Public Apology to Jeremy Howard
numfocus.org
numfocus.org
- 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.
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.
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.
You will also note that the word "sorry" is entirely missing. And the list of things that they failed to "acknowledge" includes their not telling him what rule he was accused of violating, what action of his violated the rule, having literally laughed at him, and having violated their own code of conduct.
They also offer nothing in the way of amends. Or do anything to suggest that there will be consequences to the people who screwed up.
Given that, their assurance that they will use this "to improve our policies going forward" sounds like the meaningless hollow BS that it is.
Saying "we apologize" multiple times is the same as "we're sorry".
They've said their communications were in error in the way they described the complaints, the status of the investigation, and their charged language.
They've kicked the whole thing up to the responsible organizational Board of Directors for more action - which is to say, completely removed the group that made the errors from next steps.
That's about as good an public apology from one specific committee, with limited remit, as is possible!
If NumFocus as a whole takes further steps, I'm sure we'll hear. But there's no reason to hold up this 'mea culpa' until everything is settled at all levels. Promptness is better than perfection!
> We, the NumFOCUS Code of Conduct Enforcement Committee, would like to publicly apologise to Jeremy Howard for our handling of the JupyterCon 2020 reports. We did not give Jeremy a chance to defend himself before concluding that he had violated our CoC, and for that, and the stress it has caused, we are sorry.
I'm available to hire for public apology writing. :-)
Still, to be fair I don't think I've actually ever seen a public apology that was actually a full genuine public apology. This is probably the best anyone could hope for.
Other than the apparently-magic word 'sorry', your suggested wording doesn't address most of the specific asks of ~btilly's complaint above. (Don't worry, his proposed rewording didn't, either!) Perhaps, because it's exactly tuned to what you saw as worst about his treatment, it'd adequate for you. But not necessarily for any others demanding more groveling.
It's also not consistent with the NumFOCUS committee's substantive position, which is not that they had prematurely concluded anything, but rather that they had erroneously communicated that they'd concluded something. That's a salient difference, even though the two errors look the same from Howard's perspective! (The two distinct failures would require different internal correctives, too.) You wouldn't want a public apology to lie about the actual internal errors identified just to be extra-palatable to third parties, would you?
So, don't quit your day job to specialize in public apology writing just yet!
And to entertain that idea of professionally-improved apologies a bit a more, realize that in certain situations, no matter how good the apology, or how well it hits certain notes, some on the warpath will always want X% more, & be able to find specific faults.
Short & emphatic, as per your (& ~btilly's) rewrites? "Wasn't specific enough, too patronizing."
Detailed with even a whiff of actual analysis as to the real org/psych reasons for an error? "Not empathetic enough, making excuses, rationalizing the behavior".
Long enough to include all of the emotional cloying, and the exhaustive victim's-viewpoint confession of sins, and promises for changes? "Tone-deaf, insincere because if they really believed this they couldn't have made the error in the 1st place, seems over-wordsmithed." (But also: risks setting unrealistic expectations for the future.)
The difference is that the first indicates that "we" want you to feel better, while the second indicates empathy. When I'm on the receiving end, my gut reaction is almost exactly opposite.
Second, their claim is that this is a miscommunication appears to be a CYA lie. The recipient has shared sufficient details of what actually happened that either he is lying, or they are. An apology that asks the recipient to swallow a lie is not much of an apology.
You think that this is a good apology. I think that it is a terrible one. Here is what an apology that I call good would look like:
We, the NumFOCUS Code of Conduct Enforcement Committee, issue a public apology to Jeremy Howard for our handling of the JupyterCon 2020 reports. We did poorly on multiple levels. Therefore we have requested our board of directors to take over the investigation of those reports, and to separately investigate our mishandling of the situation.
We deeply regret the pain and anguish that we caused, and we are sorry for it.
