Between the way our industry has handled this latest thing with Mozilla and the way that related issues like gender inequality is handled at various conferences, I am finding myself less and less wanting to be involved with the community at large. It feels more and more like if you disagree with what a very vocal minority believes, you are going to be ostracized to the point that you could lose your job.

I have a family to take care of so losing my job would be a pretty big deal. I don't doubt that many of the other people that get caught up in these incidents are in a similar situation.

So, every time I consider speaking my mind publicly or even being involved in a public tech conference as an attendee, I think twice and am starting to just avoid them altogether.

It's sort of a shame because even local conferences are getting besieged by self-righteous people who are hell bent on righting some unintentional "mistake" by the people who work very hard to put them on in the first place. I find what our industry's community is starting to be something I don't much want to be associated with.