Backlash over fake female speakers shuts down developer conference(arstechnica.com)
arstechnica.com
Backlash over fake female speakers shuts down developer conference
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/11/backlash-over-fake-female-speakers-shuts-down-developer-conference/
125 comments
It was also an unusual conference in that they didn't do CFPs; _all_ the speakers were recruited. Very odd setup.
actualwitch(1)
I understand why people want to talk at conference that have a diverse array of speakers. However, the fact there is an extreme shortage of a specific gender shouldn't really fall on conference organisers. One conference that was blasted for only having one or two women speakers was organised by a women who pointed out that every women who applied got to speak. It's got to the point from what I've noticed from conference organisers talking on Twitter/X in the past the only way they can get women speakers in a decent amount is for them to approach women who don't give talks and invite them to talk. That is a bit worrying since anyone who has given a talk will know, your first time is completely terrible. So conference organisers are sometimes putting on a lower quality conference to tick boxes.
This was a conference where people don’t apply to speak, you only got to speak by invitation. So that excuse doesn’t work here.
Is there an extreme shortage? Or is there an extreme shortage of women who applies to speak because they're not used to seeing many women speak and assume they wouldn't get a slot? I genuinely don't know, but I have met enough women in tech with speaking experience as a total introvert that I do find it astounding that someone making a living of arranging events don't have a sufficient network to be able to line up some women as speakers. Makes it very hard to think this doesn't reflect their attitudes.
> It's got to the point from what I've noticed from conference organisers talking on Twitter/X in the past the only way they can get women speakers in a decent amount is for them to approach women who don't give talks and invite them to talk.
Then they should do that. As a man, of the times I've been speaking in public-ish contexts in my life, I've volunteered or applied less than half. I'm not at all surprised it takes work to line up speakers, and more work to line up speakers of any group that has a history of being underrepresented in this field.
If you expect every speaker you sign up to be drawn from applicants, it's also not just diversity you throw over-board, but you lose out on a whole lot of perspectives from people who for other reasons aren't really that interested in speaking, or are too busy with other things, but who might be willing to if asked.
> That is a bit worrying since anyone who has given a talk will know, your first time is completely terrible.
The way to fix that is to ensure more women get a first chance to hold a talk. If they don't want that to be at their conference, then try to work with user groups and the like to find women who have held talks there, or arrange events to provide a feed. Once is understandable - people may well not realize what is needed to fix the problem. But if they then don't act, or if they lie and deceive people about it, it's another matter.
This reminds me of when my ex worked for a major investment bank where she as a black woman was promptly put on a "diversity board" to figure out how they could fix their diversity without actually changing the one thing that made fixing their diversity impossible: They heavily weighed in their hiring candidates from certain schools which skewed significantly white and male, to the point that even if they hired every black person and every female from those schools entire graduating classes, they'd still have a diversity problem. They did not want to hear that. They wanted nice quotes for their website and some token photos (and eventually got a significant bill for settling employment law cases instead)
The point is that if you genuinely want to address diversity, and your applicant pool isn't diverse, then you need to look beyond your applicant pool. If you choose not to, then you don't really care about addressing diversity; in that case, you're just trying to do enough to be able to throw your hands up, and it's in that case entirely fair for people to judge the organizers accordingly.
> It's got to the point from what I've noticed from conference organisers talking on Twitter/X in the past the only way they can get women speakers in a decent amount is for them to approach women who don't give talks and invite them to talk.
Then they should do that. As a man, of the times I've been speaking in public-ish contexts in my life, I've volunteered or applied less than half. I'm not at all surprised it takes work to line up speakers, and more work to line up speakers of any group that has a history of being underrepresented in this field.
If you expect every speaker you sign up to be drawn from applicants, it's also not just diversity you throw over-board, but you lose out on a whole lot of perspectives from people who for other reasons aren't really that interested in speaking, or are too busy with other things, but who might be willing to if asked.
> That is a bit worrying since anyone who has given a talk will know, your first time is completely terrible.
The way to fix that is to ensure more women get a first chance to hold a talk. If they don't want that to be at their conference, then try to work with user groups and the like to find women who have held talks there, or arrange events to provide a feed. Once is understandable - people may well not realize what is needed to fix the problem. But if they then don't act, or if they lie and deceive people about it, it's another matter.
This reminds me of when my ex worked for a major investment bank where she as a black woman was promptly put on a "diversity board" to figure out how they could fix their diversity without actually changing the one thing that made fixing their diversity impossible: They heavily weighed in their hiring candidates from certain schools which skewed significantly white and male, to the point that even if they hired every black person and every female from those schools entire graduating classes, they'd still have a diversity problem. They did not want to hear that. They wanted nice quotes for their website and some token photos (and eventually got a significant bill for settling employment law cases instead)
The point is that if you genuinely want to address diversity, and your applicant pool isn't diverse, then you need to look beyond your applicant pool. If you choose not to, then you don't really care about addressing diversity; in that case, you're just trying to do enough to be able to throw your hands up, and it's in that case entirely fair for people to judge the organizers accordingly.
Probably is just that the percentage of woman in the domain reflects in the percentage of woman in conferences.
That doesn't mean there's a shortage sufficient for you to be unable to find any, and it raises the question of what is keeping the percentage that low, and sometimes part of the answer to that is that people can't see themselves there because of lack of representation (and yes, that does creat a chicken and egg problem). You may not be able to fix that, but anyone who claims to care about discrimination ought to at least consider if there are any steps they can take to try.
I think based on other comments I have read, we will have very different views on what constitutes discrimination, which to me is an active action not a passive result
You're right we probably would. Discrimination is very often passive but conscious. That does not mean that all perpetuation of discrimination that happens passively is conscious - probably the vast majority is not.
Let me give an example, to explain:
* If you receive two applications and the one from someone in category A is better but you choose the one from category B, I presume we both agree that is active discrimination.
* What I'd argue is conscious discrimination but passive is if you e.g. choose to continue to let having graduated from school X count extra much when evaluating candidates, knowing that this will bias your results towards category B and that having graduated from school X has no demonstrable impacts relevant to the job. Whether or not this counts for you I guess may depend on whether you see the individual factoring in of the graduation as an active action or just continuing to passively accept the same discriminatory rules.
* What we'd presumably both agree is not conscious/intentional discrimination is if you choose to make having graduated from school X count more, but you do so you while having no idea that this will happen to bias hiring towards category B.
But in the last case, I'd argue that while we presumably agree it's not discrimination per se, it still perpetuates effects that are likely to be an outcome of discrimination - e.g. chances are the reason it causes a bias is that the school intake is biased.
I'm not saying people are bad for failing to fix every bias like that. I'm saying that someone who claims to care about discrimination ought to at a minimum aspire to paying attention to unexpected biases, ask themselves why, and consider if there are reasonable ways to address it. One way in this hypothetical example would be to examine which factors in the hiring seems to introduce a bias and determine if they actually objectively correlates with improved outcomes or not, as if their only function is to introduce a bias that does not produce better outcomes, they're to me unambiguously discriminatory whether or not that was the original intent.
Personally, I think a whole lot of discriminatory practices falls in this last category - people may not intent do, they just haven't thought through the impact. But some people have thought through the impact and let it stay this way on purpose (e.g. I mentioned in one comment how my ex pointed a situation like this out to her employer and they refused to address it - it was clear it was on purpose)
Let me give an example, to explain:
* If you receive two applications and the one from someone in category A is better but you choose the one from category B, I presume we both agree that is active discrimination.
* What I'd argue is conscious discrimination but passive is if you e.g. choose to continue to let having graduated from school X count extra much when evaluating candidates, knowing that this will bias your results towards category B and that having graduated from school X has no demonstrable impacts relevant to the job. Whether or not this counts for you I guess may depend on whether you see the individual factoring in of the graduation as an active action or just continuing to passively accept the same discriminatory rules.
* What we'd presumably both agree is not conscious/intentional discrimination is if you choose to make having graduated from school X count more, but you do so you while having no idea that this will happen to bias hiring towards category B.
But in the last case, I'd argue that while we presumably agree it's not discrimination per se, it still perpetuates effects that are likely to be an outcome of discrimination - e.g. chances are the reason it causes a bias is that the school intake is biased.
