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After reading the entire post, I feel really bad for him, and I hope he gets the time off and the support necessary to recover from this incident. I also feel quite angry with how he has been treated. So please let me vent it out here as politely as I’m able to.
I can imagine something like this or worse happening on social media groups, but an ostentatious “committee” that listens only to one side and never gives the other side the chance to get details on how things were perceived or why it’s a violation? And the chuckling in the call when someone has already said they’re not in a proper emotional state is just bullying.
I personally don’t think CoC or any other set of laws can be written to be precise and comprehensive. There will always be edge cases that need many hearings and re-hearings, with some discretion based on past precedence, nuances, etc., in the interpretation of written words in the code in an effort to make the code clearer for the future (this is how we improve laws, don’t we?).
This committee has, IMNSHO, been the opposite of kind and doesn’t deserve to hold the responsibility of handling CoC enforcement or violations. I’m sure this committee is not even capable of explaining clearly to a potential speaker what the CoC really means as per the written words and what’s expected.
This CoC needs to be torn apart and rebuilt, and the people in this particular committee must be sent to other areas where their expertise can be best used. Their proper place is certainly not in a CoC committee, for sure.
Rebuilt? Why?
Do you read the code of conduct when you attend a conference? Personally, I haven't even read the code of conduct for my job, and certainly wouldn't read one if I was speaking at or attending a conference.
The CoCs are completely unnecessary and, as shown in this example, arbitrarily enforced. In the blog post I read that their CoC prohibits threats and assaults. Consider how silly that is. If someone's threatening you or sexually assaulting you you're going to go the police, not report them for a code of conduct violation.
Likewise, for more mundane stuff, it's all common sense. Don't be obnoxious, rude, make people uncomfortable, etc. If you are doing that, they'll ask you to leave and ban you from future attendance if it's severe. You shouldn't need a CoC to know that and they don't need one to do it.
Consider something that's not covered by their CoC. Maybe I bring my pet skunk with me and they don't have a provision about skunks in their CoC. Are they now powerless? No, they're going to do what's sensible and ask me to not have the skunk, and if I say "Your code of conduct doesn't prohibit skunks" they're going to ask me to leave.
Codes of conduct are silly. They create these dumb regulations and committees for no real reason and create the apparatus for mistakes like these.
I'm actually shocked that Jeremy supported and still supports codes of conduct. He seems like a smart guy and they're obviously a bad idea.
"Why should rules exist? We should just operate on intuitive feelings of what is or isn't acceptable all the time."
Why NOT formalize rules to some extent? Having a hidden set of implicit mores is far worse. In fact, you can easily read this post as a _pro-COC argument._
After all, the author is able to make a really strong case that he didn't really infringe on any part of the COC, and that the COC was poorly constructed to begin with. With no COC, he'd have to just be saying "I think Numfocus exercised bad judgement," which is a much harder argument to make since it's so subjective.
We're professionals. Rules shouldn't be implicit in professional environments. Explicit rules are easier to use, and they make it easier to hold the authorities accountable for misusing them.
>Why NOT formalize rules to some extent?
Because, at least in the case of CoCs in open source, the sorts of people most vocally pushing to implement and enforce them are almost invariably of the sort most likely to use them as political weapons and enforce them lopsidedly.
Exactly. 99% of the time, CoC gets ignored. The 1% of the time it is exercised, it's because some random person with a chip on their shoulder from Twitter is looking for blood.
"Boot this developer from your project because they made a remark on social media I was offended by."
The problem here, though, is inconsistent enforcement. Assuming this side of the story is correct, he didn't actually violate the CoC at all, and the committee he spoke to did.
The problem here is not the CoC, it's that the organisation doesn't enforce the CoC, violates it, and punishes people who didn't violate it. They might as well not have a CoC in that case.
His point, at least as I grok it, is that the coc can be perfect in wording, but due to the nature and incentives of its birth, he sees it as more a weapon that a rigorous and fair standard.
I think this is spot on... Seeing more of this everywhere
Because the formalization is "fake" -- it's still just as poorly defined and arbitrary as it was before (as social convention), and just as poorly defensible as it was before.
It just gives power to the accuser to say "Please refer to article 3 section 2 for compliant behavior. BANNED". But unlike a proper ruleset, the defense cannot do the same, because there's no actual definition of rude specified that I could say "In fact, I did none of those things, your honor"... and the accuser must iteratively prove his case. Instead I have to say "Im not being rude", and then it becomes a he said, she said, but with the accuser weilding "formal rules".
These are rules in the form of "don't be someone I don't like", and at best follows the fashion "the accused is presumed guilty until shown otherwise"
> Why NOT formalize rules to some extent?
Besides the reams of examples of CoC's being abused and arbitrarily enforced like the one in the attached article you mean? I've never even heard of a CoC being applied in any way _except_ a petty, bureaucratic way.
How about every time dang replies "Please don't do this" and links to the HN rules? Or bans repeat offenders?
You don't hear about the system working right because it's inherently non-controversial.
Guidelines != CoC. People break the HN guidelines all the time and it is fine, they are there to help make people become better contributors and not to punish people.
I'm genuinely not seeing the distinction here. I can be warned, banned, or suspended for violating the guidelines, I can be warned, banned, or suspended for violating the CoC. Both spell out values (be kind) as well as disallow certain actions (don't call names).
The main difference I see is that the CoC also spells out enforcement actions and processes, while the enforcement process for the guidelines is whatever dang feels like it is. In other words from my perspective the CoC is _less_ arbitrary.
HN guideline is a set policies and conflict resolution document. The purpose of those are to define the community focus and get people back to cooperation if members start to falls into argument and conflict.
An CoC on the other hand is exclusively about removal of members to achieve additional goals set by the CoC. It identify who is an "other" and gives power to a small group to opaquely remove the individual without constraints or liability. It also usually supersede any existing rules, goals and processes already existing in the community.
The distinction is thus in purpose, methods and results. If we imagine that we replaced the articles CoC with the HN guideline, we can read this: _"When disagreeing, please reply to the argument"_. The Code of Conduct Enforcement Team could have talked to both Jeremy Howard and Joel Grus and steered the discussing on the factually arguments in favor or against the use of a Jupyter Notebook. They could have reminded both speakers to assume good faith, respond to the strongest plausible interpretation, and avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents. It could remind them to focus on the purpose of the community, such as having a curious conversations with thoughtful and substantive comments.
Instead they exercised the power granted by the CoC.
> An CoC on the other hand is exclusively about removal of members to achieve additional goals set by the CoC.
Source? It seems like your assigning motives to others rather than listening to what they have to say.
> Instead they exercised the power granted by the CoC.
If you actually read the parent you'd know they explicitly did _not_ follow the CoC. The CoC sets out a process very much like the one you described in which the enforcement team is actually supposed to have a discussion with everyone involved and get all accounts of what happened. The fact they ignored the CoC isn't a problem with the CoC, it's a problem with the human beings not following the process.
Dang could start banning people at random, that wouldn't mean the HN guidelines are bad, it would mean dang decided not to follow the rules and has the power to do so.
Let say the enforcement team had a discussion with everyone involved and got all accounts of what happened. What would the purpose and motive be? To collect evidence, to determine if a person is guilty or not, and to measure out punishment if guilty.
The goal of conflict resolution is not about determining who is guilty and measuring out punishment, but rather to deescalate situation and fixing problems before there is a need for someone to be punished. The best moderation are those that are not seen because intervention occurred early and without escalating something small into something big.
The primary evidence for this exist in the names and words used in the CoC. A Enforcement Team is distinctly different than a Conflict Resolution team. A group full of mediators is different from a group full of enforcers. Enforcement is a different word from moderation.
If a CoC were focused on conflict resolution and had teams full of mediators, and where enforcement only came afterward when the mediators has failed and there exist documented proof of failed deescalation, only then would we have a situation where a CoC and a guideline would be much more similar in purpose, method and result. In which case the CoC enforcement would likely be called under a different name.
I think you're commenting primarily on the first, second, third instance of breaking the guidelines. I've certainly read threats of people being banned for repeated violations, read suggestions that accounts have been banned, and I can see accounts that are shadow-banned here.
Whether the guidelines are used to punish people who act a certain way or just as a way to document how to act so as to avoid punishment is a fairly fine distinction IMO and maybe a distinction without a difference.
Seems like a No True Scotsman situation to me. A set of rules is just that.
> I've never even heard of a CoC being applied in any way except a petty, bureaucratic way.
Sounds like a classic case of selection bias.
Entirely possible, but it's impossible to tell because most of these committees and panels are completely opaque about their actions. Hence the need for standards from common law like not allowing anonymous accusations, etc.
Or just get rid of them
Formalizing rules is fine. But then be clear about the expectations. Either those rules exist to create a fair, safe, productive space for everyone - at which point, as 'wruza[0] and 'defen[1] wrote, you should go all in and set up institutional support that ensures the rules are fairly applied and there's appeals process to correct mistakes - or, they exist only to codify the capriciousness of the rule setter, at which point it should be said explicitly. Either is fine, but it's important they never get confused.
--
[0] -
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24928833
[1] -
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24927974
Just now occurs to me: Adjudication could be escalated to arbitration or mediator.
Governance is the evergreen crisis. Was part of an org that had a constitutional crisis over conduct not covered by existing bylaws. HUGE drama. HUGE effort to resolve. Basically a mock trial.
Other orgs need more accessible, more lightweight ways to resolve their own slap fights.
> If someone's threatening you or sexually assaulting you you're going to go the police, not report them for a code of conduct violation.
I think they're right on point with this. Law is incredibly complex and you're likely to end up with a very shitty sub-implementation of the law when building a code of conduct, be it in itself or the application & litigation procedure.
"Be nice to each other & follow the local official regulations" should probably be a valid c&c.
Worked briefly at a place where male developers were actively harassing female employees. Not extreme, but clearly unwanted behavior.
20 years professional work, first time Ive ever seen that.
Noped out of there as fast I could.
Now, As a white male, I’ve seen it going the other way much more lately.
Walk into a place where it’s all about diversity and tolerance, but failing, because hiring for diversity means passing on experience. Or frankly interest in doing the job.
So spent months cleaning up messes. The entire time everyone is bashing white males, unless non-binary.
Preach brother. Preach.
Explicit rules that create and escalate conflict is worse than implicit rules that assumes good faith and gives benefit of the doubt. Not all explicit rules are good and not all implicit ones are bad, and it depend a great lot of how enforcement is made.
Good formalized set of rules and rule enforcement focus on conflict resolution and deescalation, assumes good faith and give benefit of the doubt. Most legal system does this, but also community rules like Wikipedia.
From the article I don't see any attempt of conflict resolution between Joel Grus and Jeremy Howard. I don't see any process by NumFOCUS towards deescalation and refocusing towards a common goal. The process seem to have been opaque, the accusation hidden, purpose unclear. The authorities (the Code of Conduct committee) not held accountable. As a result it seems that their explicit rules did not serve a purpose of creating a professional environment.
> From the article I don't see any attempt of conflict resolution between Joel Grus and Jeremy Howard.
FTA: “I think Joel is great, and I know for a fact that he doesn’t mind being called “wrong” (since the call I checked with him).”
sorry, meant there were no attempt of conflict resolution by the Code of Conduct committee.
The vast majority of rules are implicit and to make them explicit you have to put in place the machinery of the law or something like it. This CoC nonsense is a childish and incompetent attempt at solving a complex problem which arguably is leaving us worse off than we started. This is very representative of the extraordinary mixture of hubris, self-loathing and ignorance that characterizes our age.
> Having a hidden set of implicit mores is far worse.
In every arena I've operated this is always the case. Military, Big Company and on the streets. Not saying it's right, but it's extremely common (in my experience)
> Rules shouldn't be implicit in professional environments.
Totally agree. But again, everywhere I've been there are at least 2 sets of rules.
Maybe I am jaded by conforming to the 'It is what it is' mentality. In practice though, that has been my experience.
It is hard. Without a common background (raised with similar upbringing, same religions), your implicit rules can diverge greatly with the others. Not to mention born in different era will play a big role in this. Some people simply don't grow with the changing time.
That's why it is more favorable in today's environment to have explicit rules like CoC. At least it brings people to the same understanding quicker.
It does carry risk though. When living in a world with more explicit rules, people tend to treat anything not in the rule to be OK, and ignore most implicit rules. That will rush more rules to be explicit, also, written poorly without broader debates and discussions during these rushes.
I agree. I work in a company that had only few stated rules and operated under the assumption, that people had a common sense of what is right and what should not be done. The implicit rules were actually working quite well.
At least up to a point where some people clearly, but mostly not openly acted as if these unwritten rules don't apply to them. And these transgressions were not dealt with from management even when they became aware of it.
Was a shitty situation if one was trapped in such a bubble within the organisation.
Fast forward being acquired by a global corporation with an endless amount of rules and regulations. Nobody reads them. Everybody knows the important ones. Nonetheless nobody really cares in the global corp.
Exactly what I see happening in our part of this global org now starting. A sad situation.
Thanks for this comment. I think it's time I broaden my own perspective a bit.
> Why NOT formalize rules to some extent?
Because they will be used to lawyerize innocent people out
of the organization by entryist grifters. That's what they're for, that's what they're used for.
> Why NOT formalize rules to some extent?
Because code of conducts makes it easier to harass people. If there are formal rules then all a harasser has to do is to find something out of context and then start harassing the person by starting a CoC breakage investigation. Doing stuff like that without a CoC would get you kicked out.
Not neccessarily. Usually that's a new "exception" to the formal rules. (This happens anyways with more generalized rules.. but that's done under the spirit of the rules and is accepted as such)
Pretend-legal agreements that are overly broad, capriciously enforced and written by out-of-touch culture “warriors” are a bad joke that should be regarded with contempt. Let the attorneys do their job, and devs, or the pop-dev-blogger entourage, should do theirs.
_> Pretend-legal agreements that are overly broad, capriciously enforced and written by out-of-touch culture “warriors” are a bad joke that should be regarded with contempt_
_> Let the attorneys do their job_
The foundation of labor law in this country was built thanks to out-of-touch culture “warriors” and their lawyers going back to the early 1900s.
Most certainly not equivalent. COCs are welcomed by corporations because it could be a door into exercising power over content that is worth pursuing. If it was really about labor laws, you would see union busters instead of open arms.
Attorneys aren’t writing these Codes of Conduct.
Formal rules only make sense when there is sizeable bureaucracy to execute them. Otherwise they just get used by privileged individuals for their own purposes, adding a veneer of legitimacy. And creating bureaucracy is just not compatible with software communities - developers want to focus on software, and continue to do software outside of work to get _away from_ heavyweight management and HR. The rise of COCs have more to do with the corporate colonization of software communities than the desire for social justice.
If OP had just been informally ostracized for whatever they _actually_ did that made them not liked, they likely wouldn't be writing this blog post. They might find a different community, they might learn the unwritten social rules, or they might never learn. But they wouldn't need to write a blog post attempting to exonerate themselves from the black mark of a "COC violation" and rationalizing how the system attacked them.
He may not support them, but in the current culture you have to pretend to otherwise people might think you're a sexist or a racist. I don't support them, but I pretend to.
> you have to pretend to otherwise people might think you're a sexist or a racist
Or quickly get you fired by shaming you employer. No one want to jeopardize their jobs.
> Individuals need not believe all these mystifications, but they must behave as though they did, or they must at least tolerate them in silence, or get along well with those who work with them. For this reason, however, they must live within a lie. They need not accept the lie. It is enough for them to have accepted their life with it and in it. For by this very fact, individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system.
https://web.archive.org/web/20120107141633/http://www.vaclav...
Somewhere along the lines disagreeing with kafkaesque processes like OP experienced, became similar to professional suicide, so I understand you completely.
It's pretty sad.
Huh, TIL I’m a sexist and/or racist.
> Huh, TIL I’m a sexist and/or racist.
I think the meta is we have to understand we are all *-ist at some level. This is the world we were born and raised in and it is incredibly silly for me to suggest that I am somehow above my nurture.
Of course, I will deny everything if you find my real name and attach it to this post because we can't really say this out loud but just between us I think the key is to understand that we all have inherent biases and actively try to fight ones that we consider not helpful.
I agree, but I think it’s silly that we have to _pretend_ to agree with stupid SJW policies just because people are afraid of the backlash if someone traces their account name back to their real name.
Since it’s fairly unlikely for similar resistance to have any effect on _my_ career, I kind of feel inclined to always respond according to what I think, instead of what people like to hear.
In this case it actually garnered downvotes, which I found fairly surprising, given, like you said, that we all have inherent biases.
> The CoCs are completely unnecessary and...
If there are multiple organisers of a conference then it makes sense for them to talk amongst themselves, decide what they disagree on, and document it.
Say I believe no swearing and no pink shirts and my co-organiser thinks no swearing and no blue shirts. It makes sense for us to sit down before the conference and document our official stance on those issues. Then when I see someone wearing a pink (or blue) shirt I know how to respond without starting a fight on the day with my co-organiser. That sort of CoC makes sense - one that the organisers use to settle their own disputes.
CoC implemented as part of some sort of rules-lawyering process are a waste of time. The as-written CoC is meaningless compared to what people organising the conference agree on.
> _"The CoCs are completely unnecessary and, as shown in this example, arbitrarily enforced."_
The whole point of CoCs is to avoid this arbitrary enforcement. The problem in this particular case seems to be that they ignored their own CoC and picked on someone who didn't violate their CoC, while the committee did violate the CoC.
That situation is indistinguishable from not having a CoC at all. If you've got a CoC, it needs to be clear, and you need to be consistent about how you enforce it.
It has been shown plenty of times that if you don't have a CoC, there will be some people who think that racist or sexist jokes, sexual harassment, etc., are okay. They are not, and a CoC can help to make that clear. But you have to take your own CoC seriously and follow it, and not use it as an arbitrary excuse to harass people, like what seems to have happened here.
You'll never be able to completely encode everything. Someone takes offense at criticism or a joke that the vast majority would think was completely inoffensive or someone who cursed once, etc. At that point, you have two choices. Tell them "Welp, no." or at least mildly tap the speaker etc. on the wrist. (Or, I suppose, just lie and tell the person you'll take care of it and then don't.)
_> You'll never be able to completely encode everything._
No resilient human system expects everything to be completely encoded in a written statement - it's entirely unreasonable, akin to asking one prove that unicorns don't exist.
The devil is in the implementation details and how the CoC is wielded.
Of course you always need some common sense in the process. But it needs to be sense, and not arbitrary, capricious behaviour. And you're right that's something you can never quite encode in the rules. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have them. Real world laws are also subject to interpretation, with tons of unclear edge cases, but it's still good that they ban murder, theft, and those kind of things.
But yeah, except in extreme cases, I would expect an organisation of such an event to indeed mildly tap the offender on the wrist and maybe help to prevent it in the future. Or tell the complainer that it's not actually a violation of the CoC when it isn't.
Not everything needs to be punished. Just informing people is often enough.
Have you read all the laws in your country? Are you aware that there are probably thousands of examples where they've been arbitrarily enforced and put innocent people in prison (or even executed them)? Many of them are just a matter of common sense and yet there's an entire apparatus around them. Does that mean they're silly and useless?
I've never organised a conference, but people who have told me that there's a level of craziness that most attendees or speakers aren't exposed to. I don't know if a code of conduct makes their job easier or not, but your glib dismissal fails to take into account that conference organisers don't enjoy judicial immunity and enforcement of anything -- be it written in a code of conduct or just common sense -- can make them liable for damages. One way to protect yourself is with a system of due process, and some lawyers think that a written code is helpful in establishing due process while others disagree.
Many laws are silly and useless. Many laws are ambiguous. Sometimes you read a law and think you know what it means but it turns out it applies where you don't expect and doesn't apply where you do expect.
The law is complicated and expensive and painful. You need lawyers and judges and juries. People are, as you observe, severely hurt by the law.
These are reasons why we don't need some pseudo sub-law drafted quickly by amateurs. The real law still applies and the fake law is arbitrarily enforced.
Obviously there are pros and cons, but one cannot conclude that one way is worse than another if you only look at the bad outcomes of that one way. You need to compare the overall picture of both ways.
Elections hand book is thousands of of rules.
Usually one or more deaths behind each of those rules.
Stupid rules come about because someone somewhere got screwed over.
> I'm actually shocked that Jeremy supported and still supports codes of conduct. He seems like a smart guy and they're obviously a bad idea.
He's exhibiting Stockholm Syndrome. Being smart, in this case, just makes him very good at rationalizing it to himself.
Fwiw, I know someone who wasn't able to get a police report for assault but was able to ban someone from an event.
If you're interested in making spaces more welcoming and existing legal structures aren't doing the job, codes of conduct are extremely valuable.
This might sound bad especially to you or the someone you know, but if the legal system (criminal or civil) was not able to act (presumably due to lack of evidence), then I don't think events or other organizations should act either.
We do have different criteria for sufficient evidence for different consequences.
It makes sense to require something like 'beyond all doubt' to put someone behind bars for a few years.
It may make sense to have even stricter criteria (e.g. unanimous votes) to execute someone.
It makes sense to have _lower_ criteria (e.g. 'preponderance of evidence') to impose a civil liability that takes all their money but does not put them in jail - there are cases of crime accusations where the level of evidence is so that were acquitted in the criminal court as the evidence was not sufficient for _that_, but the same evidence resulted in them being found responsible in civil court.
So it does also make sense to have a different (lower) standard of evidence and process to resolve CoC disputes, without bringing in all the heavyweight legal machinery designed for the high-stakes evaluation of whether someone's guilty of a felony. If the worst penalty that can be imposed is "our organization will consider you a baddy and won't deal with you ever again", then the accused does not need as much protection as if their life or liberty was at stake.
However, there still has to be _some_ standard of evidence and at least some reasonable due process - in this particular case it seems that the bar has been set _too_ low and this might need to be changed.
I actually disagree
The whole point is that the legal system is very slow, very hard to report to, and in some cases actively discourages assault / rape claims. CoCs can do better because they _don't_ require as involved of a process
I'm not too worried about someone being banned from an event on hearsay, but I am very concerned about serial harassers
The former, while unfortunate, is not career ending. It just means they can't go back to that event. The latter scars many people and will likely cause some of them to leave tech. Also none of them will ever come back to that event.
I think that's covered by the CoC free case too. If there is or isn't a CoC and you convince the organizer that someone assaulted you, the organizer can and should ban them.
Without a CoC, it's hard to know who to talk to. Conference organizers are swamped.
In another comment I elaborate on what the point of a CoC is:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24930887
Some conferences ask you to check a box that you've read and agree to the CoC before your speaking/attendance registration can go through. What do you do in those situations / do you just check those anyway or not attend?
Honestly, I do the same thing as with just about any "I agree to these terms and conditions," etc. boxes. I check it and move on like just about everyone else. I assume there's nothing especially egregious or unusual in there.
They're useless for their stated purpose, but they're quite useful for their real purpose: as a punishment tool used by social justice sadists which are parasitizing projects conferences and organizations.
This is the saddest part of all; not because of the toxic influence of these bad actors, but because it detracts from _actual_ issues of discrimination and misconduct.
What does anyone think happens when an organizer breaks the code of conduct? I can write the list of actions here:
Counterpoint to nothing happens when it’s the organisers violating the CoC. PyCon AU 2019
https://2019.pycon-au.org/news/inclusivity-and-political-sta...
Doesn't even have to be social justice sadists. They're ripe for arbitrary enforcement and likewise can be used by people with power to direct the enforcement people against anyone they don't like. Depending how cynical you want to be that's arguably the point of them.
The fact that they're social justice types is an historical detail, in the 50s it was the McCarthy red scare types for instance.
Overall it's the same kind of people, authoritarian/social dominants; see
https://theauthoritarians.org/
You can't go to the police for someone making racist or sensitive insults. The problem isn't the CoC concept, because there exists a domain of actions that strictly speaking are legal but warrent expulsion from a professional community. The problem here is gross overreach and power without democratic control.
> You can't go to the police for someone making racist or sensitive insults.
You can in the UK:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-23128956
That doesn't really chance GP's argument. There are a lot of countries where it's not illegal. Should it be? A lot of people would disagree with banning every kind of insensitive behaviour by law. And yet a conference might not want to host that kind of behaviour in their event, and want to make clear what kind of behaviour they find acceptable or unacceptable. Especially for such temporary events, it's useful to have clear lines and guidelines about what's acceptable and what not, especially in a society where some people don't seem to know or care. But that doesn't mean everything should immediately be legislated by law.
As far as I can tell, CoCs exist merely to provide a pretext for actions that a committee would take anyway. "See, we're justified in doing this because we have a CoC! We're not arbitrary at all!"
_The CoCs are completely unnecessary and, as shown in this example, arbitrarily enforced_
But that was always the point of them. Sure they have some nice words about equality and so on, but the purpose was always to give those who produce nothing themselves power over those that do. Look at the way long standing projects have had CoC’s forced on them by recently-arrived outsiders who have barely contributed a single line of code. Look at who the first targets of the CoC committee are. It’s just bullying.
> The CoCs are completely unnecessary
Where do you think they come from? The issues that people have to deal with at conferences aren't new [1] - and when the offender is a friend of the organizer, or works on their team, having a predefined process is good.
It also means that people can't say "I didn't know it wasn't ok to ____" or "XXX punishment is too harsh" - a common issue with poor actors. A CoC means you can take action with less effort and drama when someone is being a jerk.
1:
http://jessnevins.com/blog/?p=796
I'm not sure I'd describe multiple committee meetings, emails, and phone calls as less work or less drama. If someone is causing a problem ask them to leave and/or ban them. Maybe you need some policy internally that says who handles complaints of this kind, but you don't need to tell all conference attendees they aren't allowed to threaten one another or assault each other.
As far as friends of the organizers, I assume that's not settled with CoCs either. I bet if Jeremy were good friends with the right people this wouldn't have happened at all. Maybe it's not solved either in the CoC-free case, but I don't think it's worse and I think it's a relatively rare thing anyway.
It's not just correct to say that "people can't say..." Of course they can. People don't read the codes of conduct and don't know that they say. Even if they did know, the language is bound to contain ambiguity. Jeremy, for example, didn't know he wasn't allowed to disagree with people.
Genuine question for you: do you read the code of conduct at conferences you go to?
> And the chuckling in the call when someone has already said they’re not in a proper emotional state is just bullying.
I can’t speak to who this person was or why they did this, but I did just want to mention that there is at least one good faith explanation that isn’t straight up bullying.
When I am in uncomfortable situations, I have a nervous chuckle. If I were in this call, giving this feedback to this person, I probably would have done that at least once. Thanks to some great feedback I once received, I learned that people were interpreting my nervous laughter as me thinking that what they were saying was dumb or wrong, even though this was not the case—I was just feeling anxious. It’s possible that this person really was chuckling at the OP to bully them, but it’s also equally possible that they were just feeling super nervous in an emotionally charged situation and laughed because of that.
You're kind to interpret that as generously as you are. I mean that. I appreciate that. Forcing ourselves to see the other side is important, even if only to immediately discard it; because it's the practice of doing so that helps us when we really need it.
For me, I think it's unlikely the generous interpretation is correct, for only one reason: a group of 4 of them needed to call him, rather than a 1-1 conversation. This is a group dynamic that is well understood and they knew what they were doing, using the safety and strength of a group to ensure he couldn't push back. In such a scenario, one of the participants in said group is unlikely to be nervous in that way, although it's certainly possible (especially if they know, deep down, they're being unfair and are battling heavily with that feeling -- even the group strength won't help them).
This is the strongest argument against zero-tolerance policies (I don't think it applies in this case, but there are plenty). They are fundamentally inhumane.
(You find zero tolerance in schools too. It's heartbreaking to see children doing innocuous things and responsible adults completely vacating any kind of responsibility or accountability.)
If you get a group of people together, everyone's going to have to put in at least a little effort to get along. If the code of conduct doesn't enshrine this then it's almost inevitably going to cause issues.
You may be able to argue that it's not a case of bullying in this narrow instance, but if the policies lead to a one-sided situation with no recourse, then it's bullying at a structural level.
While zero tolerance policies at schools are awful, at least there they serve an arguably useful purpose: avoiding litigation against the school. In a CoC it's just an easy way for the commissars and nomenklatura that wrote/enforce the CoC to harm their enemies
In principle, I believe codes of conduct are self-evidently a good thing, and generally introduced with good intent. It's the zero-tolerance that's harmful.
In the case of both the imaginary school and the imaginary code-of-conduct committee, the task is to square the unsquarable circle of human diversity. That takes nuance, emotional intelligence and flexibility. You can never get that 100% right, and the mistake is thinking you can. That's where flexibility is important. Zero-tolerance is proudly anti-flexibility.
Either you put in the effort to construct a humane environment or you decide that it's OK to throw the out-group under a bus (easier when you can dehumanize them). The latter takes a lot less work.
Then it seems to me that you're not the sort of person who should be on such a phone call, unless you can get this habit under control.
> unless you can get this habit under control.
The OP is not alone in that, I also chuckle/grin when under huge stress (it sometimes also happened when I heard about the very bad health condition of people really close to me), and saying that "one should get this habit under control" is like saying to depressed people just to smile so that they won't be depressed anymore (and it's also like calling depression just a "habit", but I digress).
Calling someone and telling them you've found them to have violated a rule, and that there would therefore be certain consequences, is not an easy task, nor one that most people should be expected to do well. There's no shame in not being good at it.
NumFOCUS should think about this. Someone in Jeremy's position could decide to sue them. They should think carefully about how these decisions are to be communicated to the putative violator and who should do it.
In this context you're the disciplinarian. You shouldn't be very stressed in the first place. But if you are, and you can't avoid the chuckling, then you shouldn't be the one making the call.
You need to get it under control _if_ you want to work in the kind of roles where it creates issues.
If you freeze up when you see fire, you can't be a fire fighter. If you faint when you see blood, don't be a surgeon. If you can't handle the stress of ganging up on someone, don't sign up for a CoC committee.
You may be right, but according to their own code of conduct and actions as stated by Jeremy, all that matters is how the complainant feels in response to the action of the speaker, and they should therefore be immediately and summarily dismissed from their role of conference organiser and/or CoC enforcer.
My aunt had a nervous laughter. I learned that when I was five, and I had just got a bike and trying to learn how to ride it.
My aunt was visiting and I wanted to show off, lost control and hit the asphalt with quite some speed. Hands and knee were all scratched up and hurt like hell and there she was, standing, laughing out loud. I recall thinking how mean that was.
While cleaning my wounds my mom explained the situation, and I've tried to keep this in mind whenever facing "inexplicable" reactions.
Jump cultures and you get to see fun variations on the "nervous laugh". It is rather interesting how different cultures consider the behavior of other cultures to be unacceptable in some situations.
Yes. Long ago on my university campus, a deranged man had cornered a woman on the street while screaming incoherent profanities. She was standing there with her mouth over her hand laughing, nearly hysterically. It's a classic fear response.
If that were the case it would be super ironic that they were trying to nitpick on Jeremy's behaviour (if we can even call it that) when they couldn't get their shit together themselves.
Especially when the CoC requires vague things like 'be kind'
Happens in person too. I've been long cured of my habit of using a default smiling expression when I'm thinking about something tricky. There were some unpleasant experiences before someone passed on to me that I was 'smirking [at their problems]'.
It's also possible that the chuckler thought the guy was joking. Not as crazy as it sounds - people joke about being tired/sleep-deprived, unmotivated, and (more to the point) various negative emotional states all the time in a business environment. Others laugh because they've been there. Perhaps all the more so if you phrase it in an unexpectedly precise, analytical way using big words. If someone says "Right now I would prefer a silica-rich intertidal environment in a tropical latitude" I would probably laugh. That's a trivial example but you get the idea.
Not saying "This is how it is," but rather "It's possible." Also keep in mind that we're only getting (ironically) one side of it/one person's experience with this blog post, and will likely never know what was in the mind of the one who chuckled.
My son used to get in so much trouble - he has a mocking laugh when situations are serious. Infuriating! It took us parents years to work it out, and also his school.
For his recent transition to senior school we explained this ahead of time to his new teachers: so much easier. He still occasionally gets in trouble, but for what he did/ didn't do instead of the same, with additional rudeness.
In this context, it's up to whoever is offended to decide how guilty the perpetrator is. Or even a third party to be offended on behalf of someone else.
Yes nervous laughter is a thing. This whole thing is a mountain of a mole hill that I wish would be settled privately. If it really can't then that's that.
> an ostentatious “committee” that listens only to one side and never gives the other side the chance to get details on how things were perceived or why it’s a violation?
If this upsets you, definitely do not research Title IX tribunals.
This is what lawsuits are for. A few good lawsuit victories would put an end to this.
On what grounds?
Libel maybe; people can and have gotten fired over CoC violation allegations (warranted or not) and the consequent internet witch hunt; a famous case is "Donglegate".
There's a dangerous trend where an accusation alone is enough to have people lose their jobs.
Libel would require the allegations be, at the very least, false, and not an opinion. It appears all factual allegations here are true (he presented the talk, he used bits from another talk, he called a speaker wrong), and everything else is an opinion based on those facts. So it's not libel.
And any improper employment termination suit would be against the employer, not a conference organizer, because in a very direct sense, it's your employer that chooses whether to fire you or not.
That's was really nothing to do with a CoC violation directly though. It had to do with a social media blowup that embarrassed and inconvenienced companies in a way that made it easier for both companies to just fire the individuals involved. (As will tend to happen unless an individual has a _lot_ of power.)
And PyCon quickly added a policy telling attendees not to publicize incidents until staff can investigate.
Anything! That's what's great about lawsuits! Defamation of character, violation of contract, overreach, etc.
Ask a lawyer for a legal answer.
Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/intentional_infliction_of_em...
Might be a stretch, but would likely survive summary judgment.
Harassment
From the article, the alleged harassment was two phone calls and a zoom call, all of which the recipient answered and participated in. That's not harassment.
There are legal expectations for how companies can terminate employees, I think it's only fair that professional organizations organizing professional events also be held legally accountable for the impacts they have on individuals.
More often than not, these responsibilities emerge after onerous legal discourse, legal judgement, and promise of punishment.
You think it's only fair. That's not exactly an argument about legal grounds.
You may think it’s fair, but you don’t have a (in the US at least) constitutional right to be protected from inexperienced application of a code of conduct.
> constitutional right to be protected from inexperienced application of a code of conduct.
I'm not sure what the constitution have to do with it? Inevitably, all it takes is a few court rulings in favor of defendants claiming that CoC enforcements have caused harm.
This is one of those posts where the title is going to trigger a lot of unproductive subthreads, but the piece itself seems pretty balanced and thoughtful (and links to Valerie Aurora's excellent code-of-conduct training deck).
The thing HN likes to do best with any story is to generalize it and find sweeping conclusions. Here, I think the story is pretty much just: people screw up, and if your project has a code of conduct (I think most professional ones should!), there are some easy pitfalls to avoid captured here.
I disagree. I think we should generalize more, beyond codes of conduct: If you are building an adjudication process for resolving non-criminal personal conflicts (whether that be a Code of Conduct, an HR department, a Title IX proceeding, a professional organization, or something else), you should take a look at Anglo-derived common law and the safeguards against abuse that have been evolved over the centuries.
That doesn't mean everything needs to go through the courts; it means that if your process allows something that Anglo common law does not allow, you should have a good answer for why that is. Does it allow anonymous accusations? Is the accused allowed to know the charges against them, before a finding of guilt is rendered? Is there a presumption of innocence? Is the accused allowed to have a trusted third party - one who knows the rules of the game - to advocate on their behalf? Who, exactly, is responsible for deciding matters of fact vs matters of "law"? Is there an appeals process to fix possibly incorrect decisions?
Going by the linked document by Valerie Aurora, a good Code of Conduct allows anonymous accusations, the accused does not get to know the charges against them before a finding is rendered, there is no presumption of innocence, the accused does not get a third party advocate, matters of fact are necessarily decided by the same committee that makes the rules, and there is no appeal process.
This doesn't mean that such a committee will always do wrong. But I think it's worth thinking about how people operating in bad faith (either on the committee, or reporters to it) can abuse those features to achieve goals that are not actually aligned with what the Code of Conduct is trying to do. Yes, it's true that people can't be put in jail for these sorts of things, but a poorly-run adjudication process can have significant negative personal and financial effects on people.
Your premise is that, rather than free association, every group of people owes a kind of due process to everyone else, presumptive of their right to associate. Sorry, I disagree: people can decide they don't want to associate with you or me for reasons we don't find justifiable. I can throw a party and not invite you simply for writing this comment; I can start a project and not allow you to contribute. You can relate to the rest of the world that I did that, and let them decide what that means to them.
We've gone out of our way to encode into law the exceptions to that rule. We can talk all we want about "anglo-derived common law" in those cases.
You inadvertently gave away the game.
We can all agree that everyone has the right to be arbitrary and capricious. Codes of conduct are a formalization of expectations and rules for behavior. The are often tied (explicitly or implicitly) to an adjudication and enforcement process much more complicated than the person in charge just saying "get the fuck out".
However when someone brings up the idea of improving that bureaucratic process by comparing and contrasting Codes of Conduct language and enforcement to our society's hard-fought experience in creating fair justice systems, you retreated right back to the right to be arbitrary and capricious.
This is why people can't help but wonder: what the fuck are we trying to accomplish here? All I know is I need to publish a specific flavor of bureaucratic boilerplate so I don't get my reputation attacked for not publicly promising to kick out people I would have kicked out anyway. And that I can use that document to dole out punishments with a larger air of legitimacy and seriousness than just telling someone not to come around my place anymore.
I think in your cynicism you've totally lost all meaning and purpose of the code of conduct
It's not a piece of legalese with which you can bludgeon people to get your way (I mean it can be, but that is not and should not be the point)
When an organization has a code of conduct, it makes clear how I can complain about actions or events that occur under their jurisdiction. This is important because if you have high friction to reporting issues, issues don't get reported. [1]
What happens then? People who have legitimate grievances are the ones who stop coming around and you're left surrounded by the assholes who chased them off
The code of conduct should be cheerfully received by everyone:
1. I know that my actions are above board, because I can read what is allowed
2. I know that any actions that aren't will be reported and processed not in public (eg on Twitter) but in some sort of well-defined process
3. I know what the range of penalties can be
4. If I experience a violation caused by someone else _I know how to report it_
Four is arguably the most important point. Otherwise you end up with would-be coc violations adjudicated on Twitter.
[1] I'll add that it should also describe how people who receive reports respond and how the issue will be mediated. All of these steps are important. It's important for conference volunteers to know what to do when they receive a report. It's important that you know how to make a report.
Oh, I think you underestimate my cynicism. I think some people adopted a piece of legalese without caring about the exact bounds and effects of implementing the terms of that legalese. It was vaguely in the direction of "stopping the bad stuff from happening" and was written with serious-sounding words so they just sort of assumed everything would work out fine. This blog post and HN thread are proof it has not.
>The code of conduct should be cheerfully received by everyone
I never cheerfully receive process. Process is valuable, process is important to have, but god-oh-god is it ever a massive pain in the ass.
Designing, drafting, implementing and refining process is HARD. I professionally maintain what I'll brazenly call "actually important" process so I don't get why everyone is so squeamish around the idea of maintaining the CoC process. (Well, I suspect that they're worried it will be corrupted by those nogoodnicks that they inartfully adopted this process to get rid of instead of growing some spine and just tossing them out on their ass in the first place.)
>legalese with which you can bludgeon people to get your way (I mean it can be, but that is not and should not be the point)
Understanding that this _will_ happen is just another part of designing process.
This is a great response, thanks!
I think I agree with 99% of it.
I'll take the rest of this comment to note that elsewhere I'm lauding codes of conduct because they are lighter-weight than certain legal processes.
These documents don't stop at describing the appropriate mechanism for reporting an incident, but rather they address topics of remediation and punishment: topics of justice.
defen points out that when these constitutions tread into topics of justice, they would do well to consider how to set up a fair system and what common mistakes to avoid.
This is a reasonable point and should not be at all controversial. Do you want fair treatment?
This begs the question of who decides the rules of an organization.
I want to attend events with rules I like - I might like them because they're fair, I might like them because they ban symbols I find offensive.
Ultimately, it's up to the organization to define the rules, and it's up to me to decide if I want to attend an event with those rules.
I think many of the people who write CoCs are oblivious to the fact that people lie, or may just be unreliable witnesses. Nor are the creators of a CoC trained or able to run an adjucation process.
If you punish anyone who has a report filed against them without evaluating those reports or requesting any proof, then you will quickly be left with a small pool of very manipulative people looking to game the system.
I think the problem arises when people want to have it both ways. If you want to say "we don't like you, please leave", you're probably [1] within your rights to do so, but then you don't also get to claim to have a fair and impartial process.
[1] This gets nastier when "you" is something like a corporation, a university, or the well-funded host committee of a generally public event. Legally and ethically, your latitude to exclude people from a private party is much greater than is your latitude to exclude people from a public-ish gathering that any person could show up to.
Yes the problem is giving the impression of a formal process and all that entails (i.e. fairness). If you want an informal process then the code of conduct should be informal: "Be nice, don't be a jerk".
It's not "every group of people" -- it's organizations that invite the participation of the public, or at least of others they don't know well, as long as they adhere to the mores of the community.
More importantly, I take the parent's point to be, not that such an organization "owes" anything to anyone, but simply that anyone formalizing a Code of Conduct and a committee to enforce it would do well to understand why the protections of due process exist. If their intention is truly to create a safe space for interaction, setting up a process that can be easily abused is not going to help with that.
> it's organizations that invite the participation of the public,
I feel like this is a very important classification: Inviting someone to an event with Byzantine rules and punishments should be frowned upon.
There's a disconnect here in that your argument presumes that we are talking about groups of people which organically and unanimously decided to install a CoC as a guideline or explanation on how exactly they are going to exercise their right to free association. However, the scenery that opponents of the CoC-associated culture typically see, and consider the modal scenario to be opposed, is that CoC proponents demand that groups of people that do not initially include them (or at least that they are a fairly marginal minority in) institute CoCs. Quite often, this also includes an implicit or explicit demand to install an outsider belonging to the "CoC proponent" group in a position that has wide-ranging powers to interpret the CoC. (After all, someone not properly trained might commit a rookie mistake such as thinking that in the story this thread is about, the enforcers were actually the ones who violated the CoC!) Consider the now-famous example of the person who first wanted to impose a CoC on Ruby canvassing/thinking out loud about removing Matz from his BDFL position.
