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Blocked by JSConf.eu Twitter account

264 points by ondras 8y ago

bausshf 8y ago
Sounds like a conference run by incompetent people, which is usually the vibe I get from glorified "javascript users". Definitely not a conference I'd ever attend. A conference for technology is usually supposed to be a social gathering for people with a shared interest, not a formal conference like a business gathering. The only thing I can't think of is that you submitted a lot of proposals and they perhaps thought it was spam, but the response they gave you they clearly knew it wasn't spam. Perhaps they have small children's mentality and didn't like the challenge of someone with a different point of view and perhaps better knowledge; although that alone would be kind of ironic since most people go to such conferences to hear the minds of bright people. From the information you've given, I'm unable to find a logical reason for your ban.
- xroche 8y ago
  They also tend to have the "you offended a random folk for the most ridiculous reason, and because we are so fragile, we will ostracize you for the rest of your life" mentality. Don't get me wrong: harassment or aggressive behavior are not right and should not be tolerated. But on the other hand, over-cautious attitude that make any controversial comment a potential aggression is a really worrying trend today. The ridiculous cases of "code of conduct" dramas - especially on the js community - is a good demonstration.
  - collyw 8y ago
    Indeed, I was most disappointed when I looked at the Django Con Europe twitter and the first thing I saw was codes of conduct and comments about genders and bathrooms. I was wanting to read about Django.
    - hycaria 8y ago
      Wow... Is there a way to live and work in tech without having to put up with all this shit ever again ? Why are those politics taking over everything.
      - IGI-111 8y ago
        There's not escape, every nook and cranny is getting more political these days. Not sure why, I blame total ideologies that prescribe the personal being political.
        communist_ 8y ago
        Everything is political. Saying that you can just turn off politics is a very dumb and naive attitude.
        collyw 8y ago
        What politics does the Django web framework subscribe to?
- doubletgl 8y ago
  Or maybe someone misclicked. Headline is sensationalist, he could simply create a new twitter account. I don't see how this affects him attending the conference. Don't they send out email newsletters as well anyway?
  - ondras 8y ago
    Right, the ban only covers following the conference online. Which is why I mentioned the verb in the title. But it also might be their way of saying "also pls do not attend again, we do not want ya".
    - sshine 8y ago
      If you care about the content of the conference, and/or you like to talk with some of the recurring participants, you could go to the conference next time and confront the organizers directly, since they won't let you do it online. But in terms of feeling rejected for unknown reasons, I'd let it slide. The reactions you describe (twitter blocking, "we don't have time to answer" emails) are immature, so expecting more from them is naive. Since they haven't said "please don't attend again", don't interpret it that way. Don't reward people for communicating this poorly. If you can buy a ticket in your name, and you want to go, go. :-)
      - yakshaving_jgt 8y ago
        After such juvenile behaviour, why should he give them any of his money?
        EGreg 8y ago
        Perhaps so he can network with people he cares about, and ignore them?
  - michaelmrose 8y ago
    Do you create multiple email accounts because idiots send one to spam or do you just stop talking to them? I'd guess not unless money was involved. Personally I'd just stop supporting them by going to the conferences and tell everyone why.
- ondras 8y ago
  Author here. To clarify: as far as the organizational aspect is considered, those people are competent and top-notch. All the confs were highly professional, their experience with managing this stuff cannot be overlooked. But the social/communication layer is a bit nontransparent, in my opinion.
- downandout 8y ago
  It could be the number of proposals. I haven't seen his Twitter, but if he mentioned being a member of the "Brendan Eich fan club" on Twitter as he did on his blog, that may have also led to his being blocked. Brendan Eich was forced out of his role as CEO of Mozilla after a few vocal employees there found out he had donated $1,000 to support an anti-gay marriage bill in California many years before he was CEO. If the people behind this conference do not like Brendan Eich because of this, perhaps the author's support of him is to blame for the ban.
  - ondras 8y ago
    The "Brendan Eich club" is actually a small inside joke, as the sign was one of the official "features" of JSConf.eu 2011, where Brendan was an invited speaker :)
    - topynate 8y ago
      Yes, but that was seven years ago, and Things Are Different Now. (Just leafed through their twitter. I'm seeing a lot of the same clique as were involved in the node.js brouhaha last year. Is this conference really worth the fuss?)
