Ok, thanks for pointing this out!
Any insight into why this happened? Patent trolls, etc?
37 karma · joined September 26, 2018
Email: charles@tearsinrain.io
Any insight into why this happened? Patent trolls, etc?
(I don't want to misrepresent what happened.)
Short answer: there's sort of a lock-in effect and we really have other needs right now.
I'm interested in responding to your comment.
>Not to be overly dismissive, but my first impression is that you have a bunch of devs finding something interesting and wanting to follow along rather than a key cohort of people who will "disrupt covid-19."
The group was founded with the intention of coordinating mechanical engineers and medical clinicians to build physical devices.
For the developers and engineers coming in, most state they have considerable mechanical or device background. It's possible that the value of some of these people is low. I don’t think so. I'm not willing to have to pay the admin costs and externalities of gatekeeping access right now.
To be clear, I think we're conscious of the challenges and ways we can fail. In actively figuring out designs or devices to build, we're trying to organize hundreds of disparate people. One of our admins seemed to just have pulled a 24 hour day, and most of us have regular jobs. I think there's an underlying assumption that we only have a short period of time. We may fail but we want to give the best effort we can.
I agree with your premise, that engineering help alone is insufficient. We have a dozen doctors who trickled in but a major deficit is medical clinicians with organized opinion to advise us. These people may become fewer and less available in the weeks to come.
NOTE Please contact us (email in profile) if you are a clinician who has insights in what is needed in a situation where there is a vast surplus of patients in respiratory distress, or other ways we can help (e.g. we have heard requests for PPE needs from clinicians). Note that one reason we need multiple opinions is because of the different cultures and organizations that might exist in emergency environments.
>If you have hundreds of members, why not ask each for a couple of dollars to cover slack costs?
I’m not uncomfortable raising money, but right now, the organizational demands are extreme. I'm unwilling to add to this by having some sort of finance committee and managing the ethics and optics of raising money.
Also, narrative is important and raising say, X dollars for operations could affect efforts to raise 100X dollars to actually build medical devices to alleviate suffering or reduce the burden on clinicians.
>I don't see why Slack should pay for a bunch of people to use their platform. They are in the business of making money, and offer reduced costs for non-profits. If that doesn't work for you, use something else.
There's significant costs Slack incurs to engineer and build its services. We're grateful for this.
However, the marginal cost to slack from our existence and activities seems to be about the same as this discussion is to HN.
> Or use a different platform. Or self host something else.
I'm not sure there's a lock in effect, but given our presumption of urgency, we couldn't migrate without losing many hours of everyone's time, admin resources, etc. The culture here among engineers seems to prefer Slack and I expect there would be abundant residual effects from a change.
Charles He
We're extremely grateful to Slack for the rapid response.
I would edit the post but I cannot any longer.
I have one limited question and I want to be careful. This is what it is:
You don't wholly disavow any bad behavior. Can you please truthfully, fulsomely and in detail, describe the original conduct that underlies the complaint against you?
For example, here is a range of situations, can you state where you conduct fell under?:
A. You are powerful, systematic predator, like Harvey Weinstein, or Roger Ailes, who sits on top of a power system whose social, legal, economic dynamics you systematically exploit to abuse and entrap your victims.
B. Without significant official power, you abuse a coworker, by opportunistically exploiting her/his weaknesses or your institutional knowledge (note that this can also be extremely damaging to an individual even without official power).
C. Inside of some sort of relationship, you committed bad behavior, by say, reacting poorly to a conflict, and took undue actions (messaging, following).
D. You are wholly innocent of any bad behavior. Your inclusion on this list is is the result of an deliberate campaign of someone with a malicious agenda.
Note that for many reasons and on many layers, I can't judge your situation. I can't judge your truthfulness. I can't judge the impact to the victim(s), if any.
The motivation behind this question:
You asked us to read and consider this lengthy personal story, and to be sympathetic to you.
In this context, the request seems like a useful piece of information, and its omission would be problematic. Furthermore, even an admission of some guilt, seems small next to the consequences that you seem to have already endured, and a natural step toward the "rehabilitation" you presumably seek (I acknowledge the possibility you are totally innocent).
Finally, and frankly, if you are innocent, you write and act in ways that raise flags for a perceptive or skeptical reader. For example, you do make some rejections, "punished for things I didn’t do". However, these aren't total disavows of bad behavior. Similarly, you focus on details "No HR claim", all embedded in a highly sympathetic personal narrative.
I've never been accused of any "metoo" behavior. However, I've seen people "railroaded" many times. Many people react by either gathering overwhelming force (authority, connections) to vehemently smash the opposing actor, or else slip away if am unable to do so (I'm not sure this is optimal but seems reputationally useful). However, I've never seen an innocent person plead or begged like this.