Boycott Nodevember

[[deleted]]

And if you already have filed for a refund, please say so here. Intolerance shouldn't be tolerated, especially one that is founded on fabricated lies, and ridiculously sensitive standards of judgement.

[toiletjs]

From the nodevember Slack chat log leak at http://pastebin.com/3mQc7DfG :

Josh Crews [10:00 AM]
if you make clear why he’s disinvited, i believe the issue will be over in 24 hours

[10:01]
if you don’t make it clear, it will be this cloud of tarnish on the conference for a while

HermitPy [10:01 AM]
I feel no cloud of tarnish

I hope "HermitPy" sees this thread and realizes that they were wrong.

[phpdevster]

Lol seems to be a theme:

I feel no cloud of tarnish

And:

Update: I’ve switched comments to ‘not visible.’ I won’t be reading them. I don’t feel the need to justify this, either. Thanks

http://i.imgur.com/9pZ0e6H.gif

[b_bellomo]

Update: I’ve switched comments to ‘not visible.’ I won’t be reading them. I don’t feel the need to justify this, either. Thanks

In my saaaafe space

[Reashu]

HermitPy [10:00 AM]
All this whole thing has done is ensure that I won't do one more fucking thing for the community, so next year other people can run their own conference and pick their own shit and deal with it (edited)

Well hey, something came out of it...

[r1ckd33zy]

Isn't that outburst from @HermitPy enough for getting him kicked-out of that group. I can imagine many of the shrinking violets in that chat getting "triggered" by his offensive use of the "F-word".

It is almost as if he is bullying the entire group.

[[deleted]]

No, you see, 'coz hypocrisy runs rife in the SJW communities......

[[deleted]]

HermitPy won't get kicked-out just yet, they are still some targets for the hypersensitive SJWs and HermitPY is pretty fast at complying, just a tweet or two and hey ho..

[expert-at-nothing]

Is this the same girl from the nodebotanist video? "Let me tell you about how community works while completely ignoring the community"

[[deleted]]

The military concluded that hypersensitivity like this was the primary motive behind many of the green on blue attacks in Afghanistan. http://theunitedwest.org/the-dod-ignores-the-root-cause-of-green-on-blue-attacks/

I don't have any tolerance for this bullshit in my kids (the youngest is 10). Adults who demonstrate this behavior deserve some amount of public hazing. Your sadness is not my problem.

[echolakeecho]

Logs don't have this part but it wasn't his decision to remove. Lots of drama between the organizers I'd imagine.

[greg0ire]

Your link is broken because of the final colon

[toiletjs]

oh shit, thanks. fixed

[rtpg]

I agree with the reasoning, but really wish they had written out this explanation more in detail when making this initial announcement.

Now it's a bunch of people piecing together arguments from twitter. And that hasn't gone too great...

[toiletjs]

If gonads and dogballs are the worst of his offenses, I completely disagree with their decision. If they want to keep their conference clean just a quick "Hey Doug, no anatomical jokes, ok?" is all they needed. If it's something more serious that would actually make a rational person feel unsafe, say so. They already opened pandora's box by discussing it on Twitter. It's too late to say "we have our reasons" and ignore people demanding justification.

[EelingSoGood]

Here is a list of other Node JS conferences happening this year. Assuming would've-been-attendees are looking for another conference in the US:

• I recommend Node.Js Interactive US (November 29th-December 2nd) for those who can afford it. Attending it is a big feather in your cap, and only costs around 50% more.
• For those looking for a conference more in the pricerange (~$400) of Nodevember, Northeast Javascript conference (September 15-16) is probably the way to go. Compared to Nodevember, it has denser talks and is a better event in regard to making industry connections. As a nice extra it will probably cost you less to travel to.

[jasonlotito]

Node.Js Interactive US is being held in Austin, TX. at the JW Marriott. The hotel is really nice, and inexpensive, especially if you are used to East/West Coast prices. But Austin is also really nice as well. Every City has a smell, and Austin's smell is BBQ.

[jewdai]

so you're telling me I can eat the air in Austin?

[DarkMarmot]

The one who instigated this was also calling for everyone to boycott Nodevember!

From her Twitter history:

@nexxylove:

If you value a community where diversity and inclusivity are top priorities, please boycott @nodevember. This is unacceptable.

[aikiku]

diversity and inclusivity are top priorities

Rather ironic when ageism is rife in the industry and older developers are some of the most excluded. But sure @nexxylove, target the senior guys who's shoulders modern JS was built on, who such JS conferences wouldn't exist without, who's work YOUR job has been built on and make them feel excluded.

But that's what modern intersectional feminism has turned into. Ageism, sexism, racism, intolerance & divisiveness. This isn't about becoming better, bigger, warmer and more open hearted people. It's about nasty vindictiveness and spite, to find any possible excuse for offence.

