards Adria. However, it is unacceptable for her or SendGrid to be attacked digitally. Adria did an arguably right thing in a wrong way at the wrong time. 1. Assuming the way she said it happened is correct, the guys behind her made a sexual (forking/fucking; Dongle/Penis) not sexist joke. If it were even to be seen as sexist, it was towards men…

She used her credibility as a member of SendGrid [a sponsor of the conference] to reinforce her statement. These guys did not even endorce their behavior via a company. They were 2 individuals who were talking to each other, she ease dropped and made a mountain out of a molehill.

Re: PyCon Code of Conduct changed to avoid public shaming

#143

Post by arrrg »

potatolicious wrote: post #59
jagermo wrote: 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).

> "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?" Even in Germany this is legal. The right to photograph someone is usually delineated by the principle of "reasonable expectation of privacy". Note that this is a legal term that has been defined both through legislation and via decades of case law in many countr…

You are wrong about the law in Germany.

As you correctly stated, taking photographs is very unregulated (and wasn’t regulated at all until a few years ago) in Germany. It’s only illegal to take photos in the places you listed. (Actually it’s not so much about specific places. The photos have to invade a private area of life, though that usually means places like the home, hotel rooms or restrooms are off limits.) This barrier is actually relatively high, not everything is immediately an invasion of a private area of life, even if it might seem so. A normal shot of you hanging out in a conference room with hundreds other people? Not an invasion of a private area of life.

This also means that privately owned but public spaces are not included there, like, say, conference halls or train stations or shopping malls and similar such places. As you also correctly stated, the owner can disallow photographs, though by default (i.e. if the owner doesn’t have any rules) taking photographs is perfectly ok.

The issue is publishing photographs. There the barriers are much, much higher in Germany. If there are people in it, the default is that you are not allowed to publish them unless every person in the photograph agrees. Now, as always with the law, there are (of course) exceptions (e.g. if people are only incidental to the photograph and not the main subject, say if you take a photo of a building and there happen to be a few people in front of it), though none of them apply in this case. Publishing this photo wouldn’t be legal in Germany (taking it would), though it is important to note that in Germany those depicted in the photo would have to come forward and press charges. Otherwise the police is not allowed to investigate or charge people. (You could say that the default assumption of the law is that everyone in published photographs agreed to it and if you don’t it’s on you to come forward.)

However, that is not the case in the US where both taking and publishing this photo is perfectly legal. So I do not really see the relevance of this discussion.

Re: PyCon Code of Conduct changed to avoid public shaming

#144

Post by freehunter »

mtrimpe wrote: post #113
pfortuny wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have I said anything wrong?

When supporting women's right on Hacker News you tend to get a disproportionate number of downvotes compared to 'normal' topics. That means that if your comment usually would just not get any upvotes (which yours wouldn't since it wasn't terribly well written) you'll suddenly get into negative point territory on these issues. If you look you'll be able to find other comments as well which easily pass the 'constructiv…

Good god this is so false. I cannot even begin to comprehend that someone would make the statement that anyone supporting women's rights will be automatically downvoted on Hacker News. You can't imagine any other reason the post would be downvoted? How about the statement that you shouldn't say anything you wouldn't want tweeted out of context? How about calling Twitter "tweeter"? Or the implication that this guy had it coming because he should have known better than to try to have a private conversation without it being plastered on the Internet?

There are a number of reasons someone could have downvoted this post, and the first one that jumps to your mind is that a great number of people on HN inherently hate women and don't believe in equal rights. Seriously, I can't even fathom...

Re: PyCon Code of Conduct changed to avoid public shaming

#145

Post by fyi80 »

rdtsc wrote: post #128
cynicalkane wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We live in a politically correct world, and employers will do the wrong thing in order to save face because it's more expedient. It's hard to both try to help run a business and simultaneously wage war over social discourse. The pattern is that firms will react, and overreact, to what they perceive as a scandal involving hot-button issues. The firing was a mistake but maybe the people involved were afraid of what mig…

Then those employers should be punished via the same public shaming mechanism. If this is the new way to do things, fine, but it works both ways. Never heard of PlayHeaven before. Now it is on my black list. I will make sure to remember it. Unless I read a public apology with an offer to hire him back, I will make sure to go out of my way to let everyone know about them. PyCon -- making off color jokes is reason to t…

It doesn't work both ways, because the employer is not subject to the same external pressures that the employee is. The employer answers to the general public, the employee answers to one easily-scared manager.

