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Public Apology to Jeremy Howard
- young_unixer 6y agoAt least they apologized, unlike the Linux Foundation when they banned a guy from a conference for no good reason. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21476407 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21476407
- huhtenberg 6y agoWell, who was responsible for this exactly? Given the circumstances, they should do better than an amorphous "we".
- greenburger 6y agoThe letter was signed by the The NumFOCUS Code of Conduct Enforcement Committee. The members of that committee are listed on their code of conduct site. Seems pretty transparent to me. https://numfocus.org/code-of-conduct#persons-responsible https://numfocus.org/code-of-conduct#persons-responsible
- huhtenberg 6y agoThey caused a lot of grief to a particular person. It is only appropriate to sign their apology with their own names rather than a "committee", don't you think?
- fatbird 6y agoThis is an incredibly petty complaint.
- lr 6y agoThat was the committee at the time of writing. If anyone refers to this in, say, a year, they will have no idea who was responsible. As an analogy, transaction histories, if done in a DB, are not normalized because you wouldn't want the price and total sale of a past transaction to change when you later change the price of the items that were in that transaction. Sometimes, it's actually good to duplicate code/data/effort, especially if it helps to make something clear.
- part1of2 6y agoThere's overlap with the people on that Committee and the Board of Directors, so the transparency isn't exactly their intention
- criddell 6y agoSounds like The Code of Conduct Enforcement Team themselves need a code of conduct to operate against. I recommend immediately establishing a Code of Conduct Enforcement Team Code of Conduct. And since any CoC is meaningless when not enforced, there needs to be a Code of Conduct Enforcement Team Code of Conduct Enforcement Team.
- LegitShady 6y agoits codes of conduct all the way down.
- mcguire 6y agoNumFOCUS Code of Conduct Enforcement Team: Leah Silen, Executive Director Andy Terrel, President Nicole Foster, Executive Operations Administrator Walker Chabbott, Communications & Marketing Manager NumFOCUS Board of Directors: Andy Terrel Lorena Barba Jane Herriman Sylvain Corlay Katrina Riehl Stéfan van der Walt James Powell I was wondering how much overlap there would be.
- protomyth 6y agoWhy is the Communications & Marketing Manager on the CoC? That's one scary red flag.
- uberman 6y agoThe board should make those 4 people (3 staffers and the president) step down. If not, they should abandon any pretext about supporting a code of conduct while they use it to bully others.
- GiorgioG 6y agoI'm going to get downvoted for this, but: I'm against code of conducts because they're worse than the problems they try to solve. edit: In my opinion, code of conducts become a distraction and a cause for worry to anyone contributing to these projects because someone inevitably gets their feelings hurt and points to some well-intentioned rule in the CoC to get the 'offender' shamed/removed even if no harm was intended.
- eckza 6y agoI'm probably going to go down with you; but can you elaborate on that a little?
- ReptileMan 6y agoIt is the same problem as with censorship/fact checkers etc ... who do you trust to determine what is truth/fake news/coc violation and why do you trust them. In abstract the CoC are fine if are written and enforced by impartial angels with well developed common sense. The people that usually push for them are for politics and power.
- theshrike79 6y agoPeople start using them to thought-police people. Yes, a Code of Conduct is a good way to say no to harrasment, racism and stuff that's generally frowned upon. But, as this case proves, they devolve too easily into thought police level crap, where the "Code" becomes vague and filled with useless buzzwords, that could be construed to fit any situation someone disagrees with. And with the current cancel culture, there is a real, verifiable threat to people's livelihood when they are judged by Twitter Court for breaking a CoC.
- torstenvl 6y agoI'm not the OP but: - There is no presumption of innocence. - There are no formal rights of an accused. - There is no clear delineation of what constitutes a violation. - There is no right to confront those making an allegation. - There are no negative consequences for making a false allegation. - All of which leads to a system whereby people are subjected to ostracism and official censure for violating unwritten rules, all without proof. A person can find their life ruined merely by saying the wrong thing or in the wrong tone, all while being told that the system is just and fair and seeking to protect the vulnerable. It is dishonest, it is gaslighting, and it is frankly Soviet. I am a criminal defense attorney with experience in personnel law. I know first hand how important the presumption of innocence is, and I know first hand how disastrous these personnel management "policies" can be.
- chewxy 6y agoWhat was the context
- cpach 6y agohttps://www.fast.ai/2020/10/28/code-of-conduct/ https://www.fast.ai/2020/10/28/code-of-conduct/
- SommaRaikkonen 6y agoThe context for those out of the loop: https://www.fast.ai/2020/10/28/code-of-conduct/ https://www.fast.ai/2020/10/28/code-of-conduct/
- jf- 6y ago> NumFOCUS found I violated their Code of Conduct (CoC) at JupyterCon because my talk was not “kind”, because I said Joel Grus was “wrong” regarding his opinion that Jupyter Notebook is not a good software development environment Wow.
- Topgamer7 6y agoExcuse me sir, you've committed a thought crime for not following propaganda guidelines on independent thought and expression.