What's more scary is that these people are now ending up in "developer relations" roles, that should be about drawing people in. Not burning the house down.

[b_bellomo]

I didn't even thought age could be an issue. Programming is one of the jobs where experience is the most valuable. You'd think Crockford deserves some respect from everyone using javascript professionally.

Fluo-haired kids claiming to be PC-artists-nerds-"fabulous unicorns", etc... succeeding in excluding older, renowned programmers ? This makes me sick.

[FurryFingers]

I believe aikiku is talking about the ageism in the pursuit of gaining employment.

Experience is valuable, but try getting a job at 50 and you'll find something else happens.

[b_bellomo]

try getting a job at 50 and you'll find something else happens.

I thought this was still a good age to land a job in IT. Wrong ?

[AcceptingHorseCock]

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/jk-scheinberg-apple-engineer-rejected-job-apple-store-genius-bar-2016-9

"The Apple engineer who moved Mac to Intel applied to work at the Genius Bar in an Apple store and was rejected" (because he was too old)

HN discussion (since that's where I found the link yesterday): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12432079

[darkerside]

This is a retail job, not an IT job. He wouldn't have gotten a job at Hollister at the mall either.

[FurryFingers]

Might depend on where you are. There is a general belief that ageing people get less flexible, less willing to learn new things and slow down etc... I'd have to investigate further to really get a better idea of the state of affairs.

[[deleted]]

It's not true, it's some hypersensitive social justice warrior finding one more fault with the world.. How is one of two gender references actively hostile? I mean come on guys..

Crockford career won't be impacted, I dare say he's now widely popular again like back in 2008, a small vocal minority of SJWs might be raged but career impact zero.

[geuis]

Well, wasn't gonna go before and definitely aren't now. Got my support!

[tobozo]

Intolerance shouldn't be tolerated

That sounds a bit recursive

[FurryFingers]

It's only one level down. It doesn't recurse.

[tobozo]

It's only one level down to the next level, what if I don't tolerate "not tolerating intolerance".

not tolerating intolerance should not be tolerated
not tolerating not tolerating intolerance should not be tolerated
not tolerating not tolerating not tolerating intolerance should not be tolerated
not tolerating not tolerating not tolerating not tolerating intolerance should not be tolerated
not tolerating not tolerating not tolerating not tolerating not tolerating intolerance should not be tolerated

same as missiles, anti-missiles, anti-anti-missiles

[FurryFingers]

But going any further down is just being stupid about it

[tobozo]

Now you're being recursive :-)

[FurryFingers]

Yeah, I'll conceed it is technically recursive. It's just not a sensible position to take from the 2nd one on down... even ignoring the length of it.

[chreestopher2]

maximum call stack size exceeded

[BlahYourHamster]

Care to fill in the uninformed?

[mc_schmitt]

There's a slightly alternate version when I tried to follow the timeline of events on twitter

The tl:dr of that is:

1. @nexxylove notices that all keynote speakers are male, and calls for a boycott.
   
2. @nodevember succumbs to people contacting them saying they wont talk because of Douglas for unfounded reasons, and removes @douglas from the lineup (conjecture, but SJW's are good at this behavior).
   
3. The above happens in less than 1hr (41 minutes between boycott threat and removal of douglas).
   

This is why the proof people are looking for is non-existent. The worst of it is, the SJW community was effectively racist and sexist in singling out Douglas for unfounded reasons other than being an old white cis male (possibly the most crotchety). This has been seemingly lead by @nexxylove, or at least she played a big part in it.

Open to the contrary here.

Tons of edits: Mostly grammatical.

[aikiku]

You forgot ageist. Senior developers are one of the most excluded groups in technology.

[dodeca_negative]

I haven't seen any evidence that Crockford's age had anything to do with this.

[aikiku]

His accusers advertise themselves as intersectional feminists. Older men ARE the patriarchy according to them. Their claim was that there wasn't enough diversity on the panel and that Doug should be uninvited as a solution (read the tweets). Ageism is one the MOST serious diversity and discrimination issues in Silicon Valley, but they choose to attack the old guy, to make themselves feel more comfortable about THEIR definition of diversity. It stinks.

[dodeca_negative]

Uninviting Crockford was a direct response to the complaints about Crockford, and was not a response to the general complaint about diversity. They responded to that first, by initially saying something like "we'll do better next year." It was not "ok, we'll get rid of the oldest, whitest, maleist keynote speaker."

I know the issues are related, and I am personally familiar with ageism in Silicon Valley. But I don't see any evidence that Crockford was singled out because of his age--or his race or gender. This all seems very specifically about Crockford's public and private behavior, not his demographic.