      - EGreg 8y ago
        This whole thing is a bit amusing. So Brendan Eich invented JS, and then led Mozilla. And being in the Brendan Eich Fan Club in 2011 probably was a positive thing and a cool thing for JS people. Then much later, Brendan Eich donates $1000 to some political thing people strongly disagree with So retroactively, being a fan of Brendan Eich means you are a homophobic hater and must be blocked? I am quite sure this ain’t it :)
        jmmcd 8y ago
        You understand the timeline, but the virtue-signalling mob on Twitter probably doesn't.
        8y ago
- shevegen 8y ago
  > Perhaps they have small children's mentality Many do - see selling your soul to evil or signing CoC agreements before being able to attend.
spraak 8y ago
I was wondering if it was accidental, but then the author did reach out to a few different sources and didn't receive an answer... which could still be coincidence, but makes it seem less likely.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- methyl 8y ago
  > author didn't receive an answer He actually did: > Hi Ondrej, > dealing with this is at the bottom of our rather indefinitely long priority list. Don’t expect a swift resolution. > We’d appreciate not being bugged about this again. It seems they did it on purpose and they refuse to at least clarify why. My bet is that they did it for some childish reason and they don't have a courage to admit the mistake. I hope they will now shed some light on what happened.
  - bigiain 8y ago
    Might not be "on purpose", OP might just be getting caught in some blocklist crossfire. It happened in a very similar way for a different conference here: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/08/twitter_blocklists_they_can_stop_harassment_and_they_can_create_entirely.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/08/twi... If they're in the middle of a Twitter dogpile, they probably wouldn't care too much about one particular guy on a blocklist if several hundred sockpuppet accounts organising on 4chan are all sending the same whining emails... (They could have handled that email response more politely, but I can pretty easily imagine a situation where OP looks like part of the problem rather than collateral damage...)
    - larkeith 8y ago
      Honestly, whether he was caught in a crossfire, intentionally banned, or even received a response meant for someone else, this is still utterly inadmissible. There is no possible situation an email of this sort is acceptable in any sort of professional context, let alone coming from a conference organizer.
mosselman 8y ago
I have not experience with running any popular twitter handles, but I can imagine that they block lots of people for various reasons, ranging from trivial to non-trivial. Honestly, if I were you, I'd simply let it go and not care if you can. Also, from the information you have given, from a certain point of view, you might come off a bit needy: You send in 5-6 proposals per year and send direct messages and mails to multiple people when you don't receive answers and you care about whether some twitter account is blocking you or not. I am not saying you are needy, I am just saying it could come off that way and that might have lead to either being blocked or communicated in non-tactful ways.
- rplnt 8y ago
  The existence of the blog itself makes me think the truth wouldn't be as clear as it is presented. Was every rejected talk proposal accompanied by emails and tweets asking for explanation? One can be polite and annoying at the same time. (that being said, their email reply was still unprofessional)
  - ondras 8y ago
    Yes, I asked for explanation of rejected proposals in 2017 and 2018. And I received it (they even officially encouraged failed proposers to ask for an explanation).
- philjackson 8y ago
  > You send in 5-6 proposals per year and send direct messages and mails to multiple people when you don't receive answers Jesus, if you think that comes off as needy, you should see what founders often have to do to get going.
  - mosselman 8y ago
    Is this back door bragging? So nothing can be categorised if it is not the most extreme example of its potential category?
michaelmrose 8y ago
What kind of people tell paying customers they are not worth the time required to answer a question?
- amingilani 8y ago
  Exactly. This whole episode reeks of unprofessionalism. Even if the author were in the wrong, he deserves a better reply than being told he's worthless.
- matt4077 8y ago
  I deliberately chose not to work in the "enterprise" market with 6-digit contracts anymore and instead sell a consumer product to many more people so that I could fire any customer that annoyed me without thinking twice about it. They get their money back and can find someone else to annoy. I really don't see what's so outrageous about the practice. There is no moral law that being paid by someone somehow creates a hierarchy where people can waste your time. Edit, because you seem to have edited your comment: That doesn't happen for a single, innocuous, \question, obviously. Reading between the line and in this thread, OP submitted 30(!) proposals for talks, sent follow-ups on each of them, plus other questions. At some point someone /probably/ got annoyed. I'd even wager money he's a running joke among the organizers.