- dsq 6y agoYou have violated the CoC by presuming to use the honorific "sir", thus promoting gender opression!
- DaiPlusPlus 6y agoFWIW I've got a female friend who was in enlisted the US Navy and she spoke of female naval officers who were addressed as "Sir" rather than "Ma'am" (though most went by "Ma'am"). So I don't know how to feel about anything anymore.
- SilasX 6y agoThat's a common trope in sci-fi -- I think Star Trek TNG and Battlestar Gallactica had the female officers addressed as "sir".
- chowned 6y agoWe can criticize this specific instance of CoC enforcement without making fun of legitimate gender issues in technology.
- JohnJamesRambo 6y agohttps://twitter.com/jeremyphoward/status/1321626078985687042 https://twitter.com/jeremyphoward/status/1321626078985687042 https://blog.jupyter.org/jeremy-howard-8dace7b4a34a https://blog.jupyter.org/jeremy-howard-8dace7b4a34a For people like myself needing backstory.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- btilly 6y agoSee https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24926214 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24926214 for previous related discussion.
- forgot_user1234 6y agowe - https://numfocus.org/community/people https://numfocus.org/community/people
- paulschreiber 6y agoThis blog post is unsigned. They should have put their names on it.
- shureluck 6y ago100% agreed. If they dont mind publicly making an issue with a persons name, they should have to expose their own.
- curiousllama 6y agoA CoC is exactly as effective as the leadership that writes & enforces it. Sounds like the Board wasn’t happy with how this was enforced, so they stepped in. Good on them. That said, maybe, uh, try and train your folks if you want them to enforce things like that.
- HideousKojima 6y ago>A CoC is exactly as effective as the leadership that writes & enforces it. And the sorts of people who try to implement CoCs and get on enforcement boards are almost invariably the sort of busybodies that see it as a club to beat their enemies with, which is why I'm opposed to them.
- rdtsc 6y agoAn interesting thing to think about is if they would apologize if this wasn't published in a blog and discussed online. Let's say Jeremy just walked away quietly in disgust and didn't say anything publicly. What would have they done? I would guess that they would have chucked it under "We did a great job enforcing the code of conduct. Problem solved".
- Benjmhart 6y agoWell, if nobody tells you you're being a shit, humans rarely realize it on their own, squeaky wheels get the grease.
- TuringNYC 6y agoI think the question is specifically regarding, what if a less famous person encountered this issue
- LegitShady 6y agoAnother question is, how many less famous people have already encountered this issue?
- csours 6y agoThis might be going too far, but Type A personalities don't realize they're being shits. This allows them to get things done, as they don't care very much about what other people think; but sometimes it means that they deliver solutions/products without much empathy for the end users and the individual contributors who made it.
- minimaxir 6y agoI know a lot of Hacker News users don't like it, but fact is that getting to the top of Hacker News is often the most-successful driver for getting something fixed in the tech industry. Another good example of the impact of HN was the Triplebyte profile controversy (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23279837 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23279837) a few months ago, which 100% would have gone through unchanged if it weren't for HN driving awareness. (followup: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23303037 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23303037)
- Dylan16807 6y agoThis is a good response as far as the actual process goes, but it doesn't really do anything to address the claims that "There were two totally different Codes of Conduct with different requirements linked in different places" and "I was held to a different, undocumented and uncommunicated standard"
- mnd999 6y agoIt’s been passed to the board of directors to investigate further. I would expect to hear more once they’ve completed their investigation.
- bosie 6y agowho seem to be overlapping quite a bit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24945944 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24945944
- Volundr 6y agoThere is one person on both, and the apology clearly states he won't be involved: Because of the missteps of this committee, we have asked the NumFOCUS Board of Directors, minus those involved, to take over the work of the committee as outlined in the appeals process of our enforcement guide.
- robocat 6y agoI read the apology without knowing the backstory. It just feels so weasel-worded: they apologise for their process but certainly don’t make any suggestion that was innocent so actually increasing the smear. A proper apology also needs personal, private apologies from the committee members. I can only hope that Jeremy receives a better apology than this for the shit he has been made to chew by them.
- marcinzm 6y agoThey don't believe he was innocent, at best they believe the question is still up for debate and at worst they believe he is guilty but are putting off a public claim until things calm down.
- albatross13 6y agoI, for one, welcome our new censoring overlords.
- realty_geek 6y agoIs this what they call a COC-up?
- eznzt 6y agoJust the fact they have a group called "Diversity & Inclusion" is enough to steer away from these people. https://numfocus.org/category/diversity-inclusion-disc https://numfocus.org/category/diversity-inclusion-disc
- omginternets 6y agoI suspect you're being downvoted because people are misreading your tone, but I agree with the overall sentiment: D&I is often (though not always) coded language for "critical-theory ideology". I'm likewise suspicious of organizations that reify this in a particular board or department, especially when the company culture seems to be very procedural, bureaucratic and/or CYA. When it comes to weeding out *ism, these groups have a tendency to care only about hit-rate with little or no regard for false alarms. In extreme cases, they view any disagreement with their principles and practices as an affront in and of itself -- one that calls for punishment. Edit: I don't really think the parent comment needed to be flagged ...