Incidentally doing this would have been free to them. Everyone knows that they screwed up. At this point the board would be remiss to NOT investigate, so asking the board to do what it has to do anyways costs them nothing. And they wouldn't have said something that sounds like a lie.
Your compact "good apology" wording is fine, too!
But if they'd used that, exactly, plenty of people would still be hair-splitting & demanding more – maybe even you, since even your wording doesn't do most of the things your first post above wanted!
It also fails to 'acknowledge' the specific "list of things" you wanted to see. It also offers nothing more "in amends" than they already offered. It also suggests no "consequences" for those who erred. Your added cheap-but-emotionally-performative intensifier words – "we deeply regret the pain and anguish" – are also viewed as "meaningless hollow BS" by many.
See how easy it is to nitpick tone?
The social function of apologies also requires gracious acceptance of actual admissions of error.
The problem is that when you list your acknowledgements and chosen actions, you're implicitly refusing to acknowledge anything else and are indicating that no further actions will be taken.
When the apology is open-ended, and includes further specific actions such as an independent investigation, then you've done none of that.
The social function of apologies also requires gracious acceptance of actual admissions of error.
When the apology performs the social functions of apologies, it only works when the recipient graciously accepts.
But when the apology fails to perform the social functions of an apology, there is no obligation on the recipient to pretend acceptance.
A: You kicked in my front door, walked in unannounced, and stole my TV!
B: I apologize unreservedly. I should have announced myself.
* "our handling" * "causing this stress" * "a crucial miscommunication" * "not communicating... clearly" that "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" * "overly-charged language" * "saying a violation occurred" * failing to say "multiple complaints have been made" * failing to say "the alleged violation investigation had not been resolved"
Given that all of the problem interactions were communications that misled & distressed Howard, what did they miss? The 1st two words, "our handling", were already expansive enough to cover all their actions, and all the admissions of miscommunication acknowledge that he'd previously been told the wrong things about the actual progress.
(You could ungenerously call those prior & now-admitted misstatements "lies". But when you're trying to return to a friendly mutual resolution, with redress for wrongs, it's helpful to let people characterize earlier errors as mistakes rather than intentionally-hurtful deceptions. And, as bad as the bad communications were, they're more likely overzealous young inquisitors who thought they were doing right, and needed more coaching/practice, than consciously mean & deceptive people. So let them apologize!)
> We apologize for causing this stress and will work to improve our process to avoid this from happening in the future.
> We apologize for not communicating that clearly from the beginning.
They are not apologizing for the existence of the complaints. They do not imply that Jeremy is considered guilty -- they say that the issue is unresolved:
> We should have been clearer saying multiple complaints have been made and the alleged violation investigation had not been resolved.
Their language does not seem to put the onus on 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.
(emphasis mine)
It's very unclear to me if they meant to say Jeremy was not guilty when they talked to him at a certain point in time or if he is still not guilty.
>Their language does not seem to put the onus on Jeremy:
What you quoted also says:
>outlined in the appeals process of our enforcement guide.
Are appeals automatic in the enforcement guide or is an appeal already pending?
edit: And if he was never found guilty then why is this an appeals process. Doesn't that usually mean an initial judgement was rendered and is being appealed?
It's clear to me that they're trying to not express an opinion there. I read this as them recusing themselves from the situation and doing their best to not express an opinion about a ruling which may or may not have been made (the murkiness about this also seems deliberate)
>Give them a place to appeal to if there is one, but in the meantime the action stands.
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.
Co-ops are one step forward but that was basically a century ago and stopped. What's the 21 C answer?
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
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_Un...
Wow.
So I don't know how to feel about anything anymore.
> Joel (who I greatly respect, and consider an asset to the data science community) was not involved in NumFOCUS’s action, was not told about it, and did not support it.
According to him, now, he disagrees with that assertion in their apology. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24946688.
The apology states that this was a "crucial miscommunication that we take responsibility for"
OTOH, from Jeremy Howard's account it really does sound like the committee doubled down on that miscommunication so often that it seems hard to believe that's all it was.
