Ivan Reese
07/16/2020, 7:30 AMTim Plotnikov
07/16/2020, 8:35 AMDuncan Cragg
07/16/2020, 9:55 AMIan Rumac
07/16/2020, 11:02 AMthe way he discussed the issue of gender diversityI didn’t see him saying anything like “diversity is bad”, “we don’t need women in tech”, or anything in that sense. He openly claimed he wanted to see more women in tech. I didn’t see his stands as negative, but as eliciting discussion, which is important and healthy, especially because then you see the community discussing the issue and can get more voices on the issue and more quality opinions than everyone just saying yes. If someone agrees with him and then they see a discussion around the subject and decide to change their opinion due to healthy discussion seems like a better path to a good community than having no discussion and just “you can’t say stuff that people don’t agree with” politics. For example, in the latest #meta discussion, him and Shalabh are saying the same thing, tho thorough different language and you seem to disagree with one and agree with the other. I’ve seen the same thing happen in a few communities already, where members who elicit and provoke discussion get banned, and it’s usually not a good sign. And usually it’s senior, experienced members with tons of knowledge. And banning them to me is blantantly age-ist and anti-diverse. They grew up in a different context, they think differently than we do and they express their opinions more sharply and openly because they don’t succumb to cancel culture. They don’t see what’s wrong with a discussion, and IMO that’s the right attitude, because that’s what leads to growth.
Doug Moen
07/16/2020, 12:15 PMDon't forget that he is the way he is for unknown reasons, as we all are. You may be sanctioning someone for what could be a non-neurotypical disorder, which would be something like discrimination, as well as already being something like censorship of free speech.and this:
usually it’s senior, experienced members with tons of knowledge. And banning them to me is blantantly age-ist and anti-diverse. They grew up in a different context, they think differently than we do and they express their opinions more sharply and openly because they don’t succumb to cancel culture.frame the issue as discrimination against Edward based on his identity. But that's not what happened. Edward was banned for his actions. He repeatedly violated the code of conduct, and refused to accept that he should conduct himself according to the code. It's legitimate to ban somebody for this kind of behaviour. It's not reasonable to argue that old white men should have a special exemption from the code of conduct. Everyone should be treated the same with respect to COC violations.
Duncan Cragg
07/16/2020, 12:52 PMIan Rumac
07/16/2020, 1:09 PMOh, and he’s DM’ed me to bully me on the subject of functional programming, which he despises. The functional-programming channel was created as a safe space for discussion away from himDidn’t know that one. That’s terrible. I don’t think anybody is saying that “old white men” should have a special exemption, I’m just saying that people have different views and communicate in a different matter - while someone will say “I disagree with the content”, someone will say “this is such bullshit”. And we should tell them to reformulate the messages. I don’t know what the ban is about exactly, I just disagree with banning people for having different opinions in discussions and feel like those complaints should be public and part of the discussion. If he’s bullying people via DM, that’s a whole another discussion.
Duncan Cragg
07/16/2020, 1:20 PMDoug Moen
07/16/2020, 1:32 PMogadaki
07/16/2020, 1:34 PMIan Rumac
07/16/2020, 1:38 PMDuncan Cragg
07/16/2020, 1:45 PMRyan King
07/16/2020, 1:50 PMIvan Reese
07/16/2020, 1:53 PM@Ian Rumac
while someone will say “I disagree with the content”, someone will say “this is such bullshit”. And we should tell them to reformulate the messages.
I had asked Edward, on 3 or 4 different occasions, to be more careful about how he talked about certain issues and how the negativity in his posts pushed other people away from discussing with him. He never once made any of the changes I requested. He'd either ignore my DMs entirely (not respond but continue posting away), or he'd call me or other people here names, or he'd call me ageist.
Ian Rumac
07/16/2020, 1:56 PMIvan Reese
07/16/2020, 2:11 PMIn fact, just type "from:@Edward de Jong / Beads Project" into the search bar to see the breadth of experience and insightful commentary that we'll now be deprived of.
I know! When you got past the negativity, he had a lot of historical perspective, smart contrarian takes, and a willingness to explore seemingly every topic. Definitely going to miss the content of his thoughts on technology, though not the form.
Ian Rumac
07/16/2020, 2:45 PMChris G
07/16/2020, 2:47 PMibdknox
07/16/2020, 3:17 PMIvan Reese
07/16/2020, 3:26 PMyou think maybe it would’ve helped if those discussions with him were done in the open? I assume if everyone could see he’d have more responsibility to act better, can’t ignore the whole community. Maybe this would help in future cases
Some were. See the thread immediately above this one. (Also, note the very last sentence in my original post for that thread, asking what should be done if the offender doesn't respond to gentle reinforcement / requests.) If memory serves, there were two or three other threads that either started out with, or were turned into, folks talking to Edward about his behaviour here. He most certainly was ignoring the community around him, again and again, which is why I'm banning him. If he had shown willingness to even acknowledge the concerns of others around him, rather than refusing at every turn, we'd be in a very different situation.
