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I Violated a Code of Conduct

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Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#21

Post by avhon1 »

notRobot wrote: post #10

Stuff like this is what gives CoCs a bad rep, although when implemented well, they can be hugely beneficial to communities.

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.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#22

Post by anonymousiam »

lukev wrote: post #16
hprotagonist wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fa…

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 the…

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.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#23

Post by hprotagonist »

lukev wrote: post #16
hprotagonist wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fa…

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 the…

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.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#24

Post by anonymousiam »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #20
anonymousiam wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#25

Post by tschwimmer »

tptacek wrote: post #13
echelon wrote: post #6

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 cri…

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.…

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.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#26

Post by wbl »

avhon1 wrote: post #21
notRobot wrote: post #10

Stuff like this is what gives CoCs a bad rep, although when implemented well, they can be hugely beneficial to communities.

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…

Bad leadership is going to make bad decisions regardless.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#27

Post by tptacek »

tschwimmer wrote: post #25
tptacek wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

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.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#28

Post by friendlybus »

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.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#29

Post by marcinzm »

notRobot wrote: post #10

Stuff like this is what gives CoCs a bad rep, although when implemented well, they can be hugely beneficial to communities.

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.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#30

Post by lukev »

anonymousiam wrote: post #22
lukev wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

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.

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