Here is why.
His stated recollection is that they said, “that is what the reporters stated, and what we found” and to his asking why his statement was not requested, “we all watched the video, so we could see for ourselves the violation”.
What they said in his version is very clear. That is not a miscommunication. Calling it a "miscommunication" sounds like nothing more than the best excuse that they came up with for themselves.
Therefore this reduces down to a simple "he said, she said" type of conflict. What I have to judge on is what is publicly known of his character, their incentives, and indications about their character. He has a solid public reputation as an upstanding person. Their incentives are to minimize perception of wrongdoing in their actions. Both the fact that they got into this mess, and their non-apology in attempting to get out of it, suggests that they lack even a shred of integrity.
Therefore it is his word against theirs. He is believable. They are not. And so I conclude that they are lying on this point.
And it doesn't even need to be seen by the involved people as mean, if they have such a "toxic" type relationship. But a Code of Conduct is also a bit about the perception of others, and how it sells a project.
In his statement there are hints indicating in this direction. He mentions his talk was made as a parody. Parodies by nature are on a thin line between being funny englightment, and being mean bullying. So it can be the case that his see himself as funny, while other might see it as a mean insult.
And he mentions some unwritten rules which were applied to him specifically because his talk was somewhat special because it was an opener(?) or something. Which means he got more attention than your regular talk.
What is a little more troubling is that he (A) describes codes of conduct in detail and repeatedly affirms his allegiance to the general idea behind CoCs, including describing "previous sexual assault allegations" as "behaviors" he "strongly agrees" should be stopped. (B) He goes some way towards portraying himself as a victim, describing in graphic detail his lack of "emotional resilience". I wonder if he realized what a thin line he was walking with (A), because he now has a "previous CoC violation allegation" on his permanent record, regardless of his acquittal.
In other words, he very strongly backs the spirit, letter, and zeitgeist of CoCs before describing why he thinks he did not violate them in this specific case. I think these were very wise tactical moves, although they leave a bad taste in my mouth, and I can't help but wonder if this approach affected the outcome. I don't recall seeing an apology ever given, let alone changes instituted, for CoC violation allegations.
I wonder how much this has affected his lifetime earning potential?
Couple that with the "public apology" seems like an open and shut lawsuit that many lawyers would be happy to take on contingency.
The thing that seemed to me oddest about all this is that Jeremy says the committee spoke to two reporters before hearing his side of the story, and before issuing a judgment. It is not totally clear if they were speaking to those two reporters about his case.
I would imagine that an obvious way for CoC committees to minimize their own liability would be to at least avoid talking to reporters before they have issued a judgment. Really, the process should be totally private until a guilty judgment has been made, and if the person is declared innocent, then the whole thing should disappear without ever having been made public.
To use an extreme comparison: I suspect that most of the people who are falsely accused of murder still believe that murder should be illegal.
He goes a very, very different route. I think that different route gave him a better outcome. I think it is worth thinking about why that is. We are not talking about an accusation of sexual harassment or assault here, we are talking about an almost textbook case of how CoC accusations can be overextended to absurdity. Yet he chooses to defend CoCs.
One possible explanation of this is that he is trying to draw a distinction between things that should be "legitimate" CoC violations, and his case. Another possible explanation is that he is trying to say that "Look, I strongly believe that <murder should be illegal>, really strongly. That makes me one of the good guys. Would a good guy commit murder?" The latter take is more cynical, but I think it would be more effective than my gut reaction.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Sadly, it seems true. If you don't have an audience, no one will care what happens to you.
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.
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?
I’m now forced to go through legal channels to clear my name. If I can get an acknowledgement of their mistake then life will get much easier to explain. Too bad about the content, non-apology, but I’d not undetestimate the act alone.
edit: And since he seems too emotionally exhausted by this to deal with it further there will possibly be no appeal filed and thus he will stay guilty by default.
