I am really quite disturbed by all of the people who are responding something along the lines of "this isn't the conference organizer's problem, it's happening outside of the conference." I've seen several such replies, so rather than responding to one, I'm responding to the whole sentiment here.<p>At a conference, there is a lot that goes on during unofficial off-hours, that is really an integral part of the conference. We shouldn't consider it acceptable for women to feel unsafe going to such off-hours events. If there is someone who is a guest at that conference, and showing up to off-hours events associate with the conference, that is still the conference's problem, as it significantly negatively affects an important part of the conference, and could be avoided by making that person unwelcome at the conference.<p>And this is not a court of law. We regularly ban people from online communities with a much lower bar of proof than would be required in a court of law, because those people are harmful to the community. Yes, any particular process could, in theory, be abused. But that isn't, as far as I know, a problem here. I have never heard of someone being banned from a conference unjustly. And we have a lower bar in these cases because the consequences are not as severe as criminal sanctions. We are not trying to lock someone up. We are not trying to get them arrested. We are just saying "this behavior is unacceptable, and you are not welcome in our community if you are going to behave this way."<p>All the original post is asking is that conferences have a clearly defined policy on what is unacceptable, and what will happen if someone crosses that line. It doesn't sound like there's any dispute about what happened. It sounds like the person in question had a history of problems, as the organizer said he shouldn't have allowed this person to come to the conference.<p>There isn't a problem here of people being unjustly accused and cut off from conferences because of it. There is a problem of women being harassed, seriously creeped out, feeling unwelcome and unable to do anything about it because of the actions of a few, and the lack of any clear policy or action on the part of conference organizers. And heck, a clear policy can help. Perhaps it can specify that the first time, someone will be warned, and only banned if they have already been warned. Perhaps it can specify a dispute resolution procedure. A clear policy will help everyone. We need to do better, because this keeps coming up and it is a serious problem.