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Comment by drakeandrews | Hacker News Reader

Whilst I understand the idea you're trying to get across, we have to make it clear to these people that they're outright not welcome any more. Getting this asshat barred from future GDC's can only be a good thing and perhaps if (and when) people get up in arms over it a la Adria Richards, they need to be warned, or even barred, too.

Doing nothing because you fear the verbal reprisals of a group of immature misogynists seems, to me at least, the worst of all possible options.

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I'm not advocating doing nothing. I'm saying don't make this a public spectacle or attempt to get the person fired or banned from GDC. Here's why: In my reading, this person was not confronted about it enough for him to change his behavior. In the author's writing, it was swept under the rug.

Right now resolution of these incidents goes like this:

    Hear ugly -> politely ignore in person -> report to others

So yeah, if you want to be deferential to other people and never get things accomplished by yourself, and passive aggressively "send a message" to the person by getting them banned by GDC, by all means. Just know that nothing will change. The person will resent you for getting him banned from GDC, not for being offended at his ugliness.

This is like calling the police because someone shouted in your face and you can't handle it. The correct answer is handling it yourself. The police don't have time for that shit, and I've seen way too many people think that's what the police are for (even calling 911 because someone was shouting at them, or laid a hand on them -- though the latter gets a little more complicated). Here's how this sort of thing should go:

    Hear ugly -> stop socializing and make offender cry

Seriously, a step by step guide to handling this:

    1. Someone says something ugly.
    2. "Whoa whoa, everybody stop. Shut up a second."
    3. "What did you just say?"
    4. Continue silencing the table.
       Do not let anybody else stop you or get involved.
    5. "That is completely unacceptable."
    6. "You owe your victim an apology."
       Do not stop until you get an honest one.
    7. If the offender whimpers, good. You got through.
    8. If the offender refuses apology, eject the offender.

Think of this as garbage collection. Pause the world, clean up the garbage, resume socializing. It's important that everybody else defers to you and doesn't attempt to interrupt you or stop you. Several people always will to avoid the confrontation happening in front of them. "I'm sure he didn't mean it that way." Neutralize them or you will never be able to get through to the person you need to change. The target of your confrontation will cling to the people around you who are less sure of what you're doing and use it against you. Be resolute. This isn't "alpha male" behavior, this is standing strong and not taking no for an answer.

Seriously, be the change you want to see in our industry. Quit calling the cops to make other people fix your problems. Stop being polite to assholes. Your politeness is what feeds them -- they know you won't confront them.

I'm not saying getting the offender banned from GDC should be the only action, by all means confront the offender too. But you can't expect people to be able to, or feel safe in, confronting someone who has already shown a disregard for their agency.

In an ideal world, it'd go something like this:

    Hear ugly -> confront offender -> extract apology -> inform others

But of course, for a large number of people it'll be more like this:

    Hear ugly -> ensure safety of ones self and others -> inform others

Merely confronting the asshat is great until you discover the asshat in question is just doing this again and again and saying sorry as if that makes their original transgression alright. There needs to be something the offending party can lose for it to make sense, especially when the potential reputation loss isn't in the circles they care about anyway.

And in one respect, making a change isn't my first priority. My first priority is making these places a safe place for people to be. Making the people who would otherwise make this an unsafe space rethink their actions is a secondary goal.

Why is informing others necessary? You dealt with the problem, give the person a chance to change. If they're a repeat offender, eventually they'll piss off enough people that the overlapping social networks will catch wind of it organically. There's no reason to broadcast, make a list, or "save the world" by putting a face out there as someone to avoid.

I see the safety argument making an appearance here yet again, even though neither Adria nor the woman in this story were in any danger from the person (as far as I can tell). If you think jokes make PyCon or GDC an unsafe place, I'm sure everyone who's ever been sexually assaulted would like a word with you about what 'safe' means. It's making the assumption that people who joke inappropriately will eventually be rapists, and we should therefore warn everyone to stay away from them, which is fundamentally flawed.

Just deal with it in person. If he's a repeat, eventually it'll catch up with him enough. Of course, there's no saying something this controversial without geek feminists trotting out the "you're just shutting up the victim" line, which is complete hogwash. I've been called a rape apologist for making the point about dealing with something privately. People do change, even in the extreme scenarios, and the age of rapid social media and Internet communication demands ever higher vigilance over our actions online.

There are two outcomes, if we extrapolate this to the ends: we shame someone publicly and effectively destroy a career, eliminating any possibility of improvement as a human being and the contributions that person might have brought to the table, or we deal with it in person and attempt to steer him toward the right path. The default tendency to feel hopeless about fixing something is swaying this choice the wrong way.

If someone is going around causing issues sufficiently that they're a repeat offender, I don't see why they should be given additional chances. Let them have their ever shrinking circle of misogynists, just don't let them into conferences. Access is a privilege, not a right.

The argument that because in these two cases (of the damn near uncountable issues of people having to put up with similar comments, criticisms or slurs) the person in question wasn't in any danger doesn't mean that in every instance the person was neither in danger nor felt in danger. And what's more, these comments, jokes etc. actively contribute to an environment where it is insinuated that these words and by extension these actions are okay.

So an asshat making a sexist joke will hopefully never rape someone, but they're certainly making it a more fertile environment for the bastard who then goes on to rape someone. Under this understanding of the issue, yes it makes sense to actively exclude those people making sexist (or for that matter homophobic, racist etc., the "rape culture" argument extends just fine to other examples) jokes.

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