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After reading the entire post, I feel really bad for him, and I hope he gets the time off and the support necessary to recover from this incident. I also feel q

After reading the entire post, I feel really bad for him, and I hope he gets the time off and the support necessary to recover from this incident. I also feel quite angry with how he has been treated. So please let me vent it out here as politely as I’m able to. I can imagine something like this or worse happening on social media groups, but an ostentatious “committee” that listens only to one side and never gives the other side the chance to get details on how things were perceived or why it’s a violation? And the chuckling in the call when someone has already said they’re not in a proper emotional state is just bullying. I personally don’t think CoC or any other set of laws can be written to be precise and comprehensive. There will always be edge cases that need many hearings and re-hearings, with some discretion based on past precedence, nuances, etc., in the interpretation of written words in the code in an effort to make the code clearer for the future (this is how we improve laws, don’t we?). This committee has, IMNSHO, been the opposite of kind and doesn’t deserve to hold the responsibility of handling CoC enforcement or violations. I’m sure this committee is not even capable of explaining clearly to a potential speaker what the CoC really means as per the written words and what’s expected. This CoC needs to be torn apart and rebuilt, and the people in this particular committee must be sent to other areas where their expertise can be best used. Their proper place is certainly not in a CoC committee, for sure.

giardini 6y ago
This is what lawsuits are for. A few good lawsuit victories would put an end to this.
- freeone3000 6y ago
  On what grounds?
  - tomnipotent 6y ago
    There are legal expectations for how companies can terminate employees, I think it's only fair that professional organizations organizing professional events also be held legally accountable for the impacts they have on individuals. More often than not, these responsibilities emerge after onerous legal discourse, legal judgement, and promise of punishment.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - garmaine 6y ago
      You think it's only fair. That's not exactly an argument about legal grounds.
    - op00to 6y ago
      You may think it’s fair, but you don’t have a (in the US at least) constitutional right to be protected from inexperienced application of a code of conduct.
      - tomnipotent 6y ago
        > constitutional right to be protected from inexperienced application of a code of conduct. I'm not sure what the constitution have to do with it? Inevitably, all it takes is a few court rulings in favor of defendants claiming that CoC enforcements have caused harm.
  - NullPrefix 6y ago
    Harassment
    - freeone3000 6y ago
      From the article, the alleged harassment was two phone calls and a zoom call, all of which the recipient answered and participated in. That's not harassment.
  - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
    Libel maybe; people can and have gotten fired over CoC violation allegations (warranted or not) and the consequent internet witch hunt; a famous case is "Donglegate". There's a dangerous trend where an accusation alone is enough to have people lose their jobs.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      That's was really nothing to do with a CoC violation directly though. It had to do with a social media blowup that embarrassed and inconvenienced companies in a way that made it easier for both companies to just fire the individuals involved. (As will tend to happen unless an individual has a lot of power.)
      - pseudalopex 6y ago
        And PyCon quickly added a policy telling attendees not to publicize incidents until staff can investigate.
    - freeone3000 6y ago
      Libel would require the allegations be, at the very least, false, and not an opinion. It appears all factual allegations here are true (he presented the talk, he used bits from another talk, he called a speaker wrong), and everything else is an opinion based on those facts. So it's not libel. And any improper employment termination suit would be against the employer, not a conference organizer, because in a very direct sense, it's your employer that chooses whether to fire you or not.
  - ballenf 6y ago
    Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/intentional_infliction_of_emotional_distress https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/intentional_infliction_of_em... Might be a stretch, but would likely survive summary judgment.
  - giardini 6y ago
    Anything! That's what's great about lawsuits! Defamation of character, violation of contract, overreach, etc. Ask a lawyer for a legal answer.
ALittleLight 6y ago
Rebuilt? Why? Do you read the code of conduct when you attend a conference? Personally, I haven't even read the code of conduct for my job, and certainly wouldn't read one if I was speaking at or attending a conference. The CoCs are completely unnecessary and, as shown in this example, arbitrarily enforced. In the blog post I read that their CoC prohibits threats and assaults. Consider how silly that is. If someone's threatening you or sexually assaulting you you're going to go the police, not report them for a code of conduct violation. Likewise, for more mundane stuff, it's all common sense. Don't be obnoxious, rude, make people uncomfortable, etc. If you are doing that, they'll ask you to leave and ban you from future attendance if it's severe. You shouldn't need a CoC to know that and they don't need one to do it. Consider something that's not covered by their CoC. Maybe I bring my pet skunk with me and they don't have a provision about skunks in their CoC. Are they now powerless? No, they're going to do what's sensible and ask me to not have the skunk, and if I say "Your code of conduct doesn't prohibit skunks" they're going to ask me to leave. Codes of conduct are silly. They create these dumb regulations and committees for no real reason and create the apparatus for mistakes like these. I'm actually shocked that Jeremy supported and still supports codes of conduct. He seems like a smart guy and they're obviously a bad idea.
- wslack 6y ago
  > The CoCs are completely unnecessary Where do you think they come from? The issues that people have to deal with at conferences aren't new [1] - and when the offender is a friend of the organizer, or works on their team, having a predefined process is good. It also means that people can't say "I didn't know it wasn't ok to ____" or "XXX punishment is too harsh" - a common issue with poor actors. A CoC means you can take action with less effort and drama when someone is being a jerk. 1: http://jessnevins.com/blog/?p=796 http://jessnevins.com/blog/?p=796
  - ALittleLight 6y ago
    I'm not sure I'd describe multiple committee meetings, emails, and phone calls as less work or less drama. If someone is causing a problem ask them to leave and/or ban them. Maybe you need some policy internally that says who handles complaints of this kind, but you don't need to tell all conference attendees they aren't allowed to threaten one another or assault each other. As far as friends of the organizers, I assume that's not settled with CoCs either. I bet if Jeremy were good friends with the right people this wouldn't have happened at all. Maybe it's not solved either in the CoC-free case, but I don't think it's worse and I think it's a relatively rare thing anyway. It's not just correct to say that "people can't say..." Of course they can. People don't read the codes of conduct and don't know that they say. Even if they did know, the language is bound to contain ambiguity. Jeremy, for example, didn't know he wasn't allowed to disagree with people. Genuine question for you: do you read the code of conduct at conferences you go to?
csnover 6y ago
> And the chuckling in the call when someone has already said they’re not in a proper emotional state is just bullying. I can’t speak to who this person was or why they did this, but I did just want to mention that there is at least one good faith explanation that isn’t straight up bullying. When I am in uncomfortable situations, I have a nervous chuckle. If I were in this call, giving this feedback to this person, I probably would have done that at least once. Thanks to some great feedback I once received, I learned that people were interpreting my nervous laughter as me thinking that what they were saying was dumb or wrong, even though this was not the case—I was just feeling anxious. It’s possible that this person really was chuckling at the OP to bully them, but it’s also equally possible that they were just feeling super nervous in an emotionally charged situation and laughed because of that.
- ScottBurson 6y ago
  Then it seems to me that you're not the sort of person who should be on such a phone call, unless you can get this habit under control.
  - paganel 6y ago
    > unless you can get this habit under control. The OP is not alone in that, I also chuckle/grin when under huge stress (it sometimes also happened when I heard about the very bad health condition of people really close to me), and saying that "one should get this habit under control" is like saying to depressed people just to smile so that they won't be depressed anymore (and it's also like calling depression just a "habit", but I digress).
    - luckylion 6y ago
      You need to get it under control if you want to work in the kind of roles where it creates issues. If you freeze up when you see fire, you can't be a fire fighter. If you faint when you see blood, don't be a surgeon. If you can't handle the stress of ganging up on someone, don't sign up for a CoC committee.
    - 6y ago
throwaway894345 6y ago
> an ostentatious “committee” that listens only to one side and never gives the other side the chance to get details on how things were perceived or why it’s a violation? If this upsets you, definitely do not research Title IX tribunals.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