I'm not saying people are bad for failing to fix every bias like that. I'm saying that someone who claims to care about discrimination ought to at a minimum aspire to paying attention to unexpected biases, ask themselves why, and consider if there are reasonable ways to address it. One way in this hypothetical example would be to examine which factors in the hiring seems to introduce a bias and determine if they actually objectively correlates with improved outcomes or not, as if their only function is to introduce a bias that does not produce better outcomes, they're to me unambiguously discriminatory whether or not that was the original intent.
Personally, I think a whole lot of discriminatory practices falls in this last category - people may not intent do, they just haven't thought through the impact. But some people have thought through the impact and let it stay this way on purpose (e.g. I mentioned in one comment how my ex pointed a situation like this out to her employer and they refused to address it - it was clear it was on purpose)
> Is there an extreme shortage? Or is there an extreme shortage of women who applies to speak because they're not used to seeing many women speak and assume they wouldn't get a slot?
We see at user groups women don't often give talks and user groups are normally begging for people to give talks. The fact they're not often giving talks in the smaller setting would hint that there is overall an extreme shortage. Realistically, women are a small percentage of tech and considering there is only a small percentage of people who want to give talks since public speaking is a common fear it makes sense there is an extreme shortage.
> I do find it astounding that someone making a living of arranging events don't have a sufficient network to be able to line up some speakers.
Most conferences aren't making a profit. Most a volunteer ran and people are doing it in their spare time for no compensation. They depend heavily on call for papers where people submit then they do blind appraisals of the submissions.
Personally, I think it's very demanding and entitled to demand these people spend even more time just because you want to virtue signal.
> Then they should do that. As a man, of the times I've been speaking in public-ish contexts in my life, I've volunteered or applied less than half. I'm not at all surprised it takes work to line up speakers, and more work to line up speakers of any group that has a history of being underrepresented in this field.
When you have a CFP and hundreds of talks submitted rejecting them and looking for other people because the people applying are of the wrong gender or race is discrimination.
> The way to fix that is to ensure more women get a first chance to hold a talk.
Which would be at the user group level where men five their first talks. When you go to a user group you know it's going to be a bit rough, it didn't cost you anything, you haven't booked a hotel room, you haven't gone anywhere, etc. I have no problem listening to people's first talks, I often hang out in uncons if the conference has one and listen to all the random stuff, however, I do feel for people who see conferences as a serious chance to improve their skillset and end up with a reduced quality product all for the sake of virtue siginaling.
> The point is that if you genuinely want to address diversity, and your applicant pool isn't diverse, then you need to look beyond your applicant pool. If you choose not to, then you don't really care about addressing diversity; in that case, you're just trying to do enough to be able to throw your hands up, and it's in that case entirely fair for people to judge the organizers accordingly.
The paragraph above seems to make it that they were getting the applicants but were ignoring them because of details in their education. It seems they had the applicants and just didn't hire them. To legally improve your diversity you need to increase who is applying. Not to ignore your applicants because of their sex or race. That is discrimination and illegal.
Overall, I highly suspect your way of thinking is going to result in lots of settlements and lawsuits because people weren't hired because they were white/male. Sexist and racism should not be acceptable and is illegal! Quite simply that is what is often being suggest.
We see at user groups women don't often give talks and user groups are normally begging for people to give talks. The fact they're not often giving talks in the smaller setting would hint that there is overall an extreme shortage. Realistically, women are a small percentage of tech and considering there is only a small percentage of people who want to give talks since public speaking is a common fear it makes sense there is an extreme shortage.
> I do find it astounding that someone making a living of arranging events don't have a sufficient network to be able to line up some speakers.
Most conferences aren't making a profit. Most a volunteer ran and people are doing it in their spare time for no compensation. They depend heavily on call for papers where people submit then they do blind appraisals of the submissions.
Personally, I think it's very demanding and entitled to demand these people spend even more time just because you want to virtue signal.
> Then they should do that. As a man, of the times I've been speaking in public-ish contexts in my life, I've volunteered or applied less than half. I'm not at all surprised it takes work to line up speakers, and more work to line up speakers of any group that has a history of being underrepresented in this field.
When you have a CFP and hundreds of talks submitted rejecting them and looking for other people because the people applying are of the wrong gender or race is discrimination.
> The way to fix that is to ensure more women get a first chance to hold a talk.
Which would be at the user group level where men five their first talks. When you go to a user group you know it's going to be a bit rough, it didn't cost you anything, you haven't booked a hotel room, you haven't gone anywhere, etc. I have no problem listening to people's first talks, I often hang out in uncons if the conference has one and listen to all the random stuff, however, I do feel for people who see conferences as a serious chance to improve their skillset and end up with a reduced quality product all for the sake of virtue siginaling.
> The point is that if you genuinely want to address diversity, and your applicant pool isn't diverse, then you need to look beyond your applicant pool. If you choose not to, then you don't really care about addressing diversity; in that case, you're just trying to do enough to be able to throw your hands up, and it's in that case entirely fair for people to judge the organizers accordingly.
The paragraph above seems to make it that they were getting the applicants but were ignoring them because of details in their education. It seems they had the applicants and just didn't hire them. To legally improve your diversity you need to increase who is applying. Not to ignore your applicants because of their sex or race. That is discrimination and illegal.
Overall, I highly suspect your way of thinking is going to result in lots of settlements and lawsuits because people weren't hired because they were white/male. Sexist and racism should not be acceptable and is illegal! Quite simply that is what is often being suggest.
> We see at user groups women don't often give talks and user groups are normally begging for people to give talks.
This (and the rest of your paragraph) doesn't address my question. This addresses the same possible distinction I pointed to of a distinction between women who might be prepared to talk if you approach vs. who will approach you. You're basically repeating the same reasoning I called out. If user groups are begging for speakers - and that is true - and few women still end up speaking, if you care about diversity you ask yourself (and the women) why, rather than just quietly decide there's nothing you can do.
If you choose not to address it, it is then entirely valid for people to read into this that you hold certain views about diversity they don't want to be associated with.
Put another way: I've seen groups entirely fail to get women to speak, and I've seen groups that have had no problems getting women to speak. They're not recruiting from different populations. The logical assumption then is not that there aren't enough women who can speak, but that one of them is failing to identify them and nurture an environment where they are prepared to speak.
> Most conferences aren't making a profit. Most a volunteer ran and people are doing it in their spare time for no compensation. They depend heavily on call for papers where people submit then they do blind appraisals of the submissions.
If this was an example of such a conference, that might be a valid consideration, but this conference is organized by a for profit company and appears not to have taken CFPs. There are a whole lot of such companies of varying sizes - my girlfriend used to work for a 10,000 employee conference operator.
> When you have a CFP and hundreds of talks submitted rejecting them and looking for other people because the people applying are of the wrong gender or race is discrimination.
If you fail to get a diverse mix with your CFPs, 1) ask yourself why you're unable to reach a more diverse audience and address that, 2) don't fill all your slots via CFPs. This is not rocket science.
In this case it appears none of the slots were filled by CFPs anyway, so this is moot.
> Which would be at the user group level where men five their first talks. When you go to a user group you know it's going to be a bit rough, it didn't cost you anything, you haven't booked a hotel room, you haven't gone anywhere, etc. I have no problem listening to people's first talks, I often hang out in uncons if the conference has one and listen to all the random stuff, however, I do feel for people who see conferences as a serious chance to improve their skillset and end up with a reduced quality product all for the sake of virtue signaling.
Cool. Not an excuse for a company that has arranged conferences for multiple years to not have put effort into creating a pipeline once they realized they had a problem. This wasn't a first try gone slightly wrong. It is also clear they knew this was a problem for them given the fake women.
Even if they'd legitimately tried to address it, the legitimate solution is not to defraud your other speakers and your customers.
> The paragraph above seems to make it that they were getting the applicants but were ignoring them because of details in their education. It seems they had the applicants and just didn't hire them. To legally improve your diversity you need to increase who is applying. Not to ignore your applicants because of their sex or race. That is discrimination and illegal.
Discriminating because of sex or race is illegal, yes. Choosing people based on some aspect of the applicants background that is not directly tied to a protected characteristic but that indirectly causes discrimination by it may or may not be illegal depending on jurisdiction, but either way it is far harder to prove, which is why it is a favoured method used to discriminate intentionally, but it also often unintentionally causes discrimination.
