[Jem]

Totally agree with your first 3 sentences, can't agree with the last. Finding the courage to stand up and directly address someone who is making you feel uncomfortable - especially if you're a minority in a certain environment - takes a lot of courage and absolute certainty that you're not going to get a mouthful of abuse back.

(I think talking directly to the conf organisers/staff would have been the preferred route, personally.)

[adwn]

> Finding the courage to stand up and directly address someone who is making you feel uncomfortable [...]

She didn't. Instead of directly addressing them and giving them a chance to explain and apologize, she instead proceeded to put them in a public pillory. That's the opposite of courageous, it's malicious, sneaky, and underhanded.

[Jem]

I know what she did. I didn't say I agreed with her approach (quite the opposite, in fact).

[altcognito]

Handling it personally makes a lot of sense. I have children, I don't teach them to immediately run to authority the minute they are offended. You should be able to confront/request somebody behave appropriately without them "giving back a mouthful of abuse". And therein lies the key, if they give you back a mouthful of abuse, then take it higher up. There are absolutely situations where going directly to conf organizers and staff is appropriate, but this doesn't seem like one to me.

[Jem]

I also have children, and I'm not sure how it's relevant.

Of course you SHOULD be able to tell someone you're offended without the risk of backlash, but it's always a risk. Clearly Adria decided to handle that risk in a different way than you or I would have.

[altcognito]

It's relevant because talking directly to people and not tattle-telling is part of growing up, and it's unfortunate this wasn't done.

It doesn't mean she isn't grown up though as this is just one non-representative tiny slice of two people's entire lives. Honestly, I didn't get a chance to update my message, but another question (seen here and elsewhere) is probably more important: "Why isn't the story about her life being threatened over this?" That's the more ridiculous part of this story.

[mercurial]

If all she had done was go the organizers, we wouldn't be talking about it.

[dude17172009]

But if she was scared, why would she tweet using her real account.