You could argue that, if someone tells me to install a CoC _or else_ (they will complain to my employer, and spread the message that I am a bad person), they are just exercising their right to free association and/or helping my employer and anyone who may see that messaging exercise theirs, but I think that this is very close to being a free association counterpart of the "free speech" defense of blatant slanderous misinformation, or people using a public list of businesses operated by members of a minority to inform their non-patronage.
> people can decide they don't want to associate with you or me for reasons we don't find justifiable
Unless your decision involves a protected group, in which case this is a little more nuanced.
> I can throw a party
Professional organizations putting together conferences do not get the same liberties as individuals organizing family events.
Individuals might have the right to disassociate, but organizations have more power then individuals, and concentrate power in the hands of a small number of people, and thus should have some democratic checks on that power. Elections are one form of democratic check on power, but a randomized selection of peers works as a statistically sampled approximation, which is why the concept of a jury exists.
Any organization without democratic checks to redistribute power to its constituents is generally seeking to hold hierarchical power over those constituents and others, and should be distrusted.
People also have the right to associate, like a person could crash your party if it’s a public place and not against the law. You can also be a dick and find ways to actively ruin other people’s events. What I’m saying is that your comment doesn’t make sense since no one is owed anything, not even the right to disassociate. He’s within his “right” to complain about them dissociating themselves with him and pointing out things he thinks might help someone’s decision when it comes to associating with them
> Your premise is that, rather than free association, every group of people owes a kind of due process to everyone else, presumptive of their right to associate
If you "start a project and not allow [me] to contribute" then you're by definition starting a much more traditional, hierarchical, authoritarian community, with the forms of dispute resolution you would expect there. Now that's okay, but it means that you should probably be upfront about it from the onset. And it also means you should expect pushback and accusations (probably accurate ones) of bait and switch if you change directions midway. They will say "that doesn't sound very egalitarian to me" and they will probably be correct. It shouldn't be a problem if you don't want to court that segment, or power your community through their contributions. But if you do want to court that segment, then I think they will want you to play by their rules.
I also think this is why the idea of Anglo common law was brought up. It is a form of dispute resolution which is pretty amenable to egalitarian, decentralized dispute resolution. What I like about Anglo common law is that it minimizes the need for a fair authority figure in favor of a fair autonomous process operable by a majority of equal peers:
> Does it allow anonymous accusations?
> Is the accused allowed to know the charges against them, before a finding of guilt is rendered?
> Is there a presumption of innocence?
> Is the accused allowed to have a trusted third party - one who knows the rules of the game - to advocate on their behalf?
> Who, exactly, is responsible for deciding matters of fact vs matters of "law"?
> Is there an appeals process to fix possibly incorrect decisions?
All of these concerns must be addressed to create such a system. And I think that a lot of prospective contributors (such as myself) do not want to be part of a community unless it is run by such a system. I also think that such contributors will be particularly incensed about contributing to such communities that say they are run by such systems but which are actually oligarchies. In that case, I would feel like I had originally contributed to the community as an equal, but I am instead now just a cog helping build someone else's dream. This will not just discourage me from contributing to the community, but it will make me regret ever doing so in the first place, and resent the community's leaders for lying to me.
So going back to your original example, I think you are well within your rights to start a project and not allow me to contribute. But if you do that, I think you have to be honest about what kind of community you are really building. It is one thing to say you wish to build a community through benevolent dictatorship. It is another to say you wish to build a community through distributed consensus. It's not really a two-way door. Switching directions midway can cause collateral damage with an extremely high blast radius.
> Your premise is that, rather than free association, every group of people owes a kind of due process to everyone else
They very well might. When you exercise your judgment in any way, you are liable for damages. Due process might protect you from that.
Your party wouldn't have a formal written document that claims to set out specific rules, wouldn't be inviting arbitrary members of the public on the basis of a shared interest, would make no claim to be anything other than an arbitrary group of people picked by you on the basis of whatever, and generally differs from this situation in a lot of ways.
Nonetheless, if you invited a bunch of people to your party, then you and three others inexplicably ganged up on one of them, told them they were a bad person for claiming someone else was wrong, bullied them, made them cry and then banned them from future parties, then that sort of behaviour probably would get around and you'd soon develop a reputation for being an asshole.
Before today's post I had no views on JupyterCon, after today's post my view is that it seems to be run by assholes; that will certainly impact my future decisions around Jupyter and its community if I end up in a position to need to make them. That outcome could have been avoided by the advice to follow best practices from the legal system. This unfortunate blog post could have been avoided, and JupyterCon would have its reputation intact.
I agree with the top-voted reply: you want Code-of-Conducts for the cover it gives to organizations, and not for the protection it offers to the victims of organizations.
> but the piece itself seems pretty balanced and thoughtful
The piece is not balanced of thoughtful. The piece is crafted to present the case in a way that's immune or resilient to typical and expectable attacks. It underlined the core failings of the concept behind a CoC, and it provides a concrete example of how people use CoCs as an oppression tool that's leveraged to manipulate and condition groups to follow the leader's bidding.
> Here, I think the story is pretty much just: people screw up
It really isn't. This isn't a mere "whoopsie". This is a CoC working exactly as it's supposed to work. By design. This is exactly what they were created to achieve. A community member said something, some people didn't approved based on their personal tastes, and thus they proceeded to leverage their CoC to persecute and punish that individual to keep the community in line.
There is absolutely no other use for a CoC. This is precisely what they were created for. This is no accident or mistake.
> A community member said something, some people didn't approved based on their personal tastes, and thus they proceeded to leverage their CoC to persecute and punish that individual to keep the community in line.
Not sure if it's too soon to joke about this, but I find it funny that "I like Jupyter notebooks" was such a controversial opinion at JupyterCon.
(Yeah I know it was actually the mask advocacy and not the talk itself.)
Can someone give me the tl;dr of what the author's "mask advocacy" was and why it's so controversial? He only alludes to it in passing in the piece.
Wearing masks for covid prevention it seems like
The author was one of the primary drivers of widespread mask adoption for Covid transmission suppression, by popularizing epidemiological and public health evidence.
See:
https://masks4all.co/about-us/
I don't understand. Why would mask advocacy mean the CoC people have a vendetta against him? Is the conference run by Trump acolytes?
> why it's so controversial?
I recommend watching Stephen Colbert's or Trevor Noah's talk show skits to gain an idea of why a pro-mask position is controversial in the states.
> (Yeah I know it was actually the mask advocacy and not the talk itself.)
Is that what actually caused the complaints?
> Is that what actually caused the complaints?
Given that the complainers were anonymous (thanks to the CoC process), we'll never know. But it seems like a reasonable guess.
Why would we never know? Quoting from the blog post: "The specific reasons given were that [...]" followed by a bullet list. Your guess is unwarranted speculation.
> Why would we never know? Quoting from the blog post: "The specific reasons given were that [...]" followed by a bullet list. Your guess is unwarranted speculation.
The question was: can we find out if hidden political vendettas against OP were the cause of complaints? You're implying that, yes, we can find out, because the complainers provided a bullet point list. If the complainers had hidden political vendettas against OP, do you actually think they would have listed them in the bullet points?
Exactly what punishment was given here? I've read the piece several times, and couldn't figure it out. The most negative thing that was done to him was that they found him to have violated the Code. If there was a punishment, he seems to have found it less doleful than the finding itself and the process by which it came about.
That's understandable, but to me it also seems to illustrate the reason we're having this. He felt persecuted by their words. They were unkind to him, and it left him "shattered".
CoCs calling for "kindness" are put into place precisely because words have such power to harm. That vagueness makes them prone to abuse as well, but the sentiment on this thread seems to be, "Because this has the potential to harm me it must be stopped, but the kinds of harms that I could inflict on other people the same way are unimportant and do not need to be addressed."
I'm sorry he was treated this way; this doesn't seem to have been handled well. It's hard to deal with situations where multiple people are experiencing the "low emotional resilience" he cites (both himself and the apparent fragility of the person who reported him). But I think it's important to recognize that there are many "oppression tools", so it's worth reconsidering who has them even without a CoC, and how they can be countered.
From what i can tell there was no punishment, he opted out of the process before the "next steps" phase. Or in other words, the process itself was the punishment-- being called in front of a tribunal and scolded by strangers.
You realise conference organisers can do the very same thing _without_ a code of conduct, right? That a code of conduct can be used as an "oppression tool" doesn't mean that its absence doesn't lead to even more "oppression". If you want to compare the relative merit of two things, like having a code or not, you need to consider both sides rather than just point out the perceived downsides of one.
I'm curious how you think they would achieve the same without a Code of Conduct, the acquired public support and the pseudo-court-system that comes with it.
Would you accept (or would one even send) an ad-hoc post-conference invite to 'talk about something you did wrong and how you should be punished' from a committee member?
Exertion of power does not require a pseudo-court-system and it can be exerted in the furtherance of fairness just as much as in its hindrance (people are also punished because there's _no_ enforcement of some behaviour). Again, to discuss whether something is worth doing or not, you have to consider all the upsides and all the downsides of doing it as well as those of not doing it.
If they do it without, they have to own the decision. The CoC provides plausible deniability that it was personal.
It also makes it less likely to actually be personal. I don't think anyone claims that due process is always free of bias and error, but that doesn't make it more likely to be more biased.
Well, that is a take. It feels like it must be exhausting to have that take, and I certainly don't share it, but I acknowledge that it is one.
It is not a take. It's an objective description of what a CoC is and how it is designed to be used. There is no way around it. At all. I'm surprised you feel the need to turn a blind eye to this fact.
Let's put it differently: without it's oppressive and persecutory function, what's the point of a CoC? To make it even simpler to you, what do you expect if someone in a community is deemed in direct violation of a CoC?
Like any other system of laws, a code of conduct necessarily restricts the boundaries of what one individual is allowed to do in order to ensure there is a safe space for others. When used correctly, instead of inhibiting the free exchange of ideas, a CoC helps keep participants in an open and receptive mindset instead of a closed and defensive one.
Acknowledging that people come from different backgrounds or belief systems where norms and customs are different, a good code of conduct offers a concise and easy-to-understand set of core expectations that the participants in a community agree to follow, along with a mechanism for reporting and curing violations when they occur. Curing violations should typically involve helping members learn and adopt better ways to communicate their ideas and interact with others, rather than shaming or punishing them for lacking these skills or for having a bad day.
As a gross example, a functioning code of conduct should make the difference between someone saying “I don’t understand why anyone would believe X”, which is an open statement that invites thoughtful discussion, versus “X is stupid and anyone who believes it is an idiot”, which is a closed statement that triggers fighting instead. Or, it should make the difference between someone making sexual advances at a professional conference because they think it’s what the other person wants, versus someone not engaging in that behaviour—even if they still think that—because it’s outside of the norms listed in the code of conduct.
It is certainly the case that codes of conduct are sometimes abused to create cultural echo chambers[0]. This isn’t because the concept of a code of conduct is flawed; rather, it is often (in my experience) because people adopt CoCs without having the knowledge and skill necessary to administer them. When this happens, the CoC can become a mechanism for suppressing disagreement instead of a mechanism for creating a healthy environment where ideas and relationships can thrive _despite_ disagreement.
[0]
https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/10/idea-labs-echo-chambers.html
In general I agree with your point that communities often need _some_ sort of guard rails to ensure that they can stay productive, especially as a community grows.
I think the challenge is in enforcement. A code of conduct should be a measure of last resort. In your example:
> a functioning code of conduct should make the difference between someone saying “I don’t understand why anyone would believe X”, which is an open statement that invites thoughtful discussion, versus “X is stupid and anyone who believes it is an idiot”, which is a closed statement that triggers fighting instead.
I don't think that the code of conduct should be invoked the first time someone steps a bit onto the side of expressing something in a hostile way. When collages are in the process of solving real problems, and getting real work done, it can be the case that disagreements occasionally get heated. If someone steps a bit over the line in terms of how they express themselves in such a disagreement, the first response should be for a colleague to put the metaphorical hand on the shoulder and invite the offender to reign it in a bit, equal-to-equal, rather than invoking the authority of the CoC right away. If someone repeatedly demonstrates abusive behavior, then it makes sense to escalate this to a matter of community governance.
It's certainly not ideal if people express themselves in a hurtful or inflammatory way, but if everyone is self-censoring for fear of punishment, it can negatively affect the quality of work that gets done.
You inadvertently proved a point here on misuse of code of conducts.
Declaring that “X is stupid and anyone who believes it is an idiot” without any discriminatory intent is definitely in bad taste, but should _absolutely not_ be grounds for a CoC violation or any kind of punishment, other than "your talks are obnoxious and we're not going to be inviting you or accepting your papers anymore".
Hm, and me I thought most of them were just a way to assure newcomers that your project wasn't going to allow racist trolling on the mailing list.
My take is that the problem with this code of conduct was that it was dumb. I want to recommend to you the degree to which it is easy and relaxing to just acknowledge that and move on, maybe with a note or two about what not to do in any code of conduct you write. It seems --- I could be wrong, I started today _confidently_ wrong about bay leaves --- like the alternative is an exhausting vigilance about conspiracies to control and persecute. Even if you're right, nobody is going to believe you, so what's the point in letting your pulse quicken?
> racist trolling on the mailing list
Is this a widespread problem in software-related communities? I'm genuinely asking, because if it is maybe I am just not aware of it, but for example in the open-source projects I have been involved with the conversations tend to be extremely focused on the subject matter, and I'm not even aware of the race or gender of the people I'm conversing with.
I have never encountered this in 23 years of participating in open source projects of all kinds.
20 years back (in Debian) there was some banter on the mailing lists, but never of that nature. It was mainly jokes about women. The community was primarily of young males, and that did stop as more women got involved. However, I should state for completeness that none of it was anything that anyone should have been banned over; sometimes a joke was just a joke, before humour was effectively outlawed lest anyone get even slightly offended.
I don't think so. I have never seen it happen in my 10 years in open source.
If you've never seen racist trolling on GitHub, maybe it's because you're not looking rather than that it doesn't happen
The laziest of Google searches quickly found people being racist on GitHub (... to a GitHub employee! With their own, non anonymous accounts!):
https://www.tinykat.cafe/on-all-that-fuckery
(This incident also made it to hn iirc, but maybe you didn't read it that day)
I don't think anyone was suggesting that it literally has never happened, so much as that it's very, very rare. Moreover, that kind of behavior would get you banned irrespective of any CoC, so the question remains: what does a CoC add here?
> I have never seen it happen in my 10 years in open source
Seems like a very generous reading of what the person I'm specifically responding to said
I don’t see how you can possibly think that. Saying that you’ve never experienced something is not a claim that no one has ever experienced that thing. Mine is not a generous interpretation, but rather I’m not going out of my way to infer some nefarious subtext.
I think the problem is essentially this: if you're a white male, you may essentially never experience or see racism / sexism in tech.
If you are a woman or black or ... you will very likely experience sexism or racism. You will probably also _see_ more, because you are used to identifying it.
If you say "a third [1] of the people in this group experience a bad thing" I would say that's pretty wide-spread.
The OP was specifically saying "it's not widespread, I've never seen it" [2]
I'm not trying to claim there's a nefarious subtext. I'm not saying the op is sexist or racist. I'm just trying to point out that a lot of people experience this, and one of the stated goals of CoCs in open source or at conferences is to help combat it. I think that's a good thing, and while you or perhaps others have pointed out that a community _could_ combat such negative behavior without a CoC, the CoC does give some indication of how such behavior will be dealt with (before I join the community/attend the conference), which can increase my confidence recommending a conference or increase someone else's confidence attending (or participating in an open source community etc)
[1]
https://psmag.com/news/sexism-in-the-tech-industry
[2] not a real quote so please correct me if it's way off, I'm being lazy
Also, I know they were referring to open source - maybe they've seen workplace sexism etc and were specifically excluding that. In that case I'm definitely misquoting and apologize
I'm just speaking for myself, but in terms of the open-source projects I have been a part of, communication either happens over a mailing list, or a discourse forum. A lot of the time you only know the people you're interacting with as a screen name, so you don't even know their race or gender. And 100% of the content of the discussion is either _purely_ technical in nature (e.g. how do I use this API feature, what JSON structure is expected etc) or is something operational like the timelines and priorities of the project.
It's just hard to imagine how racism or sexism would enter into to a community like this because the race and sex of the participants is not known, and you're not even discussing races or genders at all, heck you're generally not discussing people at all.
To be fair, the article in question is not about a software project, it's about an individual who is using github as a food blog being trolled using the github collaboration features. It's an example of horrible online behavior, but I don't think it's relevant to OSS communities.
I can understand how you might think that code repos are different from other social media sites.
However, they aren't. They require moderation because people are rude even when not anonymous.
Here's a quote from the vscode repo moderators:
> We deleted a handful of comments which we deemed too offensive to leave as-is (foul language, racist remarks, etc.). We also deleted a few issues that were overwhelmingly offensive. Unfortunately, that resulted in some non-offensive comments within those issues being deleted as well.
https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/87440
Surely you can't continue to claim that open source communities do not suffer from such issues, now, right?
I'm not saying that open source communities are not in need of moderation. Of course they are, like any online community. Basically every open online forum is vulnerable to vulgar, hateful and abusive content being posted. The point this sub-thread is referring to, is that CoC's are there as:
> a way to assure newcomers that your project wasn't going to allow racist trolling on the mailing list
_This_ is what seems a bit funny to me, because I would take it for granted that racist remarks would not be tolerated as a matter of course. It doesn't seem to me that you need a CoC to enforce this.
And I would repeat that in my personal experience, having been involved with OSS discussions for over 10 years, I have never personally encountered this.
Of course you don't need a CoC to enforce anything! You can moderate aggressively without one.
What it does is sets expectations. It sets expectations for everyone involved in any interactions. In general, this should give you confidence that there will be some moderation or recourse if you experience rude behavior. That may allow some people who have been burned by ruder communities to be willing to give yours a try.
In the c++ community[1] someone did just publicly announce that they were tired of the hostility so... yes
https://thephd.github.io/the-community#
[1] if you think this is "just a c++ problem" you're going to be very disappointed
What are the author's actual complaints about the C++ community? Maybe I am lacking context, but it's extremely difficult for me to understand it by reading this blog post.
It's super inside baseball, sorry
Background:
The boost community has managed to lose a large number of very technically proficient people who were tired of dealing with racism/sexism
JeanHeyd came to prominence a few years ago with some stellar open source libraries and gave some pretty good conference talks & joined the c++ committee.
Throughout his continued work in the c++ community, he ran into a _lot_ of... unnecessary, non-technical feedback.
At some point, he got fed up with it all and created this.
Within the c++ community there are people who are known to be particularly toxic, fwiw, and some of this is calling them out specifically.
I think everyone who has attended a committee meeting knows who/what he is talking about.
There's also an additional bit, where he managed a discord server for one of his open source projects. When discussing Black Is Tech, he got racist pushback.
Hopefully this helps add a little bit of context.
I don't think it's too important to understand the details. The tl;dr is that an extraordinary developer, speaker, committee member left the community because he found it to be hostile
That's a fact, and it's one engineers should be reckoning with. Your actions matter.
> [CoC are] a way to assure newcomers that your project wasn't going to allow racist trolling on the mailing list.
The implication being that every project without an established code of conduct is awash with racism?
Exhausting vigilance about conspiracies _indeed_.
Did you skip over the word 'assure'? The implication is that other projects aren't performing that particular assurance.
Problems such as a plague of racist jokes aren't omnipresent, but they show up often enough in the world that a little signpost at the front door about expectations can help with first impressions and understanding the community.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but is the idea that--apart from a CoC--people might venture into a community thinking racist jokes are okay?
A lot of people will venture in thinking that _maybe_ they're okay here, and they'll find out later.
If this were a signpost along the lines of "employees must wash hands", then there would be no problem. Of course employees should wash their hands.
The problem is the weaponization against random people for obscure reasons. The blog poster here didn't make a presentation full of racist jokes, it's not even clear _what_ they did.
Lawful evil anti-social people exist in the world, we shouldn't let them bully people just because they're waving a rainbow flag while doing so.
The implication being that the coc gives clear guidance on what to do if it does happen
Fun straw man though
Apropos of nothing related, I want to know: What, exactly, were you confident yet wrong about in regards to bay leaves?
Someone asked on Twitter what, if any, flavor bay leaves had. I repeated advice I'd heard: supermarket bay leaves are bad, so just add a lot of them. Then I acted on another piece of advice: if you want to know what bay leaves taste like, steep them in water and taste the water. I did. Bay leaves are disgusting. Nobody should add more of them to anything.
Using more than one entire bay leaf is often too much. Is a strong spice. Is poisonous in big amounts but half a leaf here and there adds a nice flavor.
On the other hand, I had seen americans before to mistake bay leaves and cherry laurel. Specially when trying to harvest leaves in gardens. Don't do that. They look similar but cherry laurel contains cyanide.
It's a funny take. Have you tried oregano|paprika|basil|salt|pepper flavored tea? You'll end up not seasoning your food at all :)
Bay leaves work their magic in stews, especially beans. Not much else. (I absolute hate licorice btw).
What you're saying is true, but consider this also: America's Test Kitchen made identical versions of a bunch of recipes with identical ingredients on identical equipment simultaneously, and with no exceptions, the tasting panel preferred the ones containing bay leaves, but interestingly, they couldn't state exactly why.
This here is more interesting than everything else in the thread. IIRC ATK is a TV show so I presume the experiment wasnt particularly rigorous, but it's still neat to learn.
I wouldn't recommend making tea out of most herbs, including uncontroversial staples like basil and oregano. Doesn't mean they don't add useful flavors in the right dishes.
Wrong twice in one day, amazing.
Many spices and sauces are not good if you do this, I submit Fish Sauce for your consideration.
i should object to this strenuously as someone with mediterranean heritage, but this is absolutely not the bay leaf take i was expecting and i have to admit that astrigency you hate is like the whole point and i would never eat one by itself so i am torn here.
Ha. I saw the saw the start of that conversation on Twitter. I didn’t know you went ahead and ran an experiment. Hilarious. Good work. They definitely add bitter/dark tones.
It’s not a objective description. It’s a subjective one. You’re describing the intent of other people, which is really your interpretation of their intent.
Yes in some cases there are bad things in this world that are promulgated and promoted under the guise of being good. Learning to recognize those bad things for what they are instead of naively accepting their self-serving sanguine explanations is part of being a developed adult.
You write this as if it's insight, as if maybe it's the first time it's occurred to the reader that "good" things can be bad. We all know that. It's the sentences that come after that thought that have meaning.
I don't think it's particularly insightful. I'm just stating it since it doesn't seem to occur to most adults these days.
Certainly it is interesting to consider the set of circumstances that give victimhood and fragility such power to those who claim it.
That's quite the inversion. It is interesting that the people who focus so much on the analysis of hierarchies to the point where they see them everywhere and assert the unjustness of hierarchy qua hierarchy end up just inverting these hierarchies and using their power to tyrannize other people.
What does that say about the people that allow them to do that?
> Well, that is a take. It feels like it must be exhausting to have that take, and I certainly don't share it, but I acknowledge that it is one.
That's the kind of comment to which dang would usually say something like:
"Your comment would be fine without the snark. Would you mind reading the guidelines before commenting again?
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
"
But, of course, Mr. Ptacek has 330,000 karma points. Every community has its elite. (Funny that this happens on a thread about rules and enforcement.)
> This is a CoC working exactly as it's supposed to work. By design.
> There is absolutely no other use for a CoC. This is precisely what they were created for.
> There is absolutely no other use for a CoC. This is precisely what they were created for. This is no accident or mistake.
I run groups that use a CoC and I assure you that they aren't supposed to work like this, weren't created for this and it is a mistake if they are.
> There is absolutely no other use for a CoC.
Sure there is. It's a good way to keep racist and sexist trolling and harrassment out of talks.
Frankly, and you should be careful of not becoming too cynical about it, I think there are people that want to build their ego with fighting sexism and racism through penalizing others. And if there isn't anything obvious to be found, smaller and smaller infractions are used as an excuse to exclude other people. They want to play cop on the internet.
> And if there isn't anything obvious to be found, smaller and smaller infractions are used as an excuse to exclude other people. They want to play cop on the internet.
This sounds terrible and I guess I'll have to modify our CoC to deal with it when it occurs.
OTOH, we've had frequent cases of sexual harassment (primarily men hitting on women at events) and a CoC has been extremely useful in dealing with those situations.
> OTOH, we've had frequent cases of sexual harassment (primarily men hitting on women at events) and a CoC has been extremely useful in dealing with those situations.
This seems like a pretty reasonable use for a CoC in my view--flirting isn't ubiquitously taboo (unlike racism, trolling, or overt sexual harassment) nor should it be, but it's understandable that a community would prefer to just prohibit it outright and set that expectation clearly up front.
CoCs should focus narrowly on this kind of thing (of course, without giving the impression that these are the _only_ offenses that a person might be kicked out for), and proponents of CoCs should talk about this. Instead, much of this thread is talking about racist trolling, as though CoCs are necessary or sufficient for dissuading a racist troll (everyone understands racism is unacceptable; if you're motivated to cross that line anyway, a CoC isn't going to deter you).
This happens to be a case where the adsurdity of using CoC to silence criticism is quite clear, as no “minority” is involved (right?). If the exact same thing happened but the criticized party played the minority card, or someone played it for them — in this case the criticized party don’t even care, I dare say it would immediately become much more controversial.
Heck, I once shared such a story and got labeled, with zero evidence, as someone “who like to casually throw around homophobic slurs”:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21173970
Thankfully the community flagged that attack.
This instance is BS
How does this instance suddenly being thrown into gender and pronoun political correctness ?
> The thing HN likes to do best with any story is to generalize it and find sweeping conclusions.
This is what intelligent people do. They recognize patterns and extrapolate. At this point the vast majority of people have experienced variations of what this guy has gone through.
In my own experience I have seen the exact same pattern of behavior in a slack community set up for my town.
> This is one of those posts where the title is going to trigger a lot of unproductive subthreads,
They seem quite productive to me. This sort of pathological behavior is increasingly common and finally people are willing and able to talk about it in public.
> This is what intelligent people do. They recognize patterns and extrapolate.
Any level of intelligence does this. How well one extrapolates varies, and extrapolation is always eventually wrong.
If we were to let that be a showstopper we would only have scientific hypothesis in place of scientific theories.
Consult the search bar below to disabuse yourself of the notion that "intelligent people" have had any trouble discussing their qualms about codes of conduct until now.
I can assure you that speaking out against CoCs under your real name in a professional context can be quite difficult. The people who tend to create, promote, and defend CoCs tend to engage in incredibly Kafkaesque and pathological behavior as a matter of course.
As far as HN goes, I use the term "intelligent" quite loosely but one of the hallmarks of intelligence is pattern recognition.
> I can assure you that speaking out against CoCs under your real name in a professional context can be quite difficult.
Christ I wish.
Maybe it's not what's being said but how it's being said. And, the irony of your bit about intelligence is that you're critiquing an instance of pattern recognition. ;)
> Maybe it's not what's being said but how it's being said.
This is the kind of rhetoric I'm referring to when I say Kafkaesque. These people derive power from being victims so if they are given this benefit of the doubt you are granting them where the onus is on some person to walk on eggshells lest that person upset the perpetually upset these perpetual victims will of course announce they are upset and victimized no matter what is said, thus fending off any attack.
Kafka would be proud.
You know it's possible for us to just disagree about things, right?
"Agreeing to disagree" is the easy way out of an argumentation. I think the parent is right in that having to worry so much about how others see things is unproductive and toxic. There's such a diversity of sensitivities, having to cater to all of them is a fool's errand.
Yes of course but in this case you're just wrong. This is a very well documented pattern of behavior at this point. Fortunately you're not my boss or colleague and so you can continue to promulgate these structures that cause a lot of misery and distress and lost productivity and I will continue to avoid being subject to them.
There's no "but". You feeling that I'm "just wrong" is what disagreement is. You don't have to drag Kafka into it. He's got better things to do.
I've been scrolling through the comments, and this whole place seems like a mad house. Everyone's got their own theory on what's "Destroying society/America/the world/the Internet" and are foaming in the mouth convinced that their pet idea is the right one...
agreed. it deserves a response of "this is true, code of conducts need to be done thoughtfully and well" but can expect a response of "this proves babies should be discarded with bath water"
If the U.S. accidentally bombs a civilian caravan when trying to bomb terrorists isn't the critique "we should stop trying to bomb terrorists" equally as valid as "we should be more careful where we drop bombs".
The article explicitly argues CoC's should be done better, but it's also a story of collateral damage. The author might believe these issues are infrequent and a non-issue but not all the readers share this belief and I don't think there is anything wrong with that reaction.
I think extending the metaphor to bombs is a bit much. It's more like if the U.S. accidentally bombs a civilian caravan and the response is "we should stop trying to assassinate terrorists" in other countries.
I wouldn't call that an "invalid" opinion or critique, and again I would think it's an expected reaction. But it would be overly broad, based _solely_ on that incident. Of course we don't exist in a vacuum, so I'd expect that other information would be brought in to support such an argument. Fair enough.
However, an argument that draws an isomorphic relationship between the ability to target a document and the ability to target a bomb is probably attempting to draw outside the lines.
(Particularly since in this case, it's equivalent to the victim of the bombing being the one who is reporting on the incident and quite clearly stating despite what they've been through "I support the thoughtful bombing of terrorists, but that is not what happened in this case.")
Hang about. The metaphor is more like this:
> It's more like if the U.S. accidentally bombs a civilian caravan and the response is "this shows why we should not have foreign policy.”
Without a CoC, this exact situation could have happened, but it just would be "your talk was removed for making people uncomfortable." The CoC just adds a layer of indirection, and in this case a rather non-sensical one, since "making people uncomfortable" isn't a CoC violation under the NumFOCUS CoC.
I don't know where I stand on CoCs in general, but saying "See this is why CoCs are bad" is like saying "See this is why we shouldn't punish someone for murder" when someone gets thrown in jail for murder and all parties agree that that the person did not kill anyone (though one side claims that what they did was still "murder").
I think the idea is that codes of conduct create the apparatus - meaning the committees and procedures, that caused this to happen. If this happened in a no-CoC universe, Jeremy gets the call that this talk made some people uncomfortable and they've taken down the talk and he reposts it on his website with a shrug.
Perhaps you should ask Violet Blue what she thinks of Valerie Aurora's "excellent" training:
http://www.securitybsides.com/w/page/35868077/BSidesSanFranc...
I based my judgement of that deck on reading the deck, and I really don't care what Violet Blue thinks about anything at all.
> The thing HN likes to do best with any story is to generalize it and find sweeping conclusions.
So, like reddit?
I've never seen a CoC used to help protect a community, only to protect certain already powerful members within a community and give them a tool with which to beat others.
Lately I've been actively avoiding giving my time to open source projects that have CoC's like the Contributor Covenant[1], mainly because - if my experience is anything to go by - they are a strong signal that the kind of people I wish to avoid will be involved. I want to contribute things that (hopefully) improve the world in objective ways, not be involved in the wrangling and petty politics of a fiefdom just so I can get something like a bug report _considered_.
If I had to choose one CoC to implement, it would be NCoc[2].
[1]
https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/2/0/code_of_con...
[2]
https://github.com/domgetter/NCoC
I've been wondering about this. Obviously there's a demand for CoCs coming from somewhere, or there wouldn't be a supply of them. What is driving this demand?
Is this demand driven by good intentions? By a genuine desire to improve diversity? To attract those who might otherwise feel less safe?
Is this demand driven by a "fear of being left out" because big names in tech are setting an example?
Is this demand entirely artificial, driven by power hungry people wallowing in self importance?
I don't have any answers here. I'm just curious. I can certainly agree with wanting to help rid the world of sexism and racism. I'm not sure whether a tech conference or open source project is the best forum for that change.
It would be interesting to see if there's any evidence that these CoCs improve diversity of any sort, the lack of which is partly why I'm against them, but mainly because of the division I've seen them sow.
As to their intentions, I'm not sure they're that relevant (I'm sure they'd _believe_ they were good intentions anyway), but I think _our_ intentions are. They say "we want to increase diversity" and "we want to end sexism and racism", so in comes a "kind" CoC, and because the majority do have good intentions and share these laudable goals there is agreement, forgetting that famous old adage "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions" and before you know it the definitions of racism and sexism have been changed to a point that vilifies the majority and a small group are wielding outsized power via terms and conditions that we all signed.
I've a feeling it mirrors the culture wars[1] on social media, and even contains some of the same members of the 12% minority cited there.
[1]
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24894248
My hypothesis: a minority of adults with poor judgement cause legitimate problems. Organizers react appropriately and remove the person. Being expelled is scary! This person, or others fearing the same, ask "what rule did they break, is this rule applied fairly?". And the easiest way to make it less scary is to publish "rules".
If it isn't obvious that the person is a bigger problem than everyone else yet still get kicked out then the community isn't a place I'd like to be in. Either it is full of shitty people or people get kicked out for dubious reasons.
More hypothesis: Not all big problems are obvious. Perhaps I saw person 1 touch person 2's bottom, and person 1 was never seen again. If organizers resolved the situation quietly, and the casual observer doesn't have context (was the bottom touching consentual?) that could lead to uncertainty. Perhaps: I like touching bottoms (with consent), is /that/ going to get me kicked out? (Work: yes. Dance: no)
If you can accept that a small portion of adults have judgement poor enough to cause big problems, then it doesn't seem like a big leap to accept that another larger portion of adults have judgement at a level which lacks confidence to trust assumptions in uncomfortable, high risk situations. Perhaps this is the group served by CoC?
I have seen it demanded basically as lipservice to an odd idea of justice. "Well, it's very easy to add, and there are some good ones, and X,Y and Z have it, and only a monster wouldn't adopt one!"
And then you start listing some of the issues that arise with these and defenders quickly respond that the problems are edge cases and usually the conversationd devolves from there.
My impression is that it's a mix of bad faith and misunderstanding by those pushing it (a lot are bad faith and know they just want a tool to give themselves power, but others believe that it's a good idea and are ignorant of the former, very forgiving when they see examples of their usage, "this is an individual mistake, it's not systemic in coc" etc), and a general attitude of "what's the harm in saying we expect everyone to be kind" on the side of maintainers agreeing to adopt them.
> Obviously there's a demand for CoCs coming from somewhere
It's coming from SJW's and similar far leftists who virtue signal. Yet people keep pandering to them, and now they're paying the price.
One of the things I find useful is when the project includes a list of active contributors along with their general responsibilities. If the project is relatively small yet includes multiple "full time" moderators I know that it's not a project worth my time. At the extreme end I've come across projects where moderators outnumber active developers.
NCoc is a bit too edgy for my liking.
The actual CoC is fine, but the FAQ breaks things down.
> improve the world in objective ways
Not to get all relativist, but "improve" and "objective" in the same sentence is quite the oxymoron. Ask any two randomly picked people in the world how to improve said world and you'll find they have very different, subjective, ideas of what that means.
I think the best approach is not to include any "code of conduct" at all in a project.
If you haven't yet: I think both talks are very worth watching:
I don't like notebooks (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jiPeIFXb6U
) by Joel Grus
I like notebooks (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q6sLbz37gk
) by Jeremy Howard
notebooks are a very interesting medium and they have both shortcomings as well as things they are great at and neither were totally obvious to me.
I feel like I am doing things "wrong" on an almost daily basis when writing code. It is probably a pretty universal feeling. Should I put my business logic in a database, application code, front end JavaScript, or even a notebook? There is no ideal solution. Tell me I am wrong and I will probably agree with you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q6sLbz37gk&feature=youtu.be...
is the specific section that seems to have been judged as "unkind".
To me, that seems like a massive over-reaction or massively uncharitable interpretation of the talk focused on a single point of disagreement, which was done quite respectfully from what I watched.
Why is this comment, and not the culture war nonsense, not at the top of the page?
Having watched Howard's talk, clearly he's right and the conference was wrong. This was respectful and appropriate, period. Someone clearly had an axe to grind about a separate topic.
That said, some of the comments here are just off the wall paranoia, and really distasteful. I mean, look: while it was enforced badly it's certainly not innapropriate for a conference to demand, y'know, that it's speakers not be assholes. There was a real and pretty awful culture in the open source world about this stuff for a long time, and it's a good thing that we're cleaning that up.
Using CoC's to backstab people is not going to end well. Using CoC's to institute a heirarchy of 'who can criticize who' is going to be rebelled against.
Some people are power hungry and use words to get power. They are exposing themselves in the silliest ways. Pure vanity.
> Using CoC's to backstab people is not going to end well.
But that's their only usecase, isn't it?
CoCs are just a convenient document aimed at helping out Cardinal Richelieus finding ways to hang you under the guise of breaking acceptable conduct.
I mean, CoCs aren't aimed at changing people and make everyone nice. CoCs are aimed at providing a basis to persecute those who arguably don't comply with a given notion of acceptable conduct, punish them for their sins, and turn them into examples to enforce a chilling effect on the community.
This example shows a CoC working exactly as it was intended to work.
People have turned a blind eye to the oppressive and abusive nature of the CoC concept because they tend to believe that it can only ever oppress those we deem undesirable. But unless you're the one doing the oppression, nothing ensures that the rules only apply to those you don't like.
> But that's their only usecase, isn't it?
I thought they were used to codify acceptable and unacceptable conduct.
They don't have to be that way. I admit that many of them are just that sort of thing. But they _can_ be tools to communicate to good-faith actors that they will be welcome and safe.
I think part of the problem is that most CoCs are copy-paste jobs. They're put in place as a matter of fashion. What they really need to be is a statement on the commitments of the leadership. And they are meaningless if the leadership is not trained on those commitments.
> They don't have to be that way.
They really have, because that's the sole reason they exist.
It's like arguing that a oppressive totalitarian regime doesn't have to oppress their citizens.
> (...) they can be tools to communicate to good-faith actors that they will be welcome and safe.
CoCs aren't welcoming letters. CoCs are designed with the express purpose of letting you know that you will be punished if you do or say anything that the leader's deem unacceptable, and to be used as the basis for persecuting and punishing you if you still fail to fall in line and comply with the leadership's will.
Hell, you don't need to communicate to anyone that they can and will be safe. Either that's already implied, or means nothing if you don't plan to act on it. In fact, it's patently wrong that the goal is safety. It is not. The goal is compliance and submissiveness.
> Either that's already implied,
A very large group of people have stated many times that that is not the case. They do not feel safe. It's continued assertions that bludgeoning people is the sole reason CoCs exist that make those people feel like they are being completely ignored.
> or means nothing if you don't plan to act on it
That is literally what I said. "And they are meaningless if the leadership is not trained on those commitments."
_A very large group of people have stated many times that that is not the case. They do not feel safe_
But what does that even mean in the context of an open source project? How is anyone actually “unsafe” from someone who may be on another continent and have no idea where they live? The word “unsafe” doesn’t mean anything any more, it’s just used to silence debate. “I feel unsafe so you should merge my PR without doing any code review” is what they mean.
> The word “unsafe” doesn’t mean anything any more
An alternate possibility is that you don't understand what people mean when they say they feel unsafe. Do you feel you have invested effort into empathizing with these concerns, or would you say your are more dismissive?
_An alternate possibility is that you don't understand what people mean when they say they feel unsafe._
That is a possibility, but it’s unreasonable to expect that a person can redefine a common word in their own mind and expect everyone else to telepathically know what they “mean”. Especially in a primarily text based medium.
> it’s unreasonable to expect that a person can redefine a common word in their own mind
I mean, the word is used a lot. You even referenced it being commonly used. Have you tried to understand it?
I for one refuse to play this game anymore. I don't want to be part of a game where words can be arbitrarily redefined by one party to mean exactly what they want it to mean now.
It is enough now.
And this is coming from someone who wasn't allowed to play in the schoolyard as a child, someone who was knocked in the head by an older classmate, got beaten etc while teachers looked the other way. This went on until I learned to fight back and I got a teacher who didn't care that I was outgroup and stood up for me.
My mind and body knows a bit about this and I'm confident that what we are seing here isn't a solution rather than extremists making things worse.
It's clear you've had experiences that have caused you to feel unsafe at times in your life. What's stopping you from having empathy for people that feel that way currently?
One aspect of this newfangled definition of safe is that women can feel confident existing in a space without fear of being sexually harassed. Is that worth considering? Is that a political game?
> It's clear you've had experiences that have caused you to feel unsafe at times in your life. What's stopping you from having empathy for people that feel that way currently?
That the current approach is playing right into the hands of the bullies.
Or do you think it is the awkward ones who are sitting on the CoC tribunal?
As far as I can see this is yet another place for the socially and politically strong ones to get their way.
> One aspect of this newfangled definition of safe is that women can feel confident existing in a space without fear of being sexually harassed. Is that worth considering? Is that a political game?
I'm absolutely fine with women feeling safe. In fact there are at least a couple of women around who are thankful because I have fixed them a job or something. (To be clear, I help everyone, not only women.)
It is absolutely worth considering such things, which is why we (at least were I live) have laws against such things, and also why I am in favour of those laws.
What I am not in favour of is independent kangaroo courts popping up everywhere, making up rules as they go, combining the role of judge, jury and executioner etc.
Kangaroo courts are for war, and even then only when there's no other option.
> Or do you think it is the awkward ones who are sitting on the CoC tribunal?
Would it be fair to say that you believe the majority of CoC reports are due to a misunderstanding of a well-intentioned behavior on the part of an awkward individual? If so, where does this idea come from?
> It is absolutely worth considering such things, which is why we (at least were I live) have laws against such things, and also why I am in favour of those laws.
To pursue something legally requires a formal legal process, evidence, lawyers, etc., and has strict penal consequences. Would you consider there is a need for a more informal process where the consequences is being kicked out of an event?
> I'm absolutely fine with women feeling safe.
But you aren't fine with an organization creating rules to help women feel safe. Why is it an abuse of power, acting as "judge, jury and executioner," to remove someone from an event or organization who causes women to feel uncomfortable?
Really, finding out where someone lives is not that hard, especially if they have a professional or social life. And you can do significant damage to someone's career without knowing where they live.
CoCs has made life scarier.
It wasn't until PyCon that I considered anyone could be for for a joke(?) told to a friend next to you, overheard by someone _who was supposed to be a developer advocate!_.