  - michaelmrose 8y ago
    I didn't modify my comment are you confused?
  - beaconstudios 8y ago
    the key factor is whether they ever _told_ him "hey, you're spamming the conference at this point, please tone it down." - otherwise it's just passive-aggressive. Would you simply close a client's account and refund them without ever telling them that you were considering such actions? Because that would be extremely unprofessional.
    - pdimitar 8y ago
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DoubleGlazing 8y ago
Personally I'd walk away, life is too short to care about why a twitter user blocked you. But seeing as this is in the EU, the author could use the GDPR to find out why he was banned.
- jesperht 8y ago
  Out of curiosity, what part of the GDPR would require them to explain the ban-reason?
  - bigiain 8y ago
    Just speculating here, but if they're storing his twitter account name, that might well be considered PII for the purposes of the GDPR, so they'd be required to disclose that they've stored it and any related information (like the reason they've stored it)... Also, their email response strongly implies they're storing previous requests - I'm not sure the GDPR covers emails he's sent to them though...
  - struppi 8y ago
    They probably have personal data / personal identifiable information about you when they blocked you and still know about it... And you can ask them what data they have about you.
    - nicky0 8y ago
      You think they are keeping a permanent database of twitter block reasons?
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - mijamo 8y ago
        Doesn't need to be a database, a simple spreadsheet or text file would do as well. And you would be surprised to know how frequent those are (not necessarily about Twitter but in general about customers/employees/visitors in shops etc.)
_Codemonkeyism 8y ago
This is the same when people message a youtuber and expect some reply - they can't see the hundreds and thousands of messages people get and still need to produce youtube content (or organize a conference) - "I can deal with the mails I get, why can't they?"
- Buge 8y ago
  But this isn't some random person like it is with someone messaging a youtuber. This is someone they have a previous relationship with, receiving and rejecting proposals, and who they took a specific action against, to block on twitter.
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  Except he got a reply. Someone read his message and took time out of their day to tell him to fuck off.
  - _Codemonkeyism 8y ago
    But just after he sent a message to several people and probably on twitter and different means, they told him - in a rude way - to stop. He probably didn't stop and he was blocked.
    - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
      He was sending the message because he'd already been blocked and didn't know why.
lowry 8y ago
`@jsconfeu @0ndras I am also in the @BrendanEich fan club`
- goldenkey 8y ago
  Plenty of HNers are also fans of Eich..the dude singlehandedly built integral parts of the XPCOM base that Mozilla & Firefox sit on.
palerno 8y ago
You either follow an account that has been banned, or the accounts you follow themselves follow accounts that have been banned. In the other direction, an account that follows you has been banned or they follow accounts that have been banned. @jsconfeu probably use some of the popular lists.
- Buge 8y ago
  So if I have a banned account I can cause arbitrary people to be banned simply by following them? It doesn't seem like a good idea to give me that power.
  - BonoboIO 8y ago
    BAAS - Banning As A Service
- gsich 8y ago
  Banning you because you follow someone else. People who do that are braindead.
DanBC 8y ago
When you have an international group of people all speaking English as a second language the conversation can become a bit prickly. There isn't anything obvious here - a bit of complaining but it all seems mild and accurate: https://twitter.com/search?l=&q=%40jsconfeu%20from%3A0ndras&src=typd https://twitter.com/search?l=&q=%40jsconfeu%20from%3A0ndras&... Purely guessing here, you might want to avoid tweeting "Stupid fucking white man" at conference organisers. https://twitter.com/0ndras/status/960901913624576001 https://twitter.com/0ndras/status/960901913624576001 -- but this is just a guess. I have no idea if that's why they blocked you.
- amingilani 8y ago
  He didn't tweet that at the organizers. He quoted an article and linked to the article.
  - DanBC 8y ago
    Here's what I see if I click on the stupid fucking white man tweet. It shows the message is a reply to 3 accounts, including the conference. https://imgur.com/a/1RlK4MN https://imgur.com/a/1RlK4MN
    - frindah 8y ago
      Yes, there's a @jsconfeu in there.
    - amingilani 8y ago
      Oh wow, I missed the replies because I couldn't understand them. Thanks!
  - pygy_ 8y ago
