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In defence of Douglas Crockford

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Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#331

Post by mistermann »

stuaxo wrote: post #318
erpellan wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I certainly wouldn't feel 'comfortable' speaking at a conference with a reputation for publicly character-assassinating their invited speakers. Especially as the worst accusation I could find on twitter was that he used the word 'stupid'. Several times! Throw away the key...

It would be insane to go into such a humourless environment where every conversation feels like treading on eggshells.

It might also be a good idea to not hire someone with this sort of political leanings into your organization, if you know what I mean.

It seems to me like numerous advocacy organizations nowadays have run out of genuine grievances and are now attacking largely innocent things, possibly in turn harming their cause.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#332

Post by [deleted] »

mcantelon wrote: post #16
thomasfoster96 wrote: post #7

I’d really like to know how a decision like that is made. In Nodevember's statement on the matter[0] (which the parent link doesn’t mention, a rather glaring omission), they quite openly admit that they “...aren't professional organizers or PR people. We are still learning, and will make mistakes.” So why not admit a mistake? I certainly don’t want to see sexist speakers at conferences, but this decision seems to hav…

I'd guess people with lots of social capital in the JS community told the conf orgs Crockford had to go and the orgs decided disinviting him would be less risk than having Crockford's enemies campaign against the conference.

[deleted]

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#333

Post by mzw_mzw »

eli wrote: post #264
justaaron wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which begs the questions: 1) whom 2) why and it's rather "put-up or shut-up" time, I'd say. I've never heard of this conference. I've read Crockfords books, and while any given person on earth may be a total bear to deal with, I'm not buying this greasy smarmy "he'd been uninvited for undisclosed reasons but we'll imply lot's of socially-disapproved-of reasons without confirming nor denying any of them" what a kafka-…

They're free to invite and disinvite whoever they please. You're free to not attend. I don't think airing private grievances will help anyone.

"They're free to invite and disinvite whoever they please. You're free to not attend."

For the millionth time, this isn't about what people are legally allowed to do. This is about what it's right to do.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#334

Post by mzw_mzw »

tptacek wrote: post #299

Unlike the controversies about Strangeloop (which uninvited Curtis Yarvin) and Lambdaconf (which lost the overwhelming majority of its sponsors due to accepting Yarvin), this --- based on the evidence at hand --- seems entirely stupid. Unfortunately, there's no rulebook conference organizers (or their Greek choruses on message boards) can consult to say when rejecting a speaker is a good idea or not. It's a judgement…

Unfortunately this all started with the decision that it was okay to ostracize some people for their unrelated political views. It's a little late to say "wait, wait, I just meant those guys!" now that you've given this unstoppable superweapon to every grasping, sociopathic political activist in the industry.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#335

Post by mzw_mzw »

ajamesm wrote: post #303
tptacek wrote: post #299

Unlike the controversies about Strangeloop (which uninvited Curtis Yarvin) and Lambdaconf (which lost the overwhelming majority of its sponsors due to accepting Yarvin), this --- based on the evidence at hand --- seems entirely stupid. Unfortunately, there's no rulebook conference organizers (or their Greek choruses on message boards) can consult to say when rejecting a speaker is a good idea or not. It's a judgement…

> Unfortunately, there's no rulebook conference organizers (or their Greek choruses on message boards) can consult to say when rejecting a speaker is a good idea or not. It's a judgement call. There is! if they bothered to write one. I know, I know, everyone gets up in arms about Codes of Conduct, because they're oppressive SJW tools used to silence men, or whatever. But this, right here, is their use case. If you wa…

No carefully calibrated Code of Conduct would have avoided this. The Soviet Union had a pretty liberal constitution, too; didn't help all those folks who were sent to the gulags.

Rules are worth precisely as much as the people who are interpreting and executing them. In the Nodevember case, we already know what sort of people those are.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#336

Post by mzw_mzw »

prance wrote: post #244

This article is based on the assumption that those two statements from Rockford were the actual reason for his disinvitation - because that's "everything [the author's] been able to find". Which is not the case according to nodevember's statement[1]. Besides, the fact that the author is criticising people for calling for a disinvite of a white supremacist speaker from LamdaConf[2] doesn't quite increase my trust in h…

"Well, there might be something else bad he did!" is a mighty thin reed to balance your argument on.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#337

Post by mzw_mzw »

fahrradflucht wrote: post #194

I don't have a clear opinion on the Crockford discussion but this post would be more convincing if it didn't put the lambda conf issue into the mix. I hope for Douglas Crockford that he doesn't want to get compared with Curtis Yarvin...

Why should someone's unrelated political views get him uninvited from a conference?

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#338

Post by abustamam »

coldtea wrote: post #280
eli wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel there's a knee jerk reaction from people in the tech community to minimize very legitimate concerns about bias and about making people feel uncomfortable and unwelcome. I think it's easy to look past someone's personal preferences and outrageous comments when you're already part of the club. But respect that that isn't everyone's experience.

> I feel there's a knee jerk reaction from people in the tech community to minimize very legitimate concerns about bias and about making people feel uncomfortable and unwelcome. Maybe people shouldn't be so precious snowflakes that should always feel "comfortable" and "welcome"? Maybe they should have the courage to be challenged? I blame it on the BS "you are so special" mode of baby boomer parenting...

I grew up with "you're so special" parenting, sort of, but I also was raised with tolerance and acceptance. Looking back, it makes sense, because if everyone is a unique snowflake, they have to learn to be tolerant and accepting of all the other unique snowflakes in the world.

Most parents seem to teach their children that, but looking at the millennial generation, of which I am unfortunately part, you're supposed to be "accepting" and "tolerant", unless someone else's uniqueness hurts your feelings or makes you feel uncomfortable.

The former is just plain childish, and the latter is just too vague to base an ideology off of.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#339

Post by hyperdunc »

throwway1111 wrote: post #60

This is happening in all parts of society. So-called "social justice warriors" and parts of the liberal left have sprung up that are very hostile to free speech and seek to destroy and silence anyone whom they oppose. Unfortunately, they have the full support of not only college administrations, but increasingly HR departments as they ascend into the workforce, and PR departments as they air their grievances over soc…

It's the authoritarian left. There's nothing liberal about those people.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#340

Post by kedean »

danso wrote: post #90
nkurz wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying, "Back in the day, you could browse the web like a whore, not caring what your computer connected to. But with the new web..." But that's not what he says at all. For sake of argument, let's assume that he had said exactly this. Even so, I still don't see the claims being met. First, even though the metaphor may be "sexual", I don't see anything that would make it "sexist". Promiscuity as a behavior is far fro…

I think the hypothetical argument would be that "whore", in our current time period, is not only primarily used as an insult, but it's one that seems to be disproportionately directed against women. Not just today, but in our very recent history (on a sidenote, I wonder how easy the gender association of "whore" could be quantified by looking at Google's n-gram dataset). Sure, you could argue that "whore" is used aga…

He didn't say 'whore', though, that's the point. This person inferred 'whore' from 'promiscuous'.
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