[jawns]

> There is no way of making a technical conference if some people feel insecure or uncomfortable.

I'm surprised to hear a conference organizer say this, because I think it's an unrealistic goal.

There's a difference between people feeling as if their safety is being directly threatened by someone at a conference and someone feeling uncomfortable with a speaker because of, for instance, some of their personal views that they strongly disagree with.

(Edit: In the original version of OP's blog post, it did not say why people were uncomfortable with the speaker. It said, "My team and I were contacted by different people to warn us that they were uncomfortable with the participation of a speaker and her partner in our conference. They told the organization of the conference that we would have problems with the speaker and his partner. his communication took us by surprise since we had performed a basic background check on the chosen speakers to avoid these kinds of issues." The blog post was later updated to clarify, "They told the organization of the conference that this couple had caused problems to women in the community," which is still pretty vague.)

Obviously, conference organizers should be taking attendees' safety seriously and making sure they're not being subjected to harassment or unjust discrimination.

But if you take a "comfort is priority #1" mindset, it gives a lot of ammunition to people who dislike a speaker's political views or choices they might make in their personal life.

HN has had a bunch of previous threads about how welcoming conferences should be to speakers who hold unorthodox or unpopular opinions -- stuff that potential attendees might object to.

I think the general consensus has been:

If there is real evidence (e.g. past conduct at similar events) that they are likely to engage in conduct that directly threatens the safety of other attendees or otherwise violate the conference's code of conduct, it's a no-brainer. Disinvite.

If they hold unorthodox, potentially objectionable opinions, but there's no evidence that they're going to violate the code of conduct, and the issue is that people merely feel uncomfortable being around someone who holds such views (or they feel as if the conference is implicitly endorsing such views by having the person as a speaker) then you take one of several paths:

If the opinion is unquestionably beyond the pale, like something that 9 out of 10 attendees would say, "Yeah, that's truly awful," then it's a pretty easy decision. Disinvite.

If the opinion is about an issue that is merely controversial -- meaning that in mainstream society, there is a wide range of opinions (e.g. any strong opinion about abortion or guns) -- then you have to do some weighing of principles vs. practical considerations. If maintaining the person as a speaker is going to tank your conference, then even if you don't support disinviting them as a matter of principle, you might decide it's necessary on a practical level. But if it's not going to tank your conference, then you might be able to lean more heavily on principles.

[duxup]

I think I see what you're saying but considering the behavior described, the concern probabbly wasn't just a matter of opinion.

Personally I know of someones who behaved a bit like was described in the article. I would not be comfortable being around them either, even though I was never a target of their wrath.*

*For the record I've no idea who the people in the article are and I'm 100% sure the people I'm thinking of are not them.

[gameswithgo]

I think the way these people reacted confirms that it would be a very bad idea to have them at any conference. I wish they were named so I could avoid them now.

[leereeves]

Would you avoid them simply on the basis of a blog post?

OP is saying a false accusation turned into a witch hunt because people believed an allegation posted on the Internet without question.

What makes you confident you're better at detecting the truth than the people who believed the woman's story?

[ironmagma]

There are several reasons to believe a blog post over a told-in-person anecdote; for one, this is more or less an open forum with no time limits or constraints on research. This is when combined with the fact that these possibly-incriminating* details of the story were provided voluntarily, which generally adds credence to a claim. Until an opposing blog post appears telling the opposite story (which makes perennial discussion similarly easy to take place), it makes the most sense to believe this account over a secondhand story of a story that doesn't even have a written record.

* If the story of the stalking, etc. were true, it would be damaging to the author's reputation. It would naturally be in the author's better interest to cover it up by not mentioning that detail given that it was true.

[rdiddly]

I'm sympathetic to the author but now I'm finding the epistemology here interesting to talk about.

Firstly I generally think of information provided voluntarily as being more suspect than that which is elicited, coerced or happenstance. Think of the criminal who under questioning volunteers to "help" the cops by putting them on someone else's trail with a false accusation. (Made to seem offhand, of course.)

This applies to the stalking example too - in terms of possibly being able to frame and spin something by mentioning it first, when you know some version of it is going to come out regardless.

I agree with your point about written records, at least to the extent that writing behooves the writer to consider things carefully. Although it still doesn't preclude someone's being inept or unwise about it.

Just speaking generally, not necessarily about this case.

[ironmagma]

While in that particular case, volunteered information seems suspect, I would argue that is only so because the person providing it is already under questioning for something. The would be the exception rather than the rule, since in the vast majority of cases, no attention is the desired scenario for a person who has done someone else wrong. And generally speaking, the easiest way to achieve zero attention is by not informing others as to the existence of a situation.

[rdiddly]

Indeed - the "hope no one notices" approach!

[lazyasciiart]

What makes you believe the OP’s story?

[kazinator]

I don't absolutely believe OP's story, but an important feature of OP's story is not naming any names.

The story contains various propositions that can basically be divided into:

1. propositions that can likely be independently corroborated by large numbers of people:

--- the conference really happened (we are not told which conference where, but if we knew that, numerous people could be found to attest to it, if it had been real).

--- that the organizer was loudly accosted by the woman, accusing him of stalking: this is a public incident that supposedly happened, in front of witnesses.

--- the non grata couple is real; people don't like them for some reason and warn conference organizers

--- the non grata couple are known for harassing behavior

2. claims made by the organizer, like:

--- he denied participation in the conference to the couple

--- he was harassed by the woman with repeated contact attempts

--- the woman's allegations were false

The claims under (1) are verifiable true or false. If they are true, they lend overwhelming credibility to (2). Basically if everything under (1) is true, it's almost inconceivable that the (2) claims aren't.

[peterwwillis]

I think this is splitting hairs. A conference organizer has basically one consideration: make things run smoothly. The whole effort is already so complex and error-prone that most of the time you're killing yourself just to make them work at all. Principles are nice, but when it comes down to either banning a couple people, or facing a backlash from the attendees and sponsors, that's probably the simplest choice the organizer has for the entire event. You lose two ticket sales, but the event keeps running.

[ben509]

> If they hold unorthodox, potentially objectionable opinions, but there's no evidence that they're going to violate the code of conduct...

But the orthodoxy is generally sincere in wanting to promote their preferred behavior, e.g. diversity or inclusivity, so they tend to write it into the code of conduct.