I have a new policy toward conferences. If someone harasses me (has happened plenty of times) or I see someone else being harrassed for any reason, I walk out immediately and socialize the toxicity as broadly as possible. Think I won't?

So on site harassments wont happen because as a person of color or a woman I wont even attend such conference

I have never heard of this conference until today, and haven't used Ruby in a decade or more. If you have clear evidence, I will decline. From what I know about Michael I'd be amazed if he knew this and still said it's "a fun conference" and accepted this invitation.

I spoke there in 2014 and had great conversations. Wasn’t aware of any controversy

I think the contreversy comes from ignoring a continous feedback over the years on how the conference needs to do better amd instead they dismiss this @ddfreyne rejected speaking there and asked them to replace him but instead they replaced him with a white male

Have you been to Poland much at all?

Yes several times and thats even one more reason to make this situation more serious

Same. The thing I know is that it is a very ethnically homogeneous country (as a result of its history) so it doesn’t surprise me that diversity isn’t high among their concerns.

But this is not some local conference with local speakers, they bring speakers from all over And I can understand this in the poc part but Poland does not have women too?

Yup. I’ve spoken/worked in like 40+ countries around the world with vastly different cultures. Not all of them are agreeable to me.