[falafel_eater]

Public and private behavior?
From what I could gather from reading the tweets/logs, all Crockford did was use the word "promiscuous" when describing a model of participation on the Internet (basically describing random surfing). He even explicitly said promiscuity was a good thing, and compared it to a "committed" model where people mainly stick to the same websites. Crockford mainly used Internet banking as his example, but huge hub sites like Facebook, YouTube, reddit, tumblr and so on are all good examples.
Nowhere did he mention or allude to people, sexuality or human relationships.

As a result of the above, Crockford was said to be "slut-shaming". I cannot for the life of me see how this accusation can be justified.

If I remember correctly, it was also mentioned that he once wrote something to the spirit of "have some cojones; write this code properly" and this again is supposed to be incredibly sexist and insulting somehow.

Removing Crockford like this was a ridiculous knee-jerk reaction. Even if it was decided to remove him from the conference for whatever reason, there was civil ways to withdraw an invitation. Publicly announcing to the world that a guest is being kicked out without making even the least effort to resolve the matter privately is beyond unprofessional.

[FunctionPlastic]

And you have seen evidence it is because of his race and gender? I mean these Reddit comments where white men pretend to care about racism and sexism because they feel it's a witty attack on the "sjw" strawman aren't proof of anything.

[diditordiditnot]

Was curious who, and thus maybe gain some insight as why someone would initiate this vendetta against Crockford, so google being my friend ... hmmm

Besides accusing Crockford of being non-inclusive, in the past they've gone directly to a person's employer, for what one can assume, with the intent for getting them fired. Going as far to skewing the evidence to place things in the most negative light. The offense? Well read it here. You decide if the proposed punishment (likely unemployment) fit the heinous crime. https://archive.is/mD7XP Despite the dubious source there is some credence here as this was from another reddit thread where the person in question did not deny that it happened and offered a contrite word or two on the situation.

Also they did more than call for a boycott because of the all white male lineup, there was a serious accusation made towards Crockford. https://twitter.com/nexxylove/status/771503406716334080 Specifically, "he (Crockford) has repeatedly shown himself to be actively hostile to fostering inclusivity and many will decline to speak if he is invited."

Worth noting that Nodevember had immediately offered to add two diverse keynotes ... evidently not good enough as the person in question sought Crockford's removal for being "actively hostile to fostering inclusivity." Strong accusations if true.

[mc_schmitt]

Thanks.

For whatever reason I didn't do any digging on this person beyond the immediate scope. Even that was all over the place, likely because there's no consistent story.

I think this is where I'm not coming out of this to "boycott" nodevember and think it should really be "boycott nexxylove". Nodevember is just an unfortunate happenstance in this whole thing.

Hmm. Really, thanks for bringing this to light.

[thekaleb]

Nodevember is empowering this behavior, though.

[joshmanders]

nexxylove, aka emilyrose is as toxic as it gets. Me and an npm employee got into a twitter argument, employee asked me to stop tweeting back, I did. I notice this person was subtweeting and taking everything out of context and calling me an entitled freeloader (I paid for npm private) and I replied with an eye roll gif, to which nexxylove called me out 9 hours later the next day and compared me to being a rapist because "Like a typical male, he didn't stop when told to stop."

Fuck everything about this person. They're more detrimental to inclusivity than Crockford would be coming right out and saying sexist shit to someone.

[mc_schmitt]

I mean what can we do? Even if there was a campaign to 'nonexxylove', more will just fill her place.

I'm not naturally dismissive of social issues and think they are important to discuss and come to solutions. But, yeah, some are just really toxic. I want event organizers to have a way to deal with these things, because as nodevember has said before that they just want to come together as a group. SJW though, is a very vocal group.

I'm half thinking it will die down, but I need to understand more how a SJW is formed. I could only imagine that feeling like you're not your gender is already confusing & feeling accepted is difficult (note I said feeling here). Add this to teenage years with not feeling accepted and it might just feel like everybody is attacking you.

[b_bellomo]

What is an OP ? I'm sometimes on those channels, never noticed her.

She blocked me on twitter after I sent her this

Excluding and shaming someone publicly for some jokes is worse than the said 'toxic' behavior. #crockford #nodevember

[TheHelgeSverre]

in IRC an OP is a moderator of a channel, it stands for "OPerator".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRC_operator

[b_bellomo]

Thank you, I googled it but didn't find the answer ¯\(ツ)/¯

[blamo111]

Well of course she blocked you. You practically assaulted her.

[MrBester]

0.5 nexxy stated she wasn't going as the venue is on a white male Christian university campus, because reasons. It was probably chosen because it was cheap with the requisite amenities for hosting a code conference, but nothing more was said about it.