At this point, they won’t even acknowledge that the initial accusations were unreasonable. In fact, it appears they’ve simply transferred the investigation up a level to the board of directors so it can continue.
A real apology would have acknowledged that they mishandled the situation and taken steps to resolve it as fast as possible. This feels more like an attempt to justify their actions, move the goal posts about what they did wrong, and move the investigation back behind closed doors within NumFOCUS.
Please just publicly acknowledge that this should have been resolved within a day or two by absolving Jeremey of wrongdoing, and without this never ending inquisition that now involves even more and higher-ranking individuals at NumFOCUS.
This is such a simple issue that never should have gone this far.
[1] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190216/10394141613/faceb...
Good on them. That said, maybe, uh, try and train your folks if you want them to enforce things like that.
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.
Given the circumstances, they should do better than an amorphous "we".
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.
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.
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".
Another good example of the impact of HN was the Triplebyte profile controversy (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)
The tone is all wrong. You don't "issue a public apology" you say "We apologize for ... " or "We are sorry for ...".
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.
https://blog.jupyter.org/jeremy-howard-8dace7b4a34a
For people like myself needing backstory.
Board of Directors: https://numfocus.org/community/people CoC Committee: https://numfocus.org/code-of-conduct#persons-responsible
The overlap is one person: Andy Terrel, NumFOCUS President.
The rest of the board should ask for his resignation.
> 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.
This was possibly edited later into the article.
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.
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.
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.
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.
- 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.
> All of which leads to a system whereby people are subjected to ostracism and official censure for violating unwritten rules, all without proof
Aka which hunt.
The downvoter crew has already arrived though.
It's not just people who are too green to know better. I've seen a user with a 2007 vintage account and >30k karma extol the virtue of smear campaigns.
Scary times.
Plus, in many cases they don't get applied equally anyway, the project leader is going to get handled a lot differently than a random contributor. AKA one gets sent to etiquette school, the other gets banned from the conference and mailing list.
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.
It's easy to see codes of conduct as draconian or unnecessary if you can't empathize with the people they're designed to protect. I'm not saying the CoC system is perfect or that there aren't false positives, but your statement here is _dramatically_ privileged.
Is it just arbitrary? Do you just depend on more people enforcing their views out to stop harassment? If so, then why not codify it?
Yes. Just as "kind" is. To the reporters and the officials, "saying somebody is wrong" is unkind, so it's clearly arbitrary.
That did piss off quite a number of people, who filed much more hard-pressing (in their opinion) issues (like, some useful editor functionality being broken) and received precisely zero feedback.
That is exactly my point. Some committee member doesn't get to say "that may be offensive to someone" either. They need to wait until someone actually reports being offended.
The problem is not the CoC, but the lack of accountability, oversight, and transparency in enforcement.
It's not necessarily the case that you have to spend nearly as much on a code of conduct system where the ultimate worst-case scenario is that an innocent person is denied a platform or has the reputation tarnished in a reversible way.
As an example, the mozilla community participation guidelines (currently at version 3.1) are quite short and readable and many sections are essentially your "dress appropriately" example (i.e. "Be Respectful"), with quick a paragraph to clarify the idea.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/part...
So another area where that type of thing can happen is in union negotiations. Unions in the US started out fighting for basic decent treatment - reasonable hours and pay, safer working conditions, etc... Some years ago I was in a manufacturing plant and the break (lunch) room had a big television in it. Turns out the union had demanded the TV in their most recent contract. Someone I was speaking to berated the union "those idiots demand a TV, don't they have real concerns?" I realized the problem is that the adversarial nature had grown so bad - probably on both sides - that nothing could be had without a negotiation and putting it in writing. That goes for work from the union: "that's not my job" or worse - "you're getting written up for doing something that's someone else's job" to the management "no we're not giving you anything we don't have to by contract". Once you start writing things down and trying to nit-pick it can lead to a terrible place where nothing is easy for anyone.