Ian Rumac
07/16/2020, 3:26 PMKevin Moore
07/16/2020, 3:48 PMshalabh
07/16/2020, 4:56 PM@Ian Rumac :
For example, in the latest #meta
discussion, him and Shalabh are saying the same thing, tho thorough
different language and you seem to disagree with one and agree with the
other.Are we? I sure hope not. I found Edward's comments offensive and excluding. I may have used overlapping words to try and connect with him and show Edward the problem with his comments. But I really think those comments are damaging. (As much as I really dislike the framing of "interested in people" vs "things", if someone else finds it relevant I'd encourage them to view programming as a broad endeavor involving both). I actually had a follow up draft which went like this "I find statements of the form 'they're just not interested' quite bothersome..." but then the conversation went elsewhere. Now that's I've distanced myself from Edward's comments in that specific thread... • I did find some of Edward's posts interesting • I like contrarian takes • I found his behavior often rude and abrasive. E.g. early on when he joined, I DMed him about a few comments he made which I thought were too abrasive, insensitive. One was directly in response to an 'introductions' post from someone excited about FP. • I had not discussed the issue earlier with Ivan but after this thread, I DMed him to express support in this hard decision. In the end, I think the main problem was that the behavior was pushing other people away and wasn't improving.
Ian Rumac
07/16/2020, 5:16 PMZach Potter
07/16/2020, 5:46 PMRobert Butler
07/16/2020, 6:27 PMshalabh
07/16/2020, 8:29 PMReally? I felt so, with him being more concrete and your being more abstract and general but encapsulating his - took the things/people frame and said yes, this is one of the tribal/societal behaviors that we have to counter. Sorry if I misunderstood your comment.No worries I don't think I was very clear. The tribal/societal forces I was talking about countering is forming close groups that become exclusive, even (unintentionally) unwelcoming, and may go down a narrow path of ideas. (Preferences - I'm not so sure of - as both the boundary of the topic and the social environments that influence preference are forever changing)
Aleks
07/16/2020, 8:38 PMChris Knott
07/16/2020, 9:38 PMhow his behaviour here made people feel unwelcome, and how some of the things he said were unacceptably regressiveIn a realpolitik sense, it might have been a mistake to bring up both of these, it probably made it easier for him to think of himself as the victim, and doubt your sincerity. The primary issue was he was just rude. It's not complicated, he just broke the rules of polite conversation. The second issue is much more nuanced; you are saying that his (I assume) honestly held beliefs are unacceptable. Way, way, trickier position to take. Way, way, way harder criticism to take on board. With regards to his positive contributions I found he had an annoying habit of speaking in the same tone of absolute certainty regardless of his actual expertise. I remember one post where we talked about the history of Javascript and ActionScript 2 which read like he had first hand experience of it, but actually turned out to be nonsense (as another user pointed out the timeline made his story impossible). After this I found myself having to check anything he said, most of which was completely correct, but there was no way of telling without checking myself.
Ivan Reese
07/16/2020, 10:03 PMA lot of internet communities make moderation a shadowy process that happens in the background. It becomes a burden mods bear with martyr-esq stoicism. If moderation ever feels like a burden, there's no reason to blindly embrace that model. There's potentially lots of ways to modify the moderation process so all the weight doesn't fall on one person.
I have received constant, enthusiastic support from countless people here since I took over as steward. I also do as much moderation as I can in public, moving to private DMs only when I want to respect people's privacy. I feel good in general, though it's tough to have to make the call, yes.
Kartik Agaram
07/17/2020, 2:45 AMEdward was the only person on this forum who's opinions I consistently agreed with or at least found interesting.Only person?! This makes me sad. Either for you or this group, I'm not sure which 🙂
Duncan Cragg
07/17/2020, 8:02 AMMarco Monteiro
07/17/2020, 8:20 AMIvan Reese
07/17/2020, 2:08 PMDuncan Cragg
07/17/2020, 2:11 PMIvan Reese
07/17/2020, 3:25 PMAndrew F
07/17/2020, 4:00 PMDuncan Cragg
07/17/2020, 5:02 PMScott Anderson
07/17/2020, 5:48 PMMarco Monteiro
07/17/2020, 6:53 PMDuncan Cragg
07/17/2020, 7:11 PMNow that we've had this thread, and a consensus has emerged — @Edward de Jong / Beads Project, would you kindly change that post to say "had the guts" or something similarly innocuous?
I issued a final warning to Edward: stop posting entirely, and just lurk, or else you will be banned. He ignored that as well, and continued posting.Admittedly, these do sound more reasonable now I revisit them, but in each case when I read them I was struck by how inevitable it was that they'd be ignored.
Ivan Reese
07/17/2020, 7:44 PMcan you please point me to, or give complete quotes of a few of the last examples where he said hurtful things and/or insulted people?No, sorry, I won't do that. I've spent a lot of time already dealing with Edward and the ways he's hurt people here — closer to 24 hours than 0 — and many others have joined this thread saying, in effect, that they aren't surprised by this outcome. I'm not going to spend the additional hours digging through our archives in an attempt to justify my decisions to you. That's an unreasonable request.