- skinkestek 6y ago> Edit: I don't really think the parent comment needed to be flagged ... You can vouch: - click on the timestamp - click vouch - IIRC dang will taking vouching privileges if he spots someone abusing it
- omginternets 6y agoI did not know this! Thanks!
- skinkestek 6y agoHappy to help! Please use, and use it with caution :-) (Also now that you know the timestamp trick: there's also a "favorite" link there to mark the link as a favorite. You can find favorited posts and comments in your profile page.)
- kurbin 6y agoThey say "Because of the missteps of this committee, we have asked the NumFOCUS Board of Directors to take over the work of the committee", yet the 7-person board of directors overlaps with the 4-person code of conduct committee. Board of Directors: https://numfocus.org/community/people https://numfocus.org/community/people CoC Committee: https://numfocus.org/code-of-conduct#persons-responsible https://numfocus.org/code-of-conduct#persons-responsible
- pelario 6y agoC'mon, overlap n = 1
- kurbin 6y agoThe only two non-staffers (and thus decisionmakers) on the committee were both on the board at some point.
- uberman 6y agoThe president (who presumably is also the chairman) was the only "non-staffer" on the committee and thus almost certainly had full responsibility already. The rest of the board should ask for his resignation.
- lolinder 6y agoIt's just Andy Terrel who's in both, right? That's not a huge amount of overlap. Enough to potentially cause a problem, but 6 members of the board being different (and a whole lot of public backlash) should probably be enough to resolve this.
- nickff 6y agoThe 'overlapping person/people' (Andy Terrel in this case) should recuse themselves. Even then, it is no guarantee of impartial results, given that the committee reports to the board.
- 6y ago
- smeeth 6y agoOk, I'm not heavily steeped in this, but at first glance this seems like total bullshit. Note that the original complaint was both 1) that the code of conduct people were being, well, total assholes, and 2) that the complaints were so obviously ridiculous that the entire exercise seemed like it could only be a power trip for those involved. The apology addressed neither. They apologized for being unclear about what stage of the investigation they were in. No apology for laughing at Jeremy's distress, no apology for the witch hunt, etc. The grand remedy? Replace 3/4 of the people on the committee. Did I miss something here?
- marcinzm 6y agoWhy would you expect people who have shown little empathy up to this point and seem to enjoy their sense of power to suddenly act different when confronted? It's a bureaucratic BS statement from people who revel in bureaucratic BS.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y agoThe CoC members should all be expelled from the NumFocus community. They have done far more to make NumFocus a a non-welcoming community than just about any CoC violation.
- xiphias2 6y agoAnother option is to just directly fund developers instead of through organizations. I tried to find the audits on the NumFOCUS website, but I wasn't able to find how much of the donations they are getting gets to the developers themselves. I would imagine, that it could be even under 50%.
- sigmaprimus 6y agoJust curious, what would You suggest as a remedy to this situation? This is an honest questions please don't get offended.
- rmrfstar 6y agoHonestly? They should be assigned 12 hours of reading that covers the history of due process, what it is, and why we have it.
- part1of2 6y agoSo the Code of Conduct Committee violated their own Code of Conduct, but they won't take action against themselves. https://numfocus.org/code-of-conduct https://numfocus.org/code-of-conduct
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y agoIn the past many societies had a rule where if you falsely accused someone, once it had been found you falsely accused them, you would suffer the same penalties that they would have suffered. Maybe it is time to bring back those rules for CoC complaints.
- rootsudo 6y ago1. Who are "these" people? 2. Is this org of any significant importance? 3. Why should I care. Or, am I being to mean and should someone here complain about my topics? Meanwhile, is numfocus really on the map. Until yesterday, I never heard about them before.
- ProAm 6y ago> Until yesterday, I never heard about them before. the world is much bigger than your sphere of awareness.
- claydavisss 6y ago...which is why they take such glee in exercising arbitrary power...they're otherwise a collection of over-educated nobodies who can't figure out why more degrees doesn't equal more money like mom said it would
- jackallis 6y agoi hope they called Jeremy first to apologize before posting this.
- LegitShady 6y agoi dont think he would take the call, given his response. they weren't fair from the start, dismissive and one sided, and now have a non-apology for PR purposes. They broke into his house, robbed him blind, burned it down, and are now apologizing for the communication error of not having knocked. Next time they'll work on the communication - the one sided dismissive process and lack of fair treatment, and the ridiculous nature of the issue itself, is not in the apology. This is PR.
