OK, sure. If your response is not "it's not the conference organizers problem" but "we should also try to look out for each other in social situations," I will agree wholeheartedly with that.
Yes, there are things that we should do while we are there in person. And there are things that should be handled at the conference organizer level, if there is someone who has demonstrated unacceptable behavior at the conference. And, of course, there is also the police level, for things that go so far beyond the bounds as to be able to make it to that level.
I was just concerned that a lot of people were saying things like "well, she doesn't have proof, so we should do nothing" or "well, this should be a police matter, so we should do nothing," and I thought that your comment might be along those lines, "the other people in the bar should have done something, so we shouldn't do anything." Sorry for having misinterpreted you, and yes, I agree that we should fight this kind of behavior at all levels.
As somebody who's organized community gatherings himself (and made plenty of mistakes in this area himself) I do feel that organizers play an important role as you say.
To put it in really literal terms, when I organized my first meetup, we had a mix of under- and over-21 members. I was really concerned about underage drinking. I really strongly let our members know what was expected of them. I think I stopped just shy of threatening to beat them up and/or report them to the FBI if I caught one whiff of something bad happening to anybody, especially the underage members. I definitely got the message across, at least.
While that kind of approach obviously doesn't directly scale/translate to a professional conference, I think the overarching principle is the same. The organizers set the tone, outline accountability, and (if it's a multi-year event) weed out repeat offenders. The rest is up to the community.
Yes, there are things that we should do while we are there in person. And there are things that should be handled at the conference organizer level, if there is someone who has demonstrated unacceptable behavior at the conference. And, of course, there is also the police level, for things that go so far beyond the bounds as to be able to make it to that level.
I was just concerned that a lot of people were saying things like "well, she doesn't have proof, so we should do nothing" or "well, this should be a police matter, so we should do nothing," and I thought that your comment might be along those lines, "the other people in the bar should have done something, so we shouldn't do anything." Sorry for having misinterpreted you, and yes, I agree that we should fight this kind of behavior at all levels.