[ben0x539]

> The hilarious is that Joel Grus didn't care

It's probably not the case here, but imo it's a feature of CoCs that they protect people who can't publicly object themselves for whatever reason.

Like, for an extreme example, if I know I'm gonna get harassed if I make noise about someone's genuinely harmful behavior, then it's good that I can publicly be like "oh no it's fine don't worry" and there's still a process to stop them from harming more people.

[PragmaticPulp]

Most modern legal systems give people the right to confront their accusers for good reason: Giving people the power to accuse others without any possibility of consequences will ultimately be abused.

I understand the desire to protect specifically vulnerable accusers in unique situations, but we should be catering to those situations on a case-by-case basis.

In this case, isolating the accusers from the accused didn’t help anyone. The accusers weren’t even the direct victims of this imagined offense. They were simply using the CoC machinery to bring something negative upon someone else while knowing they would never suffer any negatives for what they did.

[ben0x539]

We don't know anything about the accusers, do we? I don't think it's fair to assume they had malicious intentions.

Specifically, I don't think we can assume that the people who were uncomfortable with the talk were like "this speaker should be banned from the conference". Maybe the initial message was closer to "hey, this seems a bit harsh and distracts from the actual content, maybe the speaker wouldn't mind toning it down for the next talk".

[PragmaticPulp]

> We don't know anything about the accusers, do we?

That’s the problem. The system is broken because it’s designed to give the accusers every benefit of the doubt, while giving the accused no recourse.

The accused is at the mercy of anonymous complaints. The accusers have zero accountability or downsides.

[ben0x539]

I'd say the accused is at the mercy of the conf organizers evaluating the complaints fairly. But the accused is at the mercy of the conf organizers whether they use a CoC or not.

[justin66]

Yeesh. Malice would be more respectable.

[robbyoconnor]

Except it wasn't harassment -- guess what? People can say you're wrong. Check your ego at the door if you give a public talk. They shouldn't say "he's a fucking idiot" but saying "I feel that got X,Y, and Z wrong and here's why:" is not a fucking CoC violation. I support codes of conduct and always will but this is where things went topsy-turvy, do not try to roll your own and try to be specific.

[ben0x539]

I'm not saying it was harassment, I'm using an extreme example to make the point that "the supposedly aggrieved party says it was fine" shouldn't by itself be considered sufficient evidence that the CoC wasn't broken and that action shouldn't be taken.

[robbyoconnor]

Fair point.

[josefx]

> People can say you're wrong. Check your ego at the door if you give a public talk.

There are probably tons of lectures on how to disagree with someone while phrasing it neutrally. For example "you are wrong" vs. "I disagree with your point" . I couldn't imagine using such a style constantly without slipping up every now and then but it is probably double plus good in an environment that forces you to walk on eggshells.