I'm not going to read the comments here, for obvious reasons, but I do just want to clarify three things:
- 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.
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.
They're apologizing for how they handled the incident:
> 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.
What's the point of appealing this thing, anyway? I wouldn't appeal it on the grounds that that would mean I'm conceding that they have some sort of power here. From my (naive) perspective, they really don't. Besides looking incompetent to me and (hopefully) others, this entire ordeal just looks like a huge waste of time and energy.
I read it quite differently. It sounds to me that he is still accused but they have not confirmed the violation yet. The committee has recused themselves from that decision.
This all reminds me of a talk Justice Scalia once gave. The gist was that the US Constitution isn't very good compared to a lot of countries' equivalent document. For example, the Soviet's Bill of Rights was undoubtedly better.
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.
What fascinates me is that all companies and organisations (at a certain scale) will have to decide a governance structure that is better than - that guy is in charge.
Co-ops are one step forward but that was basically a century ago and stopped. What's the 21 C answer?
> This all reminds me of a talk Justice Scalia once gave. The gist was that the US Constitution isn't very good compared to a lot of countries' equivalent document. For example, the Soviet's Bill of Rights was undoubtedly better.
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.
This is the real issue. CoC proponents seem to think writing down the correct rules is sufficient. But rules are only as good or bad as their enforcement.
This apology rings hollow to me. A person of Jeremy Howard's statue was able to raise the issue in the media and get it resolved.
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?
One thing I found interesting is the only name in the letter is Jeremy's. It's "signed" by the committee. Is that a reputation protection technique? A way to diffuse responsibility? It seems like an imbalance of power to be able to drag someone's name through the mud while being anonymous yourself
> A person of Jeremy Howard's statue was able to raise the issue in the media and get it resolved.
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."
This is a good response as far as the actual process goes, but it doesn't really do anything to address the claims that "There were two totally different Codes of Conduct with different requirements linked in different places" and "I was held to a different, undocumented and uncommunicated standard"
I read the apology without knowing the backstory. It just feels so weasel-worded: they apologise for their process but certainly don’t make any suggestion that was innocent so actually increasing the smear. A proper apology also needs personal, private apologies from the committee members. I can only hope that Jeremy receives a better apology than this for the shit he has been made to chew by them.
Ok, I'm not heavily steeped in this, but at first glance this seems like total bullshit.
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.
The apology is so vague and PR-washed that it’s nearly impossible to draw any conclusions.
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.
Why would you expect people who have shown little empathy up to this point and seem to enjoy their sense of power to suddenly act different when confronted? It's a bureaucratic BS statement from people who revel in bureaucratic BS.
The CoC members should all be expelled from the NumFocus community. They have done far more to make NumFocus a a non-welcoming community than just about any CoC violation.
A CoC is exactly as effective as the leadership that writes & enforces it. Sounds like the Board wasn’t happy with how this was enforced, so they stepped in.
Good on them. That said, maybe, uh, try and train your folks if you want them to enforce things like that.
>A CoC is exactly as effective as the leadership that writes & enforces it.
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.
The letter was signed by the The NumFOCUS Code of Conduct Enforcement Committee. The members of that committee are listed on their code of conduct site. Seems pretty transparent to me.
The board should make those 4 people (3 staffers and the president) step down. If not, they should abandon any pretext about supporting a code of conduct while they use it to bully others.
An interesting thing to think about is if they would apologize if this wasn't published in a blog and discussed online.
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".
I know a lot of Hacker News users don't like it, but fact is that getting to the top of Hacker News is often the most-successful driver for getting something fixed in the tech industry.
Really? They are very clear in it saying “we fucked up, in these ways, and acknowledge the pain our actions caused. Here’s how we are fixing ourselves so it doesn’t happen again”. That feels like the wrong tone?
Grading peoples or organizations apologies and credibility from a distance is largely fruitless and mostly consists of you layering your own experience on someone elses words.
As best I can tell, nothing really changed... this type of situation can happen again at numfocus.
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.
They say "Because of the missteps of this committee, we have asked the NumFOCUS Board of Directors to take over the work of the committee", yet the 7-person board of directors overlaps with the 4-person code of conduct committee.
It's just Andy Terrel who's in both, right? That's not a huge amount of overlap. Enough to potentially cause a problem, but 6 members of the board being different (and a whole lot of public backlash) should probably be enough to resolve this.
The president (who presumably is also the chairman) was the only "non-staffer" on the committee and thus almost certainly had full responsibility already.
The rest of the board should ask for his resignation.
[+] [-] jph00|5 years ago|reply
- 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.
[+] [-] marcinzm|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] btilly|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] klyrs|5 years ago|reply
> 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)
[+] [-] scruple|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bryanlarsen|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ggoo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Spinnaker_|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] lifeisstillgood|5 years ago|reply
Co-ops are one step forward but that was basically a century ago and stopped. What's the 21 C answer?
[+] [-] dragonwriter|5 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] SommaRaikkonen|5 years ago|reply
https://www.fast.ai/2020/10/28/code-of-conduct/
[+] [-] omginternets|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] wskinner|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] g42gregory|5 years ago|reply
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?
[+] [-] Rebelgecko|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sillysaurusx|5 years ago|reply
Sadly, it seems true. If you don't have an audience, no one will care what happens to you.
[+] [-] xienze|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Dylan16807|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robocat|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mnd999|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smeeth|5 years ago|reply
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?
[+] [-] PragmaticPulp|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] marcinzm|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RcouF1uZ4gsC|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jerry2|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rmrfstar|5 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190216/10394141613/faceb...
[+] [-] curiousllama|5 years ago|reply
Good on them. That said, maybe, uh, try and train your folks if you want them to enforce things like that.
[+] [-] HideousKojima|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] huhtenberg|5 years ago|reply
Given the circumstances, they should do better than an amorphous "we".
[+] [-] greenburger|5 years ago|reply
https://numfocus.org/code-of-conduct#persons-responsible
[+] [-] uberman|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdtsc|5 years ago|reply
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".
[+] [-] minimaxir|5 years ago|reply
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)
[+] [-] Benjmhart|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulschreiber|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shureluck|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] btilly|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aroundtown|5 years ago|reply
The tone is all wrong. You don't "issue a public apology" you say "We apologize for ... " or "We are sorry for ...".
[+] [-] sweetheart|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kodah|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] part1of2|5 years ago|reply
https://numfocus.org/code-of-conduct
[+] [-] throw7|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] JohnJamesRambo|5 years ago|reply
https://blog.jupyter.org/jeremy-howard-8dace7b4a34a
For people like myself needing backstory.
[+] [-] young_unixer|5 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21476407
[+] [-] kurbin|5 years ago|reply
Board of Directors: https://numfocus.org/community/people CoC Committee: https://numfocus.org/code-of-conduct#persons-responsible
[+] [-] lolinder|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pelario|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] re|5 years ago|reply
The overlap is one person: Andy Terrel, NumFOCUS President.
[+] [-] uberman|5 years ago|reply
The rest of the board should ask for his resignation.