If you don't want to discriminate, you take steps to ensure the pool you get your candidates from isn't massively biased, especially when it is pointed out to you. If you stick with a severely biased pool despite having been told repeatedly about the bias, then it is natural to assume the reason is that you're perfectly happy to discriminate.
> Overall, I highly suspect your way of thinking is going to result in lots of settlements and lawsuits because people weren't hired because they were white/male. Sexist and racism should not be acceptable and is illegal! Quite simply that is what is often being suggest.
"My way of thinking" was that e.g. the example of the investment bank was inherently 1) racist, 2) sexist because they knew and were told that had the net effect of weighing details of candidates education that skewed the outcomes but that they had no evidence affected candidate performance, and should stop. No candidates would have any legal recourse for discrimination if they stopped caring about irrelevant details that favored specific schools that reduced the diversity in their hiring.
In other words: Lack of diversity in your applicant pool is not a reasonable excuse.
This (and the rest of your paragraph) doesn't address my question. This addresses the same possible distinction I pointed to of a distinction between women who might be prepared to talk if you approach vs. who will approach you. You're basically repeating the same reasoning I called out. If user groups are begging for speakers - and that is true - and few women still end up speaking, if you care about diversity you ask yourself (and the women) why, rather than just quietly decide there's nothing you can do.
If you choose not to address it, it is then entirely valid for people to read into this that you hold certain views about diversity they don't want to be associated with.
Put another way: I've seen groups entirely fail to get women to speak, and I've seen groups that have had no problems getting women to speak. They're not recruiting from different populations. The logical assumption then is not that there aren't enough women who can speak, but that one of them is failing to identify them and nurture an environment where they are prepared to speak.
> Most conferences aren't making a profit. Most a volunteer ran and people are doing it in their spare time for no compensation. They depend heavily on call for papers where people submit then they do blind appraisals of the submissions.
If this was an example of such a conference, that might be a valid consideration, but this conference is organized by a for profit company and appears not to have taken CFPs. There are a whole lot of such companies of varying sizes - my girlfriend used to work for a 10,000 employee conference operator.
> When you have a CFP and hundreds of talks submitted rejecting them and looking for other people because the people applying are of the wrong gender or race is discrimination.
If you fail to get a diverse mix with your CFPs, 1) ask yourself why you're unable to reach a more diverse audience and address that, 2) don't fill all your slots via CFPs. This is not rocket science.
In this case it appears none of the slots were filled by CFPs anyway, so this is moot.
> Which would be at the user group level where men five their first talks. When you go to a user group you know it's going to be a bit rough, it didn't cost you anything, you haven't booked a hotel room, you haven't gone anywhere, etc. I have no problem listening to people's first talks, I often hang out in uncons if the conference has one and listen to all the random stuff, however, I do feel for people who see conferences as a serious chance to improve their skillset and end up with a reduced quality product all for the sake of virtue signaling.
Cool. Not an excuse for a company that has arranged conferences for multiple years to not have put effort into creating a pipeline once they realized they had a problem. This wasn't a first try gone slightly wrong. It is also clear they knew this was a problem for them given the fake women.
Even if they'd legitimately tried to address it, the legitimate solution is not to defraud your other speakers and your customers.
> The paragraph above seems to make it that they were getting the applicants but were ignoring them because of details in their education. It seems they had the applicants and just didn't hire them. To legally improve your diversity you need to increase who is applying. Not to ignore your applicants because of their sex or race. That is discrimination and illegal.
Discriminating because of sex or race is illegal, yes. Choosing people based on some aspect of the applicants background that is not directly tied to a protected characteristic but that indirectly causes discrimination by it may or may not be illegal depending on jurisdiction, but either way it is far harder to prove, which is why it is a favoured method used to discriminate intentionally, but it also often unintentionally causes discrimination.
If you don't want to discriminate, you take steps to ensure the pool you get your candidates from isn't massively biased, especially when it is pointed out to you. If you stick with a severely biased pool despite having been told repeatedly about the bias, then it is natural to assume the reason is that you're perfectly happy to discriminate.
> Overall, I highly suspect your way of thinking is going to result in lots of settlements and lawsuits because people weren't hired because they were white/male. Sexist and racism should not be acceptable and is illegal! Quite simply that is what is often being suggest.
"My way of thinking" was that e.g. the example of the investment bank was inherently 1) racist, 2) sexist because they knew and were told that had the net effect of weighing details of candidates education that skewed the outcomes but that they had no evidence affected candidate performance, and should stop. No candidates would have any legal recourse for discrimination if they stopped caring about irrelevant details that favored specific schools that reduced the diversity in their hiring.
In other words: Lack of diversity in your applicant pool is not a reasonable excuse.
> If you choose not to address it, it is then entirely valid for people to read into this that you hold certain views about diversity they don't want to be associated with.
Are you saying women don't think they'll get a slot at a user group that is begging for anyone to talk up a slot and are quite clear about the urgency of it? I feel like that's sexist somehow, like women fundamentally aren't able to realise user groups would take anyone that comes. This overall feels like trying to pretend like there isn't an extreme shortage when basic stats paint a clear picture.
> Put another way: I've seen groups entirely fail to get women to speak, and I've seen groups that have had no problems getting women to speak. They're not recruiting from different populations. The logical assumption then is not that there aren't enough women who can speak, but that one of them is failing to identify them and nurture an environment where they are prepared to speak.
So you've seen one "Go User Group" get women and another "Go User Group" in the same city/location fail to get women? Or are you talking about different niches?
> If this was an example of such a conference, that might be a valid consideration, but this conference is organized by a for profit company and appears not to have taken CFPs. There are a whole lot of such companies of varying sizes - my girlfriend used to work for a 10,000 employee conference operator.
I see we've gone from talking in generalisation to being specific because generalisations aren't working for you?
I'm going to ignore all your case specific response to a generalised comment thread.
> "My way of thinking" was that e.g. the example of the investment bank was inherently 1) racist, 2) sexist because they knew and were told that had the net effect of weighing details of candidates education that skewed the outcomes but that they had no evidence affected candidate performance, and should stop. No candidates would have any legal recourse for discrimination if they stopped caring about irrelevant details that favored specific schools that reduced the diversity in their hiring.
You explictly said you need to look outside your applicant pool if you're not diverse enough. That, to me, says you'll reject people in your applicant pool because they're not the right gender or race. At which point it's discrimination and racism and sexism and illegal.
> If you don't want to discriminate, you take steps to ensure the pool you get your candidates from isn't massively biased, especially when it is pointed out to you. If you stick with a severely biased pool despite having been told repeatedly about the bias, then it is natural to assume the reason is that you're perfectly happy to discriminate.
I don't think you understood my point, either that or you're ignoring it because it doesn't fit with your point of view.
> In other words: Lack of diversity in your applicant pool is not a reasonable excuse.
Actually, it's a perfectly legal excuse. Can't be sued for not hiring someone who didn't apply. And is a reasonable excuse for any where they have an applicant pool.
As pointed out, skipping over your applicant pool for others because of their sex and gender is illegal and sexist and racist. And I can't think of any reason sexism or racism should be acceptable.
Are you saying women don't think they'll get a slot at a user group that is begging for anyone to talk up a slot and are quite clear about the urgency of it? I feel like that's sexist somehow, like women fundamentally aren't able to realise user groups would take anyone that comes. This overall feels like trying to pretend like there isn't an extreme shortage when basic stats paint a clear picture.
> Put another way: I've seen groups entirely fail to get women to speak, and I've seen groups that have had no problems getting women to speak. They're not recruiting from different populations. The logical assumption then is not that there aren't enough women who can speak, but that one of them is failing to identify them and nurture an environment where they are prepared to speak.
So you've seen one "Go User Group" get women and another "Go User Group" in the same city/location fail to get women? Or are you talking about different niches?
> If this was an example of such a conference, that might be a valid consideration, but this conference is organized by a for profit company and appears not to have taken CFPs. There are a whole lot of such companies of varying sizes - my girlfriend used to work for a 10,000 employee conference operator.
I see we've gone from talking in generalisation to being specific because generalisations aren't working for you?