- joshstrange 6y agoHere are the people responsible who are too cowardly to sign their real names: Leah Silen, Executive Director leah@numfocus.org +1 (512) 831-2870 or +1 (972) 896-3688 Andy Terrel, President andy@numfocus.org Nicole Foster, Executive Operations Administrator nicole@numfocus.org Walker Chabbott, Communications & Marketing Manager walker@numfocus.org I find it disgraceful how mealy-mouthed their response was, how they conveniently spread the blame out across the committee, don't directly address where the ball was dropped (and by who), don't even address not letting him tell his side of the story, and then trying to excuse their actions with a distracting paragraph about why the video hadn't been posted. I found Jeremy's post yesterday [0] very measured and clear, this on the other hand was a garbage "apology" that sidestepped any real responsibility or consequences. [0] https://www.fast.ai/2020/10/28/code-of-conduct/ https://www.fast.ai/2020/10/28/code-of-conduct/ (HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24926214 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24926214)
- iaw 6y agoPlease don't dox people in a charged thread like this. There is no point in putting their phone number or emails here.
- joshstrange 6y agoIt's not doxing if it's public info: https://numfocus.org/code-of-conduct#persons-responsible https://numfocus.org/code-of-conduct#persons-responsible
- dang 6y agoThe word doxing means different things to different people, but please don't bring anyone's personal details into a thread as ammunition in an argument or to rile up a public posse against them. That's not what HN is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- joshstrange 6y ago
- dshpala 6y agoMy new funtime activity: filing bogus claims against conference talks.
- draw_down 6y agoI’m honestly amazed that they wrote even this small potatoes. So much of the sniping around codes of conduct is so filled with enmity and nobody seems to ever want to back down, even when they seem to have been clearly in the wrong or overreacting. Personally I have no interest in this whole conference circuit. The knives are out; people who leverage these situations are just nasty, nasty, nasty, and often totally shameless. I don’t need that in my life, and whatever meager recognition would come from giving talks at conferences is unbelievably not worth it. Not even close.
- Jerry2 6y agoThis whole incident is like something straight out of a Kafka novel. The level of insanity in tech community is just shocking to me.
- rmrfstar 6y agoNot just Kafka, it's got a pretty nasty Orwellian side too. [1] [1] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190216/10394141613/facebook-ups-surveillance-users-to-keep-tabs-people-who-dont-like-facebook.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190216/10394141613/faceb...
- turbinerneiter 6y agoPeople: let's make coc against bullies Bullies: use coc to bully
- shureluck 6y agoWhen will the general public learn that adding more rules and education simply gives ill-intentioned people more complicated ways to screw others over.
- omginternets 6y agoAt 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.
- wskinner 6y agoThis 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.
- xenadu02 6y agoCoCs 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.
- omginternets 6y agoI think I agree with your points on the surface, but disagree with (what I presume to be) your implications. It sounds like you're arguing that the current system is somehow a step forward. I very much question that. To your point, CoCs are not really the issue. The issue is that CoCs and their subsequent enforcement are often advanced by ideological zealots engaging in witch hunts. I don't see how that is in any way an improvement over the status quo. I see no evidence that suggests these zealots are able to effectively deal with real harassment when it happens, either. >All we can do is judge them by their actions. Quite right.
- g42gregory 6y agoThis apology rings hollow to me. A person of Jeremy Howard's statue was able to raise the issue in the media and get it resolved. I would like to understand what would happen to a person who is not of a Jeremy Howard's statue and does not have such a access to the public discourse?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- xienze 6y ago> A person of Jeremy Howard's statue was able to raise the issue in the media and get it resolved. But it's not though. They aren't apologizing for dragging him through the mud, they're apologizing that people got the impression that they had already rendered judgement on these complaints. They're still "under investigation." It's really not an apology at all.
- sillysaurusx 6y agohttps://en.meming.world/images/en/thumb/5/5d/James_Franco_First_Time.jpg/300px-James_Franco_First_Time.jpg https://en.meming.world/images/en/thumb/5/5d/James_Franco_Fi... Sadly, it seems true. If you don't have an audience, no one will care what happens to you.
- Rebelgecko 6y agoOne thing I found interesting is the only name in the letter is Jeremy's. It's "signed" by the committee. Is that a reputation protection technique? A way to diffuse responsibility? It seems like an imbalance of power to be able to drag someone's name through the mud while being anonymous yourself
- marcinzm 6y agoAm I reading this correctly? It seems to say that Jeremy is still considered guilty of a CoC violation but if he appeals then the board will hear it (rather than the committee). So Jeremey has to file an appeal or the decision will stand? So the onus to fix this is on Jeremy who seems so exhausted by this whole process that he's quit conference talks? That seems a response that lacks any sense of empathy to Jeremy. edit: Okay. On Twitter they said that no judgement was made even now. However their enforcement policy (which the apology explicitly references) only mentions appeal if an action was already decided upon "Give them a place to appeal to if there is one, but in the meantime the action stands." Given that not adhering to their own process and written documents was a chief complaint it seems they haven't learned much yet from the incident.
- ggoo 6y agoYep, this is a non-apology apology.
- bryanlarsen 6y agoI read it quite differently. It sounds to me that he is still accused but they have not confirmed the violation yet. The committee has recused themselves from that decision.