    Then someone @-mentioned the conference, and he replied this in Czech (translation courtesy of Google Translate): ———— About three hours ago, they came back from my mail, where they again rejected my talk proposal (or all the Xs that I sent - as every year). Chance? I do not think. :P Original: Cca tři hodiny nazpět mi od nich přišel mail, kde opět zamítli muj talk proposal (resp. všech X, co jsem -- jako každoročně -- poslal). Náhoda? Nemyslím si. :P ———— In other words, he suggested that his talks were rejected because of positive discrimination towards minority groups, and he's critical of such discrimination. I understand the conference could take offense with such statements (whether or not the talks were rejected for that reason).
deleted 8y ago
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dssfgsgsgsdgds 8y ago
The organizers of JSConf.eu are known to be hardcore, authoritarian feminists. Maybe the author of the article was just too male and white for their taste.
hbaav6 8y ago
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.
- tomp 8y ago
  I don’t know about you, but I’m quite happy he publicised this (=gave attention). Now I know what conference to avoid!
  - hbaav6 8y ago
    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.
    - Melchizedek 8y ago
      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 8y ago
        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.
jakobegger 8y ago
Why do you keep bugging someone when they obviously do not want you to contact them? Blocking you is a way of saying "Leave me alone!" Not replying to direct messages or emails is a way of saying "Leave me alone!" Nobody needs to explain why they want to be left alone. Maybe stop thinking about yourself, and just accept that the people behind the twitter handles just don't want you to contact them anymore for whatever reason.
- oytis 8y ago
  Not to argue if ghosting is a morally appropriate way of communication in one's personal life, but it was not about someone's personal account, rather of one of a professional conference. It is definitely not how one should do their business communications.
- BonoboIO 8y ago
  I think this is not a private or personal thing, this just unprofessional handling of an yet unclear situation. Like beeing conficted without a trial (of course this is just a business relationship between him and the conference). Imagine that Hacker News would ban your account jakobegger, no explanation, no way to get informations why or what you did wrong. Would you just accept this as just "leave me alone"?
  - goldenkey 8y ago
    The reason we respect HN and its respective admins, is because they explain their decisions quite openly and transparently, and will even discuss issues over email. I was actually banned a few years ago because I was being a negative, hateful, POS due to some events in my life combined with clouded judgment. But I appealed, and began posting better comments that were more in line with what one would expect from a discussion forum for positivity (startups) and rationalism (tech.) I'm sure there are many others like me who the admins treated quite fairly and with respect. "Silent treatment" is a last resort, in all other cases it is just a weak and impotent thing to do.
    - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
lgleason 8y ago
Given the people they gave speaker slots to this year I don't think you are missing a lot. This conference has become blatantly political, vs focusing on tech, the later of which I'm assuming is why are you wanting to attend.
frindah 8y ago
You can talk to us about this blog post in length? https://twitter.com/0ndras/status/960901913624576001 https://twitter.com/0ndras/status/960901913624576001
jlebrech 8y ago
that's one way to turn someone over zealous for you (a fan) into someone overly zealous against you (a troll)
WalterBright 8y ago
I would never join a club that would have me as a member. (stolen from Groucho Marx)
alanfranzoni 8y ago
Slightly off topic: I've always found twitter-style blocking totally nonsensical. I mean: you've got a public account. Blocking should prevent people from replying or tweeting at you, and from sending you DMs, maybe even retweeting what you said (even though I'm not sure about the usefulness of this last thing)... but why should ANYONE be prevented at just READING PUBLIC CONTENT when LOGGED IN? (I think the same applies for Facebook and yes, I think that's nonsensical as well)
- bodas 8y ago
  Twitter realises it is stupid. However many of their technologically illiterate users don't and when they tried to change it there was an outcry that Twitter was helping abuse or something silly like that. Keeping the feature is as is easier than educating their users how computers work.
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  I've also wondered about this, and the only conclusion I could come to is quite cynical. Think about the practical effects. It encourages people to create multiple accounts and also encourages warring of various sorts. These behaviors send Twitter's usage and user numbers up without bots while enabling complete plausible deniability about any complicity. It's a problem with ad-driven networks. Their goal is to increase user numbers which enables them to inflate their advertised reach and thus increase their overall revenue. One might joke about Facebook bragging about its reach: "We have more than 2 billion users and only 25% are located in the USA!" Subtlety, math, and statistical references all in one one-liner joke - what could be better?