I'm going to ignore all your case specific response to a generalised comment thread.
> "My way of thinking" was that e.g. the example of the investment bank was inherently 1) racist, 2) sexist because they knew and were told that had the net effect of weighing details of candidates education that skewed the outcomes but that they had no evidence affected candidate performance, and should stop. No candidates would have any legal recourse for discrimination if they stopped caring about irrelevant details that favored specific schools that reduced the diversity in their hiring.
You explictly said you need to look outside your applicant pool if you're not diverse enough. That, to me, says you'll reject people in your applicant pool because they're not the right gender or race. At which point it's discrimination and racism and sexism and illegal.
> If you don't want to discriminate, you take steps to ensure the pool you get your candidates from isn't massively biased, especially when it is pointed out to you. If you stick with a severely biased pool despite having been told repeatedly about the bias, then it is natural to assume the reason is that you're perfectly happy to discriminate.
I don't think you understood my point, either that or you're ignoring it because it doesn't fit with your point of view.
> In other words: Lack of diversity in your applicant pool is not a reasonable excuse.
Actually, it's a perfectly legal excuse. Can't be sued for not hiring someone who didn't apply. And is a reasonable excuse for any where they have an applicant pool.
As pointed out, skipping over your applicant pool for others because of their sex and gender is illegal and sexist and racist. And I can't think of any reason sexism or racism should be acceptable.
> Are you saying women don't think they'll get a slot at a user group that is begging for anyone to talk up a slot and are quite clear about the urgency of it? I feel like that's sexist somehow, like women fundamentally aren't able to realise user groups would take anyone that comes. This overall feels like trying to pretend like there isn't an extreme shortage when basic stats paint a clear picture.
No, I'm saying that it is human nature for all of us to be more likely to see ourselves doing something of we see people we find it easier to identify doing the same thing.
If you struggle to understand the effect of this, then try to talk to people who are underrepresented in various contexts about their experiences sometime.
> So you've seen one "Go User Group" get women and another "Go User Group" in the same city/location fail to get women? Or are you talking about different niches?
Same niche, same city.
>I see we've gone from talking in generalisation to being specific because generalisations aren't working for you?
Generalisations work just fine too, but we both know you're using generalisations to avoid defending the case referenced in the article that you know is indefensible. You're not fooling anyone. Case in point:
> I'm going to ignore all your case specific response to a generalised thread.
How convenient for you to ignore the things you have no response to. I'm going to take that as you conceding those points, because you have nothing.
> You explictly said you need to look outside your applicant pool if you're not diverse enough. That, to me, says you'll reject people in your applicant pool because they're not the right gender or race. At which point it's discrimination and racism and sexism and illegal.
There's nothing illegal in any jurisdiction I know of with looking to widen your applicant pool if you realize it is biased. But nice try at justifying your defence of discriminatory practices by trying to accuse me of it for arguing for addressing biases.
> As pointed out, skipping over your applicant pool for others because of their sex and gender is illegal and sexist and racist. And I can't think of any reason sexism or racism should be acceptable.
And yet you're trying hard to defend them by trying to equate rooting out biases with discrimination. If only your support for it wasn't so wildly transparent. It fools nobody.
No, I'm saying that it is human nature for all of us to be more likely to see ourselves doing something of we see people we find it easier to identify doing the same thing.
If you struggle to understand the effect of this, then try to talk to people who are underrepresented in various contexts about their experiences sometime.
> So you've seen one "Go User Group" get women and another "Go User Group" in the same city/location fail to get women? Or are you talking about different niches?
Same niche, same city.
>I see we've gone from talking in generalisation to being specific because generalisations aren't working for you?
Generalisations work just fine too, but we both know you're using generalisations to avoid defending the case referenced in the article that you know is indefensible. You're not fooling anyone. Case in point:
> I'm going to ignore all your case specific response to a generalised thread.
How convenient for you to ignore the things you have no response to. I'm going to take that as you conceding those points, because you have nothing.
> You explictly said you need to look outside your applicant pool if you're not diverse enough. That, to me, says you'll reject people in your applicant pool because they're not the right gender or race. At which point it's discrimination and racism and sexism and illegal.
There's nothing illegal in any jurisdiction I know of with looking to widen your applicant pool if you realize it is biased. But nice try at justifying your defence of discriminatory practices by trying to accuse me of it for arguing for addressing biases.
> As pointed out, skipping over your applicant pool for others because of their sex and gender is illegal and sexist and racist. And I can't think of any reason sexism or racism should be acceptable.
And yet you're trying hard to defend them by trying to equate rooting out biases with discrimination. If only your support for it wasn't so wildly transparent. It fools nobody.
> Same niche, same city.
Got to assume the organisers for one are dodgy then. Just curious, what cities have multiple user groups for the same niche?
> Generalisations work just fine too, but we both know you're using generalisations to avoid defending the case referenced in the article that you know is indefensible. You're not fooling anyone. Case in point:
Bad faith comment. I am not defending the case referenced, it does appear indefensible. I don't understand why you think I wouldn't want to admit that. I don't care, I was making a generalised statement in regards to women speakers at conferences and how organisers appear to have serious trouble recruiting them. To which you responded with a generalised response about skipping over applicant pools. Then suddenly it became specific to this case.
> How convenient for you to ignore the things you have no response to. I'm going to take that as you conceding those points, because you have nothing.
No, ignoring things that are out of scope makes sense. And yea, if the company makes money and has someone full time and is inviting people. It's not hard to invite women. There are some extremely talented women who give talks and if you're got the money to afford them there isn't much of a reason not to cough up and pay them.
> And yet you're trying hard to defend them by trying to equate rooting out biases with discrimination. If only your support for it wasn't so wildly transparent. It fools nobody.
Bad faith comment. As pointed out if you want to improve diversity then you must increase diversity in your applicant pool not skip over your applicant pool as you suggest. There has been no defence of anything other than people selecting applicants from their applicant pool.
Got to assume the organisers for one are dodgy then. Just curious, what cities have multiple user groups for the same niche?
> Generalisations work just fine too, but we both know you're using generalisations to avoid defending the case referenced in the article that you know is indefensible. You're not fooling anyone. Case in point:
Bad faith comment. I am not defending the case referenced, it does appear indefensible. I don't understand why you think I wouldn't want to admit that. I don't care, I was making a generalised statement in regards to women speakers at conferences and how organisers appear to have serious trouble recruiting them. To which you responded with a generalised response about skipping over applicant pools. Then suddenly it became specific to this case.
> How convenient for you to ignore the things you have no response to. I'm going to take that as you conceding those points, because you have nothing.
No, ignoring things that are out of scope makes sense. And yea, if the company makes money and has someone full time and is inviting people. It's not hard to invite women. There are some extremely talented women who give talks and if you're got the money to afford them there isn't much of a reason not to cough up and pay them.
> And yet you're trying hard to defend them by trying to equate rooting out biases with discrimination. If only your support for it wasn't so wildly transparent. It fools nobody.
Bad faith comment. As pointed out if you want to improve diversity then you must increase diversity in your applicant pool not skip over your applicant pool as you suggest. There has been no defence of anything other than people selecting applicants from their applicant pool.
> Got to assume the organisers for one are dodgy then.
Or they have, like you, assumed there's little they can do, and have kept making the same excuses you made, and women have seen the lack of representation when they've attended, and not felt encouraged to stick their necks out. I happen to know the organisers of the one that regularly had women speaking, and 1) they included a woman in the steering group, 2) they explicitly never relied just on cfp's but made sure to reach out to people (both men and women) and made sure to also specifically set topics that addressed the representation of women in tech and similar that made it very clear to everyone it was an inclusive environment. This isn't rocket science, and when it is applied it works.
> Just curious, what cities have multiple user groups for the same niche?
Plenty of larger cities. I'm in London. Lots of niches here with multiple groups, and some with many (e.g. for the latter, there are at least a dozen tech entrepreneurship meetup groups in London with various activity levels, and the groups I were talking about were groups focusing on early stage tech entrepreneurs).
> Bad faith comment. I am not defending the case referenced, it does appear indefensible. I don't understand why you think I wouldn't want to admit that. I don't care, I was making a generalised statement in regards to women speakers at conferences and how organisers appear to have serious trouble recruiting them. To which you responded with a generalised response about skipping over applicant pools. Then suddenly it became specific to this case.