- marcinzm 6y agoThat seems correct based on their Twitter comments however their apology reference something (appeal) and a context (enforcement policy) which only applies (as written in the enforcement policy) if an action (read: penalty) was already decided upon. Given the original issues Jeremy had I would have assumed they'd take extra care to follow their own as written process and documents in the follow up. Clearly not.
- LegitShady 6y agoTheir own communication to him said that they were discussing the results of the investigation with him, without talking to him during the investigation. They're not being honest.
- 6y ago
- Spinnaker_ 6y agoThis all reminds me of a talk Justice Scalia once gave. The gist was that the US Constitution isn't very good compared to a lot of countries' equivalent document. For example, the Soviet's Bill of Rights was undoubtedly better. The important issue is how you structure the governing bodies and separate powers. If you don't do this correctly then your Constitution, or bill of rights, or Code of Conduct, is worthless. I don't think the tech community has figured out this second part.
- lifeisstillgood 6y agoWhat fascinates me is that all companies and organisations (at a certain scale) will have to decide a governance structure that is better than - that guy is in charge. Co-ops are one step forward but that was basically a century ago and stopped. What's the 21 C answer?
- adamcharnock 6y agoI came across the concept of teal [1] companies a few years ago, perhaps that may be relevant / of interest. The article talks about the various ways of structuring organisations, giving each a colour. The author sees teal companies as the latest evolution. [1]: https://www.strategy-business.com/article/00344?gko=30876 https://www.strategy-business.com/article/00344?gko=30876
- tkt 6y agoThank you for this. I hadn’t seen the teal management approach described before.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> This all reminds me of a talk Justice Scalia once gave. The gist was that the US Constitution isn't very good compared to a lot of countries' equivalent document. For example, the Soviet's Bill of Rights was undoubtedly better. I am assuming Scalia would have been referring to the 1977 Soviet Constitution [0], which has no "Bill of Rights", but does have Chapter 6 (concerning equality) and Chapter 7 (concerning basic rights and duties of citizens). Taken together, are Chapter 6 & 7 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution "undoubtedly better" than the US Constitutions "Bill of Rights" (Amendments I-X, possibly also XXVII, which was one of the original 12 articles proposed as the Bill of Rights)? I'm going to say most Americans would say "no". I mean, sure, lots of people would say that Article 34-35, in Chapter 6, are more explicit and complete on their face than the protections in the US Constitution (which have been mostly read into the Bill of Rights against the federal government by way of the Due Process Clause of the 5th Amendment, and against the states through the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the 14th, but aren't very explicit in either case.) But I think many people who start out liking where Article 36 seems headed in the first sentence (though they might wonder why it is reiterating what is already explicit in Article 34) would be worried by the turn it takes after that: "Citizens of the USSR of different races and nationalities have equal rights. Exercise of these rights is ensured by a policy of all-round development and drawing together of all the nations and nationalities of the USSR, by educating citizens in the spirit of Soviet patriotism and socialist internationalism, and by the possibility to use their native language and the languages of other peoples in The USSR. Any direct or indirect limitation of the rights of citizens or establishment of direct or indirect privileges on grounds of race or nationality, and any advocacy of racial or national exclusiveness, hostility, or contempt, are punishable by law.") And I think many in the US (especially left of center) would like most of the first part of Chapter 7, say Articles 39-58, with the exception of the last sentence of Article 39 ("Enjoyment by citizens of their rights and freedoms must not be to the detriment of the interests of society or the state, or infringe the rights of other citizens") which would raise a lot of alarm bells, and the introduction to Article 51 ("In accordance with the aims of building communism") which pretty much everyone not a Communist would have problems with. But then things take a big turn starting at Article 59 ("Citizens' exercise of their rights and freedoms is inseparable from the performance of their duties and obligations. Citizens of the USSR are obliged to observe the Constitution of the USSR and Soviet laws, comply with the standards of socialist conduct, and uphold the honour and dignity of Soviet citizenship") which raises the same alarm bells that were probably going off from Article 39. There are people who make arguments that something liek Article 60 ("It is the duty of, and matter of honour for, every able-bodied citizen of the USSR to work conscientiously in his chosen, socially useful occupation, and strictly to observe labour discipline. Evasion of socially useful work is incompatible with the principles of socialist society") ought to be a rule in the US, but they tend to be exactly the people that would find the positive rights earlier in Chapter 7 unacceptable, and vice versa. I think, left to right (even if they express something similar as a social expectation) most Americans would recoil at the first sentence of Article 62 as a Constitutional mandate: "Citizens of the USSR are obliged to safeguard the interests of the Soviet state, and to enhance its power and prestige." And, while there might be broad support for the idea that the duties of citizenship articulated in the rest of Articles 60-69 are legitimate duties of citizenship, or at least virtues of citizenship, at least if you stripped the explicit references to socialism, I don't think most Americans would accept them as Constitutional mandates tied to the express relationship between freedom and duties in Article 59. Ask yourself, would you really accept the base US Constitution and its structure of separation of powers, with the Bill of Rights and similar amendments that deal with rights of people and not primarily structure of government (say, Amendments I-X, XIII-XV, XIX, XXIV, and XXVI) replaced by Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution (even with removal of by-name references to socialism/communism)? I'm going to say that while most Americans might like some aspects of Chapter 6/7, they'd reject that idea and the concept that the Soviet "Bill of Rights" was "undoubtedly better", even if they didn't know the source was the 1977 Soviet Constitution. [0] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Soviet_Union_(1977,_Unamended) https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Soviet_Un...