The PyCon incident had nothing to do with the code of conduct. They even added a rule against publicizing incidents before staff can investigate.
_overheard by someone who was supposed to be a developer advocate_
But not a developer themselves. The industry is overrun with these “tech-adjacent” roles that add only marginal value, if any. Members of this group seem to be the driving force behind CoCs.
No, CoCs are meant to clearly state that bigotry is unacceptable.
If you don't understand why it's necessary at times to clearly state what bigotry is, and why it's unacceptable, than you need to learn a bit more about diversity topics.
They (CoC)s shouldn't be used to play power games. It's totally appropriate to call out situations where a CoC is used incorrectly.
And yet they don't. I've never seen a CoC serve to effectively clarify what is or isn't bigotry. In fact they serve to make things murkier: people find it much easier to agree on whether someone's conduct was a priori acceptable than on whether it was or wasn't a CoC violation.
> No, CoCs are meant to clearly state that bigotry is unacceptable.
Oh really? This discussion is about someone that was persecuted and punished for violating a CoC. Do you see any bigotry involved in this story?
This discussion is about someone being punished by a committee for something that _wasn’t_ in the CoC, as you can read in the article.
No true scotsman.
I was personally bothered by this response.
Maybe it's worth looking at this comment:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24945750
May I ask why were you bothered by it?
I don't think that fits here.
It does.
According to Wikipedia, _No true Scotsman, or appeal to purity, is an informal fallacy in which one attempts to protect a universal generalization from counterexamples by changing the definition in an ad hoc fashion to exclude the counterexample.[1][2] Rather than denying the counterexample or rejecting the original claim, this fallacy modifies the subject of the assertion to exclude the specific case or others like it by rhetoric, without reference to any new specific objective rule or criterion: "no true Scotsman would do such a thing"; i.e., those who perform that action are not part of our group and thus criticism of that action is not criticism of the group._
Now, with this definition in mind, let's review the context of this discussion:
> Using CoC's to backstab people is not going to end well.
> But that's their only usecase, isn't it?
> No, CoCs are meant to clearly state that bigotry is unacceptable.
> Oh really? This discussion is about someone that was persecuted and punished for violating a CoC. Do you see any bigotry involved in this story?
> This discussion is about someone being punished by a committee for something that _wasn’t_ in the CoC, as you can read in the article.
So there was a debate about whether CoCs can be used as a weapon. gwbas1c rejected the idea that CoCs could be used as a weapon. barumi referenced OP article as a counter-example, to demonstrate an instance where a CoC was used as a weapon. pindab0ter then resorted to a "no true scotsman" fallacy to reject this counter-example. According to pindab0ter, this was not a "true" example of someone utilizing a CoC for attacking people, because the victim feels like they did not violate the CoC to an extent where such an attack was justified. This line of reasoning can be used to exclude all examples of people using a CoC as a weapon. After all, if someone feels like they violated a CoC and deserved their punishment, then they wouldn't characterize the situation as an "attack" in the first place.
gwbas1c did not reject the idea that CoCs could be used as a weapon. They rejected that is their only use case.
barumi referenced OP article as an example of CoC as a weapon.
pindab0ter argues this not a fault in the CoC itself per se, but in how it was enforced.
> pindab0ter argues this not a fault in the CoC itself per se, but in how it was enforced.
That's a rather charitable interpretation.
The context here was weaponization of CoCs, and OP article was referenced as an example of this weaponization. It seems very clear to me that spindab0ter was arguing that this is not an example of weaponizing the CoC.
Your alternative interpretation doesn't really resonate for me, because it sounds like a "no no, guys, there was nothing at fault in the CoC itself" to a subthread where _nobody_ claimed there was anything wrong with the contents of the CoC in the first place.
pindab0ter's idea, as I read it, is that no, CoCs are not inherently weapons to exclude people for no reason. They typically language about what constitutes bigotry. In the OP, yes, the CoC was weaponized, but it doesn't reflect a necessary fault in CoCs in general.
Edit: I'm not sure what is even meant by "weaponize." Is the implication that somebody at the conference had vendetta against OP? It's clear that CoCs give people more power, which is a weapon, in a sense. Would reporting someone for CoC violation for sexual misconduct at a conference be an example of weaponization?
> pindab0ter's idea, as I read it, is that no, CoCs are not inherently weapons to exclude people for no reason. They typically language about what constitutes bigotry. In the OP, yes, the CoC was weaponized, but it doesn't reflect a necessary fault in CoCs in general.
I don't think pindab0ter would agree with this interpretation. @pindab0ter, if you are still following the thread, can you clarify this with a yes/no answer: do you count the OP article as an example of CoC weaponization?
> I'm not sure what is even meant by "weaponize." Is the implication that somebody at the conference had vendetta against OP?
Yes.
> It's clear that CoCs give people more power, which is a weapon, in a sense. Would reporting someone for CoC violation for sexual misconduct at a conference be an example of weaponization?
Well, if you dislike someone's political views, and then you hatch a plan to make up fraudulent sexual misconduct allegations with the hope of "canceling" someone, I would describe that as "weaponizing" the CoC. But if the allegations are genuine and without ulterior motives, then I would not use that terminology.
> Yes.
Really? I thought it was more people being overly sensitive, and the enforcement team not using their brains. I think pindab0ter would agree that it was improper enforcement of the CoC. I'm not sure anybody can speak to the intentions of the people that reported it with certainty.
> Well, if you dislike someone's political views, and then you hatch a plan to make up fraudulent sexual misconduct allegations with the hope of "canceling" someone, I would describe that as "weaponizing" the CoC
Is that consistent with the thread? Are you arguing that the majority of CoC reports are outright lies? I thought this thread was about the use of CoC to enforce a code of behavior, and if stringent enforcement counts as misuse.
> I think pindab0ter would agree that it was improper enforcement of the CoC. I'm not sure anybody can speak to the intentions of the people that reported it with certainty.
Let's stop the speculation on what pindab0ter would or would not agree with. Clearly you and I interpret their message in completely different ways, so unless they want to come back to clarify their statement, let's just stop with the speculation.
> Is that consistent with the thread? Are you arguing that the majority of CoC reports are outright lies? I thought this thread was about the use of CoC to enforce a code of behavior, and if stringent enforcement counts as misuse.
Look, you asked me to define "weaponize" within a specific context. So I gave you 2 examples: one where I thought use of the term would be appropriate, and one where I thought the term would not be appropriate. I was trying to answer your question about the definition of a word, that's all. I have no idea what proportion of CoC reports are outright lies or half-truth motivated by hidden agendas.
Also, I don't like that you're trying to reframe OP's experience as "stringent enforcement". The case described in OP is clearly selective enforcement, which is pretty much the opposite of stringent.
pindab0ter said:
> This discussion is about someone being punished by a committee for something that wasn’t in the CoC, as you can read in the article.
I said:
> I think pindab0ter would agree that it was improper enforcement of the CoC
Does that seem like speculation? This thread is getting a little disjointed. We can't seem to agree on anything.
Yes, you are speculating that pindab0ter would think the enforcement action was related to the CoC, even though pindab0ter clearly said that the enforcement action was _not_ related to the CoC.
We already went over this; you interpret pindab0ter's message in an entirely different way than I do. When pindab0ter says "punished by a committee for something that _wasn’t_ in the CoC", you somehow interpret that as "improper enforcement of the CoC", whereas I interpret that as enforcement action _unrelated_ to the CoC.
Anyway, there's no point continuing this. I think it's pretty clear what pindab0ter was trying to say, but you have a completely different interpretation. Unless pindab0ter wants to come back and clarify, let's just stop this here.
> Yes, you are speculating that pindab0ter would think the enforcement action was related to the CoC
That's not what I said.
You seem to be focused on detailed differences in meaning but missing the thrust of these arguments. You claimed Scotsman fallacy to a perceived specific meaning of the sentence, but it didn't fit in context. In general you seem to be not aware of the contextual meaning of what anybody has said here.
> > Yes, you are speculating that pindab0ter would think the enforcement action was related to the CoC
> That's not what I said.
Yes it is, you literally just said "I think pindab0ter would agree that it was improper enforcement of the CoC". See, you said "enforcement of the CoC". As in, CoC was the thing that was being enforced. Now you're trying to claim that "enforcement" was not related to "the CoC" in that sentence? Wow.
If you took a random person off the street, showed them that sentence, and then asked "what was being enforced", any English speaking person would be able to identify "CoC" as the thing that was being enforced (albeit it was enforced improperly). So clearly, in that sentence, the enforcement action was in some way related to the CoC. I don't know what kind of mental gymnastics you're trying to pull by claiming that the sentence means something else.
> You seem to be focused on detailed differences in meaning but missing the thrust of these arguments. You claimed Scotsman fallacy to a perceived specific meaning of the sentence, but it didn't fit in context. In general you seem to be not aware of the contextual meaning of what anybody has said here.
Look, I was trying to be nice earlier when I said that you and I interpret pindab0ter's words in a different way, and that we should leave it at that. I don't actually think your interpretation is plausible. I think it's obvious to anyone who read the original comments in context, that pindab0ter didn't consider OP to be an example of "weaponizing a CoC". You can play word games all day long and talk down in a condescending tone, but I don't know what you're hoping to achieve with that.
> See, you said "enforcement of the CoC".
I said "improper enforcement of the CoC". As an example, "improper enforcement of the law" might suggest that something was enforced which wasn't the law. Is there a reason you're set on this interpretation of my words?
In this, and the Scotsman case, you seem to have chosen an interpretation fits your argument. I'm not sure this is a good way to carry on a conversation, though. This whole discussion was about whether pindab0ter made a valid point. It's not clear to me you are interested in understanding the point made. Maybe it's easier for you to label it as a fallacy. I know that's something I do frequently when I don't understand something -- assume it's incorrect.
> As an example, "improper enforcement of the law" might suggest that something was enforced which wasn't the law.
No, you can't keep making up new meanings for words. "Enforcement of the law" means that law was being enforced. When you add "improper" in the front of it, it means that law was being enforced improperly. For example, when a police officer harasses a person on the pretext of enforcing the law, that would be improper law enforcement.
> This whole discussion was about whether pindab0ter made a valid point. It's not clear to me you are interested in understanding the point made. Maybe it's easier for you to label it as a fallacy.
If pindab0ter wants to come here to clarify that they actually meant that OP is a valid example of enforcing a CoC, I will take their word for it. Otherwise, I'm not going to entertain "hidden meanings" for the words that they already spoke, I'm going to assume that they meant what they said.
> For example, when a police officer harasses a person on the pretext of enforcing the law, that would be improper law enforcement.
To be clear, in this example, the officer is enforcing a law that doesn’t exist.
> Otherwise, I'm not going to entertain "hidden meanings" for the words that they already spoke, I'm going to assume that they meant what they said.
Be honest with yourself.
> They (CoC)s shouldn't be used to play power games. It's totally appropriate to call out situations where a CoC is used incorrectly.
Yep, you wrote that above. But it doesn't help.
Ordinary people still get in trouble because others _enjoy_ being judge, jury and executioner.
Most CoCs state that discrimination based on religion is not acceptable, but don't mention political belief.
Both are opinions, and I honestly don't see why one would be bigotry, but not the other. Hence the only thing I conclude is that CoCs are actually about politics, but framed in a very nice way, pretending to be based on empathy and inclusion, making them very hard to object to.
CoCs are about politics to the extent that politics affects one's ability to be empathetic. If you believe that genetics cause women to perform worse in technical roles, that will be reflected in your social behavior.
To use an extreme example for the sake of discussion, would you similarly feel that excluding a skinhead with Swastika face tattoos from a scientific conference constitutes an unacceptable example of political oppression? If not, is it because they cause minoritized people to feel unsafe and unwelcome? Where do you believe the line should be drawn?
> If you believe that genetics cause women to perform worse in technical roles, that will be reflected in your social behavior.
Can you expand on this, explain the connection? In particular, why the former (belief) would influence the latter (behavior)?
I firmly believe, based on overwhelming evidence, that genetics makes most people perform terribly in technical roles. Fortunately, there are a few bright, above-average exceptions that perform amazingly. If someone proves they're competent, I'll treat them competently, but at the same time it doesn't make sense to assume that the average person could be anywhere _near_ competent.
Edit: answer to your second question: I try to be inclusive, I don't believe in drawing lines, at least not when it comes to belief (only behavior).
> Can you expand on this, explain the connection? In particular, why the former (belief) would influence the latter (behavior)?
It's not universally the case, to be sure. If you voice your belief that women are intellectually inferior, you will likely make them feel excluded. In general, there is a relationship between a person's beliefs and behaviors which I regard as self-evident.
> Edit: answer to your second question: I try to be inclusive, I don't believe in drawing lines, at least not when it comes to belief (only behavior).
People tend to act in accordance with their beliefs. I don't think I track your perspective. Do you really believe that, say, a person with white supremecist beliefs, again, as an extreme example, will generally act welcoming toward minorities? You seem to believe, well, as long as they don't explicitly disrespect someone, it's fine. But social behavior is a lot more subtle. People can tell if you hate them.
> People tend to act in accordance with their beliefs.
Professionals tend to act professionally. Just because most people are horny & sexual doesn't mean that they need to hump each other at work or at conferences. I expect professional behavior regardless of your personal beliefs. Now, _personally_ I'd prefer people to also _look_ professional (fully clothed, no religious symbols, ...) so I wouldn't necessarily disagree with such rules, but they're usually (as evidenced by this very OP) applied inconsistently, politically.
I think we're talking past each other. Would you be able to answer any of the questions I posed earlier?
> but they're usually (as evidenced by this very OP) applied inconsistently, politically
Do you have the impression OP was a political disagreement?
> Professionals tend to act professionally.
Yes, but people aren't robots. These are still human interactions between people. You develop personal relationships at conferences, or fail to. People with a hostile attitude toward minoritized groups, whether explicitly expressed or not, are going to make these people feel less welcome, and as a result, they will have a worse outcome at the conference.
There's a fine line.
In the US, we've usually had reasonable parties in power, so it really didn't matter what your politics were.
Now... Not so much; and it goes both ways, too. There are loonies on both sides of the aisle.
I've always seen CoCs as needed for situations where a conference has a transgender person and a "poorly socialized conservative." Or a Christian proudly wearing a cross and a "poorly socialized liberal." Situations are even simpler; it could be a conference with a female speaker and a man who still believes in strict gender roles.
Unfortunately, the above situations come down to "political belief."
That is such an American PoV. Plenty of places in the world have or have had political persecution. It is a very real issue in large parts of the world.
In general CoCs enforce a very American world view, one where I as a non-American do not feel welcome.
As another non-American I feel similarly which supports the hypothesis that CoCs are primary political instruments.
CoC's were created because SJW's needed to pretend that sex differences in open source contribution aren't caused by intrinsic sex differences.
Or maybe that's the naive explanation, and it's just to exercise power.
This new CoC trend is similar to some HOA (homeowners associations) horror stories where the people in charge of the HOA do so for the power trip as opposed to actually providing value.
Over the years, HN's userbase has made it clear most are unfamiliar with Wikipedia beyond surface level details. Folks on this site would probably be surprised how often this happens in the sausage factory there, too.
The big theme in all the most exasperating cases, whether to do with HOAs, CoC enforcement, or even the police seems to involve:
1. wide difference between rules as written and agreed to versus how they are applied
2. unchecked power for enforcers, who can flout punishment/scrutiny, as above, for reasons below
3. insufficient interest from parties not directly impacted
At least in the cases you mention (HOA or police) there is value in the service they provide and it only becomes a problem when they get overrun by people on a power trip.
On the other hand, the whole CoC thing feels like it was _created_ by people on a power trip, and/or as a virtue signalling instrument to appear "inclusive", and/or a convenient character assassination tool that can be selectively enforced. Keep in mind that "violation of the code of conduct" sounds much worse than "this person offended me/made me uncomfortable" even though in most cases they are used to refer to the same thing.
People for the most part know how to behave themselves, disagreements can be resolved in private between the involved parties and if someone keeps being a dick you just don't engage with them (note that a CoC will not change anything if the person intends to keep harassing their victim). We've been working fine like that, both online and in the real world without any _CoC_ (the law is enough to deal with actually serious cases).
A CoC doesn't add anything to people already acting in good faith (other than being a thing they can be "cancelled" about), but does nothing against a dedicated malicious actor who couldn't care less about it anyway.
Someone wanting to instigate drama and intentionally get offended must've said something about "inclusivity", everyone jumped on it as a virtue-signalling tool and now here we are.
To some degree, you are correct. But I believe you underestimate the amount of abuse and harassment that certain groups of people face in reality.
> We've been working fine like that, both online and in the real world without any CoC
I'm not sure what you consider "fine". Misogyny has been par for the course for a long time. Not to mention verbal degradation of e.g. ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. We have not suddenly removed these formerly accepted behaviors, even though things have gotten better.
It is possible that there really isn't a problem in communities you engage with, and that consequently their CoCs make little positive impact. But do you really know what kinds of inappropriate remarks e.g. women around you face? It is easy to dismiss anyone who had such negative experiences as a professional victim, but surely the world doesn't just consist of "perfectly reasonable and encompassing people that know better than to offend", "harassers that purposely ignore any community guidelines"?
In short: Yes, CoC creation and enforcement will naturally appeal to certain groups of people that have more personal motives than those of the community. The same is true of HOA, police, unions, workers' councils and so on. But please be careful to dismiss their usefulness due to this.
> you underestimate the amount of abuse and harassment that certain groups of people face
While I don't think this point is necessarily wrong, surely we can agree that in recent years there has been expansion of what is considered abuse. As with any push to change ideas, not everyone is on-board.
Is being subjected to a micro-aggression abuse? 20 years ago you'd only get a "yes" from a few activists / academics. Today you'll find a vocal (and growing) minority claiming it is a form of violence.
We don't all agree on the new rules, and CoCs are a method of making everyone follow them.
> surely we can agree that in recent years there has been expansion of what is considered abuse.
Indeed! See "Misogyny was par for the course". I understand that's not what you are getting at specifically, but the whole point is that just because it's been acceptable before doesn't mean that it's right.
> We don't all agree on the new rules, and CoCs are a method of making everyone follow them.
Exactly! The intent is to cause a change in behavior, and that's not going to happen if _everybody_ has to sign off on it. Most people don't like having to change their behavior.
Again, CoC enforcement is not without its flaws, and policing interpersonal interaction is never going to be a hard and fast thing. But CoCs give everyone tools to nudge behavior away from what is objectively causing (subjective) distress.
It’s been my general experience that this is why largely what CoC's end up actually being used for. Arbitrarily enforced and wielded as a weapon.
Exactly this. It's abuse (both of people, and of "the system"), pure and simple. This is _exactly_ why each passing day brings me a little bit more hatred of this entire "SJW" mentality and the people who support it. Can't go even one full day anymore without seeing some instance in the news of someone abusing these exact sorta "rules" to straight-up harass people. It's just the latest form of socially acceptable bullying is all it is...
I'm not familiar with the people involved, what's the hierarchy in this incident?
> Using CoC's to institute a heirarchy of 'who can criticize who' is going to be rebelled against.
Rebelled against? By whom? If you want to speak at this conference, you have to play by their rules or you won't get invited. Even if you do get invited, and you're not nice, you'll get humiliated and driven to tears. If there's going to be a rebellion, it's by would-be speakers at the conference, but that would be against their own interest: they like to speak at conferences, so they won't. So anyone who wants to speak at this conference will be turning a blind eye to this. Would-be attendees also won't be making a fuss, conferences with interesting speakers tend to attract large crowds. A handful of would-be rebels won't make any difference.
I support codes of conduct but this is EXACTLY the thing that opponents point to when they oppose them. I expected this post to be a rant against codes of conduct and instead it wound up leaving me wondering if NumFOCUS and JupyterCon was in the wrong here...this guy offered criticism and that is NOT a fucking violation of ANY CoC -- if you can't handle criticism, don't make public statements. The hilarious is that Joel Grus didn't care -- like what the hell...this is why sometimes I feel like proponents of CoCs are at times their own worst enemy when it comes to attaining wide support for them.
_I support codes of conduct but this is EXACTLY the thing that opponents point to when they oppose them._
Why don't you come to to the dark side and oppose codes of conduct then?
I consider the purported goals of codes of conduct to be laudable. But this kind of thing becomes inevitable when SJWs aka political correctness police get power through trying to enforce codes of conduct.
It isn't that sometimes proponents of CoCs are their own worst enemies. It is that there are people seeking power through CoCs who are honestly bad actors. And we shouldn't be putting people we can't trust into a position to control the speech of others.
Your argument as stated also applies to e.g. unions, police, workers' councils or any other place where individuals are elected to "protect" the group. And it is undeniable that these have overall improved the situations of these groups. The argument is flawed in that it does not consider the upsides of instituting them.
This does not mean that CoCs are unequivocally the best solution. But fully ignoring their benefits due to the potential for abuse is not inherently sound.
It can apply to those situations, but the fact that in those cases the people most likely to be affected have a voice in who gets chosen is an incentive to good behavior that is missing in this case.
If you're running a conference, you _APPOINT_ who will be deciding whether the CoC has been violated. If you appoint people who are not trusted by activists, you will face criticism from said activists. If you appoint people who are trusted by activists, you've appointed people who likely got ahead by getting activists fired up in the past. What they did in the past they will do in the future, and you've just given them the platform on which they will do it.
That's a catch-22 for the organizer, and a set of perverse incentives that makes it easy for the people I don't want to see in that position to get in that position.
Because this isn't a case of a codes of conduct being universally bad, but rather a case of one instance of it being bad. A GOOD code of conduct will be specific and lay out what is acceptable without vagueness.
Most people know what is or isn't acceptable through common sense. A racist or sexual assaulter isn't going to think "Wait, does this violate the code of conduct?"
Every conference doesn't need to go to the trouble of working out some flawless unambiguous list of rules and every attendee doesn't need to read them. If someone is causing a problem eject, ban, or call the police. No CoC needed.
While I agree that a CoC should be no surprise to anyone with common sense, it still makes sense to me to have them:
First, there are people without common sense. Sooner or later someone will not adhere to the unwritten rules and ask "Who's going to stop me?". Even if you can eject/ban them, it will be quite a mess, as you now seem to enforce completely intransparent and artificial rules. People will (rightly) ask you to state the rules before you enforce them. Even if your rules are completely obvious to you and all the people in your peer group, they won't be to _everyone_.
On the other hand, a CoC signals to potential participants that you take these things seriously. Look at it from the point of view of someone who is used to sexist/racist/otherwise discriminating comments: If you see that a conference has a CoC, that means that they know of your problem and are prepared to combat it. This is more a more inviting conference and it will put you more at ease, because you can feel safer.
Without a CoC, people will not attend because they're just tired of this.
So, yes, CoC should be unnecessary because we all know how to behave. Ideally, their content is suprising to no one. But experience shows that not everybody does, or that they in good faith behave in ways that are not acceptable to other people. With a CoC, you make it clear beforehand that "these are the rules", so everyone's on the same page, and you show that you mean it.
_People will (rightly) ask you to state the rules before you enforce them._
Having a CoC doesn't mean that you get this benefit.
In the case in point, the rules being enforced from the CoC were not stated. After being ruled in violation, it was not made clear WHAT rule was violated. And certainly no rule in the actual CoC was violated.
> People will (rightly) ask you to state the rules before you enforce them.
Will they? Lots of communities do just fine without spelling them out. If you go over the line, you get a warning by a moderator etc, or, if you've gone way past the line, you get kicked out. You don't need to know where exactly that line is drawn, because reasonable people don't come close to crossing it. And unreasonable people don't care about lines and rules.
If you do spell it out, you invite litigation of rules and endless "but you didn't punish _that_" and in the end you'll have to say "yeah well, I didn't find that offensive", so it's back to "there's a line, but there's also some rules that are meaningless, because in the end the line I draw on the spot is what matters".
Since those kinds of rules will always be vague, and will never be applied evenly, I doubt they are helpful. Maybe there's a small subset of people that would behave perfectly reasonable only if there's a guide book of rules that they can abide by, but I don't think that group is large enough to offset the problems CoCs bring.
I don't think I've ever seen a community with more than 1 moderator and 0 written rules. At least not for very long.
I used to help moderate a community. Spelling things out only helped us. Fewer incidents. More consistent moderation. Less litigation.
That's true, but it's either vague ("don't be an ass") or it's primarily a thing to have to get the moderators on the same page, not something the community needs, isn't it?
In my opinion, if the rules include value judgements, they're superfluous as rules, because accuser, accused and judge can easily come to vastly different results. If you try to get beyond that and formalize it, you end up with books, and by that time you've transformed your community into a rule-book-writing community.
The community wanted the moderators to get on the same page. They were also tired of discussions turning into arguments like whether insulting things by calling them gay insulted gay people.
We didn't end up with books.
> And unreasonable people don't care about lines and rules.
I agree with this statement. Having or not having a CoC will not change their behavior, nor should it change your response. But the response to your response can differ: If you've been transparent from the start about your rules, there's less room to complain about you enforcing your rules. If you had no CoC beforehand, there will be some parts of the audience asking if that was really fair. And this behavior doesn't even have to be malicious, just that their line is somewhere else, and so they don't understand your arbitrary enforcement. With clear and transparent rules, they may not agree, but it's clear where the line is.
We both think (at least, that's what I gather from your comment) that _some_ rule is necessary, but I'm for being open about it and you want to keep them vague. I think it's easier for everybody to be transparent here, because you can decide beforehand if you agree to these rules. If they're too vague, I'm just hoping that, if push comes to shove, we see the world similarly.
And, again, having a CoC also signals that _there is a line_. Without it, who's to know that there will be behavior that you don't accept and what it looks like. Maybe you're fine with sexist comments, but not with racism. If I'm vulnerable, why should I gamble that your views are similar to mine? I'd rather not visit your conference if you can't make the rules clear.
> If I'm vulnerable, why should I gamble that your views are similar to mine?
Don't you do that with a CoC as well? Short of writing a long list of things that may and may not be said, you can only give a vague "please be kind to each other", but the concrete judgement what is and isn't kind depends on whether your views align with those in power.
My experience is that vague rules are both a recipe for corruption (where the enforcer's friends are exempt from the rules and the argument is "that wasn't rude, the person deserved to be called a shithead") and the troll's playground, because toxic people that _want_ to cause trouble are great at figuring out the pain points that get to their targets but don't cross any lines.
I believe that enforcement is important, not rules. You can always have a more specific policy for the moderators to guide them and to develop the team's response, but that shouldn't be part of the rules.
It's true that it's not 100% fair that you might get kicked out for breaking a rule you didn't know existed, but to me that's collateral damage I'm more than happy to accept (and I've been on the receiving end of a "you crossed a line" talk).
I'm sorry, I'm not sure, I totally understand your argumentation.
You seem to be against vague rules ("My experience is that vague rules are both a recipe for corruption [...]"), with which I agree. That's why I want a CoC, so that the rules are open, known and overall transparent.
However, I'm afraid I fail to see why avoiding vague rules means that there should be no CoC at all. Isn't having no written/open rules the vaguest of all? Even if there are rules that only the moderators can see, how is that an improvement for the participants? They can't know what is acceptable, so neither can the accused argue against an unfair response, nor can a potential victim demand enforcement.
And why not have more concrete rules? Surely, they cannot be complete and there will necessarily always be room for intepretation, but I think it is better the more concrete the rules are.
And three sentences of "We don't tolerate abuse, discrimination, or harassment of any speaker or participant at XYZCon. If you have a problem, contact a staff member. If you cause a problem, you may be asked to leave, be banned from future events, and/or the police may be called.
Exactly. In generations past this was called "respecting boundaries" and was something we do as a social activity -- we literally teach others how we are willing to be treated (or more generally, we teach others what behavior will be accepted in that social group).
Despite the increasing anonymity of the world (in that we don't physically live and interact in the same physical space), I think conferences are still small enough social groups that such approaches do work. I've been to some where despite the presence of thousands of people, noteworthy news takes less than a few minutes to travel throughout the conference.
Good codes of conduct can work to set expectations in certain social settings. While it's not illegal to smell bad, a conference may want you to shower before returning to the conference. A clearly stated code of conduct can enforce the professional standards of that conference in order to make all attendees of that conference feel comfortable. The problem here isn't the existence of the code of conduct, it's the combination of the lack of clarity and the hypocritical lack of following its own standards set from the conference organizers.
This is almost certainly not the sort of thing that a different CoC would have made any different absent an absurd IMO rule such as "Do not criticize individuals, projects, companies, etc."
Rather, this is a case of where do you draw the line when something/anything makes someone uncomfortable enough to complain. Do you apply a reasonable person standard and perhaps tell that person "We hear you but we can't agree and we're not going to do anything about it. Sorry."? Or do you say "We understand that we can't tell you how to feel so we accept your complaint and will take action."(And then do so.)?
In practice, for many situations, especially community events tend towards the latter.
It, seemingly, isn't inevitable - I can count on one, _maybe_ two hands the number of unfair incidents I've heard since I started hearing people trumpeting the dark side view that 100% absolutely all power is put into service of evil, always.
Most people who are targeted aren't going to go telling the internet about it.
And people who curb their behavior unreasonably out of fear aren't going to advertise that either.
What you hear about is only the tip of the iceberg of what really happens.
I'm taking umbrage with the "But this kind of thing becomes inevitable" part
I initially thought "oh, another guy whining" but this seems to not be the case here but rather a case of a really piss-poor code of conduct.
The author quotes the CoC in his article and none of the points come even close to being a base to judge him on. This instance is about power abuse by a committee that doesn’t even have a basis in the CoC.
Can you provide a concrete example of this “political correctness” you are opposed to?
As it is popularly opposed and used it is equivalent to "Newspeak".
For example we had the definition of racism changed. Racism wasn't attributing negative properties to skin color, it has extended to unfalsifiable bias. Also some skin colors are never racist while other always are. Disagreeing means you are racist.
You have a rule against racism in your COC and pretend someone is biased and you conjured an excuse to exclude someone without any sensible rationale.
It is not difficult to understand the objection.
edit: Other examples are behavioral expectations like having to bow before a cross, working in the kitchen, acknowledging your guilt....
Do you think there are negative sub conscious biases around race?
Do you think racism has the same consequences for all races, for example, someone who is a member of a minority group vs someone who is not for a particular region?
Second question:
No. I think I know where the original idea came from. Racism against the majority group is relatively benign compared to that against a minority. It is unlikely that racism can phase them to a relevant degree. But that stops to be the case when you have companies and media personalities starting to discriminate on the basis of skin color. Furthermore I think the most racist people are those that have no problem with being racist at all and those that believe there needs to be some compensatory justice. And this is far more pronounced racism than bias in any form.
first question:
Yes/No. I think there is an initial bias that is quickly overcome on contact because the other one is not you. Same prejudices can exist against unknown people in general. I doubt it is too relevant in exchanges. It can however be the reason for prejudices against people against other that they not ever been in contact with.
I also believe that you need different types of people in a functioning society. For disabled people it might be advantageous to have people ignoring their condition and just pretending that they belong just as everybody else. But you need also people that know that isn't always the case. Everyone wants to make things accessible but if you ask yourself if you always keep that promise the answer is probably 'no'. That is why the latter group is also needed, but there can be conflicts if a differing context isn't cleared up. The first group might have a problem with 'political correctness' in this context.
Dealing with your own subconscious biases is a continuous activity. I grew up in a society with deep structural problems around equality and those sorts of problems seep into every aspect of life. I think it would be arrogant of me to claim I'm somehow immune, that it hasn't influenced the way I think.
I have no problem accepting that I have subconscious biases around things like race and gender, but I work to recognise those biases and I do the best I can to mitigate them.
I don't think it's enough to pass a law and declare the that the war against racism has been won, society has to work clean up the mess and pay off the debt left behind. If that includes compensatory justice, so be it.
First, I would like to recommend
http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html
as background for what I object to about political correctness.
Political correctness pushes the idea that the whole world should be trying to create a safe space for those who have had any kind of past challenge. There is a time and place for safe spaces. However the act of encouraging people to figure out what problems they can complain about, then coddling them, makes people more fragile. This has long-lasting negative implications for their mental health.
For example
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/what-mentally-strong...
explains what has actually been observed in children whose parents tended too closely to their perceived needs. Similarly therapists have found that encouraging people with PTSD to avoid any reminder of their past trauma actually makes the trauma worse. Instead it is more effective to desensitize them with controlled exposure to the trauma to teach them to be able to handle it.
This gives us some idea of how to create mental health. What are we doing instead? Well, we are teaching a whole generation that the world needs to take care of them due to a variety of past misdeeds. In the process we teach them to be sensitive to things that otherwise would not have bothered them very much. We then encourage them to demand that they not encounter reminders of what they don't like, and try to make the whole world a "safe space" for them. This is a recipe for systemically creating PTSD among people who otherwise would not develop it. Thereby creating the exact condition that we are trying to help. And, having created it, we have motivation to do more of the same so that more people become fragile.
I know, I know. This isn't a popular point of view. It suggests that a large portion of the SJW agenda is backwards. However I believe, and there is evidence from psychology to back me up, that it is right. We should not go overboard to protect people from encountering speech and ideas that they don't like. We should instead make people resilient to that experience. Both for their mental health, and so that they learn critical thinking.
In my country, "Political Correctness" is a dog whistle used by Daily Mail readers. It doesn't mean anything. I don't shape my thinking by what some talking head thinks.
Why do you think I asked for a concrete example? I notice that you didn't provide one either.
Concrete examples of political correctness gone bad.
Censoring the OP for calling someone else wrong. (When the person called wrong is actually a friend and didn't object.)
Cisco firing employees for saying, "All lives matter."
Maya Forstater being fired for expressing the opinion that while she used people's preferred pronouns, she thought of trans people as their original gender if they still had their real genitalia.
Emmanuel Cafferty (a Mexican American) being fired for an alleged white supremacist hand gesture that he had never even HEARD of as a white supremacist hand gesture. (Also did I mention that he's not even white?)
Ongoing persecution of academics who dare research trans issues from any perspective that trans activists do not approve of. See
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/oct/16/academics-ar...
for more on that.
Is that enough examples for you?
I’m trans and you are twisting quite a few of those, but you don’t exist from this point on as far as I’m concerned. I won’t debate my my right to be with anyone, least of all you.
Wonderful. You don't believe that people have the right to have opinions that you dislike. And don't see that as a problem.
Possibly because you expect people whose opinions you dislike to treat you like you would treat them if positions were reversed.
I don't mind being dead to you. But I don't want you, or people like you, to be in a position to make decisions about what I can say. Nor do I particularly want to be in a position to decide what you can say. What I want is called "freedom of speech".
As the old saying goes, "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me."
However when you open up the door to stopping other people from speaking, you have opened up the door to them stopping you from speaking. Are you sure that all of your opinions agree with that majority? Really? You think nothing that others might find controversial? If so, that's weird. And good luck if you ever change your mind about anything important.
The Maya Forstater case isn't as you presented it. Why did you misrepresent it? Was it an innocent mistake or was it deliberate? She got sacked for a sustained campaign of harassment.
If you don't believe me (and it would therefore be an innocent mistake), you can read the court ruling here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/12P9zf82TicPs2cCxlTnm0TrNFDD...
If you've misrepresented this one, why would I trust any of your other examples?
I was doing a quick search and believed someone else's representation of the case. But let's look at the case.
A woman in question has a reasonably common belief that offends you and I think is not in accord with the facts. She is open about her belief, but also has apparently made an attempt to be polite in personal interactions with others. (See paragraph 41 for example.)
Despite the ruling coming down against her, I read this and think that she has a right to have and express that opinion. That when we suppress the expression of opinions like this, they don't go away. Instead they become stronger.
Some of her opinions I agree with, and some not.
Here is an example where I disagree. I don't think that female only spaces should exclude transwomen. I also don't think that my opinion on that should matter because such spaces should exclude me. However based on the fact that most women do not agree with her, they such spaces will include them. Hooray. She is free to make her own space that excludes though, and anyone who wants can join her. That's called free association.
Here is an example where I agree with her. People born male have a significant biological advantage in many sports. This is historically the reason why we separated men and women for sports such as tennis and running. As a result, trans and intersex women have a significant advantage in the same sports. See Caster Semenya for a famous example. I do not think it is at all unreasonable to ban people who retain that advantage from participating as women in such sports.
Now let's compare her belief to one that is more obviously protected.
I'm an atheist and believe in science. I have worked with fundamentalist Christians who honestly believe that the world is 6000 years old, and that I'm going to Hell. And have told me such in as many words. As you can guess, I didn't enjoy it. But we were able to maintain cordial relations in the workplace, and I wouldn't ask them to be fired for expressing an opinion that they honestly held. Despite my opinions about their opinion.
As I said, I'm for free speech. Whether or not people agree with me, or I with them.
They clearly weren’t sacked for their opinions, but for creating a hostile work environment.
The free speech argument is a cop out frankly, and a lazy one at that.
The OP did.
No, OP really didn’t.
> The hilarious is that Joel Grus didn't care
It's probably not the case here, but imo it's a feature of CoCs that they protect people who can't publicly object themselves for whatever reason.
Like, for an extreme example, if I know I'm gonna get harassed if I make noise about someone's genuinely harmful behavior, then it's good that I can publicly be like "oh no it's fine don't worry" and there's still a process to stop them from harming more people.
Most modern legal systems give people the right to confront their accusers for good reason: Giving people the power to accuse others without any possibility of consequences will ultimately be abused.
I understand the desire to protect specifically vulnerable accusers in unique situations, but we should be catering to those situations on a case-by-case basis.
In this case, isolating the accusers from the accused didn’t help anyone. The accusers weren’t even the direct victims of this imagined offense. They were simply using the CoC machinery to bring something negative upon someone else while knowing they would never suffer any negatives for what they did.
We don't know anything about the accusers, do we? I don't think it's fair to assume they had malicious intentions.
Specifically, I don't think we can assume that the people who were uncomfortable with the talk were like "this speaker should be banned from the conference". Maybe the initial message was closer to "hey, this seems a bit harsh and distracts from the actual content, maybe the speaker wouldn't mind toning it down for the next talk".
> We don't know anything about the accusers, do we?
That’s the problem. The system is broken because it’s designed to give the accusers every benefit of the doubt, while giving the accused no recourse.
The accused is at the mercy of anonymous complaints. The accusers have zero accountability or downsides.
I'd say the accused is at the mercy of the conf organizers evaluating the complaints fairly. But the accused is at the mercy of the conf organizers whether they use a CoC or not.
Yeesh. Malice would be more respectable.
Except it wasn't harassment -- guess what? People can say you're wrong. Check your ego at the door if you give a public talk. They shouldn't say "he's a fucking idiot" but saying "I feel that got X,Y, and Z wrong and here's why:" is not a fucking CoC violation. I support codes of conduct and always will but this is where things went topsy-turvy, do not try to roll your own and try to be specific.
I'm not saying it was harassment, I'm using an extreme example to make the point that "the supposedly aggrieved party says it was fine" shouldn't by itself be considered sufficient evidence that the CoC wasn't broken and that action shouldn't be taken.
Fair point.
> People can say you're wrong. Check your ego at the door if you give a public talk.
There are probably tons of lectures on how to disagree with someone while phrasing it neutrally. For example "you are wrong" vs. "I disagree with your point" . I couldn't imagine using such a style constantly without slipping up every now and then but it is probably double plus good in an environment that forces you to walk on eggshells.
Where did you see he didn't care?
https://twitter.com/joelgrus/status/1321627567737069568?s=19
he said their decision was fucked up.
The phrase _didn't care_ in this context means that he was OK with his opinion being called wrong, not that he literally doesn't care either way.
Precisely what was said above is what I meant.
>> I support the thoughtful enforcement of Code of Conducts to address blah blah blah, but ...
>I support codes of conduct but ...
CoCs are crap and you both know it
I was concerned that if only partial information became available, the anti-CoC crowd might jump on this as an example of problems with codes of conduct more generally, or might point at this as part of “cancel culture” (a concept I vehemently disagree with, since what is referred to as “cancellation” is often just “facing consequences”)
haha... 'Everyone else who gets accused of some transgression and is afforded no due-process is in fact guilty and deserving of punishment. Mine is the _unique case_ of an opaque and capricious CoC process being applied unjustly.'
I find it funny that this fellow personally experienced the injustice of being caught up in an unfair CoC enforcement process run by some petty tyrants†, but refuses to believe that this may happen to other people, that his case may not be a wild aberration but a predictable norm, given the system and culture. I wonder what it would it take for Jeremy to say "Maybe this process has fundamental problems. Maybe a lot of the other people who have been burned by this have also been treated unfairly."
If someone can keep the faith even when they personally experience the injustice of a system like this, I don't what would change their mind.
† according to his account. As jpeloquin notes ITT, little is known to us third parties about the facts of the case.
> haha... 'Everyone else who gets accused of some transgression and is afforded no due-process is in fact guilty and deserving of punishment. Mine is the unique case of an opaque and capricious CoC process being applied unjustly.'
This isn't close to what he's saying. He's saying that despite the fact that the CoC enforcement got it wrong in his case, they are still valuable. You know like laws are still valuable despite the fact that innocent people are sometimes convicted. In both cases the solution is to improve the process, not throw out the concept.
Good point. My expected reaction isn't "laws/CoC should be discarded" but "CoCs and their enforcement process is seriously flawed and needs revising."
Here there seem to be two issues: 1. Too-vague rules & 2. Unfair enforcement.
If we punished people for murder by forming a posse and summarily executing them, the reaction should be "yes murder should be forbidden but this enforcement process is seriously unfair and needs to be overhauled."
If we punish people for "being unkind" the reaction should be "this rule is unfair because it's not clear how one can go about following it and it is likely to be enforced highly subjectively which is likely to lead to enforcement based on personal bias, favoritism etc.."
What I think the author might see if he examined the situation with an open mind is that "be kind" (a rule he doesn't like) and "don't be sexist" (a rule he likes) _both_ suffer from the issue of being vague and susceptible to extremely subjective interpretation. Reasonable people can (and do!) disagree about what is "kind," what is "sexist," or what is "racist," but these rules ignore this fact and take an "I'll know it when I see it" approach to kindness, sexism, racism etc. that is subject to the problems of arbitrariness, bias, and favoritism in _all_ cases. I'm "haha"ing at the fact that the author refuses to consider this aspect of the problem: that it goes beyond just his case (other people think _he's_ bad) to the cases of people that _he_ thinks are bad.