The choice of making a general comment to threads on a specific issue and then insisting it doesn't apply to the specific thread you've made it on is a well-established way of making low commitment statements that implies something without needing to stand by it when challenged. When it is then coupled with this kind of reaction against trivially simple ways of addressing the "concerns" you've raised, it becomes very transparent.
> Bad faith comment. As pointed out if you want to improve diversity then you must increase diversity in your applicant pool not skip over your applicant pool as you suggest.
I haven't suggested skipping over any applicant pool. I'm assuming you're referring to this:
> If you fail to get a diverse mix with your CFPs, 1) ask yourself why you're unable to reach a more diverse audience and address that, 2) don't fill all your slots via CFPs. This is not rocket science.
... which is an argument for fixing the bias in how you obtain candidates, and to not fill all your slots via CFPs, not for skipping over qualified applicants you already have. You can handle that by adding more slots, or by doing better next time, or any variety of other ways. That you chose an interpretation that fit your agenda of trying to turn finding women for conferences into some majorly impossible task is on you. When coupled with the fact you've made a point of the difficulty of finding candidates, it's clear the issue is not the occasional situation where someone is swimming in male candidates and deciding they had a problem.
You've constructed a convenient strawman, but to be clear: If you make the mistake of publishing a CFP with no provisions for slots you appoint separately, and without ensuring you have a pool that gives you a good shot at a diverse set of speakers, then 1) I've not argued you can't pick from your CFPs, take the (justified) flac, learn from the experience and do better next time. If you've set out terms for applicant selection, then by all means you should stick to them and fix it for next time, even if they reveal that you've done a shit job. But 2) you'll then deserve to be called out for ignoring the plethora of information that is available on means to ensure more diverse sets of speakers, and for publicly for perpetuating an environment that reduces diversity, and it'll be entirely on you if speakers or attendees choose to pull out when they realize you at a minimum don't give a shit, or more likely have beliefs that encourage racial or gender biases, whether you're aware of them or not.
> There has been no defence of anything other than people selecting applicants from their applicant pool.
After you've given excuses for why it's totally reasonable that people don't have women in their applicant pools. You can dress this up however you want, the reality is that it comes across as a clear defense of events failing to take steps to get diverse lineups. I'm sure you don't even think you're doing this, but it was very noticeable.
Or they have, like you, assumed there's little they can do, and have kept making the same excuses you made, and women have seen the lack of representation when they've attended, and not felt encouraged to stick their necks out. I happen to know the organisers of the one that regularly had women speaking, and 1) they included a woman in the steering group, 2) they explicitly never relied just on cfp's but made sure to reach out to people (both men and women) and made sure to also specifically set topics that addressed the representation of women in tech and similar that made it very clear to everyone it was an inclusive environment. This isn't rocket science, and when it is applied it works.
> Just curious, what cities have multiple user groups for the same niche?
Plenty of larger cities. I'm in London. Lots of niches here with multiple groups, and some with many (e.g. for the latter, there are at least a dozen tech entrepreneurship meetup groups in London with various activity levels, and the groups I were talking about were groups focusing on early stage tech entrepreneurs).
> Bad faith comment. I am not defending the case referenced, it does appear indefensible. I don't understand why you think I wouldn't want to admit that. I don't care, I was making a generalised statement in regards to women speakers at conferences and how organisers appear to have serious trouble recruiting them. To which you responded with a generalised response about skipping over applicant pools. Then suddenly it became specific to this case.
The choice of making a general comment to threads on a specific issue and then insisting it doesn't apply to the specific thread you've made it on is a well-established way of making low commitment statements that implies something without needing to stand by it when challenged. When it is then coupled with this kind of reaction against trivially simple ways of addressing the "concerns" you've raised, it becomes very transparent.
> Bad faith comment. As pointed out if you want to improve diversity then you must increase diversity in your applicant pool not skip over your applicant pool as you suggest.
I haven't suggested skipping over any applicant pool. I'm assuming you're referring to this:
> If you fail to get a diverse mix with your CFPs, 1) ask yourself why you're unable to reach a more diverse audience and address that, 2) don't fill all your slots via CFPs. This is not rocket science.
... which is an argument for fixing the bias in how you obtain candidates, and to not fill all your slots via CFPs, not for skipping over qualified applicants you already have. You can handle that by adding more slots, or by doing better next time, or any variety of other ways. That you chose an interpretation that fit your agenda of trying to turn finding women for conferences into some majorly impossible task is on you. When coupled with the fact you've made a point of the difficulty of finding candidates, it's clear the issue is not the occasional situation where someone is swimming in male candidates and deciding they had a problem.
You've constructed a convenient strawman, but to be clear: If you make the mistake of publishing a CFP with no provisions for slots you appoint separately, and without ensuring you have a pool that gives you a good shot at a diverse set of speakers, then 1) I've not argued you can't pick from your CFPs, take the (justified) flac, learn from the experience and do better next time. If you've set out terms for applicant selection, then by all means you should stick to them and fix it for next time, even if they reveal that you've done a shit job. But 2) you'll then deserve to be called out for ignoring the plethora of information that is available on means to ensure more diverse sets of speakers, and for publicly for perpetuating an environment that reduces diversity, and it'll be entirely on you if speakers or attendees choose to pull out when they realize you at a minimum don't give a shit, or more likely have beliefs that encourage racial or gender biases, whether you're aware of them or not.
> There has been no defence of anything other than people selecting applicants from their applicant pool.
After you've given excuses for why it's totally reasonable that people don't have women in their applicant pools. You can dress this up however you want, the reality is that it comes across as a clear defense of events failing to take steps to get diverse lineups. I'm sure you don't even think you're doing this, but it was very noticeable.
> I haven't suggested skipping over any applicant pool. I'm assuming you're referring to this:
I'm referring to this.
"The point is that if you genuinely want to address diversity, and your applicant pool isn't diverse, then you need to look beyond your applicant pool"
There is no way to look at that statement other than you would not hire someone out of your applicant pool but instead headhunt to hire someone for diversity purposes. I hope you never get take to an employment tributional because these sort of statements will almost certainly result in your losing and if you're working for a company facing problems internally.
> After you've given excuses for why it's totally reasonable that people don't have women in their applicant pools. You can dress this up however you want, the reality is that it comes across as a clear defense of events failing to take steps to get diverse lineups. I'm sure you don't even think you're doing this, but it was very noticeable.
To be honest, you've came into this discussion with a bias and a preconvieced idea. Opinions such as this about me only ever come from men who want to virtue signal. These are often met with laugther when I tell women about them.
There is a simple fact, I've explained to you multiple times your suggestion as quoted above is sexist and racist and is illegal and you continue to act like me explaining the law is somehow me being prejudice againist women.
Quite simply this isn't dressing anything up. This is the law. THE LAW. There are many companies who would fire you for gross misconduct for breaking that law.
I'm referring to this.
"The point is that if you genuinely want to address diversity, and your applicant pool isn't diverse, then you need to look beyond your applicant pool"
There is no way to look at that statement other than you would not hire someone out of your applicant pool but instead headhunt to hire someone for diversity purposes. I hope you never get take to an employment tributional because these sort of statements will almost certainly result in your losing and if you're working for a company facing problems internally.
> After you've given excuses for why it's totally reasonable that people don't have women in their applicant pools. You can dress this up however you want, the reality is that it comes across as a clear defense of events failing to take steps to get diverse lineups. I'm sure you don't even think you're doing this, but it was very noticeable.
To be honest, you've came into this discussion with a bias and a preconvieced idea. Opinions such as this about me only ever come from men who want to virtue signal. These are often met with laugther when I tell women about them.
There is a simple fact, I've explained to you multiple times your suggestion as quoted above is sexist and racist and is illegal and you continue to act like me explaining the law is somehow me being prejudice againist women.
Quite simply this isn't dressing anything up. This is the law. THE LAW. There are many companies who would fire you for gross misconduct for breaking that law.
Good. We don't need every conference to be of top quality speaker or content wise, the same way companies don't always need to hire all the top tech talent - especially if it comes at cost of inclusiveness and diversity.