How many conferences did you run before CoC's became popular?
As a white, male engineer, I haven't ever found a need for codes of conduct because I've had the privilege of never having been harassed. This isn't the case for all groups, so it's best to have one.
This is what they're supposed to do. In reality, this is impossible because so many of the rules in a CoC are subjective, and therefore are enforced based on the opinions of the people enforcing the CoC.
> but more importantly, give organizers something tangible to point to when there is a violation.
This just gives the enforcers a sense of moral authority to impose their opinions, nothing more. I don't see that as a benefit of what is inevitably an incomplete document, and frequently poorly thought out as well.
Except... they don't.
They say things like (quoting from the NumFOCUS CoC):
> We will not accept harassment or other exclusionary behaviors, such as:
> ...
> Other unethical or unprofessional conduct
That leaves things wide open -- whatever the committee decides is "unprofessional" is hereby banned. How am I supposed to guess their mind?
One option is to designate someone or some group as arbiters / benevolent dictators, and have the rule of "If so-and-so decides you're making the place worse, you're not welcome." It's certainly effective. But it exacerbates Jeremy Howard's complaint - which is not so much about CoCs per se as about the group of people who enforced them and the way in which they did so. I don't think getting rid of CoCs will really solve that problem.
One option is to have a closed or invitation-only group - but that's at odds with the goals of many communities. (And it doesn't reliably solve the problem, it just makes it less likely you'd run into it.)
I think CoCs just become a new tool for a different subset of assholes to abuse. Yes it does suck for those who have a legitimate issue. I've yet to see how CoCs solve that problem in practice.
I'm on the fence on this issue but it's sounds like you're willfully misreading that statement.
Strongly disagree that empathy is unwanted, though; perhaps you are laboring under a narrow definition. Empathy cannot coexist with inaction.
You actually do mean this as an attack - you quite literally accused me of being "_dramatically_ privileged"
Maybe you meant it as an attack and maybe you didn't. If there was a HN CoC, maybe I'm the kind of asshole that would try to accuse you of abuse. See how easy it is to abuse the system?
(And yes, you could bring up to the moderators that this is an attack, but you could do that in the absence of any written rules, too, and if the moderators are the sort of people who would agree with that argument, then neither having nor not having written rules would save this forum.)
In your opinion. As the recipient of said 'claim' I took it as an attack. Maybe I'm an overly sensitive person, maybe it's the end of a long week and I'm just feeling cranky, either way it offended me. So in this fictional world I feel that I have been attacked, and the HN CoC frowns upon members hurting other members' feelings. What should be done?
I think the NumFOCUS CoC doesn't say that though (although it's ambiguous because it includes "Be kind" in the normative text, and I'd agree that's a problem), and other CoCs are more interested in the objective (or, at least, more objective) question of whether a personal attack actually happened than the question of whether a participant felt attacked. The Contributor Covenant, for instance, prohibits "Trolling, insulting or derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks," to which 'I'm sorry you felt insulted, but this was not an insult' would be an adequate defense.
It does appear that the relevant sections of the NumFOCUS CoC aren't unique to them, though I can't tell exactly where they came from, and you have convinced me that this is a problem. (Geez, this is license proliferation all over again.) Thank you!
1) Liberal values are associated with privilege.
2) Because of this association we should embrace authoritarianism.
Is authoritarianism any less privileged? It assumes that the authorities are on your side and protecting your interests... that seems right down the middle of privilege. A low privilege person would probably benefit from liberal governance/norms that limit the damage hostile authorities can do.
A Liberal is anti-arbitrary power. In the context of formal governments and legal systems, that includes having written laws.
I would argue having a vague CoC which is designed to be interpreted and applied arbitrarily by power tripping bureaucrats actually increases arbitrary power.
