From the blog by status:

Furthermore, the collaboration between Status and Matrix is expected to:

• Utilize the Status Network token within Riot.im by enabling crypto assets
• Create a bridge between Matrix and Whisper (Ethereum’s own real-time communication protocol)
• Integrate Status DApps as widgets within Riot.im

This does sour my view of Element.

Matrix Foundation might have been an afterthought but it still is a valid step in ensuring at least some independence of the protocol from Element.

I don’t see any reason for communities which prefer IRC to make a move to matrix but your comment seems unfounded.

Matrix Foundation, which is a steward of matrix protocol, is a UK non-profit community interest company.

Element is a for-profit but how exactly is it dodgy? It is primarily a FOSS company. Their only connection to cryptoidiocy I know of is in some experimental P2P matrix implementations.

Except WhatsApp is not the victim here - it’s whatsapp’s users and facebook seems perfectly fine with allowing anyone to exploit their users’ privacy by not dealing with the core of the problem - online indicator.

Even if that’s the way you perceive it, expressing this attitude is unlikely to gather you an audience who will listen to your points.

I think this article approaches the issue in a wrong way. It only considers the safety of female speakers, not the listeners. It suggests that the organizers should arrange an escort and somehow be aware of who is comfortable with whom or give an option to openly declare that you are uncomfortable with someone.

Better option for the speakers, if unable to arrange for a company of someone they know well, would be to ask some other speakers they feel comfortable with directly. Organizers could also offer to guide groups unfamiliar with the city to/from the station.

Often having had confrontations with aggressive men at the conferences who disagreed with my views, or thought I wasn’t sympathetic enough to their perspectives.

I’ve only been to small-scale conferences or conferences in particular setting but I can’t imagine anyone being aggressive when confronted with a differing opinion. Perhaps this was a hyperbole.

If you’re a cis man at a conference, please be aware that you are, by default, a threat.

This sounds like a great way to alienate half of the readers.

Should I then create here a post about a proprietary software I like because otherwise you wouldn’t have seen it? This post doesn’t talk about any open source software or anything of relation to open source ideology. It talks about organization of conferences, and not of open source conferences, but any kind of conference.