Faking speakers is pretty shitty but at the same time, it is disheartening to acknowledge that in 2023, there are still people who care about the gender or race of speakers.
> It is disheartening to acknowledge that in 2023, there are still people who care about the gender or race of speakers.
On one hand, the content of any conference talk is in most cases good or bad regardless of who the person behind it is. Same as how my API performance or DB schema quality won't be impacted much by that either. A bit like how the Silicon Valley show illustrated the fact that trying to hire a "woman engineer" is a bit disrespectful to the person's own achievements.
On the other hand, tech seems to be a generally male dominated field and that could still be an issue in some ways, not just in regards to UI/UX design, but social factors. It's one of those careers that aren't back breaking work and are reasonably rewarding, however sometime between the 80s and 90s, it seems that the amount of women in the industry decreased, along the lines of: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when... Some representation there would probably be nice.
Maybe personal computer marketing was pointlessly gendered, maybe men and women have slightly different approaches to learning and learning in university courses with way more men in them doesn't feel as comfortable for women, maybe the culture in companies isn't exactly welcoming, I don't quite know.
That said, I think there are some groups to encourage women to explore ITC work here in Latvia and I've seen some panel discussions/quick talks along those lines, though I don't remember whether that was in DevTernity or FrontCon, Riga DevDays or something else.
This situation with fake speakers is quite unfortunate and not a good look, though.
On one hand, the content of any conference talk is in most cases good or bad regardless of who the person behind it is. Same as how my API performance or DB schema quality won't be impacted much by that either. A bit like how the Silicon Valley show illustrated the fact that trying to hire a "woman engineer" is a bit disrespectful to the person's own achievements.
On the other hand, tech seems to be a generally male dominated field and that could still be an issue in some ways, not just in regards to UI/UX design, but social factors. It's one of those careers that aren't back breaking work and are reasonably rewarding, however sometime between the 80s and 90s, it seems that the amount of women in the industry decreased, along the lines of: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when... Some representation there would probably be nice.
Maybe personal computer marketing was pointlessly gendered, maybe men and women have slightly different approaches to learning and learning in university courses with way more men in them doesn't feel as comfortable for women, maybe the culture in companies isn't exactly welcoming, I don't quite know.
That said, I think there are some groups to encourage women to explore ITC work here in Latvia and I've seen some panel discussions/quick talks along those lines, though I don't remember whether that was in DevTernity or FrontCon, Riga DevDays or something else.
This situation with fake speakers is quite unfortunate and not a good look, though.
If there are panels which contain only white men, then I will be asking questions about whether people are being excluded, yes. And less interested in giving money to the people organising the conference.
Why make that assumption? Given that the tech field is predominantly composed of white men, it's not surprising to see panels reflecting this demographic, even without any discriminatory intent. If anything, you'd be more justified in raising that question when encountering a panel containing only black women, considering their underrepresentation in the industry. The probability of that happening randomly, absent of discrimination, is much, much lower.
> Given that the tech field is predominantly composed of white men
Is it? Why do you assume this? Of the top ten largest tech companies by employee count, 5 are asian multinationals (Foxconn, Jingdong Mall, Alibaba, Panasonic, Canon).
Between that, and the presence of women in "white" tech companies (and yes, I realise plenty of employees in the Asian headquartered companies will also be white, but conversely plenty of employees in the US/Europe based tech companies will be of other ethnicities), which Deloitte put at 25% (based on "analysis and 2021 and 2022 predictions based on published diversity reports from 20 large technology companies (with an average workforce of more than 100,000 employees)") it seems unlikely that white men dominates the tech field all that much.
Once you start slicing and dicing it more by geography, then sure, some niches in some locations will lack diversity and so in some cases it may be reasonable to come across a purely white, male panel.
But consider that maybe blanket assumptions like this might be part of the problem leading people to just dismiss it as just the way thinks are, instead of trying to search out more diverse viewpoints.
(to the "more diverse viewpoints" thing, I'll just point out that even as a white male, I very early in my career came across situations where my cultural experience was a big bonus for an employer because their distinctly non-diverse team led them to make a whole bunch of (incorrect) assumptions about language and internationalisation I didn't, but I still represented language and cultural groups that were very similar to their own; as such if you run a conference and don't ask yourself whether a more diverse lineup might provide added value for your attendees by representing additional viewpoints, you're doing both your attendees and yourself a disservice, and that is another reason why people should consider if your conference is a good one if it seems like you've made no effort)
Is it? Why do you assume this? Of the top ten largest tech companies by employee count, 5 are asian multinationals (Foxconn, Jingdong Mall, Alibaba, Panasonic, Canon).
Between that, and the presence of women in "white" tech companies (and yes, I realise plenty of employees in the Asian headquartered companies will also be white, but conversely plenty of employees in the US/Europe based tech companies will be of other ethnicities), which Deloitte put at 25% (based on "analysis and 2021 and 2022 predictions based on published diversity reports from 20 large technology companies (with an average workforce of more than 100,000 employees)") it seems unlikely that white men dominates the tech field all that much.
Once you start slicing and dicing it more by geography, then sure, some niches in some locations will lack diversity and so in some cases it may be reasonable to come across a purely white, male panel.
But consider that maybe blanket assumptions like this might be part of the problem leading people to just dismiss it as just the way thinks are, instead of trying to search out more diverse viewpoints.
(to the "more diverse viewpoints" thing, I'll just point out that even as a white male, I very early in my career came across situations where my cultural experience was a big bonus for an employer because their distinctly non-diverse team led them to make a whole bunch of (incorrect) assumptions about language and internationalisation I didn't, but I still represented language and cultural groups that were very similar to their own; as such if you run a conference and don't ask yourself whether a more diverse lineup might provide added value for your attendees by representing additional viewpoints, you're doing both your attendees and yourself a disservice, and that is another reason why people should consider if your conference is a good one if it seems like you've made no effort)
I was of course talking in the context of a US based developer conference[0]. It's not a blanked assumption, it's an objective fact. I invite you to look up the statistics. In the same vein, it would be equally unsurprising to see a black only panel in Nigeria or an asian only panel in China.
[0] https://cppcon.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/JTP_9606-1024x...
[0] https://cppcon.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/JTP_9606-1024x...
There was no reason to assume constraints you had not stated, and consider that the demographics of that picture seems to mesh poorly with the demographics of us tech employees, and ask yourself why that is.
The article was about a US developer conference, that's where the constraint comes from... It's honestly just the first picture I found when googling for developer conferences.
I did not respond to the article. I responded to this part of your comment:
> Given that the tech field is predominantly composed of white men
You've clarified, I'm still not convinced, as I noted, but it's at least closer.
> Given that the tech field is predominantly composed of white men
You've clarified, I'm still not convinced, as I noted, but it's at least closer.
I don't like explaining this, because it should be obvious, but pretending this to be obvious would be hypocrisy.
Yes, in an ideal world, you wouldn't care. But we are incredibly far away from that ideal, and we must put special care into our actions to keep us moving towards that state. Acting as if there was no problem is ignorance, it enables the privileged to perpetuate the status quo.
Yes, in an ideal world, you wouldn't care. But we are incredibly far away from that ideal, and we must put special care into our actions to keep us moving towards that state. Acting as if there was no problem is ignorance, it enables the privileged to perpetuate the status quo.
My ideal world state is one where there is no race or gender based discrimination. The way to get closer to that ideal is to condemn race or gender based discrimination.
What's problematic about that?
What's problematic about that?
What is problematic about that is that you don't fix existing discrimination by just condemning something while pretending that just as long as you don't make it worse you're not perpetuating the effects of what is there.
In other words, if you run a conference and everyone who applies to speak is a white man, and you don't ask yourself why and what you can do to make that more reflective of society, you're helping to entrench the effects of discrimination in a way that makes your claim that your ideal world state doesn't have that discrimination ring entirely hollow.
In other words, if you run a conference and everyone who applies to speak is a white man, and you don't ask yourself why and what you can do to make that more reflective of society, you're helping to entrench the effects of discrimination in a way that makes your claim that your ideal world state doesn't have that discrimination ring entirely hollow.
I don't believe that you are correct on that position at all.
