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Rod Vagg's statement on the request to be removed from the Node.js CTC

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Re: Rod Vagg's statement on the request to be removed from the Node.js CTC

#131

Post by x0x0 »

kbenson wrote: post #95
ChuckMcM wrote: post #88

One of the things that is useful about due process is the right to confront your accusers and cross examine them under oath. Without those rights, it is difficult, if not impossible, to see justice done. Too often these important elements are missing, and Rod's statement "At no point have I been provided with an opportunity to answer to these complaints, correct the factual errors contained in them (see below), apolo…

This is, as I see it, an unfortunate side effect of vastly under valuing intent and over valuing individual interpretations and how they make people feel. There needs to be a balance, and when there's not you end up with problems. If that's what happened in this case, it might have resulted in fault being a much more nebulous concept to those people. It's possible he said some things which ended up hurting people's f…

Four people resigned from the whatever-board when Rob was not asked to leave, and have written elsewhere about their repeated interactions with him. The fact that the four of them basically decided they don't wish to work in an org that Rob works in speaks (imo obviously) to him being a relatively unpleasant person to be around. Also, I'm skeptical that four people all are blowing things out of proportion, but who knows.

Re: Rod Vagg's statement on the request to be removed from the Node.js CTC

#132

Post by dang »

lightedman wrote: post #119
dang wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like you've been using HN primarily for political/ideological battle. That's destructive of what the site is for, so we ban accounts that do this, so would you please stop doing this? Intellectual curiosity can't flourish on a battlefield. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"It looks like you've been using HN primarily for political/ideological battle. That's destructive of what the site is for," Then why is this entire thread and subject here? It's entirely political and ideological.

Note that word 'primarily'. It is the important distinction here.

Occasionally commenting on a political issue isn't a problem as long as you do it civilly; some overlap with political topics is unavoidable. But when political battles become the thing you're primarily using HN comments for, that's when it becomes abusive.

HN's purpose is the gratification of intellectual curiosity. We can't be that and be a political battlefield at the same time, so we need to draw the line somewhere. The 'primarily' test turns out to be a good place to draw the line.

(There's a separate question of what kind of comments people post when they do turn to politics. To the extent that an account does political flaming as opposed to thoughtful discussion, we adjust the line in favor of more moderation.)

See https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html for more.

Re: Rod Vagg's statement on the request to be removed from the Node.js CTC

#133

Post by b34r »

b34r wrote: post #127
rdtsc wrote: post #67

It was pretty hard to discern what happened. A lot of text and veiled insinuations. He is how far I got: It was this article tweeted by Rod: http://quillette.com/2017/07/18/neurodiversity-case-free-spe... Which was noticed by a member of the community: https://twitter.com/captainsafia/status/887782785221615618 Does that describe it? Maybe someone has a more clear summary One thing I noticed is that Node.js community…

Disclaimer: I'm a gay male that has been involved with groups run/moderated by the people I mention below. Several high ranking members of Node / NPM are militant queer feminists. If they smell blood in the water, they tend to pounce hard without much regard for due process. Others glom on either in agreement or to make themselves seem progressive.

To give a specific example, I was part of an LGBTQ in Tech Slack group that was admined by several members of the community mentioned above.

Their CoC indicated that anyone considered a majority group (white and male being the worst) would automatically be considered at fault in any/all arguments and they would be resolved in favor of the minority.

That's the mentality at play here that does not give a space for people to defend themselves and resolve conflict. Sweep it under the rug so as to not disturb the more sensitive fringe elements, and condemn those who have not had a chance to even consider repenting.

Re: Rod Vagg's statement on the request to be removed from the Node.js CTC

#134

Post by gcoda »

It is weird. But a lot of times "toxic" people need real protection. It is easy to get accused but not every one can argue or explain their personal views like Rod. Or even have strength to deal with it and not over react or get panic attack

I am wondering about introvert geeks accused of "toxic behavior" silently sitting in the corner.

Re: Rod Vagg's statement on the request to be removed from the Node.js CTC

#135

Post by brudgers »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #128
brudgers wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The judgment communities make is between the ill effects of an imperfect process and between the ill effects of no process at all. There is nothing wrong with a community looking at the effects of no process at all and deciding "We can do better." It is perhaps worth pointing out that no process at all has no due process either.

I feel that this is a false dichotomy. As I see it 'no process' is the state where any process at all may be applied depending on the individuals that come into conflict. As such, that 'no process' state includes all possible processes that might be implemented for any given event. Whereas a process without a notion of due process, is always worse than a process with a notion of due process. I see it as the judgement…

A code of conduct lets people focus on the community purpose of the project. It lets people know what to expect so they can decide "I disagree, and therefore this is not for me," or "I disagree but I can live with it," or "I agree and can live with it." Codes of conduct are practical tools allowing a community to handle people who decide "I disagree and will stay and not abide by it" and then behave in ways that disrupt the community from its purpose.

From a practical standpoint, due process can be simple as the people assigned to deal with complaints saying, "This is problematic. Please stop." The cost of lawyering up when the response is "So sue me," is disproportionate to what has been asked. Due process is a three way street.

