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Comment by 3princip | Hacker News Reader

If I understand correctly, the conference "de-platformed" Douglas Crockford because at some point in the past he made a joke about the internet being promiscuous?

How utterly absurd. One should question the competence of these people to organize a technical conference. Irrational, childish behavior.

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I too could find absolutely no trace of anything even approaching offensive in the comments I understand were the cause for outrage (based on this article [1] posted to HN yesterday 5/9).

[1][https://atom-morgan.github.io/in-defense-of-douglas-crockfor...]

My understanding - one person publicly asked he be removed due to the fact they did not like working with him due to personality conflicts (and implied others felt the same)

So he was.

The organizers seem to have feared the CoC, it's seems like a cargo cult reaction where they were out of their depths.

It hadn't occurred to me to look at CoC as cargo culting but the more I think about it, the more it seems to fit.

I think the conference was facing a number of people who refused to participate as speakers due to Crockford's attendance. The conference organizers presumably felt pressured to do something to prevent speakers from leaving en masse. That's slightly different than what you were saying, but it seems like an important distinction.

Which makes more sense, but I'm honestly not understanding the reasoning behind those speakers who threatened to leave, and no one in all of this has really had anything of substance to point to... I'm more confused than anything...

> was facing a number of people

A number of people or just one or two? It seems like an important distinction.

one, two and zero are all numbers.

This is of course correct, at least if you ignore the implied meaning, which is a "group of". And yes I know that a two people could be called a group.

But what is more important is that you illustrate the hypocritical argument, that if a "number of people" do object the participation of another speaker it is ok to uninvite him. Nodovember should be more concrete or shut up.

The proper response to this is to show the speakers who were protesting to the door. It is the same scenario as when an employee tries to blackmail an employer into getting a raise or a promotion.

But if a significant group of employees do it, that's called... a strike, which is absolutely a reasonable thing for an employer to acquiesce to.

    >  prevent speakers from leaving en masse

"Leaving en masse"? The unsubstantiated claims get ever more outrageous and ridiculous with each new telling. Fortunately they didn't actually say anything at all, so that facts cannot be checked and fantasy can run its course unhindered.

Read this reddit comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/51e2jb/nodevemb...

Two people, none of which provided any evidence.

   one should question the competence 
   of these people

Have you considered the possibility that they are extremely competent at reaching their goals, that and you just don't yet understand at what their goals are?

Seems completely reasonable to me. If people in the technology industry cannot move forward with society then they should be left behind.

it's the taboo-merchants who will be left behind

A joke about the internet being promiscuous means that the person cannot move forward with society? He even did say that being promiscuous was a good thing for the internet. And this whole thing seems to be completely reasonable to you?

It wasn't a joke about the internet being promiscuous. Crock ford used the word "promiscuous" correctly and people (non-native speakers or uneducated perhap?) didn't know that the word has multiple meaning and took it the wrong way.

It would be almost like using the word "catholic" but having it misinterpreted as "Catholic" and then taking offense.

I'm sorry but but society has already run the Gestapo, Mao Zedong, Stalin experiments, several times. I think we have all the data we need from those for the time being. Pardon me if I'd rather be part of the control group for this round.

I'm reminded more of McCarthy when controversies like this unfold. Seems a more reasonable comparison, anyway, if a bit passé. I can even think of a few folks who have been publicly 'censured' after shooting and missing in events like these, much like McCarthy was in his own time.

(Not stating any opinion on the highlighted incident at all, despite making that comparison -- series of events themselves make me say that, not my personal beliefs nor a characterization of the parties or details involved that might reasonably be inferred by the association.)

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