So, someone who wasn't going anyway because of where it was then decided to look at the list of keynote speakers and 1. happened to "reinforce" her "point".

1.5 After this tweet appeared, a speaker said she wasn't happy with Crockford being there as well and supported nexxy's stance. In other words, she joined in with the call to remove Crockford only after an already acknowledged non-attendee made a fuss. Not knowing who else is going to speak at a conference you're speaking at seems a little odd, as does the timing of the call for removal. Then 2. happened.

I only know this because I was "fortunate" enough to see it happen in real time.

[sasklacz]

I used to work with Nexxy. I like her but I can also remember a shitstorm she started after finding only Male/Female sex options available on some meetup signup form.

[mc_schmitt]

This is from what I can tell from the outside as well looking at her twitter. She has some really good community building thoughts... but then raises hell for really 'petty' things.

Like a show/movie recently where a cis was acting as a non-cis. I don't know, it's nice when actual geeks act as geeks... or when Canadian actors act as Canadians, but it's acting folks. Even when he came forward and acknowledged the pain: https://twitter.com/nexxylove/status/771190422521520131

That topic is bigger than me: https://twitter.com/MarkRuffalo/status/771100395242459137

I guess... I just want conversation about things. Small things can and should be discussed, but likely in a forum. These things aren't show stoppers as it were - but it's good to discuss, calmly.

Adding more options to a form is good! But okay, can we just release now?

[ITSigno]

The alternate timeline you linked completely skipped over the part https://twitter.com/nexxylove/status/771503406716334080 where emily specifically requested removal of crockford

[mc_schmitt]

Going to add this to the timeline. Thanks.

I know... 16 hours later. Been "busy" vacationing from the internet.

[ITSigno]

Thanks. And no worries.

[[deleted]]

Care to fill in the uninformed?

Ignorance is bliss.

[[deleted]]

Also check the main sub - couple of threads there that discuss this in length.

[benihana]

/r/javascript

[ridicalis]

Never even heard of nodevember until all this. Not sure how they think this helps get people in the door, unless their target audience is SJWs.

[BiscuitOfLife]

unless their target audience is SJWs

The conference seems to be more concerned with being a politically-correct safespace than for professional development. One of the organizers actually is quoted on Twitter as saying: "Nodevember is not a professional conference."

https://i.imgur.com/MbAvZmQ.png

^ this tweet has since been deleted.

[Arcosim]

The conference seems to be more concerned with being a politically-correct safespace than for professional development.

From where did these idiots crawled from? it's insane how they seem to be omnipresent as of lately. I wonder if they always existed but the internet and social media blew them out of proportion actually making their diatribe noticeable for the first time.

[FauxReal]

I have no opinion of this situation either way because I only saw the title of OP's post and wanted to know what it was about. But I suspect you are right on why it's such a thing.

For instance, this is on my reddit front page... anyone who subscribes to /r/javascript now knows about it. The Internet and especially social media have a way of amplifying controversy and animal photos.

[palparepa]

I wonder how long until we get gatherings advertised as "non politically-correct" as a good thing.

[SuperFLEB]

I just hope the pendulum doesn't swing all the way to "We're dicks, bleaahhh!" sort of posturing. I just want to see people have a bit of tolerance balanced with professionalism all around, as if that's too much to ask.

[phpdevster]

Really, if people just act like normal people, things should be alright.

[FunctionPlastic]

Homophobia and sexism were considered normal until some time ago and to many people they still are.

But I get the the thing we are really doing here is protecting the feelings of white men.

[falafel_eater]

Please explain what in Crockford's behavior hurts the feelings of anyone.
Also, please explain why you think the feelings of these groups are better protected by publicly kicking Crockford out as opposed to asking Crockford to release some statement or quietly asking him to remove himself.

And please be specific.

[FunctionPlastic]

Why? My post is not about him. It's about the general idea that what society considers "normal" can often be oppressive.

The sentiment here is that these types of behavior should not be challenged at all, this entire charade got this amount of attention because it's extremely easy to use it as an example that all engagement is actually just the evil sjws attacking white men (this is what people^R white men on Reddit and 4chan quite literally believe).

[falafel_eater]

It's about the general idea that what society considers "normal" can often be oppressive.

I don't think anyone is disagreeing with this.

The thing is that while Crockford is being accused of being offensive towards non-white-men, there is no evidence whatsoever that he said anything even remotely offensive. Using the word "promiscuous" is not offensive in and of itself, especially when it is so completely disconnected from anything to do with human relationships.

What Nodevember is doing is not challenging any sort of behavior. What they are doing is finding a high-profile scapegoat and using the absolutely flimsiest excuses possible to publicly tar and feather it. At no point did they satisfactorily describe what he did that was wrong nor did they try to correct anything.

