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The Nodevember folk(s) posted a statement regarding this whole kerfuffle [1]. It's pretty hollow IMO. > While we have a tremendous respect for Mr. Crockford's

The Nodevember folk(s) posted a statement regarding this whole kerfuffle [1]. It's pretty hollow IMO. > While we have a tremendous respect for Mr. Crockford's abilities as a speaker and his contributions to our craft, we became aware that based on private feedback - not simply the dialogue on Twitter - that his presence would make some speakers uncomfortable to the point where they refused to attend or speak. Okay so you are calling out his behavior making people uncomfortable, publicly, but you won't say why only that it was private feedback? Wasn't he one of the early speakers who accepted anyway? You apologized for lacking nuance on Twitter with your "announcement" and yet continue to do so. Publicly claiming someone makes others uncomfortable and that someone is an older, white male, you know exactly what you are insinuating. Statements like this, especially against white males today, can be career ending even without proof as long as it simply goes viral. I think the only responsible thing to do is to release exactly why someone would be uncomfortable. If you can't or won't do that then you shouldn't have made the initial insinuation and, instead, simply state he's no longer coming. Stating he was "uninvited" due to making others uncomfortable without providing anything further is just irresponsible to the point where it appears you're trying to manufacture drama. Considering your event is $350 to hear some speakers who are yet to be defined this just speaks scam to me like many other talking events. [1] http://nodevember.org/statement.html http://nodevember.org/statement.html

