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Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

numfocus.org

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Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#231

Post by hintymad »

jph00 wrote: post #185

I'm not going to read the comments here, for obvious reasons, but I do just want to clarify three things: - I accept the apology. - I do not accept the assertion that "At the time of the interview, the committee had not determined that there was a violation of the code of conduct, only that there were two complaints filed and being examined." The email to set up the call said "We would like to schedule a meeting so t…

I hereby condemn anyone who downvotes my comments, for they clearly are not kind and deeply hurt my righteous feelings. Can I doxx and cancel the downvoters too? Please....

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#233

Post by xenadu02 »

wskinner wrote: post #186
omginternets wrote: post #121

At some point we will collectively realize that the average organization cannot and should not act as a judicial body. Running a fair, competent and accountable court is really hard, and to think otherwise is hubris at best, and unbridled ideology at worst. Edit : apologies for the multiple edits. It sometimes takes me a few tries to precisely express my thoughts.

This is the real issue. CoC proponents seem to think writing down the correct rules is sufficient. But rules are only as good or bad as their enforcement.

CoCs didn't jump out of the void for no reason. They are a response to years of harassment and unprofessional behavior at conferences. Conferences have always had a list of rules to follow and breaking the rules could get you ejected from the conference. In theory all a CoC should do is codify some bad behaviors that people believe to be acceptable but are actually not, so in that regard they shouldn't be controversial.

You hit the nail on the head though: if the people enforcing the conference rules don't act in good faith or don't follow the rules then the rules don't matter.

In theory a conference could just have a rule that says "act professionally" and if properly enforced that would be sufficient. On the flip side such a conference could have a petty tyrant rules lawyer for an enforcer and decide anyone they don't like was not acting "professionally".

There is no outside body that could (or should) be adjudicators. Conferences live and die by their reputation. All we can do is judge them by their actions.

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#235

Post by wk_end »

pstuart wrote: post #225
wk_end wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really disagree with any of that, but it's also exactly what I'm talking about above. Given that you posted both the original reply and this one, I think you're kind of guilty of the old Motte & Bailey [1]. Just for the record: I'm privileged (and generally pretty polite/non-offensive I hope), I've rarely needed to deal with any of the issues addressed by CoCs, and I've also never really dealt with any of the…

That was tl;dr to decipher your accusation. Could you clarify please? I ask not to debate but to understand and correct future communications. The (intended) gist of my comments is to push back against the tactic of "look a stupid rule or stupid enforcement of rules; this is why we need to get rid of rules."

Sure.

“Motte”: unobjectionable position no one would disagree with.

“Bailey”: more extreme position; the one you actually believe and that people take issue with. Must not directly logically follow from the motte per se.

Motte & Bailey (informal) fallacy: Jumping between the motte and the bailey for rhetorical effect, as convenient.

In this case, the motte is “codes of conduct are just like the HN guidelines, they’re everywhere and no one objects”. The bailey is the actual CoCs in question, and the culture of pushing projects, conferences, etc. to adopt them, which tends to be rooted in “liberal identity politics” or whatever you want to call it.

When people criticize the latter (the bailey), advocates retreat to the former (the motte) - they’re just normal guidelines like “be nice”, basic manners, who would object to that? - and then when the argument is over continue pushing for the latter.

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#236

Post by pseudalopex »

wk_end wrote: post #83
pstuart wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet you participate here on HN, and there is effectively a CoC: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

One of the irritating things about these CoC discussions is that the codes, really, are acting in a metonymic fashion. Codes of behaviour are, of course, common place all throughout the world. When people complain about Codes of Conduct in software, they’re broadly complaining about a particular movement that’s pushed codes of particular conduct, enforced with particular mechanisms (and they would often argue biases)…

Many comments yesterday and today said "don't be a jerk" is the only code you need. Many said any written code will inevitably be abused.

Who is pushing what particular enforcement mechanisms? The Contributor Covenant is probably the most popular and most hated code of conduct. It just says community leaders will investigate and take appropriate action. It's very open ended.

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#237

Post by bryanlarsen »

btilly wrote: post #211
bryanlarsen wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

And my judgement after all available information is that they are straight up lying. Here is why. His stated recollection is that they said, “that is what the reporters stated, and what we found” and to his asking why his statement was not requested, “we all watched the video, so we could see for ourselves the violation”. What they said in his version is very clear. That is not a miscommunication. Calling it a "misco…

Isn't concluding that they are lying without solid evidence basically the same crime that you're accusing them of committing against Jeremy Howard?

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#239

Post by [deleted] »

jph00 wrote: post #185

I'm not going to read the comments here, for obvious reasons, but I do just want to clarify three things: - I accept the apology. - I do not accept the assertion that "At the time of the interview, the committee had not determined that there was a violation of the code of conduct, only that there were two complaints filed and being examined." The email to set up the call said "We would like to schedule a meeting so t…

[deleted]

Re: Public Apology to Jeremy Howard

#240

Post by kazinator »

From the way this non-apology is written, these NumFocus people seem very full of themselves and their organization. What are their credentials and achievements?

Okay, they sponsor existing projects and then take credit for them, calling them "our open source tools" which are used by everyone "from Netflix to NASA" to "solve the most challenging problems".

Where is the money coming from?

Their site makes deceptive claims:

https://numfocus.org/case-studies

Here, there is a representation made that there is "NumFOCUS stack" that is being used in various industries to solve problems.

"First Photograph of a Black Hole -- Made with the NumFOCUS Python Stack"

This strongly suggests that there is some actual software component by the name of NumFOCUS Python Stack. But when you read the case study in detail, it comes to light that this refers to some tools that have supposedly received support from NumFOCUS:

"Although the HOPS pipeline Dr. Chan helped develop is mainly written in the C programming language, [watch how we're going to take credit for it anyway, as follows:] EHT scientists also developed a lot of Python code around it to drive the analysis. Dr. Chan explained that there is a huge advantage in using Python."

Right ... , we would not have Python without NumFOCUS, the purveyor of Python! Never mind that Guido guy and what he had been up to since, oh, 1988.

"Dr. Chan pointed to NumFOCUS-supported open source tools — Numpy, SciPy, pandas, Astropy, Jupyter, and Matplotlib — as crucial to this iterative scientific thinking process."

I don't see any references to NumFOCUS in the NumPy Wikipedia page. The NumPy homepage makes absolutely no reference to NumFOCUS at all.

The other "case studies" are like his also.

ScumFOCUS is more like it!

They look like a bunch of status-seeking parasites, from where I'm sitting.

Non-profit organization, right? Sure, after salaries and expenses are paid out.

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