  - Sean1708 8y ago
    They tried to change the behaviour to the one that makes sense (to us) but there was backlash from users and so they reverted the change.[0] [0]: https://www.imore.com/twitter-changes-how-block-works-heres-what-you-need-know https://www.imore.com/twitter-changes-how-block-works-heres-...
    - 8y ago
sparkling 8y ago
This type of drama is why i don't attend conferences anymore. It is a social minefield.
- goldenkey 8y ago
  DefCon and HOPE usually have an assortment of real solid talks, a few 0-days, and new maker products to mess around with or buy. Plus there are plenty of people who actually know their shit. I don't think you'll get the same kind of entertainment from a bunch of coders who solely do JS. But yeah, something about mass audience, technology, and a detached culture makes these conferences more watery every next decade. Still worth it at least for now but I acknowledge your point.
notananthem 8y ago
Everything about the post makes my skin crawl. The weird vaguely sketchy tweets, overly needy behavior, constant need for validation.
saintPirelli 8y ago
After reading the "code of conduct" on their homepage I would assume that you have unknowligly broken something like > "Using gendered terms like “dude” or “guys” to address a mixed-gendered group of people contributes to furthering exclusion of underrepresented individuals." The fact that they included an option to "make an anonymous" report furthers the assumption that you just got under the political wheels of the conference.
- aembleton 8y ago
  At least they make it clear, but that is quite a lot to consider https://2018.jsconf.eu/code-of-conduct/ https://2018.jsconf.eu/code-of-conduct/
  - saintPirelli 8y ago
    I really don't get how and - more importantly - why we moved from a common sense of "don't be a dick to other people" to the need to spell out pages and pages of behavioural guidelines.
    - krainboltgreene 8y ago
      Yes, I too wonder why all social issues can't easily be solved by 7 word phrases. I also find myself, like you, thinking that everyone has the same "common sense"!
      - saintPirelli 8y ago
        Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know this conference was aiming to "solve all social issues" with their code of conduct.
    - struppi 8y ago
      OK, this is now totally off-topic WRT the original blog post, but... We had a very short code of conduct at SoCraTes Austria. Then we thought about what might happen when we have a violation (endless discussions about whether that was actually a real violation and whether our response was justified, maybe even within the team). So, we sat down and wrote a slightly longer version, which tries to spell out some unwanted behaviour and some guidlines for conference stuff ( http://socrates-conference.at/code-of-conduct/ http://socrates-conference.at/code-of-conduct/ ). We also wanted to explain why we have the CoC in the first place and how we'd like people to behave. It surely is not perfect (probably too long and too short at the same time). But if you think "don't be a dick to other people" would suffice as a CoC, imagine you are the organizer of an event, and then try to list all the things that might go wrong. Be creative - I'm sure you can imagine situations where it does not suffice.
cuillevel3 8y ago
You submitted 30 proposals? Maybe they are just annoyed by you spamming them? Also, they just banned you on twitter, what's the big deal here? You can still attend the conference.
sylvinus 8y ago
This is rather surprising coming from JSConf.eu, which is widely respected and run by people who really care about their community. I'd like to hear their side before making any judgement.
carlossless 8y ago
Meh, I was hopping to see some conclusion at the end. I hope there will be some followup.
hyperfekt 8y ago
oh no
petercooper 8y ago
I've been blocked by a related account for years, the only altercation I ever had with them was when their founder was drunk one night (their admission) and went nuts at me for not linking the conference enough in my newsletter :-D Social stuff is hard, running events is hard, and people get stressed - it is what it is.
mlang23 8y ago
20-30 submissions, in 4 years? Maybe he was blocked as a spam protection measure?
intothemild 8y ago
Look, this is a Javascript conference, and these now are just super about getting only candidates who are "Javascript famous" or have a lot of twitter followers. I wouldn't waste your time, either applying or attending. If being on the conference circut is what you want and in javascript then you've got two choices. 1. Create a Open Source library that is suuuuuuuper popular. 2. Get a shitload of Twitter followers. Conferences are a business, that business is selling tickets.. big names sell tickets. It's like if I have a music festival, and I open up applications to everyone. I'm only doing that on paper, realistically I'm only getting the biggest musicians.. cause that sells tickets. If conferences are your dream... Chose a different language, because JS is toxic and the ONLY voices you will hear now are those that have already become "Javascript Famous".
- adamrezich 8y ago
  maybe by posting this he is doing (2.) :)