I do know women in tech that don't want to be a "woman in tech". Sounds like it would not make sense, but it does if you actually listen to them. This is not gatekeeping, the perspective is just different and it is incompatible with yours.
As well as not perpetuating discrimination is incompatible with your perspective.
To assume that people are drawn in by role models also discriminates for certain types of personality for that matter and it is enough for you to justify further discrimination. I don't think that is enough information based on evidence.
Not the conference is discriminating, you are.
I do know women in tech that don't want to be a "woman in tech". Sounds like it would not make sense, but it does if you actually listen to them. This is not gatekeeping, the perspective is just different and it is incompatible with yours.
As well as not perpetuating discrimination is incompatible with your perspective.
To assume that people are drawn in by role models also discriminates for certain types of personality for that matter and it is enough for you to justify further discrimination. I don't think that is enough information based on evidence.
Not the conference is discriminating, you are.
I think the overwhelming majority of people (and not just us white devils) would disagree with you. We want to end discrimination by not discriminating, not discriminating in a way you think is good.
As a "white devil": way to totally fail to understand what I wrote. Nothing I wrote argued for discrimination, and it's flat out dishonest of you to claim so.
Or, that in 2023, there are still people who have convinced themselves they're not influenced by race and gender.
I ran a workshop a few years back, and some female speakers wrote to me (collectively) to ask that I include more women, along with suggested names. Given that in academia there is already probably pro-female bias in hiring, I think this was bad, and in retrospect I should not have accepted it.
I have to read a lot between the lines here so correct me if I misunderstand what happened. You ran a workshop, in the academic field, which tends to hire more women than men these days (your words). Your workshop still managed to be male dominated, despite being in a female-dominated field, and women complained about that?
> which tends to hire more women than men these days (your words)
They said there was a "pro-female bias in hiring", which does not necessarily mean it's a female-dominated field. In fact, it's often the male-dominated fields that have pro-female bias because there is often a desire to increase the female ratio.
They said there was a "pro-female bias in hiring", which does not necessarily mean it's a female-dominated field. In fact, it's often the male-dominated fields that have pro-female bias because there is often a desire to increase the female ratio.
You are indeed mistaken. The field isn't female-dominated. The claim was not that academic hiring hires more women, but that it is biased in favour of hiring women, which isn't the same. And even if it hired more women, that wouldn't make it female-dominated - a stock is not the same as a flow.
Then how does it relate to the original argument? Why does it matter that academia "already" has a pro-female bias in hiring? OP was talking about a workshop and speakers. Workshops and hiring are two different things, no?
[deleted]
I think it's bad to discriminate. The people who wrote to me wanted me to have speakers not because they were good, but because they were women.
Academia is still male dominated in many fields by a wide margin but the latest hiring may be heavily biased towards female and yet it has not made a significant dent (my interpretation).
> it is disheartening to acknowledge that in 2023, there are still people who care about [the] gender or race
In 2023 people care about gender and race EVERYWHERE. No matter where I walk in there is virtue signaling operating at the highest possible level. Live ads, TV ads, everywhere online, the bar, church, my friends house, my enemies house, microcontroller manuals, etc... I wish they tone it down, perhaps more conferences will stop faking female speakers.
In 2023 people care about gender and race EVERYWHERE. No matter where I walk in there is virtue signaling operating at the highest possible level. Live ads, TV ads, everywhere online, the bar, church, my friends house, my enemies house, microcontroller manuals, etc... I wish they tone it down, perhaps more conferences will stop faking female speakers.
vidarh(1)
Related discussions from a few days ago:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38435481
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38439794
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38435481
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38439794
Seems like the lesson here is that nobody wants to go to the party unless they know who else is going to be there. Makes kind of a chicken and egg problem. Not surprised that this type of fakery is going on. Reminds me of VC rounds where nobody wants to be the first in and if you get a big name everybody FOMOs in. Not surprising to me that the same guy who runs the conference also runs influencer accounts because it seems to be the same skill. Of course everybody expects those to be fake. Maybe we should feel the same way about conferences, because they sure seem that way to me.
> Seems like the lesson here is that nobody wants to go to the party unless they know who else is going to be there. Makes kind of a chicken and egg problem.
This may indeed be tricky, but if it was "just" that he'd been sneaky about it to get the ball rolling and he subsequently had fixed the issue by replacing the fake women with real women before starting to sign up attendees it'd have been a lot easier to have sympathy.
This may indeed be tricky, but if it was "just" that he'd been sneaky about it to get the ball rolling and he subsequently had fixed the issue by replacing the fake women with real women before starting to sign up attendees it'd have been a lot easier to have sympathy.
It wouldn't surprise me to see Sizovs presented by certain triggered groups as a poor hero who, faced with the necessities of the evil woke culture had to lie.
My suggestion to enhance diversity among conference presenters: each top presenter could bring a “plus one” from an underrepresented group to co-present. Alternatively, they could opt to forfeit their spot and locate someone in their professional network who can represent both a minority group and, if possible, deliver the original presentation.
"Ok everyone, here's John Doe, and his token black guy!"
It's not the conference presenters' duty to fix a problem that will only be there if the organizers can't be bothered to try.
Let's make even better. Let's use a roulette type of device with three wheels, one inside the other.
The center wheel is gender, the middle wheel is race, and the third wheel is underrepresented jobs in tech.
That way I can have a plus-one that is a gender fluid, Berber, truck driver.
The center wheel is gender, the middle wheel is race, and the third wheel is underrepresented jobs in tech.
That way I can have a plus-one that is a gender fluid, Berber, truck driver.
[deleted]
The russian guy comes up with russian names for his sockpuppet chick accounts. Is that to explain away the grammar?
It's not exactly correct to call every ex-Eastern Block actor russian by default.
The guy's name spelling is Latvian and one of the speakers' surname is Ukrainian.
His name is russian in Latvian transcription, and it would also be incorrect to refer to the unintegrated, very pro-russian diaspora there as generically "ex-Eastern Block".
>> IP logs from a forum for programmers obtained by 404 Media
I am more interested in what forums is turning over their IP logs to the media, what the privacy policy was for that forum, and if other members of that forum know this is happening
I am more interested in what forums is turning over their IP logs to the media, what the privacy policy was for that forum, and if other members of that forum know this is happening
If you create sockpuppets on a forum for the purpose of fraudulently establishing a fake identity to sell conference tickets, I don’t think you have an expectation of privacy with respect to server logs that establish that.
Same as if you rob a bodega, you don’t expect privacy rights over the CCTV footage.
Same as if you rob a bodega, you don’t expect privacy rights over the CCTV footage.
This is absolutely not the case in many European locales. For instance, a gas station owner can be fined for infringing the privacy of a shoplifter by publishing CCTV footage [1].
[1] https://www-mtvuutiset-fi.translate.goog/artikkeli/huoltoase...
[1] https://www-mtvuutiset-fi.translate.goog/artikkeli/huoltoase...
> Same as if you rob a bodega, you don’t expect privacy rights over the CCTV footage.
This comparison is inaccurate. The bodega wasn’t robbed. This is a media reporter asking a bodega for CCTV footage because they are investigating one of the customers.
This comparison is inaccurate. The bodega wasn’t robbed. This is a media reporter asking a bodega for CCTV footage because they are investigating one of the customers.
One of the customers who has been thrown out of the bodega and banned on multiple instances. At least one of which he came back after wearing a fake mustache.
I guess CCTV footage won't go to media either, or do they?
Hi, I'm the forum admin who banned Sizovs for suckpuppeting a few years ago: https://lobste.rs/s/s67tjc/don_t_learn_too_many_things#c_nfn...
I know this is pure whataboutism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism), but I don't have any duty to keep the secrets of sockpuppeting spammers; the forum privacy policy is short and unambiguous. No members have expressed concerns over me banning his accounts in 2019, in 2020 when he spammed us again, or me talking to 404 Media. As a responsible journalist, Sam Cole asked if I had evidence of his abuse and I pasted from my log, though I redacted the exact IP address.
I know this is pure whataboutism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism), but I don't have any duty to keep the secrets of sockpuppeting spammers; the forum privacy policy is short and unambiguous. No members have expressed concerns over me banning his accounts in 2019, in 2020 when he spammed us again, or me talking to 404 Media. As a responsible journalist, Sam Cole asked if I had evidence of his abuse and I pasted from my log, though I redacted the exact IP address.
