[hbaav6]

At some point you offended the wrong person, they added you to one of those shared blocklists, and that's all, you're banned forever.

Who's to blame? I'd say you, for caring. This is the way politics works now, and some software projects have, for some reason, joined the politics battle. By caring you're giving them weight. Just flip them off, tell them to go fuck themselves, and keep thinking the way you do.

It's not worth it to give up on your views on politics just to not be ostracised by these manchilds and circus freaks. They live off attention; if you don't pay attention to them they die. Don't give them any legitimacy, because most of those who take these decisions don't even know how to code and they are there to hijack the projects with their politics.

[aestetix]

On the one hand, it is a privately run conference and they can generally do what they want. On the other hand, I am strongly opposed to private blacklists, on the following grounds:

First, I understand there is an effort to create blacklists independently, then contact conferences who have a speaker who is on them, and then publicly shame the conference if they don't ban the speaker in question. This removes agency from the conference to decide who they want as a speaker, and creates a chilling effect, as nobody except the owners of the blacklist knows who is on the list.

Second, if I am a speaker who is on a blacklist, I generally am not told about this. Which is safer in the current political climate, to submit and risk becoming the epicenter of some twitter drama, or to decide not to submit a talk? How many great talks do we miss because an unaccountable arbiter of a blacklist has decided on my behalf who gets to speak and who doesn't?

Third, the owner of the blacklist acts as the judge, jury, and executioner all at once, with no due process. As either a conference organizer, speaker, or member of the public, I am generally not privy to 1. why the person was blacklisted 2. how many other people are blacklisted 3. whether or not (most likely not) there is an appeals process so they can be removed from the blacklist. If this sounds familiar, it's because the TSA does the same thing.

Two additional things: I realize that I am assuming some of the structures of these systems, but it comes from a bit of experience. Second, I understand that the blacklists extend to more than just conferences, also to contacting employers to get people fired, or prevent them from being hired.

I'm not sure if the conference is employing their own blacklist or was contacted by a third party, but my points still apply either way.

[yAnonymous]

>I am strongly opposed to private blacklists

HN uses similar approaches. Just saying. You can have tons of points, but if some of your recent posts were unpopular for whatever reason, your account will be limited to the point that you can't really take part in conversations.

[aestetix]

100% agreed. This is why allowing websites like HN, Facebook, and Twitter to become replacements for the public town hall is a very, very bad idea.

[tomp]

I don’t know about you, but I’m quite happy he publicised this (=gave attention). Now I know what conference to avoid!

[hbaav6]

It's good he publicised this but the length of the post and how hard he tried to get a response leads me to think he cares. He should not care about petty, deranged people.

[DaiPlusPlus]

> petty, deranged people

That has not been established. Without knowing the author’s history or any background the only thing I can conclude from the conference’s organisers is that they are disorganised and with misplaced priorities: if a potential speaker alleges they’ve been incorrectly blacklisted (and shows no obvious warning signs) then investigating and rectifying the situation as necessary should be a high priority: that’s just good customer service and community leadership - especially as checking the pedigree of a Twitter blacklist is a trivial 5 minute task.

If the author really was unwelcome for some reason or another they would have ignored his email or replied with an short “because...” message - not a “we don’t care” response - because that really does mean they really don’t care.

(Though I’ll make a snark about how the JS community moves so fast that anything useful gleaned from a JS conf would be obsolete in a year’s time anyway - limiting the potential value of his attendance anyway)

[Melchizedek]

Perhaps he shouldn't care about a conference but when the deranged people start affecting employment, then they have crossed a line. Then it's all out war.

They should be ostracized, shamed, fired and barred from employment. We should prevent hiring anybody who shows any sign of belonging to the PC-brigade. (Make no mistake - they are already doing this to their perceived "enemies", and not just based on opinions but even sex and ethnicity.)

We should make companies understand the incredible damage these people can cause.

[DaiPlusPlus]

Where is the evidence that any “PC brigades” are raising illegitimate complaints affecting people’s careers?

