Annoucing "The Art Of The Con" And Retiring From Tech Conferences

Maybe it's different for security conferences (although I doubt it) but we have a simple rule at 44Con[1]: Don't be a dick. It's a very simple rule and it applies to everyone. If you're a dick, you're asked to stop being a dick. If you continue being a dick, you're warned you'll be asked to leave and if you carry on you will be, possibly assisted by the venue security if you don't take it seriously.<p>Adrian and I really don't need the hassle, running 44Con is a whole year's effort to organise and plan for a 2 day event. If we hear of speakers being dick we'd probably cut them a little leeway for minor dickness but if what Zed asserts is correct we'd treat them the same as anyone else in that sort of situation.<p>And I say this as someone that has no doubt been a dick and done stupid things at conferences. We don't need cards or tons of specific house rules, we just need the basics enforced better to make the event better for everyone.<p>[1] - <a href="http://www.44con.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.44con.com/</a>

Who is Steve Holden, and what did he do?<p>Also, what is BubbleConf, and why haven't the disinvited Zed Shaw? Curious.

So, nowadays if a tech community puts together an event, they had better call it a gathering, a tech meet, maybe coffee code &#38; cookies, basically anything but conference.<p>Because once you have a conference you have to deal with feminist dogmatic gynosaurs, ducks, bloggers, community backlash, mainstream print filling their idle pages with judgement on your efforts, and basically a regret for even thinking of doing something good in the first place.