giardini 6y ago

This is what lawsuits are for. A few good lawsuit victories would put an end to this.

freeone3000 6y ago
On what grounds?
- tomnipotent 6y ago
  There are legal expectations for how companies can terminate employees, I think it's only fair that professional organizations organizing professional events also be held legally accountable for the impacts they have on individuals. More often than not, these responsibilities emerge after onerous legal discourse, legal judgement, and promise of punishment.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - garmaine 6y ago
    You think it's only fair. That's not exactly an argument about legal grounds.
  - op00to 6y ago
    You may think it’s fair, but you don’t have a (in the US at least) constitutional right to be protected from inexperienced application of a code of conduct.
    - tomnipotent 6y ago
      > constitutional right to be protected from inexperienced application of a code of conduct. I'm not sure what the constitution have to do with it? Inevitably, all it takes is a few court rulings in favor of defendants claiming that CoC enforcements have caused harm.
- NullPrefix 6y ago
  Harassment
  - freeone3000 6y ago
    From the article, the alleged harassment was two phone calls and a zoom call, all of which the recipient answered and participated in. That's not harassment.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  Libel maybe; people can and have gotten fired over CoC violation allegations (warranted or not) and the consequent internet witch hunt; a famous case is "Donglegate". There's a dangerous trend where an accusation alone is enough to have people lose their jobs.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    That's was really nothing to do with a CoC violation directly though. It had to do with a social media blowup that embarrassed and inconvenienced companies in a way that made it easier for both companies to just fire the individuals involved. (As will tend to happen unless an individual has a lot of power.)
    - pseudalopex 6y ago
      And PyCon quickly added a policy telling attendees not to publicize incidents until staff can investigate.
  - freeone3000 6y ago
    Libel would require the allegations be, at the very least, false, and not an opinion. It appears all factual allegations here are true (he presented the talk, he used bits from another talk, he called a speaker wrong), and everything else is an opinion based on those facts. So it's not libel. And any improper employment termination suit would be against the employer, not a conference organizer, because in a very direct sense, it's your employer that chooses whether to fire you or not.
- ballenf 6y ago
  Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/intentional_infliction_of_emotional_distress https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/intentional_infliction_of_em... Might be a stretch, but would likely survive summary judgment.
- giardini 6y ago
  Anything! That's what's great about lawsuits! Defamation of character, violation of contract, overreach, etc. Ask a lawyer for a legal answer.

