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Comment by TarpitCarnivore | Hacker News Reader

> You can't create a hostile work environment if you're not actually working with someone or exerting direct influence over their career?

Quinn's story was not at a 'work environment' so does it have any less impact? Why are you letting him adjust the narrative to define what he feels is harassment?

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Let's also not forget that it was a conference. A very laid back-camping kind of conference, but a conference. In today's standards - where you can't join a project or visit/talk to a conference without accepting a CoC - this would still be considered an extension of the workplace, or at least be classified as a "professional setting". We are not talking rocket science: if you are in a professional setting, getting overly drunk, make out in public and then proceeding to random groping - is NOT ok. You can have him redefine the narrative however he wants, he still a serial sexual offender.

Read back to the context of my question. Two drunk people coming together to "make out" at a camp out -- this is a "conference" like Burning Man is a conference -- if this is in and of itself is creating a "hostile work environment" I think that words are losing their meaning.

I don't really care what kind of narrative Scoble is trying to make. I have no knowledge of the specifics of his situation or his encounters, and couldn't care less about passing judgement on him.

But I was very curious about this idea that, which seems to be stated throughout this thread, someone can become so influential in an industry that any non-professional contact they have industry-wide could be sexual harassment.

And again, and again, I have to say, if there was assault that is just a completely different issue entirely.

I don't know where you're getting the idea it's not a conference. Here's a link to a photo set from Foo Camp 2010, where the incident occurred:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/deanputney/sets/72157624362235...

Burning Man it ain't.

Quinn's story sounds like assault and has nothing to do with sexual harassment. To me that just muddies the waters.

Surely he doesn't intend to say "I'm not guilty of sexual harassment but rather sexual assault."

Not at all. Sexual harassment describes different behavior than assault, and is not a crime. The same behavior which may be sexual harassment in one context could be entirely appropriate in another context. And all that is to say, there is a necessary context to sexual harassment.

Scoble claims that any sexual advances he made lacked the necessary context to be considered sexual harassment. He may not even be wrong.

I referenced the UN fact sheet on "What is Sexual Harassment" in another comment but perhaps I should quote it directly;

Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature _when_ (emphasis added):

· Submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual's employment, or

· Submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as a basis for employment decisions affecting such individual, or

· Such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual's work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment.

To me, hairsplitting about whether the conduct technically counts as sexual harassment is more or less beside the point and even getting into it makes the allegations sound more, rather than less, credible.

Maybe I misunderstood the purpose of this thread. I didn't think this was about assessing the specific allegations at all, but precisely about understanding the definition of sexual harassment.

It's the willingness of so many men to split hairs in order to defend a pig that is so offensive and threatening to women.

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