I'm really glad they ended with this. The "explanation" that there's some tiny pool of women speakers that they have to compete for is such bullshit and it was nice to see that the article didn't...
Meanwhile, actual women developers who exist in the world right now continue to exist.
I'm really glad they ended with this. The "explanation" that there's some tiny pool of women speakers that they have to compete for is such bullshit and it was nice to see that the article didn't do some sort of faux-neutral presentation of all this bullshit
Eduards Sizovs, the organizer behind the Devternity and JDKon developer conferences, admitted that at least one woman speaker’s profile was ‘auto-generated.’
The Primeagen uploaded a segment from his stream where he learns about this and digs through the Twitter threads. https://youtu.be/D3O76gDdNFQ The video starts out with jokes about catfishing but,...
The Primeagen uploaded a segment from his stream where he learns about this and digs through the Twitter threads. https://youtu.be/D3O76gDdNFQ The video starts out with jokes about catfishing but, as he pokes further and realises it was a marketing scheme, it's clear there are bigger ethical issues. I'm generally surprised at the quality of some of discussion with that Twitch chat. But bear in mind that it is still a Twitch chat so some comments are... questionable.
The most damning part of this, which Primeagen talks about in the video, is in Eduards's response to the accusations and how they conflict with the public git logs for the conference website. You quoted "Eduards [...] admitted that at least one woman speaker's profile was 'auto generated'" — but it's worse than that, he's contradicted himself and indirectly admitted to intentionally using the fake profile to advertise:
[The fake profile] should not be there, as it’s gotten there by mistake (it’s auto-generated, with a random title, random Twitter handle, random picture). I noticed the issue in October, but my busy mind suggested delaying the fix until we finalize the program because 1) it was not a quick fix 2) it’s better to have that demo persona while I am searching for the replacement speakers, 3) and the persona isn’t part of the schedule anyway. So it can wait, no harm, only good intentions.
Worse, the change logs for the site are plainly visible in GitHub and contradict Eduards's claims. The titles don't look random to me, a new fake profile was added in October, and it obviously was a very easy fix. The lack of ethics implied in that point (2) is extremely concerning let alone the misogyny discussed in more detail in the Verge article.
I'm really glad they ended with this. The "explanation" that there's some tiny pool of women speakers that they have to compete for is such bullshit and it was nice to see that the article didn't do some sort of faux-neutral presentation of all this bullshit
The Primeagen uploaded a segment from his stream where he learns about this and digs through the Twitter threads. https://youtu.be/D3O76gDdNFQ The video starts out with jokes about catfishing but, as he pokes further and realises it was a marketing scheme, it's clear there are bigger ethical issues. I'm generally surprised at the quality of some of discussion with that Twitch chat. But bear in mind that it is still a Twitch chat so some comments are... questionable.
The most damning part of this, which Primeagen talks about in the video, is in Eduards's response to the accusations and how they conflict with the public git logs for the conference website. You quoted "Eduards [...] admitted that at least one woman speaker's profile was 'auto generated'" — but it's worse than that, he's contradicted himself and indirectly admitted to intentionally using the fake profile to advertise:
https://x.com/eduardsi/status/1728422017417032140
Worse, the change logs for the site are plainly visible in GitHub and contradict Eduards's claims. The titles don't look random to me, a new fake profile was added in October, and it obviously was a very easy fix. The lack of ethics implied in that point (2) is extremely concerning let alone the misogyny discussed in more detail in the Verge article.
His second (and currently latest) response shows he really doesn't understand why people are upset: https://x.com/eduardsi/status/1728447955122921745