ALittleLight 6y ago

Rebuilt? Why? Do you read the code of conduct when you attend a conference? Personally, I haven't even read the code of conduct for my job, and certainly wouldn't read one if I was speaking at or attending a conference. The CoCs are completely unnecessary and, as shown in this example, arbitrarily enforced. In the blog post I read that their CoC prohibits threats and assaults. Consider how silly that is. If someone's threatening you or sexually assaulting you you're going to go the police, not report them for a code of conduct violation. Likewise, for more mundane stuff, it's all common sense. Don't be obnoxious, rude, make people uncomfortable, etc. If you are doing that, they'll ask you to leave and ban you from future attendance if it's severe. You shouldn't need a CoC to know that and they don't need one to do it. Consider something that's not covered by their CoC. Maybe I bring my pet skunk with me and they don't have a provision about skunks in their CoC. Are they now powerless? No, they're going to do what's sensible and ask me to not have the skunk, and if I say "Your code of conduct doesn't prohibit skunks" they're going to ask me to leave. Codes of conduct are silly. They create these dumb regulations and committees for no real reason and create the apparatus for mistakes like these. I'm actually shocked that Jeremy supported and still supports codes of conduct. He seems like a smart guy and they're obviously a bad idea.

wslack 6y ago
> The CoCs are completely unnecessary Where do you think they come from? The issues that people have to deal with at conferences aren't new [1] - and when the offender is a friend of the organizer, or works on their team, having a predefined process is good. It also means that people can't say "I didn't know it wasn't ok to ____" or "XXX punishment is too harsh" - a common issue with poor actors. A CoC means you can take action with less effort and drama when someone is being a jerk. 1: http://jessnevins.com/blog/?p=796 http://jessnevins.com/blog/?p=796
- ALittleLight 6y ago
  I'm not sure I'd describe multiple committee meetings, emails, and phone calls as less work or less drama. If someone is causing a problem ask them to leave and/or ban them. Maybe you need some policy internally that says who handles complaints of this kind, but you don't need to tell all conference attendees they aren't allowed to threaten one another or assault each other. As far as friends of the organizers, I assume that's not settled with CoCs either. I bet if Jeremy were good friends with the right people this wouldn't have happened at all. Maybe it's not solved either in the CoC-free case, but I don't think it's worse and I think it's a relatively rare thing anyway. It's not just correct to say that "people can't say..." Of course they can. People don't read the codes of conduct and don't know that they say. Even if they did know, the language is bound to contain ambiguity. Jeremy, for example, didn't know he wasn't allowed to disagree with people. Genuine question for you: do you read the code of conduct at conferences you go to?

csnover 6y ago

> And the chuckling in the call when someone has already said they’re not in a proper emotional state is just bullying. I can’t speak to who this person was or why they did this, but I did just want to mention that there is at least one good faith explanation that isn’t straight up bullying. When I am in uncomfortable situations, I have a nervous chuckle. If I were in this call, giving this feedback to this person, I probably would have done that at least once. Thanks to some great feedback I once received, I learned that people were interpreting my nervous laughter as me thinking that what they were saying was dumb or wrong, even though this was not the case—I was just feeling anxious. It’s possible that this person really was chuckling at the OP to bully them, but it’s also equally possible that they were just feeling super nervous in an emotionally charged situation and laughed because of that.

ScottBurson 6y ago
Then it seems to me that you're not the sort of person who should be on such a phone call, unless you can get this habit under control.
- paganel 6y ago
  > unless you can get this habit under control. The OP is not alone in that, I also chuckle/grin when under huge stress (it sometimes also happened when I heard about the very bad health condition of people really close to me), and saying that "one should get this habit under control" is like saying to depressed people just to smile so that they won't be depressed anymore (and it's also like calling depression just a "habit", but I digress).
  - luckylion 6y ago
    You need to get it under control if you want to work in the kind of roles where it creates issues. If you freeze up when you see fire, you can't be a fire fighter. If you faint when you see blood, don't be a surgeon. If you can't handle the stress of ganging up on someone, don't sign up for a CoC committee.
  - 6y ago

throwaway894345 6y ago

> an ostentatious “committee” that listens only to one side and never gives the other side the chance to get details on how things were perceived or why it’s a violation? If this upsets you, definitely do not research Title IX tribunals.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]