gnarbarian 10y ago
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.
- rtpg 10y ago
  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.
  - ktRolster 10y ago
    >Being unliked is also a reason that people won't want to associate with you. Not a good reason.
  - CrLf 10y ago
    Maybe perhaps they should instead opt to lose these "others"? I'm unsure as to who the "jerks" really are in this situation.
    - jrs235 10y ago
      The whole thing feels like "reverse bullying" to me.
      - gnarbarian 10y ago
        It's just normal bullying.
  - angry_octet 10y ago
    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.
    - thomasfoster96 10y ago
      > Perhaps you associate a lack of politeness and deference with being a jerk, but it really isn't the same. I would certainly associate those two attributes with being a jerk.
      - angry_octet 10y ago
        It's hard without specific examples, but brusque or somewhat impolite generally seem common. For example, someone asserts something technical in a strong way, lacking technical insight, or re-animating a zombie topic. The response is often short and somewhat acerbic. To be honest, replying in a sensitive way, with references to past converations, takes a long time. I would contrast this with jerk as being someone who deliberately disregards the comfort and feelings of others to satisfy themselves: the queue jumper, Steve Jobs, someone who humiliates people on minimum wage, who doesn't re-rack the weights at the gym, who parks in the disabled car park.
lake99 10y ago
> You apologized for lacking nuance on Twitter with your "announcement" and yet continue to do so. I saw parallels of this earlier this year against Richard Dawkins, when the NECSS uninvited him over twitter, followed it with a longer post on their blog[0]. After their actions caused a blowback, they apologized for their lack of professionalism. NECSS backtracked on their position[1] because the blowback was from prominent people. I don't think prominent people in CS will band together like that, so I don't think the Nodevember folks will backtrack either. [0] http://necss.org/2016/01/27/a-statement-concerning-richard-dawkins/ http://necss.org/2016/01/27/a-statement-concerning-richard-d... [1] http://necss.org/2016/02/14/statement-from-the-executive-committee/ http://necss.org/2016/02/14/statement-from-the-executive-com...
- thomasfoster96 10y ago
  The major difference there is that they actually identified the particular action that got him uninvited - and to Dawkins’ credit, (as far as I know) he deleted the offending tweets.
  - lake99 10y ago
    As for whether that constitutes a major difference or not, it's a judgement call. And I don't agree with your judgement. Here are the full facts, in their own words: NECSS: in response to Dr. Dawkins’ approving re-tweet of a highly offensive video. That's it. Because it was offensive. And Dawkins' reponse after continued attacks against him on Twitter: Dawkins: Don't you think she should apologise for shrieking "Shut the fuck up" and "Fuckface" at anyone who tried to get a word in? I didn't do wrong to her. I posted, without comment, a video of her screaming vile abuse. I didn't apologise. I merely deleted, explaining that I did it out of concern for a person's life. Apparently, she reported getting threats of violence.
    - thomasfoster96 10y ago
      It appears I didn't know everything about the Dawkins incident - disregard my comment.
forgottenacc56 10y ago
Stand up cowards and respond to this excellent comment. The conference organizers are making me feel uncomfortable.
pryce 10y ago
Nodevember is offering refunds, so it's very hard to see how this could be a scam, and difficult to imagine how Nodevember would stand to make anything but a large loss by removing Crockford as a speaker. They chose to proceed with this anyway, which is indicative of serious concerns. Removing him as a speaker and remaining quiet about the exact reasons can mean any number of things. Suppose they have compelling reasons to believe having him speak would be harmful, but that they do not have a firm enough basis that they are comfortable publicising, in which case publishing their rationale could be both unethical itself and could expose them to legal action. Or perhaps they have received information in confidence, from sources they trust, but believe that information received in confidence is not theirs to publish without consent. Or perhaps their information is alarming and yet primarily circumstantial from a constellation of different sources. In essence, there is a fairly wide terrain where it is perfectly warranted to have deal-breaking levels of concern about a prospective speaker without being in a position to merit publishing accusations against them. From the responses here, it seems that many struggle to imagine conference organizers could be placed in such a position. This is exactly kind of bias we might expect to find in an overly white and male subculture where navigating these kinds of murky waters is at most a purely hypothetical exercise rather than a day-to-day reality.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Corrado 10y ago
  Then again, if you don't have some solid evidence that a talk will be offensive, how can you ban it. Is this the Minority Report where you are punished for things you haven't done yet? Mr. Crockford is a leading Javascript expert, kicking him our of your Javascript conference should only be done with some very compelling facts not just hearsay and conjecture that you can't tell anyone about.
  - pryce 10y ago
    > Crockford is a leading Javascript expert, How is this relevant? This idea that we should apply different standards to "leading Javascript experts" than other people is far more troubling than the idea that a speaker might be invited to and then disinvited from a conference from time to time. > should only be done with some very compelling facts not just hearsay and conjecture I have already given several plausible examples of when a conference could have grounds enough to rescind a speaker invitation without having the grounds to make public accusations.
parampcea 10y ago
apparently some people claiming crookford bothered them without any evidence is enough to get him kicked out. this is madness at its finest

gnarbarian 10y ago

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.

rtpg 10y ago
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.
- ktRolster 10y ago
  >Being unliked is also a reason that people won't want to associate with you. Not a good reason.
- CrLf 10y ago
  Maybe perhaps they should instead opt to lose these "others"? I'm unsure as to who the "jerks" really are in this situation.
  - jrs235 10y ago
    The whole thing feels like "reverse bullying" to me.
    - gnarbarian 10y ago
      It's just normal bullying.
- angry_octet 10y ago
  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.
  - thomasfoster96 10y ago
    > Perhaps you associate a lack of politeness and deference with being a jerk, but it really isn't the same. I would certainly associate those two attributes with being a jerk.
    - angry_octet 10y ago
      It's hard without specific examples, but brusque or somewhat impolite generally seem common. For example, someone asserts something technical in a strong way, lacking technical insight, or re-animating a zombie topic. The response is often short and somewhat acerbic. To be honest, replying in a sensitive way, with references to past converations, takes a long time. I would contrast this with jerk as being someone who deliberately disregards the comfort and feelings of others to satisfy themselves: the queue jumper, Steve Jobs, someone who humiliates people on minimum wage, who doesn't re-rack the weights at the gym, who parks in the disabled car park.

