
Crockford - knes
https://paulstraw.svbtle.com/crockford
======
tomohawk
It seems pretty clear that this is more about a clique that is attacking Mr
Crockford in order to obtain more power for themselves.

They can now say - "Hey - you have to listen to us! We Matter! Look at what we
forced the Nodevember people to do. We're a moral authority!".

To go from complaining about a lack of diversity, to basically saying 'you
screwed up and now need to prove your love to us by uninviting this JS
superstar'. It's like the stereotypical abusive boy/girl friend requiring
their lover to do something they normally wouldn't do to prove their love.

It's simple bullying, really.

~~~
jgalt212
Who are these bullies?

~~~
gnarbarian
Social Justice warriors.

------
ufmace
In cases like these, it's worth thinking a bit about tolerance. Tolerance,
simply put, is behaving politely and professionally towards people and
organizations that you dislike. Note the "that you dislike" part.

Think you're tolerant because, say, you don't mind being around gay people?
Well, do you hate gay people? If you say no to that, then you aren't being
tolerant at all by being around them, you're just normal.

Do you hate, say, Neo-nazis? Then you can demonstrate your tolerance by
engaging with them politely and professionally if you encounter any.

Apparently, at some point, we not only ran away from being proud of our
tolerance, many people are wearing their level of intolerance as a badge of
pride. In some circles, it seems to be a good thing to find anybody who
disagrees with you in some way, and gather a virtual lynch mob to make sure
that the worst thing you can arrange happens to them.

Personally, I don't think Crockford did anything wrong. But if you do, why
don't you try demonstrating your tolerance by welcoming him at your conference
anyways and listening to his views on technical subjects? If he says something
that bothers you, you can calmly and politely explain to him how his statement
hurt you, or maybe even just let it go. That's what tolerance looks like.

Can we please get back to making real tolerance something to be proud of?

------
Udo
One of my consulting projects includes doing programming for a relatively big
millenials-dominated site. Users on that site know exactly what cards to play
in what order to get people on staff and/or affiliates fired - it's
Crybullying all the way. It doesn't even matter if the claims made are true or
not, just the proclamation of being hurt or oppressed is sufficient. The site
owners ultimately making these decisions do so because they live in absolute
terror of what these people could do if they turned against the site itself or
them personally.

We now live in a world where anything is done to appease you if you only cry
loud enough. It always used to be the case in personal conflicts that whoever
was better at mud slinging had a significant hand up as compared to someone
who's less talented, but in combination with the new fad of Crybullying, this
is a devastating tactic.

~~~
easychris
Agree. I ran a dating site for 7 years and had to deal with such inquiries on
a daily basis ("Buhuu, that guy/girl sad mean things to me, close his/her
account").

Most often it turned out the complaining person was the problem.

Worst cases were third parties who requested such actions on behalf of the
"victim". They were loud, asked other members to complain too and even showed
up in our offices to demand account closings - without any proof or valid
reasoning.

I never understood how people handle their real lives without being able to
argue or verbally discuss such issues. Even if these include occasional
insults. IMHO these are just words - you don't need to cry for higher
authorities (site admins, conference organizers or law authorities) all the
time.

~~~
Udo
_> I never understood how people handle their real lives without being able to
argue or verbally discuss such issues_

My guess is they handle it very well, because they're just using a strategy
that works out perfectly for them. This only has to be learned or reinforced
once, and it becomes a problem solving strategy for life because it's such an
_easy exploit_ to use with our social protocols. It can be used to solve
pretty much every issue where they can win by exerting pressure.

Whoever happens to get in their way also often takes permanent damage by being
labeled something bad that sticks and this hampers that person's ability to
not only resolve the issue at hand but prevents them from being heard in the
future as well. Either way, you either acquiesce or you get bulldozed.

------
sebringj
Crockford did nothing wrong. Fuck Nodevember. If you have huevos or egos or
whatever, don't support that conference. He is one of those guys that will
email you back if you have a technical question. I know because he already did
twice to me. Who can say that about someone so influential?

~~~
BinaryIdiot
It's another conference scam anyway. They're charging $350 for tickets with
unconfirmed speakers and they have an open call for speakers.

Considering the main value is out of the speakers selling before having much
of anything confirmed or even finished just screams like yet another
conference trying to cash in (they're even taking sponsors, too).

I don't mind conferences where you have to pay mind you but I've only seen the
small, borderline scammy conferences where you have to pay before finding out
the full line up of speakers.

~~~
sebringj
I never got the point of those anyways as youtube is sufficient.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
I mean sometimes they're good if you can interact with the speakers, ask
questions and maybe even network / talk with the other folks interested in the
same topics as you. But yeah in general I would imagine YouTube would be
better with this.