If we change the analogy we get a different answer. Everyone agree that murder should be forbidden, but we don't want mob justice to go around lynching suspected murderers.
As a society we have laws. CoC as extrajudicial rules get judged based on their benefit to extend existing laws and append additional law enforcement on top of already existing law enforcement. If the result is bad and the additional rules causes more problem than they solve then they should be discarded.
It does not mean all extrajudicial rules are bad but we need to ask if they are needed, serve a good purpose, measure the outcome, and be ready to discard them when the situation calls for it.
I'd agree with all of this, with the caveat that at lot of what your saying is both called out in the article and in a lot of advice around writing a code of conduct (example:
https://adainitiative.org/2014/02/18/howto-design-a-code-of-...
), so it's not even clear to me that this is a problem with the majority of the CoC organizations/enforcement.
Even here where part of the problem in the vague requirement ("be kind"), the biggest problem is they didn't follow their own processes of having an actual dialog. It's a bit like if you walked into a US court and the Judge immediately says "I talked to the victim and your clearly guilty", it's not the process that's the problem, it's that the process wasn't followed. Maybe like the court system there should be an appeals process (not sure what that might look like).
It's mental gymnastics. I'm not convinced that CoCs are valuable. Even without the explicit language, you can still kick out people who behave badly. (IMO) The CoCs are just there to try to make a political statement about which groups of people they support and to justify groupthink.
Anyways, to those people that believe there are a few minor slippages in what the CoC was intended for. I have been banned from a public slack group for a CoC:
It was from the Confluent slack group after they ran a contest/game for their Kafka Summit conference. They did the virtual points system which could be traded for branded swag. I earned the points needed. They informed people that the swag was limited first come first serve, and they said they'd announce the store.
Well at least half of the people didn't get the email notifying about the store, half did and made their orders. There was no formal communication from Confluent, other than "we're working on it." 2 days went by, people were asking on #kafka-summit, we were given bad suggestions (by Confluent) about how to auth into the store. Then I got a letter from the store that "sorry you didn't participate and you're not eligible."
No notice about this from Confluent, so I ended up posting "I just got this letter WTF, @conferenceorgs". That prompted them being more concerned about "me swearing at their staff". Also I mentioned "I figure I'm going to already get banned so I'll say it: This makes Confluent look sh_tty" ... a few minutes later CoC banned by Tim Berglund [the head of dev adv at confluent].
I'd actually agree that banning you was probably a bit much but let's actually look at the chain of events from your own account here.
You post "WTF @conferenceorgs". They warn you about swearing at their staff (I probably wouldn't treat it this way, but we do all know what the F stands for). You respond by... swearing at their staff? When you get a warning, then respond to that warning by repeating the offense it's hard to be surprised or outraged you didn't get a second warning.
... do you think the 'what the hell is going on at [company]" is also swearing at their staff? Because I don't think anybody I know would, to me this seems pretty damn clearly like using technicalities/inaccurate definitions as a weapon.
... uh yes?
If you say "what the hell?" directly to a representative of that company, then you are literally using profanity at their staff.
Like, we can disagree about whether that's a sensible rule or if we should make allowances for non-abusive colloquial phrases ('wtf', 'what the hell?', etc.) or something, but how can you argue it's not breaking the black-and-white rule as written?
>we should make allowances for non-abusive colloquial phrases ('wtf', 'what the hell?', etc.) or something, but how can you argue it's not breaking the black-and-white rule as written?
Because 'swear at' at specifically means using a swear _against_ somebody, not just in a statement while talking to them. If you look at e.g. any of the definitions in the free dictionary, you'll find that they're all about using abusive language towards someone, so the idea of 'non-abusive swearing' at somebody in itself is as absurd as say a 'non-abusive insult'.
It's the difference between swearing in front of your children and swearing at your children, one is possibly bad parenting, the other definitely is.
[1]
https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/swear+at
You're splitting hairs with a diamond blade here if you're claiming that "What the hell is wrong with <company>?" doesn't count as, "utter[ing] a curse or similarly vulgar or abusive language toward someone or something." [from your link]
The language was never directed at their staff. It was directed towards the communication I got from them, and how I believe it makes the org look themselves(note). The tagging was to alert them that it was going on. Attacking individuals is completely unwarranted.
--
For the sake of conversion: What counts as harassment- is the org an individual? Does exclaiming frustration for a situation and getting the attention of someone count as an attack on the individuals notified?
--
Note: I believe that if an org can't communicate what's going on and why you may be seeing erroneous emails from a third party, what is going on with their virtual currency that is traded for real world value. Why should I trust that org with $30k a year for a dev server?
Then stop paying them $30k! Cussing at their underpaid support staff is pointless. Companies are not human; they only understand money.
The company that was qouted that didn't pay it. I'm not a customer, I am a potential customer. [Companies I've worked for have used Kafka, or have developed their own system similar to it]
The only thing this has taught me, never advocate for or encourage the company to stay with them.
He still isn't ready to believe that this whole movement that accompanies CoCs is pushed for malicious purposes by twisted power hungry people. That would require a massive loss of innocence and a reckoning about the nature of the world that only comes, reluctantly, from repeated exposure to and reflection on the same problem.
I have seen many people in similar situations that just completely roll over in a prey response and just bow down to these people. So at least the author has that spark of dignity where he's willing to stand up for himself.
How is thinking people are malicious a precondition?
This is a community in and around programming; if anyone can accept that well-intentioned systems can explode in our faces spectacularly, it should be us.
There are two categories of rules: ones that are designed to be followed, and ones that are designed to bludgeon people with. Much like how a lot of knife law enforcement is mostly about having a convenient excuse for the police to harass minorities for being at the wrong place and the wrong time, a lot of Code of Conducts seem to me to be mostly about having a convenient excuse to punish and exclude people for having the wrong opinion.
I'm just glad that this example of the phenomenon was over technical disagreement rather than politics, that makes it _much_ more illustrative.
> I'm just glad that this example of the phenomenon was over technical disagreement rather than politics, that makes it much more illustrative.
And how exactly are you drawing that conclusion? You think that people at JupyterCon were genuinely outraged over a presenter expressing his opinion that he likes Jupyter notebooks? I would imagine that liking Jupyter would be an acceptable opinion at a Jupyter convention.
Jeremy has been an outspoken advocate of mask use, which is a highly polarizing political issue in the U.S. at the moment. I think the most reasonable explanation for this attack is that people who disagreed with Jeremy's political opinions (mask use good) found a smokescreen to attack him with (liking notebooks, not being kind).
> You think that people at JupyterCon were genuinely outraged over a presenter expressing his opinion that he likes Jupyter notebooks?
We're on the same page here, what I'm saying is that the context makes this situation much more obviously pretextual. I'm not going to speculate on the actual reasoning behind it, though, it's likely no more informative than pissing off someone influential somehow at some point.
> I think the most reasonable explanation for this attack is that people who disagreed with Jeremy's political opinions (mask use good) found a smokescreen to attack him with (liking notebooks, not being kind).
Is mask-use unpopular with the SJW crowd though? Because CoCs in general and "that was not kind" + the process they chose sounds very much like the SJW crowd, and I'm not aware that they are anti-mask.
You have a point. I might be wrong about this.
"NumFOCUS" apparently has spare manpower to appoint or maybe even employs a "Code of Conduct Enforcement Team" and have "committee meetings" and calls to deal with extremely important situations such as _someone making people uncomfortable_? What the actual fuck? Out of all the actual problems in the world, including in free software where you can use your time productively and contribute code, _this_ is what they chose to focus on? Come on.
And that is a good reason for contributors stop contributing. All that extra manpower may do something useful then
All these committees are earily similar to soviet union from where I'm coming from. Fascinating and worrisome at the same time for America.
I stopped reading when he said he's fine with cancel culture: _since what is referred to as “cancellation” is often just “facing consequences”_. No, cancel culture is bullying.
Edit: I feel that the author was bullied, or mistreated, so I was primed to be upset when seeing his own dismissal of cancel culture.
It has always been the case that certain behaviors incur social opprobrium. I assume that you don't literally think that shaming or punishing someone for their actions is categorically wrong, regardless of the situation. I've seen Harvey Weinstein's conviction for multiple assaults referred to as "cancelling". Are you suggesting that we should totally refrain from judgment?
The real debate is over (a) what kind of conduct warrants "cancellation" and (b) over what standards of proof ought to be. If your response to the implication that some misdeeds merit being disgraced is to stop engaging, then you're part of the problem.
You are of course right about (a) and (b) being the real issues for people actually engaging on a good-faith basis. That said:
1) There are some incredibly wide-ranging disagreements on (a) at this point, with few people being willing to acknowledge gray areas. Witness incidents like
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-hounding-of-a-scotti...
(and please ignore the somewhat-inflammatory title and do read the story). I think there are quite a few people who think it's not even debatable whether Jenny Lindsay's conduct warrants the treatment she received, though they don't actually agree with each other on whether it does.
2) There is a disturbing prevalence of double-standards for purposes of applying (a).
3) In practice the answer for (b) is often irrelevant, because the behavior at issue is something someone "said", typically in electronic form, and there are saved copies everywhere anyway.
4) Most of the engagement on the issue is not in good faith to start with.
I do think that there are multiple things people mean when they say "canceling", which is why I think various recent attempts to actually define what differentiates "canceling" from "criticism" or "social opprobrium" are useful.
If you haven't seen
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/opinion/cancel-culture-.h...
it's a pretty decent good-faith attempt to wrestle with the issues that at least tried to draw a distinction between "criticism" and "canceling", in its point 1. In that sense, Weinstein _was_ in fact "cancelled", and per item 2 appropriately...
There's a lot of interesting stuff here.
You're right in that there are multiple things that people mean when they say cancelling. Specifically, in the NYT article, the phrase "based on an opinion or an action" really struck me as capturing a common issue I have with use of the term, which is to lump together public shaming/pressure to fire/boycott based on e.g. sexual assault, with that based on an opinion. As you say, Weinstein was cancelled.
Of course, because I have one opinion, I read the original sentence saying that cancelling is often used to refer to simply facing consequences and immediately agree, because those examples are at the forefront of my mind. True, I can think of examples of canceling I thought were unjustified, like the case of Justine Sacco. But I know that someone else will read that sentence and have it immediately conjure up a glut of examples of canceling they consider to be outrageous, and they will take exception to the _implication_ of the sentence if not the literal meaning.
I think that it can be legitimate to read an entire article and draw conclusions about the underlying message, motivation and mindset of the author. Individual sentences don't emerge immaculately from the void.
Which is what I find so disturbing about the Spectator article. Completely pervaded by a flagrant attempt to twist every possible detail to fit his narrative.
- It states "fake evidence was manufactured" but doesn't actually cite any fake evidence.
- It eventually states, in as obscurantist a manner as possible, that Lindsay doesn't believe that trans women should be called women. The author then writes "said her condemnations of violence were not the reason for her ostracism. What then? Perhaps she had committed a micro-aggression", when he had, as I’ve just described, previously given a clear reason for the criticism.
- He concedes that "Although the intolerant right dominates politics in Westminster, Washington, Warsaw, Budapest and New Delhi, and although the far right is a dangerous source of terrorism, the far left remains world beaters in the deployment of McCarthyism". This really captures the incredible asymmetry. Conservatives may hold all of the levers of power, dominate government, institutions, and the plutocratic class, but the vociferous criticism of a tiny number of fringe activists is treated as a social problem on a par with the discrimination faced by e.g. trans people, i.e. as if it were some serious social ill.
- The most sinister part of it is when he writes “The police warned her and staff at the library their physical safety may be in danger. Detectives had heard that an antifa group might target them.” This is a terrifying demonstration of what is so dangerous about this sort of rhetoric. Look up how much violence has been committed by people professing to be a part of antifa. It is vanishingly rare. Now compare it to violence committed against trans people. Compare it to violence committed by far-right groups. And now consider that the police, a vast arm of the state itself completely riddled with adherents of the far right, actually accords credence to these nebulous claims. It’s this sort of manufactured fear of persecution that leads to the pre-emptive violence and state brutality which have been so rampant this year.
For the record: I don't understand why people are downvoting your comment, and I just upvoted it.
To whoever did the downvoting: please stop downvoting respectful discussion. Thank you.
> which is to lump together public shaming/pressure to fire/boycott based on e.g. sexual assault, with that based on an opinion
I do think that "an action" can be something much more inoccuous than "sexual assault". Think
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/502975-cal...
which was clearly an "action", not an "opinion".
> I think that it can be legitimate to read an entire article and draw conclusions about the underlying message, motivation and mindset of the author.
Absolutely agreed, and that should inform the way you interpret the events described in the article. That said, I think it's important to keep in mind that even if the author is biased that doesn't immediately make everything they say false...
> - It states "fake evidence was manufactured" but doesn't actually cite any fake evidence.
That's interesting, because in my reading the text immediately following this sentence (about using menstruation as a metaphor, etc) was the specific description of the evidence that was found and that the author considers "fake". I'm not sure whether your disagree with the "fake" characterization or whether in your reading this was simply disconnected from the previous sentence.
> It eventually states, in as obscurantist a manner as possible, that Lindsay doesn't believe that trans women should be called women
Again, interesting. My reading of the article was that this was the "extreme reading" of the specific poem "The Imagined We", and the views imputed to Lindsay by her accusers, not a statement about her actual views.
I don't know whether you watched the linked video with the poem's recitation; it's annoyingly slow compared to reading, of course. But the poem doesn't directly say anything remotely like "trans women are not women"; it does talk about menstruation as something "we" (women) experience. Which is of course not true for all women, just like the other things mentioned in the poem are not necessarily experienced by all women.
I admit that I could be wrong here, but I did do some searching both when I originally read the article and just now and have not been able to find any evidence of Lindsay actually explicitly saying that she does not believe trans women should be called women. I'd welcome correction on this point if I'm wrong!
> Conservatives may hold all of the levers of power, dominate government, institutions, and the plutocratic class
Again, interesting. I would not say that conservatives dominate either "institutions" or "the plutocratic class", for what it's worth. Certainly not in terms of social attitudes.
> i.e. as if it were some serious social ill.
I do think that a climate of fear in which people are afraid to say anything other than enthusiastically parroting what is perceived as "the party line" because it will be misconstrued and twisted in ways that get them fired _would_ be a serious social ill.
I think there's a good argument to be had about whether we are currently experiencing such a climate; it seems to me that in some social/professional circles we are and in most we are not, at least so far. Depending on which of these circles one belongs to, the seriousness is therefore perceived very differently.
> Look up how much violence has been committed by people professing to be a part of antifa.
Yes, the whole antifa angle seems pretty clearly to be bunk and the police response seems like self-serving lies to me.
And going back to the original issue that set off this whole series of events, I don't have any good evidence for how much _actual_ anti-feminist violence is committed by "trans activists" or anyone associated with them. That is, whether the belief in "violent action" in the original "Skinny" article is actually something that leads to "violent action" in practice or whether it's basically people venting in ways that I happen to think are crude and inappropriate but are apparently acceptable in a number of communities. My prior is that there is not much, if any, actual violence going on here.
That said, I can understand someone opposing the idea of normalizing threats of violence of any sort, on the belief that once threatening of a particular kind of violence is normalized, people will in fact start acting on those threats.... There is some historical support for that belief.
I always thought of cancel culture as people facing "consequences" for their opinions, rather than their actions. Although I guess the can also be applied fairly innocuous actions that don't cause much (or any) harm.
The common thing with both is that it has people make mountains out of molehills. How can you trust someone that is willing to damage someone's life for something that small or non-existent, especially if it is just an opinion. They could easily come for you if they don't like something you say or do.
The purpose of many opinions is to gather support for some kind of sociopolitical state, and changes or maintenence of the political status quo cause harm or maintain harm respectively. For example, if I lived in 1800 and stated the opinion that "black people deserve equal rights", it would be dangerous to and greatly financially threatening to southern landowners. The added effect of these opinions would be proven out by history. And while that opinion would turn out to help far more then it harms, other opinions like "jews undermined our army in the great war" would turn out disastrous. I would say that opinions are some of the greatest powers in the world, and calling them harmless is dishonest.
Harvey Weinstein was cancelled long before he was also convicted.
That is because he is a real person using his real name. He might have believed in this nonsense and is only now seeing CoCs for what they really are. He might not be comfortable publicly rebelling against the new orthodoxy. These tribunals are no joke.
Or we can take the author at his word and understand that he is part of the problem. He's still in favor of CoCs after all this, and the only example we have of a CoC he isn't in favor of is one which got applied to him... in the same way CoCs are always applied.
Or we can take what the author writes the way he writes it: CoCs are not bad, not following your own process for enforcement of CoC (which also has problems in this specific case) is bad.
The answer to "this type of enforcement is bad" is not "no enforcement".
(Some) People are fine with "cancel culture" until it happens to them. Then it's cyberbullying, or worse.
I stopped reading at the end of the article. Hope this helps.
As far as I can tell "cancel culture" means yelling at someone who did something bad. It can be real dumb sometimes though.
I would say "cancel culture" means going to the employer of someone you don't like and getting them fired, and ideally blacklisted from working in their field again. If it were just yelling, it wouldn't be nearly as much of an issue.
But I think definitions of "cancel culture" differ widely... ;)
It was clearly a mistake for him to even play along, especially if he was emotionally exhausted already.
The best you can do when people are being stupid like this is ignore them. They hold no power over you unless you let them.
This whole CoC thing is sadly fraught with virtue signaling psycho-sadists who enjoy playing tribunal.
The people who _actually cared_ about fostering inclusive _human_ communities got bullied out of positions of power long ago, so that aforementioned people could run their own little Stasi.
I'm not sure whether he had to play along with their absurdist play, but next time maybe he will be able to laugh, hang up, and block future calls from their numbers.
They absolutely do have power over you, that's exactly the problem.
People who get "canceled" don't just get a nastygram that they can throw in the trash. They are typically banned from speaking, fired / put on probation / "contract not renewed", their reputation is both privately and publicly tarnished such that #1 google result for your name will be that you were banned for CoC violation, damaging your career prospects etc.
Sure some people's lives are bullshit-proof but for many others witch hunts like this are nothing to laugh about.
It's the #1 Google search because he wrote about it, right?
The smart thing to do is to "respectfully" disagree and make sure you never speak or attend this or a related event now or in the future or to work with any of the individuals involved. Of course, personally I'd probably lose my temper and say some things I'd regret and tell way too many people about it.
If you just keep quiet, to a first approximation no one knows that you were chastised behind the scenes for something that, if they knew, most people would think was silly. It's not like you're being forced to wear a scarlet C.
The only people who get "canceled" are people who allow it to happen to them.
Every single person who has claimed to have been "canceled" not only brought the entire situation upon themselves, but then immediately turned around and cry foul and try to become the victim in the situation.
Its pretty entertaining and bewildering to see these people –who almost universally bemoan "victim culture"–immediately fallback to those same "tropes" when they do something socially unacceptable.
The guy founded Fast.ai. I'd argue he's head and shoulders above JupyterCon. It was stupid of them to pick this battle. I think they will lose.
Since this is on HN with 700 upvotes and nearly 600 comments supporting the author I’m inclined to agree.
This dudes super long blog post acting like a victim is a much more damaging blow to his employability than the bullshit opinion of some committee.
>This whole CoC thing is sadly fraught with virtue signaling psycho-sadists who enjoy playing tribunal.
Reminds me of this snippet from Nietzsche's essay, The Tarantulas:
In all their lamentations soundeth vengeance, in all their eulogies is maleficence; and being judge seemeth to them bliss.
But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!
Conference talks are marketing that you do to make money.
The tribunals wielding CoCs have the power to hit speakers in the wallet. Outside of violence that's pretty much as much power as you can have over a person.
I'm sure that applies to a lot of speakers, but I don't think it applies to him specifically:
> I’ve tried to make myself available for public speaking events when I can, in order to support the community. However, the potential cost is too great, and there is no real upside for me personally, so I don’t expect to be accepting invitations in the future, at least not for quite a while.
Doesn't seem like he's in any way depended on giving these talks.
So the solution is not to bet your life on dozens of conference committees that can cancel you out of your job.
The solution is to get the opinion of the community and colleagues (if you’re employed) prior to giving a talk so you don’t act in a way that could be seen poorly.
This article is an example of the many situations where that would not have helped
Also known as "walking on eggshells".
You can be shamed and fired over something as innocuous as a dongle joke told in private and overheard.
https://techcrunch.com/2013/03/21/a-dongle-joke-that-spirale...
The only sure way not to lose is not to play. That, or be invincible like Bob Martin or Linus Torvalds.
I don't know. If I offend someone, I like to know why. Maybe there was a good reason I was blind too. I would have a difficult time refusing to "play along" unless I knew what I was rejecting.
I think I would have a very easy time rejecting any further interaction until they tell me what the problem is.
> psycho-sadists
That's what it actually seems to be: People that want to be sadistic aggressors can be sadistic aggressors in the name of "the law". I believe that's also part of why the USA has such a big problem with out of control power tripping cops. Who exactly is attracted by the possibility to legally put people in their place with guns and tasers?
Agree. I wonder what would the reaction be if Joel Grus was a woman.
I would hope that it would be similar. Let's note that the author asked Joel to use his slides, talked to him about the talk beforehand.
I can only dream of giving a good enough talk that people want to give a talk explaining why I'm wrong, but if that did happen I'd really appreciate the concern that Jeremy (i think he's the OP) showed here.
> The people who actually cared about fostering inclusive human communities got bullied out of positions of power long ago
This claim is made elsewhere in these comments. What is the actual story here? Who bullied who? When?
The people currently in charge of this in many organisations (perhaps not most, but _certainly_ the ones you hear about) are bullies. When a bully comes up against an unprepared non-bully, the bully wins.
> This whole CoC thing is sadly fraught with virtue signaling psycho-sadists who enjoy playing tribunal.
The people who actually cared about fostering inclusive human communities got bullied out of positions of power long ago, so that aforementioned people could run their own little Stasi
It sounds like you include yourself in this group of people who care about building inclusive human communities?
Generalizing to whole groups of people who support an amorphous thing, calling them "psycho-sadists", and saying they want to "run their own little Stasi" is...not exactly how I would foster an inclusive human community.
Like, it sounds like you very much _do not want_ "those people" in your community.
Just saying.
All I can say is I've only seen and heard code of conducts be used for bullying and to exclude people from communities without any wrongdoing. Examples include the various Stack Overflow Monica incidents, the post we've just read, and a meatspace event I've been to.
I think CoCs, while a great ideal, unfortunately tend to attract power-tripping, virtue-signalling bullies who seek to enforce it for the greater bad.
Technically, the Monica incident didn't involve a CoC; that was a pretext (well, post-text). The people who made the decision were just out of touch, and pattern-matched the information they had available to the “powerful, respected individual is hurting people who can't fight back” story – not realising that they'd _caused_ that story, with Monica as the one who got hurt.
I'm still not sure why they doubled down on it, breaking long-standing traditions of how-moderation-is-done in the biggest possible way (defaming in the press) but (at least) some of the people involved (e.g. Sara Chipps, the face of the Big Bad… the person who introduced Jon Skeet to Stack Overflow) _weren't_ sadistic abusers, so I'd prefer to assume ignorance than malice. (There might've been more than a little over-correcting for “we mustn't let ourselves defend the ones in the wrong, even if we like them”, but that's just speculation on my part.)
And that situation was _complicated_. A lot of people were telling themselves they were doing the right thing, but ended up hurting innocent bystanders all the more, e.g. whoever released that poorly-redacted list of which moderators were LGBTQ+ (presumably to try to get back at Stack Exchange in some way or other). We still don't know who that was, which is as it should be; you don't talk about moderation decisions on Stack Exchange unless their target is part of the conversation (and even then, only usually if they bring it up).
The whole thing goes to show (at least, to me) how important it is _not_ to act how the story says you should; you might have the story wrong.
> Like, it sounds like you very much do not want "those people" in your community.
I absolutely do not want "those people" in any community I might be part of. They are the ones that forced RMS and Linus out of their roles. And RMS and Linus can be eccentric and unpleasant, but they have made my life much more easier through their contributions in a real and concrete way.
"Those people" are worse than the people they prey on. They are dementors, ghouls that suck life, intelligence and innovation out of every space in which they crawl.
Dehumanization and essentialism are dangerous ideas to be considered carefully. Have you considered that those people might be most people if in the right circumstances?
No. There is a special kind of self-ointed person that thinks they have the right thoughts and the right behaviour and are willing to impose that to everybody else because is for the Good. They are the worst people you can meet, because they commit their crimes tirelessly in the name of Good. They were the Pharisee, the Priests that condemned infidels in the Middle Ages, the sans-culotte in the French Revolution, the revolutionary communists in the USSR, and the nazis in Germany... and they are now the SJW. They will cancel, abuse, exile, banish and even kill those who don't agree with their worldview, because for them their worldview is more important that any human being.
Fortunately, most people care more about other human beings that about ideologies, so no, most people won't behave like that in any circumstance.
>Generalizing to whole groups of people who support an amorphous thing, calling them "psycho-sadists", and saying they want to "run their own little Stasi" is...not exactly how I would foster an inclusive human community.
Please be mindful that chmod775 didn't talk about about everybody who is (at least publicly) in support of CoCs. But rather the very vocal minority of people who try to push CoCs everywhere, then viciously start insulting people who express dissent or even just some concerns about such CoCs, and once they get their way start abusing the CoCs to start witch trials and kangaroo courts seeking not to inform people of their (alleged) mistakes and give them opportunity and help correcting their behaviors (if correction is deemed necessary by the larger community), but seek to outright banish people without due process[1].
You saw some of those people act when you were at mozilla I'd think, when it came to Brendan Eich and gerv[2]. I am not talking about people rightfully disagreeing with or criticizing Brendan Eich and gerv, I am talking about people slinging mud and insults only and trying to banish them from public life at all cost.
And as you were mozilla at the time (right?), you probably remember the rift between mostly US and mostly European community parts over the proposed CoC at the time[5], with mostly the Europeans raising a lot of concerns about the CoC proposals and a CoC in general. Which is fine, and there were a lot of constructive discussions[6], except for the people who started accusing everybody who said a CoC (like that) is not necessary and could be actively harmful was a homophobic ass or sexist or whatever, trying to squash any discussion from the get go[7].
It's those latter people you do not want in your community. And a lot of them I'd describe as "psycho-sadists" as well, who become very giddy and outright ecstatic when they succeed in banishing people, instead of expressing dread that such steps had to be taken.
[1] Brendan Eich, Linus or RMS, or google Rod Vagg or Larry Garfield
[2] gerv was[3] another prominent member of the mozilla community from the UK. He also rejected "gay marriage", but from what I remember not the equal rights portion, "just" the terminology, arguing against it by saying it was a defined traditional religious term, and gay partnerships should have equal rights but should not be called "marriage". He was wrong on that one[4]. I remember people calling him every name in the book, and wishing him he'd die from cancer[3].
[3] Sadly he passed away after a long fight with cancer. I know at least one of the people who wished gerv to die from cancer was fully aware of his ongoing long battle with that disease.
[4] Yes, I said "wrong", don't CoC me please.
[5] Early proposals of the mozilla CoC e.g. suggested that to be compliant one has to endorse things like e.g. the right to be homosexual. Which sounds nice at first, until you realize that some of mozilla's community members are from countries that put people in jail for such endorsements.
[6] At least I for one thought I learned a lot about problems I wasn't even aware of both on the pro- and contra-CoC side.
[7] A lot of those not-very-nice people were not even mozillians, but people who just came to mozilla to "participate" in the CoC discussion.
I recall I left Mozilla before the same-sex marriage fight, but I'm familiar with it.
Just as I wouldn't call Brendan or gerv a psycho-sadist, I also wouldn't call the people who called for their resignations names, nor group them all together.
I think name-calling, _especially_ of a large group which shares only one thing in common is antithetical to building inclusive human communities. Literally we're excluding people and calling them Stasi members because we disagree with them.
If you want people to be kind to each other, and if you're against cancelling people for their opinions, it's got to start somewhere.
I also want to speak to your two other examples, Linus and RMS.
WRT Linus, I personally know many talented people who wouldn't touch Linux development specifically because of him. It's cool that Linus has made your life better. He's also made a lot of people's lives worse. Where's their due process?
WRT RMS, I take issue with the idea that he was not given due process. In fact he was allowed to stay for years, despite harassing women and acting inappropriately in his position. The Epstein email was a last straw. But also: What makes you think he wasn't given due process? He says he was "pressured" by MIT and resigned. Do you think he couldn't have fought it? It sounds like he decided not to fight it. That's different than not being given due process.
Again with RMS, it's clear that his behavior was deeply upsetting to a lot of people.
https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix...
Where's their due process? How do they factor into your calculus of who's worthy of our compassion?
>I recall I left Mozilla before the same-sex marriage fight, but I'm familiar with it.
Ah, thanks for clarifying. I wasn't sure about that timeline. I just remember you left early-ish.
>Just as I wouldn't call Brendan or gerv a psycho-sadist, I also wouldn't call the people who called for their resignations names, nor group them all together.
You must have skipped the comments from the community and outside then that included gems such a wall of "FUCK YOU"s or the literal wishes for gerv to die of cancer.
I also remember the side-dramas e.g. over the term "homozillians" which was claimed to be homophobic and prompted similar vitriol (nevermind that it was the name a group of LGBTQ+ people within mozilla gave themselves)
[Another edit: to be clear, not everybody who demanded or favored their resignation falls into the psycho-sadist stasi group, either.]
>I think name-calling, especially of a large group which shares only one thing in common is antithetical to building inclusive human communities. Literally we're excluding people and calling them Stasi members because we disagree with them.
No, we're excluding them and call them sadists and stasi because they act with the same mindset of stasi: observation, propaganda, demagogy, and the stated goal of "destroying" other people, and because they joyfully celebrate whenever one of their perceived enemies gets banished, not dreading the anguish that was caused (maybe unavoidably) but enjoying the pain and anger they caused. I've seen plenty such giddy stasi-sadists rummaging around in everything RMS ever wrote and celebrating victory when he resigned from the FSF (some going so far to publicly wishing him to become homeless and freezing to death in the next winter).
This is where we should draw the line and where the "paradox of tolerance" actually makes sense: at the extreme fringes, be it racists and white supremacists on one side, and yes, as hurtful at this truth is, the extremes of what we both probably would consider our side as well.
>WRT Linus, I personally know many talented people who wouldn't touch Linux development specifically because of him.
That's fine. Their decision. I know a lot of people I wouldn't want to work with either.
>[Linus has] also made a lot of people's lives worse.
Utter bullshit and baseless allegation. Why would you say such a thing without providing any shred of evidence?
>Where's their due process?
Due process? For what? Perceived offense? Unsettling remarks somebody made? "Wrong" opinions somebody holds? There is none and there won't be and there shouldn't be.
And as you may or may not know, people criticized him for his erratic behavior, and while it took quite some time, he tried to improve his manners (not just since the Sharp-thing). But no matter how much or little he has and/or will change, there will be always people who want his head.
The "due process" is (where we didn't cross into criminality): you criticize people for their behavior in a constructive way, if they listen and work on themselves great, if they don't then they don't and it's up to you to decide if you want to work with them or if their behavior is too much.
> In fact he was allowed to stay for years, despite harassing women and acting inappropriately in his position
Again bullshit. Even worse bullshit, as it perpetrated the lie he was a major harasser.
>But also: What makes you think he wasn't given due process? He says he was "pressured" by MIT and resigned. Do you think he couldn't have fought it? It sounds like he decided not to fight it. That's different than not being given due process.
Right, you go ahead and demand due process and stand your ground when the internet mob comes for you with pitchforks. This is naïve thinking. at best. It's outright victim-blaming at worst. "Why didn't he just answer long and public why he had a matress in his offide? Why didn't the rape victim answer long and public why she thought it was OK to wear sexy clothes and makeup?"
>The Epstein email was a last straw.
You mean the Minsky email, where he called Epstein a criminal, and suggested that Minsky himself might not have known what was going on?
[Edit: Yes it was an uneasy read, and maybe rather flawed thinking, and deserving of criticism (not his head) but many people claimed he defended child abuse, which he did not]
>Again with RMS, it's clear that his behavior was deeply upsetting to a lot of people.
So he is a weird guy and can put people in unease. He has had a mattress in his office, and he awkwardly hit on some women because he is a bit of a social retard. Big fucking whoopdie-doo. Some of the bullshit that blog post (and others) accuse him of isn't even first-hand experiences, just off remarks like the "if he hits on you, say you're a vi user" remark. What's the conclusion here? That because RMS is awkward in social interactions he better not try to date ever, he doesn't deserve relationships and a sex life because he might make people unwelcoming of his initial advanced uneasy?
>It's cool that Linus has made your life better.
> But also: What makes you think he wasn't given due process?
By the way, now you're putting words in my mouth I never spoke or wrote.
>>[Linus has] also made a lot of people's lives worse.
> Utter bullshit and baseless allegation. Why would you say such a thing without providing any shred of evidence?
Are you actually saying, without irony, that it's bullshit and baseless that Linus Torvalds, one of the most famously abusive OSS maintainers in history, had made people's lives worse by way of these actions?
Linus himself has said that he recognizes he hurt people.
> [RMS] awkwardly hit on some women because he is a bit of a social retard. Big fucking whoopdie-doo.
Not a big deal to you. Cool.
Suppose it was a huge deal to other people. I mean, it's not a hypothetical, I've provided citations.
Are the feelings of other people illegitimate when they disagree with you?
>Are you actually saying, without irony, that it's bullshit and baseless that Linus Torvalds, one of the most famously abusive OSS maintainers in history, had made people's lives worse by way of these actions?
Yes, at least on any scale that matters. He might have (temporarily) upset some people, but that doesn't even come close to what I'd consider "made lives worse".
> one of the most famously abusive OSS maintainers in history
Nice ad hominem by the way. Also bullshit. He was outspoken to the point of being considered rude sometimes, and he was what I would consider abusive in his language on some occasions (like the infamous "abortion" rant; if you never had a bad day and said something regretful, feel free to cast the first stone).
You however make it sounds that he raped a lot of people. Or murdered his wife (hello Hans). Or at least was like this all the time (which he was not, he was mostly polite and professional if maybe a little to direct for some cultural backgrounds).
Get a grip. Some feelings were hurt, some egos got nicked, he crossed the line verbally on a few occasions, got criticized for it, learned from that it seems, some people - which, again, is perfectly fine - decided not to work with him. Linux lost some contributors maybe. In order words: life.
If you expect utter perfection from everybody always, you'll be in for a big surprise.
>Suppose it was a huge deal to other people. I mean, it's not a hypothetical, I've provided citations.
You provided some one-sided hearsay, from mostly anonymous stories, nothing that even amounts to harassment either, let alone sexual harassment. That's the evidential standard of a kangaroo court and the kind of "crime" dictators use to silence their most outspoken dissidents, not due process (which you seem really fond of by mentioning it all the time).
Regardless, that RMS made some people uneasy - while a bit problematic and surely something he could and should have improved - does by far not warrant the way people punch down on him, destroyed his reputation and negated his entire life's work, called him names, fabricated false allegations such as that he was defending Epstein.
Where is your empathy for his humanity and plight? Or is that reserved to people who are slightly irked out and/or offended to see he had a mattress in his office (which he used to sleep on, because he was essentially living in his office, btw)?
>Are the feelings of other people illegitimate when they disagree with you?
Their feeling are legitimate - which by the way does not mean they always have legitimate cause to feel that way, nor does it mean they never have a legitimate cause - but matter a lot less than facts or actions.
_Like, it sounds like you very much do not want "those people" in your community._
I do not want people who make no material contribution but merely sow strife and discord. Somehow we have allowed ourselves to be colonised by them and cowed into submission.
Perfectly reasonable and intelligent people continue to extoll the virtues of how CoCs improve communities and increase diversity. I mean I don’t know, do they actually? You’d think programmers would be the exact types of people to try and analyze this, and yet it seems people are afraid to even ask the question. Of course they do, you’d have to be stupid or hateful to wonder otherwise.
I’m not buying it. When the hell have solutions to deep-seated, complex social problems ever been as simple as a markdown document with some carefully written bullet points? I believe CoCs accomplish _something_, but some days I am left wondering what that is.
For what it’s worth, I don’t really care that much. Projects having CoCs does not bother me or anything like that. But the unquestioning acceptance that they “obviously” work has been a little unsettling despite the fact that I don’t think it’s obvious open source has become more welcoming at all.
I attended JupyterCon- the organizers were very focused on inclusivity, which I definitely appreciate. I love attending conferences just to hear from everyone. This is why inclusivity matters to me- it welcomes a broader slice of people. And virtual conferences have the potential to bring even more people together (world-wide populations that cannot travel internationally, people who cannot travel for a week at a time, etc). I also want to hear people talk honestly and CoC violations like this worry me.
The keynote speakers were all great and I'm excited for them to be posted live, I thought they were supposed to be available at the end of the week.
Jeremy's was a different keynote than the others- more technically oriented, but nothing struck me at the time as being a CoC violation. I could easily have missed something, clarity from NumFOCUS would be greatly appreciated here if only for future speakers.
This was my first virtual conference but the organizers' overabundance of caution detracted from the experience in some ways- the talks were all in WebEx rooms where only the presenters were visible and the chat messages could only be seen by the presenters. The effect of this was that it felt like you were in an empty room. The explanation for this setup was to prevent trolling, but this was quite a small conference and it seemed to really cut down on attendee chatter.
I looked for an independent primary source on on these events and wasn't able to find one. However, it may be of interest that the conference program lists the talk title as "Creating delightful libraries and books with nbdev and fastdoc" [0], whereas the delivered talk has the title of "I Like Notebooks" and is a direct response to Joel's talk. The conference organizers, or others, may have expected a different keynote and felt deceived by the change in topic. Note also that, according to Jeremy's blog post, the version of the talk posted on YouTube is not the version that was presented at the conference. As third parties we have very little information.
I'm also uncertain if the investigative committee actually intended to impose any consequences. Jeremy expressed concern that the situation may prevent his talk from being available, but I don't see _any_ talks posted on the JupyterCon site yet. The only definite action is the decision that a code of conduct violation had occurred and the notification thereof. The notification clearly caused Jeremy Howard significant distress, which should have been avoided. However this may have been unintentional on the part of the conference organizers. For all we know, the situation has also caused them similar distress. Hopefully the involved parties can still find some remediation despite the incident blowing up on social media.
My main take-aways are that (1) small technical organizations are often poor at community management and investigating potential misconduct, and (2) the public internet is worse, with a tendency to devolve into public shaming.
[0]
https://cfp.jupytercon.com/2020/schedule/general-sessions/
> I don't see any talks posted on the JupyterCon site yet.
Talks are available to attendees, apparently:
https://twitter.com/LorenaABarba/status/1319252544091205632
> small technical organizations are often poor at community management
NumFOCUS is fact promoting their "Diverse & Inclusive Spaces and Conferences Cookbook" so they have presumably put a fair amount of time and effort into this:
https://twitter.com/NumFOCUS/status/1321474326202404867
This is a great example of how codifying good behavior into an all-encompassing Code of Conduct has a lot of unintended consequences.
The organization's Code of Conduct was so broad-reaching, thorough, and explicit that it doesn't appear to have left any leeway for common sense. Why did they simply follow the explicit procedures of the CoC rather than stopping to question if what they were doing was the right thing to do?
I suspect they were afraid to deviate from their own Code of Conduct, for fear that the 2 complainants would use social media to criticize the event operators. No event organizers want to be publicly accused of ignoring their own Code of Conduct or denying that a CoC complaint was valid. Getting on the wrong side of this issue could be a death sentence for the organizers.
So instead, they used the Code of Conduct machinery to turn the complaints into a vague punishment for the speaker. In doing so, they washed their hands of responsibility and shielded themselves from criticism. It doesn't make any sense, but they upheld their end of the CoC and therefore are "safe" from being cancelled.
_The organization's Code of Conduct was so broad-reaching, thorough, and explicit that it doesn't appear to have left any leeway for common sense._
Did we read the same article?
The article says that he was pointed at two contradictory codes of conduct, and violated for violating unstated standards from an implicit code of conduct that wasn't revealed to him.
That's making shit up to be able to say you did something. It is exactly the opposite of rigidly following a code of conduct.
And, as the article points out, they managed to fail to follow their own official code of conduct in the process.
> Why did they simply follow the explicit procedures of the CoC rather than stopping to question if what they were doing was the right thing to do?
> I suspect they were afraid to deviate from their own Code of Conduct, for fear that the 2 complainants would use social media to criticize the event operators.
As described, they didn't follow the procedures as written, nor did they follow through on the procedure as suggested in their early communications.
They didn't seem to have a problem with deviating from their code of conduct.
> explicit that it doesn't appear to have left any leeway for common sense. Why did they simply follow the explicit procedures of the CoC rather than stopping to question if what they were doing was the right thing to do?
It's good that they blindly applied their CoC in a case where it's clear-cut that it's bad, since it revealed the problems with the CoC. If they chose not to enforce it in this instance, then when a more political issue inevitably came up down the road, a similar bad result may have happened but without the backlash necessary to fix it.
This kind of post reminds me of some of the essays in "The God That Failed" (edited by Crossman).[1] When one is tried in this fashion, acknowledging that the 'institution' has any legitimacy is basically giving up, and the 'court' will not compromise or accept anything less than penance. The only option is to walk away, and try to avoid similar people and situations in the future.
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_that_Failed
It's not about whether people sitting in the "committee meetings" of the "Code of Conduct Enforcement Team" are dickheads but it's about how you deal with it. Not acknowledging their legitimacy and walking away is a wise advise.
Ok JupyterCon people. You are wrong. You are wrong, you are wrong, you are wrong.
The ability to voice a critique constructively is vital for a proper discourse. The ability to take a critique constructively is vital for a proper discourse.
If anyone thinks I am wrong in here, tell me and let’s duke it out.
I think you're wrong: This isn't about whether voicing critique is acceptable, it's that a breakdown in communication caused a relatively harmless situation to cause much anguish.
If I understand correctly what you are saying, you imply that applying this to Jeremy would be fine if only it was communicated properly and in advance.
