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I Violated a Code of Conduct

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Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#61

Post by ghaff »

tptacek wrote: post #27
tschwimmer wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#62

Post by nickff »

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

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#63

Post by gorgoiler »

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.

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.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#65

Post by oefrha »

tptacek wrote: post #7

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…

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.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#66

Post by scantron »

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.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#67

Post by eplanit »

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.

"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.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#68

Post by softwaredoug »

ahelwer wrote: post #19
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…

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 happ…

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...

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#69

Post by avhon1 »

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'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.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#70

Post by ben0x539 »

mynegation wrote: post #43

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.
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