264 points by ondras 8y ago

Sounds like a conference run by incompetent people, which is usually the vibe I get from glorified "javascript users". Definitely not a conference I'd ever attend. A conference for technology is usually supposed to be a social gathering for people with a shared interest, not a formal conference like a business gathering. The only thing I can't think of is that you submitted a lot of proposals and they perhaps thought it was spam, but the response they gave you they clearly knew it wasn't spam. Perhaps they have small children's mentality and didn't like the challenge of someone with a different point of view and perhaps better knowledge; although that alone would be kind of ironic since most people go to such conferences to hear the minds of bright people. From the information you've given, I'm unable to find a logical reason for your ban.

xroche 8y ago
They also tend to have the "you offended a random folk for the most ridiculous reason, and because we are so fragile, we will ostracize you for the rest of your life" mentality. Don't get me wrong: harassment or aggressive behavior are not right and should not be tolerated. But on the other hand, over-cautious attitude that make any controversial comment a potential aggression is a really worrying trend today. The ridiculous cases of "code of conduct" dramas - especially on the js community - is a good demonstration.
- collyw 8y ago
  Indeed, I was most disappointed when I looked at the Django Con Europe twitter and the first thing I saw was codes of conduct and comments about genders and bathrooms. I was wanting to read about Django.
  - hycaria 8y ago
    Wow... Is there a way to live and work in tech without having to put up with all this shit ever again ? Why are those politics taking over everything.
    - IGI-111 8y ago
      There's not escape, every nook and cranny is getting more political these days. Not sure why, I blame total ideologies that prescribe the personal being political.
      - communist_ 8y ago
        Everything is political. Saying that you can just turn off politics is a very dumb and naive attitude.
        collyw 8y ago
        What politics does the Django web framework subscribe to?
doubletgl 8y ago
Or maybe someone misclicked. Headline is sensationalist, he could simply create a new twitter account. I don't see how this affects him attending the conference. Don't they send out email newsletters as well anyway?
- ondras 8y ago
  Right, the ban only covers following the conference online. Which is why I mentioned the verb in the title. But it also might be their way of saying "also pls do not attend again, we do not want ya".
  - sshine 8y ago
    If you care about the content of the conference, and/or you like to talk with some of the recurring participants, you could go to the conference next time and confront the organizers directly, since they won't let you do it online. But in terms of feeling rejected for unknown reasons, I'd let it slide. The reactions you describe (twitter blocking, "we don't have time to answer" emails) are immature, so expecting more from them is naive. Since they haven't said "please don't attend again", don't interpret it that way. Don't reward people for communicating this poorly. If you can buy a ticket in your name, and you want to go, go. :-)
    - yakshaving_jgt 8y ago
      After such juvenile behaviour, why should he give them any of his money?
      - EGreg 8y ago
        Perhaps so he can network with people he cares about, and ignore them?
- michaelmrose 8y ago
  Do you create multiple email accounts because idiots send one to spam or do you just stop talking to them? I'd guess not unless money was involved. Personally I'd just stop supporting them by going to the conferences and tell everyone why.
ondras 8y ago
Author here. To clarify: as far as the organizational aspect is considered, those people are competent and top-notch. All the confs were highly professional, their experience with managing this stuff cannot be overlooked. But the social/communication layer is a bit nontransparent, in my opinion.
downandout 8y ago
It could be the number of proposals. I haven't seen his Twitter, but if he mentioned being a member of the "Brendan Eich fan club" on Twitter as he did on his blog, that may have also led to his being blocked. Brendan Eich was forced out of his role as CEO of Mozilla after a few vocal employees there found out he had donated $1,000 to support an anti-gay marriage bill in California many years before he was CEO. If the people behind this conference do not like Brendan Eich because of this, perhaps the author's support of him is to blame for the ban.
- ondras 8y ago
  The "Brendan Eich club" is actually a small inside joke, as the sign was one of the official "features" of JSConf.eu 2011, where Brendan was an invited speaker :)
  - topynate 8y ago
    Yes, but that was seven years ago, and Things Are Different Now. (Just leafed through their twitter. I'm seeing a lot of the same clique as were involved in the node.js brouhaha last year. Is this conference really worth the fuss?)
    - EGreg 8y ago
      This whole thing is a bit amusing. So Brendan Eich invented JS, and then led Mozilla. And being in the Brendan Eich Fan Club in 2011 probably was a positive thing and a cool thing for JS people. Then much later, Brendan Eich donates $1000 to some political thing people strongly disagree with So retroactively, being a fan of Brendan Eich means you are a homophobic hater and must be blocked? I am quite sure this ain’t it :)
      - jmmcd 8y ago
        You understand the timeline, but the virtue-signalling mob on Twitter probably doesn't.
      - 8y ago
shevegen 8y ago
> Perhaps they have small children's mentality Many do - see selling your soul to evil or signing CoC agreements before being able to attend.

spraak 8y ago

I was wondering if it was accidental, but then the author did reach out to a few different sources and didn't receive an answer... which could still be coincidence, but makes it seem less likely.

