wordcamp Archives - The Journeyman

Grow Up: WordCamps, Drinking, And What May Come

A quick refresher: There has been recent talk in the WordPress community about the need for guidelines and “Safety Officers” at WordCamps, the community-driven conferences for WordPress folks.

It started with a post on WP Tavern that I didn’t really understand. I tend to think that “codes of conduct” are going to be ignored by those who would go against common decency in the first place and unsure how a “safety officer” would really change anything. I’ve only attended WordCamp Austin 2012 and 2013, so I have a very limited point-of-view, so been relatively quiet about this.

Then, a friend, whose opinion about this a few weeks ago was close enough to mine, went to a WordCamp and had multiple experiences that changed her mind. Go read her post. It’ll open in a new window. I’ll wait.

I don’t know which guys she’s talking about nor do I know their intention nor their emotional state. The second encounter—the weird conversation that ended with a solicitation—struck me.

I’ve been there. On the wrong end. Many, many years ago.

Why I Show Pictures Of My Kids

Have you ever prepared a post on a topic, then in the time between you wrote it and had it scheduled to publish, an authority in your world published a post on almost the same topic and do it better than you? That was me with this post.

I wrote this originally on May 23rd and scheduled it for after the Memorial Day Weekend. I went to sleep happy that I wrote again. I awoke to an e-mail from Chris Lema with his latest post the same thing.

Nevertheless, I’m moving forward.

If you’ve attended either of my presentations at WordCamp Austin in 2012 and 2013, you saw pictures of my kids in the first few minutes of my talk. Last year, I had a point. I introduced my kids, then my wife which was a perfect segue for why that was important in the real world. In both cases, the pictures of my kids wasn’t important to the talk itself. So, why did I do it?

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