Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

2019.phpce.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 171 posts

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

#31

Post by numakerg »

sp332 wrote: post #19
numakerg wrote: post #13

I'm reading through the Twitter thread, but I can't decipher the exact issue(s). Did the organizers select a lower ratio of diverse speakers than applicants? Were there very few diverse applicants and the organizers decided none of them qualified?

Twitter is never a great forum to discuss issues that need context. The two blog posts lay things out more clearly.

I saw Mark's point about 1/250 but I couldn't locate the statement from the organizers. Larry says a number of speakers offered to swap their double sessions for more female speakers, but would those new speakers be the single applicant or other speakers who hadn't applied.

Regardless, the conference organizers are at least partially responsible for lack of diverse applicants if their speakers were able to find candidates on short notice.

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

#32

Post by hombre_fatal »

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?

Even worse is when my girlfriend voiced a similar concern about a hacker meeting here in Mexico about how obsessed they seemed to be about getting women speakers at any cost instead of focusing on good content. She was basically told she only thought that way because she was brainwashed by men and didn’t actually believe what she was saying, though I'm embellishing a bit for succinctness.

How do you even argue with some who dismisses you like that?

They were basically approaching her to give a talk at an event here known for advanced technical topics even though she was at hello world level ability with React, and she felt very uncomfortable how persistent they were and it was obviously straight pussy pass.

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

#33

Post by larkeith »

ngngngng wrote: post #25
abeisgreat wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read through the second link he mentions how he tried to work with the organizers to improve their submission process and reach more diverse speakers and they opted not to.

That's not what I read, I read in the second link that he wanted to cancel a bunch of the male speakers, and then have everyone work like mad to reach out to women to come speak. That's not a submission process at all. That's outreach.

Agreed that it's outreach, but it also seems necessary, unless <=0.4% of the PHP community is female (ratio of applications by gender).

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

#35

Post by curiousgal »

abeisgreat wrote: post #22
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?

Well one way to think about it is to view the current structure (one of male dominated events) is already enforcing a system that isn't just about PHP. It's a structure where we put men on stage and leave (a few) women to silently sit in the back. The attempts by speakers and organisers to level this field is trying to get the events to just be about PHP. However they realize that things are very off balance already…

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.

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

#37

Post by [deleted] »

throwanon77 wrote: post #27

This is really a non issue. Conference cancelled, who cares? And also, if women want to participate they can submit a request to have a talk. There's no reason to run around trying to recruit speakers to adhere to the completely irrational narrative of the sjw-extremists. This is becoming utterly silly in the society as a whole. Grow up people. This is a tech conference. If it is 100 percent male, so what? Women are…

[deleted]

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

#38

Post by [deleted] »

seneca wrote: post #17

From the Twitter thread: > “Everyone has the same chances” is the exact problem. What are you doing to elevate women and POC? How are you showing your support as an ally and actively encouraging access to these “equal chances”?! These people have gone off the deep end. If you aren't actively following their political playbook you're to be shouted down. You can't even just opt out of participation in their crusade, if…

[deleted]

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

#39

Post by LudwigNagasena »

All of these people are so brave when "taking a stand" doesn't hurt their wallets and they seem comfortable to let millions of people live in poverty as long as female poc quotas are met.

They could donate to software engineering schools in poor districts in their home countries or developing countries, but they decided to do something absolutely meaningless that benefits noone.

I would suggest every person who finds this behaviour acceptable to look towards Effective Altruism (https://www.effectivealtruism.org/) and drop this ridiculoius posturing.

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

#40

Post by numakerg »

larkeith wrote: post #28
numakerg wrote: post #13

I'm reading through the Twitter thread, but I can't decipher the exact issue(s). Did the organizers select a lower ratio of diverse speakers than applicants? Were there very few diverse applicants and the organizers decided none of them qualified?

From the second and third links (both blog posts rather than Twitter), only 1 out of 250+ submissions was from a woman, so the latter. Presumably a similar situation occurred in 2018, as there was a single female speaker out of the 39-person lineup.

>only 1 out of 250+ submissions was from a woman

Mark didn't cite a source for this, which is what I was looking for in the Twitter thread.

Post reply on HN