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I think you need to be careful on that line of thinking. We don't want conferences censoring presenters because of reputation issues. That said, certainly in context the humor wasn't funny -- and SXSW certainly could have asked him to rework the presentation to be less needlessly controversial.

I guess what I'm most confused by is why a talk titled "Adding Value as a Non-Technical No Talent Ass-Clown." got accepted in the first place. Really? I know SXSW isn't a hard science conference, but that seems awfully fluffy for an event that clearly has no trouble filling seats. Maybe it's one more sign we're in a bubble...

Edit: lots of folks are picking on the second sentence above and I think taking it out of context. It was a specific reply to the idea of banning a presenter based on the notion that he "already presented a sexist presentation" -- a fact offered without support. That's just bad thinking. If the guy deserves a career ban, then make that case. Don't throw it out as a tangential point in another post.

As someone who has been a member of the program committee for a large tech conference, I can say that in my personal opinion, I'd have very little problem rejecting a talk from someone whose track record clearly demonstrated a style and set of values that significantly diverged from the culture and explicitly stated values of the community I was trying to serve. My job, as a program committee member was to find speakers who could deliver great content in a great way – both matter, both produce value for the conference attendees and organizers.

At a minimum, if the talk proposal was overwhelmingly compelling from a content angle, I'd have little issue with being explicit, up front and individually direct with said person about the expectations for how speakers conduct themselves.

Choosing to reject a talk from someone because of who the presenter is or how they have handled themselves in the past is completely legitimate and it is not "censorship" – a conference is a curated event and someone has the job to make sure the content fits the conference.

If you want a brogrammer conference, go start one, but don't demand that we accept that sort of crap at ours just because you think you're hot shit and can offend anyone you want because "it's funny".

> I think you need to be careful on that line of thinking. We don't want conferences censoring presenters because of reputation issues.

Why on earth not? Part of ensuring cooperation on prisoner's dilemmas is punishment. It should be bad for your career to act like an asshole and make us all look bad.

> We don't want conferences censoring presenters because of reputation issues.

Consider it done.

As an organizer of PyCon, this Van Horn person and any others who lack basic judgement and decency skills as well as having gained a reputation for that are not welcome to present at our conference.

No. I'm a REAL PyCon organizer and I DO want people who lack basic judgement to present at the conference!!

>We don't want conferences censoring presenters because of reputation issues

Yes you do. You don't want a heavy editorial hand, but you want there to BE a hand. Wanting absolutely no judgement is a great way to let total crap in.

> We don't want conferences censoring presenters because of reputation issues.

I think what you need here are different conferences.

Matt arrived at digg in 2007 if I recall correctly. At that point the culture was being reshaped into what is described in the article. Also lots of women were hired - young, attractive women.

And we all know how that worked out.

The reason why this culture persists is because people are rewarded for promulgating it. Matt is a VP at Path.

Owen, I think your memory is a little fuzzy on this. If you recall, we overlapped for a few months in 2007 before you left, and the "lots of women" you describe just weren't there.

Fair enough. The thing about women was actually something I was told happened after I left. Will edit the comment. Edit: sorry I missed the edit window.

Very well said. It's heartening to see a diversification of "personality structure." It's disheartening to have that reveal how far we still need to go – as a society – to eliminate misogyny.

Is SWSX the kind of centralized conference that approves/disapproves/arranges presenters? I've never attended but my impression was it was pretty free-form.

>What I find particularly disconcerting about this Van Horn story is not that it happened (which is terrible in and of itself), but that this guy is 28, went through Digg (who never struck me as a company of idiots), already presented a sexist presentation, and still appears at SXSW either by invitation of him or Path. Why would Path or SXSW allow it? Did he not practice this presentation at Path before heading out? Was this thought to be acceptable by everyone at that company?

Yes, let's ostracize him. Hell, let's burn him at the stake.

/s

I know you're trying to be sarcastic, but yes, please, let's ostracize him. Our culture will be better off without him. Sometimes not pissing in the pool isn't enough, sometimes asking people nicely to stop isn't enough, sometimes you have to force people out of the pool if you want to swim somewhere that doesn't have piss in it.

I don't know if you made up the "pissing in the pool" metaphor for this kind of behavior, but it's just perfect. Thank you.

Thanks =) I'm honestly not sure if it's original or not.

Your sarcasm hides your point a little too well, I think. What are you trying to say here? That we shouldn't criticize him or his company when he behaves poorly? That we should criticize him, but couch it in soothing excuses? That his presentation really was acceptable?

The third. That his presentation really was acceptable, and people are making issues out of nothing --just to prove that the far-right should not have a monopoly on prudes and squares.

In isolation, I might be inclined to agree with you. But taken in the context of programming culture as a whole, it was simply inappropriate. Go look at http://programmersbeingdicks.tumblr.com and then read the story and tell me it still doesn't sound problematic to you.

Women really are underrepresented in programming in the US, so we don't even have the refuge of saying it's unprofessional but harmless. This talk isn't a huge problem in itself, but it is one tentacle of a monstrous beast of a problem.

And I'm not saying we should crucify Matt or even give him the stink eye, but I do think we should make it clear that we're not OK with that kind of talk.

I disagree. I have a pretty thick skin and was one of the many people who walked out of this SXSW talk early. It was low on useful content which made it easier to leave; but the repeated mentions of 'hot chicks' 'gang bang approach' 'nudie mags' and 'babes' just grossed me out.

I really don't see your point here. You think I was being over the top? I don't see how; he's representing Path. Path, you would think, would probably like to represent itself as a diverse, vibrant workplace with exciting, fun, kind people, and not sexist jerks with locker-room antics.

