>This year, we had to handle issues that honestly, as an adult, we would never expect to have to handle from other adults.
I had a similar experience in a class recently. I couldn't help but keep thinking "my 9 year old knows better than to behave like this" (and my 9 year old has his own developmental challenges). The behavior was really shocking considering everyone in the room was an adult.
Unfortunately there wasn't much I felt I could do. It was a short class, and I had the impression that this person was well versed in pulling the appropriate levers to protect themselves from any negative reaction to their behavior whatever they didn't like by claiming privilege, race, sex etc whenever possible (this person made lots of conspicuous references the very first day and the second .. .and so on before trouble started). They were also always just some terrible victim of something or other ... but as time went on it was pretty clear that it was all just a system that allowed them to behave poorly, make outbursts and bully others.
I specifically asked not to be in any groups with this person and my request was honored thankfully.
To be clear I mentioned privilege, race, and sex, any consideration of those things was NOT the source of the problem, had there been none of that I'm certain that the person in question would have found other ways to manipulate the situation, their behavior was the real issue.
> To put it in perspective, we had to deal with an individual that was verbally and mentally abusive to a number of our volunteer staff and security to the point where they were in tears.
It sounds like the proper response to this is to tell the individual to "fuck off and never come back", but looks like popularity mattered too much to the Derbycon organizers:
> Admittedly, we had no idea how to handle this person, and in fear of repercussion of removing this person, allowed them to stay at the conference in order to “not upset the masses”.
Guys, the response to adults acting like children is to completely ignore them and kick them out of your discussions. They do not deserve to be a part of your forum. Perhaps tell them why you're doing so, so they can improve themselves, but there is no need to deal with their shit.
Alas, it's not that simple. A lot of professional victims out there, ready to bring out an utter shitstorm if they get slighted. Conference organizers have their careers to think about, and getting nailed on Twitter as a *ist is a great way to become unemployable.
As someone who had to deal with a situation like this, it is often more complicated than it appears. Often you don't have perfect information. However I strongly agree with deactivating credentials for abusive people.