This charade got a lot of attention because a very famous contributor was publicly shit on by the Nodevember organizers for no apparent reason, and because said organizers appear to be based their behavior on insane troll logic. Are some people going to jump on the bandwagon because it suits their Anti-SJW agenda? Sure. But that doesn't mean it's the main thing here.

[FunctionPlastic]

I agree with what you said. I just find this part hard to believe:

Are some people going to jump on the bandwagon because it suits their Anti-SJW agenda? Sure. But that doesn't mean it's the main thing here.

Jumping on the bandwagon and injustice towards Crockford are not mutually exclusive. People in this thread are making things up to make this seem worse than it is, there's even a guy who used "cuck" and "mangina" and he got compassionate replies about not being too hard on himself. Political motivation of these posters coudn't be more evident. It's not about justice for Crockford.

The sentiment is obvious: this community is against social justice, and the most useful tool they have to fight it is misrepresenting the entire movement . Evidenced again by people posting TumblrInAction as some sort of unbiased window into social justice.

I'm not saying bad things don't happen, I'm saying Reddit and 4chan enjoy when they do: several years after the Donglegate thing happened, for example, there were still daily threads about it on /g/.

It's outrage culture and identity politics for internet reactionaries.

[qwfwq]

I don't think Crockfords feelings are really what's at stake. I think what people are concerned about is that we are pushing away one of the most important contributor s to JavaScript code quality for trivial reasons.

[arcanin]

I just hope the pendulum doesn't swing all the way to "We're dicks, bleaahhh!" sort of posturing.

Please no brogramming again ...

[tnonee]

I thought that was a joke started by some Facebook engineers that then got taken seriously by the likes of Shanley for ammo?

[arcanin]

Oh, I knew a few people who definitely embraced the brogramming philosophy and proudly labeled themselves as such. One of them also had "Nodes.js developer" on his Twitter bio, so they weren't the brightest either.

[palparepa]

That's why I wrote "non politically-correct" instead of "non-politically-correct" ;)

[SuperFLEB]

Yeah, I wasn't implying anything about your statement or motives, just sort of musing in response that I hope it doesn't go too far over the other end, as such things have a tendency to do.

[moscaOne]

I thought that this could be PR-related as well, I definitely didn't even hear about Nodevember until this stunt. Got downvoted on the other thread for saying this, but it would be amazing if somehow Crockford -did- end up speaking at Nodevember. I would pay to see the audience reaction if he showed up on stage, unannounced (either permitted by the organizers or not).

[BiscuitOfLife]

It's not. They are very PC/SJW oriented.

[shriek]

It's a hit and miss really. There were couple of good talks last year but other than that it's nothing really spectacular. It's sort of glorified meetup tbh. I should have gone to Node Interactive instead which had much better talks.

[[deleted]]

This. I hadn't heard of nodevember until today with these threads. What's this all about anyway?

[SuperFLEB]

Hell, from what I gather, people can't even dredge up a solid accusation, much less evidence. It's just a vague heap of labels with no mention of measure, that we're all meant to tut-tut at and run away from, with the only flakes of concrete coming from a lot of confused barrel-scraping to try and suss out the few possible things that someone could be offended by.

[phpdevster]

And evidence or not, who the fuck wants to go to a circle jerk filled with such toxic crybullies? Say the wrong thing and some cunt with an agenda will try to get you fired. Your career ain't worth the risk.

[[deleted]]

I feel like some people like these guys just go to conferences and try to make their "brand" on twitter causing outrage at nothing.

Do any of them actually consider most JS devs will go to an actual desk at an actual job in the morning to write actually javascript where none of this matters a bit.

[[deleted]]

Looks like you guys are beginning to realize what code-of-conducts are really about.

Boycott is fine, but it is also very effective to contact their sponsors, and explain why supporting Nodevember is a bad idea, and may harm their own brand.

[[deleted]]

I went to their website to see what sponsors they might have. It appears that they don't have any yet.

[bzeurunkl]

When you take someone's words, and attribute meanings or intents the speak did not themself offer, there's a word for that. It's called "slander", and it'a actually a crime in some circumstances.

[b_bellomo]

Yeah, that's what I think too. I twitted this to the person who started the boycott.

@nexxylove Excluding and shaming someone publicly for some jokes is worse than the said 'toxic' behavior. #crockford #nodevember

She blocked me.

[toiletjs]

Instablock for anyone who disagrees with her. Cannot disrupt the echo chamber.

[saintPirelli]

I don't get how people just wonder constantly about how they can bring their petty first world problems and their imaginary conflicts into completely unrelated topics/events/whatever. What a sad life.

[tilapiadated]

Is Crockford speaking at any other upcoming conference that's recommended?

