Hacker News Reader

Comment by robert_tweed | Hacker News Reader

I have to wonder if this was a real complaint or if it was done to highlight the obvious problem here, a bit like the guy who patented a "Method of exercising a cat".

I mean, if you're going to ban Douglas Crockford from your conference it should at least be for his stated prejudice against comments in data-interchange formats. Not vague allegations that may damage his personal and professional reputation, to which he not only has no right of reply, but any response could be damaging by generating more attention. This is the classic trolling strategy, but stepped up a level.

If he actually did something wrong, take him to court and let the facts be decided in law. Otherwise, he's innocent and should be treated as such.

I also wonder, given that the allegations haven't been published, just implied, if he would have a libel case against the conference organisers?

View on HN

Indeed, his aversion for comments in data-exchange formats is much more grounds for excommunication. He's also a code-style nazi. And sjeesh, his hangups on the keywords 'new' and 'class', yes, we know, Javascript is not Java, but they're just shorthand dude, what's in a name and such, get over it. Or the deranged second half of "The Good Parts", where he earnestly assumes a linter implementation is a good introduction to a programming language. And stop already with shoving all those functional programming paradigms down JS coders throats; you're goading us on to write inscrutable, nested C-syntax vomit, without having any of the advantages of a real functional language, like you know, type safety, strict compilers, decent performance. He's both Javascript's best friend and worst enemy.

I'm joking of course. The Good Parts is amazing, and JSON is amazing. The attendees of nodevember will miss out on an amazing speaker too.

re: whether Crockford has a case about libel.

The allegations are published and the OP links to the original complaint on Medium: https://medium.com/@nodebotanist/why-i-won-t-be-speaking-at-...

Furthermore, the best defense against libel is the truth. Part of the complaint is an opinion based on public statements made by Crockford (the "slut-shaming"). The other published complaint is that Crockford said to the complainant before her talk, "the talks as the day went on just got stupider and stupider.” Unless he can convincingly prove that he never made such a statement to the complainant, he's not going to have much of a libel case. He could argue damages based on "false light", I suppose. [0]

On a (computer-related) technical standpoint, I disagree with what you think is the right reason ban a technical speaker, e.g. Crockford "for his stated prejudice against comments in data-interchange formats". That's the kind of strong diverse opinions that a tech conference should be thirsty for, just like a Ruby conference should be thrilled to have Edsgar Dijkstra talk about object-oriented programming.

But if someone says, "People who think comments belong in data interchange formats are fucking morons"...Yeah, I could see why some conferences wouldn't invite them.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_light

pretty sure GP's comment about the banning and data interchange formats was a playful joke about something he disagrees with...

> The allegations are published and the OP links to the original complaint on Medium: https://medium.com/@nodebotanist/why-i-won-t-be-speaking-at-...

That passive-aggressive "update" is quite telling of his/her personality: "I’ve switched comments to ‘not visible.’ I won’t be reading them. I don’t feel the need to justify this, either. Thanks <3."

"I’ve switched comments to ‘not visible.’ I won’t be reading them. I don’t feel the need to justify this, either. Thanks <3."

Ironically, that language "triggered" very bad memories of an extremely dishonest and passive-aggressive person I once worked with.

As far as I can tell, there's no confirmation that is the specific (or only) complaint. There is an official statement from the organisers here:

http://nodevember.org/statement.html

This does not give much more information, but it does acknowledge that the tweet was poorly worded. Not sure how helpful that is though, now that the genie is out of the bottle.

> If he actually did something wrong, take him to court and let the facts be decided in law. Otherwise, he's innocent and should be treated as such.

This is hilariously ridiculous. Being unprofessional, uncivilised or objectionable is not illegal. In fact the majority of reasons for someone to be fired do not involve breaches of the law. And even if it was illegal conduct e.g. sexual harassment the onus is on the accuser to have enough evidence to convict. Which is not always the case.

And no he doesn't have a libel case against the organisers.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com