Now if it's a _free_ conference? Then I'm all for it almost always for it.
YCombinator Start-up school comes to mind; I enjoyed it a lot the last time
and I'm going to the upcoming one :)

~~~
sebringj
That's a good point. I think because I have 3 young sons and am so busy
outside of that type of stuff I have a different take on my personal time in
terms of spending more if it with geeks than I have to. :)

------
joaoqalves
This "X shaming" or "X gender inappropriate joke" is really getting out of
hand. You can't say anything anymore. You may hurt someone's feelings, bla bla
bla. I'm sick of this. I'm sick of this political correctness that is
intoxicating our society. You cannot say anymore: "hey, grow a pair!" because
this is sexist? Come on... this is insane! One thing is to respect everybody
and another one is to apply censorship to everything. Even though people
didn't meant to offend, harass or shame other people.

~~~
artursapek
> Even though people didn't meant to offend, harass or shame other people.

That's the thing - people who shame others are not looking at intent behind
actions; they're getting offended by shallow interpretations (a sign of
insecurity). Any reasonable person looking at Crockford making his "weak" joke
would not think his intention was to harass physically weak people.

This kind of shit is also why you see people like /r/the_donald aggressively
provoking and fighting back against these so-called "SJW's" \- the pendulum
has swung way too far the opposite way.

~~~
stephenr
> This kind of shit is also why you see people like /r/the_donald

I'm not sure if you just referred to a subreddit as a person, or referred to a
ridiculously famous man by the path to the subreddit about him?

Either way, wtf.

~~~
artursapek
I referred to the _people_ on /r/the_donald, as a group

------
BoringCode
There's the old idea of "you judge your actions by your intentions and others
intentions by their actions."

I think culturally we've entered into this weird area where we're not even
judging people so much by their actions but rather by how their actions make
some people feel. There is nothing wrong with being mindful of how your
statements and actions are perceived. Communication is always a two-way street
where what is heard is sometimes more important than what is said. It's just
too bad that we're shifting so far away from being able to understand the
intentions of the speaker. Fear of saying the wrong thing never teaches
someone why and what is wrong to say.

~~~
istjohn
Absolutely. It's great that societal norms of what is acceptable in speech are
progressing to be considerate of more and more out-groups. But we need to be
mindful that news of these new norms do not reach everyone simultaneously, and
we should not tar and feather people for not independently coming upon the
insight that a certain element of speech can be hurtful. While we should all
seek to understand and empathize with the rest of the world, it's a vast,
complex world beyond any one person's direct experience. If someone
gratuitously drops the N-word, ostracise them; but if there is good reason to
believe the speaker is well-intentioned but perhaps ignorant on some point of
concern, the proper response is to discreetly engage in a respectful, open
dialogue, not to publicly shame anyone. If the speech is hurtful and dialogue
fruitless, direct action may be required, but not before.

~~~
dogma1138
These aren't norms and they aren't new the subject has changed but this is
exactly the level of thought policing that true liberals used to fight and
even die for.

This is no different than the puritans or any other group that wish to enforce
their own opinions at the expense of everyone else.

~~~
istjohn
Asking that white men respect others is not hurting "everyone else." White men
are the small group here. Norms of tolerance and mutual respect only ask that
white men welcome everyone else to the table.

------
closed
It seems like those calling for removing speakers are often trying to set
identity contingencies. That is, a rule like, "if you are Douglas Crockford,
then you can't speak at a conference". However, like identity contingencies
against people based on gender, race, etc.. this kind of rule is disappointing
because it assumes there is something inherently limited or bad about being
Douglas Crockford.

What seems better to me would be asking for an explicit behavioral contingency
on being a conference speaker. For example, "if you are going to make sexist
remarks, then you cannot speak at the conference".

This makes clear that if you think Douglas Crockford is not fundamentally
broken as a human, but could learn and become better at following the
contingencies set by the conference, then he is fine to speak. It also opens
room to work with Crockford to create a plan for him to speak at the
conference, such as going over his speech beforehand, or sitting down with him
afterward to discuss ways in which he may have violated the conference's
standards.

He can't stop being Douglas Crockford, but I don't think that means he can't
stop producing behaviors conference organizers find offensive or harmful (if
he wants to).

P.s. check out the book Whistling Vivaldi for an interesting introduction to
some potentially harmful (or beneficial) effects of identity contingencies.

~~~
stephenr
That concept won't work for these people. Making rules like "don't be sexist"
means that to prevent someone coming, you have to show that the person was in
fact being sexist.

