Re: [AusNOG] Common Sense needs to prevail

[Benno Rice]

> On 9 Oct 2018, at 10:01, Ross Wheeler  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, 9 Oct 2018, Tim Raphael wrote:
> 
>> There is also the difference between appropriate interaction and 
>> inappropriate interaction.Appropriate interaction is okay and makes 
>> socialising fun but as soon as the line is crossed, it's no longer 'fun' 
>> anymore.
> 
> I really wasn't going to wade into this, but the above is getting right to 
> the root of the problem. Knowing the difference between appropriate and 
> inappropriate interaction is something many of us learned as kids. There is 
> no handbook, people are not fitted with status displays to let YOU know how 
> THEY are feeling - because not everyone reacts the same way. Experience 
> usually gives us a good guide to interpreting where an individuals "line" is, 
> but again, it's learned.
> 
> How do the young people of today (who've never been told "no", who are part 
> of the "you get a trophy just for participating" generation) ever going to 
> learn? The first time they step OVER the invisible line is likely to be a 
> career-ending sexual harrassment charge and a criminal record!
> 
> The older of us who learned respect and trust, limits and bounds (and learned 
> them by pushing until we found them) probably find it easier to navigate, but 
> I am genuinely concerned for the young, who don't have that environment any 
> more.

I think you’d be surprised how many of the “coddled” generation you’re sledging 
here have better skills for respecting people’s personal boundaries than some 
of the “older, wiser” people I’ve met.

That’s not to say they’re perfect by any stretch but there’s a big difference 
between accidentally crossing a boundary, respecting a request to back off and 
deliberately crossing a boundary. There’s also plenty of room for appropriate 
responses. In almost all code of conduct enforcement processes I’ve seen, a 
first offence and/or a minor offence aren’t going to be met with a 
“career-ending sexual harassment charge and a criminal record”. They’re going 
to be met with a quiet word from the organisers that your behaviour was 
inappropriate and, especially if you’re understanding and contrite, that’ll be 
the end of it. It’s only for serious breaches that there’d be removal from the 
event/list/space or anything else on the table. Whether charges are filed is 
more up to the person on the receiving end of the behaviour and if your 
behaviour’s at the level where people want to file charges against you, well, 
that’s a bit of a wake-up call, right?

In short, behavioural standards are not going to stop people interacting in 
ways that are fun. They’re going to provide a framework for handling situations 
where someone, by their own actions, makes another person have significantly 
less fun. The reason you have them is that if someone’s actively making other 
people have less fun, you want to remove the fun-destroyer rather than have the 
people they’ve hurt leave and not come back.

Pretty simple calculus for me at least.

Thanks,
Benno.

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Re: [AusNOG] Sexual harassment in our industry.

[Benno Rice]

Merit’s a tricky concept because it’s subjective. It’s been used to keep 
various underrepresented groups out for quite a long time. You see this coming 
out of studies where they change the names on resumes and measure the response 
rate and things like that. You also see it in differences in performance 
reviews for people doing similar jobs but differing in gender or race.

Sometimes to fix a broken thing you need a blunt instrument.

Nobody wants (or wants to be) the token anything but by forcing people to look 
outside the box they’re used to you can get them to reevaluate, thus quotas can 
become a transitional tool. Alternatively you do things like forcing first 
rounds of review to be anonymous. All you get is the resume. That’s a bit hard 
to do in a group like this where a lot of people will be able to piece together 
who someone is based on their work history. I do know of some conferences that 
do a blind review round for proposals so that all they see is the proposal and 
anyone who actually knows the person behind it recuses themselves from that 
round. Once the first round of review is done then the names are revealed. This 
is done partly to ensure that people don’t get in on name recognition alone but 
also to ensure that the reviewers review the content first and avoid any 
entanglement with any biases they have (because we all have them).

I suspect what people are asking for here isn’t a quota and it certainly isn’t 
appointing people based on anything other than their ability to be an effective 
board member. What it often means is requiring that people actively look for 
people who don’t fit the usual mould. Requiring people to actually look for 
people who aren’t male, or aren’t white, or whatever doesn’t mean compromising 
on anything, it just means requiring them to work a bit harder to achieve a 
better outcome for everyone. It genuinely is a better outcome, too. The 
healthiest and most vibrant communities I’ve seen are the ones that have 
diverse and inclusive memberships. In fact they tend to be even better at 
lifting people up and helping them develop which only makes them more 
sustainable in the long run.

As I said above, knee-jerk responses to the notion that we might do something 
aren’t useful. Constructive responses are better. If you don’t like quotas, 
suggesting alternative ways to increase the representation of underrepresented 
groups on the board (and in the community!) would be useful. If you don’t like 
codes of conduct, offer an alternative that addresses the behavioural issues 
that have been raised. Don’t just regurgitate the same tired rants that we’ve 
all heard before because that adds nothing.

If you really want to do something constructive, go find the most talented, 
most able woman in the industry you can think of and see if she’d be interested 
in joining the AusNOG board. That way it’s not a quota thing and everyone’s 
happy, right?

Cheers,
Benno.

