6 ms·

Careful that she is making an accusation here, but it is not proven, and prior bad behaviour (that's also an unproven accusation) is not an indicator of present

Careful that she is making an accusation here, but it is not proven, and prior bad behaviour (that's also an unproven accusation) is not an indicator of present guilt. I don't think we should ban people from conferences based on unproven accusations.

yock 14y ago
Not sure why you're being downvoted for this, it's spot-on. Accusations, no matter how credible, do not indicate guilt.
- davidw 14y ago
  All the more reason to have a well thought-out policy in place for how to deal with a potentially explosive situation.
  - supernooneo 14y ago
    Unless it involves a trial by jury, I don't think it's fair to ban people based on it.
    - wpietri 14y ago
      Trial by jury is a mechanism we use to limit the actions of the state, to make sure its power over individuals is fairly applied. In the US, people are generally free to associate with whomever they want. That includes the right to not associate with people. If a bar owner or a conference organizer wants to throw somebody out, that's perfectly within their rights unless they've contracted otherwise. Equally, patrons are welcome to their business elsewhere if they choose.
  - yock 14y ago
    If a conference wants to have a policy governing the actions of their attendees whilst at the conference, wonderful. If a conference thinks they have any right to govern the actions of people who happen to be attendees whilst not at the conference, then they can go pound sand. It's sad that this woman was apparently treated so poorly, but there's no possible way for a conference to write a legally-binding code of conduct for how people spend their social lives outside of that conference. It's utter nonsense to even consider it.
    - koide 14y ago
      The policy does not need to be legally binding, just very clear of the consequences, and they can make clear what will happen if they get a complaint about you.
      - ovi256 14y ago
        Can I please get your full name and the list of conferences you plan to attend to further your career ? Don't worry, in no way am I going to abuse this information to make baseless complaints against you. All my complaints will be solidly based on malice.
        koide 14y ago
        I'll repeat myself to ease your fear of the rabid hordes of malignant women who want to make your life miserable: "they can make clear what will happen if they get a complaint about you." Of course what will happen from a complaint should take malignancy in consideration and offer at least some kind of right to respond to offenders.
        ovi256 14y ago
        >I'll repeat myself to ease your fear of the rabid hordes of malignant women who want to make your life miserable: "they can make clear what will happen if they get a complaint about you." Can be paraphrased to apply to "rabid hordes of adulterous men who want to make your life miserable". Better ? I'm just pointing out that for people discussing how to best setup procedures for handling deviant behaviour, you sure assume only perfectly honest people would come to use said procedures. If you assume p% of possible culpability for the accused, shouldn't you assume the same for the accuser ? Otherwise, you are just discriminating against the accused. This is a hard problem society as large has not solved yet - witness both the huge cost of false negatives (unreported offenses) and false positives (false accusations). I'm just skeptical a conference organiser will correctly solve this between two round of emails. Oh sure, he can publish a boilerplate "we take all complaints very seriously" policy. I predict we'll see them appear at most tech conferences shortly.
Avenger42 14y ago
This isn't the stock market. Past behavior is an indicator of present/future behavior. It's not the only indicator, certainly, but when a large number of people are telling you the same thing, then you have a responsibility to discover why that is. The organizer's reaction made it sound like he had reservations about inviting this person, due to older reports similar to the author's.
- ovi256 14y ago
  I'm willing to bet you had bowel control problems until a certain age, and I wonder if I can use that as an indicator of future behavior. There are reliable witnesses, after all.
- blubbar 14y ago
  >Past behavior is an indicator of present/future behavior. But a pretty bad one. I wouldn't mind if a murderer would give talk (if it was good). And not about the murdering, but about let's say ReiserFS.

yock 14y ago

Not sure why you're being downvoted for this, it's spot-on. Accusations, no matter how credible, do not indicate guilt.

davidw 14y ago
All the more reason to have a well thought-out policy in place for how to deal with a potentially explosive situation.
- supernooneo 14y ago
  Unless it involves a trial by jury, I don't think it's fair to ban people based on it.
  - wpietri 14y ago
    Trial by jury is a mechanism we use to limit the actions of the state, to make sure its power over individuals is fairly applied. In the US, people are generally free to associate with whomever they want. That includes the right to not associate with people. If a bar owner or a conference organizer wants to throw somebody out, that's perfectly within their rights unless they've contracted otherwise. Equally, patrons are welcome to their business elsewhere if they choose.
- yock 14y ago
  If a conference wants to have a policy governing the actions of their attendees whilst at the conference, wonderful. If a conference thinks they have any right to govern the actions of people who happen to be attendees whilst not at the conference, then they can go pound sand. It's sad that this woman was apparently treated so poorly, but there's no possible way for a conference to write a legally-binding code of conduct for how people spend their social lives outside of that conference. It's utter nonsense to even consider it.
  - koide 14y ago
    The policy does not need to be legally binding, just very clear of the consequences, and they can make clear what will happen if they get a complaint about you.
    - ovi256 14y ago
      Can I please get your full name and the list of conferences you plan to attend to further your career ? Don't worry, in no way am I going to abuse this information to make baseless complaints against you. All my complaints will be solidly based on malice.
      - koide 14y ago
        I'll repeat myself to ease your fear of the rabid hordes of malignant women who want to make your life miserable: "they can make clear what will happen if they get a complaint about you." Of course what will happen from a complaint should take malignancy in consideration and offer at least some kind of right to respond to offenders.
        ovi256 14y ago
        >I'll repeat myself to ease your fear of the rabid hordes of malignant women who want to make your life miserable: "they can make clear what will happen if they get a complaint about you." Can be paraphrased to apply to "rabid hordes of adulterous men who want to make your life miserable". Better ? I'm just pointing out that for people discussing how to best setup procedures for handling deviant behaviour, you sure assume only perfectly honest people would come to use said procedures. If you assume p% of possible culpability for the accused, shouldn't you assume the same for the accuser ? Otherwise, you are just discriminating against the accused. This is a hard problem society as large has not solved yet - witness both the huge cost of false negatives (unreported offenses) and false positives (false accusations). I'm just skeptical a conference organiser will correctly solve this between two round of emails. Oh sure, he can publish a boilerplate "we take all complaints very seriously" policy. I predict we'll see them appear at most tech conferences shortly.

Avenger42 14y ago

This isn't the stock market. Past behavior is an indicator of present/future behavior. It's not the only indicator, certainly, but when a large number of people are telling you the same thing, then you have a responsibility to discover why that is. The organizer's reaction made it sound like he had reservations about inviting this person, due to older reports similar to the author's.

ovi256 14y ago
I'm willing to bet you had bowel control problems until a certain age, and I wonder if I can use that as an indicator of future behavior. There are reliable witnesses, after all.
blubbar 14y ago
>Past behavior is an indicator of present/future behavior. But a pretty bad one. I wouldn't mind if a murderer would give talk (if it was good). And not about the murdering, but about let's say ReiserFS.