I didn't have enough faith then in the power of community pressure to take care of the problem. For a long time after the incident I did have faith in community pressure. The dry conferences tend to be either technical or so utterly homogeneous that you have to work pretty hard to scare up an argument that lasts. Topics in these conferences can get explosive, especially when the value systems of different posters collide.
People there seem usually to prefer discussing theory to dealing with human emotions.
The wettest of my conferences by far is Parenting. The wetter the conference, the more important the people skills of the host, and the less important the technical skills. It's much more important for me to help maintain a warm and supportive environment in Parenting than it is to change the opening screen every month. That caring is a force that really fosters the cohesiveness of the Parenting neighborhood and helps each of us to be willing to understand points of view that differ from our own. Dealing with conflict is seldom easy, and I have few suggestions beyond the obvious.