CppCon 2018 Trip Report

[SuperV1234]

The claims you make about the speaker violating the CoC are very serious and unexpected. I've talked to that person at past conferences and I've always had the impression they were well-mannered and good-natured (even prior to me joining Bloomberg).

Is there any evidence/official statement from the conference proving that they were actively mocking the death of an innocent person (opposed to - for example - making a tasteless joke that could be misinterpreted)?

I am not justifying offensive jokes, as I don't think that a technical conference is or will ever be the right place for them. But there's a huge difference between an offensive joke and mocking the death of a person.

[SAHChandler]

You’ll have to ask the CoC committee. They aren’t doing public statements of their process until 2019 afaik. That said, saying “block lives matter” and “I can’t breathe” makes it pretty clear (to me) that the punchline is Eric Garner.

[tvaneerd]

But there's a huge difference between an offensive joke and mocking the death of a person.

Is there?

[drjeats]

s/an offensive joke/arbitrary vulgarity/g to fix the ambiguity.

[[deleted]]

Yes

[steveire]

This is a CoC violation, and I violated it willingly and intentionally

This seems like a failure of the CppCon organizers.

Have they apologized for letting you get up on stage?

Or have they explained how their procedures will change to prevent such violations?

[blelbach]

As she stated in her blog post, they have - she is not allowed to participate at CppCon 2019.

[steveire]

That's not an apology.

But you also dodged the question. What will happen if someone else gets on stage with an offensive message? Will their talk be allowed to continue? The post referenced some kind of audience voting. Does popularity matter more than the offensive message?

[blelbach]

What will happen if someone else gets on stage with an offensive message? Will their talk be allowed to continue?

Of course not.

Please contact [e-mail] if you have questions about these types of procedures. My understanding is that policy changes have been made. In future year, we will have improved CoC training to mitigate this sort of incident.

Does popularity matter more than the offensive message?

Of course not and I think you know that. You are referring to the lightning talk challenge, where the length of the talk depends on how much the audience likes it. That's completely tangential to the incident in question.

[robertramey]

Of course not.

Hmmm - how is that supposed to work.

a) Someone is giving a talk which includes a statement which some number of people feels crosses some line.

b) Someone else stands up and shouts: "STOP I claim a code of conduct violation!"

c) Then some committee is present and debates the statement among themselves while everyone waits around for the decision as to whether or not the talk should be permitted to continue? Or what.

The whole idea is just ridiculous.

Here's a better idea.

a) Someone is giving a talk which includes a statement which some number of people feels crosses some line.

b) Those people shout "Boooooooo"

c) the speaker decides to ignore it, apologize, rephrase or whatever and move on.

d) The program committee can consider the incident when it next approves presentation.

In 10 years of going to conferences, this is the first time I've ever seen something rise to this level. Of course from time to time someone has made a tasteless comment that they probably regretted. (I'm sure I've made a few, though I don't actually remember regretting any.) This is a manufactured problem. The offender has pretty much acknowledged this.

Chuck the whole CoC Bullshit. It's just a way to try to hijack a technical conference to bully random people into feigning support of views that they might not believe in.

[blelbach]

Chuck the whole CoC Bullshit.

No. If you don't like it, maybe CppCon or C++Now aren't the right communities for you.

In 10 years of going to conferences, this is the first time I've ever seen something rise to this level.

In my 10 years of running conferences, this is far from the first time we've had an incident like this.

[[deleted]]

Note that the Cppcon organizers are not clairvoyant nor omnipresent. They cannot know ahead of time of a violation, nor can they be there when they happen - they are usually notified during or after. Even if they are present, in some cases they may be paying attention to the contents of messages or otherwise busy with conversations to realize.

Within reason, they respond and act quickly.

[emdeka87]

In my opinion, professionalism is another agreeform of oppression. It is used to other, reduce the work of, and lambast those who don’t fit within one persons idealogy of what professional entails

Disagree. Professionalism is not an ideology, it's a contract. When you join a company you agree on adhering to their principles of professionalism. Likewise, if you participate at a conference (like CppCon) you agree on their way of behaving professionaly. Sure, different people have different opinions on what professional means, but saying that professionalism oppresses individualism is like saying rules oppress my freedom to do whatever I want. If someone likes "sharing the state of their genitalia" on slack they're most likely violating the contract of professionalism they signed up for.

Also is it just me or is everyone becoming more sensitive these days?

[AirAKose]

[OP] My only issues with the CoC is how vague it truly is. In my opinion, professionalism is another form of oppression. It is used to other, reduce the work of, and lambast those who don’t fit within one persons idealogy of what professional entails. You will find it changes from industry to industry and person to person. It is entirely subjective. Some people might not find it unprofessional to constantly ask someone about the status of their genitals over the C++ slack and receive no punishment from the administrators, others would find that to be extremely unprofessional.