> On 3 Oct 2018, at 13:29, James Troy  
> wrote:
> 
> Benno,
> As I mentioned on the backlash – here it is…
>  
> You see my response as not very positive or helpful – I think that is quite 
> sad really.
>  
> “White dude” – well ½ of that is right… I am actually TSI. I would NEVER want 
> to be selected/hired/elected based on this. To the point its why I never 
> include it on any application forms, not because im ashamed of who am I, but 
> because I want to be selected on merit…
>  
> The difference between my post and Mark’s post was he was offering help to 
> the victim, I am offering my thought/advice on a selection/election to a 
> board. I can see how you got these confused.
>  
> I really hope there is full representation on any board, job, industry, etc. 
> I guess I wasn’t clear enough the first time – Do it on merit. If that means 
> on my next job interview I get pipped at the post by a more qualified 
> female/different ethnicity/religion person/pigeon then great. Its what I 
> want. Equality – real equality; not the quota kind.
>  
> James Troy
> Senior Systems Administration
>  
>  
> From: AusNOG  On Behalf Of Benno Rice
> Sent: Wednesday, 3 October 2018 1:21 PM
> To: aus...@ausnog.net
> Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Sexual harassment in our industry.
>  
> So I, too, am a lurker on this list. Hell, I don’t even run any networks 
> besides my home one, haven’t done for ages.
>  
> That said I, too, have been watching this with interest and I’ve seen two 
> responses, well one response, and one class of responses, that I find 
> interesting.
>  
> On the one hand, you’ve got stuff like James here. James is running the exact 
> same set of arguments that you normally get from, generally, white dudes that 
> feel threatened by any attempt to address the systemic problems we have in 
> society in general and tech in particular. Yes, yes I know they don’t b

Re: [AusNOG] Sexual harassment in our industry.

[Benno Rice]

So I, too, am a lurker on this list. Hell, I don’t even run any networks 
besides my home one, haven’t done for ages.

That said I, too, have been watching this with interest and I’ve seen two 
responses, well one response, and one class of responses, that I find 
interesting.

On the one hand, you’ve got stuff like James here. James is running the exact 
same set of arguments that you normally get from, generally, white dudes that 
feel threatened by any attempt to address the systemic problems we have in 
society in general and tech in particular. Yes, yes I know they don’t believe 
that those problems are there but, well, whatever. I saw similar from Noel 
Butler and from Matthew Young up-thread. All of these tend to come across as a 
knee-jerk reaction against the notion that we might actually do something.

On the other hand we had Mark Newton’s “What I can do to help.” post. Instead 
of a knee-jerk reaction against doing something, he put forward a completely 
reasonable set of steps that he promised to do if someone were to come forward. 
Hell, his set of steps form a pretty good basis for the enforcement process of 
a Code of Conduct.

One of these messages was positive and valuable. The others were very much not.

Cheers,
Benno.

> On 3 Oct 2018, at 12:57, James Troy  
> wrote:
> 
> Ive long been a member of Ausnog mailing list, I find the information that is 
> often posted here to be quite valuable; I have also been watching this thread 
> with a particular keen interest.
>  
> Particularly as I was waiting to see how long the #MeToo and ‘gender 
> diversity’ was going to get pushed.
>  
> Firstly let me say, any assault, sexual or otherwise is not acceptable. Yes 
> IT as an industry is over-represented by males; however to second you start 
> to include someone in something like a board selection based solely on their 
> genitalia is the second you loose any credibility. I wholy subscribe to the 
> idea of the ‘best person for the job’
>  
> If that means 25% of one gender and 75% of another then fine, they are all 
> selected on their merits.
>  
> Anything short of selection based on merits (ie: Gender) opens an entirely 
> different can. Ie: is there someone of Asian/African/Australia/aboriginal/TSI 
> background? No? wow wouldn’t that be racist?
>  
> Suddenly people talk gender and its acceptable.
>  
> I believe that IT, Along with many industries still has a long way to go to 
> be fully inclusive of all participants, regardless of 
> race/religion/gender/background – but selection based on gender, percentages, 
> inclusion policies is _not_ the way to get the recognition that some 
> hard-working people deserve. If I worked in a female dominated industry 
> (teaching, midwifery, childcare, etc) I would want to be selected for 
> something like this based on my work ethics, input, and recognition – not 
> simply to be the token male. 
>  
> We as an industry – and as humans – should be there to support our colleagues 
> when they get targeted and victimised, however I also agree that if an 
> accusation is made, and reported to the ‘other company’ then it should also 
> be accompanied with proof – too often we are seeing the #MeToo being used as 
> a weapon to destroy people – predominately men – without a shread of proof.
>  
> I do however agree that an ausnog post is not the correct forum for that 
> proof and that is best handled between the direct parties – it was suggested 
> at the CEO level – this protects the victim, the *Alleged* (I use this term 
> deliberately as until it is proof we have due process – innocent until PROVEN 
> guilty – same as the media reporting on items that are before the courts.) 
> aggressor until a chain of evidence can be established and only then actioned 
> upon.
>  
> Im sure I will cop back-lash on this, virtue signalling and all…
>  
> James Troy
> Senior Systems Administration
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
> From: AusNOG  On Behalf Of dusty
> Sent: Wednesday, 3 October 2018 12:33 PM
> To: Matthew Young 
> Cc: aus...@ausnog.net List 
> Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Sexual harassment in our industry.
>  
>  
>  
> On Wed, 3 Oct 2018 at 14:59, Matthew Young  > wrote:
>> “While we're at it though, there needs to be female representation on the 
>> Ausnog board.” 
>> People should be appointed based on their merits, not based on their gender.
>  
> Show me a man with a bias-free recruitment/selection process, and I’ll show 
> you a deluded patriarchal fool.
>  
>  
>  
>> From: AusNOG [mailto:ausnog-boun...@lists.ausnog.net 
>> ] On Behalf Of Paul Wilkins
>> Sent: Tuesday, 2 October 2018 5:50 PM
>> To: aus...@ausnog.net  List > >
>> Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Sexual harassment in our industry.
>>  
>> "Seems you've never been to a meeting."
>>  
>> The verity of this statement cannot be overexaggerated.
>>  
>> Kind regards
>>