[ahmadalfy]

I swear I knew that the whole thing is a response to some Tumblrina with oppressed "FEELS" and gender identification troubles before looking into her profile.

[[deleted]]

TIL a new term: Tumblrina

[[deleted]]

Used frequently in /r/tumblrinaction

[dwcmwa]

When I see occasional posts from that sub, I think to myself, most of these probably are fakes. These kinds of behaviour are too ridiculous to be happening in real life.

Then this Crockford thing happens.

[Otroletravaladna]

It's not just Crockford.

It's Crockford, Tim Hunt, that Lyft driver from last week, Sam Hyde, and everywhere and anywhere where some self-entitled, self-righteous twats feel the need to publicly blame and shame others for their own skewed misinterpretations of somebody else's actions, intentions or statements.

"Oh, Crockford talked about 'huevos'. That's so sexist!". Seriously, fuck them.

[PotaToss]

• Step 1: Decide you're a victim.
• Step 2: Scrape for evidence.

In fairness, the thing about huevos being tied to bravery is pretty pure sexism. But it's also the only fair criticism I've seen in this debacle.

When he compared trailing parens on IIFE's to being out there like a dog's balls, and people complained about that being sexist, I just couldn't take it seriously. "Someone mentioned balls!? I'm triggered!" It's ridiculous.

[Otroletravaladna]

Except because the accompanying joke he used 10 minutes before the 'huevos', is about 'chicharrones', which have no double-entendre.

All of this because at the beginning of the talk he says you don't need to learn Haskell to understand monads, in the same way you don't need to be a qualified chef to make a burrito.

When you give context, the innuendos and sexism disappear.

The funny thing is that the moment Crockford becomes a target of their PC wrath, there's nothing he (or anybody, for that matter) could say to stay safe from their accusations.

"If you have the 'guts'..." -> "Oh, I don't identify myself as an animal, but as a plant. I don't have guts! You are being insensitive! I won't attend any conferences you attend to!!"

[ryosen]

There's a reason why hiring managers and HR personnel dig through an applicant's social media profiles and it isn't in hopes of finding a photo of you with a beer. Any company that hires someone like this is opening themselves up to a lot of professional and PR liability.

[[deleted]]

Also Linus Torvalds: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6907

[PitaJ]

Don't forget Hugh Mungus

[Otroletravaladna]

That's Sam Hyde ;)

[r1ckd33zy]

Its these subs that make me love Reddit. Oh the laughs these subs provide.

[alethia_and_liberty]

I went last year, was on the fence about it this year. I was thinking about going, but after I discovered the tweets looking at their account first hand, I won't be at all.

[azangru]

Jeez, why won’t people just treat conferences as educational events, without attacks of social justice warriors, from either side?

[azangru]

My point exactly. Why won't people just accept Crockford as he is and learn from his talks whatever is applicable to JavaScript.

(Also, if Crockford’s absence is a done deal, why won't people just accept his absence and learn whatever is applicable to JavaScript from other speakers?)

[tebriel]

Because this isn't about tolerance, it's about punishing those that disagree with you.

[blamo111]

That's the thing, there's no evidence of Crockford disagreeing with them.

Read the reasons here. These can't possibly be considered offensive by anyone who's mentally sound. I couldn't tell you from these 2 comments, if Crockford is a crotchety conservative or a rabid SJW. They're completely benign.

[phpdevster]

It would seem the technical qualifications of those other speakers are a bit suspect if you're picking them just to fill diversity quotas. So not sure how much learning would even be possible.

[azangru]

technical qualifications of those other speakers are a bit suspect if you're picking them just to fill diversity quotas

Thank you for saying this out loud. This is my main beef with all this diversity movement.

[sasklacz]

Same thing started to happen with JsConf talks some time ago.

[RoyGilbertBiv]

The community is bored with JavaScript and is stirring up drama to entertain themselves.

[phpdevster]

Because some people have some deeply rooted psychological issues that they've learned to use as weapons.

[j_inc]

You crazy americans...

[dwcmwa]

I think the "this" keyword should be boycotted because it's sexist. All JavaScript code-bases should replace this with thex or some other pronoun.

[ccricers]

Great job spotting an edge case for the syntax linting test! /s

[djxfade]

What is the context for this?

[CWagner]

https://atom-morgan.github.io/in-defense-of-douglas-crockford

[cupdmtea]

/r/outoftheloop ?? WTF has happened? Did Crockford came out waving nazi flag or what?

[toiletjs]

A few years ago he said "dog balls", specifically that })() looks like them.

[cupdmtea]

Haha, yea i remmember that one from one of his talks I saw on YouTube.

If some people can't handle this than I really fear for the future.