I would appreciate it if you'd elaborate on what you think is wrong about this.

>I really don't see your point here. You think I was being over the top? I don't see how; he's representing Path. Path, you would think, would probably like to represent itself as a diverse, vibrant workplace with exciting, fun, kind people, and not sexist jerks with locker-room antics. I would appreciate it if you'd elaborate on what you think is wrong about this.

Sure.

What you suggest is essentially: in order for Path to present itself as a "diverse, vibrant workplace with exciting, fun, kind people", Path has to be:

1) less diverse (throw this guy out for diverging more than is allowed to)

2) no-fun (jokes are no-go unless they are PC)

3) not kind (throw a guy out for making some ho-hum jokes)

I don't even believe that making sexist jokes means that one is sexist or promotes a sexist attitude. Humor has to be irreverent. You can find jokes about every situation, from war to cancer, to race, to gender. They doesn't mean the person that tells them is pro-all those things, or against or those other things. A joke is just a joke --especially if its not targeted at a specific someone, but speaks in generals and groups. Heck --Godwin's law be damned--, there are even holocaust jokes, and even jew comedians are telling them. Are they supposed to be pro-nazi? No-- it's just that a joke is just a joke, it's not a manifestation of one's inner beliefs or his general behavior.

This guy could be the kinder person at Path, and especially helpful towards women colleagues, whereas another "progressive, no-sexist-jokes" guy could be an arsehole of epic proportions. Jokes are not the tool to tell them apart. Behavior is.

A conference isn't Comedy Central Presents, is it now? That's a roomful of people who came to learn, not to watch you hobble through an offensive routine. If I buy tickets to see Lewis Black, I know what I'm getting into, and Lewis Black isn't representing his startup at a trade show.

No matter how you try to butter this guy up, what kind of jokes you tell is a large part of who you are, because you find them funny (or you wouldn't tell them). I can tell a lot about you just from this comment, and it's not positive.

Jokes might not distinguish people. When you choose to tell them does. Would you hire someone who told a Holocaust joke at an interview? Sounds like it. Would the rest of us? Absolutely, unequivocally, no.

>A conference isn't Comedy Central Presents, is it now? That's a roomful of people who came to learn, not to watch you hobble through an offensive routine. If I buy tickets to see Lewis Black, I know what I'm getting into, and Lewis Black isn't representing his startup at a trade show.

Well, the distinction is not that clear cut, since humor belongs to every time in life --and especially in public gatherings and presentations.

Notice how people were not troubled by humor itself here, but by the type of humor. If he made math jokes very few would say that "I came to learn, not watch him hobble through a routine".

>No matter how you try to butter this guy up, what kind of jokes you tell is a large part of who you are, because you find them funny (or you wouldn't tell them). I can tell a lot about you just from this comment, and it's not positive.

What little you can "tell about me" is mainly shallow biases from pop psychology and the usual normative PC culture of the '10s.

Let me assure you that it's totally irrelevant and BS with respect to who I am (or anybody else you judge that way is).

Let me put it in other words: when the totally friendly, PC, non-sexist guy at the next cubicle back-stabs you to that promotion and treats everybody, especially his female colleagues like shit, you'd learn that appearances are shallow, and what-jokes-one-likes doubly so.

Except if you truly consider every viewer that laughs with South Park to be a misogynist, racist, anti-christian, anti-homosexual, redneck-hater, etc etc... or anybody that ever bought a Playboy.

> since humor belongs to every time in life --and especially in public gatherings and presentations

Certain types of humor, perhaps. (Although I'd still argue that there are times in life when humor is not appropriate, and that a person who can't or doesn't know when to be serious is at least as irritating as someone who never lightens up.) But there's a time and place.

A big presentation, consisting of the general public, at a high-profile conference, when you are representing your company, which is part of an industry that has a poor image and reputation for sexism already, is really not the time to break out the locker-room humor. It's not quite breaking out the dead-baby jokes in the local NICU, but it's not a great idea either.

Also, if you're going to use humor in a presentation -- especially humor that is in the least bit envelope-pushy -- have some sort of a backup plan to scale it back if and when your first joke bombs. Sometimes, the audience you think that you were going to get just isn't the audience that you have. That might not be 'Presentations 101', but it's at least covered in the 200-level class.

> Let me assure you that it's totally irrelevant and BS with respect to who I am (or anybody else you judge that way is).

So your outward behavior has nothing to do with who you are? That sounds worse: you sound like an actor. Honestly, you sound more devious than the backstabber you described, because you'd like others to believe that how you act does not describe you, and you sound like you're up to something.

How you act is who you are, to other people. That's just how it is.

>So your outward behavior has nothing to do with who you are?

No, SUPERFICIAL sings of outward behavior have nothing to do with who we are.

And pop psychology BS interpretations of them, have even less.

I'm really more surprised that Path has let presentations like this continue. I've seen 4 separate MVH presentations, with each one being in step with these complaints. and it always leaves a bad taste in my mouth regarding Matt and Path as a company.

I guess it comes down to the repeat occurrence. If it were is first, or even second offense, I could overlook it, but it's a repeated thing. Given that his job (biz dev) is to build relationships with big brands, it also seems like he's ultimately shooting himself in the foot regarding longer play, larger relationships with high dollar companies.

Well, between this, getting caught stealing user data, and the aggravating unpology which followed, I think if you're surprised to see Path getting negative PR, you aren't familiar with Path. It's kind of what they do.

I hate to say it, because it's nearly an ad hominem -- it is an ad hominem if you believe Mitt Romney or the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision -- but the only time I ever see that company mentioned without negativity is when their ads show up in my Twitter client.