- lr 6y agoTo all of the people who hate CoCs: Just don't patronize any forum, software repo, or conference that has them. Not so easy to do, right? Same thing with people who get harassed all the time: It's not so easy for them to complain and have anyone take them seriously. Are CoCs perfect? Absolutely not. But allowing decades of harassment to continue unfettered until the most perfect solution is found, is not going to work, either. Of course, the people who hate CoCs don't think there have been decades of harassment. Or, if they even acknowledge harassment, they probably believe it is the victim's fault in the first place, or the victim's fault for not speaking up. I don't think minds are going to change either way. Just one more thing in our increasingly polarized world, that tech is actually making worse, not better. (Oh, so many subjective comments here -- how did I do capturing them?)
- 1propionyl 6y agoThe problem here isn't primarily the Code of Conduct itself, but rather how it was applied (and by extension those applying it). The real challenge to building better communities isn't writing up a list of things that people shouldn't do. (Though that is a first step.) The real challenge is building (and maintaining) social structures, culture, and institutions that members trust to apply the rules fairly and prudently.
- lr 6y agoI do agree, but I was referring to all of the comments from people who are saying that CoCs are worse than the problem they are trying to solve. I don't agree with that. As for building things fairly and prudently, well, that, sadly, is something humans are very bad at. Life on Earth could be so much better for so many people, yet there are too many (powerful) people who just don't care about anything other than themselves.
- commandlinefan 6y ago> Not so easy to do, right? Well, there was a time when I was actually really excited about the promise of open-source software, and kept looking for ways to contribute and "join the revolution". There was a time when the thought of gathering together in a room or even a conference hall full of people who were as passionate about software development as I was sounded amazing. Now? I'll write code if you pay me to do it, otherwise I'll find other things to do with my time. Conferences? Not even for money.
- rainyMammoth 6y agoWhat a ridiculous world we live in. Yet another symptom of the left and the quest for everyone to never ever be offended by anything ever. Those kangaroo courts are such a joke.
- aroundtown 6y agoThis isn't an apology, this is damage control. The tone is all wrong. You don't "issue a public apology" you say "We apologize for ... " or "We are sorry for ...".
- sweetheart 6y agoReally? They are very clear in it saying “we fucked up, in these ways, and acknowledge the pain our actions caused. Here’s how we are fixing ourselves so it doesn’t happen again”. That feels like the wrong tone?
- kodah 6y agoGrading peoples or organizations apologies and credibility from a distance is largely fruitless and mostly consists of you layering your own experience on someone elses words.
- frereubu 6y agoWhat I find positive in this outcome is that Jeremy Howard challenged the organisation to live up to their principles, and they are apparently going to do so. Without the CoC, this would not have been such a clear-cut issue. For those who would do away with CoCs entirely, I suggest you read the HN perennial The Tyrrany Of Structurelessness: https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm CoCs are complex in many ways, but it's much better to have a formal process that allows people to be held to account rather than a structureless void which enables people to discriminate without the ability to challenge them to something they've explicitly signed up to.
- ac2u 6y agoIt wasn’t the CoC that resolved the issue in this instance, it was the fact that the he had the community clout to raise the profile of his mistreatment. Arguably it wouldn’t have been an issue if the CoC didn’t exist.
- frereubu 6y agoI don't agree that the CoC caused the issue - note that I said "this would not have been such a clear-cut issue". These people may have complained anyway, and if they were close with the higher-ups then Howard wouldn't have had anything to point to and say "Hey! That doesn't fit this!" Visibility on HN surely helps, but still, even if this had reach HN without a CoC the issue would have been easier to dismiss. This is the clarity that explicitly stating your aims offers.
- _Nat_ 6y agoDunno how a CoC may've been material to resolving this situation. I mean, say there wasn't a CoC, then couldn't the accused still have written a blog post about how they were kicked out for merely saying that someone else was "wrong"? I think the concern is about a formal system being properly implemented. For example, say that we add a formal control mechanism to a door that wasn't previously automated. This has two advantages: (1) the door's now automatic; (2) we can ensure that the door is completely safe, never accidentally closing on anyone. Awesome, right? But, if the door's automation-logic is faulty, then it's not fully safe. In fact, it can now falsely close on people in situations where it couldn't before. I think that's what people are worried about here: the CoC appears to have enabled a destructive interaction that, absent the CoC, may've not occurred. In real life, we usually save legal battles for the big issues because working out formal rule systems can be so cumbersome. People dread going to court because of what a hassle it is! But I don't think that the legal system is malicious; it just takes a lot of effort to analyze things. Cheaper versions of the legal system could be scary, potentially enabling all sorts of faulty, undesirable behaviors. And that's what I think folks fear in CoC's: a naively implemented formal system running amok. They'd rather have to manually open a door every time than risk an automatic door mistakenly closing on them sometimes.