Kartik Agaram
07/17/2020, 7:46 PMDoug Moen
07/17/2020, 7:55 PMKartik Agaram
07/17/2020, 8:18 PMIvan Reese
07/17/2020, 8:34 PMI issued a final warning to Edward: stop posting entirely, and just lurk, or else you will be banned. He ignored that as well, and continued posting.This sounds like a set-up, totally. The context is that I already had more than enough cause to ban him. But I wanted to give him the option to continue existing here as a reader. So this wasn't a final test to determine if he should be banned. It was a way of enacting a ban that (A) was arguably gentler on him, since I didn't think there was anything I or anyone else would gain or lose by banning him completely, and (B) left the door open for him to ask to be reinstated in the future, if after some time away he reflected on what had happened and decided to take a different approach here.
Now that we've had this thread, and a consensus has emerged — Edward de Jong / Beads Project, would you kindly change that post to say "had the guts" or something similarly innocuous?A few days before I started that thread, I wrote to Edward privately. Here's the entirety of what I said:
> The reason Steve Jobs is a legend in product development is because he had the cojones to order a million units of his products before he knew if it was going to be popular.
(From this post)
I'd like to keep the community free of this sort of gendered language. Would you edit your post to say something like "guts" instead of "cojones"?(The words "this post" were linked to the now-deleted message) He never responded, and continued posting to the site, indicating to me that he ignored my message. This was the 3rd or 4th time I'd sent such a request to him. All previous requests of that sort, he'd responded to fairly quickly and refused, which led to us discussing the matter... sometimes for hours (sigh)... but it never resulted in him giving an inch. So, after I resorted to starting a thread about how I should handle such situations, and he rolled in with..
The second attempt by Ivan, who hates my guts, to try and get me kicked out of the group. I don't remember paying dues to hire a word/thought police. I thought even dinosaurs such as myself were welcome.... I then responded in that thread with the post you quoted.
Now that we've had this thread, and a consensus has emerged — Edward de Jong / Beads Project, would you kindly change that post to say "had the guts" or something similarly innocuous?This was my way of re-upping the original private request that he'd ignored, once more with feeling. My appeal to the group consensus was in the hope that, since it seems he felt I had it in for him, he'd recognize that it wasn't just me who felt this way, and that I acted in the way many other people here would have acted. Yeah, groupthink a bit, I know, but this is me learning in public how to help deal with someone who has decided they don't care about how they make others feel. (The first "attempt by Ivan [...] to try and get me kicked out", I presume, is a reference to one of our long private discussions, which included me saying things like "If I hear from anyone that you are harassing them via private message, I will have to ban you" in response to him saying things along the lines of (not direct quote) "Tell me who these people are who are complaining about me so I can confront them directly". [I'm trying to be vague about what he said out of respect for Edward's privacy. Very difficult tightrope to walk when being asked to explain the few public flare-ups of lots of private simmering.]) (Also, yes, I do make "would you kindly" BioShock references when issuing official requests in my capacity as mod, because the dark humour of it helps me personally deal with the heavy emotions.)
Marco Monteiro
07/17/2020, 9:07 PMAleks
07/17/2020, 9:47 PMAt this point, the lack of evidence to look at makes me slightly, but not too much, reluctant to participate in this communityThis. As a newcomer at the tail end of a long standing conflict, a little paper trail would have gone a long way towards making me feel like the right outcome was reached. Like Marco said, it will pass. Its just not the best introduction to a new community.
Ivan Reese
07/17/2020, 10:05 PMYour admission of being tired of dealing with him makes me uncomfortable. Hopefully, that tiredness was not the deciding factor for this moveI did a search for "tired" and couldn't find anything. Whatever I did say, it was probably my own lack of eloquence leading you to have the wrong impression. Edward broke rules(*), was given multiple second chances, and acted always without regard for the wellbeing of others. I tried throughout to be open and highly communicative with everyone involved, while still respecting people's privacy. There should be ample information in this thread to support that summary. (* Edit: see below. He didn't break the hard rules that cover things like "don't use racial slurs", but he did violate the guidelines around respecting other community members, the authors of linked works, and our values. I said "rules" in the paragraph above, when I probably should have said "guidelines" or "values".)
the lack of evidence to look at makes me slightly, but not too much, reluctant to participate in this communityThis has been unfolding for many months now, across very many conversations. If it looks like a mess from your vantage as a newcomer, that's because it is truly a mess. There's no tidy set of links I can give you that will help you understand what it was like to participate in this community with Edward at his worst, and the effort it would take me to present that case is a burden I don't have the life capacity to be saddled with.
Ryan King
07/17/2020, 10:15 PMAleks
07/17/2020, 10:20 PMIvan Reese
07/17/2020, 10:31 PMDuncan Cragg
07/17/2020, 10:58 PMMarco Monteiro
07/17/2020, 11:50 PMcurious_reader
07/21/2020, 12:39 PMjeff tang
07/22/2020, 1:04 PMIan Rumac
07/22/2020, 1:19 PMIvan Reese
07/22/2020, 3:58 PM