Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I Violated a Code of Conduct

fast.ai

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

941–950 of 971 posts

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#941

Post by wrsh07 »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #872
wrsh07 wrote: post #855

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have never seen it happen in my 10 years in open source Seems like a very generous reading of what the person I'm specifically responding to said

I don’t see how you can possibly think that. Saying that you’ve never experienced something is not a claim that no one has ever experienced that thing. Mine is not a generous interpretation, but rather I’m not going out of my way to infer some nefarious subtext.

I think the problem is essentially this: if you're a white male, you may essentially never experience or see racism / sexism in tech.

If you are a woman or black or ... you will very likely experience sexism or racism. You will probably also see more, because you are used to identifying it.

If you say "a third [1] of the people in this group experience a bad thing" I would say that's pretty wide-spread.

The OP was specifically saying "it's not widespread, I've never seen it" [2]

I'm not trying to claim there's a nefarious subtext. I'm not saying the op is sexist or racist. I'm just trying to point out that a lot of people experience this, and one of the stated goals of CoCs in open source or at conferences is to help combat it. I think that's a good thing, and while you or perhaps others have pointed out that a community could combat such negative behavior without a CoC, the CoC does give some indication of how such behavior will be dealt with (before I join the community/attend the conference), which can increase my confidence recommending a conference or increase someone else's confidence attending (or participating in an open source community etc)

[1] https://psmag.com/news/sexism-in-the-tech-industry

[2] not a real quote so please correct me if it's way off, I'm being lazy

Also, I know they were referring to open source - maybe they've seen workplace sexism etc and were specifically excluding that. In that case I'm definitely misquoting and apologize

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#942

Post by btilly »

spacekitcat wrote: post #926
btilly wrote: post #899

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Concrete examples of political correctness gone bad. Censoring the OP for calling someone else wrong. (When the person called wrong is actually a friend and didn't object.) Cisco firing employees for saying, "All lives matter." Maya Forstater being fired for expressing the opinion that while she used people's preferred pronouns, she thought of trans people as their original gender if they still had their real genital…

I’m trans and you are twisting quite a few of those, but you don’t exist from this point on as far as I’m concerned. I won’t debate my my right to be with anyone, least of all you.

Wonderful. You don't believe that people have the right to have opinions that you dislike. And don't see that as a problem.

Possibly because you expect people whose opinions you dislike to treat you like you would treat them if positions were reversed.

I don't mind being dead to you. But I don't want you, or people like you, to be in a position to make decisions about what I can say. Nor do I particularly want to be in a position to decide what you can say. What I want is called "freedom of speech".

As the old saying goes, "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me."

However when you open up the door to stopping other people from speaking, you have opened up the door to them stopping you from speaking. Are you sure that all of your opinions agree with that majority? Really? You think nothing that others might find controversial? If so, that's weird. And good luck if you ever change your mind about anything important.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#943

Post by spacekitcat »

btilly wrote: post #942
spacekitcat wrote: post #926

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m trans and you are twisting quite a few of those, but you don’t exist from this point on as far as I’m concerned. I won’t debate my my right to be with anyone, least of all you.

Wonderful. You don't believe that people have the right to have opinions that you dislike. And don't see that as a problem. Possibly because you expect people whose opinions you dislike to treat you like you would treat them if positions were reversed. I don't mind being dead to you. But I don't want you, or people like you, to be in a position to make decisions about what I can say. Nor do I particularly want to be…

The Maya Forstater case isn't as you presented it. Why did you misrepresent it? Was it an innocent mistake or was it deliberate? She got sacked for a sustained campaign of harassment.

If you don't believe me (and it would therefore be an innocent mistake), you can read the court ruling here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12P9zf82TicPs2cCxlTnm0TrNFDD...

If you've misrepresented this one, why would I trust any of your other examples?

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#944

Post by baobabKoodaa »

jawarner wrote: post #939
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #936

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you are speculating that pindab0ter would think the enforcement action was related to the CoC, even though pindab0ter clearly said that the enforcement action was not related to the CoC. We already went over this; you interpret pindab0ter's message in an entirely different way than I do. When pindab0ter says "punished by a committee for something that wasn’t in the CoC", you somehow interpret that as "improper e…

> Yes, you are speculating that pindab0ter would think the enforcement action was related to the CoC That's not what I said. You seem to be focused on detailed differences in meaning but missing the thrust of these arguments. You claimed Scotsman fallacy to a perceived specific meaning of the sentence, but it didn't fit in context. In general you seem to be not aware of the contextual meaning of what anybody has said…

> > Yes, you are speculating that pindab0ter would think the enforcement action was related to the CoC

> That's not what I said.

Yes it is, you literally just said "I think pindab0ter would agree that it was improper enforcement of the CoC". See, you said "enforcement of the CoC". As in, CoC was the thing that was being enforced. Now you're trying to claim that "enforcement" was not related to "the CoC" in that sentence? Wow.

If you took a random person off the street, showed them that sentence, and then asked "what was being enforced", any English speaking person would be able to identify "CoC" as the thing that was being enforced (albeit it was enforced improperly). So clearly, in that sentence, the enforcement action was in some way related to the CoC. I don't know what kind of mental gymnastics you're trying to pull by claiming that the sentence means something else.

> You seem to be focused on detailed differences in meaning but missing the thrust of these arguments. You claimed Scotsman fallacy to a perceived specific meaning of the sentence, but it didn't fit in context. In general you seem to be not aware of the contextual meaning of what anybody has said here.