The homepage for Nodevember has a big "code of conduct" section. No idea if
it's new or not, but one bit is:

> Do not insult or put down other attendees.

Insult is taken, not given. You can't decide what insults me, the same as I
can't decide what insults you. By that token, anyone can claim that anything
anyone says is insulting to them.

I find plenty of common nodejs community 'norms' to be insulting to my eyes to
read, never mind to my brain having to deal with the mental shenanigans
required to try to make sense of the decisions made.

Does that mean I have the ability to say "NPM's dependency management is so
poor quality it's insulting" and have any talk about NPM banned?

~~~
closed
> Insult is taken, not given. You can't decide what insults me, the same as I
> can't decide what insults you. By that token, anyone can claim that anything
> anyone says is insulting to them.

Agreed, and because the conference organizers wield the power to decide who
speaks (or to implement deciding in some fashion), they can choose how the
insult they're referring to is measured and responded to. For example, it
could be by committee, etc..

I'm disappointed if, regardless of their belief on what constitutes insulting
behavior, they didn't put forth at least some effort to see if Crockford could
meet their standards.

> Does that mean I have the ability to say "NPM's dependency management is so
> poor quality it's insulting" and have any talk about NPM banned?

You can say that, and organize a conference that bans talk about NPM. As long
as your were upfront about it, I'd be fine with it--just sounds like the
trappings of a bad conference. If you invited a speaker, only to realize that
they were planning to talk about NPM (say you hadn't made your contingency
clear), then hopefully you would check if they would drop talk about NPM. If
you found out that someone had talked about NPM at a previous conference, and
so removed them from your conference without doing the above, I would be
disappointed in you, too ;).

> Making rules like "don't be sexist" means that to prevent someone coming,
> you have to show that the person was in fact being sexist.

I'm not sure if you're saying that, to you, nothing in his behavior appears
sexist. I was trying to think of the issue of what to do after / assuming they
believed he had acted inappropriately in the past.

------
danso
I'm trying to imagine an alternative timeline in which Nodevember, after
having announced Crockford as a speaker and then receiving pushback on
Twitter, privately discusses things with Crockford and mutually agree that
they should part ways, but come up with a plausible explanation that would
minimize the loss of face for both parties.

(for the sake of argument, let's say we agree that conferences have the
unilateral right to invite and reject whomever they want for any reason that
doesn't violate current federal laws)

1) What would that public and plausible explanation be? e.g. "Due to
scheduling conflicts, we regret to say that Mr. Crockford cannot give the
keynote speech but will be attending etc.etc."

2) How much time would it take (in days) to plan and then move on this?

3) Is Crockford the type to take this graciously and quietly and, even though
he's justified in feeling wronged, doesn't feel the need to retaliate now or
in the future?

edit: I think that Nodevember can do what it wants, but that it seriously
fucked up for not vetting Mr. Crockford before inviting him and then really
fucked up by throwing him under the bus. But that's been thoroughly discussed
in last night's thread

~~~
mzw_mzw
"it seriously fucked up for not vetting Mr. Crockford before inviting him"

What exactly does Mr. Crockford need to be "vetted" for, with whom, and how
exactly did those people gain the authority to decide who gets to speak and
who doesn't?

~~~
danso
Whose authority? The same authority that allows them to create Nodevember:
their own. I've never run a conference so I'm only speculating here: when
people decide to organize a conference, they have an idea of what ideas and
environment and discussion they want to promote, whether it's Nodevember or
the American Neo-Nazi Party. I don't know what Nodevember's standards are but
they clearly don't allow for Crockford, and as long as it's not for reasons
that might violate civil rights, e.g. if Crockford were to rely on a
wheelchair and Nodevember wanted to convene at a place without elevators or
ramps, they can have whatever standards they want, just like they're free to
write and uphold a code of conduct they believe in.

But generally, and again I've never run a conference, if you have standards,
you should have them at the time of planning the conference, including when
inviting keynote speakers.

~~~
mzw_mzw
Sorry, when I said "whose authority" I wasn't referring to the conference
runners -- obviously they can choose to invite and disinvite anyone they want.
I was referring to these Twitter randos the conference runners are apparently
required to "vet" their speakers with.

------
torgoguys
Yeah, I don't get it either. FWIW, and why I'm commenting, "promiscuity" with
regards to computer communications isn't even new with Crockford. It's the
exact correct term used in the industry to refer to a mode you can put network
cards into if you want to inspect all traffic that reaches it, rather than
just traffic indented for your workstation [0]. It goes back at least to the
early 1990s when I first encountered it, probably earlier.

