Open source is not a war zone

Between the really obviously bad stuff (people being physically assaulted in general, whether at an event or not, and having a decent way to handle reporting for that kind of thing), and stupid things (people telling jokes privately in an audience and being overheard), there are some situations where I actually appreciate learning how some behavior might be unintentionally offensive and could be easily corrected.<p>Essentially in the same category as wanting to learn about some people being colorblind and how using certain color combinations alone for UI distinctions is thus a bad idea, or that scheduling a developer event for which you'd like to attract students around traditional finals time is probably a bad idea.<p>Whether or not some behavior is "wrong", it's still good to know if certain things have consequences you don't want. I think every developer community wants to be as inclusive to competent/interested people as possible, so when there are no or low cost ways to make an event more appealing, that's great.

Experiences vary. Responses to certain things depend on what's happened to you in the past. Some people's sexual harassment is someone else's harmless flirting, an entirely innocent joke may be an unintended racial slur. The same incident viewed by different people may be interpreted entirely differently.<p>So yeah, it's great that there are women who feel safe in open source communities. It's wonderful that they've felt welcomed and unharassed. It would be entirely inappropriate to say that their experience is false or to suggest that they should object to behaviour that they feel is perfectly acceptable. But it's also entirely inappropriate to suggest that the experience of women who <i>don't</i> feel safe is somehow false or unwarranted. Changing the culture of our communities isn't a zero sum game. Making them more accessible shouldn't come at the cost of alienating women who are happy with how things are, but nor should those who are happy with how things are resist efforts to improve the happiness of others.

The authors mischaracterize the "code of conduct" statement first as a redundant legal system, then as a decree that "spreads guilt onto an entire gender," then as an "overarching act of protection condemning basically every social behavior between men and women."<p>A code of conduct is none of those things. It is an invitation: "this is how we expect people attending our event to behave; where you find it not so, be assured that your concerns will not be ignored. Here are ways to help the event organizers address conflicts: A, B, C."<p>There is a legitimate need for this statement to be made.

&#62;encountering 2 dicks at a 500 people conference are AMAZING odds - nowhere else in our every day lives the odds are THAT good.<p>This made me smile with delightful recognition - it's been, more often than not, that I've been treated with the utmost respect by my male peers in the tech world. The same is not true in other industries I participate in where women are even less represented, or old-school boy networks still reign.

&#62; And let's face it: No real dick will be put off by a code of conduct helplessly condemning all kinds of unwelcome behavior - that's why they're dicks - but a huge portion of men will keep to themselves ridden by guilt because they're the ones actually thinking sensibly and will ask themselves about their own dickishness.<p>The point of a code of conduct is not to stop dicks from being dicks. It is to remove any plausible defense. You can more easily ban dicks when you reduce ambiguities.

It's great to see that some people are remaining level-headed after the amount of butthurt that was caused at the recent convention.<p>The lady who whined about two guys having a private conversation was a jerk. She's the type who ruins things for everyone.

Excellent. Puts the focus right where it belongs -- on principles, not on specific rules of behavior.<p>The closest thing we really need to codes of conduct is consciousness-raising reminders of the sorts of things that can go wrong EVEN WITHOUT OVERT physically-aggressive behavior. The big three of those seem to be:<p>1. Tiresome references to objectification of women. E.g., booth babes, scantily clad women in marketing materials, etc.<p>2. Tiresome repetition of individually unobjectionable signs of attraction. What's fun at gender-balanced party and tolerable OCCASIONALLY in the workplace can be oppressive if it happens too often in a professional context. So if you're attracted to a professional colleague, you should do your best to refrain from showing it.<p>3. Bad conversational patterns. E.g., a woman who's interrupted in conversation may not power her way back the way many men would, so you should be more careful if you have an urge to interrupt.<p>If you want, you can add in some kind of affirmative action concept to that as well.

<i>We are women of Perl and we're actually quite happy with our community.</i><p>I was unaware that there even were Perl conferences anymore - can anybody involved here give some overview of the different Perl conferences and any history of gender issues?

Nice to see someone else pointing out the statistics probability for women in tech conferences.<p>Just doing some basic calculations, the risk in going to a tech conference with 95% male vs 5% female has about 20 times higher risk than participating in a 50/50 conference if one assume that sexual assaults are male-&#62;female.<p>Like the term going postal, I would really like to see a study that could prove or disprove if technology conferences are in a higher risk group of sexual assault or if that reputation is just perceived risk vs actually risk.

The attitude of that letter is refreshingly positive and sensible. A nice change from the usual super-charged sexist attitudes one way or the other that usually only spark more polarized debate that loses sight of the bigger picture.<p>The thing that frustrated me the most about the PyCon thing was how the keynote was just completely eclipsed by the incident. Barely anyone reporting even had the consideration to mention what the keynote was about-- only that it was interrupted by a tweetsplosion.

This actually sounds rational and not hysterical - well done!<p>Though I'm not a Perl user, I think these women would be a delight to hang out with, drink beer, and talk about open source.

This needed to be said and I think they said it beautifully. Nothing else.

I would love to sit down with the group of women who wrote this and get to know them. While I disagree with them that having a code of conduct is "helpless", and on many other points they make, there are plenty of ideas we share as well. I'm happy to see them taking a step towards feminist activism -- as they are in coming up with a collective statement with other women.

I would like to read this, but the site is being blocked by websense. Could someone put it on pastebin, or something like that?

Thank you! I'm a guy and it makes me uncomfortable even watching some guy make a tasteless pass at a random woman. And regardless of what people believe, friendship is possible (and a far better prelude to other things if both parties desire).<p>As an aside, I'd hate to be named Richard after reading that posting.

I like the overall spirit of this article, but find this a bit puzzling:<p><i>We also like to keep the vocabulary appropriate</i><p>So we start off by using a slang term for a piece of male anatomy as a pejorative?

That was a good read, I would say that some tech conferences are that worried about the bad press they are becoming a little misandristic.

I've been at several YAPC::EUs and I am quite surprised to hear that there are dickheads there. People with strong, vocal opinions? Definitely, but I personally love them the most - they bring colour to the events

&#62; Open Source Is Not A Warzone<p>Like anyone has the right to make this claim ;))

Sadly, whereas tech conferences should be about the tech and the cool, interesting and rewarding things we can do with it, it instead becomes dragged down into a drama, where one woman can do more damage to other women then all the men present (thinking about the pycon incident). As my colleague a female developer, often says "These gynosaurs ruin it for the rest of us".

Oh c'mon, like men haven't been insulted or attacked. Like men haven't met women who are complete dicks. Just because you're the weaker gender does not give you the right to assume that we are all shit and you are some cherry on top of a cake. No.<p>This women-in-tech-is-hard stuff is so overplayed to the point of it being just plain stupid. What if every man who get's insulted by a woman who's a complete dick starts writing about the stuff you, women, do? But we don't. Why? Because we aren't that much of dicks as you, women, are.<p>And go on, think that what I say is pure hatrid or sexism or whatever. It's not. You're statements may validate, but you're no innocent in this "war".