Thread by @NatalieZed

So, I want to talk about @hopeconf.

The conference was extraordinary: inspiring, incredibly technically rigorous and immensely joyful.

It was also flawed in its organization and execution, and those weaknesses were exploited by some utter shitheads.

I'm going to try and pick it apart a little bit, at least from my immediate perspective and direct observations. I am not someone who is deeply embedded in this scene (though I've been peripheral since I was 13), and I am for sure willing to be wrong about most of it. #hopeconf

For the entire 3 days of the conference I was deeply impressed by the fact that I was in the midst of a space and a community that was trying, genuinely to do better and be better. #hopeconf

I don't want to excuse anything shitty that happened, because for sure things were handled badly. And I don't want to dismiss anyone's pain, distress and disappointment. I was there, and is was fucking disheartened as hell at moments. #hopeconf

I do want to call out the fact, though, that there were women on almost every single panel I attended, and the one where there were not she'd been unable to make it and her co-presenters pointed to her work often. #hopeconf

I also want to point out that I saw panelists and organizers, before, during and after their talks, address the need for even more diversity, for better community management and engagement, for safer spaces and better organization. #hopeconf

There were fully four panels explicitly about fighting the alt-right, and many more that tackled the topic indirectly. There were talks by political prisoners and sex workers and educators. #hopeconf

Again, I am not excusing what what wrong, but I want to place it in context. The reasons that the two agitators (and maybe more) showed up and caused shit at the conference was BECAUSE OF THIS. Because #hopeconf is working so fucking hard to be better.

On Friday, I was in the a panel on Trolling the Trolls & the Trolls that Troll Them, dedicated to Heather Heyer. A man stood up during Q&A, and said something vague & shitty about marching at Charlottesville & how the panelists didn't know what they were talking about. #hopeconf

I didn't realize it at the time but this was a dress rehearsal. That same man later spewed more hateful garbage until after a different panel (I wasn't there), someone grabbed his MAGA hat. Security was called, cops were called & the whole thing was a fucking disaster. #hopeconf

There was another guy walking around in pro-Trump clothes, who @BarrettBrown_ ID'd as a mercenary infiltrator.

https://twitter.com/UR_Ninja/status/1021100445631164417

The situation was not handled quickly enough, directly enough, or with sufficient care to protect the community. They should never have been able to do what they did, but it happened. #hopeconf

Security should have been trained about the Code of Conduct better. Volunteers should have been trained about the CoC better. Attendees should have been told more clearly where it was and how to get help if they needed to invoke it. #hopeconf

HOPE failed in some very real ways. Their crisis comms were not great, their reaction time was not what it should have been, training was siloed, and people got hurt as a result. This is real, and it happened, and I don't want to dismiss that for a moment. #hopeconf

After the incidents, I watched both organizers and panelists refer to it directly and often, in public. It came up at Q&As and in discussions formal and informal. It wasn't swept under the rug; it was openly dissected and discussed. #hopeconf

After a wonderful, difficult panel on Online Monitoring of the Alt-Right, @carolinesinders, Freddy Martinez, @BostonJoan, and the @UR_Ninja folks kept their Q&A going an extra hour in the fucking mezzanine to keep the conversation going. #hopeconf

The speakers and staff were visibly exhausted; the room they thought they could keep talking in had been struck, but they said fuck it and took it to a goddamn stairwell. They could have called it and no one would have blamed them, but they didn't. #hopeconf

The attendees at the conference were not always perfect; more than one man stuck around to yell at Sinders after the panel officially concluded, and left or were removed. It was stressful and heartbreaking. #hopeconf

But dozens more people stuck around to stand around them and talk it out, to ask questions and come up with better strategies to make sure that they do better next time. and I think that means something. #hopeconf

I just can't cosign the take that #hopeconf is doomed, or terrible, or overrun with white supremacists. I think it fell victim to deliberate sabotage, and poor organization in some respects, and sore spots in the community. That absolutely happened.

But to dismiss the whole thing is to throw out the work that @carolinesinders, Martinez, @UR_Ninja, @BostonJoan, Da Beave, Faux Real, and so many others did/do, in and out of the conference, to fight the alt right. I can't do it. I can't write off @xychelsea 's keynote.

I think it's critical that this was a hacker space where @MsMaggieMayhem talked about sex workers' rights and @vortacist held a sexuality Q&A, where @gusandrews asked hard questions about hacker culture & consent, & @MarechalPhD's exposed Networked Authoritarianism. #hopeconf

It's also utterly fucking tragic that a community that prides itself on social engineering skills was straight-up played. The right-wing asshats who did show up got exactly what they wanted, and when the attack came almost no one knew how to handle it. #hopeconf

So, I don't think #hopeconf is blameless; neither is it beyond saving. And the HOPE community is not perfect, but it is good, and it is trying, often painfully and at great expense, to be better. And that's worth something.

Look. I am not a nice person. I don't have a lot of patience left about this shit, and I am very tired. If I thought this space was garbage I'd say so. With whatever feeble bit of, well, hope is left in me, this is something worth investing in. #hopeconf

I think what happens next is important. I know I'll be watching, like a whole lot of us are watching, and I sincerely hope that they take this opportunity to make things better. #hopeconf

I hope they take all the extraordinary people who have offered to help up on their incredibly generous offers. I hope they read this statement very carefully, and take it to heart. #hopeconf medium.com/@nofashathope/…

I hope they keep making the hard choices necessary to change and get better and do better by the community that needs them, desperately, now more than ever. #hopeconf

I've been saying for a while that the good guys need more supervillains, and holy shit #hopeconf you folks are profoundly needed. Let's fuck some shit up together, eh?

Also, If you have any more feedback about the CoC or any incidents at HOPE you think they should know about, tell @hopeconf. Here's the CoC and an impact statement form: hope.net/codeofconduct.…