deleted 8y ago
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methyl 8y ago
> author didn't receive an answer He actually did: > Hi Ondrej, > dealing with this is at the bottom of our rather indefinitely long priority list. Don’t expect a swift resolution. > We’d appreciate not being bugged about this again. It seems they did it on purpose and they refuse to at least clarify why. My bet is that they did it for some childish reason and they don't have a courage to admit the mistake. I hope they will now shed some light on what happened.
- bigiain 8y ago
  Might not be "on purpose", OP might just be getting caught in some blocklist crossfire. It happened in a very similar way for a different conference here: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/08/twitter_blocklists_they_can_stop_harassment_and_they_can_create_entirely.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/08/twi... If they're in the middle of a Twitter dogpile, they probably wouldn't care too much about one particular guy on a blocklist if several hundred sockpuppet accounts organising on 4chan are all sending the same whining emails... (They could have handled that email response more politely, but I can pretty easily imagine a situation where OP looks like part of the problem rather than collateral damage...)
  - larkeith 8y ago
    Honestly, whether he was caught in a crossfire, intentionally banned, or even received a response meant for someone else, this is still utterly inadmissible. There is no possible situation an email of this sort is acceptable in any sort of professional context, let alone coming from a conference organizer.

mosselman 8y ago

I have not experience with running any popular twitter handles, but I can imagine that they block lots of people for various reasons, ranging from trivial to non-trivial. Honestly, if I were you, I'd simply let it go and not care if you can. Also, from the information you have given, from a certain point of view, you might come off a bit needy: You send in 5-6 proposals per year and send direct messages and mails to multiple people when you don't receive answers and you care about whether some twitter account is blocking you or not. I am not saying you are needy, I am just saying it could come off that way and that might have lead to either being blocked or communicated in non-tactful ways.

rplnt 8y ago
The existence of the blog itself makes me think the truth wouldn't be as clear as it is presented. Was every rejected talk proposal accompanied by emails and tweets asking for explanation? One can be polite and annoying at the same time. (that being said, their email reply was still unprofessional)
- ondras 8y ago
  Yes, I asked for explanation of rejected proposals in 2017 and 2018. And I received it (they even officially encouraged failed proposers to ask for an explanation).
philjackson 8y ago
> You send in 5-6 proposals per year and send direct messages and mails to multiple people when you don't receive answers Jesus, if you think that comes off as needy, you should see what founders often have to do to get going.
- mosselman 8y ago
  Is this back door bragging? So nothing can be categorised if it is not the most extreme example of its potential category?

michaelmrose 8y ago

What kind of people tell paying customers they are not worth the time required to answer a question?

amingilani 8y ago
Exactly. This whole episode reeks of unprofessionalism. Even if the author were in the wrong, he deserves a better reply than being told he's worthless.
matt4077 8y ago
I deliberately chose not to work in the "enterprise" market with 6-digit contracts anymore and instead sell a consumer product to many more people so that I could fire any customer that annoyed me without thinking twice about it. They get their money back and can find someone else to annoy. I really don't see what's so outrageous about the practice. There is no moral law that being paid by someone somehow creates a hierarchy where people can waste your time. Edit, because you seem to have edited your comment: That doesn't happen for a single, innocuous, \question, obviously. Reading between the line and in this thread, OP submitted 30(!) proposals for talks, sent follow-ups on each of them, plus other questions. At some point someone /probably/ got annoyed. I'd even wager money he's a running joke among the organizers.
- michaelmrose 8y ago
  I didn't modify my comment are you confused?
- beaconstudios 8y ago
  the key factor is whether they ever _told_ him "hey, you're spamming the conference at this point, please tone it down." - otherwise it's just passive-aggressive. Would you simply close a client's account and refund them without ever telling them that you were considering such actions? Because that would be extremely unprofessional.
  - pdimitar 8y ago

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DoubleGlazing 8y ago

Personally I'd walk away, life is too short to care about why a twitter user blocked you. But seeing as this is in the EU, the author could use the GDPR to find out why he was banned.

jesperht 8y ago
Out of curiosity, what part of the GDPR would require them to explain the ban-reason?
- bigiain 8y ago
  Just speculating here, but if they're storing his twitter account name, that might well be considered PII for the purposes of the GDPR, so they'd be required to disclose that they've stored it and any related information (like the reason they've stored it)... Also, their email response strongly implies they're storing previous requests - I'm not sure the GDPR covers emails he's sent to them though...
- struppi 8y ago
  They probably have personal data / personal identifiable information about you when they blocked you and still know about it... And you can ask them what data they have about you.
  - nicky0 8y ago
    You think they are keeping a permanent database of twitter block reasons?
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - mijamo 8y ago
      Doesn't need to be a database, a simple spreadsheet or text file would do as well. And you would be surprised to know how frequent those are (not necessarily about Twitter but in general about customers/employees/visitors in shops etc.)

