4 ms·

I haven't been to a conference in years because of COVID, but I've been to plenty mainly web and Python related before. Almost all of them had keynote speakers

I haven't been to a conference in years because of COVID, but I've been to plenty mainly web and Python related before. Almost all of them had keynote speakers, who received a prominent spot, usually in the morning and on multi-tier conferences the only talk scheduled at that time slot. Based on content of most of those talks the expectation was to take a wider or deeper or just different look at our fields and not mainly present a smaller idea or solution. But it also doesn't matter if you or I personally do or don't care about distinction. There is one made clearly and as soon as it is made, there is an implicit promotion or demotion depending on which way a person is being moved and one should have very good reasons to demote anyone publicly as they did here.

glogla 3y ago
It is funny because at least for me personally, it is the other way around. I am most interested in deeper technical talks (or cool lightning talks that broaden my horizons) and keynotes often feel like highlevel generic talks that are very skippable - often aimed at CTOs and not engineers. Also, "prominent spot in the morning" is exactly the opposite for me as well, because conferences are all about networking and evening networking means hangover ...
- irjustin 3y ago
  In that sense I loved the Ruby conferences where the keynote was commonly matz or tenderlove talking about some crazy deep problem ruby was tackling about memory, jit, or speed tradeoffs. Sadly haven't been to one in years since they haven't come back to SG
arp242 3y ago
I'm not saying the process was brilliant, but there's a difference between "the organizers were chaotic, didn't have their shit together, and need to do better" and "the organizers intentionally acted cruelly in an act of racist vindictiveness out of sheer malice". That's really my main objection to this post; and in the context of the accusations it makes the change of title is not really a big deal, or so it seems to me anyway. Or to put it this way: if it was me I probably would have been a bit disappointed, but I would also assume that's just the chaos of things. But like I said in my other comment: I suspect this is really about general dissatisfaction with the Rust team, and that this is merely the final straw: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36102292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36102292
- nailer 3y ago
  > “the organizers intentionally acted cruelly in an act of racist vindictiveness out of sheer malice“ The characterisation of those actions as vindictive seems accurate, but I don’t think the blog post is stating that the actions were racist, rather that it was a missed opportunity to represent the wider population at rustconf. Whether you think that’s good or tokenisation is a separate matter, the point is that the article is not claiming that downgrading the speaker was racism.
  - arp242 3y ago
    The sentence "Systems have memory and biases. If the people that make up the system don't work to fight against these, they are perpetuated" in particular came off as more than merely "missed opportunity", although "racism" is probably too strong of a word too, but I don't know of anything else that fits better. Either way, I don't really see why it would be vindictive either? Maybe I missed some information somewhere, but I've seen nothing that would indicate anything other than the most likely explanation: they rescheduled because they assumed JeanHeyd just didn't care as he indicated he didn't want to do a keynote at first, some petty infighting, and all of this communicated this in a bad and chaotic way.
    - nailer 3y ago
      Yep I think we see it pretty similarly regarding the first paragraph. Re the vindictive part: I read it as someone having a personal issue with JeanHeyd and downgrading him as punishment.

glogla 3y ago

It is funny because at least for me personally, it is the other way around. I am most interested in deeper technical talks (or cool lightning talks that broaden my horizons) and keynotes often feel like highlevel generic talks that are very skippable - often aimed at CTOs and not engineers. Also, "prominent spot in the morning" is exactly the opposite for me as well, because conferences are all about networking and evening networking means hangover ...

irjustin 3y ago
In that sense I loved the Ruby conferences where the keynote was commonly matz or tenderlove talking about some crazy deep problem ruby was tackling about memory, jit, or speed tradeoffs. Sadly haven't been to one in years since they haven't come back to SG

arp242 3y ago

I'm not saying the process was brilliant, but there's a difference between "the organizers were chaotic, didn't have their shit together, and need to do better" and "the organizers intentionally acted cruelly in an act of racist vindictiveness out of sheer malice". That's really my main objection to this post; and in the context of the accusations it makes the change of title is not really a big deal, or so it seems to me anyway. Or to put it this way: if it was me I probably would have been a bit disappointed, but I would also assume that's just the chaos of things. But like I said in my other comment: I suspect this is really about general dissatisfaction with the Rust team, and that this is merely the final straw: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36102292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36102292

nailer 3y ago
> “the organizers intentionally acted cruelly in an act of racist vindictiveness out of sheer malice“ The characterisation of those actions as vindictive seems accurate, but I don’t think the blog post is stating that the actions were racist, rather that it was a missed opportunity to represent the wider population at rustconf. Whether you think that’s good or tokenisation is a separate matter, the point is that the article is not claiming that downgrading the speaker was racism.
- arp242 3y ago
  The sentence "Systems have memory and biases. If the people that make up the system don't work to fight against these, they are perpetuated" in particular came off as more than merely "missed opportunity", although "racism" is probably too strong of a word too, but I don't know of anything else that fits better. Either way, I don't really see why it would be vindictive either? Maybe I missed some information somewhere, but I've seen nothing that would indicate anything other than the most likely explanation: they rescheduled because they assumed JeanHeyd just didn't care as he indicated he didn't want to do a keynote at first, some petty infighting, and all of this communicated this in a bad and chaotic way.
  - nailer 3y ago
    Yep I think we see it pretty similarly regarding the first paragraph. Re the vindictive part: I read it as someone having a personal issue with JeanHeyd and downgrading him as punishment.