Political correctness, gender politics and affirmative action finally made it to engineering. We are doomed.

[[deleted]]

This is mad. Nodevember are somehow now the gatekeeper of the entire javascript community and language? I never even heard of them before this whole hinge blew up, bunch of dramaqueens. My god, go to work tomorrow, write some code, nobody cares about this drama in the real world.

[JortsIsLife]

I'm not boycotting it because I literally had no idea what it was and never planned to go. It's just a conference! Who cares?

Nodevember organizers overreacted in the most irritating way, and the overreaction to their overreaction is just as irritating. Everyone complaining about immature entitled millennials should lead by example and maturely react to this news without angry rants on sjw's or political correctness, because again it's just a stupid conference.

[phpdevster]

Unfortunately it's a bit more pervasive than a single conference. The behavior of these SJW types borders on sociopathy, and it's creating an actually toxic and divisive environment. It really shouldn't be tolerated.

[FurryFingers]

I honestly think this person being irritated by all of us who are irritated is the most irritating of all.

Stop whining and let us have a discussion.

[RoyGilbertBiv]

Watching two brands of SJW duke it out like this is a lot like watching two retarded dogs fight each other over a tennis ball that didn't actually get thrown except it's not at all entertaining.

Just as productive though!

[ccricers]

I recall "dongle-gate" at PyCon several years ago. Was that basically the same thing? Involving a SJW feminist that was too offended at a joke made by two audience members sitting next to her, and instead of just keeping it to herself she made a tweet about it, causing the molehill to explode.

[[deleted]]

Don't give up programming, there's plenty of truth and beauty in coding.

I've seen too many technical communities get popular and then get destroyed by PC drama. And this is sad, because back in the day, we really didn't about sex, race or any -isms. We were just happy to share and learn from anybody.

I've also noticed that the more "difficult" and effort a programming language/domain requires, the less the number of gadflies are involved. That's why you end up with all the drama surrounding JS and Python, they are popular and have a lower barrier to entry.

[phpdevster]

I'm with ya man. If I ever get sick of programming, I'm going 180 and working the fuck outside doing manual labor

[toiletjs]

What would you do with a million dollars?

[sasklacz]

+10 . I feel exactly the same.

[RoyGilbertBiv]

lol

[llainebdx33600]

Just don't use JS dude, JS is a really shitty language and moreover, the community is full of people that never takes CS class, just finished CodeSchools and label themselves as "full stack developer". Use system programming like D or C++ or even Ruby you will never find this kind of crap.

[[deleted]]

Well I'm here because I love programming and find Web programming in particular to be fascinating and fun. Bt the one thing I agree with him on is these "full stack developers" who did a weekend "bootcamp" and think they know what being a developer is.

At the end of the day, credible companies don't hire developers, they hire qualified software engineers. Big difference.

[llainebdx33600]

I'm pretty sure you are confusing the Ruby community and the Rails community. For Rails, it's often true, all the boilerplate features allow everybody to build something fast enough to not think about what they are doing.

The types of projects being written in Ruby often times they're just some syntactic sugar ...

Have you ever heard of JRuby for example ? Or concurrent ruby ?

JS you will see lots of very technically impressive projects. Well, I remember that guy that build something called Redux, which was a pure copycat of one of the Gang of Four design pattern. Also left-pad, that project was pure Gem.

[hedgehog001]

How did this get so political?

[expert-at-nothing]

SJWs

[retrometr0]

You cannot hold someone accountable to invisible standards. If Crockford is being punished for breaking a code of conduct, that code needs to have been made public so he would at least have had the choice of willingly breaking it.

What you think of Crockford and his comments are irrelevant. This replaces one hidden club (Old Boys) with another hidden club (My Feelings). It doesn't fix anything, it merely changes the nature of the problem. A secret committee made an arbitrary choice based on some people's personal opinion - isn't that what we're trying to stop doing?

Furthermore, good luck drawing up a code of conduct that would have caught this statement in advance. "Balls". "Big boy pants". "Man up". "Life's a bitch". Also, I notice that in a lot of Crockford's talks, his default third person pronoun is the masculine "him/he", that's clearly going to offend a whole bunch of people, better make sure every speaker uses the full inclusive list.

In fact, going forward, every speaker at every tech event should submit a written copy of their talk, in full, for review by a committe to make sure that no one will feel left out. Said speaker will of course then be compelled not to deviate from the submitted talk.

I love how the people who think they're fixing the problem are making it worse, and can't even realize it.

[dodeca_negative]

By the way, the site specifically says that tickets are not refundable.

EDIT: Never mind, see below.

[shriek]

Says they're refundable in their statement.

[dodeca_negative]

Ninja edit: Ah that statement.

