Women and TLUG - a personal rant

[Matt Seburn]

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 11:55 AM, Mauro Souza <thoriumbr-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:

> I don't felt that people on this list condoned William's misbehavior,
> quite the opposite.
>

The group as a whole did not condone his behaviour (most condemned it) but
a few certainly did.

Even with this issues, I don't recommend anybody leaving the list. The good
> people are not to leave. The bad people are.
>

Agreed, however allowing this kind of behaviour to continue unchecked will
necessarily lead to good people leaving.  If the administrators decide they
don't care to keep this space free from bullying and harassment, there's
nothing I can do to change it and I'm not going to waste my time trying.

Matt


> Mauro
> http://mauro.limeiratem.com - registered Linux User: 294521
> Scripture is both history, and a love letter from God.
>
>
> 2014/1/16 Matt Seburn <mattseburn-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>
>
>> This thread is absurd to me.  Count me as one of those put off enough by
>> what I see here to consider TLUG utterly useless.
>>
>> I attended one meeting years ago, and felt so unwelcome that I haven't
>> been back since.  Heckling was an issue, but I chose not to come back
>> because the group felt very unwelcoming.  It felt like I had walked into a
>> clique of people who had known each other for years and had no interest in
>> letting newcomers into the group.  I tried to follow along to the
>> post-meeting social time (hoping that I'd have better luck socializing
>> there), but everyone walked ahead of me and occasionally looked back to
>> glare at me until I gave up and left.  I'm sure I'm not the only one who
>> has had an experience like this.
>>
>> I stayed on the list because of the useful and interesting discussion,
>> but now I'm reconsidering that decision.  I see a group of people condoning
>> sexual harassment, and prioritizing the harasser's "right" to harass above
>> others' right to not be harassed.  This is absurd to me.  Free speech does
>> not mean you have the right to say whatever you want without consequences.
>> You can't yell "fire!" in a crowded theatre, and you can't sexually harass
>> people.  Both actions can and often do have serious consequences, and for
>> good reason.
>>
>> Moderation is an important part of any internet community.  I agree that
>> the banhammer should be used sparingly, but at a minimum the moderator's
>> role is to set the tone and ensure that the space remains useful for its
>> intended purpose, and in TLUG's case this extends to in-person meetups.
>> Many people in this thread have shared that they feel the group has become
>> problematic and is not useful to them.  I think this is a real problem that
>> those in charge of TLUG need to pay attention to.
>>
>> If you want to get together with your friends and heckle each other and
>> make sexist jokes, you are free to do so whenever and wherever you like.
>> That is not the purpose of TLUG, and it's the responsibility of those in
>> charge to ensure it remains true to its purpose.
>>
>> Matt
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 6:19 AM, Colin McGregor <colin.mc151-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 9:37 PM, Stewart C. Russell <scruss-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 14-01-15 07:53 PM, William Park wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> > Come on, guys.  This bitching about TLUG meeting is strange to me and
>>>> > counter productive as group.
>>>>
>>>> Actually, no; it's very productive to constructively criticize something
>>>> you want to see improve. In the link that Colin posted, it's written up
>>>> under “Geek Social Fallacy #2: Friends Accept Me As I Am”:
>>>> http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html
>>>> — read it, it's good.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Sorry, my bad, I first heard about the Geek Social Fallacy article via
>>> Stewart Russell on Monday, and I didn't credit him. Bottom line though,
>>> there are points in that article that should be driven home to a GTALug
>>> (and several other geek groups) audience (sad but true).
>>>
>>> I often attend the GTALug board meetings, even though I am not a board
>>> member. It is my hope that at the next board meeting GTALug will adopt a
>>> formal code of conduct and then be prepared to enforce the code...
>>>
>>> So, while I know the TLUG directors have tried their best, I have to say
>>>> that the new room at Ryerson is definitely sub-standard. In the days of
>>>> pretending to be associated with UofT, at least the rooms were big
>>>> enough that the annoying back-channel chatter didn't prevent you from
>>>> hearing everything.
>>>>
>>>> > People come to the meeting because they
>>>> > want to learning something, and people don't come to the meeting
>>>> because
>>>> > they have nothing to learn.
>>>>
>>>> While TLUG has a roster of genuine subject matter experts who are a joy
>>>> to listen to, there are a number of folks at meetings who - maybe - just
>>>> come to give their 2¢ on whatever topic is being presented. I understand
>>>> that it's sometimes hard to contain one's natural exuberance about
>>>> sharing knowledge, but it's better to be kind than correct, so we should
>>>> strive to remember that a presenter is just giving their experience of
>>>> their way of running their system. It may be vastly different from the
>>>> way we'd do it, but if it works, good!
>>>>
>>>>  Stewart
>>>>
>>>> (who may have occasionally used “cat file | …”, but is yet to run out of
>>>> processes to do so)
>>>> --
>>>> The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
>>>> TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
>>>> How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
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