I disagree, because the context is important. Sure, JupyterCon is free to set their own rules. But freedom does not make it right. It is not some kind of moral support group, not a Sunday book club, it is a conference, where sharing and discussing research is the whole point.
No, that's not what I'm getting at. I'm trying to say that what happened _wouldn't_ have been fine _even if_ OP had committed a grave misdeed.
If communication had been better, I bet they could have talked this through without OP getting emotionally fucked up to the point of swearing off giving talks altogether. Like it could conceivably have been a chat like "oh no the other person is my friend and cool with this" "oh ok".
I remain confident that the JupyterCon people are in favor of critiquing ideas and that they would not have barred OP from doing so in the talk, even if the situation had been different and this had happened in advance of the conference, if productive communication had been possible.
And while I don't think it would be _fine_, I suspect OP would have preferred to be uninvited in advance for bad reasons instead of having this awful experience after the fact.
> I bet they could have talked this through without OP getting emotionally fucked up to the point of swearing off giving talks altogether.
There's also the reality, or at least noted possibility that his opportunities or ability to give talks will greatly diminish as the result of this. Submit a talk to a conference, they search you, and oh, what's this, "Was keynote speaker at a conference that then removed his talk from the conference archive over a CoC violation"? No thanks, we can find another speaker.
It would be intersting to watch all of the other presentations from this confrence. Did any one else, perhaps not as high profile, make any comments which could be agreed as worthy of a CoC violation? What happened?
Jeremy Howard has done a LOT for the machine learning community and the world because he really has democratised machine learning and made it extremely accessible for people. Not just with free lecture videos, but by buiding and releasing tools that continue to give people an on ramp into a complex field.
Jeremy is also relatively high profile, in an "if you know you know" kind of way.
This really seems like a bit of an attempt for the confrence to do something slightly edgy and controversial to boost their own profile.
Edit: i should have said "enabling a whole community to build and release tools for free". Obviously a LOT of people are contributing to fastai so i dont want to take anything away from the community. Jeremy is clearly instrumental to that movement.
Why are you trying to catch them being hypocritical? A hypothetical situation where multiple talks violated the CoC but attendants only reported one talk and so the conference only took action against one speaker doesn't seem like a huge problem. Like, sure, maybe they should have CoC cops sit through each gathering compromising material just so that it's perfectly fair, but I don't think that's the best use of conf organizers' time.
Well given it’s a data science orientated conf shouldn’t a more scientific approach to be taking the judging whether this violation was in line with the norms of other talks given at the conference. They could randomly sample 4-5 talks if watching every single one is too much time.
Man, I'm so happy that things like
https://github.com/mniip/wtfcoc/blob/master/CoC.md
exist.
People are so fragile nowadays on the internets. how come?
I think in new projects from now on I'll start running
echo "Don't be a dickhead, or I'll block you from the repo until you stop." > CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
Not needlessly aggressive, gets the point across, short, covers everything someone could do wrong, provides consequences and a pathway to reconciliation.
It doesn't communicate what you consider to be dickhead behavior, so it invites fear, uncertainty and doubt both in whether my behavior is okay, and in what behavior of other participants I can expect to be "protected" from.
Codifying all expected social norms among an arbitrarily diverse group of people in a concise but fully understandable form is impossible. Attempts to do so just leave loopholes, edge cases and personal interpretations the size of jumbo jets which will be abused. This doesn't try to do so and leaves it up to you to observe the social norms of the group. Like has been done by humans since the dawn of our species.
edit: A false sense of security if not actually security as the author of this article found out.
You don't need to codify all expected social norms because the CoC is applied by and for people, who can extrapolate to fill the gaps. You do need to give them a starting point, and since there is no obvious universal definition of "don't be a dickhead", you probably want to list some concrete examples.
If people are idiots about enforcing the CoC, I'm willing to bet they'd have been idiots about enforcing the "don't be a dickhead" rule too.
I'd prefer to make the implicitness explicit, in that case: "if the project owners consider your behavior overly assholish, you may be blocked from contributing, and the owners will add a notice to a page documenting the sanction and rationale". This makes it clear upfront that it's inherently and deliberately subjective.
Then people understand what the CoC is: the project owners just moderating the project as they see fit. This is basically what all open source projects have done since forever. If others read the public list of moderation actions and disagree with the project owners' enforcement behavior (it being too lax or too strict or otherwise unfair or wrong), they can choose not to participate.
Trying to codify every possible violation into a set of explicit rules, or, worse, trying to codify good behavior, just leads to this sort of "you technically violated this part here" bludgeoning.
> and the owners will add a notice to a page documenting the sanction and rationale
I mean, that's basically a CoC-by-example. I don't really disagree with that modulo some surmountable reservations about giving too much attention to either bad actors or victims. Where I think this falls short is that, when spinning up a new project, you'd start with a blank page, so people _don't_ have the opportunity to determine whether they disagree with your moderation style until enough bad things have actually happened. Why not carry over your learnings from previous projects?
>Where I think this falls short is that, when spinning up a new project, you'd start with a blank page, so people _don't_ have the opportunity to determine whether they disagree with your moderation style until enough bad things have actually happened. Why not carry over your learnings from previous projects?
If every single project on GitHub right now removed its CoC, how much would really change over the next month or two? The vast majority of people know what's generally acceptable or unacceptable, and the vast majority of open source project owners share that sensibility. There may be a rare case of a project owner who thinks saying "hi, it might be better to do [X]" is offensive, or a contributor who thinks it's okay to say "this code is fucking terrible, you're a moron", but unless you're dealing with Linus Torvalds or someone else really unusual, it's almost never a concern.
When contributing to a project with such a blank page, you run the risk of encountering that odd project owner who seems to diverge from almost everyone else in the community, but I think the risk is so low and the impact so minor that it's not worth worrying about it much. And if it's truly a concern for some reason, you can just click on the owners' other projects or Google their names/monikers to see if anything concerning comes up.
I definitely think project owners should moderate shitty behavior, and I think for other sorts of communities (like message boards) there might be stronger requirements for somewhat more explicit rules, and if a particular project for some reason has had more than one instance of behavior the owner finds unacceptable but contributors don't then it makes sense to explicitly clarify some things, but in general I don't really understand all of the bureaucracy surrounding this.
There's local consensus but it absolutely does differ between projects. I don't know what people feel particularly strongly about, or have particularly bad experiences with. I don't know how people want problems to be reported/addressed. I don't know whether to expect the community leaders' support when there are problems, or whether it'll be blamed on me for having the wrong values. All of these distract from trying to get technical work done. Writing things down is useful.
I certainly may just be biased by my own experience from maintaining and contributing to some projects. I don't believe I've ever encountered any situation where something like this has come up, personally. It might be more common than I think it is, and if someone feels harassed in some way related to a a project I'm responsible for, I definitely want to provide them a private way to voice their concerns. I'm just ambivalent about it all due to stories like the one described in this post.
Even the "CoC experts" in the post say that trying to codify acceptable behavior is the wrong way to do it. You just end up with overly broad rules like "be nice" because there is no way to write a CoC that covers what is acceptable behavior of every person in attendance.
So like every other CoC, except with significantly less fear? (being branded a "dickhead" is something you can shrug off; being branded a bigot far less so).
I'd say it's more fear? If I don't get any hint as to what kind of behavior the individual maintainers consider dickheadish, I have to worry about that with every interaction. If you have a CoC with even very vague and subjective rules, I at least know what kind of stuff you care about and then at worst I can be extra careful around that.
(Sure, I can shrug off the judgement, but being blocked from their repo is still a hassle if it could have been avoided with better up-front communication.)
> I'd say it's more fear? If I don't get any hint as to what kind of behavior the individual maintainers consider dickheadish, I have to worry about that with every interaction. If you have a CoC with even very vague and subjective rules, I at least know what kind of stuff you care about and then at worst I can be extra careful around that.
But knowing what's in the CoC doesn't actually tell you what kind of stuff the maintainer cares about. The maintainers will still block you if they consider you dickheadish, they'll just find a reading of their CoC that lets them declare you a racist (or whatever) first.
The maintainer can write(/adopt) a CoC as a tool to make it easy for me to not be a dickhead. The effectiveness of that is gonna vary, communication is hard. Still better than nothing.
Publishing informal thoughts or a semi-formal moderation policy is effective communication. Publishing a pseudo-legal code sends the message that you will be making legalistic judgements and pronouncements.
Did you think it was cool to be a dickhead when there wasn't an explicit no dickheads allowed rule?
I don't think I'd use the wtfcoc, but it's just being explicit that the owner of the repo can block you if desired, which some people need to have said.
> Did you think it was cool to be a dickhead when there wasn't an explicit no dickheads allowed rule?
No, which is why I think the rule doesn't add any actionable information.
Writing down behaviour rulebooks that resemble law, complete with tribunals or HR employee handbooks is like adopting big company policies for your small 3 person startup. It's a bad idea because it slows you down and is unnecessary because your project isn't at a size yet where normal social management techniques break down due to scale. The vast majority of projects don't need a statement-of-the-obvious CoC until it gets to a scale past dunbar's number IMO.
I don't need to see a person's behavior rulebook if I'm going to play D&D at a meetup, or jam on some music together or whatever. The vast majority of casual stuff like that doesn't need it and shouldn't need it. Neither does joe's casual github project either.
Does it really "invite fear and uncertainty" or are you just posturing? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here. What's up buddy
There are a lot more people on the internet nowadays. This is a good thing.
CoCs were doomed to this from the beginning. Any set of strict/influential laws should be supported by a proper set of institutions like courts, lawyers, arbitration, judging practice. When you have rules and just a mob, you get nothing but a mob rule of power-hungry people.
Why don't contributors openly reject this stupid system (not the rules themselves, which sound fine) and unseat these self-proclaimed procurators is beyond me.
"After they told me of the reports and their finding that I had violated the code of conduct, they asked if I had anything to say."
There really is only ever one thing to say in a situation like this, and it is "Yes, I refuse to participate any further in this farce; good day!" and then hang up. Personally I would not have been so polite :)
CoC committees are breeding grounds for idiots who think you can legislate for common sense and basic decency; and in my book that is a bridge that's worth burning every time.
I really hope the author finds some peace in all this, nobody deserves to be treated they way they have. And I hope that others who have found - and will in future find - themselves in this same situation, will have the courage to stand up to this kind of bullying by refusing to engage.
It's worse than that, these are deeply authoritarian and self-righteous mediocrities, only tangentially invested in a field where they would be rightfully irrelevant otherwise. What other kind of person would want to be part of such a committee? So in effect we created a lure for psychos and then gave them unchecked power to legislate over everybody else. What could go wrong.
Sounds like an HOA.
> "After they told me of the reports and their finding that I had violated the code of conduct, they asked if I had anything to say."
That's essentially a Kafka trap [1].
[1]
https://lifelessons.co/critical-thinking/kafkatrapping/
That article has to be one of the most bewildering things I've ever read.
I have not seen the term "SJW" used so many times in proximity to Orwell and 1984 references before; well, at least not outside of a gamergate board
Denying its a kafka trap only proves that it is.
Unfortunately, a CoC and a committee to enforce it are now table stakes for an open source project. Part of the reason, I believe, is because companies refuse to commit resources to open source without some assurance that the project will employ best practices to prevent discrimination, harassment, and a hostile work environment, lest the company find itself liable for such. (There's also the "good corporate citizen" bit about not being seen to support bigotry and hate.) And corporate resources dominate open source -- without them we go back to dorm-room side projects of questionable maintenance.
A-Train's Law applies: You don't fuck with the money. You _never_ fuck with the money.
Agree that these are table stakes, and I speak as someone whose day job is managing a team that works on a fairly large open source project which is bound by the Linux Foundation CoC. And yes you are right, it is all about the money at the end of the day.
But here's the thing; if one of my devs made a gaffe at a conference, they'd have the full weight of myself and the company defending them, they definitely would not find themselves alone facing some kangaroo court that answers only to itself :)
Personally I'm skeptical about them. People who behave badly will behave badly. People who don't generally won't. The drumbeat of CoCs may make some difference at the margins but I'm skeptical. In any case, as you suggest, a refusal to have a CoC is itself a political statement that sends the message that you don't believe in good behavior and is pretty much a non-starter for that reason.
In general, they're well meant. And in my experience issues arise not so much from the conference organizers but some attendee taking offence over something in a way that most would consider hypersensitive. And the organizers feeling they have to take their side even if they personally disagree.
> But here's the thing; if one of my devs made a gaffe at a conference, they'd have the full weight of myself and the company defending them...
Maybe you are right. But this seems very surprising, the company instinct would likely be to cut loses and have that person fired to avoid further bad publicity.
> And corporate resources dominate open source -- without them we go back to dorm-room side projects of questionable maintenance.
How was that saying "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"?
Maybe FSF should have rebranded as Liberty not "Libre" software.
That was Benjamin Franklin, and the quote, while good on its own, has been pulled out of context: "The letter wasn’t about liberty but about taxes and the ability to “raise money for defense against French and Indian attacks. The governor kept vetoing the assembly’s efforts at the behest of the family, which had appointed him.”"
The hacker ethos is dead. Now contributing to open source is just like working for a corporation. Except for free.
That's what free software always meant -- free as in freedom. Stallman is a 1960s lefty, and puts personal freedom at the center of his philosophy. Today's left is... different, and more concerned with score settling, specifically, paying for privileged groups' historical privilege with a purgatory of additional restrictions going forward. Personal freedom for all is not the goal, matter of fact it's inimical to the goal.
> And corporate resources dominate open source -- without them we go back to dorm-room side projects of questionable maintenance.
I imagine the transition from "side project" to "I might as well be working for a MegaCorp with all of this HR-esque CoC nonsense" would be most unpleasant. How many project founders bow out at that point?
Yeah, that transition from a hobby project to a big payout/nice salary/more usage/more resources must really sting. (Obviously it's a big change but I don't think most would consider it a net negative.)
> big payout/nice salary/more usage/more resources
_if_ you get the actual payout and your project doesn't just get AWS-ified. :)
We're moving to a world where we have to deal with unaccountable HR departments and policies like a regular job, but do not get compensated for our contributions like a regular job unless we are already employees of a significant corporate contributor.
>Why don't contributors openly reject this stupid system (not the rules themselves, which sound fine) and unseat these self-proclaimed procurators is beyond me.
Have you tried doing that? How do you like being hounded out of your job, and probably your profession, by a braying mob?
Edit: I also find it bitterly ironic that the Progressive Bay Area-centric Hacker News is now saying how bad all of this is, after being the complicit champions of it.
HN users are not monolith. Probably most of us aren't in the Bay Area, many are not even from the USA. Many people here wouldn't give a single fuck about some twitter mob because they live in countries where people are more tolerant of opposite views (and finding out your acquaintance votes other party will get him friendly jab, not excommunication).
> and finding out your acquaintance votes other party will get him friendly jab, not excommunication
I've long argued that the US should have lots of parties, and adopt pluralistic voting, but then I stopped when it seemed to me that countries that already have this system don't have demonstrably better political outcomes. But your comment pushes me back to the other side of the argument now. It occurs to me that if we didn't have only 2 sides, practically, maybe policy discussions wouldn't be so damnably acrimonious and win-lose.
Sweden and Switzerland seem pretty great IMO. I think the trick is proportional voting instead of first past the post.
The main problem that arises with large multi-party systems is that the ruling party needs to form a coalition to govern and that may require cozying up to some extreme small party and giving them influence outsize of their numbers.
It seems to me that the two-party system in the United States is, practically speaking, the same thing. Within each major party there are smaller caucuses, such as the Freedom Caucus, which are more extreme than the party as a whole and exercise outsized influence because the larger party needs them to maintain its big tent. "Big tent" == coalition.
> where people are more tolerant of opposite views
For now yeah but the tides are changing everywhere. Europe (and the US) fought facism, so we had a period of time where politics where mostly shades of purple/blue/red. Now facism is on the rise again, and we're seeing that across Europe, from Spain with Vox to Sweden with "Sweden Democrats". With the rise of these parties, you're seeing more and more of excommunication, as being tolerant of intolerance will only lead to more intolerance, not tolerance.
I love this argument, just because it completely flips reality on its head. The intolerance that is being discussed is that of the Progressive US Left, who cannot tolerate any dissention from the current state of "politically correct" (here I use it's original definition). What you are describing is the reaction to it. It's a masterstroke of political reasoning, when you find a way to define your own shortfalls as stemming from the "other side".
Edit: I should add, it's amusing while it doesn't affect me, but the ramifications are horrifying.
You're talking like the leader of the right in the USA was tolerant of any different viewpoint than his own viewpoint around him. He's publicly rejected and shit on people very publicly that were his allies/staff for years the moment they have a dissenting opinion. Come on, not a left or right thing.
You're talking like the current president of the USA came out of nowhere, and was not at all a public expression of dissatisfaction with the status quo.
The president doesn't need to accept dissent from his staff. Just hypothetically, if Obama's health secretary said that being transgender was largely a mental illness, or his head of domestic policy said that we need to close the southern border, does he need to tolerate that? Just to be very clear - those are completely hypothetical - I am not sure what actual "dissent" caused Trump to fire his various staff members, but it is unrelated.
Yeah, the primary intolerance is done by the champions of Popper's maxim, who weaponized it and use it to cast away anyone who disagrees with them.
I keep saying: the _paradox of tolerance_ applies recursively. To preserve tolerance, the intolerant must be removed from the community. However, if in the process of removing the intolerant, you cause collateral damage on innocent, tolerant people, then _you_ become the intolerant that needs to be removed.
"Too little cancel culture? Nonsense, we need more of it"
The important to thing to realize about cancel culture, CoC enforcement, and various efforts like this, is that it's very occasionally about making the world a better place, and very often about people who want power doing everything they can to seize power.
Even the "Black Lives Matter" movement is distracted from the goal of making black lives matter with a laundry list of progressive demands like dismantling the "Western-prescribed nuclear family structure" that are tangentially related at best. (Indeed, the entire premise of contemporary intersectionality demands one surrender the possibility of delivering meaningful reform on an incremental basis, in service of forming a bloc dedicated to seizing power wholesale.)
The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation doesn't speak for the Black Lives Matter movement.
You must admit this is very confusing. Which of those two groups are the good guys? Who does speak for them?
Back in the days when Occupy movement was starting, and 4chan people were trolling Scientologists, this was lauded as a new era of social movements - _decentralized_. No central organization to squash, anyone can pick up the label and carry the fight.
What we got was also predictable, though. If anyone can fight under any banner, if nobody owns the banner, there is no possibility to come to a compromise, to settle the differences. The proponents of a movement will pick the most benign shard as an example to defend and popularize their cause; the opponents of the movement will pick the most extremist shard as a justification to fight back. Everyone feels their survival is at stake.
That's like asking who speaks for feminism, Occupy, or the gilets jaunes. They're decentralized.
That's a fine point, but I was just told someone DIDN'T speak for them.
They don't. No single person or organization can speak for a decentralized movement.
Does this mean that the movement does not mean anything specific?
Supposing your thesis to be true, the fact that you have to make that distinction only supports the claim I made. The foundation’s efforts are one key thing that distracts the movement from what I would assume to be the foundational goal of preserving black lives (specifically by seeing that they are no longer exposed to the direct, acute threats that tend to occur when interacting with police.)
It seems then we are not in disagreement over substantive matters, but over minor questions such as phrasing.
We seem to disagree whether a significant number of people in the BLM movement pay any attention to the BLM Global Network Foundation.
> that it's very occasionally about making the world a better place, and very often about people who want power doing everything they can to seize power.
More specifically, by exploiting and weaponizing the good nature of others. This is why they went after geek hobbies specifically: science fiction, open source, comics, cartoons, video games, and tabletop RPGs -- because geeks are sensitive and accommodating, and shouting at them how racist and sexist they are is bound to make them stop and reflect -- leaving them wide open to further attack. Had they chosen to attack pastimes rife with actual racists and sexists -- tailgate parties in rural Georgia, say -- they'd be routed, because racists and sexists don't have the fucks to give about their behavior.
As I've said elsewhere, "SJWs" aren't really geeks. They are more like mentally deranged normies who long to sit at the cool kids' table, but don't stand a chance of ever sitting there, so they take over the geeks' table, because better to rule in hell than serve in heaven.
>HN users are not monolith.
This is correct. Quite often, a group which is portrayed as hypocritical is not hypocritical at all: rather there are just many opinions within the group, and they conflict with each other. As you've said, the [group] is not monolith.
Fortunately, I am one of those people. I also despair as I watch the tendrils of US-style partisanship spread here.
Much of the conversation here misses the point of CoCs (and org policies in general). I've led 200+ person community orgs and helped put in governance for Fortune 500s, it's all the same - policies are an exercise in leadership, and are exactly as effective as the leadership in place.
Rules, policies, laws, Hammurabi's Code - they're all just leadership decisions made in advance. The problem here is that the leadership clearly doesn't really care. They got a complaint, they "investigated," and they moved on. Classic "governance" - totally ineffective.
After years, my favorite governance approach is still the one from a college club. It read in it's entirety: "No !ssholes." It makes clear the goal, who will be enforcing, and what to expect: The goal is no !ssholes, I will be enforcing, and I will do so by calling you an !sshole. It's just social pressure - and for anything outside of the judicial or corporate systems, that's all there is anyway.
>Rules, policies, laws, Hammurabi's Code - they're all just leadership decisions made in advance. The problem here is that the leadership clearly doesn't really care. They got a complaint, they "investigated," and they moved on. Classic "governance" - totally ineffective.
I definitely don't have the experience you do, but the regular judicial system (in most countries that aren't kafka-esque throughout history) has adversarial parties that are incentivized to find if the other party is wrong. That's very different from all the corporate, university or open source "governance" systems. Maybe they can't bear that additional cost, but it's a huge difference.
> Why don't contributors openly reject this stupid system (not the rules themselves, which sound fine) and unseat these self-proclaimed procurators is beyond me.
Because some people actually do act like jerks, and we want to be able to tell those people to either stop acting like jerks or go away.
> CoCs were doomed to this from the beginning.
Rather, Codes of Conduct are more difficult than you think. The article itself points to several ways in which the committee in question didn't follow their own guidelines. It also points to "Code of Conduct Best Practices" which aren't followed by the Code of Conduct in question.
> Any set of strict/influential laws should be supported by a proper set of institutions like courts, lawyers, arbitration, judging practice.
This is I think a big problem right now. Our community adopted a Code of Conduct proactively; we haven't yet had to deal with any issues. But I'm painfully aware that doing this sort of policing well takes time, skill, and training, which I don't think it's reasonable for normal community members to take.
On the one hand, I'd love to be able to (for instance) outsource all CoC engagement and enforcement to a specialized body, that could manage a whole investigation / accuser / defense / jury system for a number of different organizations.
On the other hand, there are an awful lot of decisions made that I very much disagree with. For example:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21484347
"On the one hand, I'd love to be able to (for instance) outsource all CoC engagement and enforcement to a specialized body, that could manage a whole investigation / accuser / defense / jury system for a number of different organizations."
You know, that's a pretty good idea. And if there were actual laws backing it, then you already have a "working" system. Now I am starting to wonder, should CoCs even try to transcend the law, is that part of the problem, where we try to legislate for things that are in many cases subjective?
> should CoCs even try to transcend the law
Yes? Companies do this all the time with codes of conduct and nobody really thinks twice about it.
Nobody would think it's bizarre that (hypothetically, I don't know what their actual rules are) Coca-Cola has a rule barring employees from wearing a "Pepsi > Coke" shirt to client meetings.
> where we try to legislate for things that are in many cases subjective?
We do this all the time, even in our actual legal system.
"Disturbing the Peace" is one example off the top of my head of something that's incredibly subjective that we consider the purview of the legal system.
>"Disturbing the Peace" is one example off the top of my head of something that's incredibly subjective that we consider the purview of the legal system.
That doesn't mean it's a good thing. Good laws (especially criminal laws) should be normative, i.e. it should be deducible for anyone which behavior is punishable. Laws not adhering to this principle are ripe for selective enforcement and have no place in a rule-of-law society.
This is going off on a tangent obviously compared to the OP's point (that the legal system doesn't try to control for subjective behavior, which is incorrect), but sure, I'll indulge.
> That doesn't mean it's a good thing.
I don't think this is a popular position, or even a necessarily logical one. There are a great deal of "I'm not touching you" type behaviors that society collectively despises and often falls under these catch-all categories.
Legal doctrine is rife with "reasonable person" standards as a result that would be impossible to codify thoroughly and properly. Obviously, the mythical "reasonable person" doesn't exist and is often a judge or jury left to subjectively decide.
For example, harassment laws sometimes rely on a "credible threat of violence" based on something that would "make a reasonable person afraid for their safety". Good luck enumerating all the possible definitions of that.
> Rather, Codes of Conduct are more difficult than you think.
That's a bug when trying to apply a coherent standard, but it's a feature when using the document as cover for arbitrary mob action.
> That's a bug when trying to apply a coherent standard, but it's a feature when using the document as cover for arbitrary mob action.
I hate to break it to you, but bad actors will use _any available tool they can_ to gain power and do harm. If there's no Code of Conduct, some bad actor will take advantage of the ambiguity to do things they know make other people uncomfortable, just because they can. If there's an overly broad Code of Conduct, or one which doesn't protect the rights of the "accused" (either in how it's written or how it's enforced), then other bad actors will take advantage of it to exert power.
That's why laws have to be written "defensively", like code exposed to the open internet. You have to try to anticipate exploits by bad actors ahead of time; and fix the ones you didn't spot as they're exploited.
> bad actors will use any available tool they can to gain power and do harm
Of course they will. That's what makes them bad actors :)
But are the bad actors in the two scenarios (with/without Coc) the same kind of bad actors? Do they have the same set of motivations for being in the community, and the same ability to rally supporters? My perception is that the bad actors in the two scenarios are wildly different, and that they're different because Codes of Conduct tend to distort the core incentives for participation in the community.
> we want to be able to tell those people to either stop acting like jerks or go away.
Why do you need a CoC to do that? Just write exactly that quote of your comment and post it as the rules of your chat server/conference/etc. It's simple. All the multiple pages of CoCs for everything these days is just an argument waiting to happen. What is and isn't racist, sexist, mean, etc. multiple people aren't going to agree on.
Just write in the rules, don't be a jerk, I and the mods/admins/volunteers decide who is and isn't a jerk. Done. Why do you need a CoC? With a CoC you are begging for this kind of trouble. Eventually someone will performatively complain that your CoC isn't enough. You can't just have a code of conduct now you need a Covenant of Conduct or some other thing. And you didn't include this ism and that phobia you only mentioned sexism and racism and you're not being intersectional enough and this is exactly why tech isn't diverse, blah blah blah. Why open yourself up to this at all?
Its the same reason Feminism 100 years on still "hasnt reached its goal" 100 years later
It was never about fairness or treated the SAME
It was a power grab to use women against males as a poltical tool to bring about Global LEFT Authorian control and communism
Everyone knows deep down they cant compete on a equal footing with ethnic straight males because
Whites are different from non whites
Asians are different from blacks
Females are different from Males
Racism is a made up word to squash truth/debate/disussion
Without goverment force via armed police (order followers),most would reject
- Affirmitive action
- Quotas
- Super
- GST/VAT
- female only jobs
- Black only jobs
- Disabled only jobs
and award the job to best qualfied native ethnic person
instead of giving a leg over to imported population, gays or women
Why do you need a Code of Conduct to prevent people acting like jerks? If someone acts like a jerk tell them to stop, and if they don't, take action. IMO you don't need it enshrined in a dodgy pseudo-contract. That's a recipe for more problems than it solves.
> Why do you need a Code of Conduct to prevent people acting like jerks? If someone acts like a jerk tell them to stop, and if they don't, take action.
There are lots of reasons.
Ideally forces you to think ahead of time what kind of conduct you are OK with or not OK with, so you don't have to decide at the moment when someone you actually have a relationship with does something.
Ideally you think ahead of time how you would respond if someone did one of those things.
Ideally you think about a process for people to follow that balances several contrasting goals: Namely, to avoid doxxing or blaming the victim, but also to prevent the system from being used against innocent people (which it seems what happened here).
Ideally people who are prone to act like jerks decide not to act like jerks at all: Either they behave themselves, or they don't join your community.
If you don't do a Code of Conduct, and just "tell the jerk to stop, and if not take action", then it's a crap shoot whether you overreact (as happened here) or underreact (as has happened in many cases). If you deploy a Code of Conduct properly, there's at least a better chance that you'll respond constructively.
But the downsides outweigh the positives. A CoC opens you up to allegations of not having drafted a proper one, not being comprehensive enough, not thinking about this and that and those groups or how people can still be "mean" without violating it. Eventually you'll have to add more and more and more and then you're not going to be able to follow the outlined resolution procedure anyways
To pencil out even further what my sibling comment mentioned; you want to be able to say
"you repeatedly did _x_ and this is explicitly against our Code of Conduct that you said you'd read before your first contribution"
instead of
"you're being a jerk and as such we will be refusing any contributions from you going forward".
The second example is completely arbitrary, and is up to the whims of the core team - whomever they might be. With a Code of Conduct you're (ideally) told up front what you can and cannot do. This reduces ambiguity and arbitrary decision making.
I can also tell you that a Code of Conduct isn't a change to how I personally govern the projects and communities I'm in charge of. Instead, it's about writing down what I would already remove people for anyway.
The effect is the same though?
It’s not as if a code of conduct ever contains anything that sane people don’t already know.
And like some other commenter said, it basically boils down to “don’t be an asshole”.
All very true. But then you get drama about "what is an asshole". Trust me, it's not just a made up strawman argument. That happens regularly.
Breaking the Code of Conduct isn't a one-and-done thing. You talk to that person, and tell them that what they said was over the line. Be that using a slur, being increasingly insulting to another community member, or something else.
I, as an administrator, basically tell them "not cool". If their reaction is "yeah, alright" then nothing more comes of it. No citations. No three-strike rules. But if someone continually defies our reprimands we have the backing of saying "you've repeatedly been told... " and "this is written in ..." meaning nothing should come as a surprise.
It's also a way for normal users to understand what might be rule-breaking behavior. I can't observe everything happening in a community, as much as I like participating in them. Instead, I have to rely on other non-admin members reporting bad behavior. Making it clear to other users what kind of behavior they can report someone for is also super helpful - and for some people induces trust.
I find dishing out punitive measures on the basis of the nature of one's conduct always a nebulous, case-based business and as such see it not reasonable to make for a crude guideline - a flowchart, if you will - for the line of action to take for what one deems a transgression against the project's behavioral norms. Codes of Conduct always seem to me a way for one, a profit-driven corporation, for example, to posture its morally virtuous conduct, evident from the eagerness to expressly list out all the kinds of infringements against people of oppressed-against backgrounds coming to the mind of the CoC's writer (the use of neological hip labels makes a telltale dog whistle), instead of simply listing out goals of the nature of, say, inclusion, diversity, and general amiability. The presence of these prohibitive, morally prescriptivist qualities of CoCs is what I find to be the source of discord here.
For exactly the reason this article is being discussed: Without a code of conduct you're left with an arbitrary line about what "being a jerk" is.
Codifying rules is meant to prevent that from happening, even though as we see it doesn't always work that way.
Agreed. CoCs don’t take into account that there is a small, vocal, petty minority that will always make life hell for others. These people are mostly ignorable and avoidable, if you simply avoid the sorts of things they enjoy (for instance, don’t join committees, don’t buy a house in a neighborhood with an HOA, etc). Unfortunately, lately, these sorts seem to have wriggled into power, making it harder to avoid their nonsense. I’m not sure if CoCs have contributed to this, or if they’re just a symptom of it, but either way, it’s an undesirable outcome.
I think this is a valid point. A system of justice isn't just a set of rules. To be effective, it also requires a trustworthy process to determine whether the rules were correctly decided and published, whether a given individual's conduct violates the rules, and what, if any, punishment there should be.
> Why don't contributors openly reject this stupid system (not the rules themselves, which sound fine) and unseat these self-proclaimed procurators is beyond me.
Indeed. It seems like the winning move is not to play, but I guess that applies to all cyber-bullying. Avoid the offending environment (in that case, JupyterCon) and contribute to a place where discourse is appreciated.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't in that case.
A lot of the 1st generation open source CoCs were not hypotheticals, but "here's things we wish Richard Stallman would stop doing". As head of GNU/FSF, he had tremendous influence in shaping the culture of open source, and one result of that was that it ended up a lot more male-dominated than other areas of "tech": one figure I've seen was around 2% women in prestigious open-source projects vs. around 20% in programming as a whole.
Open source CoCs started as far as I can tell as a combination of a reaction to specific incidents and to address the general problem that women were [choosing to stay out of the community](
https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2018/10/09/moat/
). That link talks about CoCs specifically, but note that her argument is not "and therefore they should be shamed in public" but "and therefore I'm staying out". Hence, 2% vs. 20%.
So yes, CoCs can have downsides - what happened to Jeremy here could well be one of those - but the pre-CoC open source scene had a culture that ended up with 2% women compared to 20% in programming/tech in general. I don't think it's the right solution to simply roll back the change so we're not disadvantaging people like Jeremy any more, and return to disadvantaging people like Alice and Sarah and Rachel and Yasmin.
Yeah, the community at large has really embraced PC culture, if you're not special and frail and broken in just the right way (tm), then you're a CIS scum who should be punished, hard. How DARE you disagree with something someone said.
People who don’t have issues don’t speak up. So only the people who are offended, and some people are easily offended, speak up and have a voice.
This whole thing seems reasonable until you step onto someone’s toe and a bunch of drama emerges.
I don’t really follow. If you hold a talk after being invited, and the organizers receive complaints, they just don’t invite you again. I’m a bit uncertain what the speaker gains from having _any_ further involvement in that process.
The biggest particular concern for CoCs is they use the vague term "offensive". Offense is taken not given, I could take offense at this thread and report it. You could take offense at this comment. I could take offense at yours.
Vague rules are meaningless.
> Any set of strict/influential laws should be supported by a proper set of institutions like courts
I'm confused - are you saying that any group cannot set their own rules or guidelines unless they also create their own judiciary?
I think you actually have to create a whole government, executive, legislative, judiciary. The article reads like a teenager complaining about getting punished for writing an essay about something edgy.
I'm reading a lot of comments here saying that CoCs are categorically bad. Which absolutely isn't what Jeremy is saying in this post, in fact he says just the opposite.
CoCs help prevent and deal with incidents of racism, sexism, homophobia, threats of violence, etc. Those aren't things I, and presumably you, don't want at conferences.
This was an example of CoC being poorly implemented in several ways; that does not mean that CoCs are inherently bad, anymore than corruption in some country's election should be taken to mean that democracy is bad.
There will never be a perfect CoC or CoC process, but there are definitely better and worse ones, and better and worse usages. Personally I'd rather go, or have colleagues go, to conferences which have one; if this conference didn't have a CoC then the critiques Jeremy offered couldn't have been as specific and pointed.
I've seen events and organizations ruled entirely by the organizer's arbitrary fiat and trust me, some of those have been horrible, much worse than they might have been had they had an organized standardized Code of Conduct.
Code of conducts are untested unlike democratic processes.
They are too new and too different. Some can be written benign and others not. They are tools.
Most political structures have rules in them which work regardless of who weilds them, codes of conduct don't. Codes of conduct assume they will be used by good people (and most of them are!) real law or poltical processes assume they might be used by bad people.
There's a real good reason why we think in law that the accused should be treated as if they are innocent. Most codes assume the accused is guilty.
"Most political structures have rules in them which work regardless of who weilds them"
Can you give an example of a rule that "works" regardless of who wields it?
>I'm reading a lot of comments here saying that CoCs are categorically bad. Which absolutely isn't what Jeremy is saying in this post, in fact he says just the opposite.
Him talking about supports a code of conduct was like listening to a shooting victim talking about how they support gun rights. It's like walking into his hospital room, him sitting up, and instantly going into a monologue about how the 2nd amendment protects us from tyranny. It reminds one of the the "Leopards eating faces" meme. If this post sold a code of conduct as a way to fight back against trumped up charges by being able to compare your behavior to stated rules, and expose arbitrariness, I think he might have actually made code of conducts sound like a great thing. Yet instead be defended CoC's by questioning the character of their critics with the line
>the anti-CoC crowd might jump on this as an example of problems with codes of conduct more generally, or might point at this as part of “cancel culture” (a concept I vehemently disagree with, since what is referred to as “cancellation” is often just “facing consequences”).
That's just such a bizarre and weird response given he did literally get cancelled regardless of if he likes it or not and is making a post arguing he's not just "facing consequences". He's like the person in the welfare lineup who thinks everybody around him is a lazy bum.
As someone who has taken the very good and _free_ Fast AI course, and used that to help me land a job, I just wanted to voice support for the author. Creators create and critics criticize. I hope the author doesn’t let this meaningless ding slow down their awesome mission.
It's interesting that he is so vehemently in favor of "cancel culture" given two things:
The reason many people oppose it is because it often leads to completely innocent people being harassed and/or ostracized (or worse). So, in that way, his situation makes a very fitting example of many of the things wrong with cancel culture and highlights a few of the reasons why detractors oppose this kind of attack.
Secondly, it's unfortunate that, despite buying into cancel culture and believing it is merely "facing consequences", he doesn't mention any names. If I were in favor of this kind of social retribution, I definitely would think that the members of this committee should "face consequences". At the very least, they should be removed from the committee, as clearly these people shouldn't have the authority to enforce any CoC, let alone a particularly nebulous one.
All in all, though, I feel very bad for him and, if nothing else, hopefully this doesn't bring him any more trouble.
I was surprised too that he didn't see the danger of "cancel culture" after his experience. The ominous idea of "facing consequences" sounds exactly like the implication of a Mafioso saying "Nice business you have there, it would be a shame if something were to happen to it."
Another example is this classic joke about the Soviet Union:
Q: What is the difference between the Constitutions of the US and USSR? Both of them guarantee freedom of speech.
A: Yes, but the Constitution of the USA also guarantees freedom after the speech.
An alternative version of this joke: What's the difference between the Soviet Union and the USA?
In both countries you have freedom of speech, but in the USA you can use it more than once.
_What's the difference between the Soviet Union and the USA?
In both countries you have freedom of speech, but in the USA you can use it more than once_
In America you can call the President an idiot. And in Soviet Russia, you can also call the American President an idiot.
_It's interesting that he is so vehemently in favor of "cancel culture"_
A classic example of Stockholm Syndrome.
I have no idea what happened here – why some people decided to use a code that was, apparently, written to protect people from sexism, violence, racism, and intimidation, in this way.
"I didn't think the leopard would eat _my_ face".
Jeremy seems like a very kind, passionate, driven, smart guy. Unfortunately I think his innate kindness and sense that people should follow the rules has failed him here. CoCs are so often wielded in this way that I'm honestly surprised that anyone believes that they'll be used otherwise.
CoCs have been abused from the first moment they've appeared. I remembered the discussions years ago, people were raising warnings that this would end badly, because CoCs were primarily pushed by the abusive crowd. But the warnings were shouted down, and here we are.
We're literally tearing ourselves apart, and I don't want to hold opinions about human beings anymore. Anyone can be an enemy or dislike you.
Social media has rotted us from within and from all sides. Left, right, it doesn't matter. Everyone is so hostile and eager to _end_ other people.
This is madness.
Yes, I did read the article. We're cancelling people over _criticism_. Somebody needs to hide Linus.
I don't like criticism. I was bullied a lot as a kid. But I thought part of what made us American was our rich, diversity of opinions and our grit to withstand challenge. We're supposed to work together and see past the differences.
I encourage anyone who believes social media has divided our society like never before to read a small amount of history of the Vietnam war era. Here's a taste: in 1970, the national guard murdered four unarmed students at Kent State. A poll showed 58% of Americans blamed the students, who were widely smeared.
Maybe the real rot of social media is how it erases in peoples' minds the idea that anything could have happened without social media. Here's a quote from the end of No Country for Old Men, because why not it's a great book & film:
_What you got ain’t nothing new. This country is hard on people. You can’t stop what’s comin’. Ain’t all waitin’ on you. That’s vanity._
> I encourage anyone who believes social media has divided our society like never before to read a small amount of history of the Vietnam war era.
You are missing an important point though: with machine learning, you can make sure all social media will be optimized naturally to put the maximum amount of people's hair on fire, all the time.
Outrage create clicks, replies, and with recommendations engines it's served to your eyeballs as often as possible.
Whatever manual interventions we had to make use of outrage before are like kids' play compared to the systems which automate this nowadays.
> Whatever manual interventions we had to make use of outrage before are like kids' play compared to the systems which automate this nowadays.
I think you need to cite evidence for that view. There's a long history of terrible violence based on manipulation of religious animosity that predates the Internet. The Reformation movement in Germany triggered religious conflicts--incited by various secular powers--that lasted around 130 years and did not burn out until the end of the 30 Years War. Something like half the population of Germany died in that conflict. [1] That's just one example.
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War
I'd guess it's more that in that time, the amount of incrimination and accusation you could have in a society before you had a civil war on your hands was lower. So you had more civil wars, but it also pushed people to stay quiet more. I think the reason we have so much criticism nowadays is how relatively limited the consequences are.
Well also there's the notion of freedom of speech, which is a relatively new development in the West. We tolerate speech today that would have resulted in gruesome execution in the reign of, say, the Tudor Kings of England. [1] These were not democracies. (Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding your point.)
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason_Act_1351
How many microhitlers per click?
Outrage spreads just fine without machine learning. All you need is a platform that makes mass signaling cheap. Maybe machine learning intensifies the effect a small amount, but I am not aware of evidence that it is decisive.
Even without Social Media, people will continue to view and subscribe to Youtube channels that fits their views. It is really the "Internet" as a whole, or the always connected tech. Not simply Social Media.
For example there are far greater amount of information flowing through Instant Messenger that is not accounted for.
I have now come to the conclusion it wasn't Social Media or Internet that divided the world. They act as an amplifier or solidify the viewer views. Simply because they spent more time on these media than ever before. So in reality, Social Media isn't really to blame, but it is currently a good use for politicians and other Press to target.
My new question for myself is, Before the amplifier or solidifier comes in, How did one get their view in the first place? What shapes it?
Fair enough it is possible that we have "industrialized" outrage and gotten good at mass producing it, but being real, Donald Trump would have fit in great with 18th century politics.
