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I Violated a Code of Conduct

fast.ai

901–910 of 971 posts

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#901

I'm reading a lot of comments here saying that CoCs are categorically bad. Which absolutely isn't what Jeremy is saying in this post, in fact he says just the opposite. CoCs help prevent and deal with incidents of racism, sexism, homophobia, threats of violence, etc. Those aren't things I, and presumably you, don't want at conferences. This was an example of CoC being poorly implemented in several ways; that does not…

Code of conducts are untested unlike democratic processes. They are too new and too different. Some can be written benign and others not. They are tools. Most political structures have rules in them which work regardless of who weilds them, codes of conduct don't. Codes of conduct assume they will be used by good people (and most of them are!) real law or poltical processes assume they might be used by bad people. Th…

"Most political structures have rules in them which work regardless of who weilds them"

Can you give an example of a rule that "works" regardless of who wields it?

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#902

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fine point, but I was just told someone DIDN'T speak for them.

They don't. No single person or organization can speak for a decentralized movement.

Does this mean that the movement does not mean anything specific?

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#903

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An alternate possibility is that you don't understand what people mean when they say they feel unsafe. That is a possibility, but it’s unreasonable to expect that a person can redefine a common word in their own mind and expect everyone else to telepathically know what they “mean”. Especially in a primarily text based medium.

> it’s unreasonable to expect that a person can redefine a common word in their own mind I mean, the word is used a lot. You even referenced it being commonly used. Have you tried to understand it?

I for one refuse to play this game anymore. I don't want to be part of a game where words can be arbitrarily redefined by one party to mean exactly what they want it to mean now.

It is enough now.

And this is coming from someone who wasn't allowed to play in the schoolyard as a child, someone who was knocked in the head by an older classmate, got beaten etc while teachers looked the other way. This went on until I learned to fight back and I got a teacher who didn't care that I was outgroup and stood up for me.

My mind and body knows a bit about this and I'm confident that what we are seing here isn't a solution rather than extremists making things worse.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#904
post #825

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall I left Mozilla before the same-sex marriage fight, but I'm familiar with it. Just as I wouldn't call Brendan or gerv a psycho-sadist, I also wouldn't call the people who called for their resignations names, nor group them all together. I think name-calling, especially of a large group which shares only one thing in common is antithetical to building inclusive human communities. Literally we're excluding peop…

>I recall I left Mozilla before the same-sex marriage fight, but I'm familiar with it. Ah, thanks for clarifying. I wasn't sure about that timeline. I just remember you left early-ish. >Just as I wouldn't call Brendan or gerv a psycho-sadist, I also wouldn't call the people who called for their resignations names, nor group them all together. You must have skipped the comments from the community and outside then that…

>>[Linus has] also made a lot of people's lives worse.

> Utter bullshit and baseless allegation. Why would you say such a thing without providing any shred of evidence?

Are you actually saying, without irony, that it's bullshit and baseless that Linus Torvalds, one of the most famously abusive OSS maintainers in history, had made people's lives worse by way of these actions?

Linus himself has said that he recognizes he hurt people.

> [RMS] awkwardly hit on some women because he is a bit of a social retard. Big fucking whoopdie-doo.

Not a big deal to you. Cool.

Suppose it was a huge deal to other people. I mean, it's not a hypothetical, I've provided citations.

Are the feelings of other people illegitimate when they disagree with you?

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#905
post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Social media What does this particular incident have to do with social media? This was a presentation at a conference, and the "canceling" was convicting the presenter of a Code of Conduct violation on what look like egregiously inadequate grounds. They didn't block his Twitter feed or spam his Facebook page.

If I understand correctly, the idea is that the reports implicitly threaten the conference with attacks from social media if the conference does not quickly take an agreeable action.