- throw7 6y agoAs best I can tell, nothing really changed... this type of situation can happen again at numfocus. Implicit to having a code of conduct, is what you do to enforce it. That's the hard part. The problem stems from organizations that setup these types of disciplinary structures/groups without understanding even the basics of due process. Note, I'm just reading about this now and have no knowledge of this organization prior, but that CoC group at numfocus reads more like a star chamber than anything.
- jph00 6y agoI'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 that we can discuss the results of our investigation with you" - nothing further. During the call, the committee stated the list of violations, and said "that is what the reporters stated, and what we found". I asked why they didn't take a statement from me before that finding, and they said "we all watched the video, so we could see for ourselves the violation". - The committee offered in their apology email to me to have a follow-up discussion, and I declined the offer.
- onewhonknocks 6y agoWe do not know each other, but I just wanted you to know that I support you!
- hintymad 6y agoI 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....
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- omginternets 6y agoI respect and admire your class in response to these events. The temptation to get vindictive must be enormous, as must be the temptation to demand a groveling apology. I noted your support for diversity and inclusion initiatives —- with which I sympathize —- but I’m also increasingly uneasy about the pressure from certain interest groups to “judicialize” organizations. I’ve noticed a tendency for many (though certainly not all) CoC-enforcement bodies to devolve into witch hunts, and this appears to be part of what happened in the present case. If this is something you’re interested in discussing publicly, I’d be interested in your thoughts on the matter. I can also understand if you’d prefer to stay away from that discussion. In any case, please let me reiterate: I admire how you handled this.
- PragmaticPulp 6y agoThis is a classic non-apology. It’s well-written enough that it sounds good on quick read, but let’s break it down: 1. They use “We’re sorry you feel that way” to recast the issue as a simple miscommunication. > We acknowledge that it was an extremely stressful experience, being summoned to an interview with several members of a committee, after a week had passed, and without knowing the nature of the complaint. 2. Now that the goal posts have been moved, they apologize for the miscommunication and hurt feelings, conveniently sidestepping any wrongdoing in their intentions or actions: > We apologize for causing this stress and will work to improve our process to avoid this from happening in the future 3. They go on to try to defuse the supposed miscommunication by proposing a new narrative that diminishes part of the victim’s original complaint: > To clarify a crucial miscommunication that we take responsibility for: 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. We apologize for not communicating that clearly from the beginning. We have not recommended any enforcement actions. 4. They then immediately contradict the previous point, admitting that they had indeed recommended some enforcement actions (asking the victim to postpone posting their talk) and that they clearly communicated to the victim that a violation had occurred: > We had asked to postpone the posting of the talk to the JupyterCon shared space until the complaints are resolved. We realize now that we used overly charged language and miscommunicated the stage of the investigation when discussing the complaints, i.e. saying a violation occurred. 5. Their “What we should have done” sidesteps the core of the issue and again tries to rewrite the narrative as a simple miscommunication about an investigation, despite having just admitted they told Jeremey that a violation had occurred. > We should have been clearer saying multiple complaints have been made and the alleged violation investigation had not been resolved. 6. Finally, they conclude without apologizing for or even acknowledging the core issue of the ridiculous complaints. They move the goalposts to a different team within NumFOCUS, while casually admitting that this new team will be continuing the investigation into Jeremy. > Because of the missteps of this committee, we have asked the NumFOCUS Board of Directors to take over the work of the committee as outlined in the appeals process of our enforcement guide. Unfortunately, this non-apology was clearly revised over and over again by someone with significant PR chops. At first read it sounds like they’re taking responsibility and taking action, but a closer read reveals that they’ve simply sidestepped the core issues, apologized for easy straw man arguments, and managed to reframe the debate in the best light possible for themselves. If NumFOCUS had simply stepped up and dismissed the violations, absolved Jeremey of wrongdoing, and apologized for letting it get this far, we’d all be in a much better place. Instead, the situation is right back where it started (investigation continues behind closed doors at NumFOCUS).
- onewhonknocks 6y agoI find the timing of this 'apology' to be somewhat analogous to that of 'Friday news dumps'.
- pseudalopex 6y agoIt blew up on a Thursday.
- schrodera 6y agoWas a kangaroo court, is a kangaroo court. And that is what's wrong about this to resolve issues using a CoC. Harassment is of course real, and being a supportive organizations that helps and supports a victim in legal action is a better way to go.