Through the CoC, the committee here was empowered to persecute any action they didn't like. That's the opposite of Liberalism.
If you advocate for getting rid of CoCs, IMO, you have to have an answer for how actual harassment should be dealt with. Many people I've spoken to did not feel safe at tech events of the past because of rampant harassment that would be swept under the rug. The tech industry of 2020 is not prepared to return to that world.
It seems like step one of dealing with harassment is to define it, which is the problem CoCs should solve. If you think they are failing, what is your alternative, if it's not to improve them?
Here's an idea, limit CoCs to actual harassment, with a warning. It's not harassment, definitionally, unless you persist after being asked to stop.
And it should be actual harassment, targeted at a person, rather than "this person's views or public statements offend me".
I don't like this personal attack and I feel less safe on this board because of it. Will someone go after this poster on my behalf please?
1) a Code of Conduct is necessary to enforce order 2) a Code of Conduct will prevent or discourage disorder
I think that 1) and 2) are both demonstrably false.
...specifically under what is currently the top comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24927123
In regards to CoCs, sometimes this snowflake mentality seems to go hand in hand, because they are tailored to the most fragile of sensibilities, which is a Bad Thing(tm). I'm not sure how this "shatters" someone or what that even means (not trying to attack here, as it just doesn't make any sense).
- Discriminatory jokes and language - Personal insults, especially those using racist or sexist terms - Advocating for, or encouraging, any of the above behavior
These are largely subjective, so why bother caring about what you might have said to set someone off?
So what if you won't take up speaking engagement requests? Duh. As we know that these CoCs are ridiculous and someone might want to seriously consider having nothing to do with organizations that utilize them.
He can post up talks on Youtube if he wants to be heard, especially now.
TL;DR Jeremy did a talk and it turned out strangely so nothing's lost here.
Whether they’re effective in practice, or if there are more effective methods is another question. But it’s hard to overstate the importance of their intentions.
The programming world historically has been the domain of white men, and these CoCs are often a response to the fact that things have changed.
Any talk about "CoCs are bad" or "CoCs are just for people to arbitrarily impose their morality" are wrong. We need guidelines, and we need to be prepared to refine those guidelines and how they are enforced on a continual basis.
That dismissive talk brings this quote to mind: "When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality seems like oppression."
Just for the record: I'm privileged (and generally pretty polite/non-offensive I hope), I've rarely needed to deal with any of the issues addressed by CoCs, and I've also never really dealt with any of the issues others claim are caused by CoCs. I don't personally have a strong opinion on them, and lean towards trusting activists when they say things need to change. I'm just commenting on why discussions about them are so frequently unproductive: there's both misunderstanding and deliberate misrepresentation, because it's not codes of conduct in general that people - possibly wrong people! - don't like.
[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-bri...
The (intended) gist of my comments is to push back against the tactic of "look a stupid rule or stupid enforcement of rules; this is why we need to get rid of rules."
“Motte”: unobjectionable position no one would disagree with.
“Bailey”: more extreme position; the one you actually believe and that people take issue with. Must not directly logically follow from the motte per se.
Motte & Bailey (informal) fallacy: Jumping between the motte and the bailey for rhetorical effect, as convenient.
In this case, the motte is “codes of conduct are just like the HN guidelines, they’re everywhere and no one objects”. The bailey is the actual CoCs in question, and the culture of pushing projects, conferences, etc. to adopt them, which tends to be rooted in “liberal identity politics” or whatever you want to call it.
When people criticize the latter (the bailey), advocates retreat to the former (the motte) - they’re just normal guidelines like “be nice”, basic manners, who would object to that? - and then when the argument is over continue pushing for the latter.
Who is pushing what particular enforcement mechanisms? The Contributor Covenant is probably the most popular and most hated code of conduct. It just says community leaders will investigate and take appropriate action. It's very open ended.
I believe the author was referring to you.
