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Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

numfocus.org

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Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#201

Post by bryanlarsen »

btilly wrote: post #189
bryanlarsen wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAICT, according to the apology he had been accused but not convicted of the violation.

According to his account, he was told that he had been convicted. According to him, now, he disagrees with that assertion in their apology. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24946688 .

> According to his account, he was told that he had been convicted.

The apology states that this was a "crucial miscommunication that we take responsibility for"

OTOH, from Jeremy Howard's account it really does sound like the committee doubled down on that miscommunication so often that it seems hard to believe that's all it was.

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#202

Post by kennywinker »

phkahler wrote: post #105
kennywinker wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Software developers, who are intimately familiar with the idea that software needs constant attention and maintenance, seem to often balk at the idea that communities also need constant attention and maintenance. The idea that a code of conduct is "never ending" does not seem like a bad thing to me.

As an example, the mozilla community participation guidelines (currently at version 3.1) are quite short and readable and many sections are essentially your "dress appropriately" example (i.e. "Be Respectful"), with quick a paragraph to clarify the idea.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/part...

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#203

Post by fatbird »

huhtenberg wrote: post #18
greenburger wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The letter was signed by the The NumFOCUS Code of Conduct Enforcement Committee. The members of that committee are listed on their code of conduct site. Seems pretty transparent to me. https://numfocus.org/code-of-conduct#persons-responsible

They caused a lot of grief to a particular person. It is only appropriate to sign their apology with their own names rather than a "committee", don't you think?

This is an incredibly petty complaint.

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#204

Post by LegitShady »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #179
marcinzm wrote: post #137

Am I reading this correctly? It seems to say that Jeremy is still considered guilty of a CoC violation but if he appeals then the board will hear it (rather than the committee). So Jeremey has to file an appeal or the decision will stand? So the onus to fix this is on Jeremy who seems so exhausted by this whole process that he's quit conference talks? That seems a response that lacks any sense of empathy to Jeremy. e…

I read it quite differently. It sounds to me that he is still accused but they have not confirmed the violation yet. The committee has recused themselves from that decision.

Their own communication to him said that they were discussing the results of the investigation with him, without talking to him during the investigation. They're not being honest.

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#205

Post by joshstrange »

dang wrote: post #200
joshstrange wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not doxing if it's public info: https://numfocus.org/code-of-conduct#persons-responsible

The word doxing means different things to different people, but please don't bring anyone's personal details into a thread as ammunition in an argument or to rile up a public posse against them. That's not what HN is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I respectfully disagree with the stance you are taking. I did not post their names in an attempt to provide "ammunition in an argument or to rile up a public posse against them", I did it because they refused to sign their names and I saved people the step of having to dig into it themselves. I simply copy-pasted their (public) information, this is not "personal details" these are numbers and emails associated with their organization. Should all of the other comments that link to the same page (with the information I copy-pasted) be removed as well? I'm genuinely confused by this. Is tim@apple.com also considered "personal details" in a thread about an unpopular move by Apple? I'm trying to figure out where the line is here.

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#206

Post by xab31 »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #160
xab31 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a very effective response from Jeremy. He clearly describes his side of the story and convincingly explains why he thought he did nothing wrong. What is a little more troubling is that he (A) describes codes of conduct in detail and repeatedly affirms his allegiance to the general idea behind CoCs, including describing "previous sexual assault allegations" as "behaviors" he "strongly agrees" should be stopped.…

I don't find any of that particularly contradictory. I'd probably do the same in his position. To use an extreme comparison: I suspect that most of the people who are falsely accused of murder still believe that murder should be illegal.

My gut reaction if I were Jeremy would be to say that "This is absolutely absurd; there is no way that claiming 'X's opinion is wrong' is in itself a CoC violation, and if it somehow is, then the CoC is ridiculous. The fact that such an accusation was even able to be made under the CoC and not immediately dismissed makes CoCs look ridiculous. Why are you wasting everyone's time?"

He goes a very, very different route. I think that different route gave him a better outcome. I think it is worth thinking about why that is. We are not talking about an accusation of sexual harassment or assault here, we are talking about an almost textbook case of how CoC accusations can be overextended to absurdity. Yet he chooses to defend CoCs.