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promiscuous_mode](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promiscuous_mode)

~~~
stephenr
Oh come on, don't let facts and technical terms get in the way of a good witch
hunt.

------
dodyg
First they came for Brendan Eich and I did not speak out because I was pro gay
marriage.

Then they came for Douglas Crockford and I did not speak out because I did not
attend JavaScript conferences.

Then they came for me—and it did not matter because I am a C# programmer.

~~~
sjwright
Cute. However conflating or equating what Douglas Crockford has done with
Brendan Eich is in my estimation unreasonable.

As far as anyone can tell, at worst Crockford has a conversational style that
isn't excessively concerned with political correctness or charm. He used words
like "gonads" and "promiscuous" in a way that can be misconstrued.

At worst, Brendan Eich can be accused of working to actively work against the
aspirations of a community because they are different to him, even though
these aspirations don't materially affect him.

~~~
dodyg
Gay marriage was illegal in the US until last year. His position was not a
fringe position. I am glad marriage equality comes to the US but if we start
prosecuting people for their political beliefs, things are going to get ugly
real quick. The tide of political direction can turn on a dime.

How about marijuana legalization? It's coming to all of the US states sooner
or later. Let's start making a list of people who are against it so we can
start a revenge hit later.

~~~
sjwright
I completely agree with you. I'm just saying the two controversies, on a
relative basis, aren't in the same order of magnitude.

~~~
dodyg
Got it.

I don't understand how the word promiscuous become such a toxic word even in
the context of human relationship. We are several years into the era of Tinder
and other hookup apps and people are still freaking out with the concept.

------
istjohn
It disappoints me to see how many folks on Hacker News have responded to this
incident by condemning the entire concept of standards of conduct and the idea
that the developer community should take the goal of inclusivity and
sensitivity seriously. There is no question that our community too often can
feel hostile to those who aren't white hetero men, and that is a real problem.

On the other hand, there is no question that advocates for inclusivity are
sometimes overzealous and careless, and no doubt, some people have even
exploited the issue in bad faith for their own aims. These mistakes confuse
and alienate would-be allies in the community. While no doubt well-
intentioned, Nodevember has hurt the cause.

My plea to those who are tempted to dismiss the whole project of inclusivity
in response to this incident is this:

The program needs debugging, but that doesn't mean the program is unworkable
or the goals are undesirable. Perhaps we forgot a semicolon somewhere, or
maybe we need to do a complete rewrite. But creating a community that is
comfortable for everyone is an inherently valuable goal. And it doesn't need
to be uncomfortable for cisgendered hetero white men, either. Please don't
abandon this goal. Instead, let's engage in a constructive dialogue to figure
out how to do better.

~~~
rhapsodic
> But creating a community that is comfortable for everyone is an inherently
> valuable goal.

Well, I can never be comfortable in a community where I might have my
reputation and/or career destroyed over a reference to testicles that some
might deem inappropriate.

The people doing this are vicious and hateful, and they need to be given a
taste of their own medicine.

~~~
mrcsparker
Maybe the idea of communities in tech should just go away. People who share
similar ideas on tech should just get together to share those ideas without
having to setup a bunch of arbitrary rules and gatekeepers.

Some brilliant people might also have offensive ideas. Why not have a system
that allows that brilliance to shine through?

The larger problem here is that these are not communities of hobbyists. Saying
something silly or having someone misinterpret what you are saying within the
community could cost you your living. Crockford will be okay because he is
already well established, but what if he wasn't as well established?

~~~
erichocean
> _Some brilliant people might also have offensive ideas._

Yup. And some brilliant ideas are offensive.

------
rhapsodic
I think the only way to oppose this tidal wave of bullying and shaming and
witch hunting is to employ all of the same tactics the cry-bullies employ.
People and organizations cave to these bullies because, in their cost-benefit
calculations, they see little or no downside to caving, and possible upside.
In order to stop this, it has to made _costly_ to cave to them. If everyone
who thinks it was ridiculous and cowardly for Nodevember to uninvite Crockford
were to make it known that they would boycott Nodevember and their corporate
sponsors in the future, they might see things differently.

Also, people who routinely seek to destroy the reputations and careers of
people who don't speak and behave according to their strict standard should
run the risk of having their own careers and reputations destroyed in
response. This form of sweet justice happens once in a while, but not nearly
enough.

