Public Apology to Jeremy Howard • Hacker News Board

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#141

Post by jfk13 » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 8:10 PM UTC

re wrote: post #61

kurbin wrote: post #35

They say "Because of the missteps of this committee, we have asked the NumFOCUS Board of Directors to take over the work of the committee", yet the 7-person board of directors overlaps with the 4-person code of conduct committee. Board of Directors: https://numfocus.org/community/people CoC Committee: https://numfocus.org/code-of-conduct#persons-responsible

> 7-person board of directors overlaps with the 4-person code of conduct committee The overlap is one person: Andy Terrel, NumFOCUS President.

That's a pretty important overlap. How many people on a board or in a community are really willing and able to entirely discount the President's views and consider issues independently?

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#142

Post by kurbin » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 8:10 PM UTC

re wrote: post #61

kurbin wrote: post #35

They say "Because of the missteps of this committee, we have asked the NumFOCUS Board of Directors to take over the work of the committee", yet the 7-person board of directors overlaps with the 4-person code of conduct committee. Board of Directors: https://numfocus.org/community/people CoC Committee: https://numfocus.org/code-of-conduct#persons-responsible

> 7-person board of directors overlaps with the 4-person code of conduct committee The overlap is one person: Andy Terrel, NumFOCUS President.

Of the 4 person committee, one is on the board, the other was on the board last year, and the other two are staffers.

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#143

Post by Veen » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 8:11 PM UTC

diehunde wrote: post #76

1123581321 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sounds like "I empathize with them but I don't care about protecting them"

To me it sounds like: "I empathize and care, but I don't think CoCs are the best way to solve the problem because they i) don't solve the problem and ii) bring about harmful unintended consequences".

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#144

Post by notJim » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 8:11 PM UTC

Veen wrote: post #133

notJim wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As this blog post [1] lays out, this seems like a case where the CoC was poorly authored exactly for this reason. But this isn't a reason to not have a CoC, it just means this particular one was not done well. [1]: https://www.fast.ai/2020/10/28/code-of-conduct/

There is no way to author a set of rules such that it can't be abused by someone with the power to enforce it. That's why the law has judges, juries, courts of appeal, standards of evidence, disclosure rules, corpus delicti, habeas corpus, and so on. The problem is not the CoC, but the lack of accountability, oversight, and transparency in enforcement.

I totally agree, but people don't generally claim we should get rid of the law for these reasons. I am responding to the claim that we should get rid of CoCs, which I disagree with. I am not arguing that CoCs are perfect, or that we don't need checks. In this case, it seems that the CoC was pretty poorly written, and the team didn't even follow their own procedure. I think we should fix those problems rather than throw the whole thing out.

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#145

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 8:13 PM UTC

g42gregory wrote: post #134

This apology rings hollow to me. A person of Jeremy Howard's statue was able to raise the issue in the media and get it resolved. I would like to understand what would happen to a person who is not of a Jeremy Howard's statue and does not have such a access to the public discourse?

[deleted]

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#146

Post by akiselev » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 8:13 PM UTC

jf- wrote: post #12

SommaRaikkonen wrote: post #5

The context for those out of the loop: https://www.fast.ai/2020/10/28/code-of-conduct/

> NumFOCUS found I violated their Code of Conduct (CoC) at JupyterCon because my talk was not “kind”, because I said Joel Grus was “wrong” regarding his opinion that Jupyter Notebook is not a good software development environment Wow.

Don't leave out the best part (the very next sentence)

> Joel (who I greatly respect, and consider an asset to the data science community) was not involved in NumFOCUS’s action, was not told about it, and did not support it.

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#147

Post by sigmaprimus » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 8:14 PM UTC

rmrfstar wrote: post #135

sigmaprimus wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, what would You suggest as a remedy to this situation? This is an honest questions please don't get offended.

Honestly? They should be assigned 12 hours of reading that covers the history of due process, what it is, and why we have it.

That seems like a reasonable suggestion, with the option of resignation, I was thinking more along the lines of financial compensation.

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#148

Post by edmundsauto » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 8:14 PM UTC

type0 wrote: post #60

GiorgioG wrote: post #3

I'm going to get downvoted for this, but: I'm against code of conducts because they're worse than the problems they try to solve. edit: In my opinion, code of conducts become a distraction and a cause for worry to anyone contributing to these projects because someone inevitably gets their feelings hurt and points to some well-intentioned rule in the CoC to get the 'offender' shamed/removed even if no harm was intende…

It's better to follow 10 commandments than any code of conduct https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments

"No Sunday conferences, do not kill or pillage from other conference goers. Do not lie or fornicate outside of marriage. And worship the Christian god."

How is that even remotely better? It doesn't address... any... of the behavior that led to this type of CoC.

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#149

Post by lr » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 8:14 PM UTC

To all of the people who hate CoCs: Just don't patronize any forum, software repo, or conference that has them. Not so easy to do, right? Same thing with people who get harassed all the time: It's not so easy for them to complain and have anyone take them seriously. Are CoCs perfect? Absolutely not. But allowing decades of harassment to continue unfettered until the most perfect solution is found, is not going to work, either. Of course, the people who hate CoCs don't think there have been decades of harassment. Or, if they even acknowledge harassment, they probably believe it is the victim's fault in the first place, or the victim's fault for not speaking up. I don't think minds are going to change either way. Just one more thing in our increasingly polarized world, that tech is actually making worse, not better. (Oh, so many subjective comments here -- how did I do capturing them?)

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#150

Post by DaiPlusPlus » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 8:15 PM UTC

dsq wrote: post #118

Topgamer7 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excuse me sir, you've committed a thought crime for not following propaganda guidelines on independent thought and expression.

You have violated the CoC by presuming to use the honorific "sir", thus promoting gender opression!

FWIW I've got a female friend who was in enlisted the US Navy and she spoke of female naval officers who were addressed as "Sir" rather than "Ma'am" (though most went by "Ma'am").

So I don't know how to feel about anything anymore.