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The phpCE 2019 conference in Dresden has been cancelled and won't be continued

2019.phpce.eu

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Re: The phpCE 2019 conference in Dresden has been cancelled and won't be continued

#121

Post by LudwigNagasena »

sp332 wrote: post #87
curiousgal wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do all men feel accepted, respected, and praised just because they are men? No, the ones that do have earned it. Like so, I personally would like to get invited to give a talk only because I am the best person out there who can do so on the topic at hand, not because some organizers feel like they have some sort of obligation to be politically correct.

Men are encouraged to go into CS just because they are men. https://www.bustle.com/p/girls-still-arent-encouraged-to-go-...

Yeah, so encouraged by being ostracized from normal social activities and being called nerds.

Re: The phpCE 2019 conference in Dresden has been cancelled and won't be continued

#122

Post by rurban »

Position yourself into the minds of the conference organizers. Do you really want to deal with such an angry mob? Na, better resign and give up. It's not worth it.

But I'll go to the next PHP meetup in Dresden and try to confirm my suspicion.

Re: The phpCE 2019 conference in Dresden has been cancelled and won't be continued

#123

Post by sp332 »

listenallyall wrote: post #111
sp332 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either the ratio is around 250:1, or they got insanely unlucky, or the sample was biased. What's another possible explanation?

No alternative explanation needed. The objective fact is they received 1 proposal from a woman out of 250. If you want to claim that ratio proves the process must be biased, you need to show some evidence, not a bogus math formula which was flawed from the beginning. As other repliers have already stated: a) you chose a flawed survey to get your "10%" figure, b) the percentage of "women in open source" is far differe…

It's not the strongest kind of proof, but it's still evidence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_reasoning

I think we literally mean different things by the word "bias". It doesn't have to be intentional.

Even if somehow the population they were drawing from was 99.6% male, I would not comfortable with conference organizers who just passively accept that. At best, they're still perpetuating other people's discrimination. I think the fact they didn't even care to address that is what made these speakers uncomfortable enough to leave.

Re: The phpCE 2019 conference in Dresden has been cancelled and won't be continued

#124

Post by xtracto »

tiku wrote: post #34

What group will be offended next year..

What I find hilarious os that all this storm is coming from a group if men, as well as the vast majority of comments here in HN. Men trying to rationalise something related to women.

Would be good to hear female voices in here... why was there only 1 application?

Having studied in an all boys school, this looks to me as the times when me and my friends would get together to discuss how to approach a girl, or what would girls like. As you grow and mature, you understand that you only have to ask THEM, same as you would ask a random guy.

Re: The phpCE 2019 conference in Dresden has been cancelled and won't be continued

#125

Post by gurkendoktor »

jasonlotito wrote: post #75
curiousgal wrote: post #14

As a woman I find it pretty damn objectifying for someone to withdraw from a conference because it has no female speakers. Why should anyone care about anything other than php in a php conference?

> As a woman I find it pretty damn objectifying for someone to withdraw from a conference because it has no female speakers. Good thing that's not why they are withdrawing from the conference. Specifically, they are pulling out because the conference wasn't even wiling to work with them to find a more diverse speaker lineup. If nothing came out of that, then they would have gone. But the conference didn't even do tha…

> Then PHPCE wouldn't have been for you, along with all the other tech conferences I've attended, as they generally had talks that weren't strictly PHP.

I couldn't find the (now cancelled) schedule for 2019, but to be fair it looks like PHPCE was a very focused conference: https://2018.phpce.eu/de/#agenda

Compare that with the holistic schedule of RubyConf, for example: http://rubyconf.org/schedule

Re: The phpCE 2019 conference in Dresden has been cancelled and won't be continued

#126

Post by mattigames »

abeisgreat wrote: post #10
mattigames wrote: post #6

Instead of every of them recommending a woman for one of the time slots at the conference or any non-white-male they just throw a fit like spoiled kids and say they are not going until someone else fixes the issue at hand for them, this kind of behavior is one of the things that deepens the gap between people in favor of diversity everywhere not by increasing diversity but alienating people that think different and c…

If you read the second post linked he tried very hard to help. He encouraged multiple solutions, offered to help from his experience and they opted not to take the help.

The answer to this is summarized pretty well by another comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20797869

Still, a mature adult would have recommended someone for the next version of conference and if all points out your recommendation is being taken seriously you do your part and deliver your conference in the current version.

Re: The phpCE 2019 conference in Dresden has been cancelled and won't be continued

#127

Post by sagichmal »

elp wrote: post #113
sagichmal wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that is exactly what the second speaker did. The organizers refused.

The organizers said that call for papers had already closed. I.e this was late in the planning stage. (conf is 4 Oct) The speaker wasn't offering to help for the next conference. I hope other conference organizers take note and work to improve diversity while also actively avoiding speakers who pull stunts like this.

That is not an excuse. Essentially every conference makes major changes to line-up and program well after the CFP is done.

Re: The phpCE 2019 conference in Dresden has been cancelled and won't be continued

#128

Post by trhway »

sdinsn wrote: post #52
curiousgal wrote: post #14

As a woman I find it pretty damn objectifying for someone to withdraw from a conference because it has no female speakers. Why should anyone care about anything other than php in a php conference?

Seriously, it's pretty offensive. They are treating women like props, and they just want women to be present so they can feel inclusive.

>They are treating women like props, and they just want women to be present so they can feel inclusive.

May be they are afraid of the alternative - being branded as non-inclusive, male-chauvinistic, etc. if they don't bring enough women to make the quota sufficient enough to avoid the branding (as we've seen such branding is no joke in the modern environment and can be painfully damaging when it comes to real things like employment/etc).

Re: The phpCE 2019 conference in Dresden has been cancelled and won't be continued

#129

Post by monksy »

sp332 wrote: post #87
curiousgal wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do all men feel accepted, respected, and praised just because they are men? No, the ones that do have earned it. Like so, I personally would like to get invited to give a talk only because I am the best person out there who can do so on the topic at hand, not because some organizers feel like they have some sort of obligation to be politically correct.

Men are encouraged to go into CS just because they are men. https://www.bustle.com/p/girls-still-arent-encouraged-to-go-...

I must have missed that invite. I went into CS because that's what I was good at.

I learned how to program at an early age, despite discouragement because I wanted to make video games.

Re: The phpCE 2019 conference in Dresden has been cancelled and won't be continued

#130

Post by protomyth »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #63
esotericn wrote: post #26

Tangent that may be relevant here. I used to be involved in access work for those from underprivileged backgrounds. It's very difficult to get poor kids to apply to University even if they have the grades, for reasons I expect are pretty similar (social environment, not 'fitting in', having few role models, etc). Going back further - tons of them simply don't have the grades or skills, because they weren't interested…

to follow up on that: at the high end universities do make an effort to recruit clever kids from underprivileged backgrounds, and they implement programs to bring them up to speed; there are pre-freshmen programs, summer classes, supplement lectures, peer mentorship, &c pp. It actually works. That said, what is the focus on individual diversity good for? It's the system that holds people back, and as the parent poste…

high end universities do make an effort to recruit clever kids from underprivileged backgrounds

I'll believe that when I see recruiters from high end universities out on the reservations in the US, but I guess imposters are easier.

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