Look, I was trying to be nice earlier when I said that you and I interpret pindab0ter's words in a different way, and that we should leave it at that. I don't actually think your interpretation is plausible. I think it's obvious to anyone who read the original comments in context, that pindab0ter didn't consider OP to be an example of "weaponizing a CoC". You can play word games all day long and talk down in a condescending tone, but I don't know what you're hoping to achieve with that.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#945

Post by baobabKoodaa »

andreasvc wrote: post #873
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is that what actually caused the complaints? Given that the complainers were anonymous (thanks to the CoC process), we'll never know. But it seems like a reasonable guess.

Why would we never know? Quoting from the blog post: "The specific reasons given were that [...]" followed by a bullet list. Your guess is unwarranted speculation.

> Why would we never know? Quoting from the blog post: "The specific reasons given were that [...]" followed by a bullet list. Your guess is unwarranted speculation.

The question was: can we find out if hidden political vendettas against OP were the cause of complaints? You're implying that, yes, we can find out, because the complainers provided a bullet point list. If the complainers had hidden political vendettas against OP, do you actually think they would have listed them in the bullet points?

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#946

Post by fargle »

gorgoiler wrote: post #63
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.

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.

I like the third one as well as the forth. Frankly the second is a bit edgy, but it could be used as a headline.

None of it is rude, bullying, or any kind of -ism, or anything that needs to be fixed. It is in fact confrontation, which is a fine thing. And whether it needs to be so "unduly" direct or not should simply shape the reader/listeners opinion of the writer/speaker.

It shapes my opinions when I see/hear/read so many people who conflate directness or disagreement with bullying. If you cannot stand criticism, your really ought not try to say anything.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#948

Post by skohan »

wrsh07 wrote: post #941
throwaway894345 wrote: post #872

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see how you can possibly think that. Saying that you’ve never experienced something is not a claim that no one has ever experienced that thing. Mine is not a generous interpretation, but rather I’m not going out of my way to infer some nefarious subtext.

I think the problem is essentially this: if you're a white male, you may essentially never experience or see racism / sexism in tech. If you are a woman or black or ... you will very likely experience sexism or racism. You will probably also see more, because you are used to identifying it. If you say "a third [1] of the people in this group experience a bad thing" I would say that's pretty wide-spread. The OP was sp…

I'm just speaking for myself, but in terms of the open-source projects I have been a part of, communication either happens over a mailing list, or a discourse forum. A lot of the time you only know the people you're interacting with as a screen name, so you don't even know their race or gender. And 100% of the content of the discussion is either purely technical in nature (e.g. how do I use this API feature, what JSON structure is expected etc) or is something operational like the timelines and priorities of the project.

It's just hard to imagine how racism or sexism would enter into to a community like this because the race and sex of the participants is not known, and you're not even discussing races or genders at all, heck you're generally not discussing people at all.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#949

Post by btilly »

spacekitcat wrote: post #943
btilly wrote: post #942

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wonderful. You don't believe that people have the right to have opinions that you dislike. And don't see that as a problem. Possibly because you expect people whose opinions you dislike to treat you like you would treat them if positions were reversed. I don't mind being dead to you. But I don't want you, or people like you, to be in a position to make decisions about what I can say. Nor do I particularly want to be…

The Maya Forstater case isn't as you presented it. Why did you misrepresent it? Was it an innocent mistake or was it deliberate? She got sacked for a sustained campaign of harassment. If you don't believe me (and it would therefore be an innocent mistake), you can read the court ruling here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/12P9zf82TicPs2cCxlTnm0TrNFDD... If you've misrepresented this one, why would I trust any of you…

I was doing a quick search and believed someone else's representation of the case. But let's look at the case.

A woman in question has a reasonably common belief that offends you and I think is not in accord with the facts. She is open about her belief, but also has apparently made an attempt to be polite in personal interactions with others. (See paragraph 41 for example.)

Despite the ruling coming down against her, I read this and think that she has a right to have and express that opinion. That when we suppress the expression of opinions like this, they don't go away. Instead they become stronger.

Some of her opinions I agree with, and some not.

Here is an example where I disagree. I don't think that female only spaces should exclude transwomen. I also don't think that my opinion on that should matter because such spaces should exclude me. However based on the fact that most women do not agree with her, they such spaces will include them. Hooray. She is free to make her own space that excludes though, and anyone who wants can join her. That's called free association.

Here is an example where I agree with her. People born male have a significant biological advantage in many sports. This is historically the reason why we separated men and women for sports such as tennis and running. As a result, trans and intersex women have a significant advantage in the same sports. See Caster Semenya for a famous example. I do not think it is at all unreasonable to ban people who retain that advantage from participating as women in such sports.

Now let's compare her belief to one that is more obviously protected.

I'm an atheist and believe in science. I have worked with fundamentalist Christians who honestly believe that the world is 6000 years old, and that I'm going to Hell. And have told me such in as many words. As you can guess, I didn't enjoy it. But we were able to maintain cordial relations in the workplace, and I wouldn't ask them to be fired for expressing an opinion that they honestly held. Despite my opinions about their opinion.

As I said, I'm for free speech. Whether or not people agree with me, or I with them.

Re: I Violated a Code of Conduct

#950

Post by monksy »

ForHackernews wrote: post #937
monksy wrote: post #850

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The language was never directed at their staff. It was directed towards the communication I got from them, and how I believe it makes the org look themselves(note). The tagging was to alert them that it was going on. Attacking individuals is completely unwarranted. -- For the sake of conversion: What counts as harassment- is the org an individual? Does exclaiming frustration for a situation and getting the attention…

Then stop paying them $30k! Cussing at their underpaid support staff is pointless. Companies are not human; they only understand money.

The company that was qouted that didn't pay it. I'm not a customer, I am a potential customer. [Companies I've worked for have used Kafka, or have developed their own system similar to it]

The only thing this has taught me, never advocate for or encourage the company to stay with them.

Post reply on HN