It's related, but not equivalent.

Re: PyCon Code of Conduct changed to avoid public shaming

#146

Post by Semaphor »

CodeMage wrote: post #76
dos1 wrote: post #27

One of the reasons I've taken an interest in this whole fiasco is that I occasionally make "colorful" jokes. Not dissimilar from the two guys at PyCon. I make every attempt to keep these jokes private between my friends and I, but I'm sure others have heard me make them. Some people might find them funny, others may be offended. It scares me to think that making an offhand penis joke could result in being publicly ou…

I believe she's being a hypocrite by taking offense one day, and making her own penis joke on Twitter the next. I've seen that argument tossed about. There's a difference between reading someone's Twitter stream and hearing someone's joke while sitting in the audience at a convention. The former is reading content from someone you chose to follow, the latter is the equivalent of having people talk behind you in a mov…

> The former is reading content from someone you chose to follow

Only if the account is set to private. Otherwise it's way more public than a private conversation in public.

Re: PyCon Code of Conduct changed to avoid public shaming

#147

Post by pfortuny »

pfortuny wrote: post #73
pfortuny wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you are a geek and attend a conference, you are certainly going to tweet everything relevant about it. Well, Adria Richards decided that silly joke was worth tweeting. I am sad for the person evicted from his job, but then again: f you do not know your environment, you should not work in it. And tweeter is as strong as it gets. It is hard, but these are real life jobs and real life conferences and real life educ…

Have I said anything wrong?

By the way, the dumbest thing to me is the firing of someone just for that, I did not make this clear in my previous posts.

Re: PyCon Code of Conduct changed to avoid public shaming

#148

Post by jkrems »

giardini wrote: post #124
dos1 wrote: post #27

One of the reasons I've taken an interest in this whole fiasco is that I occasionally make "colorful" jokes. Not dissimilar from the two guys at PyCon. I make every attempt to keep these jokes private between my friends and I, but I'm sure others have heard me make them. Some people might find them funny, others may be offended. It scares me to think that making an offhand penis joke could result in being publicly ou…

".. I do NOT believe that ANY conference attendees should have to sit idly by and listen to penis jokes." Nobody need do so. Simply move to another seat.

Actually, if you are in the audience of a conference and there is someone talking in the front, any disturbance to the people around you is at least impolite. And if anyone should leave it's not the one who is silently sitting there and listening.

Re: PyCon Code of Conduct changed to avoid public shaming

#149

Post by X-Istence »

Cushman wrote: post #96
drharris wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to believe that offense is subjective to the individual. Should we then be responsible for everything we do that offends others? What level of recourse should they have for being offended? If we think that punitive action is appropriate given an offense, how do we determine what a legitimate offense is, versus a non-legitimate offense?

> Should we then be responsible for everything we do that offends others? Yes. > What level of recourse should they have for being offended? If we think that punitive action is appropriate given an offense, how do we determine what a legitimate offense is, versus a non-legitimate offense? If people finding out publicly that you did it would cause you to lose your job, that might be a good indicator.

I'm sure it would offend (maybe sadden too) my grandparents very much that I don't believe in God, but I don't see that as a reason to never speak my mind about the fact that I don't believe in religion.

Nor should my believe in God have anything to do with my job, however I've worked at a place where that would certainly lead to me being let go if I were to mention or discuss that at work with my boss, but what I discuss between friends is my business and not his.

I don't see how I need to be responsible for making sure you, or anyone that might be overhearing or reading my words, is not offended by what I am saying.

Re: PyCon Code of Conduct changed to avoid public shaming

#150

Post by Cushman »

gtz57 wrote: post #127
Cushman wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should we then be responsible for everything we do that offends others? Yes. > What level of recourse should they have for being offended? If we think that punitive action is appropriate given an offense, how do we determine what a legitimate offense is, versus a non-legitimate offense? If people finding out publicly that you did it would cause you to lose your job, that might be a good indicator.

but people can take offense to anything, so that means you would be responsible for all of the stupid things people get offended about. People don't have the right to not be offended. I think you are half right, but offense probably has to be both given and taken, not just taken.

Yeah, I mean, if we're in a public place I'm gonna do my best not to upset you. If we're at your place, I'll leave; if we're at my place, you've gotta leave. If it's a bad enough disagreement we can take it to court and let someone objective sort it out. That's how we all get along.
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