- hevelvarik 6y agoWow this that story where the dude said he thought the other guy was wrong. And this is their response to their handling of it. They weren’t sure if there was a violation but responded to a couple complaints by bringing this guy in front of a committee of sorts to get to the bottom of it and are now investigating their process to ensure a better process What a torrential tempest in the tiniest of teapots, sometime you can take yourself too seriously. For the younger among us there was a time when you could organize a conference or group or project without conjuring a set of rules governing social interactions, and establishing processes for the addressing of rule violations and appealing said addressing. There’s nothing to be done about it. If people enjoy being treated and treating everyone like babies then it is what it is.
- tchaffee 6y ago> there was a time when you could organize a conference or group or project without conjuring a set of rules governing social interactions Yes there was a "magical" time of a couple decades like that, I remember it well! No rules were needed because it was an ivory tower of almost all white men. Who far too often would act inappropriately towards the very few women who would come to a tech conference. Making the sexism problem in our industry even worse by driving women away from these events. Is a code of conduct all on its own going to fix these problems? Probably not. And as we have seen in this case, they can even be misused. The important thing to me is that people are working to solve the long-existing problems of sexism and racism in our industry. And learning in the process about what works and what does not work. Making mistakes is part of the learning process in improving anything in life. If you think the tech industry and conferences don't need to be improved, then the ivory tower worked for you. Not so much for others. > If people enjoy being treated and treating everyone like babies The sexism and racism didn't fix itself, did it? Clearly some people in our industry do need loads of hand holding, clearly defined rules, and consequences, in order to act like respectful adults in a social setting.
- spoondan 6y agoI appreciate that they decided to apologize, but I find this statement lackluster at best. A better, more earnest apology would properly address the major concerns Jeremy raised. This touches on just two of the issues and then only superficially. I don't expect them to lay everything bare and pay public penance. I'm not interested in assigning blame. But apologies ring hollow when you don't even discuss what, if anything, you feel you did wrong. In fact, in committing only to "improve our process to avoid this from happening," it reads as if they take no meaningful responsibility for how they handled informing Jeremy. It feels as if they are sorry Jeremy was stressed out for a week but unapologetic for any of the numerous and hard-to-defend actions they took to cause that stress. They blame the process, as if it required them to inform Jeremy of a complaint they weren't ready and willing to discuss with him, to assure him they'd give him details the following day and then renege on that, to not give him adequate time to understand the accusation and formulate a response. And it is apparent, from the story as both sides tell it, that far from a "crucial miscommunication," the Committee was accurately communicating what they thought. Their error was in prematurely drawing conclusions and not giving Jeremy the benefit of the doubt. They also don't address the confusion around having two differing codes; the serious and counterproductive issues with Codes of Conduct prescribing acceptable behaviors (instead of proscribing unacceptable ones), especially when such prescriptions are vague; or Jeremy's accusation that the Committee, itself, failed to follow their own Code(s) of Conduct and Enforcement Guide. And while I would not want or expect them to discuss the specifics of Jeremy's case (unless they have his consent to do so), I do think it's necessary to discuss the issue of whether they believe merely making someone uncomfortable through disagreement on relevant topics can (let alone should) be the sole/primary basis for a finding of misconduct, especially when the people made uncomfortable are not even the person that is being disagreed with. Perhaps they've given Jeremy a more in-depth and sincere apology and explanation in private. But I don't think that suffices. Like Jeremy, I believe that Codes of Conduct can (and often do) play an important role in improving our communities and events. I'm sure the Enforcement Committee would claim to believe this as well. But the numerous mistakes they've made in this matter do serious harm, not just to Jeremy, but to the larger cause. The way to mitigate (if not remedy) those harms is by honestly admitting to mistakes
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- kazinator 6y agoFrom 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 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.
- re 6y ago> Okay, they sponsor existing projects and then take credit for them [...] I don't see any references to NumFOCUS in the NumPy Wikipedia page. The NumPy homepage makes absolutely no reference to NumFOCUS at all. I have no connection to any of these projects but some very basic browsing on these sites refutes your assertions. You're using questionable criteria to make dubious claims. NumFOCUS was founded by the primary creators of many of these tools specifically to support them; it's not some unaffiliated third-party trying to take credit. > NumPy is a Sponsored Project of NumFOCUS, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity in the United States. NumFOCUS provides NumPy with fiscal, legal, and administrative support to help ensure the health and sustainability of the project. https://numpy.org/about/ https://numpy.org/about/ > By 2010, a critical mass of projects were in need of a more formal structure to provide support and help to organize the community. [...] Travis Oliphant (author of NumPy), Fernando Pérez (author of IPython), Perry Greenfield (author of Numarray and Astropy), John Hunter (author of Matplotlib), Jarrod Millman (release manager for SciPy), and Anthony Scopatz (who came up with the name “NumFOCUS”) became the founding board of NumFOCUS. https://numfocus.org/history https://numfocus.org/history
- throwaway69123 6y agoFor those of you who are pro CoC I would be genuinely interested in your perspective if the laws were written as vaguely and subjectively as most CoC are? It is my opinion and from what I’ve seen the majority of enforcement actions occur in the least fair way possible and have more in common with dictatorship kangaroo courts than those we are accustomed to in the western world.