lake99 10y ago

> You apologized for lacking nuance on Twitter with your "announcement" and yet continue to do so. I saw parallels of this earlier this year against Richard Dawkins, when the NECSS uninvited him over twitter, followed it with a longer post on their blog[0]. After their actions caused a blowback, they apologized for their lack of professionalism. NECSS backtracked on their position[1] because the blowback was from prominent people. I don't think prominent people in CS will band together like that, so I don't think the Nodevember folks will backtrack either. [0] http://necss.org/2016/01/27/a-statement-concerning-richard-dawkins/ http://necss.org/2016/01/27/a-statement-concerning-richard-d... [1] http://necss.org/2016/02/14/statement-from-the-executive-committee/ http://necss.org/2016/02/14/statement-from-the-executive-com...

thomasfoster96 10y ago
The major difference there is that they actually identified the particular action that got him uninvited - and to Dawkins’ credit, (as far as I know) he deleted the offending tweets.
- lake99 10y ago
  As for whether that constitutes a major difference or not, it's a judgement call. And I don't agree with your judgement. Here are the full facts, in their own words: NECSS: in response to Dr. Dawkins’ approving re-tweet of a highly offensive video. That's it. Because it was offensive. And Dawkins' reponse after continued attacks against him on Twitter: Dawkins: Don't you think she should apologise for shrieking "Shut the fuck up" and "Fuckface" at anyone who tried to get a word in? I didn't do wrong to her. I posted, without comment, a video of her screaming vile abuse. I didn't apologise. I merely deleted, explaining that I did it out of concern for a person's life. Apparently, she reported getting threats of violence.
  - thomasfoster96 10y ago
    It appears I didn't know everything about the Dawkins incident - disregard my comment.

forgottenacc56 10y ago

Stand up cowards and respond to this excellent comment. The conference organizers are making me feel uncomfortable.

pryce 10y ago

Nodevember is offering refunds, so it's very hard to see how this could be a scam, and difficult to imagine how Nodevember would stand to make anything but a large loss by removing Crockford as a speaker. They chose to proceed with this anyway, which is indicative of serious concerns. Removing him as a speaker and remaining quiet about the exact reasons can mean any number of things. Suppose they have compelling reasons to believe having him speak would be harmful, but that they do not have a firm enough basis that they are comfortable publicising, in which case publishing their rationale could be both unethical itself and could expose them to legal action. Or perhaps they have received information in confidence, from sources they trust, but believe that information received in confidence is not theirs to publish without consent. Or perhaps their information is alarming and yet primarily circumstantial from a constellation of different sources. In essence, there is a fairly wide terrain where it is perfectly warranted to have deal-breaking levels of concern about a prospective speaker without being in a position to merit publishing accusations against them. From the responses here, it seems that many struggle to imagine conference organizers could be placed in such a position. This is exactly kind of bias we might expect to find in an overly white and male subculture where navigating these kinds of murky waters is at most a purely hypothetical exercise rather than a day-to-day reality.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Corrado 10y ago
Then again, if you don't have some solid evidence that a talk will be offensive, how can you ban it. Is this the Minority Report where you are punished for things you haven't done yet? Mr. Crockford is a leading Javascript expert, kicking him our of your Javascript conference should only be done with some very compelling facts not just hearsay and conjecture that you can't tell anyone about.
- pryce 10y ago
  > Crockford is a leading Javascript expert, How is this relevant? This idea that we should apply different standards to "leading Javascript experts" than other people is far more troubling than the idea that a speaker might be invited to and then disinvited from a conference from time to time. > should only be done with some very compelling facts not just hearsay and conjecture I have already given several plausible examples of when a conference could have grounds enough to rescind a speaker invitation without having the grounds to make public accusations.

parampcea 10y ago

apparently some people claiming crookford bothered them without any evidence is enough to get him kicked out. this is madness at its finest