Hacker News Reader

Comment by dilawar | Hacker News Reader

r/rust mod on reddit has a good summary of timeline of events.

https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/13sqdt7/i_am_no_longe...

I can’t shake the feeling of someone making a mountain out of a molehill. I can understand the disappointment of being downgraded at the last minute, and can even understand the author’s desire to withdraw from the conference entirely, but there’s something to be said for doing so graciously. The Rust team’s decision is not prima facie unreasonable, and even if it isn’t perfect in its form, I don’t see any scandal beyond a bruised ego.

It’s possible that there are missing elements to this story, but so far I just see a lack of class over a relatively minor injury.

Have I missed something?

That summary isn't complete.

The author wasn't originally interested in giving a keynote. The conference organizers tried to persuade them into do so!

> It is patently obvious that somebody is pulling very weird strings behind the scenes here. At multiple junctures I said “it would be fine if we did not do this” or “I am unsure why they picked me”, but at multiple point I was told I should absolutely keep going and it was explicitly encouraged for me to go all the way with a keynote!

> Individuals in contact with me both inside and outside RustConf leadership made it abundantly clearly that this topic was perfectly fine. Furthermore, they had already met to discuss my work before hand, so at no point should anyone be confused about what my intentions and goals are.

Then the Rust Project later downgraded his talk after the author committed to giving it:

> The sudden reversal smacks of shadowy decisions that are non-transparent to normal contributors like myself.

Yes, and? This sounds like a case of clumsiness, not malice.

By all means, withdraw, but why the need to publicly shame?

Whether it’s malice or clumsiness isn’t relevant, it’s poor communication and process, which is the responsibility of leadership.

The project leadership has continuously failed in these areas, and there has only been an effort to improve those things when they’ve been publicly called out. Without people openly communicating leadership failures, problems have often been ignored and maligned.

Yes, it is indeed their responsibility. It is also a minor thing.

People sometimes drop the ball, sometimes repeatedly, especially in committees. Public shaming is generally reserved for egregious acts, and so needs to be justified.

Attempting to shame people, without explaining what exactly happened, suggests a hissy fit.

To be clear: I am willing to entertain the accusation that the Rust team is toxic, but that’s a case that needs to be … you know … actually argued.

People are free to speak their mind, they don’t have to justify that to you or anyone else.

> Attempting to shame people, without explaining what exactly happened, suggests a hissy fit.

Feels like self-projecting given how much you’re commenting in multiple threads to say “it’s not a big deal”, I don’t think someone who thinks it’s not a big deal would comment and try to argue so much if they actually thought it was.

Like it or not, there are social norms, one of which is that public accusations need to be substantiated.

That is, I think, a reasonable expectation.

Which part do you think is not substantiated?

They did write about compile-time reflection, their talk was part of the conference[1], and now they’re not doing the talk. That’s enough to me take what they say at face value, especially now that in the wake of this there have been resignations in the leadership.

[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20230523045330/https://rustconf....

To me I think this is fully reasonable what they’re doing.

So how do you wanna settle the difference in social norms? Who died and made you the gatekeeper of social norms?

Why not? Why must they shut up? Do you accuse them of lying? Short of that I don't see why they shouldn't report all of this if it bugs them and it's factual.

If the Rust foundation doesn't want stories about jerking someone around, maybe they can not jerk people around?

I thought it was ok. Explained what happened from their point of view so they didn't need to answer everyone individually. It sounds like they gave plenty of opportunities for the organizers to not have the talk and they waited to the last minute and even then just were not up front about what was going on. It didn't really need to be posted on hn, surely this reposting and amplifying is a worse thing than just stating what happened.

> I don’t see any scandal beyond a bruised ego.

This guy calls himself "The PhD". I suspect a bruised ego is a recurring affliction of his.

Why are all the comments deleted on that thread, and why is it locked?

The stickied comment says

   since nobody here has any more information and all we can do is uselessly speculate, I will be locking the comments so as to minimize the drama

Maybe you are viewing a cached page before that comment was added?

> Maybe you are viewing a cached page before that comment was added?

Or most likely I just missed it.

Seems an odd way to run a community though.

The mods dont want anymmore rust drama. Keeps happening every month like clockwork though for some reason

This is also the impression I got from the original post, and it seems deeply overblown and silly. Somebody correct me on this, but I don't think anybody in, like, the whole world cares whether a RustConf talk is a normal talk or a "keynote". The keynotes at the conferences I'm connected to tend, notoriously, to be the weakest at the event (no surprise, since there's no refereeing process to get them in).

I know absolutely nothing about the specifics of this incident (I don't even know who would have made this sort of decision) and it seems overblown to me as well. I wouldn't say "silly", because I don't discount the feelings of disappointment, but this stuff happens all the time without nefarious intent. My reaction as an outsider (and I have to reiterate I really am an outsider--I know nobody involved) is that this really isn't a big deal.

Just, from the conferences I'm familiar with, while being a keynote speaker might have some status associated with it, a normal track talk is more legit than a keynote talk, just comparing talk with talk. Everyone know the keynote is invited, and they're talking to fill the space, not because their idea is so important it needs to come out now.

I think it’s fair to be disappointed, and I’m even open to the idea that the conference organizers fumbled. But yeah, the attempt at public shaming feels weird in light of the scant details. Calling out misbehavior is sometimes appropriate, but it kinda requires the accuser to describe exactly what happened.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com