Women and TLUG - a personal rant

[Bob Jonkman]

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Matt wrote:
> I attended one meeting years ago, and felt so unwelcome that I 
> haven't been back since.  Heckling was an issue,

I've also been to only one TLUG meeting, about a year ago. I went to
the pre-meeting dinner, where only one woman attended (sorry, I've
completely forgotten your name). We sat across from each other, and I
don't believe there was any sexism or other unwelcome attention from
anyone.

The speaker at the meeting was a guest from Sweden, presenting a
particularly technical topic. Again, I didn't observe any heckling or
other disruptive activity. Certainly he was peppered with questions
throughout his presentation, but as far as I could tell they were
legitimate questions seeking to further the questioner's knowledge,
not heckling.

It turns out that meeting was the TLUG Executive Elections night. I'm
not a TLUG member; I was a self-invited guest to the meeting (and the
pre-dinner, and the post-gathering). As a non-member I couldn't vote
in the elections, but wasn't made to feel unwelcome at all.  In fact,
when I came along to the post-meeting gathering I seemed to be fully
accepted.

Now, it turns out I knew a couple of the TLUG members from other
gatherings (Hackerspace meetings, Ubuntu Release Parties). So maybe my
positive experience is because everyone was on their best behaviour
trying to impress me. Or maybe it was because I'm in the clique, and a
naive, unsocialized loner, and part of the problem. But I don't think so.

TLUG meetings aren't *all* as bad as they've been made out here.

- --Bob, extrapolating from a sample size of one.



On 14-01-16 11:01 AM, Matt Seburn wrote:
> 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
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>> 
>> 
> 
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