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Your privacy policy or lack of thereof does not override the duties set to you by legislation such as GDPR.
Is lobste.rs under EU jurisdiction? It appears to be run out of Chicago.
GDPR very specifically has a public interest/journalist exemption which would obviously fall under this scenario given that this was for the sake of uncovering fraud being committed by an individual.
I believe this is the relevant text, from https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679 :
> Member States law should reconcile the rules governing freedom of expression and information, including journalistic, academic, artistic and or literary expression with the right to the protection of personal data pursuant to this Regulation. The processing of personal data solely for journalistic purposes, ... should be subject to derogations or exemptions from certain provisions of this Regulation if necessary to reconcile the right to the protection of personal data with the right to freedom of expression and information, as enshrined in Article 11 of the Charter. .. In order to take account of the importance of the right to freedom of expression in every democratic society, it is necessary to interpret notions relating to that freedom, such as journalism, broadly.
> Member States law should reconcile the rules governing freedom of expression and information, including journalistic, academic, artistic and or literary expression with the right to the protection of personal data pursuant to this Regulation. The processing of personal data solely for journalistic purposes, ... should be subject to derogations or exemptions from certain provisions of this Regulation if necessary to reconcile the right to the protection of personal data with the right to freedom of expression and information, as enshrined in Article 11 of the Charter. .. In order to take account of the importance of the right to freedom of expression in every democratic society, it is necessary to interpret notions relating to that freedom, such as journalism, broadly.
veeti(2)
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I believe the 404 article said it was lobste.rs.
So they got what they wanted. A store is inclusive because everyone can enter it. A conference is inclusive only if you drag every type of person in by force, faking it if it didn’t work out. “Otherwise it’s not inclusive and I’m not participating”. Isn’t that pure nonsense.
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> A store is inclusive because everyone can enter it.
Just the ability to enter isn't what makes up inclusivity, especially for a conference. It's about being as included, welcome and accommodated for as another group.
I remember an anecdote from a recent Kate Gregory (iirc) talk about the early days of C++ conferences, where it turned out the organizers just didn't think about renting woman's toilets, only men's toilets. (Not to mention that this distinction is bullshit anyway, but that's a separate topic)
Just the ability to enter isn't what makes up inclusivity, especially for a conference. It's about being as included, welcome and accommodated for as another group.
I remember an anecdote from a recent Kate Gregory (iirc) talk about the early days of C++ conferences, where it turned out the organizers just didn't think about renting woman's toilets, only men's toilets. (Not to mention that this distinction is bullshit anyway, but that's a separate topic)
How do you only rent 'mens' toilets?
Port-a-potties usually aren't labeled, unless they are just urinals.
Did the conference centers lock out the 'women' toilets?
Most conference centers that I have been to don't have access doors to the restrooms, it is a u shaped freeflow walk in. This removes the bottleneck and cuts the cost of a door.
Port-a-potties usually aren't labeled, unless they are just urinals.
Did the conference centers lock out the 'women' toilets?
Most conference centers that I have been to don't have access doors to the restrooms, it is a u shaped freeflow walk in. This removes the bottleneck and cuts the cost of a door.
Grifters gonna grift. We must accelerate diversity with AI.
so top male speakers are attracted by fake female speakers. what does that say about them top male speakers?
... That they prefer to speak in spaces that make an effort to be diverse, in solidarity with those from underrepresented groups?
Why take the least charitable view?
Why take the least charitable view?
That the absence of people with particular attributes in a group is evidence of discrimination is a least charitable view that forms the axiom of policies that discriminate on lines like race or gender.
"He also confirmed that speakers like him have rules for participating in conferences, including only joining inclusive speaker lineups."
that they care about increasing diversity of the spaces where they're invited to talk.
I suppose it also says that they trusted the conference organizers and didn't do enough legwork to verify the fake speakers weren't fake, but it seems uncharitable to blame someone for that. Most people would have taken the claims at face value.
I suppose it also says that they trusted the conference organizers and didn't do enough legwork to verify the fake speakers weren't fake, but it seems uncharitable to blame someone for that. Most people would have taken the claims at face value.
"Attracted by" seems disingenuous. More likely, top speakers (including male) want to know that the conference(s) they talk at put efforts into diversity. The same might also go for attendees.
that they're straight?
The craziest thing about this is that apparently refusing to participate in a conference that faked female speakers is now "woke".
That was not my take at all... I took that the conference faked being woke (by being inclusive) in order to grab the attention of better male speakers. Which is a pretty good joke because it works at some many levels.
> "To spell it out why this conference generated fake women speakers," Orosz alleges, it was "because the organizer wants big names and it probably seemed like an easy way to address their diversity concerns. Incredibly lazy."
Well this is what you get if you impose such artificial requirements like forced diversity.
Edit: People are offended like if there aren't any other groups of people who base their business models on diversity. This guy has done it poorly, so it's visible, hundreds of others do it better, and you don't even notice this happens.
Well this is what you get if you impose such artificial requirements like forced diversity.
Edit: People are offended like if there aren't any other groups of people who base their business models on diversity. This guy has done it poorly, so it's visible, hundreds of others do it better, and you don't even notice this happens.
Nope it's absolutely a YOU problem if you decide to defraud your clients and your speakers. No matter the reason if you are the one defrauding people it's your fucking fault.
Is it "forced diversity" if speakers would just rather not speak at a conference that doesn't make an effort to align with their ideals i.e. doesn't attempt to be diverse?
No, this is what you get if someones response to speakers making a choice about the kind of events they want to speak at is fraud instead of addressing the concerns in an honest way.
He has no inherent right to expect speakers to speak at his event. It doesn't matter if they expect a diverse lineup or a bowl of M&M's with all the brown ones picked out - he has the choice of complying with their requirements or finding someone else.
Or, I guess, resorting to lies and deceit and getting called out for it.
He has no inherent right to expect speakers to speak at his event. It doesn't matter if they expect a diverse lineup or a bowl of M&M's with all the brown ones picked out - he has the choice of complying with their requirements or finding someone else.
Or, I guess, resorting to lies and deceit and getting called out for it.
Few know how hard it is to organize these things. Getting speakers lined up isn't easy, especially those with any reputation. They hum an haw, provarikating until the last minute. At the same time you have to put money down on venues. It is always desperate until the last minute. So it is no surprise that, faced with pullouts, organizers did something stupid.
From the article, just in case you're really taking the organizer's story at face value:
> Orosz alleged that DevTernity's addition of Boyko to the lineup was "not a one-off." He posted what he said is evidence from past years of more fake speakers that were advertised at both DevTernity and other events organized by Sizovs, and 404 Media also claims that a hugely popular female tech influencer Instagram account called Coding Unicorn may have been secretly managed by Sizovs.
Do you really think his story holds up if he's been running a catfishing account for five years?
> Orosz alleged that DevTernity's addition of Boyko to the lineup was "not a one-off." He posted what he said is evidence from past years of more fake speakers that were advertised at both DevTernity and other events organized by Sizovs, and 404 Media also claims that a hugely popular female tech influencer Instagram account called Coding Unicorn may have been secretly managed by Sizovs.
Do you really think his story holds up if he's been running a catfishing account for five years?
If you read the rest of the article, it seems fairly clear that one of the fake women advertised as speaking at the conference is a fictional persona created by the conference's organiser, and has been run as a social media presence for several years. It's hard to see this as an innocent mistake, in context.
Per the article, they appear to have done this frequently, for years.
> "To spell it out why this conference generated fake women speakers," Orosz alleges, it was "because the organizer wants big names and it probably seemed like an easy way to address their diversity concerns. Incredibly lazy."
In an ideal world, Orosz thought about that sentence immediately after uttering it, and had a realisation.
Of course she didn't, though :(
In an ideal world, Orosz thought about that sentence immediately after uttering it, and had a realisation.
Of course she didn't, though :(
Gergély is the Hungarian version of Gregor and therefore usually male - so "he" or "they", but definitely not "she"...
If they're lying about whos going to the conference and speaking, then what else are they lying about? They've been doing this charade for years now. Regardless of your opinions on diversity I would fucking hope that people would agree committing fraud is bad.