> 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.
Wow.
> 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.
So I don't know how to feel about anything anymore.
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.
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.