This is my annual reminder to anyone who thinks politics has become uncivilized that Aaron Burr (a founding father) killed Alexander Hamilton (another founding father). Makes twitter jabs seem quaint.
I would also encourage reading about the press before the 20th century. Every random pamphleteer or newspaper churned up all kinds of despicable rumors or partisan rhetoric as bad or worse than Twitter. The idea of “objective press”
is pretty new...
The difference many less people had those newspapers or pamphleteers in their face all day long. The odds of people running into those stories in their personal lives were pretty small.
The analogy is like people complaining about A-Bombs and someone replying "300yrs ago people killed each other with swords. The world hasn't changed. People always killed other people".
In both cases the scale has changed by many orders of magnitude
Another multiplier is that Facebook and others have data scientists and psychology PHDs that are working to maximize the addictiveness of these apps to suck more of our eyeballs attention
I wonder how the perception of who the writer is influences the people who read the 'message'.
When "the press" publishes something, you know it's "the media", since you're reading it in the paper.
On Twitter, the message presents itself as coming from "regular people, like you and me".
What I mean is that maybe people may have some kind of skepticism when reading a paper, such as I they know that this paper has rather this kind of views whereas that other paper will have that other kind. And also, this was written by some journalist and approved by the paper's editor, so it could very well be a fringe opinion since only few people were implicated. We don't know that this opinion is shared by many people. Contrast this with Twitter, where it appears that "a lot of different people" seem to be holding this or that opinion. People who aren't overtly belonging to the same group or organization. Which means the opinion isn't just some random group making things up, there must actually be something to it.
I'm not saying this works every time and "despicable rumors or partisan rhetoric" in the press never worked. I'm sure they did. But I think it worked on fewer people, and in order for those rumors to take hold in society they would have to spread through the people, not through newspapers, which must have been slower at the time.
Or the newspapers would have to be very convincing in order to influence many people directly, just writing a 140 character blurb wouldn't have done it.
> I wonder how the perception of who the writer is influences the people who read the 'message'.
Given e.g. the propensity for politicians to emphasise their "salt of the land, common folk" attributes whilst hiding their gold-plated toilets, etc., I suspect it's not inconsequential.
If you want a real open society, you need to address as many people as possible and the best way to do that is by including the most perspectives as possible. Journalism evolved here until financial incentives drove us back to strong opinions.
Propaganda undermines trust and it is actually far easier now to identify untruthful and biased news compared to the past. So a regression would be costly.
You're right, I was listening to a long podcast that covered parts of the 60s and 70s, and the same things were going on back then, they just didn't have "social media" so people don't remember. Rioting in cities over civil rights issues, "woke" college students creating oppression hierarchies that decided who was right when someone was offended, and the DNC rigging the presidential primaries which resulted in Nixon getting elected. It was really eye opening to see how history repeats itself, it's just more visible now because of technology.
Was this podcast on conservapedia? I ask because the view is incredibly warped here.
At some point all of it calmed down, the war ended and people moved on.
With social media, there are no signs of stopping, it’s an endless stream of addictive outrage and one sided opinion.
That in my view is what’s new and worse about it and it’s only likely to get more integrated with us.
Imagine when you have a brain implant like Elon and Co are working on ? You won’t even have the luxury to put your phone in your pocket.
> the war ended and people moved on
The Vietnam-era "culture war" did not, however. It continued for quite some time. Just like the Civil Rights era and McCarthyism beore it, both of which came with their share of lynch mobs, and sometimes literal rather than metaphorical ones.
>That in my view is what’s new and worse about it and it’s only likely to get more integrated with us.
Absolutely we should work to reduce this kind of behavior, but it is in no way something "new". Dragging people on Twitter is a significant improvement from dragging them in front of Congress on national TV, which is an improvement from dragging them... behind cars.
> > [bamboozled] the war ended and people moved on
> [dralley] The Vietnam-era "culture war" did not, however. It continued for quite some time.
Evidence (anecdotal) in support: Jane Fonda is STILL referred to as “Hanoi Jane”; I think I've seen it used even more recently than, e.g, [1]. This is from 1972, i.e. almost fifty years ago. OK, half that time the Internet has been available, and half of that in turn, “social media”. But for the first ~twenty-five years of that, they weren't.
[1]:
https://time.com/5116479/jane-fonda-hanoi-jane-nickname/
The underlying witch-hunt mentality has obviously existed since before the term witch-hunt.
The new part is that social media arguably accelerates it. One wacko trying to burn the witches in a village full of level heads couldn't accomplish anything. Now they can band together nationally.
The Red Guards accomplished the national banding together thing, with the approval of the establishment, going from village to village, city to city, they burned and hanged witches, and destroyed problematic symbols too.
They were actually incredibly fractured and fought each other a lot, actual fights with weapons and casualties. But still, you're right, they only got off the ground initially due to a national infrastructure encouraging them.
Social Media is more of an accidental paper-clip-optimizer national encouragement.
Social media has been doing a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to being a scapegoat for anything to do with people being shitty for a good few years now.
Media abuse is not a new thing. Understand that the current iteration is worse than the last one and that has resulted in worse polarization is probably a better way to put it.
People that blame it on social media maybe forgot that we once had a civil war that killed 2.5% of the population of the entire country.
The things that divide people are slow and many. The creep along slowly until at some point the differences are so great people believe those differences are worthy of death.
Our pretty much any other history American or European.
To be fair, the draft over a war was what really drove people apart in the 60's/70's. The youth of the country didn't want to die face down in the mud in a god forsaken jungle in vietnam to support the anti-communist narrative spouted by our political leaders.
In 2020, we no longer use the draft. What's our excuse for being so polarized?
Polarization wins elections and sells newspapers. It generates pageviews and builds careers of professional controversists.
Besides, it's not just an American phenomenon. 68/69 were full of upheaval in the West as the postwar culture clash came to a head.
Oh, wow, what an insightful comment.
Hmm, why I am still saying tweets about BLM being violent and is aiming to disrupt social stability? I am stilling seeing a lot of people dont believe Covid19, and they also call it China Virus, and some are even attacking Asian people.
You should read the book “The Coddling of The American Mind”. It’s largely about the cancel culture, over protection, and how the voice on college campuses has been changing. How we went from college being a safe place for open debate and discussion to an environment which is becoming less welcoming of differing opinions and perspectives. The authors try to identify the origins of the change and use data and statistics to back up their claims. I thought it was an interesting read.
IMHO, there's something to the push to change how we go about discourse. As an example - it's slight, but feel the difference between "You should read...", "You'd like reading...", "I think you'd really like...", "I got a lot out of reading...".
I see it as pretty similar to how some people see removal of spanking your kids as being coddling, versus making sure your kids are wearing pads when they're learning to rollerblade, versus wearing a helmet everywhere.
> it's slight, but feel the difference between "You should read...", "You'd like reading...", "I think you'd really like...", "I got a lot out of reading...".
I used to obsess about things like this and then someone pointed out to me, "You'll never, ever get it right. You will word something some way, attempting to be gentle, and they will still be offended. You will NEVER win. So the only thing you can do is be sincere, without intention to harm, and you can sleep soundly knowing that how someone CHOSE to receive what you said is their own business, not yours."
Obviously we have a responsibility for the message we send. But how it is ultimately received is not up to us, and attempts to micro-manage language, like the above, will never result in the intended outcome.
Well put!
Another thing that I am not a fan of is when people ask to always mention that it's only one's opinion.
Well duh, unless obviously supported by verifiable evidence, it is only my opinion. In my opinion!
Agreed, another statement I don't find fulfilling is "oh well it's always been this way".
Well I mean yes, it has... but we're discussing it because we're considering the option that maybe there's another way, right?
Same with "it's just an opinion". Well, yes, that's kinda the point. Let's discuss the idea, not where in my head it came from.
It's true that you can't control the outcome. I do lean towards certain language in general, but more so I try to use each of the many options artistically, based on the circumstances. Who am I talking to? What are we talking about?
You're correct that ultimately, I'm not responsible for how someone takes things that I say when I'm being sincere... but I'm still one of the people that lives with the outcome. Might as well try for positives.
Personally? I do get pretty solid results with these kinds of micro-adjustments. Or, rather, since these are toy examples, what these kinds of micro-adjustments do when they're applied in larger situations. One mechanism for this is that I'm making an internal choice in how I'm thinking and framing something in my own mind, and that "vibe" impacts body language, conversational flow, attentiveness, how I understand and receive what they're saying, etc.
I find that the starkest and simplest is whether I start sentences with "I", "you", or neither. Flat statements have one impact. You don't sound like you've had much experience with these variations and their impacts. Am I putting the conversational pivot in myself, in your self, or between/outside of us? How do you find yourself responding to the various options?
> You don't sound like you've had much experience with these variations and their impacts.
Lol... I have had tons. In more than one language. My point was, that despite your best efforts, you will still offend someone eventually and that that's the point at which you can't take responsibility for how they feel.
For a time I did competitive speech and one of the precepts I operated on (and still do to this day) is "know your audience". It's _always_ beneficial to frame your message to the intended recipients.
But what happens when an unintended recipient receives it?
Or, due to local differences (and this specifically happened to me), the use of a word was received differently than you intended - than it was elsewhere in the same language?
There's only so much control you have. Thus, what you truly control is your intentions, and people must make an effort to expect you are acting in good faith. So much of good communication simply comes down to that simple point. An expectation of good faith.
I expect that in the modern world this is where much of the breakdown in communication is coming from, really: everyone seems to be expecting "HAHA GOTCHA!" rather than a good faith conversation, and more worryingly, are more recently probably right.
> rather than a good faith conversation
"[when] there's an assumption of competency, the faults born of ignorance are seen as faults born of malice."
And/or what's being sought is conflict, not conversation.
> Lol... I have had tons.
Yeah ;) Notice that that paragraph has an "I"-statement, a "You"-statement, and a neither?
Kind of proving his point. I guess regional or environmental dialect is somehow offensive and abrasive?
Added to my reading list, thanks! I'd wager that the "self esteem" movement, or more accurately, whatever caused it to gain traction in the American psyche, kicked off the downward spiral to where-we-are-now.
In a nutshell, several generations of American children were taught, systematically, to ignore social signals that conflicted with their self-image, and were thus deprived of a very critical part of their childhood: in where they learn to moderate their behavior in order to get along with other people.
Self-esteem education was based on the (correct!) observation that people with high self-esteem are healthier and more successful.
Given my extensive experience with educators, I am not in any way surprised that the conclusion they reached was that high self-esteem must cause health and success, rather than health and success resulting in high self-esteem. Educators seem to have this anti-Newtonian view on the world, in which reactions cause actions. But I digress.
I was subjected to this as a child, and it took something on the order of a decade of living abroad -- mostly in Japan, a country which, lacking any concept of "self", offers no affordance for "self-esteem" -- to fully realize the sheer horror of what I had been steeped in as a child.
As to why this has come to a head since the advent of social media, well, we're at the point where an entire generation which socializes primarily through virtual means has come of age.
When your social interactions are driven by proximity -- e.g., you are limited to people that physically exist near you -- then you are forced to learn some degree of moderation. Because if you can't get along with others, you find yourself rather in deficit of friends.
But now, it doesn't matter how crazy you are. If you worship Mao or Hitler or Stalin or whatever, there is a community for people like you.
No amount of ostracism will remedy this. That worked when your ability to make friendships had real, physical constraints. In the fully-connected schizophrenic hivemind world of 2020, casting people out of your tribe will, at best, only deprive them of a moderating influence.
Still not sure where this goes, but I am fairly certain it's got at least thirty-one flavors of ugly.
The core problem with the self-esteem movement is that they try to promote high self-esteem _disconnected from any true achievement or worth_. High self-esteem certainly correlates with healthy, successful people (of course healthy successful people have good self esteem!) but trying to artificially inflate peoples' self esteem to create health and success is driving the causation backwards.
Self esteem devoid of any underlying achievement is hollow. In the end you're basically manufacturing narcissists, with a fragile falsely inflated self image covering a chasm of insecurity.
Earlier this year I had the occasion to do some reading on self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-love. I think this critique is a bit divorced from what the psychologists are actually saying.
For starters, the "movement" is definitely aware of your dichotomy. The terms of art are _contingent_ and _non-contingent_. It considers contingent self-esteem to be fragile because real lives contain setbacks. Its position is basically Stoicism: prefer an inner well-being, unperturbed by circumstances. Don't get overwhelmed by the ups and downs. It also contains echoes of Christianity: inherent dignity of all life, unconditional acceptance and love of all God's creatures.
Narcissism is in your relationship to how people perceive you... that would be squarely in the "contingent" category.
We might argue that of course a highly successful person feels inadequate; if he could be satisfied at all he would have been satisfied many achievements ago, and stopped there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-esteem#Contingent_vs._non...
> divorced from what the psychologists are actually saying
Let me throw out the possibility that what the psychologists are saying, and the nth-hand version that teachers pick up and teach to the kids, may differ on key details. I don't think it's even _rare_ for high-minded ideas to be garbled by the time they trickle down into classrooms. Feynman had amusing/dismaying stories about what made it into science textbooks, for example (and textbooks are theoretically written by the experts):
https://rangevoting.org/FeynTexts.html
That's pretty much where I was going.
The psychology and underlaying theory looks sound, and is indeed very aligned with the Stoic approach. Problem is that the classroom implementation ended up almost a full 180 degrees out of phase.
Thanks for that link - I'd honestly not thought to read the wiki page on it but it looks quite comprehensive.
The discussion of narcissism on that page is a bit different to the one I'd been working with (which was based on a lot of reading about cluster-B personality disorders including Narcissistic Personality Disorder) which might explain the discrepancy. But then, I'm not a professional so I'm happy to be corrected. (Edit: Of course as a professional I'm even more happy to be corrected, that's how you become less wrong!)
Edit: I was basing my understanding of "what psychologists are actually saying" on a bunch of kids books we have which have a page at the back written by psychologists (I haven't checked their credentials) which lines up with my 'unfounded optimism' definition of 'good self esteem'. I know there are other interpretations once you get to legitimate psychology and stoicism actually seems fairly effective.
> Self esteem devoid of any underlying achievement is hollow. In the end you're basically manufacturing narcissists, with a fragile falsely inflated self image covering a chasm of insecurity.
Precisely.
At the same time, I think that social connections divorced from physical reality -- as is on the Internet -- compound this to the nth degree.
I can pretend to be an amazing dancer or boxer or chef on Facebook, but it's a very different thing when I need to demonstrate those skills as part of a community that actually Does That Thing.
To provide an example, I recall a few years back, at a dance social, meeting some kid from the Air Force that was an excellent case-study. He showed up, started dancing with partners, and it was obvious from the first (music) sentence in the first song that he simply did not know how to dance.
At all.
Like, when experienced dancers come from other styles, you can tell that they know how to dance. Maybe not this specific style, but they've got fundamentals. Ballerinas are particularly graceful, Latin dancers have a really specific flavor, ballroom people have really great structure, etc.
This dude was not a dancer.
Now, this is okay! The first rule of social dancing is that you want to welcome new dancers. But he was rude to every person that tried to help him out with picking up the basics, insisting that he was already a great dancer and that he didn't need the help.
Falsely inflated self-image, meet room full of follows that aren't interested in having their feet crushed.
Don't know what happened to him after that, but imagine if his bubble had never faced critique -- and this was from a community that bent over backwards to be nice to newcomers.
Dancing for leisure is practiced by anyone, and people can be good dancers because "good" is defined differently for something so universally practiced.
Like, is your mom or grandma a good cook? How many Michelin stars would her kitchen get? :)
Not saying this person wasn't a prick, just that dancing is hard to get an idea of how good you are at without already accepting that you suck at it while being repeatedly told how you are a good dancer (and if you are simply willing to let go on a dance floor as a male, you were likely to be termed a good dancer in my youth).
> if you are simply willing to let go on a dance floor as a male, you were likely to be termed a good dancer in my youth
Can confirm. My strategy for single dancing was quite literally "do arbitrarily chosen motions in rhythm to the music with a straight face", and even when I chose motions I thought were silly (like pantomiming scooping ingredients into a bowl and stirring them), I never got the impression that anyone thought it was silly, and I started getting lots of people telling me that I'm a good or even a really good dancer.
My experience is that, if you move a lot, do it with an approximately correct rhythm, and do it with energy and enthusiasm, and you don't actually bump into people or fall over, then people will be pleased. It is _possible_ that I've developed actual skill, but I think the above is most of it.
It does not translate into being good at dancing with a partner, except by implying basic proficiency with movement and rhythm.
> The first rule of social dancing is that you want to welcome new dancers.
The second rule (which, really, overlaps a lot with the first rule) of social dancing is that you don’t, ever, offer unsolicited coaching in the context of social dance. And part of that is because almost no one is in the mental place in that context to take it well.
I don't have much experience, but two different dancing groups I attended started each night with an hour-long "lesson" with a teacher, after which the rest of the night was free dancing (well, one group charged an admission fee, but I mean no one was giving directions). Looking at a couple of other groups' websites, it seems like this is common.
I suppose you could use "whether someone attended the 'lesson' period" as a sign of whether they will take coaching well.
I _do_ have a fair amount of experience (several years of social dancing, ballroom performance, competitive ballroom formation team, and ballroom teacher training), and, sure, the “lesson before social dance” pattern is common, but you'd be much better to take “did they specifically ask me for feedback or coaching” as a sign of whether they will take coaching well. (Unless you are identified as an instructor for the lesson — in which case they've asked by attending — the same rule applies _in_ the lesson, too.)
In a word, our education system produced a generation of pussies, who think all truths and justices have to flow from their feelings?
> I don't like criticism. I was bullied a lot as a kid.
I don't like the idea of conflating "bullying" and "criticism". They're very different things. Even harsh criticism isn't really the same thing as bullying in my mind (Although it can be a part of bullying).
Surely, it isn't a leap to imagine that someone who was bullied a lot as a child would have a difficult time constructively receiving criticism? I believe most people are not great at constructively giving it, so it doesn't seem like that should be a stretch at all.
I think you're right, however in general, one _ought_ to mature out of that phase and be able to separate the two.
Most things that ought to occur do not.
This isn't a reason to refrain from (or worse, prohibit) commonly acceptable and valuable behavior just because a certain minority's state of mind might not be receptive to it (either through actual past trauma or just malicious intent to instigate drama).
I agree and I'd add that most of us aren't good at giving constructive feedback either, so it can be a double-edged sword (if I used that idiom correctly).
Not that this is a case of this, but in tech communities I see too many examples of "criticism" where in the critic doesn't want to actually provide anything useful to the person and instead uses the opportunity to show themselves and/or the other people involved how smart they are.
When I read that first part, I thought, yup, could have been me right here, even if that weren't your point. I think sometimes I reply online for many different reasons, typically emotional ones. I'll read something and I'll feel excited/confused/angry/annoyed/etc. about that topic or something related and will share it, often not being so aware of why I commented or how it was a mostly non-sequitur comment.
This part of human life fascinates me, where one person may assume the other posted something to show how smart they were, but the person who posted actually did so because they had an aha moment in their head and felt so excited to share it. The differing, sometimes even opposite, perspective on the person's intention.
If you can't handle criticism don't give a talk.
Agreed. Criticism (of the kind we're discussing here) is attacking _ideas_. Bullying is attacking _people_. The former is an essential part of any healthy intellectual environment. The latter is not.
But criticism can be used as a tool for bullying and it can be tricky to identify the difference between "robust good faith criticism" and "bullying bad faith criticism".
I'm not sure the OP was conflating the two so much as acknowledging that he may be particularly sensitive in this area due to past experiences.
I paused on that as well and took OP to be relating bullying to NumFOCUS' criticism of the article author; rather than simply saying that all criticism is bullying.
Perhaps a bit too generous but you're right, the statement didn't make alot of sense without that moderating context. I certainly would see what NumFOCUS did here as bullying.
We should fight to keep real bullying around. Turns out sticks and stones and broken bones are a major part of getting skin thick enough that you can accept people won't always like you and they have no obligation to.
Some relevant statements from the author on this topic:
_> Code of Conducts can be a useful tool, when thoughtfully created and thoughtfully enforced, to address sexism, racism, and harassment, all of which have been problems at tech conferences. Given the diversity issues in the tech industry, it is important that we continue the work of making conferences more inclusive, particularly to those from marginalized backgrounds_
_> In particular, I was concerned that if only partial information became available, the anti-CoC crowd might jump on this as an example of problems with codes of conduct more generally, or might point at this as part of “cancel culture” (a concept I vehemently disagree with, since what is referred to as “cancellation” is often just “facing consequences”)_
You wouldn't advocate scrapping the entire criminal justice system, just because one innocent person was convicted. A little more nuance is useful here as well.
Every community has its set of guidelines, either explicit of implicit, intended to foster the community's purpose. If I go to my neighbor's party and behave like a jerk, and insult the other guests, there's a very good chance that I won't be invited back. If I start posting "dank memes" continuously on HN, I'm eventually going to find myself banned. As the author himself said, _what is referred to as “cancellation” is often just “facing consequences”._
In this case, I have no idea why the committee came down hard on the author. I saw the relevant portions of his talk, and didn't hear anything rude or objectionable. I think the committee got it wrong in this instance, but that doesn't mean everyone in future should be allowed to be a jerk, and not face any consequences.
> You wouldn't advocate scrapping the entire criminal justice system, just because one innocent person was convicted. A little more nuance is useful here as well.
I've seen positive outcomes from the criminal justice system. I have literally never seen a CoC lead to a better dispute-handling process than the absence of a CoC.
> Every community has its set of guidelines, either explicit of implicit, intended to foster the community's purpose. If I go to my neighbor's party and behave like a jerk, and insult the other guests, there's a very good chance that I won't be invited back.
Sure - but it will be clear who's responsible for that decision. Most likely someone will tell you to your face what you did wrong and give you a chance to defend yourself.
> In this case, I have no idea why the committee came down hard on the author. I saw the relevant portions of his talk, and didn't hear anything rude or objectionable. I think the committee got it wrong in this instance, but that doesn't mean everyone in future should be allowed to be a jerk, and not face any consequences.
You don't need a CoC to exclude jerks. You need a moderator (not a committee; a clearly accountable individual, who will bear ultimate responsibility even for those parts of the job that they delegate) who will apply good judgement in a visible way. Not only must justice be done; it must also be seen to be done.
Based on what I've seen of them in action a CoC is not only useless, it should be a red flag that the organisers have not thought seriously about their dispute resolution process.
> it should be a red flag that the organisers have not thought seriously about their dispute resolution process.
while that's very evident in this case this is actually what CoCs or written rules in general are for. Of course when you don't have a committee or a CoC however is in charge can still treat people arbitrarily, in fact much more so than when you actually have agreed on conduct and have a process to resolve things.
There's a good piece called the _Tyranny of Structurelessness_ about radical feminist movements, where wanting to ditch all formal rules actually lead to even worse informal treatment, because officially leaders don't even exist, so there's nobody to blame.
You can look at this case also another way, at least there is an actual committee the author can blame and a CoC that he can argue he wasn't treated fairly by.
> while that's very evident in this case this is actually what CoCs or written rules in general are for. Of course when you don't have a committee or a CoC however is in charge can still treat people arbitrarily, in fact much more so than when you actually have agreed on conduct and have a process to resolve things.
> There's a good piece called the Tyranny of Structurelessness about radical feminist movements, where wanting to ditch all formal rules actually lead to even worse informal treatment, because officially leaders don't even exist, so there's nobody to blame.
I actually think it's the opposite: codes and committees make the structurelessness worse. The code creates the illusion that the rules are impartial and their application is a detail. The (usually secret) committee diffuses responsibility so that no-one's actually accountable for their decisions. It gives the veneer of process and objectivity when actually there's nothing of the sort.
Formalising the _process_ - who makes the decisions, on what grounds, with what oversight - is important. Formalising the _code_ without a good process is putting the cart before the horse.
_There's a good piece called the Tyranny of Structurelessness about radical feminist movements_
That's from 1970: _"The basic problems didn't appear until individual rap groups exhausted the virtues of consciousness-raising and decided they wanted to do something more specific. At this point they usually foundered because most groups were unwilling to change their structure when they changed their tasks."_
That's not just a problem with feminist groups. It's made other protest groups ineffective. Most notably, Occupy Wall Street. They got national attention, but then had no process for deciding what they wanted and pushing for it. The Portland protestors ran into that, too.
"Rules for Radicals", by Saul Alinsky: _RULE 11: “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.”_
Black Lives Matter is hitting this now. This is the agenda of Black Lives Matter.[1] "Page Not Found". The "Toolkit for Social Media", though, is available. The result has been way too much focus on PR, statues, and renaming stuff. Not enough about how to stop cops from killing people. (There's a straightforward solution: have the FBI investigate all killings by cops, immediately. There are about 1000 a year. The FBI has the authority to do this under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but does so only about once a year. They usually wait until the local authorities haven't done much, and by then the case is cold. Requiring an investigation by an outside agency is a basic first step. This doesn't require new legislation; that battle was won over half a century ago. So that's something to push for.)
What goes wrong when your group doesn't focus is that eventually you either fail, or end up with a Strong Leader, which creates the usual problems. These are the usual failure modes of revolutions.
[1]
https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe
> Black Lives Matter is hitting this now. This is the agenda of Black Lives Matter.
Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation LLC, the organization you link, _isn't_ the central organization of the movement, and certainly isn't the central _policy_ organization of the movement. That's the Movement For Black Lives (M4BL). Here's their platform page:
https://m4bl.org/policy-platforms/
Ah. That's much better.[1]
[1]
https://breatheact.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/The-BREATH...
"You decide the substantive law, I decide the procedural rules, and I will beat you every time." —A law professor of mine
> You wouldn't advocate scrapping the entire criminal justice system, just because one innocent person was convicted
It is the worst form of failure of a justice system. But in case of COC I would need to compare the previous situation, which was more peaceful and tolerant with fewer casualties.
> You wouldn't advocate scrapping the entire criminal justice system, just because one innocent person was convicted. A little more nuance is useful here as well.
The entire western criminal justice system is FOUNDED on the idea that it should let guilty go free if that avoids convicting the innocent. Criminal justice system which convicts innocent people is by its own foundational definition something that needs to be scrapped and reworked.
> You wouldn't advocate scrapping the entire criminal justice system, just because one innocent person was convicted. A little more nuance is useful here as well.
Sure, but following Blackstone's ratio
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio
if one innocent person is convicted we should probably look at if things need changing.
on edit: I see a couple others made the same point.
> You wouldn't advocate scrapping the entire criminal justice system, just because one innocent person was convicted.
Yes, actually, I _WOULD_. At the very least, I would consider whether that system needs deep structural reform to prevent it from happening again.
Punishing someone _wrongly_ is one of the absolute worst offenses a group can make against an individual.
I think the OP article is heartbreaking. Not because I think how they handled the case is wrong, but how they excluded him from a society he was embracing and trying to identify with.
For my own project I was considering to include a code of conduct. But currently decided against it because I do not think the purpose of a code of conduct should be written down as potential punishments as consequences.
A lot of people have a variety of backgrounds, a variety of perspectives and values that thet have been taught. If someone isn't even aware of what they did to offend another member, how is that someone supposed to learn from it if they are just punished for it?
I want to create a culture of welcoming, and a safe space for everyone. Not a dystopian regime that punishes first and acknowledges their mistakes later. We've got a broken justice system already, and I think it is built in the opposite manner of what we're trying to achieve.
If you punish and exclude as consequences, the logical conclusion is alienation and isolation.
The issue, I sincerely believe, is a form of justice that goes beyond "eye for an eye". I call it "face for an eye": a beatdown in response to a sucker punch.
The cause, frankly, comes from severe psychological trauma that breaks sensible thinking [1]. But, it's no excuse.
The solution? I believe it requires making people more moral, thus making them more just. _How_ to do that is, effectively, something I believe is beyond the scope of my understanding.
[1]
The folks behind restorative and transformative justice have some interesting ideas:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorative_justice
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformative_justice
https://savethekidsgroup.org/defining-transformative-justice...
> But currently decided against it because I do not think the purpose of a code of conduct should be written down as potential punishments as consequences.
I believe that it would be a good thing if you could write it down, but you can't, or you'll spend your time writing down what is and isn't allowed. What's bad about the CoCs of today is that they are vague and are built for selective enforcement. There's no definition of "kind" that includes "don't say other people are wrong", but the people who love to wield power will simply read into it whatever they please and hang you with it. At the same time, they will say that much worse acts aren't "unkind" because the target deserved it.
Don't do a CoC, just kick out people who are actually assholes. You don't need a CoC to do that, and somebody who is an asshole won't stop being an asshole because you've written that they can't contribute if they are.
I consider CoCs harmful and they're a negative indicator for projects to me. Not because I'm not kind, but because it hints that the maintainers are easily swayed by outside forces and will bend to pressure.
I’m reading about critical thinking right now. If we’re not challenging assumptions, then you’re just blindly accepting something that could be wrong. Should I accept what I read in the news as truth, or should I say “this sounds wrong and here’s why”?
You’re right that this is madness. This PC nonsense needs to end. Not everyone can simultaneously be correct
>diversity of opinions
It takes a level of maturity that most people never reach to handle real diversity of opinions. This is why universities used to be small places with only highly interested intellectuals trained to handle that diversity. And even they weren't great at it. Modern universities are a joke, and they are better than most organizations.
> This is why universities used to be small places with only highly interested intellectuals trained to handle that diversity.
Which time period, and where? Universities used to be more exclusive, but I somehow doubt that exclusivity was for "intellectuals trained to handle that diversity" and not just "well-connected people".
I'd say that universities did contain only highly interested intellectuals. But they contained just a small subset of all highly interested intellectuals: those who had been able to go to university and pursue a doctorate. It's much easier to do this now - for example, if you are a woman. On the other hand, there are probably more networkers and grifters too.
> Everyone is so hostile and eager to end other people.
Aren't you just buying into the clickbait/hype here and adding to it? How many people is it really? How many people take this as seriously as media stories make it sound?
I think you're assuming a very loud vocal minority represents the opinions of everyone.
The problem to me is a single digit number of people can have an opinion that they find something is offensive (which is always going to happen when enough people are looking at it), and the news + social media + internet comments magnify and compound this with stories like "you'll never believe what people want to cancel next!!!" and comments like "omg these people are so stupid I hate cancel culture!!!".
Also see:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule_(Internet_culture)
"According to the 1% rule, about 1% of Internet users are responsible for creating content, while 99% are merely consumers of that content. For example, for every person who posts on a forum, generally about 99 other people view that forum but do not post. "
A vocal minority is enough to dox you, to bother your workplace, your school/college, to get you fired/expelled, and alltogether, to make you "too hot" to hire, especially by large tech companies, who have whole departments of "vocal minority" people dealing with tiny stuff like that.
Cancel culture has to stop.
What do you concretely think should be done though?
Aren't there already laws about harassing people?
I think the news should be more responsible by not reporting that someone was offended by something unless it has serious objective merit because it just gets everyone riled up on non-issues for no good reason.
Aside from that, "cancel culture" feels quite a vague topic that would be hard to police in any way because you aren't talking about specific people or specific ideas.
News is totally fucked. Look at how most media reported on James Damore being fired from Google, and what they quoted him as having saying, vs what he actually said (1).
According to the media, Damore called women "neurotic" and said they were "biologically unfit to be software engineers". Nothing close whatsoever to what was actually said (1).
Meanwhile there are university professors willing to defend the memo (2). For example, "For what it’s worth, I think that almost all of the Google memo’s empirical claims are scientifically accurate. Moreover, they are stated quite carefully and dispassionately. Its key claims about sex differences are especially well-supported by large volumes of research across species, cultures, and history." (Geoffrey Miller, evolutionary psychology professor at University of New Mexico)
(1)
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...
(2)
https://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists...
> Aside from that, "cancel culture" feels quite a vague topic
A good, frustrating point. A large proportion of complaints of cancel culture are coupled with implications of frustration that they feel they can't say unpleasant things that they would have gotten away with previously. Or people complaining about direct efforts to change social norms that they don't agree with, claiming that due to a status quo bias, change is cancellation and therefore baseless.
As with most ideologies, discussing the definition is a fairly pointless task because its subjective and ill-defined, especially by those who feel passionately about it. The term is pointless. What happened in this case sounds bad, at a glance. Let's not generalize it to other things. It'll get nowhere. Whether or not one believes something is a part of cancel culture has no bearing on whether a particular idea to squash something is good or not.
> The term is pointless. What happened in this case sounds bad, at a glance. Let's not generalize it to other things. It'll get nowhere. Whether or not one believes something is a part of cancel culture has no bearing on whether a particular idea to squash something is good or not.
Yeah, that's how I feel. Arguing or getting outraged about ill-defined things that can't be attributed to specific people doesn't seem productive because there's no way to resolve it or learn anything.
Some people exist that get offended by some things other people aren't offended by. So what?
It's just noise.
It's not that simple.
You have your usual bucket of nutcases, who get offended by everything, and everything is sexist (airconditioning), racist (milk) or *-phobic.
But then you have cases, where a mere accusation of anything even without proof) can destroy peoples lives, eg:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_lacrosse_case
You also have (somewhat) mainstream media spreading such fake news:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_on_Campus
You also have individuals, eg. Johnny Depp getting acused by Amber Heard, losing his upcoming acting roles, and after a time (and 87 cctv videos), she's found to be the crazy/violent one.
You have people like Pewdiepie getting accused of being a racist many times:
https://www.vox.com/2018/12/13/18136253/pewdiepie-vs-tseries...
Pewdiepie has a special 'power', that he gets more views than Vox does, so he can atleast present his side of the story (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjCsOmDmjEU
).
Some people don't have that media presence, but the media atleast scewed up enough, so they're no settling multimillion dollar lawsuits (Nick Sandmann, the 'smirking guy').
Now imagine, you're not a famous person, and you're not in a position of being able to sue CNN. Just one mere accusation (whout proof, without anything), can totally destroy your life, and you have no way to fight back. No police report, no judge, no jury, just one "he said, she said", one complaint, and there's nothing you can do... you lose your job, maybe even your carreer, you might get thrown out of your college, or worse. The accuser can lie to the media, say you said something -ist, or -phobic, and there's literally nothing you can do.
Now combine the "nutcases" with accusations, and your code using master/slave terminology is racist (as a slav, i have no idea why 'slave' is considered racist), boy/girl in character selection screen and never after is transphobic, and i have no idea what "not implementing all the pronouns" is.
Now, we have two options... either we become sensitive to everytihing, and destroy normal human relations and comedy (although, we've gone most of the way there, because of so many protected groups and actions, not allowed to be joked about, the only group you can target your jokes at are white men (with movies like 40 days and 40 nights, where a rape of a man is a comedic high point, and many other examples)), or we can just grow up, not get offended by something someone somewhere said or did (especially if it was a joke), and not "cancel" people because of that.
My point is that its neither simple, nor one sided, nor well defined.
In addition to all of the things you're pointing out, there's also people genuinely trying to change things for the better with good reasoning.
> Now, we have two options... either we become sensitive to everytihing, and destroy normal human relations and comedy (although, we've gone most of the way there, because of so many protected groups and actions, not allowed to be joked about, the only group you can target your jokes at are white men (with movies like 40 days and 40 nights, where a rape of a man is a comedic high point, and many other examples)), or we can just grow up, not get offended by something someone somewhere said or did (especially if it was a joke), and not "cancel" people because of that.
No, it's really fine for us to say that certain things are not acceptable. It's ok to make fun of something. It's generally not ok to joke that, say, a race is intrinsically inferior to another, or that women are sexual objects, or that white dudes are just there to earn money or whatever antagonism floats your boat. It's shouldn't be illegal to make such jokes, but it should be shamed out of the mainstream.
You being triggered by other people being triggered is the height of irony.
Who's in charge of "unpleasant things"? Are these things that a vast majority of the anglosphere, including POC, women, etc, wouldn't take offense to?
Maybe people are objecting to a tiny % of critical theorists trying to seize control of acceptable language with no mandate.
> Maybe people are objecting to a tiny % of critical theorists trying to seize control of acceptable language from the top down.
The problem with that tiny % is, that they are loud, and that we give them attention. And by we, i include everyone, from a reddit upvter to mainstream media.
It's 2020, milk is racist, rice is racist, syrup is racist,... and all that because of a few loud people powered by the media, grabbing views from the offended few and utraged many.
Society is complicated and messy. Social change is uncomfortable. And yet for all the complaining of any given generation, they'd probably disagree with the ethics of three generations prior.
The thing is, you're not exactly ending segregation here.
What I see is an ever-shifting goalpost of harmless aphorisms that are newly considered 'offensive' by a bunch of upper-class people. What does that do for George Floyd's family, exactly? Did it prevent Jacob Blake from being shot in the back a few months later?
If you want to embrace critical theory, you should include the critical theorists in the analysis -- what's their power incentive? What do they stand to gain? Let's not just assume they're saints but everyone else needs an inquisition.
Can someone give me specifics on who's affected by "cancel culture"? It's a meaningless label to me.
I mean, I think Bill Cosby has been cancelled. Colin Kaepernick was for kneeling. And the lady who called the police on the black man in central park. Some of those may be unjustified. Is this really the biggest problem in society?
USC professor under fire after using Chinese expression students allege sounds like English slur
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/10/us/usc-chinese-professor-raci...
SDG&E Worker Fired Over Alleged Racist Gesture Says He Was Cracking Knuckles
https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/sdge-worker-fired-ove...
Professors mobbed, stripped of teaching positions and residential life functions after suggesting students should establish their own social norms rather than having them enforced by administration
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-per...
USC business communications professor Greg Patton was replaced after he used Chinese as an example for pause words that are used in many languages. Phonetically written, the Chinese "Um, um" is "ne ga ne ga", and The Black MBA Candidates Class of 2022 complained to the school, which then removed the professor. Despite counter-protest letters signed by many other students, including many Chinese alumni, who state that the normal usage of the Chinese language should not be viewed as a pejorative, the professor was not reinstated.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/08/professor-sus...
I had a teacher in high school (black). He was an absolute favorite of students of all backgrounds. Extremely strict, very buttoned up. In the arts department. I think he literally was the advisor for like the multi-cultural club (that did somewhat lame lunch multi-cultural stuff).
He put on a performance that turned out was racist or sexist or something. Think les miserable - we were always doing stuff like that, so the stories were very varied.
Bam, he was gone. Even the students in the group that should have been offended were like, he's great. But there was a very very vocal very small set of more activist parents (white BTW!) with one or two students who were after him. Reminds me of the (white again) liberals in Portland or Seattle going after the police chief to cut her pay etc (black women).
I was like, who cares what two parents and their kids think. But they got in the paper talking about the racist (I think?) environment he created / messages being sent / cultural appropriation etc. This is theatre - people dress up as different characters so no question an identity politics issue was there most likely.
And yes - he was gone the next year after something like 12 years of building up this amazing program. His performances were sold out for multiple showings (literally everyone in school, every parent, every relative, randos went). The shows were major. All the context was overlooked (this guy was so formal he was never crude / rude or insulting). He'd spent all these extra hours doing all these things to bring different groups together - through music and more (he was an immigrant).
Two to three people, a scared / sensitive admin team, and boom, thousands of folks the worse for his going.
Everyone is worse for this. A lot of the categories of offense are extremely broad or very subtle and penalties are very severe.
According to the linked article, it took only 2 reports to lead to an investigation and to the decision that the CoC was violated. So a vocal minority, when not ignored, can sometimes have a big impact.
> According to the 1% rule, about 1% of Internet users are responsible for creating content [...]
I wonder how true this is now? Even if we don't count social media as "content" (and some of it certainly is) most web content is participatory in some way and I'd wager a decent percentage of web users (if not internet users) are now contributing.
I'm guessing this is the same with everyone else, but if you check Twitter and Facebook, most of the people I follow never post anything and a tiny minority post all the time.
I wonder if it isn't even more lopsided today, since sharing content is the main activity in most popular social networks today, unlike when this "rule" was coined...
In my experience, organizations and/or projects with a CoC are frequently humorless, causing more harm than they prevent. You hate to see it.
Pro tip: If you can't figure out that _Jeremy_ freaking _Howard_ is a good person that you are lucky to have around, the problem is you.
Did you mean to say "isn't"?
Thanks, fixed it.
I quietly lower my expectations of people I talk to whenever they bring up any social media "stuff that happens". Twitter and Facebook mainly but I'm not going to leave Instagram out of this either.
I realize there are exceptions. I think "Social Media" is what would happen if we gave every dog on the planet a microphone to bark at every other dog in the world. It would quickly devolve into constant and senseless barking. This is what its come to.
This conference isn't a good example, but it is totally reasonable to run an event or a space with a norm of avoiding criticism. That's part of the job of a code of conduct: to _establish those norms_.
Here, the norms were surprising (a back-and-forth between two presentations is a perennial seat-filler at tech conferences) and poorly communicated. That's a problem. But "banning criticism" isn't necessarily a problem.
We have a shade of that norm here, in Show HN posts. Restricting criticism on generic HN posts would be stifling and unproductive, but in spaces where we ask community members to be vulnerable and where part of the point is to allow the community to be encouraging, it makes total sense.
I disagree. Each conference has their own goals, but I'd think that a general thread that underlies all of them is the exchange of ideas. If you can't criticize ideas ("Joe Schmoe is wrong about X"), then I'd say you're not doing a great job of exchanging ideas.
I think preventing attendees from criticizing people ("Joe Schmoe is dumb") is perfectly fine, but that's clearly not what happened here.
Like I said: it's a surprising norm for a conference. But if it's clearly communicated, it's fine. It's just that kind of event. Here, it wasn't clearly communicated; if the author had seen the norm, they'd have presented something else, or not at all.
What I reject is the idea that all spaces are somehow required to make space for criticism. There are spaces where that rule doesn't make sense.
We're unlikely to find people to argue that the conference handled this well, or that the author did anything wrong.
I have trouble imagining why anyone would want to go to a conference where any and all criticism is banned. Is it even possible to say something meaningful without implicitly criticizing the opposite of whatever you are saying?
However I agree with you in as much as, if some folks who think its a good idea all get together and communicate it clearly, there's nothing wrong with that. I probably wouldn't go, but there's a lot of conferences in the world I don't "get" and have no desire to go to, and that's ok.