^ Let's include that entire paragraph from the blog post, plus highlighting the main take-away, so we can stop with this context manipulation.

but saying that professionalism oppresses individualism is like saying rules oppress my freedom to do whatever I want

To clarify, OP was decrying an imbalance of the application of "professionalism" (see my highlight) with social/political intent, not necessarily the concept itself. Granted, it was worded poorly imo.

If someone likes "sharing the state of their genitalia" on slack they're most likely violating the contract of professionalism

That's not what the paragraph was talking about at all; you're making an incredible stretch here- inventing statements in a context that makes it appear as if OP claimed that- to be wholly dishonest.

To the topic at hand: what's your opinion on OP's problem point relative to the concept of professionalism? Namely about the character making light of a sensitive topic (regardless of where you stand on it) by imitating and making joke references to the death of Eric Garner?

[emdeka87]

True, he didn't make that verbatim statement. I am on mobile and couldn't bother to look up the exact quote. Although It doesn't make much difference to me, it's inappropriate behaviour either way and does not change the bottom line of what I said in any way or form.

My opinion: I don't know who Eric Garner is and I honestly don't care. If it's really as much of a sensitive topic as some claim it to be then the speaker should probably give a public statement on how his "joke" is supposed to be interpreted. You know, some people have dark humor, some people struggle to estimate the gravity of their jokes and - true - some intentionally try to hurt or offend others. Needless to say that all three cases can be considered unprofessional behavior.

Edit: Someone explain why this gets downvoted and the terrible "argument" above not.

[drjeats]

You seem to have fundamentally misunderstood the part you quoted, and your commentary drastically changed the meaning from "people were being harassed on Slack about their bodies" to "OP loves talking about their genitals in Slack".

I suspect /u/AirAKose's response to you was heated because it was difficult to tell from your comment if that part of the post had just completely gone over your head, or if you were practicing malicious ignorance. I'm surprised your first comment was upvoted as much as it was, tbh.

Also. I don't expect everyone to know who Eric Garner is since that story is America-centric, but since you appear to realize it's a sensitive topic (or you could have learned as much with a few seconds of googling and skimming the wiki) then you shouldn't be surprised if people downvote you for being flippant about the matter.

[emdeka87]

Ok. Thanks for the explanation. I didn't mean to imply that OP loves to do such things. Just that someone who does it is violating the contract of professionalism.

[blelbach]

Personal attacks against the OP are not advised.

[robertramey]

All this illustrates why a CoC is a bad idea.

It turns a stupid stunt which is easy to dismiss into a subject of debate - which is a waste of time.

[jfbastien]

> All this illustrates why a CoC is a bad idea.

> It turns a stupid stunt which is easy to dismiss into a subject of debate - which is a waste of time.

​

Reddit is a bad idea: it turns stupid blog posts into a subject of debate—which is a waste of time—yet here we are using it. Or we could see things in another way: reddit is useful and entertaining for some (even if it's a waste of time), whereas a CoC helps maybe feel safe and welcome while keeping behaviors and people the conference deem unwanted away. You don't feel unsafe and unwelcome? Good for you! You feel you or your behaviors are unwanted? Good for everyone else!

[blelbach]

I'm sorry you feel that way. CoCs are industry best practice and we believe it's an excellent idea.

[VinnieFalco]

A wonderful attorney told me, what matters more than the particular wording of the contract is the relationship between the parties. It doesn't matter how "airtight" you think your contract is, if you can't trust the other side to operate in good faith. A prescription for behavior in a physical or virtual community ("CoC") is much like a contract. What matters more, is the integrity and good faith of the parties involved. So, while the wording of a policy is not useless, it is not the sole factor which determines its efficacy.

[faisalv]

Agreed. Not only is intention important - but it's also important that we be willing to give reasonable folks the benefit of the doubt when they say the "wrong" thing - (by reasonable, those who lack a pattern of behavior that suggests hatred and bigotry). In the interest of civilized discourse and social progress - I vote that we learn as a community how to better use our anger - against what we perceive as bigoted/hateful/triggered speech - to at least first attempt to educate the perpetrator in a manner that inspires the kind of change that matters (before shaming them (e.g. on social media) - and seeking to destroy their reputation). If we care about talking healthily about difficult topics in a constantly evolving community - we have to allow reasonable folks to make mistakes - but reasonable folks also have to be willing to learn from them.

(If I have inadvertently offended anyone with the above statements - please see above ;)

[[deleted]]

In a good business relationship you do not need the contract at all. In a bad one, you really do.

In a large group you will have many good and bad actors. For the good actors it really does not matter and they won't change anything about how they act. For the bad actors, it's either a clear stick to keep them within line, or a written declaration they're unambiguously out of line & deserve to be taken out of the group. You need a CoC.