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Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

numfocus.org

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Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#101

Post by notJim »

1123581321 wrote: post #38
Xavdidtheshadow wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean this as an attack, but I'm guessing you haven't been harassed/given unwanted attention at a conference. It's easy to see codes of conduct as draconian or unnecessary if you can't empathize with the people they're designed to protect. I'm not saying the CoC system is perfect or that there aren't false positives, but your statement here is _dramatically_ privileged.

Do you think it’s possible to empathize with people who are harassed, or experience harassment, and oppose codes of conduct? Assume that empathy includes caring about protecting people.

I think it is, but what alternative is there? CoCs were created for a reason, so simply getting rid of them feels like it would lead us back to where we started.

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#102

Post by MattGaiser »

smeeth wrote: post #45

Ok, I'm not heavily steeped in this, but at first glance this seems like total bullshit. Note that the original complaint was both 1) that the code of conduct people were being, well, total assholes, and 2) that the complaints were so obviously ridiculous that the entire exercise seemed like it could only be a power trip for those involved. The apology addressed neither. They apologized for being unclear about what s…

No, but you can only expect so much self flagellation. In a day and age of "deny, deny, deny" an apology is welcome, even if it is a bit CYA.

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#103

Post by draw_down »

I’m honestly amazed that they wrote even this small potatoes. So much of the sniping around codes of conduct is so filled with enmity and nobody seems to ever want to back down, even when they seem to have been clearly in the wrong or overreacting.

Personally I have no interest in this whole conference circuit. The knives are out; people who leverage these situations are just nasty, nasty, nasty, and often totally shameless. I don’t need that in my life, and whatever meager recognition would come from giving talks at conferences is unbelievably not worth it. Not even close.

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#104

Post by robjan »

geofft wrote: post #84
GiorgioG wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't mean this as an attack, You actually do mean this as an attack - you quite literally accused me of being "_dramatically_ privileged" Maybe you meant it as an attack and maybe you didn't. If there was a HN CoC, maybe I'm the kind of asshole that would try to accuse you of abuse. See how easy it is to abuse the system?

Er, how is saying that someone is "_dramatically_ privileged" an attack? It's a judgment-neutral observation. When I say that sshd runs a privileged process, I don't mean to say that sshd is morally bad (or whatever), just that it needs to be more careful than less-privileged code and that it can do things more easily than less-privileged code can. It's the same meaning of "privileged" here. (And yes, you could bring…

You can observe whether sshd is running a privileged process because you have all of the information available to make that judgement. You can't observe whether a random person is privileged because it's relative and related to your opinion and biases.

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#105

Post by phkahler »

kennywinker wrote: post #43
eznzt wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you need a CoC to get rid of someone who harasses others what you have is a deeper problem

Cue the cries of "I broke no rules!" when someone is "gotten rid of" without a CoC.

The task of making rules like that is never ending. This concept reminds me of when the head of GM rewrote their dress code. It went from several pages down to two words: "dress appropriately". What that means actually depends on context - who are you meeting with and what kind of work is going on. She realized that manager who needed a manual to figure that out had bigger problems.

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#107

Post by xiphias2 »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #95
smeeth wrote: post #45

Ok, I'm not heavily steeped in this, but at first glance this seems like total bullshit. Note that the original complaint was both 1) that the code of conduct people were being, well, total assholes, and 2) that the complaints were so obviously ridiculous that the entire exercise seemed like it could only be a power trip for those involved. The apology addressed neither. They apologized for being unclear about what s…

The CoC members should all be expelled from the NumFocus community. They have done far more to make NumFocus a a non-welcoming community than just about any CoC violation.

Another option is to just directly fund developers instead of through organizations. I tried to find the audits on the NumFOCUS website, but I wasn't able to find how much of the donations they are getting gets to the developers themselves. I would imagine, that it could be even under 50%.

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#108

Post by Joker_vD »

phkahler wrote: post #75
luckylion wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it just arbitrary? Yes. Just as "kind" is. To the reporters and the officials, "saying somebody is wrong" is unkind, so it's clearly arbitrary.

The worst thing is when nobody is actually offended or hurt, and someone says your behavior could be considered offensive or insulting or whatever and takes action based on that. That's just someone wanting to exert their power for the wrong reasons.

That reminds me of that event when a person with screen name "Christian", of all things, filed an issue at VS Code around the, ah, New Year festivities, demanding to remove the Santa hat from the status bar because it's offensive. And the VS Code team promptly reacted, by agreeing, changing it for a snowflake (I still have no idea if it was ironic, or not, and whether they've noticed it later) and pushing out an emergency hot fix.

That did piss off quite a number of people, who filed much more hard-pressing (in their opinion) issues (like, some useful editor functionality being broken) and received precisely zero feedback.

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#109

Post by iaw »

joshstrange wrote: post #96

Here are the people responsible who are too cowardly to sign their real names: Leah Silen, Executive Director leah@numfocus.org +1 (512) 831-2870 or +1 (972) 896-3688 Andy Terrel, President andy@numfocus.org Nicole Foster, Executive Operations Administrator nicole@numfocus.org Walker Chabbott, Communications & Marketing Manager walker@numfocus.org I find it disgraceful how mealy-mouthed their response was, how they c…

Please don't dox people in a charged thread like this. There is no point in putting their phone number or emails here.

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#110

Post by notsuoh »

phkahler wrote: post #75
luckylion wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it just arbitrary? Yes. Just as "kind" is. To the reporters and the officials, "saying somebody is wrong" is unkind, so it's clearly arbitrary.

The worst thing is when nobody is actually offended or hurt, and someone says your behavior could be considered offensive or insulting or whatever and takes action based on that. That's just someone wanting to exert their power for the wrong reasons.

You don't get to be the arbiter of who is "actually offended." I agree that there are people who take any amount of power and want to expert it for the wrong reasons, but that isn't an indictment against CoCs, it's an indictment of bad behavior.
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