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

In defence of Douglas Crockford

atom-morgan.github.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 450 posts

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#231

Post by xwvvvvwx »

This whole article seems pretty disingenuous.

It would clearly be a huge overreaction for someone to lose a speakers role at a conference for the two comments highlighted in the article.

The sourcing for this claim is incredibly weak, two tweets from people unaffiliated with Nodevember.

Nodevember have stated that they took this decision based on private feedback.

It could be that having Crockford on the speaker list meant that booking multiple other speakers became significantly harder, in which case uninviting him is an (arguably) justifiable logistical tradeoff, but without knowing the specifics its impossible to make any kind of real judgment of the merits of this decision.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#232

Post by ktRolster »

rtpg wrote: post #215
gnarbarian wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm willing to bet that he didn't pose any danger to these people other than having the gall to publicly harbor opinions they are uncomfortable with. In other words, diversity does not extend to diversity of opinion.

So what? The talk organizers were faced with a dilemma: either keep Crawford and lose a bunch of other speakers or lose Crawford but keep others I do think clarification is needed, but I could see "being a jerk " as a legit reason to not want to associate with someone. People do the same with people like Torvalds Being unliked is also a reason that people won't want to associate with you.

>Being unliked is also a reason that people won't want to associate with you.

Not a good reason.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#233

Post by mpweiher »

madeofpalk wrote: post #221
mpweiher wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the way that sentence would normally be said where I'm from (Australia) would be "as long as they give a good talk" Yes, language evolves. Currently, this is almost certainly grammatically incorrect, "they" being the third person plural and (not shown here, but assumed) the speaker being singular. "They" is being pressed into service as the non-derogatory, gender-neutral third person singular that's missing in…

I pondered this exact thing, but came to the thought that you actually are talking about multiple people. "As long as they give a good talk" - you're not talking about one specific person but in fact a general population of speakers.

Original was: "problems a speaker at a conference might have, as long as he gives a good talk/presentation."

The pronoun refers to "speaker", singular, yet indefinite, we don't necessarily know who it is.

Let's substitute "they: "problems a speaker at a conference might have, as long as they give a good talk/presentation."

Yep, works for me, but I think the "they" definitely talks about about that single (if indefinite) speaker. Yet we use the plural of the verb ("give"), so the sentence is confused, grammatically. I wonder what will give as this evolves, whether "they gives" becomes acceptable or we simple leave "they" grammatically plural even when it is semantically singular.

Language. Fun times!

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#234

Post by mpweiher »

niftich wrote: post #192
scbrg wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. It would be great if everyone who claims that gender neutral pronouns should be used could give a few examples, at least for us non native speakers. I get strange looks whenever I refer to people (hypothetical, or not) as "it", which would be the obvious gender neutral pronoun.

Currently it's 'they'. Yes, there's some confusion about whether it refers to one person or more, but that confusion already exists with 'you', in all except regional usages.

The difference is that "you" can be grammatically singular or plural, whereas "they" is definitely grammatically plural.

"they gives me the shivers"

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#235

Post by cryptica »

Tehnix wrote: post #29

I generally feel like there's a kneejerk reaction from people (especially in the tech community) to be "PC compliant", at the level where you almost can't have any discourse because it's such a minefield (can't imagine a rational person whoms first intepretation of the tweets is "that's sexist" to be pleasant having a conversation with). I almost feel in the minority (or just a silent one?), but I honestly don't care…

I can relate to the feeling of being a 'silent' minority. As an introverted white guy who lives in a foreign country, I feel that I am being discriminated against all the time.

I literally have to force myself to act extroverted in order to succeed in the workplace. People just assume that if you're a guy, you're just a confident hussler.

I know several introverted white guys who are extremely qualified but missed out on job offers because they were honest about their qualifications and didn't talk themselves up like some other guys do.

Being introverted, shy or weak isn't necessarily a female attribute. The fact that someone assumes that makes THEM the sexist one.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#236

Post by mpweiher »

eli wrote: post #224
rdtsc wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They said "We will also be removing Douglas Crockford from our keynote speakers list to help make the conference a comfortable environment for all." Imagine saying that about anyone, to any group (here it was to the whole world). Let's say the invite you to a gathering publicly then wrote a tweet about "We will also be removing eli from list of invited guests, to help make the venue a comfortable environment for all"…

But is it true that other guests have complained about me making them uncomfortable?

You make me uncomfortable.

Clearer now?

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#237

Post by CrLf »

rtpg wrote: post #215
gnarbarian wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm willing to bet that he didn't pose any danger to these people other than having the gall to publicly harbor opinions they are uncomfortable with. In other words, diversity does not extend to diversity of opinion.

So what? The talk organizers were faced with a dilemma: either keep Crawford and lose a bunch of other speakers or lose Crawford but keep others I do think clarification is needed, but I could see "being a jerk " as a legit reason to not want to associate with someone. People do the same with people like Torvalds Being unliked is also a reason that people won't want to associate with you.

Maybe perhaps they should instead opt to lose these "others"?

I'm unsure as to who the "jerks" really are in this situation.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#239

Post by prance »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #155
laser wrote: post #77

Given information publicly available this seems infuriatingly ridiculous, but Nodevember's official statement in response seems quite reasonable: http://nodevember.org/statement.html The theories here about sociopaths attempting to exert control are quite exotic and interesting, though :P

> Given information publicly available this seems infuriatingly ridiculous, but Nodevember's official statement in response seems quite reasonable: http://nodevember.org/statement.html That statement is the opposite of reasonable. If you're going to call someone out, publicly, that they're making other speakers uncomfortable to the point where they won't show up if he's there (when he was one of the first confirmed s…

No, absolutely reasonable. They say that multiple other speakers have stated that Crockford's "presence would make some speakers uncomfortable to the point where they refused to attend or speak." So they chose to prioritise them over him, something which they can totally do as organisers. Do they owe everyone a detailed explanation for that? I think not.

Re: In defence of Douglas Crockford

#240

Post by angry_octet »

rtpg wrote: post #215
gnarbarian wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm willing to bet that he didn't pose any danger to these people other than having the gall to publicly harbor opinions they are uncomfortable with. In other words, diversity does not extend to diversity of opinion.

So what? The talk organizers were faced with a dilemma: either keep Crawford and lose a bunch of other speakers or lose Crawford but keep others I do think clarification is needed, but I could see "being a jerk " as a legit reason to not want to associate with someone. People do the same with people like Torvalds Being unliked is also a reason that people won't want to associate with you.

Being a speaker at the same event is hardly being forced to associate with someone, nor indeed a reason to attempt to publicly repudiate them.

Additionally, in my experience Linus Tovalds is not a jerk. Is this something you sense you get by reading email threads?

Perhaps you associate a lack of politeness and deference with being a jerk, but it really isn't the same.

Post reply on HN