[mattigames]

Instead of every of them recommending a woman for one of the time slots at the conference or any non-white-male they just throw a fit like spoiled kids and say they are not going until someone else fixes the issue at hand for them, this kind of behavior is one of the things that deepens the gap between people in favor of diversity everywhere not by increasing diversity but alienating people that think different and considering that as a win.

[abeisgreat]

If you read the second post linked he tried very hard to help. He encouraged multiple solutions, offered to help from his experience and they opted not to take the help.

[mattigames]

The answer to this is summarized pretty well by another comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20797869

Still, a mature adult would have recommended someone for the next version of conference and if all points out your recommendation is being taken seriously you do your part and deliver your conference in the current version.

[xrd]

You sound really frustrated with this outcome.

What would you propose those speakers do differently?

A follow up question: why do you say that would be more effective than what they did?

(And, I would ask you, is that something that still maintains their commitment to diversity, since they all mentioned that was more important than speaking opportunities?)

[EdwardDiego]

> What would you propose those speakers do differently?

I always find in life that you get better traction when you approach people with a solution instead of just a problem.

So perhaps they could've said "Hey, I think it'd be good to increase speaker diversity, and I really recommend person X, she's amazing at Y, I could approach her and ask if you'd like?"

Instead of just yelling "There's not enough women!"

[sagichmal]

But that is exactly what the second speaker did. The organizers refused.

[elp]

The organizers said that call for papers had already closed. I.e this was late in the planning stage. (conf is 4 Oct) The speaker wasn't offering to help for the next conference.

I hope other conference organizers take note and work to improve diversity while also actively avoiding speakers who pull stunts like this.

[sagichmal]

That is not an excuse. Essentially every conference makes major changes to line-up and program well after the CFP is done.

[EdwardDiego]

I don't see where in his blog post he approached them with names, so please quote it for me if I overlooked it.

[sp332]

It's not weird to hold the conference organizers accountable for organizing a conference badly.

[jasonlotito]

Except they were willing to help with that. They were willing to help and contribute financially.