Re: Rod Vagg's statement on the request to be removed from the Node.js CTC

#136

Post by kbenson »

x0x0 wrote: post #131
kbenson wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is, as I see it, an unfortunate side effect of vastly under valuing intent and over valuing individual interpretations and how they make people feel. There needs to be a balance, and when there's not you end up with problems. If that's what happened in this case, it might have resulted in fault being a much more nebulous concept to those people. It's possible he said some things which ended up hurting people's f…

Four people resigned from the whatever-board when Rob was not asked to leave, and have written elsewhere about their repeated interactions with him. The fact that the four of them basically decided they don't wish to work in an org that Rob works in speaks (imo obviously) to him being a relatively unpleasant person to be around. Also, I'm skeptical that four people all are blowing things out of proportion, but who kn…

There are plenty of times I've seen a small group misinterpret something, and then feed off each other, and then reinterpret future events with that new, sometimes incorrect, context. On one side we have people that were apparently so upset they decided to leave. On the other we have someone that professes to not being notified when he made people uncomfortable, and more so, actively kept in the dark to the point that he had to drag minute details out of third parties that weren't supposed to talk about it.

What I'm saying is that it's entirely possible that they are both telling the absolute truth. Even if that's the case, one side appears to be trying to communicate and come to an amicable solution. The other side doesn't appear to be willing to consider that (or have ever really considered it an avenue of addressing the problem), at least from the information presented so far, but that's not necessarily the whole story either.

Re: Rod Vagg's statement on the request to be removed from the Node.js CTC

#137

Post by brudgers »

orless wrote: post #50

What I'm completely missing in this discussion of Code of Conduct violation is a specific list of which actions violated which clauses in this Code of Conduct. I see a list of complaints, but for an outsider it is really hard to follow why these actions are considered to be CoC violations. Take this, for instance: "In [moderation repository discussion], Rod’s first action was to apologize to a contributor who had bee…

The code of conduct is here: https://github.com/nodejs/TSC/blob/master/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md

Re: Rod Vagg's statement on the request to be removed from the Node.js CTC

#138

Post by ChuckMcM »

brudgers wrote: post #135
ChuckMcM wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that this is a false dichotomy. As I see it 'no process' is the state where any process at all may be applied depending on the individuals that come into conflict. As such, that 'no process' state includes all possible processes that might be implemented for any given event. Whereas a process without a notion of due process, is always worse than a process with a notion of due process. I see it as the judgement…

A code of conduct lets people focus on the community purpose of the project. It lets people know what to expect so they can decide "I disagree, and therefore this is not for me," or "I disagree but I can live with it," or "I agree and can live with it." Codes of conduct are practical tools allowing a community to handle people who decide "I disagree and will stay and not abide by it" and then behave in ways that disr…

I agree with your assessment of what a code of conduct is.

That said, just the 'code' is pretty useless without a process to give it life. This is exactly like laws that tell you what you can and cannot do, and the process tells you how you evaluate whether or not the laws have been broken.

So on the one hand you have a document that says, if you're part of this community you will be expected to do this, this, and this other thing. And then this process side is "if you don't, these are the consequences; further this is how we will evaluate whether you haven't followed this code ..."

   > From a practical standpoint, due process can be
   > simple as the people assigned to deal with
   > complaints saying, "This is problematic. Please
   > stop."
I see it differently, practical or not, the reason behind having a process that requires disclosing who made the accusation of failing to follow the process, and the evidence that such a failure occurred, and a rebuttal from the accused, puts the transgression into context for all parties so that a fair judgement can be made. In the absence of an investigating body it is the only way something can possibly be fair.

From the practical stand point the process can be as simple as the adjudicating group sending an email to the accused saying "Bob has accused you of violating our code of conduct, and offers as evidence the following; ... what do you say?" [2] There isn't any need for actual lawyers and you don't even need an appeal process. Once the adjudicating body has made its decision on whether or not there was a violation then they can enact what ever remedy is specified in the code of conduct.

In your example, the only way "people assigned to deal with complaints" could say "this is problematic, please stop." is if they take on the role of the accuser. And if they do take on that role they must only do so when they have direct, and for them incontrovertible, evidence of the violation, rather than hearsay from someone that there was a violation.

I feel it is important to understand why the process has to be at least this thorough because it prevents abuse and injustice. One of the most interesting things about the law for me is how it creates these sorts of processes to deal with the fact that people who have to run them may be bad actors. And then still generate fair results[3].

[1] Initially only to the adjudicating authority, the accused and the accuser.

[2] And of course the adjudicating body has the obligation to do everything in their power to corroborate the evidence presented and the rebuttal.

[3] In the absence of grand collusion between accuser and adjudicating body.

Re: Rod Vagg's statement on the request to be removed from the Node.js CTC

#139

Post by yellowapple »

askmike wrote: post #99
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Microsoft modified node to allow drop in replacement of the JavaScript engine and then provided a Chakra backed version of node. It actually seemed to work pretty well and was pretty well received by the community. I believe others were attempting to do the same with the Firefox JS engine (SpiderMonkey? I can't remember what it's called) using the same base of work Microsoft created.

> I believe others were attempting to do the same with the Firefox JS engine (SpiderMonkey? I can't remember what it's called) You don't mean Rhino? That was years ago when node was just gaining traction.

My impression is that Rhino was a separate project entirely.

Re: Rod Vagg's statement on the request to be removed from the Node.js CTC

#140

Post by fleitz »

thehardsphere wrote: post #96
fleitz wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The political question is whether they can attract via their politics the people who make the cold hard code. Code hard code matters far more than politics to nodeJS consumers, but nodeJS producers may be influenced by politics. You want to be the side that attracts the cold hard coders similarly to the way communists defected to the west during the cold war.

An important thing to note about that analogy is that defections to the West happened because the West was actually better, not merely more attractive on the surface.

Exactly, capitalists pay in cold hard cash. You can't buy a sports car if the state doesn't even allow them to be made.
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