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I Violated a Code of Conduct

fast.ai

641–650 of 971 posts

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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" "…

> 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.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#642
post #557
post #515

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 procurator…

> 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 it…

> 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?

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#643
post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 fo…

> "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

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#645
post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 y…

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

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Huh, TIL I’m a sexist and/or racist.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 excommunicat…

"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.)

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#649

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 J…

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.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#650
post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

> 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 excommunicat…

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.

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