I've been at conferences where the organizers strongly emphasize CoCs but have had presenters who were almost virulently critical of companies if maybe not explicitly individuals (though obviously execs by definition). And these were presentations that the same organizers consistently have praised. Maybe it's something about punching up vs. down.
I've also seen someone asked to cover up a company T with an IMO utterly innocuous joke on it (at a different event).
But, yeah, if you want to run a conference with a CoC that basically says we'll ask you to leave if anyone is offended by you for any reason, just please let me know so I can choose not to attend.
> What I reject is the idea that all spaces are somehow required to make space for
criticism. There are spaces where that rule doesn't make sense.
There are spaces where it doesn't make sense - for you -. Any forum where criticism is not acceptable should be classified as advertising or possibly propaganda.
Leaving aside whether this'd be a good policy for a conference, this argument doesn't really check out for me.
You can exchange ideas without making judgements on other ideas. Like, let your ideas speak for themselves, marketplace of ideas etc, or even make comparisons without saying your ideas are _better or worse_ than other ideas.
I'm sure you wouldn't run out of useful and engaging conference content even with some hypothetical arbitrary rules like "don't say idea X is bad", "don't say person X is wrong about idea Y", like, at worst you'd have to make some minor edits to your slides and reword things to be less personal, unless your entire gimmick is that your presentation is a callout post.
Research is literally predicated on showing results that are _better than_ the state of the art. Without that judgment on other work there can be no progress in research!
You can talk up your cool new thing without explicit criticism of the old thing. Like, that's probably not a good rule for every conference in general, but it's a rule you could have for a specific conference without immediately disqualifying all possible good talks.
Some ideas have demonstratively poorer outcomes, or more succinctly: "bad". Some ideas are demonstratively at odds with the observed behavior of the world: "wrong". If you can't say "person X is wrong about idea Y" what kind of discussion can you have? How would you advise Galileo to present his paper on an experiment that demonstrated that the leading academic voice (Aristotle) was wrong?
I like your example. I can see why, on the scale of...
“Joe is _dumb_” ..
“Joe is _wrong_” ..
“Joe is wrong _about X_” ..
“_Why I think_ Joe is wrong about X”
...anything but the final one feels unduly confrontational. That’s how I felt, reading your comment.
The 4th implies the 3rd. If I think you're wrong, I'll say you're wrong--with reasons. Adding some additional words like "in my oh so humble opinion I think" doesn't change the fundamental meaning. (And I have absolutely criticized well-known people's opinions on public stages.)
It absolutely changes the meaning. Perhaps, in some cultures or subcultures, showing humility has a weakening effect but I tend to avoid those places nowadays, or at least push back on them.
...I think [and am willing to be proven wrong.]
A subtle feature of language, at least in English, is that prefacing things with "I think" or "I feel", while displaying humility in personal conversations, has the effect of devaluing your own argument if done in excess. If you are perceived to be forever apologizing for your own opinion, nobody is going to take you seriously, because what you ultimately lack is confidence - and if you're not confident about what you're saying, why should I be?
It is, and should be, _OK_ to actually strongly state a position you hold, especially if you can back it up, and especially if the person you are responding to is going to take your criticism well (which the author did know).
"Joe is an idiot" is very different from "Joe is wrong" especially when Joe is definitively and demonstrably wrong (which he was in this case, the author demonstrated clearly and succinctly how to do something Joel said was difficult to do).
Adults are (or should be) also capable of determining when a talk is a string of personal attacks, or a mature but critical response (critical meaning evaluation, not negative). If every other phrase was "Joel has his head in his ass" then NumFOCUS would have certainly had a case; that wasn't the case here.
Do you forsee a circumstance where forthrightly saying "The state of the world is X" implies "The state of the world is X but I don't believe it"? That seems like a difficult state of mind to achieve.
I'd buy that there are subcultures where prefixing "I think..." is a gesture of respect. But the CoC's I'm familiar with generality don't demand that the speaker aligns with a specific culture. Often they encourage accepting multiple cultures.
Indeed, I'll go as far as saying that a big part of conferences is encouraging different subcultures to listen to each other.
I often find myself using the phrase when something clearly is a matter of opinion rather than an absolute fact. I'm not going to say "I think the earth is a spheroid." But I might say "I think we're going to see more heterogeneous computing." But it's mostly an anti-pattern and I often edit them out when I'm writing.
I like the third one as well as the forth. Frankly the second is a bit edgy, but it could be used as a headline.
None of it is rude, bullying, or any kind of -ism, or anything that needs to be fixed. It is in fact confrontation, which is a fine thing. And whether it needs to be so "unduly" direct or not should simply shape the reader/listeners opinion of the writer/speaker.
It shapes my opinions when I see/hear/read so many people who conflate directness or disagreement with bullying. If you cannot stand criticism, your really ought not try to say anything.
"If you can't criticize ideas ("Joe Schmoe is wrong about X"), then I'd say you're not doing a great job of exchanging ideas."
But, the example you give is one that criticizes Joe Schmoe, not X. How about just "X is wrong", and leave Joe out of it so that the discourse is about the rightness or wrongness of X.
If your talk is in response to another talk by someone else, and you're taking slides and content from their talk and reacting to them, it's important that your audience know what the initial talk was. They have to have the context of the debate, including who is on each side, to fully investigate both sides and reach their own conclusions.
Well, maybe don't do that then. You could address the ideas from that talk instead of the talk specifically, and have a slide, like,
"My talk is a response to this other talk by this person and I encourage you to check it out".
Like I'm not saying that I think you _should have to_ do this, but you could do it without compromising the thing you say is important.
It isn't sensible to rebut an abstract that nobody claimed. He could claim that notebooks are wonderful, but that would be less intellectually useful because it puts the onus on the listener to find and compare alternative opinions. He is, as speakers really should be encouraged to do, providing an easy reference to strong competing ideas and also providing a specific case of why he thinks they are wrong.
It is a horrible mistake to bring people in and give them attributes they don't have (eg, "Joe Schmoe is an idiot who is wrong about X" is objectionable). It is good practice to reference where mistaken claims are being made (as in this case "Joe Schmoe said X and that is wrong" is helpful to the listeners).
I am very doubtful that Joel Grus' identity is so tied to his jupyter-scepticism that this talk represents a personal attack. It is completely routine debate and possibly quite fun for all involved.
Saying "Joe Schmoe is wrong about X" doesn't imply "Joe Schmoe is wrong about everything". In fact it helps advancing and encouraging debate when someone can say "Joe Schmoe is wrong about X" AND admit "Joe Schmoe is right about Y".
If Joe Schmoe is a very public proponent of X, then everyone will make that connection themselves.
Also, if Joe Schmoe and Alice Shclalice have different, but aligned, support of X, it can be useful to your audience to identify different parts of your criticism as "this is how I disagree with Joe" and "this is how I disagree with Alice".
Which still uses language that criticizes the people: "how I disagree with $PERSON". To keep a discourse civil, don't allow it to become personal.
In my view, the discourse from the conference was already civil. Can you explain your point of view a bit more?
I'm not sure it's possible to ban criticism without also banning opinions. If you give a presentation on how some new tool or technique is good, you're implicitly implying that the existing alternatives aren't as good. Many presentations will even explicitly call out weaknesses in existing things (criticising them!) in order to illustrate why some new thing is worthwhile. If you talk about how your research fills in gaps left by some previous person's research, or how your software is suitable for use cases that someone else's isn't, then you're criticising the completeness of their efforts. But those are good, useful things to have in your talk. Making it clear to people what you're interested in, and why they might be interested in it too, is important, and I don't think that's possible to do without at least implicitly criticising other people's work.
It feels like a serious stretch to talk about “implicitly implying” criticism of other options. If I say I love Chips Ahoy, I’m not “implicitly implying” criticism of Oreos.
I think you may have accidentally encountered a slippery slope.
But "I love Chips Ahoy" isn't really interesting except to the person in your household doing the shopping. "I prefer Chips Ahoy to Oreos" is what creates discussion and debate. The trick is for the discussion to be civil, playful, fruitful, constructive as opposed to antagonistic, disrespectful, in bad faith.
> But "banning criticism" isn't necessarily a problem.
So whoever pushes their opinion first wins, since they would not be able to be criticized by that logic.
For the most part, communities asking their members to be vulnerable, in practice often results in criticizing individuals or entire groups who are not represented in the community, with no attempt to understand their viewpoints.
Say more? I gave an example of what I meant: Show HN posts. Is that a phenomenon you perceive on Show HN posts?
I don't think it makes sense to ban criticism everywhere, or even most places.
No, Hacker News encourages disagreement and well reasoned criticism.
I mean to say, communities that seek to institute blanket no-criticism policies, in practice tend to end up criticizing those outside of the community and allow any beliefs or statements of people inside the community to go unchallenged and unexamined.
In other words, it just leads to more tribalism and in-group vs. out-group bias.
I don't have any hard data to back this up, just my subjective perception (criticize away!).
It might be reasonable to have that norm, but the context here is a response to Joel Grus's "I don't like Jupyter Notebooks" which was both well-received and quite critical. Not of any particular person, but of technology, but personally I don't see how Jeremy Howard's talk was very different.
>But I thought part of what made us American was our rich, diversity of opinions and our grit to withstand challenge. We're supposed to work together and see past the differences.
Surely though, you recognize that this statement (and most of the rest of your comment) is perhaps a little ironic?
> We're literally tearing ourselves apart ... Anyone can be an enemy or dislike you ... Everyone is so hostile and eager to end other people.
* Civil rights era
None of this is anything particularly new
_> Social media_
What does this particular incident have to do with social media? This was a presentation at a conference, and the "canceling" was convicting the presenter of a Code of Conduct violation on what look like egregiously inadequate grounds. They didn't block his Twitter feed or spam his Facebook page.
If I understand correctly, the idea is that the reports implicitly threaten the conference with attacks from social media if the conference does not quickly take an agreeable action.
Is this stated anywhere in the article? Or is it just assumed? I'm not seeing anything in the article that indicates this.
I didn't see it in the article. I was guessing at what echelon meant by referring to social media in their comment.
>We're literally tearing ourselves apart, and I don't want to hold opinions about human beings anymore. Anyone can be an enemy or dislike you.
Basically not much difference functionally than the rest of human history? Seems the latter half of the 20th century lulled some people into a false sense of security.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for the naïve to figure out bureaucracy, agreements and rules are a means of subduing their polity. Good enough for government work, but the operating principle is the same even for private organizations. Put a process in place, sprinkle some pretty words around to get people to agree that this undoubtedly good and just and will not be abused, and the people who are better at politics than you are will leverage that process to unjust means, and your best hope is that you’re not the one in the line of fire.
> I don't like criticism. I was bullied a lot as a kid.
It is sad what happened to you, and/but these are two different things.
Bullying is being applied but a mindless person/group who don't understand what-is-what and are just being mean because they don't know better/they haven't been taught better. Kinda like a kid acting like an ass, just because its parents/teachers never taught them better.
Criticism is a process applied by people with knowledge on the matter that are trying to improve you/something (like a parent who will criticize/assess/judge the actions of their kids to make them become better/greater humans)(great in the meaning of greatness/richness/betterment, not Alexander the 'Great').
Anecdotally, my karma here on HN used to be at least double of what it is now. But at some point there was a change in people’s moods, and now it has been slowly eroding over time. I suspect someday it will be zero, or worse.
My writing style and sharp criticisms of damn near everything hasn’t changed much, except perhaps knowing I’m going to be downvoted makes my wording more bitter. I suspect it is the HN crowd which has changed, and has an axe to grind. I will not be allowed to hold certain opinions anymore without being punished.
I'm in the very same boat.
The solution to low karma — if, indeed, you care about such things, is to make productive comments. Most of us have heard all of the simple one-liner thoughts before, we want something that might be insightful and novel. And politics-adjacent threads like these are not the place to earn karma, because lots of people will always disagree. But it’s an excellent place to lose karma.
A lot of us go to places like HN, Ars, TechCrunch because they’re something of a refuge from intractable boring political dilemmas. Solving technical problems, old war stories, discussing software and language features, sharing historical curiosities: those sorts of things earn karma.
That’s not to say politics is unwelcome here, but these threads make it so much easier to accidentally offend another. I’m highly involved in a US political party, but I rarely bring it up here because it’s unproductive. That said, go vote!
> The solution to low karma — if, indeed, you care about such things, is to make productive comments.
Fwiw my most upvoted comments are typically my lowest effort comments. Typically either low effort "me too" type confirmations or sarcastic quips that happened to be in favor of whoever was browsing the thread. [What I beleive to be] my more productive, thoughtful, on topic comments tend to mostly get ignored. This has been the case everytime I've tried to use this site. I beleive the the best way to get karma is a mix of proper timing / estimating what the popular opinion / point / etc. will be in a given thread. There are also certain topics and subjects that no matter how well you approach them will typically get you trashed.
Yes, sometimes the quips work the best. But that's also harder. Comedy relies on a good sense of humor, timing, and making sure you read your audience. It can be done, but it's not easy, and no one wants HN to turn into Slashdot of yore. Sometimes I've written jokes that end up with 1 or 0 karma after a lot of votes -- you can only farm karma this way if you're good and lucky.
I think people have a tendency to confuse productive comments with long comments, which isn't helpful either. I find I am most convincing to other people when I speak three to five sentences. If people truly wanted the essay format, they would have actually read the OP!
Not sure what you're on about but I wasn't complaining about my karma.
The moods and necessity for sugar coating everything has only gotten worse - exponentially so, if you ask me - in the last decade.
Karma is a reflection of that. I don't care about fake internet points.
I've never had a lot of karma as I don't comment that often and certainly haven't posted an article. But I suspect that my opinions would soon seen what little karma i do have, disappear.
"Unfortunately “anti-racism” has been weaponized as a shortcut for silencing anyone who may at one point have said something that could be interpreted as racist or even not anti-racist enough. No thanks.
Rather be labeled as a racist and keep my free speech than silenced by some mob authority."
This kind of comment was not surprising to find in your history's first page.
And it’s 100% accurate with the current political and cultural climate.
This non-response comment _perfectly_ illustrates the point being made. Well done.
Did you have something of substance to add?
why so snarky? argue with it.
Thanks for illustrating my point.
I find I'm a lot happier when I try to extend everyone compassion. (Mostly) doesn't matter who, or what, or why, or even if my story for how to be compassionate towards them is feasible ("well maybe if their life was like X then..."). I, myself, feel better and happier when I don't lean into the hostility and desire to "end other people", and instead lean into compassion.
Give it a go!
Be aware that your comment unfortunately contributes to the current division. It's subtle, and you may not be aware of it, but the tone you use, the words "rotten" and "madness", the emphasis on "_end_ other people" - they have the pathos and call to action of an "us vs them" atmosphere.
What is destroying society is anger, emotion, and tribalism. Our best hope of saving it is deliberation, consideration, and the dreary slog of rational understanding debate. Strong views expressed dispassionately and all that.
The problem isn't strong views. It's weak people.
There is a time and a place to coddle people. There is _also_ a time and a place for people's whose ideas are garbage to be declared as such and thrown into the bin.
There was a time when people could discuss ideas without having those ideas be internalized within an individual. It is entire possible to attack an idea or way of thinking to break it down and see how it works without involving a single person.
If you want to have constructive dialog about these kinds of things, people being "offended" will only shut down conversation instead of fostering it. Thicken up your skin, decouple yourself from these ideas, and talk about them like adults.
I, respectfully, very much disagree. A lot has been said about people not being able to handle criticism, about being "weak", or snowflakes, etc. I believe that is a misdiagnosis. Because when many people shriek the loudest about wanting to "cancel" others, or taking an unintended slight as a symbol of "vicious oppression", these people are usually speaking from a position of _power_, not a position of weakness.
Being able to whip a Twitter frenzy of many thousands of people into a scarlet-letter stamping mob doesn't sound very "weak" to me. At the end of the day, what this really is is a _power struggle_, and understanding why many feel the need to engage so passionately in this power struggle will get you closer to the heart of the issue IMO.
We're looking at weakness differently.
As someone who was bullied growing up, when I discovered that I could ignore those people, it was a powerful moment in my life. I suddenly had total control over them because they couldn't control me. My ability to ignore them and to not respond to them in kind was a new kind of power. They couldn't get what they wanted, so they eventually found new people to mess with.
When we lash out at people, when we "whip up a Twitter frenzy", that is not resilience or strength. That is being blown around by whatever wind happens to be hitting you at the time. When your self-worth or mental state can be disrupted by someone who said something that offends you, then you will perpetually be the victim and the only way you "win" is when others do exactly like you want them to do whenever you are around. That's not strength—that's manipulation.
_There is a time and a place to coddle people_
Individual people and groups of people get to decide for themselves what these times and places are, even if you think their decisions are wrong. It seems odd to demand this be done to your liking in the interests of 'adulthood'.
Watch "the social dilemma"
Political correctness is killing this country, inside out.
The media and big-tech are now the big brothers. The network did not bring people together, it drove us apart.
Even this post will be downvoted, because it does not sound "kind and nice", because it complained about big-media-tech's censorship, thus it must be censored at HN
There is a lot of division over political correctness, but I would not suggest that it is the _cause_, any more than a cough is the cause of a cold. There is something that is driving us apart on many, many issues, and political correctness just happens to be one of the more prominent ones.
And HN is pretty friendly to discussion of big-media-tech censorship in general. It's when a post veers too far into conspiracy or persecution territory that downvotes flow in.
> And HN is pretty friendly to discussion of big-media-tech censorship in general.
As long as you blame the "correct" people. You can blame politicians, rich executives, Russia, China and you will be lauded here.
You blame the hypocrisy of certain social movements, FAANG employees, Nordic countries, in general anything that can impact the POV of the average HN user and you will be downvoted swiftly. Most websites, this included, do not work to amplify the spectrum of opinions presented but to concentrate it in a tiny, fiercely regulated window. In that sense, old forums, usenet and even the daily mail comment section were more egalitarian.
Genuine question: what the hell do Nordic countries have to do with media censorship in general?
I was talking in general , not just censorship. Despite of what some Americans may think the Nordic countries are not utopias, there is plenty to criticize about them.
> There is something that is driving us apart
I must say I am too curious not to ask, this quite cryptic. What would you say is driving us apart?
My observation: dissection conversation.
People write paragraphs, someone takes an issue with a word or a sentence, and writes a divergent post on just that word/sentence. Then that post gets the same treatment by another participant.. again and again, in multiplying ways. Take a submission 3 threads removed from the originating post and see what relation exists among the ideas. I lurk and observe this in online discourse with some bemusement.
It’s not how to speak at work or with friends. There are convergent and divergent modes of discourse, to be sure, but look here at HN, or Twitter, and see how the dialogue cuts on words and sentences. It’s the divergent discourse without any of the convergent discourse.
I was cryptic in part because it is not completely clear. It's difficult even to pin down when we started on this path.
That said, one surprisingly important influence seems to be the rise of image posts + eternal scrolling. It's the ideal method for delivering a continuous stream of entertaining "the other side is bad" outrage content.
> Somebody needs to hide Linus.
IIRC Linus had a public mea culpa and took some time off to reflect on his communication style.
He was then back quite quickly, after their own CoC fiasco.
Bullying and criticism are two completely different things.
"Bullying" usually refers to actual criminal activities by children. Such as stealing objects, harassing, hitting, beating etc. Which happened to me.
Criticism is something completely different.
In the beginning there was 2 of them, but none of them (or both together) had the courage to try. Then they tried to recruit number 3. Number 3 was courageous and dumb. Snapped his pinky, no words spoken. None of them tried again for years. Was 13 at the time. Cancel culture is a tool for weak people
Frankly. Most people on HN and the tech community have asked for this, it's been years in the making. Slowly, anyone watching has seen this coming and it's not the end.
There's a reason we (the tech community) used to be and generally do lean libertarian. It's because we had to think ahead as we program, develop, we used to be innovators. We had to accepted people like Richard Stallman or Steve Jobs for that matter, because despite their faults, they contributed and drove things to a new level.
There may have been more of a "frat" style attitude, maybe. But from my experience the "old guard" was more nerds who didn't know how to communicate well. Often this was off putting, there were inappropriate jokes, etc. That definitely needed to be redressed.
HOWEVER, the solution has been not been merely education and punishing those who are abusive, but a propaganda and indoctrination campaign. I've witnessed men being forced to apologize to an audience of their peers, literally saying "I am sorry for being a white male of privilege." I've seen this at University and now it's coming to corporations.
I've been in meeting and trainings where I've been ordered to only target minorities during hiring. When asked, "why are we not recruiting from the ACM or IEEE clubs?" I was told, diversity is a more important target, everyone graduating will have roughly the same skill level anyway. These are the now corporate entities running NumFOCUS.
The reality is now everyone wants a "safe space". Which is not a "safe space" for discussion, but a "safe space" from feeling uncomfortable.
Today, we're more concerned about the petty politics than building a future. For looking the most "diverse" or "inclusive". The sacrifice has been a robust society or organization. We can't have differing opinions without being excommunicated.
I'm done being silent.
I want to build a future I'm proud of and this isn't it.
I wrote about it in my blog post titled "On Committing Suicide"[1], titled as such because saying any of this can _get me fired_. It can get me _banned on social media_. It's eventually going to kill the United States. In the words of John Adams,
> Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never. - John Adams, 2nd President of the United States
[1]
https://austingwalters.com/on-committing-suicide/
So the drivebys are here again, no idea what issue they took with your post, I thought it was beautiful.
Just wanted to be positive in a thread where there seems to be lots of negative.
This isn't anything new, people don't seem to make the connection very often, but this kind of behavior is ancient and just takes different forms from time to time.
The disease is the moral authority police & moral superiority complex.
Humans have this compulsion to be "right", to punish people for not being righteous enough, and generally to cultivate a feeling of their own moral superiority.
This is accomplished with rules, usually somewhat vague and needing the ability to be misinterpreted, overinterpred, or just somewhat related to "punishments". If your policy is "don't be a jerk" it's quite hard to misinterpret that into zealotry, but a complex code of conduct? That's the meat and potatoes of this human failing.
People rejected organized religions because they were full of this kind of person, pepperpots determined on punishing each other and everyone else. The failing logic is that this sort of behavior was _caused_ by organized religion.
The self-righteous and overzealous young people (and not so young too) just changed topics, they aren't thumping their bibles of soap boxes about not loving Jesus the right way or following god's will (some still are, just fewer) the pepperpots of today are getting up on their social media soapboxes and doing their morality masturbation about their brand of justice.
The insidious thing, or why they are so widespread and successful is that their message and their sets of rules, on a quick glance, seems reasonable and rather supportable by most folks. The people disagreeing with this new justice are usually the ones yelling nonsense and that opposition draws battle lines where a lot of people pull themselves into the "justice" side to disassociate themselves from the vocal opposition because they can't quite figure out what is wrong with the justice crusaders.
It is very difficult to pinpoint exactly what is wrong with this new generation of moralists, so most people stay pretty silent about it.
It's not new, just the same old monster in a different costume.
You’re posting this on a heavily moderated message board.
it is a luxury of modern times. Century and more ago only upper classes were having debates/arguments/discussions because only they had the option to try to control their fate by trying to win those debates (and those white males had less diverse set of opinions then we have in the society today). The rest of society was consumed in daily grit for survival, they had no impact on decisions and whatever decisions were taken it was for them akin to a weather or geological events. These days everybody can participate, thanks to economic development and communication tools and especially social media. Though not everybody has sufficiently trained mental toolset to handle it.
>Everyone is so hostile and eager to end other people.
Couple centuries ago disagreement could easily end up as a duel resulting in a death and losing a political fight may have had more severe consequences than just losing an elected office. These days usually only ego is damaged. And even that - in the current environment criticism is equaled with harassment (so egos are safe and happily growing large and larger...) Thus as a result in particular proliferation of alternative facts, etc. Kind of multiverse of quantum mechanics.
> Century and more ago only upper classes were having debates/arguments/discussions because only they had the option to try to control their fate by trying to win those debates.
It still is.
The working class footsoldiers aren't engaging in debates/arguments/discussions, they are being deployed as weapons, largely of intimidation, whose purpose isn't to convince others of what is true or right to believe,
but what is safe to express. They may be relaying slogans, but its not about debate or discussion, and there is essentially no engagement.
that is a systems theory question - is true mass debate possible giving so far observed half-life of mere milliseconds before it gets desintegrated into mass propaganda. Basically it calls for new Shannon - what is the maximum information (in particular - can it be more than simple slogan?) can be communicated (i.e. received/understood and meaningfully (it is key point here, ie. at the level comparable to the received information) responded) in some massively parallel and may be partially ordered (yet definitely not totally sequential) manner in a massive graph of very diverse nodes.
>(and those white males had less diverse set of opinions then we have in the society today).
how's skin color relevant here?
absolutely relevant. 1-2 centuries ago the deciding top of the society were mostly white males. That naturally leaded to the less diverse set of opinions held by them. Or do you think Jim Crow, etc. would have the same history if black people were part of the deciding elite 150-100 years ago?
One conference is unhappy with a speaker.
That has NEVER happened before and is clearly a tragedy of epic proportions.
It has nothing to do with social media. It is the leftist agenda infiltrating everything.
> We're cancelling people over criticism.
I will cancel any service that protects or promotes xenophobic views. If history has teach anything is that "tearing ourselves apart" damages everybody in society. If your company promotes xenophobia, if your company promotes behaviors of users that damage society, I will stop paying for your services and look for an alternative.
To denounce fair criticism as "Cancel culture" misses the point. I do not need to pay for your private company service if I disagree with your views.
The moral think to do, the right thing to do, is to not fund the people that seeking to increase economic profits are tearing our society apart.
> diversity of opinions
What make your country great is the diversity of cultures and people. And that is what many are attacking, believing that only "one culture", "one religion" should be allowed in the USA. My money should not go to fund that ideology, you may have your opinion, but I do not have to pay to spread it.
Yep, this is the logical conclusion of trying to solve all minor social conflicts with a complex and legalistic set of rules and processes.
Nothing got fixed. Everyone walks away angry. It would have been a lot simpler to ask the author to tone it down a bit next time.
> It would have been a lot simpler to ask the author to tone it down a bit next time.
Or not. Unless you're personally attacking someone, a spirited debate/talk/opinion should be welcomed. We shouldn't tone it down unless it's venturing into ad hominem territory.
"I attack ideas, I don't attack people - and some very good people have some very bad ideas." -- Antonin Scalia
We should be thicker skinned and not so g-damned fragile that a tech talk leads to an apparent need to "recover." I would never tolerate someone making fun of a person or attacking their humanity/personality -- however, ideas should be fair game, assuming the "attack" is supported by a robust argument. If someone disagrees with an idea, there shouldn't be a ballroom of eggshells one must navigate in order to disagree.
If it doesn't touch on something like harassment or racism, I can't see how people can't complain to the speaker directly. Anonymous complaints are meant to protect people, especially if subject to harassment; but does that apply in a case like this?
It's time we abandon those ridiculous “codes of conduct” in software projects and in tech events.
I have written why here:
https://github.com/gnab/remark/pull/398#issuecomment-2693399...
It really seems this is overwhelmingly about communication, not about CoCs or the norms specified in a given CoC.
It's not even "I violated the Code of Conduct, so I got banned from the conference", we didn't even get that far because just communicating the "I violated the Code of Conduct" part was already a debacle.
The post isn't about being cancelled, it's about an awful experience that caused the OP to burn out on conferences, to put it mildly.
Not even in the worst straw-person SJW interpretation of CoCs would this be the intended outcome.
_Not even in the worst straw-person SJW interpretation of CoCs would this be the intended outcome._
Why do you say that? I absolutely think this is intended by some of the people involved.
Any political movement that is trying to gain power by creating taboos needs high profile examples to scare people into following their agenda. Incidents like these therefore become something to brag about.
It is a basic power play. No different than having a new leader in an organization singling out someone trusted by the previous leadership to target. Which forces the rest of the organization to choose sides, and thereby cements the power of the new leader.
What exactly about this incident would scare someone into following the "SJW Agenda", when you can't even guarantee that following the "SJW Agenda" in the CoC would actually protect you?
The fact that you will be held to the standards of the most easily offended member of your audience will be motivation to try to figure out what _might_ offend that member and proactively try to cater to their wishes.
You might not know exactly what you have to do to succeed, but you will be certain that failing to hit any checklist item on the SJW agenda is going to get you into trouble. And therefore you have a good reason to proactively try to meet that agenda.
I read the article but either missed it or perhaps it was not included, but what is the result of the violation? Just not being invited back in future years? Does it only apply if the same sponsor puts on the conference?
afaiu the talk was removed from or not put on the website of the conference, Jeremy recorded a new version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q6sLbz37gk
I wonder how the CFP committee selected the talk without realizing it would be discussing someone else’s talk? It would seem that there’s fault there if indeed this supposed standard exists as the described talk clearly sounds like a rebuttal to another one.
So sad to hear about your health issues Jeremy. Wishing you the best during this time.
I _do_ hope you reconsider on barring your speaking engagements however. Bad gigs will happen. But you are stronger than that. =)
Or Jeremy could just not present at conferences that have a CoC.
I've stopped contributing to projects that enforce a CoC, these days I just write exploits for them.
Out of interest what do you do with exploits for projects you don’t want to contribute to? I assume you’re not reporting them or fixing them because that’s contributing. Do you sell them or something?
I'm reporting them.
[deleted]
No, I let them know.
I apologize, I misinterpreted the wording to understand it as a purely spiteful malicious act.
Its pretty common for people to assume that exploit writing is a negative thing. It does sound particularly nasty. No harm is done.
Finding and reporting security flaws means I don't have to worry about offending people because its purely code. There is no debate if an exploit works when its working right in front of you. Either it gets fixed or it doesn't.
I have below average interpersonal skills, I have been told that I offend people without trying, this was never my intent. This is a method where I can focus on the purely technical and not have to worry about the 'Conduct' side of the problem.
Youtube's algorithm, like it does all the time these days, suggested to watch a random 5 year old video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dNbWGaaxWM
(more relevant parts to the article begin from ~5:00, but it's worth watching everything)
I know Slavoj is a polarizing figure, but somehow that video nailed it for me, and IMHO it fits the article.
From my point of view I find it extremely ridiculous that this "cancelling" was decided without the supposed victim's involvement by some third party:
Joel (who I greatly respect, and consider an asset to the data science community) was not involved in NumFOCUS’s action, was not told about it, and did not support it.
"Offense by proxy" is the way it works these days. If anybody is offended by anything you say or do, you are by definition guilty of causing offense, regardless of whether your remark was intended as offensive or even directed at that person.
Actual case from a Silicon Valley company: person X admiringly notes that a transgender fashion model (shown in a picture in a news article, not employed at the company or otherwise involved in any way) passes so well that she looks like a "real woman". Person Y, who is not transgender, takes this to imply that transgender women are not "real women" and reports the remark to HR, and X is very nearly fired as a result.
Ugh cancel culture is exhausting. The political spectrum is a circle. The far left and right are flavors of the same thing, loud and utterly intolerant of anyone not like themselves.
The far right will tell you about their intolerance to your face, the individualistic version of intolerance. Like an asshole neighbor. The far left will make endless laws and rules, using the power of group norms to attack you. Like a shitty HOA.
Both I find insufferable. I wish US politics would turn back towards the center. I blame social media AI bubbles for segregating everyone into their own world where there's nobody with an opposite opinion to temper absolutism
I feel sympathy for him/her, but also blame. By defending CoC and the associated wokeness culture, s/he’s literally asking for it.
This happens _by design_. The whole idea of wokeness is to feign victimhood, use it to usurp power by appealing to people’s emotions and bypassing reason, then strike back in an arbitrary ways to feel powerful, humiliate your “opponent”, and strike fear in observers/bystanders, further consolidating your power.
Wokeness is intellectual cancer. Power-tripping, virtue-signalling, bullying cancer. It _must_ be fought back!
I was amused that he didn't want his experience to be used as an example of "cancel culture", when it is EXACTLY that.
Somehow most of my generation has been taught that their feelings must be protected at all costs. In 20 more years this generation will be senior lawmakers and we will be sending people to prison or worse for "transgressions" like OP's.
“cancel culture” (a concept I vehemently disagree with, since what is referred to as “cancellation” is often just “facing consequences”).
In a post decrying the consequences of his actions, the author condemns those who criticise the same.
Cancel culture is specifically about “cancelling” people over completely asinine comments regardless of whether anyone was actually offended.
I don’t understand why the author defends the principals by which he was abused. You’d think he’d see some fundamental flaw in there.
Oh wow, the last part about the calls. That is pretty much psychological torture. I wish the best for the author
"I know that I’ve made many enemies this year with my advocacy of universal masking, and have had to deal with constant harassment and even death threats as a result."
This is embarrassing. I can empathize with the arguments against lockdown because it can affect economy. But masking? The barrier of entry is so low. It's not hard to wear a mask. The cost is so low.
The most powerful thing you can do when something you're involved with becomes inflamed with witch hunts and infighting is to just walk away.
Sometimes people have power over you that you can't just ignore, but more often than we realize they simply don't beyond what we create by not walking when they don't treat us with respect.
I watched both presentations in youtube.
Joel presentation was a critique on a web tool.
Jeremy presentation was a rebuttal, perhaps a bit sanguine.
The overuse of satirical memes will get ruffled feathers.
All in all the whole thing seems petty.
political correctness and safe spaces are getting bonkers. It's like being a snowflake is the new norm and criticism is 'violence'.
The person who is making this CoC complaint is clearly a narcissist who is unable to cope with criticism. There needs to be some sort of pushback against people who are attempting to initiate a mob lynching against people that they feel don't have a right to challenge them.
“When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
There was a time when critical thinking, and fact-based arguments while holding differences of opinions were valued. We're now in a period of time where in several countries the tone of communication, contents of thought, and behaviour are all policed.
the anti-CoC crowd might jump on this as an example of problems with codes of conduct more generally, or might point at this as part of “cancel culture” (a concept I vehemently disagree with, since what is referred to as “cancellation” is often just “facing consequences”).
This is an amazing example of cognitive dissonance. The guy gets cancelled for basically nothing by a self appointed jury, which is exactly what is referred to when talking about cancel culture, and will still disagree about the concept. Maybe he thinks he's the only one being wrongly accused? Or maybe he considers himself "facing consequences" too?
It's the cruel moraliser[0] again.
[0]:
https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-cruel-moraliser-uses-a-halo-t...
That's an amazing article, thanks for sharing!
So they were a keynote speaker and yet noone in the conference team looked at the slides before the keynote or someone did look at the slides and did not see a problem.
What that indicates to me first and foremost is that this is a poorly organized conference. I would expect that every single speaker is asked for at least a draft of their slides a few weeks before the presentation. Either ignoring the keynote speaker or not supporting them in such a bizarre case speaks volumes about the organizers. They simply don't seem to care about the content of the conference that much.
Stuff like this is what gives CoCs a bad rep, although when implemented well, they can be hugely beneficial to communities.
Citation needed. What is the differential improvement a CoC can provide over a _good implementation_ without a CoC? Code of conducts are not codifying anything mysterious or disputed that a good common sense judgement cannot arrive.
On the flip side, a CoCs can give _bad implementation_s a veneer of legitimacy. And whenever humans relinquish their best judgement to an inanimate piece of text written by enthusiastic people, bad things happen. It makes the way to say "It is the policy", "That's what it writes there", "I didn't make the rules" and get away with not taking responsibility for the complexity of adjudicating over human affairs.
Law is complicated enough that it took millennia of iterations to arrive its current form and we still have to employ tons of dedicated professionals to apply it while having a reasonable false positive rate. I can't understand the hubris of the author or enforcer of a CoC thinking that they can possibly be just, fair and overall improve the state of things by making and using their own piece of text at the expense of good human judgement.
As I see it, a CoC is a tool for those in power to better exert their influence and control. If those in power are just and competent then it's a tool for good. If those in power are selfish or unskilled then it's a tool for ill. Unfortunately, I suspect the latter is much more often the case than the former.
Indeed. I think CoC is kind of like any other form of "justice". One thing I dislike about them, is most seem to emphasize secrecy (To protect the accuser, and the accused). And they aren't wrong to worry about protecting those parties. However, in the real world, having transparency in court cases, is one the core checks on the power of the judiciary that prevent it from being abused.
> As I see it, a CoC is a tool
It's a tool for communicating expectations of behavior. There's nothing wrong about managing expectations. Think of it as the next level "no shoes, no shirt, no service".
Unfortunately, tools can be abused, and this case was no exception. It doesn't mean that the tool should be discarded, it should be refined.
Except these are "unless you are wearing what someone else doesn't find offensive".
This requires a fashion sense that keeps 100% of people happy enough not to report you.
> Except these are "unless you are wearing what someone else doesn't find offensive".
Interesting. I didn't see that example in the article -- could you cite such an example or are you just making something up?
I'm referring to your use of the dress code. Unlike the clearly written "No shoes, No Shirt - No Service" sign, the "sign" in this case is the relative offensiveness of ones behaviour.
You just have to be offensive to "any single person" to trigger the "no service" condition.
It's a matter of degree, isn't it? At some point there's clearly a threshold of unacceptable behavior right?
The trick is to have that threshold be at a "reasonable" level. That's tricky and has room for error, but it doesn't mean it's not worth doing.
Note that my original response was to this statement: "As I see it, a CoC is a tool for those in power to better exert their influence and control."
We need guidelines for group activities, and they need to evolve as we learn more about the world, and framing this as a tool for power tripping is "the elites".
From the article, it appears that the "rules" were not well communicated and/or were poorly enforced. Blaming it on having a CoC vs. a person making poor choices is what I'm pushing back against.
A key part of "implemented well" is the interpretation and execution by whoever is in charge. Unfortunately, there isn't really a way to know, or ensure, that a group of people will act in good faith and accordance with a document that they say they adhere to. That seems to have been part of the problem here -- Mr. Howard notes several ways in which the committee acted against their own code.
I think this is (part of) why many people are against CoCs. They are a tool that good leadership _can_ use to be better, but a tool that bad leadership _does_ use to be worse.
You can have the most flawlessly written, beautiful and well-meaning CoC, yet it won't do any good if it's interpreted by little despots.
I do agree Codes of Conduct are a tool like any other, but it's a tool that I've personally seen being misused so many times, it admittedly starts raising red flags. And if there's something human beings excel at, it's in finding patterns, no matter if they're poorly justified or not.
Subconsciously, I'm already avoiding contributing directly to projects with strict CoCs, and it's a bit painful when I do realize it, even if I've never willingly (or unwillingly, by virtue of keeping most communication with maintainers short, polite, straight to the point and erring on the side of caution) broken any.
Bad leadership is going to make bad decisions regardless.
The impact of their decisions however depends on the level of power they wield. A CoC gives them more power to wield.
Hence systems that are designed to resist abuse, like some versions of democracy and internal police agencies.
> when implemented well, they can be hugely beneficial to communities.
Does anyone have them implemented well? CoC enforcement is punishment-based social structure and like other such structures (e.g. law enforcement) it is a terrible weapon that requires proper counterbalances to not end as a tool of oppressive tyranny.
Society developed such counterbalances for thousands of years so we ended with current rights of accused for fair trial. Unfortunately people who reinvent these social wheels (as CoC) often reinvent them poorly, with much emphasis on punishment and minimal emphasis on rights of accused.
> when implemented well, they can be hugely beneficial to communities.
Please supply an example or two if you don't mind?
Ironically many people here seem to be jumping to conclusions after reading only his side of the story, something which he (rightly) reproaches to NumFOCUS in the very article.
Disclaimer: I watched some of the talk and I do think Jeremy Howard appears largely accurate and right, and I empathise with his feelings. But I wouldn't get to a definitive conclusion until NumFOCUS has had a chance to present their side.
I didn't watch the talk. For one, he seems to have recreated the talk because he didn't have the original video. Two, I already like and use notebooks. Three, I can't imagine what he could've possibly said about Joel that would make me change my mind.
Can't help but feel these codes of conduct are unnecessary. I get the problem they're supposed to solve, setting ground rules for a community expected to broach various cultural boundaries, but I don't actually think they functionally achieve this. Few people bother reading them so they're more a mechanism for discipline than anything constructive.
In short, many parts of the document, including this one, assume guilt, and do not show any consideration for the accused. The potential for misuse and weaponization of such a code is of concern.
That seems to be what most people have been saying since day 1.
It must be an amazing feeling of power for the CoC committee to know they can judge and cancel someone without any worry of retaliation. The worst that will happen to these people is a debate on CoCs. They don't even have to worry about their careers or future opportunities.
What I never understand with discussions about COCs is that a lot of people seem
to act as if COCs are to blame for how they are enforced, and that this is
somehow a new thing. Before COCs were a thing, projects would still arbitrarily
enforce rules, and not always the right way. This is nothing new.
I personally applaud the idea of a COC, much like software licenses. It's just a
bummer that a lot of people out there in a leadership position don't know how to
fairly enforce them. It also doesn't help that many COCs are poorly written,
much like when an engineer without legal experience tries to write a license.
Hopefully this will get better with time.
Ironically they won a transparency and accountability
award a week ago.
https://numfocus.org/blog/numfocus-earns-transparency-recogn...
Another supports Code of Conduct's, but actually had to deal with the repercussions article.
When you are on the side of evil, bad things happen.
I just wish the reverse wasn't true, _this_ is what we need to work on.
A society that separates these bad people off and lets them destruct themselves. So good people are not getting hurt. Work on the rest later.
Didn’t the conference leaders violate their own CoC by being “unkind” to the speaker, and laughing at him?
CoCs are just ways for third party companies control what communities do. That's why they are not enforced equally and fairly. It's all about power and not about good charity.
I'm sorry, I would not have been able to not go off on them for fucking him over. I get being professional, but this is rediculous. In regards for their actions, I would have retained an attorney as this affects his livelihood.
Does anybody here have any direct knowledge of this particular conference or talk?
I'm not particularly interested in litigating the whole idea of CoCs based on a single example at this time. It appeared (to me) that the author meant to highlight what he felt was a failure of one group, at one convention, in one instance. While the idea of CoCs is an absolutely worthwhile thing to discuss along with adjacent topics and social context, broad arguments about this area haven't done much to enlighten me as to "What actually happened here amongst these individuals in this instance?"
Too much he said, he think, he .... Doing this makes the talk a personal affair, which I don't think talks should be. I think that was where most of the kindness was interpreted.