Your post reads like fear-mongering of laughably incorrect activist-left stereotypes. This is HN, we can do better than that.

[Melchizedek]

It's the nature of these things that they are not done in the open so there is mostly lived experience and anecdotes, but if you think people like this https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/at-work/internal-emails... won't affect your career if you are not 100% Red Guard-level down with extreme PC-ism, then I think you are quite confused.

[andrenth]

Brendan Eich and James Damore, just off the top of my head.

[anilakar]

Shared blocklists are a pain. If you at one point happened to make a bad but well-intentioned pun, you ended up[1] on a blocklist meant for blocking fascists[2].

[1] https://twitter.com/wilw/status/688127971337449475

[2] https://twitter.com/wilw/status/688149812881960961

[hbaav6]

I know this conference is probably not using this particular blocklist, but why should a conference 1) use a blocklist and 2) block people just for being of particular political view?

[brazzy]

Possible answers:

1) Some political views correspond strongly with problematic behaviour that a conference would rather not deal with.

2) Virtue signaling for PR purposes.

[bryanrasmussen]

2) would require the conference organizers to announce we've blocked this person.

[brazzy]

No, just to announce that they are blocking based on criteria the audience agrees with.

[akvadrako]

An announcement would signal the wrong thing. Better to just let some people become aware of the existence of blocking.

This is kind of like considering an "anonymous" donation more deserving of praise than a public one.

[jlg23]

1) To ensure that known trolls/predators do not show up.

2) Probably because consent can be enforced this way much easier than it can be created in a real discourse. Especially in Germany it is frowned up by leftists to even talk with people from the right-wing spectrum.

I get (1), but (2) makes me wonder whether we learned anything from history at all.

[hbaav6]

How does using a Twitter blocklist achieve 1)?

[jlg23]

You keep them out of the loop to some degree and would check against that list during registration. It apparently catches some at least, I am told.

I also know of 2 larger conferences in Europe where accounts were monitored and if activity indicates the person is present, they were removed from the venue by security.

[Sir_Substance]

>It apparently catches some at least, I am told.

Statistically speaking it should. Do you know if it's proportionally better than just blocking 1 in 10 would-be attendees at random?

[discordianfish]

I think most conferences will do well without attendees who consider them 'manchilds and circus freaks'.

Calling a organizer that would get you banned too and I think that's perfectly fine. There is no reason to get personal.

[goldenkey]

"Who's to blame? I'd say you, for caring."

This is logically inconsistent and snarky. The ban came before the reaction to it. In addition, publicizing an egregious sleight because it pissed you off, does not make you "lose" because you cared. If you smash your phone, if you crash your car, if you get angry, sure..then you sort of lose because the reaction didn't measure up to the reason for it. But here...JS Conf organizers are notorious for being a bunch of intelligentsia hipster hacks - and they are pulling in big dollars from corporations like GitHub, Amazon, Microsoft, and the like, because devs get to goto all expenses paid conferences. So seeing continued, firm evidence of pettyness on their part shows that all their bullshit politik-apologies are BS. These people are a disgrace to our industry. And deserve to continually receive bad publicity especially when their public events which rely on public image, are still milking dollars out of our programmers and the respective companies.

[ThomPete]

It sounds like you dont understand the intent of the post you are responding to or that i am not understanding your irony?

[goldenkey]

I understand but "Vigilance is noble. Caring enough to cause a stink, even though you know it isn't worth anyones' time, especially your time."

[threatofrain]

Your advice sounds like it's for Reddit trolls, not for a professional group that just banned a speaking professional. Future professionals will not understand why you have been banned, they will just see your name on a long list.

I feel like re-orienting your psychology to feel better without addressing the situation is ducking your head in the sand.

[arendtio]

> [...] and keep thinking the way you do.

I think sociologically it is wrong to just ignore 'them' as considering a change of your own thinking is important to resolve conflicts in general.

Nevertheless, without an explanation there is little he can do so ignoring them might be a reasonable self-defense in this situation.