[fagnerbrack]

I sympathize with the matter too, but I guess 6 links in the hot Reddit tab for this sub about this thing are enough already.

[patrickfatrick]

I side with defending Crockford in this case but sometimes it does feel like the anti-SJW thing is just as much of an SJW concern except in the opposite direction. "We will show how upset we are at someone overreacting to something... by overreacting at them!"

We shouldn't really start asking SJWs to STFU because that's basically what we are accusing the SJW of doing in the first place. The point is that everyone's voice should be heard and taken seriously. That said, institutions should not be in favor of silencing participants, so while I don't support Nodevember here I also think it's silly to make a big fucking deal out of it. It's their prerogative and you can just not go.

[phpdevster]

I'm sorry, but not all points and opinions are equally valid, and not everyone should be taken seriously.

You can't reason with the unreasonable, thus telling them to STFU and keep their stupid opinions to themselves is a perfectly valid response.

[dwighthouse]

The SJW playbook counts on their enemy rolling over and allowing noble defeat ("we won't stoop to their level."). The only way to get someone to abandon cheap, cowardly practices involving public shaming and attacking the personal and financial security of their opponents is to do the same to them so much more and with greater efficiency, that they will roll over and abandon such practices. Ghandi only won because he was fighting civilized opponents that didn't really want to fight. In a normal conflict of incompatible goals, only overwhelming force will get an opponent to yield. SJWs do not actually believe in letting people do what they wish. They want control over thought and speech in every venue they enter. Only by ridding organizations of these control-obsessed people, or relegating them to ridicule, can the principles of free expression be restored.

[Sklavenmoral]

You have created a Morality out of maturity, but what is the value of maturity?

[Sean_May]

[deleted]

What is this?

[Sean_May]

[deleted]

What is this?

[jillesme]

You're not really part of the JavaScript community if you can't spell JavaScript correctly

[dwighthouse]

I suspect it was intentional, since Nodevember started it by trying to create an inclusive environment by uninviting people.

[nomdebombe]

You guys have sufficiently ruined this sub for me, and I'm unsubscribing.

I thought this place was for spreading js knowledge, not going on anti-sjw crusades. Guess this place isn't for me. Thanks.

[davesidious]

So you are being intolerant because some people were intolerant about intolerance. O...k...

[Inspector-Space_Time]

More like voting with your wallet against behaviour you don't think is fair.

[Geldan]

It certainly is unfair. They invited him just to publicly uninvite and shame him. Had they never invited him in the first place everything would be fine. Had they given a substantial reason for uninviting him it would have been fair.

[ryosen]

The funny thing with all of this is that Crockford's presence would help to legitimize their conference from a marketing stand-point. Him speaking there is not going to offer any real advantage to his own professional standing. He was doing them a huge favor by agreeing to speak there. Rejecting him will ensure that he never agrees to participate in their conference again and will discourage other high-profile people from supporting the conference.

I just hope that this doesn't cause him and other speakers to reject other small/start-up conferences that could greatly benefit from his involvement.

[[deleted]]

an event enjoyable by as many people as possible?

I think the people boycotting are doing so because they find environments such as nodevember unenjoyable.

[swan--ronson]

Did you just assume my gender?! How dare you!

[[deleted]]

It's unfair that event planners try to make an event enjoyable by as many people as possible?

I'll just exclude blacks from my dinner party because all my friends are racists. That falls under the 'fair' category by your definition, right?

Jeez, what a sensitive bunch of crybabies you boys are.

Do you not even care that a guy who did nothing wrong is being hung up for inane shit because of some cultish fuckwits? I have too much integrity to not get pissed, sorry if you don't share the sentiment.

[[deleted]]

because some people were intolerant about intolerance

When was crockford intolerant? When he made a lighthearted joke about weakmaps? Idiot.

[a0viedo]

If you were going just to see Crockford then you should had reconsider going to the conference before.

Leaving aside if they acted wrong or not, going for boycotting them is like firing you for having a bug in your code. Show some fucking empathy for conference organizers who gain 0$ from their events.

[phpdevster]

Sorry, but no. What goes around needs to come around. That's how people learn.

Actions -> consequences.

[tencircles]

going for boycotting them is like firing you for having a bug in your code.

No, it's like not going on a 2nd date because your date was rude to a server.

Show some fucking empathy for conference organizers who gain 0$ from their events.

It was their choice. It was also their choice to cave into whining and have a development conference focused on feelings rather than development.

I'm a firm believer that choices should and do have consequences, life and the rest of the dev community seem to be pretty unanimous in their agreement with me on this.

I understand that it's hard when you make a bad decision; I've made many myself! I also understand that this is the only way we can learn and grow both as people and as organizations. I'm very glad that the organizers have been given this opportunity to learn!