[apawloski]

I'm sorry for whoever downvoted you for disagreeing with them. Normally we're better than that.

I'm on the fence for the kind of thinking you suggest.

On one hand, the phenomenon you describe does happen -- it's what MLK referred to as "the mythical concept of time." That if an un(der)represented group just waits patiently, they'll be alright. The idea that they'll get rights when the courts decide so, or that they'll get a decent education when they test well enough, or that they'll get reasonable jobs when they can afford to commute there.

I think people get upset about these observations because they think the observer is attributing malice. "Racist" is a strong term that elicits an emotional response -- people thinking of the Deep South in the 50s. I don't think that the British Ruby Conference planned on an all-white all-male conference, and I don't think any reasonable person believes that they explicitly denied presenters because they were black, or hispanic, or gay, etc.

But it's also true that year after year we see this. To be transparent, as a white male, I sympathize with meritocratic thinking ("the best person should get the job"). And I understand why people get upset over affirmative action-like policies. But what we're doing now isn't working, and I don't know the answer.

What I do know is that both sides need to be able to acknowledge that there are reasonable views and goals across the board in this debate. The emotional language that comes with this is polarizing, and people are defensive, and people are indignant, etc. We need to discuss this reasonably, and this is a forum that should be able to, but frequently doesn't.

[mjg59]

Year after year, new people start running conferences. And year after year, people have to point out that running a conference while paying no attention to diversity will (a) ensure that your conference fails to represent whatever diversity already exists in your community, and (b) do nothing to encourage further diversity in your community. It's unsurprising that the people who've been making these arguments over that time get frustrated - they've had to keep on making them in the face of wave after wave of naive conference organiser.

Sometimes an emotional response is justified. Sometimes rational discussion gets you nowhere. Sometimes it really is just time for people to say that they are sick of this bullshit and they aren't going to take it any more. In this case, the conference organisers clearly weren't acting in bad faith - but nor had they put even the most cursory effort into making themselves aware of the issue. That shouldn't be considered acceptable behaviour these days, and if rational discourse hasn't led to it being considered unacceptable then maybe emotional responses will do.

[tomjen3]

I doubt that. The current US political system is (or at least appear to be) super devided and unable to get anything done. But does it lack emotional arguments? It doesn't seem so.

In addition you are arguing in front of a forum where people value rational speech and good arguments. Throwing a tantrum is not the way to get anything done here.

Finally you seem to assume that there is some way to convince your opponents. I agree that it seems likely, but how is it certain? And what gives you the right to go of the rails and decide what should be considered acceptable behaviour? That seems strongly opposed to the culture of freedom that has permated the hacker culture since it first escaped the wrath of the operators back in the early sixties.

[apawloski]

I'm not disagreeing with your first paragraph -- that's what I was trying to acknowledge in my original post.

And I think there are many people who share the viewpoint of your second paragraph. Personally I don't think I do -- compromise is rarely made in the name of strong emotion. But I understand where these feelings come from. After all, for every MLK there is a Malcolm X. Maybe it's a combination of these forces that facilitates change. I have no idea, and can't speak about much else other than the fact that there are reasonable goals on both sides of this debate. We should be working towards them.

[mjg59]

Oh, it's definitely a combination of the two that engenders change. If the calm, reasoned position is the only one expressed, the compromise position will never reach it. You need an extreme position in order to shift public perception to the point where the calm, reasoned position is the compromise position.

[typicalrunt]

I was one of the people that downvoted "thisduck" because of the naivety of his/her statement. The statement was so logically simple that it is axiomatic, but none of it was necessarily based on evidence.

On the other hand, I upvoted your comment because it is a more reasoned argument. There's no right or wrong answer when someone charges another person with racism, unless it is overwhelmingly obvious (re: your 1950s example).

Charging the BritRuby organizers with racism is a harsh indictment, and I would feel profoundly hurt if that charge was levelled against me. Now that the charge is out there against BritRuby, what are they to do about it? They can't "show their work" in choosing the speakers, because it acknowledges that they might have been racist to begin with, and nobody will do that. If they stay quiet, they have to contend with people like 'thisduck'.

@apawloski you make the right call that one needs to step back and reassess the situation from an objective standpoint before using the word 'racism'. Sometimes admitting that you don't know the answer is the first step to actually getting the conversation started.

Lastly there's a voice in the back of my head saying that, based on the way people are saying that having x% white people at a conference is sign of racism[1], I'm not sure if I should ever submit an application to speak. I'm "white", but I don't want to be charged with being racist or taking a 'non-white's' speaker slot because I happened to want to speak at a conference. Now, what do I do?

It's now my turn to be naive: I honestly didn't think my skin colour and willingness to share information with others would be seen as a sign of racism.

[1] where x >= .... what's the right number? is it 50%, 80%, 1%?

[aw3c2]

I downvoted him/her because the post is hyperbolical nonsense.

Correlation is not causation. It is perfectly possible that the best papers (by whatever metric) were submitted by white guys. So if that was the case, and they selected the best papers then they would end up with 100% white guys.

If you make diversity a goal, then you potentially reduce the resulting quality. A technological conference should care about the papers' quality and nothing else. I would not mind if it would be 40% transsexuals, 30% furries in pony dresses and 30% carribean housewifes because to me, that is completely irrelevant and not something I care about.

I have no idea about this conference, ruby or anything else.