Is this stated anywhere in the article? Or is it just assumed? I'm not seeing anything in the article that indicates this.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#906

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 used to obsess about things like this and then someone pointed out to me, "You'll never, ever get it right. You will word something some way, attempting to be gentle, and they will still be offended. You will NEVER win. So the only thing you can do is be sinc…

It's true that you can't control the outcome. I do lean towards certain language in general, but more so I try to use each of the many options artistically, based on the circumstances. Who am I talking to? What are we talking about? You're correct that ultimately, I'm not responsible for how someone takes things that I say when I'm being sincere... but I'm still one of the people that lives with the outcome. Might as…

> You don't sound like you've had much experience with these variations and their impacts.

Lol... I have had tons. In more than one language. My point was, that despite your best efforts, you will still offend someone eventually and that that's the point at which you can't take responsibility for how they feel.

For a time I did competitive speech and one of the precepts I operated on (and still do to this day) is "know your audience". It's always beneficial to frame your message to the intended recipients.

But what happens when an unintended recipient receives it?

Or, due to local differences (and this specifically happened to me), the use of a word was received differently than you intended - than it was elsewhere in the same language?

There's only so much control you have. Thus, what you truly control is your intentions, and people must make an effort to expect you are acting in good faith. So much of good communication simply comes down to that simple point. An expectation of good faith.

I expect that in the modern world this is where much of the breakdown in communication is coming from, really: everyone seems to be expecting "HAHA GOTCHA!" rather than a good faith conversation, and more worryingly, are more recently probably right.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#907

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone give me the tl;dr of what the author's "mask advocacy" was and why it's so controversial? He only alludes to it in passing in the piece.

The author was one of the primary drivers of widespread mask adoption for Covid transmission suppression, by popularizing epidemiological and public health evidence. See: https://masks4all.co/about-us/

I don't understand. Why would mask advocacy mean the CoC people have a vendetta against him? Is the conference run by Trump acolytes?

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#908
post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the very same boat.

The solution to low karma — if, indeed, you care about such things, is to make productive comments. Most of us have heard all of the simple one-liner thoughts before, we want something that might be insightful and novel. And politics-adjacent threads like these are not the place to earn karma, because lots of people will always disagree. But it’s an excellent place to lose karma. A lot of us go to places like HN, Ars…

Not sure what you're on about but I wasn't complaining about my karma.

The moods and necessity for sugar coating everything has only gotten worse - exponentially so, if you ask me - in the last decade.

Karma is a reflection of that. I don't care about fake internet points.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#909
post #327
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, my karma here on HN used to be at least double of what it is now. But at some point there was a change in people’s moods, and now it has been slowly eroding over time. I suspect someday it will be zero, or worse. My writing style and sharp criticisms of damn near everything hasn’t changed much, except perhaps knowing I’m going to be downvoted makes my wording more bitter. I suspect it is the HN crowd whi…

"Unfortunately “anti-racism” has been weaponized as a shortcut for silencing anyone who may at one point have said something that could be interpreted as racist or even not anti-racist enough. No thanks. Rather be labeled as a racist and keep my free speech than silenced by some mob authority." This kind of comment was not surprising to find in your history's first page.

This non-response comment perfectly illustrates the point being made. Well done.

Did you have something of substance to add?

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#910

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it’s unreasonable to expect that a person can redefine a common word in their own mind I mean, the word is used a lot. You even referenced it being commonly used. Have you tried to understand it?

I for one refuse to play this game anymore. I don't want to be part of a game where words can be arbitrarily redefined by one party to mean exactly what they want it to mean now. It is enough now. And this is coming from someone who wasn't allowed to play in the schoolyard as a child, someone who was knocked in the head by an older classmate, got beaten etc while teachers looked the other way. This went on until I le…

It's clear you've had experiences that have caused you to feel unsafe at times in your life. What's stopping you from having empathy for people that feel that way currently?

One aspect of this newfangled definition of safe is that women can feel confident existing in a space without fear of being sexually harassed. Is that worth considering? Is that a political game?

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