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I Violated a Code of Conduct

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Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#161

Post by ben0x539 »

mynegation wrote: post #88
ben0x539 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 who…

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.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#162

Post by PragmaticPulp »

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.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#163

Post by donatj »

friendlybus wrote: post #28

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.

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.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#164

Post by part1of2 »

greggman3 wrote: post #151
softwaredoug wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 orde…

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

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#165

Post by nvahalik »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #149
nvahalik wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

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.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#166

Post by bww »

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?

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#167

Post by RangerScience »

agotterer wrote: post #119
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…

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 statisti…

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.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#168

Post by jchw »

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.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#170

Post by ben0x539 »

robbyoconnor wrote: post #133
ben0x539 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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.
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