------
bobjordan
I'm a liberal with three daughters and I'm certainly pro-inclusion but this
repulses me. We've grown as a society to over-indulge people with fragile
personalities. Yuk.

~~~
polotics
I disagree about the notion that the attack on Crockford comes from "people
with fragile personalities", this look to me more like advanced identity
politics manipulated at a high level, definitely would take me 10'000 hours to
master.

------
masterponomo
Given the context, chicharrones was clearly a mistake or a play on the word
cojones. The earnest parsers of speech for fatal psychological landmines would
not in a million years be able to make this tiny mental leap, as it requires a
sense of humor.

------
rkapsoro
A key pillar of today's identity politics is a default state of victimhood in
a zero-sum world where a crass rubric of privilege is the only determinant of
one's outcome.

Sadly, when people (are made to) believe they are victims, almost any amount
of egregious behavior opens up for them.

We should not quietly tolerate puritanical bullying behavior from the far left
any more than we did that from the far right.

------
okket
See also
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12422420](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12422420)

------
mrpsbrk
A point i didn't see mentioned is that the talk about "having the balls" is
all about the fear-of-monads being overblown and unjustified, and in this
context making unfunny jokes about overblown and unjustified bravado conveys a
point -- and does so in a way that no amount of explaining that "it's not so
bad really" would. I actually think saying he was being exclusionary in this
instance is downright bad faith.

------
Roboprog
As for Mr Straw, glad to hear he made the decision to think for himself,
rather than buying into all the BS that the conservatives or liberals /
Republicans or Democrats are selling.

All things in moderation, I suppose, and don't be afraid to look at the
historical facts and likely consequences of decisions.

Not that facts help you make a values decision about what to do when there is
a "zero sum", conflict of interest type situation...

------
barrkel
Mr. Straw is part of the problem, imo.

There's a lawful vs chaotic dichotomy going on - Mr. Straw started out lawful
conservative, but then found out about a different set of laws he could
leverage into a position of power.

It's a similar but different power leverage being exercised elsewhere by a new
generation. Feeling excluded by more usual measures like achievement or
talent, they've taken to using social taboos and bullying to gain power.

It's vaguely annoying to watch, but it's best ignored. The very lack of talent
that people who use social manoeuvres to get to the top means the groups they
dominate won't be very important or effective, unless it's law making
directly. I'll get worried then. I'm fairly sanguine about node.js
conferences.

~~~
rhinoceraptor
Or it could be that he changed his opinions based on new perspectives like any
intellectually honest person does.

~~~
barrkel
People who self identify as busybodies creating rules of conduct etc. seem to
me to be more interested in rules than opinions. Setting the rules, especially
when it's around social norms - rules almost for the sake of rules - is a
cheap power tactic pursued in organisations all over the world for decades.
Thought police / religious fundamentalists exist in every political shade.
It's the zealousness of the policing that I have a problem with, not the
particular shade.

Just my opinion. I don't care much about the politics. I don't think either
side of US politics is wrong or right per se, for example. I'm just very wary
of people who have strong opinions that they want to turn into rules.

------
Graham67
Fundamentalists are immediately, overwhelmingly, correct.

------
infodroid
How come this story and the previous one have been penalized on HN despite the
high number of upvotes?

This story was published to HN only an hour ago but has gathered over 115
points, yet it has been relegated to page 2.

The previous story [1] was published 14 hours ago and has over 540 points, yet
is now to be found on page 4.

If the algorithm was operating as usual then both stories would still be in
the top half of the front page.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12422420](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12422420)

~~~
istjohn
Would getting flagged bump it down? It's a shame people don't think this is a
worthwhile conversation to be having.

~~~
sridca
How does anyone know that this happens because of flagging? What if the
moderator(s) did it? Does HN have a moderation log at all?

------
ZoF
Political correctness stifles upward mobility and promotes the maintenance of
the current 'status quo'.

We're trending towards a future where people can do anything they want as long
as they have enough power and don't say anything offensive while doing it.

It's horse shit to be honest; most humans don't really give a fuck about a
gendered presentation slide and removing all gender references from everything
isn't how you magically gain 'equality'.

Some of the worst humans I know are the ones who love this garbage because
it's essentially the current way to bully and silence the people you don't
like.

------
draw_down
Sometimes people encourage me to get into speaking at conferences. There are a
number of reasons I don't want to, and shit like this isn't the main one, but
it certainly doesn't help.

Everything just feels very tense (to be clear, I think the reasons for this
are understandable) but it also just seems kind of thankless.

------
ondreian
Great dissection. Thanks Paul

------
k__
He said a few things that feel like promoting a non inclusive environment.
Which is bad, especially from someone like him, because many people look up to
him and probably think it is okay to say such things.

Edit: Also interesting that the HN crowd always confirms the accusations they
receive.

~~~
sebringj
monads sound like gonads, its elementary humor but there's nothing offensive
about it. If assholes were only attached to men, some dumb fuck would complain
if he made fart jokes.