One possible explanation of this is that he is trying to draw a distinction between things that should be "legitimate" CoC violations, and his case. Another possible explanation is that he is trying to say that "Look, I strongly believe that , really strongly. That makes me one of the good guys. Would a good guy commit murder?" The latter take is more cynical, but I think it would be more effective than my gut reaction.

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#207

Post by klyrs »

marcinzm wrote: post #197
klyrs wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're apologizing for how they handled the incident: > We apologize for causing this stress and will work to improve our process to avoid this from happening in the future. > We apologize for not communicating that clearly from the beginning. They are not apologizing for the existence of the complaints. They do not imply that Jeremy is considered guilty -- they say that the issue is unresolved: > We should have bee…

>They are not apologizing for the existence of the complaints. They do not imply that Jeremy is considered guilty -- they say that the issue is unresolved: It's very unclear to me if they meant to say Jeremy was not guilty when they talked to him at a certain point in time or if he is still not guilty. >Their language does not seem to put the onus on Jeremy: What you quoted also says: >outlined in the appeals process…

> It's very unclear to me if they meant to say Jeremey was not guilty when they talked to him at a certain point in time or if he is still not guilty.

It's clear to me that they're trying to not express an opinion there. I read this as them recusing themselves from the situation and doing their best to not express an opinion about a ruling which may or may not have been made (the murkiness about this also seems deliberate)

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#208

Post by gojomo »

btilly wrote: post #183
marcinzm wrote: post #137

Am I reading this correctly? It seems to say that Jeremy is still considered guilty of a CoC violation but if he appeals then the board will hear it (rather than the committee). So Jeremey has to file an appeal or the decision will stand? So the onus to fix this is on Jeremy who seems so exhausted by this whole process that he's quit conference talks? That seems a response that lacks any sense of empathy to Jeremy. e…

Yes. You will also note that the word "sorry" is entirely missing. And the list of things that they failed to "acknowledge" includes their not telling him what rule he was accused of violating, what action of his violated the rule, having literally laughed at him, and having violated their own code of conduct. They also offer nothing in the way of amends. Or do anything to suggest that there will be consequences to t…

This seems nitpicky.

Saying "we apologize" multiple times is the same as "we're sorry".

They've said their communications were in error in the way they described the complaints, the status of the investigation, and their charged language.

They've kicked the whole thing up to the responsible organizational Board of Directors for more action - which is to say, completely removed the group that made the errors from next steps.

That's about as good an public apology from one specific committee, with limited remit, as is possible!

If NumFocus as a whole takes further steps, I'm sure we'll hear. But there's no reason to hold up this 'mea culpa' until everything is settled at all levels. Promptness is better than perfection!

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#209

Post by [deleted] »

xab31 wrote: post #206
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't find any of that particularly contradictory. I'd probably do the same in his position. To use an extreme comparison: I suspect that most of the people who are falsely accused of murder still believe that murder should be illegal.

My gut reaction if I were Jeremy would be to say that "This is absolutely absurd; there is no way that claiming 'X's opinion is wrong' is in itself a CoC violation, and if it somehow is, then the CoC is ridiculous. The fact that such an accusation was even able to be made under the CoC and not immediately dismissed makes CoCs look ridiculous. Why are you wasting everyone's time?" He goes a very, very different route.…

[deleted]

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#210

Post by marcinzm »

klyrs wrote: post #207
marcinzm wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They are not apologizing for the existence of the complaints. They do not imply that Jeremy is considered guilty -- they say that the issue is unresolved: It's very unclear to me if they meant to say Jeremy was not guilty when they talked to him at a certain point in time or if he is still not guilty. >Their language does not seem to put the onus on Jeremy: What you quoted also says: >outlined in the appeals process…

> It's very unclear to me if they meant to say Jeremey was not guilty when they talked to him at a certain point in time or if he is still not guilty. It's clear to me that they're trying to not express an opinion there. I read this as them recusing themselves from the situation and doing their best to not express an opinion about a ruling which may or may not have been made (the murkiness about this also seems delib…

Seems to me that he was found guilty and they're just trying to avoid the backlash from saying so. He's too tired of it all to argue about it further so they win by default and it all goes away. Their enforcement guide only mentions appeal once and it's clear that it only applies after a judgement was already made and requires the reported person to do something:

>Give them a place to appeal to if there is one, but in the meantime the action stands.

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