In defence of Douglas Crockford

"Promiscuous" also has a long history in computer networking. E.g. network cards with "promiscuous mode" (allowing it to receive all available packets rather than only passing on packets with the correct address; not as relevant any more, but was commonly used to sniff packets on a hub, but also to implement aliases). Commitment is non-sexual and often used in all kinds of contexts that does not imply anything sexual.

But I agree with you that no matter whether you are ok with the terms, calling it slut shaming is just strange.

I also agree with you that acting like a jerk would be a better reason for banning someone. But I'd also argue that "outing" him is worse than the alleged behaviour in that respect - if they're going to punish him for what has been reported, then they also ought to punish that kind of public shaming that pretty much makes it impossible for said person to get fair treatment.

I find the fact people continue to support these conferences quite disturbing.

Things are not going to change until people, including speakers pull out of conferences that display this sort of behaviour.

> it's important to note that Douglas Crockford can definitely be abrasive [1]. The issue at hand is that whether this abrasiveness is a bad thing, when compared to the contributions he's made and whether it leads to constructive discussions.

I'm not sure what bearing, if any, one's contributions should have on how individuals or communities respond to behaviour and "abrasiveness". Good deeds should obviously be respected and appreciated, however they should not shelter one from criticism.

> automatically associating Douglas's personality with being a jerk.

Being a jerk is usually associated with one's personality.

> By allowing certain viewpoints to dominate and silence a subset of speakers, we're ultimately limiting our views and building an echo chamber,

One could argue that by enabling abrasive and overpowering personalities and cults of celebrity to dominate these events we were already doing that.

> If we're going to dismiss speakers, it should be on merit of their talk and previous talks, not their speaking style.

I would think speaking style matters at least somewhat if one is planning on speaking.

There are perfectly legitimate reasons to put a network interface controller into promiscuous mode [1], and it's nothing to be ashamed of, and perfectly acceptable to discuss at conferences.

Back in the "bad old days" of the simplex NCP protocol [2], before the duplex TCP/IP protocol legalized same-sex network connections, connect and listen sockets had gender defined by their parity, and all connections were required to use sockets with different parity gender (one even and the other odd -- I can't remember which was which, or if it even mattered -- they just had to be different).

The act of trying to connect an even socket to another even socket, or an odd socket to another odd socket, was considered a "peculiar error" called "homosocketuality", which was strictly forbidden by internet protocols, and mandatory "heterosocketuality" was called the "Anita Bryant feature".

Anita Bryant [3] slut shamed not only all gays but even Jim Morrison. It's not like Douglas Crockford held a "Rally for Decency" at the Orange Bowl to slut shame a popular poet and performance artist [4]. Just throw a pie in his face [5] and move on.

http://www.saildart.org/IMPSER.DOC[SS,SYS]

When the error code is zero, the next 8 bit byte is the Stanford peculiar error code, followed by 72 bits of the ailing command returned. Here are the Stanford error codes. [...]

IGN 3 Illegal Gender (Anita Bryant feature--sockets must be heterosocketual, ie. odd to even and even to odd) [...]

Illegal gender in RFC, host hhh/iii, link 0

The host is trying to engage us in homosocketuality. Since this is against the laws of God and ARPA, we naturally refuse to consent to it.

http://www.saildart.org/FTP.NCP[S,NET]

    ; Try to initiate connection

    loginj:
            init log,17
            sixbit /IMP/
            0
            jrst noinit
            setzm conecb
            setom conecb+lsloc
            move ac3,hostno
            movem ac3,conecb+hloc
            setom conecb+wfloc
            movei ac3,40
            movem ac3,conecb+bsloc
            move ac3,consck
            trnn ac3,1
                jrst gayskt            ; only heterosocketuals can win!
             movem ac3,conecb+fsloc
             mtape log,[
                   =15
                    byte (6) 2,24,0,7,7
                         ]          ; Time out CLS, RFNM, RFC, and INPut

    [...]

    gayskt:    outstr [asciz/Homosocketuality is prohibited (the Anita Bryant feature)

    /]

        ife rsexec,exit       1,

(The PDP-10 code above adds the connect and listen socket numbers together, which results in bit 0 being 0 if they are the same gender, then TRNN is "test bits right, no change, skip if non zero", which skips the next instruction (jrst gayskt) if they different sex.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promiscuous_mode

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Control_Program

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Bryant

[4] http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/jim-morrison-prom...

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-A2Ql81WTY

I can't resist being pedantic here. Nodevember's shitty tweet does not likely fall under "libel" because it's not a falsehood. It may be considered defamatory (and libel is a kind of defamation), in the way that "We've decided not to invite Douglas Crockford because we want to maintain an environment where children aren't abused" can be technically true but defamatory by insinuation.

I justify being pedantic here, though, because the justice system is not just a binary system of "Someone got hurt, and now someone will pay in a court of law". Other common-sense factors are taken into consideration (such as the magnitude of alleged defamation, and whether the defendant is a public figure). And in terms of how things are regardless of U.S. civil law, the reality is that Douglas Crockford is Douglas Crockford. Just because some relative nobodies said hurtful things to him and he got disinvited from a privately-run conference doesn't mean he needs to turn to the justice system to find recourse. As we speak, whoever is running Nodevember's Twitter account is probably wishing they were running @CincinnatiZoo, post-Harambe. And the people who made allegations against Crockford are likely getting death threats and other things hurled their way. I'm not implying that I, or Crockford, think that this is the way things should be, but unless Crockford can conclusively argue that being shunned by Nodevember has destroyed his livelihood, arguing that Crockford deserves legal recourse against personally harmful speech would require some radical revamping of First Amendment rights.