I was recently publically attacked and smeared for the fact that I had tequila girls serving drinks at CFDevCon (such a crime eh). As the 3 main principles responsible (Mac Jordan, Pete Jordan and Piers Cawley) have now removed the offensive material from their web blogs and have also had their mates do the same (except Guy Kewney), so I have also amended my blog accordingly.
I would like to appolgise to anyone else who was offended by or dragged into this attack, and it certainly was not my intention to offend anyone. I cannot speak for Mac, Pete or Piers as I have received no apology from them, but I would hope they do feel some remorse for what they have done.
I believe that spreading derogatory comments about someone over the net or any other media is just plain wrong. I would ask anybody to think about the consequences of this, now that we have online blogs and are publishing our comments for the world to see, the tactics used in old style flame wars are dangerous.
Consider what has happened already as a result of this. Both myself and my wife (8 months pregnant) have had to endure abusive emails, abusive posts on my web sites, being signed up for porn and spam. and having our hosts web server DOS attacked. Had this been allowed to continue we could have probably started to receive hate mail, crank calls and dangerous items shoved through our letterbox..
In case you think this extreme, it is not, it HAS happened before to people (me included) and can easily happen again.
There are a lot of angry people out there, and some of them just need an excuse, so don't give them one. Nobodies opinion is gospel and debate is good, but it is now VERY public. Risking a hate/smear campaign against anyone that doesn't agree with your views is not the way to do things, and you will end up being responsible for the actions of other people.
Thankfully I can say that while this was obviously bad for me, it was not bad for CFDevCon, in fact it had the opposite effect and the site got lots more traffic and and a whole bunch more registrations, and most of the feedback I have received from the ColdFusion community was on my side, so thankfully we can all be safe in the knowldge that most ColdFusion developers and professionals are in fact normal men and women who believe in freedom of choice and not shoving their opionions down others throats and attacking those that do not share their point of view.
Oct 20, 2006 at 9:49 AM There seems to be an apology from Piers here:
http://www.bofh.org.uk/articles/2006/10/19/second-thoughts
"I also realise that what I wrote was hurtful. It’s all too easy to forget that the people we debate with are flesh and blood too. Frankly, being right isn’t a good enough reason to cause as much pain as I appear to have done, and for that I apologise."
Oct 21, 2006 at 12:55 PM hes a ****ing muppet
Nov 29, 2006 at 10:58 PM OK I have to mention this as it is quite comical and a real slap in the face for those idiots..
I have been running a survey since CFDevcon ended colelcting feedback from delegates, and this answer has been given quite a few times now.
Q4) What did you like most about the conference?
A) tequila girls
Jan 16, 2007 at 2:10 PM <em>I have been running a survey since CFDevcon ended colelcting feedback from delegates, and this answer has been given quite a few times now.</em>
<em>Q4) What did you like most about the conference?</em>
<em>A) tequila girls</em>
Since you advertised the conference with tequila girls then surely this is a self-selecting sample? Hardly a slap in the face ...
By the way - congratualtions on the new baby!
Jan 16, 2007 at 2:35 PM SIGH!!!! There was NEVER any conference with Tequila girls advertised, nor were there any at the conference, not did anyone come to the conference expecting to see any.
As it clearly states on the site, the Tequila girls were at the party afterwards. I wish people would learn to read for posting.
So there is no self selecting sample, and yes it was a big SLAP in the face for those Dippy Sexist Doghnuts.