What I am saying is that even if all conference attendees agreed that the ten commandments were at the root of their ethical behavior (consider, for example, a conference among sects of Christianity that are focused on those commandments), Even then it would be useful for the conference to have specific statements about whether (for example) sexist language was permitted or not permitted during talks.
How is that even remotely better? It doesn't address... any... of the behavior that led to this type of CoC.
> I was concerned that if only partial information became available, the anti-CoC crowd might jump on this as an example of problems with codes of conduct more generally, or might point at this as part of “cancel culture”
The person at the center of this actually disagrees with you. Having a vague CoC that was then not even really followed by the committee should not damn all CoCs. If you only see the worst most poorly executed examples of something then of course you'd be against them but that's not fair.
Before this discovery, I would have guessed that "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" was a much larger percentage of the cases than it is. I also would have thought that anything that makes a lot of people uncomfortable that they might accidentally cross the line is worse than the current harm.
Now that I've much more personal experience with what it means to be a person who is an actual target of harassment, I realize that these edge cases make up a tiny proportion of the harassment that happens. And when you bring the hammer down on people who are unequivocally harassers, it is important that you do so in a way that's fair and not subject to recharacterization as unjust later, when no one who was there is a part of the conversation.
A great many good people being uncomfortable is unfortunate, but I also think it's a sign of the kind of cognitive dissonance that I experienced before playing with my wife. I had never experienced anything other than the usual toxicity, so I naively assumed that it couldn't be that prevalent. The fact that a CoC feels like overkill is, perhaps, evidence for the proposition that the problem with harassment is much more real than it might feel to those of us who are not targets of harassment.
And the kind of people who will harass someone so shamelessly are exactly the kind of people who will boldly lie about not being given a reason for their discipline, or who will loudly complain about the rules not being explicit, even though it's incredibly obvious to everyone present that their behavior was beyond the pale.
The edge cases are edge cases, and unfortunate, but I don't believe most cases are edge cases.
And I’ve got an email from Riot that they banned someone I’d reported in Valorant, so they don’t do nothing. I don’t think either of us have enough evidence to know whether it’d be better or worse without the CoC.
To the contrary, it's pretty easy to deduce that the CoC had nothing to do with the ban of the player you reported. Do you genuinely believe that a "CoC enforcement committee" sat down to review demos of the reported player and analyze whether their actions constituted CoC violations? No, that process is reserved for political enemies and occasional power trips. The ban was almost certainly a result of an automated process. For example, in CS:GO, if a player receives significantly more abuse reports than average, they will be muted by default. No human review is involved. I imagine the Valorant ban is something similar, because there is no way Riot could afford to pay actual humans to go through these reports.
CoCs are problematic like much of lived human experience, but they're better than a structureless void that allows people to discriminate without a formal process that makes sure they can be held to account.
don't be a jerk
Everybody knows what this means. Nearly everybody will agree on how to behave.
I disagree. This whole situation with Jeremy is because of vague rules just like this. If I tell you that you are "wrong", you might consider me to be "jerk" and we can do this whole song and dance.
What communities are trying to police and prevent is outright sexism, racism, etc. For that, being explicit is better than just offering that someone is "being a jerk".
[1] https://www.newsweek.com/amy-coney-barrett-preference-defini...
[2] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/merriam-webster-barrett-se...
Arguing about the meaning of words couldn't possibly be less to the point.
Just like he who controls the present controls the past, he who controls the dictionary controls the discourse.
I don't mean this in a snarky "get outta here" way, but: why are you here? Why not any other forum, tech-related or otherwise? Why not 4chan? Whatever the reason is, is the answer not quite likely to be at least in part made possible by the CoC and its strict enforcement?
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
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.
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.
> 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.
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).
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.
the world is much bigger than your sphere of awareness.
Those kangaroo courts are such a joke.
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
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.
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
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.)
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
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.
Arguably it wouldn’t have been an issue if the CoC didn’t exist.
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.
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.
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.