That said Joel made strong and judgemental opinions on social media , so he should expect nothing less than strong and emotional responses.
In all being a nerd enough to be passionate about some technology is cool, but taking things personally probably calls for a break. It's just never that serious.
We are in a time of moral upheaval, when the old mores are no longer acceptable, but as a society, we haven't yet worked out new ones. The search is inevitably clumsy at times, and mistakes will get made.
That said -- outlawing mere expressions of disagreement would be a very serious mistake. Nor is it workable to require that we never make anyone uncomfortable. That would go too far towards shutting down the open expression of ideas.
I do think it’s a bit odd that a notebook can hold intermediate state.
Or to put it another way: why isn’t “restart and clear output” the default and in fact only thing you can do? When would you want your notebook to ever look different to how it would look if you did a clean build?
...which leads to the observation that Jupyter combines text editor design, build system architecture, and programming language choice under one roof. It’s not surprising some people get hot under the collar about it, but anonymous accusations of CoC violatioN as a battlefront feels like a new low.
> why isn’t “restart and
clear output” the default
Maybe the earlier cells are pulling down large files over the internet or, more commonly, doing intensive computations such as model training.
I feel like I have heard nothing but bad things about Codes of Conduct. Are there any good stories about them? Am I just seeing the bad stuff and not the good for some reason?
So you were wrong that you said the person was "wrong"? That person made you wrong by making your opinion contradict the code of conduct??? He's the bad guy. Punished. 50 pushups!
I understand the good faith about CoC but it does not serve its intended purpose. CoC is a tool to wield the power that comes with the ability to program without having to work hard to acquire the skill to program. It makes me sick to see non programmers controlling the language of programmers.
Couldn't it simply be that whoever is behind that product didn't appreciate the criticism and asked the convention organisers to do away with him?
CoC proponents are removing the ability to have a decent discourse without walking on egg shells. Adults should be able to take criticism and also be given an opportunity to respond to those criticism even openly.
This is especially true if the criticism is of an idea or an opinion and not of a person.
Pretending as though everyone is so fragile and delicate is going to make it worse for everyone.
This is exactly the kind of bs that happens when someone gives away their hard work for free.
I don't know what the solution is, but when you do stuff for free, try to make sure there is a mutual giving of some sort, otherwise disasters like this have a way of creeping up on you.
It's almost as if the scales of Themis need to be rebalanced somehow, with good or with bad, she doesn't care.
Playing into the hands of your bullies isn't the solution, just walk away.
A conference organizer needs you more than you need them, with you they have a conference, without you they have an empty hall with some bad food and they don't even have the foresight to realize that themselves seen as they found your suffering funny.
NumFOCUS is wrong and this activity reflects poorly on them.
Does fixing a bug introduced by a different author and pointing out the mistake as part of commit message considered a CoC violation?
I find this absurd and just a way to get at someone. Anything you say can be bent and twisted by a group of lawyers and the CoC committee here seems to be filled with such folks.
It's the hammer and nail thing all over again except now it's politicizing open source projects.
CoC experts recommend using a CoC that focuses on a list of unacceptable behaviors.
Mr. Howard's experience is refreshing
Here's a sample of another 'sur'real example:
Expected behavior: Participate in an authentic and active way.
Unacceptable Behavior: Harassment includes: minimizing other people’s experiences
and yeah, i had to sign it or i don't get to play with the other kids
I'm still unclear on why a code of conduct beyond "Don't be an asshole just to be an asshole" is even needed.
This kind of idiocy is why we should reject overly elaborate CoCs. I'm sure Joel himself would agree with Jeremy in a face-to-face conversation, because Jupyter is indeed great, just not for everything. Adults know nothing is 100% "right" or "wrong" and their positions on things are nuanced and contextualized.
So, imagine if in the science world, if you challenge some theory with new findings or thinking (for example Einstein challenging Newtons gravity) and that obviously making "some people uncomfortable", would exclude you from the scientific community. So much progress would be made! /s
Yes CoCs are great, but be careful how you use them. Committees wielding their CoCs to the detrement of others is shameful. They give CoCs a bad name. Maybe there should be a 2nd committee, with a CoC for committees using them maliciously, a CoCCuM if you will.
When and why did software engineering become the playground of aggressive, oppressive SJW and emotionally brittle snowflakes? Are other fields (of engineering) also as infested with all this nonsense?
Here we have people throwing a fit over... nothing and then we have a speaker that calls himself „shattered“ after those ridiculous accusations? We need more Linus Torvalds.
To make one thing clear: The speaker is the victim in this interaction. Being unhappy about the accusation is understandable, feeling "shattered" makes me worried for them.
>When
I think around 2016 in USA(?)
Why? I'd also want to know.
I have to pause a minute to understand CoC is code of conduct and not command and conquer.
This is a canonical example of cognitive dissonance.
The author has a classic Australian style of speaking, and he knows this is American PC nonsense.
Yet he agrees/promotes all these new woke rituals. It’s can’t possible be me they are after!
1. Don't be a dick
2. Dick in point 1. is gender neutral term
There, the only CoC you will ever need.
Uhh...why exactly does the author care so much about what is obviously a bunch of clowns roleplaying as a country? That just seems to ascribe to them a level of importance they've never had.
As a couple of other commenters have already mentioned, a CoC seems to be equivalent with an HOA.
Is the best option just to not engage with an authoritarian organisation?
Solution is quite obvious. What we need is investigation of Code of Conduct violation by Code of Conduct investigation committee.
I repeatedly told their committee that my emotional resilience was low at the moment due to medical issues, which they laughed about and ignored, as I tried (unsuccessfully) to hold back tears.
We have to take his word on this, but if true this sadly confirms my stereotype of these CoC SJWs. They are like that horrible corrupted cop standing above the law, treating those people breaking their laws worse than what they are accused of.
Until now this has mostly been a US thing, but it's slowly making its way to Europe too, unfortunately.
I feel bad for the guy, but this is classic "Leopards ate my face". Kafka wrote "Der Process" (The trial) 100 years ago. People have warned in abundance that Codes of Conduct will lead to Der Process-like situations, and here we are.
Cancelling others is "facing consequences". Cancelling you is unfair and a great injustice. Is it maybe possible that others who have been cancelled did, in fact, not just face consequences, but were treated just as unfair as you?
"The Code of Conduct Enforcement Team" - group of purple haired losers that can't code
NumFOCUS is wrong and this action reflects poorly on them.
I support the thoughtful enforcement of Code of Conducts to address sexist, racist, and harassing behavior, but that is not what happened in this case.
Well, too bad. The authors idea of thoughtful enforcement doesn't align with reality. Harassment in the context of CoCs is in the eye of the beholder.
Them continuing to support something that they've experienced being unjust first hand, what is there more to say? They should suck it up and accept the violation.
I organize a local tech meetup. A lot of our organizing and out-of-band socializing happens through a separate, very large, local tech community Slack group. A few years ago, CoCs were all the rage and there was a push for all communities to adopt one. As a consequence, I've done a lot of my own thinking on CoCs [0].
As an event or community organizer, a lot will depend on how you think of your CoC. You can either think of it as a list of rules by which you will adjudicate conflicts, or you can think of it as a communication tool.
I see the former thought process in our Slack group's CoC, and in most of the CoCs that get mentioned in articles like this. It suggests a moral absolutist approach, that all conduct in all situations can be correctly binned into "good" vs "bad". Not even logic is complete, so I don't see how codes of ethics and morals can be complete.
Such thinking also denies the concept of _mens rea_, whether or not the person intended to do harm. I haven't watch the talk to know how the criticism was worded, but we have had other scenarios described where the mere usage of certain words can lead to adjudication of "CoC violation", because the word had a different denotation to the listener than the speaker. In such cases, there is clearly a lack of ill intent. Where the line should fall is how the "speaker" reacts to the correction, not on the gaff itself.
Being authored by a singular entity, any CoC is always going to fail to match everyone's cultural norms. What we're talking about here is attempting to codify how we behave in social groups, how we show respect to other people, and hopefully how we _avoid_ conflict, rather than just accepting that conflict is inevitable and must be smote with great prejudice. Those are all issues of _manners_, which are infinitely evolved and evolving and flexible and untestable and often unspoken rules.
Maybe it's because I'm older and grew up on a much more diverse Internet, before Facebook and Twitter and Google bubbles took over, when online interaction took place on topic-oriented message boards and chatrooms, leading to frequent and sustained interactions with people from multiple nationalities and walks of life. Maybe it's my recent work in the foreign language instruction industry, where social _faux pas_ is the inevitable result of students stretching their wings and flying too close to the sun. Maybe it's my upbringing in which my parents emphasized honor and always doing the right thing. When dealing with social conflict, there absolutely must be consideration for the intent of the action, a willingness to use it as a teaching moment, and not one of punishment.
These are the problems I have with "enumerated behavior" CoCs as myself, an actor in good faith. But I can technically get over it. Far more troubling is that bad-faith actors use these lists to stand just over the line on the safe side and use it against good-faith actors. An overheard, off-color joke, told in bad taste, is a literal violation of the CoC, but it lacked ill intent to the person who was offended by the joke. Tell the person, "hey, people can hear you, this is not cool". 9 times out of 10, the person says, "oh, I'm so sorry" and is on their best behavior the rest of the time. That other 1 time, they double down, creating a pattern of behavior and a clear demonstration of ill-intent. But using the CoC to then blacklist people, and then amplifying the furor through social media in attempt to get the person fired from their job, is engaging in a form of harassment, but one that is protected under the guise of "protecting victims". It comes from a "zero-tolerance" mentality, one that is itself a social harm.
Where I took the CoC for my tech meetup was to use it as a communication tool. I talked with a lot of people about why they wanted a CoC and the message was singular, "to know that I will be safe". I wrote a CoC that focused on communicating the commitment of the organizers to _proactively_ guiding behavior patterns towards ones of good manners, to reassure attendees that they can communicate with us about their concerns in any way that is comfortable for them, and that we will immediately prioritize said issues.
I tell people, "you don't know who heard you, you don't know how they heard it, and you don't know what they took from it." Most people don't make complaints. The "enumerated behavior" CoC is a reactionary document, one that assumes that no smoke equals no fire. It's not enough to have a good fire department. You also need to build your structures to fire code and not store oily rags in a pile in the corner of your garage.
Our CoC has no enumeration of bad behavior. It mostly just says that attendees are expected to be polite to each other, _with the addendum_ that politeness will _not_ be defined. In this way, it puts the issue of behavior and intent at the forefront. A polite person apologizes if they accidentally offend someone. A polite person informs someone they have been offended without making it into a crusade, in the hopes that they will be apologized to. And the boundaries of politeness is free to flex with the boundaries of the group.
I also semi-regularly remind people that the authority they assume I have is only because they give it to me. The group exists soley for the benefit of the people within the group. If there is some way in which the group is not meeting the needs of the people within it, there is no point in talking about "the integrity of the group", as "the group" is not an entity unto itself, with some notion of rights or feelings that need to be protected. It's just the people.
I feel it is because of this that we've only had to ban 2 people in the last 6 years. While those moments were certainly tense, we came away from them with no disagreement that they were handled correctly. I still stand by those decisions. There's almost always some moment to make a comment about, "hey, that thing you just said could be taken in this other way", and it usually ends with the person whole-heartedly apologizing. Our group is diverse and lively. It _feels_ like a real community. Folks are able to disagree with each other without fear.
As for the Slack group, I just keep to the technical channels and don't engage in anything that comes even close to conflict. My speech has been chilled, so to speak.
[0] Incidentally, one of my thoughts was "how did the group of people who came up with these not think of how the acronymn sounds?" I also am not too keen on the usage of the term "conduct", as it evokes images in my mind the Military Code of Justice and "Conduct Unbecoming", which in turn evokes images of command authority structures, which I dislike greatly. But whatever you want to call it, I'm going to continue to use the apparently accepted term of art.
Thanks for sharing all that detail, I learned a lot I'd never considered before
The NumFOCUS COC committee had “made at least two thousand people feel uncomfortable”.
This is what happens when you deal with coddled snowflakes that never had to handle a single dash of adversity.
I was concerned that if only partial information became available, the anti-CoC crowd might jump on this as an example of problems with codes of conduct more generally, or might point at this as part of “cancel culture” (a concept I vehemently disagree with, since what is referred to as “cancellation” is often just “facing consequences”).
The point I wish to make is that Jeremy is either experiencing some cognitive dissonance, or his frustration is overriding his fear with regards to his position on CoCs in general.
Whether he intends for it or not, his article taken as a whole aligns much more closely with the gripes from the "anti-CoC crowd" than one in support of CoCs; despite him stating that he is attempting to deter the anti-CoC crowd. Why? Well his argument is that the CoC committee is essentially a capricious entity. This is evidenced by his expected experience versus reality, among other things:
I was also heartened that the manual has a section “Communicate with the Reported Person about the Incident” which says they will “Let the reported person tell someone on the CoC response team their side of the story; the person who receives their side of the story should be prepared to convey it at the response team meeting”.
but then the actual experience did not go quite as planned:
I was stunned. The representative could not even commit to a time when they would get back to me, or tell me what would be happening next. I told them that I thought that telling someone that they had a violation report, but then not saying what it is, or when or whether they would be able to provide their side of the story, or providing any time-frame for any next step was cruel.
The next call did not happen for another week (I had made myself available to meet any time). I was shocked to read that the purpose of the call would be to “discuss the results of our investigation”. I could not understand how they could have completed their investigation and have results, without any input from me.
And Jeremy's true feelings about the situation were laid out at the top of the article:
The process has left me shattered, and I won’t be able to accept any speaking requests for the foreseeable future.
And directly following it is his dissonance/fear kicking in:
... for the foreseeable future. I support the thoughtful enforcement of Code of Conducts to address sexist, racist, and harassing behavior, but that is not what happened in this case.
Throughout the article, we find Jeremy constantly defending the ideas behind CoCs. Despite that, the entire article serves to show how those ideas utterly failed in practice; and as such, serves as an example against CoCs. As such, I hypothesize that this is either because Jeremy does not actually agree with CoCs, but is too fearful that he feels it's necessary to consistently defend their ideas. Or he still hasn't come to terms with the fact that CoCs aren't all he's made them up to be, and now that he's gone through the other end of it and been left feeling "shattered" is struggling to reconcile his emotions and experience from his ideology regarding CoCs.
In the event Jeremy's defense of CoCs is fear based, then I am saddened about the current state of affairs. On the other hand, if it's the case that he is experiencing cognitive dissonance, I wish him the best of luck finding clarity.
Does any else have other ideas on the author feels compelled to defend CoCs while at the same time damaging their reputation via example?
Appealing to authority is what actual law is for.
Everything else is for children.
I find it ironic that the author supports "cancel culture", and also proceeds to write this:
One the call, I was surprised to find myself facing four people. The previous call had been with just one, and suddenly being so greatly outnumbered made me feel very intimidated.
Isn't this basically what cancel culture is too? To some extent, anyway.
a terrible thing happened, but concluding that CoCs are not necessary or "cancelling" people is always wrong is intellectually dishonest
They are tools like anything else and can be misused.
1. Who cares, it's a made up keynote presentation at a made up conference with made up rules.
The whole point of a conference is to present, so it makes someone else angry, they were shown they were wrong and it was not personal attack(s) based on "protected" statuses.
This reads so immature.
There are a lot of words defending CoCs and the culture around them in this article, despite the author having been screwed over by one.
I think there is a bit of stockholm syndrome around these things. I know this is cliche, but despite mass famines under communism, you still hear people defending it saying "yes, but if implemented _correctly_...". At some point you need to admit that the repeated poor implementation of CoCs is fundamental to the concept.
You can't just hand power to people and expect it to work out. _Especially_ people with a permanent chip on their shoulders, who are not neutral parties in let's say the "culture war", who are the exact people most likely to adopt them.
All CoCs are doing is allowing people in charge to exercise power without paying the social cost of having to look like they're using their judgement reasonably. Without a CoC, you were always allowed to kick someone out who was misbehaving, it's just you might look bad if people around you don't think you're being reasonable by doing so. Leaders of e.g. software projects were always dictators, but they still wanted people to like them and so there are natural limits on how much on an asshole you can be kicking people out who are misbehaving.
All a CoC does is give these people a document they can point to to justify their actions on paper, so that they don't need to justify that it was a judgement call. Now they can kick people out more easily because all that's happened is that their accountability has been reduced. This can be used for good and for evil, it depends on the person. The actual contents of the document are nearly irrelevant, you'll find something in there to pin on someone you don't like.
Then again, if I were writing this article I would pepper it with pro-social-justice shibboleths too, just because I wouldn't want people to write me off as alt-right or whatever and stop reading.
There is a serious lack of resilience here and I'm sorry this poor fellow got crushed by his own van; Anyone who's been to a Python conference in the last 5 years can likely attest to the "changes" that have taken place, and perhaps if this fellow had written the article before getting crucified I'd have more sympathy for him.
Extremists generally eat their own to further advance their own extremism and their individual position within the group. I wonder, how many did they come for, before him and how many times did he not speak out?
With the copy-cat adoption of CoC’s, knowing full well how petty tech communities can be, which of us didn’t see this coming?
Why take a functioning OSS project and turn it into a failing commune?
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Sadly, I have personally watched keen advocates of various Codes of Conduct be prime violators of their own codes, and either blind to it or thinking somehow the standard is very flexible.
Pointing this out to them has usually resulted in them shrugging it off, in the manner of "it's not meant to be taken that seriously, it's so we have something to point at when we have to discipline someone".
Well, I sympathise with having _something_ with which to discipline someone. But I think it's a bit rich when people egregiously violate their own advocated CoC.
I don't mean extremely subtle examples. I mean easy, blatant ones.
Like the time some people advocated for a CoC that said it's important not to view sexual images in a room without other people's consent as they may not wish to be exposed to them. Who then on a later date did exactly that themselves, with explicit vagina images, on the assumption that "we" all knew each other so assumed it was fine.
Ok, so people make mistakes. I have a lot of respect for the person who pointed out that we should adopt a CoC and then hold ourselves to it. Fine.
But did pointing out the sexual images go down well? No, they carried on, assuming I was being prissy. Leaving me wondering, _why did you advocate for the CoC then?_
I've seen plenty of others. People advocating for CoCs that say you mustn't derail other people's conversations, that's fun to watch as they do exactly that.
What I found, mostly, from discussing CoCs with people is:
1. Some regard them as "we need something to point to in sufficiently egregious cases that we have to discipline someone".
2. Some regard them as "pointing people to this will tell them our expectations".
Trouble with 1 is two things. First, selective enforcement. If you're not serious about the CoC, only using it to point to when you decided someone has done something bad, that's like having laws where everyone breaks some law all the time, and what determines your fate is whether the police like you or don't. Some judgement calls are necessary, but blatant selective enforcement is a problem.
Second, a list can't cover everything bad, it's not possible. If your judges believe in rules too much, sticking to the list, they will fail to judge some bad behaviours that should be disciplined. So you must have a fallback to "we decided your behaviour is bad even though it's not on the list", and if that's available, you don't really need the list at all for reason 1.
Trouble with 2 is, that might work if the prime advocates follow it. But if they are as I've seen sometimes (and it sounds like the judges in the article were), prime advocates of a CoC may be the ones visibly breaking it in front of everyone else. That sorts the group into an "in group" who set the real standard for what is expected, visibly; and an "out group" who are new, believe the CoC, and are afraid to act according to the social standard being visibly set by the in group. That's not fair and it can be quite harsh on someone conscienscious, inducing some fear of putting a foot wrong against the CoC, yet knowing they have to to fit in to the in group social norm.
So do I believe in CoCs?
Reluctantly, yes, because of the asshole problem. From time to time there's an asshole, making someone's life miserable, or many lives miserable. In a group there's often some kind of duty for organisers to care for those present, at least against serious abuse. I've seen people have a really awful time in groups being abused, where some power to intervene and a bit of guidance and authority to back it up would have avoided lasting trauma. In that situation you really need the abused person to know that someone "has their back", socially speaking.
A well crafted and _fairly applied_ CoC, applied through _gradual_ escalation (ie. talking to the person first to remind them it's a problem and please stop, etc) can, sometimes, prevent a minor or accidental asshole problem from growing unchecked. The article suggests gradual escalation didn't happen, and the consequences of serving judgement in the way they did, over a low level infringement, seems to have caused unnecessary emotional harm.
I think it's important the CoC is something that in-group people or leaders of some kind are genuinely willing to follow themselves. Not lip service, but actually visibly adhering to its ideas. Perhaps not strictly to every letter, but enough that most people will generally agree the spirit is being followed and treated with respect.
And having the CoC written out does set a tone. What kind of tone depends on how it's written of course, and there are a number of ways to do that. Some quite positive and constructive, others will set up polarisation. Having a CoC makes some people feel safer, comforted, better looked after from the beginning. If nothing else, it signals that organisers are aware of the asshole problem. But a CoC also makes some people feel less safe, if they think they're at risk of being found in violation if they dare to relax and be socially normal, especially if there's an apparent contradiction between encouraged in-group behaviour and what the CoC says.
It was hard to read this blog.
The author reminds me of a character in The First Circle, Rubin, an avowed Marxist imprisoned in the USSR. Rubin sees his punishment as unjust but he believes this kind of judicial error is a small bump in the road to a communist utopia.
Towards the end of the article, the author accuses "the NumFOCUS policy" of failing to "consider the mental health of people that are accused". But if someone has a mental breakdown after being criticized that does not mean the critic did anything wrong. Legal and moral norms exist to allow us to answer questions like "did this person do anything wrong?" or "did this person cause this other person's mental breakdown?" I think it's naive to expect codes of conduct to improve on what we already have.
I suppose I think codes of conduct are as good as the people you get to enforce them. But that's the thing: the people willing to volunteer their time to be cops tend to be the last people you'd want in those roles. If codes of conduct are not a replacement for fair-minded people maybe they're more trouble than they're worth.
Also, while I did not find his presentation insulting, I do think he made a mistake by spending so much of it directly critiquing someone else's presentation. It was in bad taste though not -- of course -- the kind of thing that needs to be punished.
you should of told them to shove the CoC up the a__
This is why people are afraid of the far left. Hopefully more and more people will stand up against this garbage.
I have only ever heard very awful things about some of the key figures of numfocus - especially Travis Oliphant and Peter Wang.
The stories of bullying, religious discrimination (or turning a blind eye to religious discrimination) and general unprofessional and poor behavior are staggering.
Considering how Anaconda took money from In-Q-Tel and mostly functions as a consultant to big banks, it’s a really sad chapter of Python history considering some of the amazing technical achievements the engineers have produced (conda, numba, pyarrow, dask, etc.).
The Python data and numerical ecosystem would be much healthier if Travis and Peter would just step down from their variety of positions and leave the community in peace.
Idiots. Wear it like a badge of honor.
What really annoys me of the post is that it resorts to exact the same emotional arguments that generated follies like CoC in the first place. "My emotional resilience was low"... "I tried to hold back tears"... Come on. You're an adult, someone disagrees with you for reasons that are entirely, perniciously wrong.
No need to dwell on your emotional state, just say that they are being idiots and tell them to fuck off- publicly. Enough with this crap.
To me and some colleagues (of all genderial persuasions), donglegate was enough of an incentive to never visit a tech conference again.
Imagine that your civil rules are so f*ckt that you think you need a CoC and then just listen to one side, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had such CoC'ses too.
Why is this kind of thing so common at conferences? What mechanism encourages it in that kind of environment?
Well, so much for "Bruh, just don't be a sexist asshole and you'll be find. Why can't you just be a decent human being? How hard can it be?"
I can't even count the number of times it was predicted that Code of Conducts would just be used as a tool for internal politics. Of course, all CoC opponents were painted as racists and sexists, and their arguments discarded.
Reminder to not entertain a "code of conduct" in your own projects or where you donate your precious time. Read about the person who created this insidious document. It's not about protecting anyone, it's about compliance and controlling your own thoughts.
Be excellent to each other, don't police each other.
After reading the entire post, I feel really bad for him, and I hope he gets the time off and the support necessary to recover from this incident. I also feel quite angry with how he has been treated. So please let me vent it out here as politely as I’m able to.
I can imagine something like this or worse happening on social media groups, but an ostentatious “committee” that listens only to one side and never gives the other side the chance to get details on how things were perceived or why it’s a violation? And the chuckling in the call when someone has already said they’re not in a proper emotional state is just bullying.
I personally don’t think CoC or any other set of laws can be written to be precise and comprehensive. There will always be edge cases that need many hearings and re-hearings, with some discretion based on past precedence, nuances, etc., in the interpretation of written words in the code in an effort to make the code clearer for the future (this is how we improve laws, don’t we?).
This committee has, IMNSHO, been the opposite of kind and doesn’t deserve to hold the responsibility of handling CoC enforcement or violations. I’m sure this committee is not even capable of explaining clearly to a potential speaker what the CoC really means as per the written words and what’s expected.
This CoC needs to be torn apart and rebuilt, and the people in this particular committee must be sent to other areas where their expertise can be best used. Their proper place is certainly not in a CoC committee, for sure.
I'll be straightforward - CoCs are implemented by dumb cunts and adopted by either similarly dumb cunts or just cunts in fear they will be shamed on.
I've yet to see a single positive thing with all that trashcan sjw movement in tech. All I see is more people hating on each other, they cover with code of conducts to push their own agenda and to dismiss other people valid opinions.
play stupid games, win stupid prizes;
Frankly any project that has a CoC smells of trouble and doesn't deserve my attention, because you've already partly shifted a main objective from code & software.
This is the problem with “no assholes”- who decides who’s an asshole?
Reap what you sow, sensitive technocrats.
Oh my god, who cares
Busybodies wanted a strict code of conduct and they got their code of conduct.
Now look what it's being used for.
CoCs are just modern fascism.
CoC is a potlical tool to EJECT/REMOVE/KICK OUT anyone that refuses to go along with the Global Authorian LEFTS grab for power
They admit it
They admit they hate MERIT
They admit they have Right Wing, Whites, Straight males, Hard work and Nationalism
Welcome to Agenda 21 , Globalism, Multi culturalism and the slow creep to Global Communism for 2030
as signed by 170 nations goverments in 1992
All "Code of Conducts" are toxic rules designed to provide SJWs (social justice warriors) with the means to "cancel" people for wrong think and/or allow them to bully people.
How truly awful for this individual that this has happened, all they said was that someone's opinion is wrong and that makes them "unkind"? Absurdity.
As another comment says, it's all about virtue signalling and having "power" over other people.
Basic common decency doesn't need a dumb CoC writing to achieve.
It's interesting that you have this takeaway when one of the reasons the author gives for making such a post is to reaffirm the value of a CoC.
Would you elaborate on why you think a CoC and corresponding enforcement in the way the author describes is either undesirable or impossible?
Simply put, "cancelling" (which is already a dumb concept) someone and refusing to allow them to speak at a conference simply because they said someone else's opinion was wrong is absurd. Add on top taking a week to let them know why.
That's still a criticism of _this_ CoC (insofar as it allowed a malicious party to wield it to achieve this outcome), not CoCs in general.
Or do you disagree with the premise that there can exist a CoC that is crafted such as to not allow this sort of carte-blanche bad decisionmaking?
That's not what happened. The _author_ has chosen to no longer speak because of their experience.
The article supports CoC's and indeed argues against your point in the OP.
Imagine reading an article where the author thoughtfully points out flaws in CoC/enforcements but agrees that they have a valid purpose and using it to bash "SJWs". Go back to gab.ai or something perhaps?
Is there a reason you made a post about this?
So JupyterCon has been taken over by a bunch of Social Justice Warriors who seem to care less about content than about enforcing their standard for behavior.
My advice is to just stop attending JupyterCon. Maybe create an alternative.
One must be left wondering if the committee violated their own code of conduct by condemning Jeremy...
You clearly didn't read the article. The cited violations had nothing to do with "social justice", just with being (allegedly) "negative" and "insulting."
It sounds like the whole situation was handled poorly, but clearly it is within the role of a conference organizer to reject overly negative or outright insulting talks. I don't know the details of this case and it sounds like communication with the talk author was extraordinarily poor, but I'm not sure how this reflects on the notion of a code of conduct in general or the "social justice" movement in particular.
Hand a committee opaque power with little oversight and no strict rules governing their own conduct. Populate it with probably well intentioned people who more than anything want to _do something, anything_ about things in the world that are actually bad. You will, in general, find out how easy it is to find monsters under the bed and witches in the town next over, and you will do so very quickly. It is an _extremely_ fast way to get an alignment check roll.
It just, uh, has side effects.
Ok, but seriously, what's the alternative?
Should literally _everything_ be an fully transparent democratic process (and good luck keeping it fair when bad actors show up en masse)?
Having a CoC is at least an improvement on the previous status quo, which was some group of individuals making arbitrary decisions in secret without any justification for their actions _at all_. CoC's don't give anyone more power than they already had; they just clearly express the principles that the group already in power will (ostensibly) use to make choices.
a COC as such is fine, but most implementations are godawful and that _must_ change. Most people are not trained to run them, but do so anyway, and that's clearly what's gone on here.
The committee that is responsible for judging COC violations must:
- operate transparently: no star chambers!
- have a real, actual, not-just-we-checked-a-box culture of engineering ethics where individuals on the committee can say "no, this complaint is obvious bullshit, let's move on" without fear of reprisal from the committee members themselves, or the organizational power structure they report to.
>CoC's don't give anyone more power than they already had
Nonsense. Formation of a committee as such is implicit power; formation of a committee to adjudicate politically sensitive and fraught matters is explicit power.
Not "democratic", but "fair and accountable".
You are effectively reinventing a legal system with the CoC rules and its enforcement. But it's a "kangaroo court". In the real world, we realised that power needs checks and balances. Justice must be seen to have been served in a fair and proportionate manner. That's why we have public hearings, jury trials, the defendant has the right to put forward their side of the story with legal representation, evidence is submitted by both sides, we have cross-examination, sentences are passed with reference to established precedent, and there is also the right to appeal a judgement.
If organisations take it upon themselves to invent a faux legal system under which to operate, they can not omit the checks and balances without creating a system ripe for abuse and miscarriage of justice. The problem with CoC "enforcement" is that it is done behind closed doors with no oversight or accountability. The "defendant" has no right to properly hear the charges, or to present their case, or to appeal against it. It is manifestly unfair.
As for "not giving anyone more power than they already had", this is also untrue. Committees and individuals have been explicitly bestowed with the power to enforce CoCs by pronouncing judgements and inflicting their will upon the members of their organisations. They have great power, but not the corresponding requirement for accountability to their members.
Democratic processes have been proven to be exploitable. A good example is Microsoft's stacking of the ISO OOXML committee:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-accused-of-stacking-...
So are we stuck between a choice of democracy, dictatorship, or a politburo? Maybe the organizers of events like this should stick to organizing the event and not trying to regulate the behavior of presenters and attendees.
Choosing which talks have the tone and content you want for your conference is an integral part of organizing an event.
I'm not sure what you're actually advocating here.
Yes, I fully agree. It's just another example of this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
"But its findings were wrong. Very wrong. And not just due to its questionable ethics or lack of concrete data — but because of deceit."
https://www.vox.com/2018/6/13/17449118/stanford-prison-exper...
The findings have not been duplicated, but that doesn't mean the experiment did not produce the results described. I am very much aware of the controversy surrounding this experiment, but it has been cited _MANY_ times over the past (almost) 50 years.
There are lots of widely cited, wrong, studies. It being widely cited should be more of a motivator to "not* cite it and object to it's use, to further inform people that it is bunk.
You should not continue to cite popular, wrong, studies.
While it is within the role of a conference organizer to choose what talks they will accept, in this particular case they seem to have grossly overstepped the acceptable bounds themselves. And this does not seem to be an error of fact or some misunderstanding, the actions of the CoC committee (at least as described) seem intentionally malicious without an acceptable justification - since the talk was simply obviously _not_ outright insulting, the whole case was without merit.
What's sauce for goose is sauce for gander - perhaps the NumFOCUS individuals involved in that CoC committee should publicly stand by their decision, so that the community can evaluate whether we trust their judgement and are willing to allow those people to participate CoC enforcement in the future.
Enforcing communal norms requires that the community trusts that the enforcers actually do share these communal norms, and there should be a clear mechanism to remove them if they don't. Participants and speakers deserve protection and a fair judgement, but the 'political' positions of writing down and enforcing the norms should be able and required to substantiate and publicly defend their position and judgements - at least if they claim to represent the community instead their own unilateral position.
I absolutely read the entire article. It is wrong of you to assume otherwise. I also watched the YouTube of his presentation and did not find anything offensive.
It is unlikely that you will find anyone on HN to take the other side of your argument that the slide deck was intrinsically offensive.
To author: Jeremy Howard
Please watch Linus talks.
If that's not enough for you to grow some thick skin, go watch Bill Burr and ultimately Donald Trump.
Stop living your life in fear what others think of you. My wife is blaming me because, finally, after more then a decade and a half she started to care less of what neighbors and/or extended family members think of her. For me personally I care only what 3 people think of me and that's her and our kids. Everybody else, parents and siblings included get a mouthful from me and I could not care less if I offended them.I always tell them "My money, my life - who doesn't like me stop interacting with me"
You could care less about offending your parents and would be fine if they stop interacting with you? Sounds like you never got past the rebellious teen phase. I often don't see eye to eye with my parents (especially when religion takes part in many of their arguments), but there's nothing wrong taking the extra effort to avoid seriously offending the people you care about. Though maybe you had horrible parents and that's your justification for not putting them in the same category as wife and kids.
As for guys like Linus, his straight up brutally, abusively honest take on things has probably been good for the linux kernel, but I wouldn't say it should apply to your day-to-day life (interactions with family, extended-family, neighbors, etc).
At my company I try to foster intellectual debate free of emotion. If you can’t separate ego from ideas, how can you ever improve? So many “brave” people are glass at this point.
If you can't understand human beings as emotional creatures, how can you manage them rationally?
Well, professionals should be expected to act professionally and not emotionally.
Professionals should act professionally, but it is not rational to ignore that human beings are subject to emotions. Taking emotions into account is necessary to maintain an environment where emotions don't get in the way.
There were only 3 reports of CoC enforcements I found and read. One was over an inappropriate joke, but between friends, one is this and one was a real violation with sexual harassment which they COULD NOT ENFORCE...
Ironic considering the author supports the same code for rebuking other people talking in ways he/she doesn't approve. Free speech is an either or, the moment you introduce conditions, be prepared for that to be used against you one day. Sad part is that the author still doesn't seem to understand this fact.
And I understand that free speech guarantees in the law are concerning the government. But I believe private citizens and organizations must also uphold the basic principles of free expression, otherwise it doesn't work.
Basic principles of free expression are fine, as is conducting yourself in an expected manner at a private gathering. Which is why the author, very correctly, does not throw out the code of conduct wholesale which would be a giant strawman.
The issue here is absolute mistreatment of the person in question and horrible leadership on behalf of the people who organise this conference.
This guy apparently offended some fellow presenter at a conference. Then he wrote an article about how he is offended by being accused of offending this person. Is this whole thing starting to seem ridiculous to anyone else?
Anyone can claim offense at no cost. Hence the accusation being a joke. That complaint was perfectly legitimate.
The guy who he said was wrong has come out in support of Jeremy.
Okay, forget the CoC for a second, can we evaluate this talk with just regular human empathy? Because I think he’s being somewhat of a dick. Like it’s a little rude and not in the best taste.
Like it was totally possible to give this talk in a positive manner talking about all the reasons you think notebooks are good and demonstrating the use-cases.
So i only skimmed the presentation (It is an hour long).
> You don’t have to call out or reference the original speaker at all and say they’re wrong
I disagree. His talk is essentially a direct response to the other presentation. He is assuming context from the original presentation (A very famous one in this space from what I can pick up). Without explaining the context, his presentation would make less sense to those not as familiar with this particular tech scene.
Its not like he's saying the other person is an idiot or something. He actually compliments the other speaker multiple times.
> You can give your reasons why notebooks are good and even tackle common criticisms without picking apart their talk specifically
If your goal is to talk up notebooks sure. If your goal is to respectfully disagree with the widely accepted dogma, then you should make direct reference to the work you are responding to.
> Why would you say something negative about a peer’s work on stage
Making provocative statements challenging widely held beliefs is literally the job of a keynote speaker.
Not that anyone should really consider constructive criticism of an argument the same as saying something negative about the person making them. Personally, I think it'd be pretty passive-aggressive to demolish someone's work without doing the courtesy of referencing the work you are arguing against.
Edit: At the same time, I'm very sad to see you being downvoted. You make a reasonable argument that deserves to be debated on its merit, not downvoted imo.
If the 'target' is OK with a more-critical, even a hyperbolically- or teasingly- critical tone, why not allow it?
Lots of big personalities carry on 'feuds' that are largely acts, to their mutual. The back-and-forth, even with campy insults, creates a framework for understanding the key points and evolution of the disagreement.
Using more forceful, even facetiously _disrespectful_ language expands the range of imagery/metaphor/emotion that can be deployed, often to humorous or insightful effect. It makes conversations, whether live in person or slowly over months of counter-performances, more _memorable_.
If such talk rubs a few people the wrong way, out of some expansive concern for targets who do not themselves find the tone/language objectionable, I'd love to find a place where those people can be comfortable.
But I don't want to sabotage the value of the free-to-all discourse for the much _larger_ group of people who find vibrant, disputative, raw communication – even to the point of prickliness – more efficient and preferable.
We're losing something if we require all speech to be sanitized for maximal gentility under new secular Sunday School rules.
>If the 'target' is OK with a more-critical, even a hyperbolically- or teasingly- critical tone, why not allow it?
if it's between two people who stand on the same level roughly as is in this case and it's all in good fun it's no issue. However in general this is a horrible idea, because someone with outsized influence can bully in ways that the victim will simply have to take if the imbalance is too large.
Imagine Elon Musk gives a talk and absolutely drags someone with awful criticism, the person couldn't stand up against his twitter mob if they tried and would probably defer to keep their sanity even if they're right. Even in literal bullying this is kind of how the victim responds, just pretending it wasn't an issue as to not get bullied even more. So one has to be careful on this one.
Sure, but your Musk hypothetical isn't like this case.
And, in cases of massive power/following imbalance like your hypothetical, it's unlikely any community CoC like this would even apply. The nasty person would just use any of their outlets that don't try to enforce a hyper-genteel environment.
What, exactly, do your personal feelings and values have to do with the question of whether Jeremy was "a dick" to Joel? Isn't that between Jeremy and Joel? Joel didn't have a problem with Jeremy's talk. Why do you think you know better than Joel whether it was appropriate to criticize Joel in the way that Jeremy did?
Your belief that, whatever Joel may have thought, _your_ perspective is the one of "regular human empathy" is indicative of a certain narcissism about the superiority about your own moral sentiments. The same narcissism that motivated this farcical CoC accusation and persecution mess to begin with.
I disagree in principle. The "victim" doesn't have to be offended for the behaviour to potentially be inappropriate. Behaviour has second order effects beyond the direct "victim" (e.g. people watch and think its ok, so more people do it, and it becomes "normal"). Its also entirely possible for the victim to be hurt, without him admitting it for a variety of reasons (E.g. social pressure, not wanting to be seen as weak or a crybaby, etc).
To be clear, I'm speaking in principle. I don't agree in the particular case that the behaviour was inappropriate.
This is a very good point. I worked with a group (when we were a very small team at a startup) where we would say terrible things about each others code/ideas more or less for fun, as we had a long-running relationship and understood that everyone respected everyone else.
Once we were in a bigger company, we had to stop talking like that (at least in venues where others could hear us) as the perception that we were "ripping each other apart" could be perceived as very threatening to people who _didn't_ have that rapport nor the understanding of the background. The perception would be that we were mean people who might turn on _them_ at any moment.
The argument that "oh, X can both dish it out and take it (with respect to criticism from Y)" often ignores the fact that somewhere, "Z" is quietly watching this interaction and deciding that they don't want to participate in this apparently hostile environment.
Yes yes, these are all fine points, but to apply them in a one-size-fits-all universal way is inhuman. Curse words might be considered inappropriate at work regardless of the people involved, but things like hugs or negative feedback aren't that simple. However well-intentioned, aggressively universalized conduct rules become a boot stamping on the face of perfectly normal human relationships and communication styles.
That's fair. I would hope we can recognize that some things just can't be done in public, while other "offenses" are more subjective and their validity can depend on the relationship of the individuals involved as well as how the supposed target/victim took it. For example, whether it's OK to hug someone in public depends on things like whether it was your life partner or a stranger, and whether the recipient was OK with it.
I disagree with you completely. Presentations are a public dialogue about topics; that's literally their purpose. By presenting on a topic, you are putting your ideas and viewpoints into the public sphere for discussion, sharing, critique, criticism and further development.
Hiding one side of that conversation makes no sense whatsoever. You can disagree respectfully with someone in public. That's pretty fundamental to progressing the dialogue. Hiding it means people don't then get to evaluate opposing viewpoints and understand the relative merits of each.
My colleagues and I disagree about our work - in public, in front of each other - all the time. The trick is to do it politely and respectfully, which is overwhelmingly the case. This is how we all learn from each other and develop a higher overall standard of output.
And _all that_ considered, in this particular case why not just ask the original presenter how they feel about it? Surely that is the authoritive answer to whether there's even an issue here.
You need to develop a little sense of humor.
The author was responding to a talk made by a friend and he let him know ahead of time he would be using some of his slides and the friend was ok with that.
Even if OP were to have committed a horrible sin in the talk, this isn't the outcome anyone was hoping for. Hence the actual talk is very much a side issue.
I'm sorry if you don't understand why someone might be uncomfortable with the slides, picture it happening to you. You give a talk and then someone then goes through your slides, effectively saying "no you are wrong" without really anything substantive at a big conference. I can see why people might see that as a bit uncomfortable.
It is an okay idea but it seems taken too far. People in tech often seem hopelessly socially inept. We all need to learn to do better. Yes in this case the original author of the slides was okay with it, but not everyone will be. The author seems completely unaware of this. They should have it explained to them.
So I do agree it was probably handled poorly. There would have been a better way to resolve this.
But for everyone complaining about how social media/hate groups cancelling people etc etc, think a bit more. This person wrote a blog post which is obviously going to be taken and used as fuel. The title is definitely provocative. The lack of awareness is exactly why we need a code of conduct in the first place.