_Codemonkeyism 8y ago

This is the same when people message a youtuber and expect some reply - they can't see the hundreds and thousands of messages people get and still need to produce youtube content (or organize a conference) - "I can deal with the mails I get, why can't they?"

Buge 8y ago
But this isn't some random person like it is with someone messaging a youtuber. This is someone they have a previous relationship with, receiving and rejecting proposals, and who they took a specific action against, to block on twitter.
PhasmaFelis 8y ago
Except he got a reply. Someone read his message and took time out of their day to tell him to fuck off.
- _Codemonkeyism 8y ago
  But just after he sent a message to several people and probably on twitter and different means, they told him - in a rude way - to stop. He probably didn't stop and he was blocked.
  - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
    He was sending the message because he'd already been blocked and didn't know why.

lowry 8y ago

`@jsconfeu @0ndras I am also in the @BrendanEich fan club`

goldenkey 8y ago
Plenty of HNers are also fans of Eich..the dude singlehandedly built integral parts of the XPCOM base that Mozilla & Firefox sit on.

palerno 8y ago

You either follow an account that has been banned, or the accounts you follow themselves follow accounts that have been banned. In the other direction, an account that follows you has been banned or they follow accounts that have been banned. @jsconfeu probably use some of the popular lists.

Buge 8y ago
So if I have a banned account I can cause arbitrary people to be banned simply by following them? It doesn't seem like a good idea to give me that power.
- BonoboIO 8y ago
  BAAS - Banning As A Service
gsich 8y ago
Banning you because you follow someone else. People who do that are braindead.

DanBC 8y ago

When you have an international group of people all speaking English as a second language the conversation can become a bit prickly. There isn't anything obvious here - a bit of complaining but it all seems mild and accurate: https://twitter.com/search?l=&q=%40jsconfeu%20from%3A0ndras&src=typd https://twitter.com/search?l=&q=%40jsconfeu%20from%3A0ndras&... Purely guessing here, you might want to avoid tweeting "Stupid fucking white man" at conference organisers. https://twitter.com/0ndras/status/960901913624576001 https://twitter.com/0ndras/status/960901913624576001 -- but this is just a guess. I have no idea if that's why they blocked you.

amingilani 8y ago
He didn't tweet that at the organizers. He quoted an article and linked to the article.
- DanBC 8y ago
  Here's what I see if I click on the stupid fucking white man tweet. It shows the message is a reply to 3 accounts, including the conference. https://imgur.com/a/1RlK4MN https://imgur.com/a/1RlK4MN
  - frindah 8y ago
    Yes, there's a @jsconfeu in there.
  - amingilani 8y ago
    Oh wow, I missed the replies because I couldn't understand them. Thanks!
- pygy_ 8y ago
  Then someone @-mentioned the conference, and he replied this in Czech (translation courtesy of Google Translate): ———— About three hours ago, they came back from my mail, where they again rejected my talk proposal (or all the Xs that I sent - as every year). Chance? I do not think. :P Original: Cca tři hodiny nazpět mi od nich přišel mail, kde opět zamítli muj talk proposal (resp. všech X, co jsem -- jako každoročně -- poslal). Náhoda? Nemyslím si. :P ———— In other words, he suggested that his talks were rejected because of positive discrimination towards minority groups, and he's critical of such discrimination. I understand the conference could take offense with such statements (whether or not the talks were rejected for that reason).

deleted 8y ago

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dssfgsgsgsdgds 8y ago

The organizers of JSConf.eu are known to be hardcore, authoritarian feminists. Maybe the author of the article was just too male and white for their taste.

hbaav6 8y ago

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.

tomp 8y ago
I don’t know about you, but I’m quite happy he publicised this (=gave attention). Now I know what conference to avoid!
- hbaav6 8y ago
  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.
  - Melchizedek 8y ago
    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 8y ago
      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.

jakobegger 8y ago

Why do you keep bugging someone when they obviously do not want you to contact them? Blocking you is a way of saying "Leave me alone!" Not replying to direct messages or emails is a way of saying "Leave me alone!" Nobody needs to explain why they want to be left alone. Maybe stop thinking about yourself, and just accept that the people behind the twitter handles just don't want you to contact them anymore for whatever reason.

oytis 8y ago
Not to argue if ghosting is a morally appropriate way of communication in one's personal life, but it was not about someone's personal account, rather of one of a professional conference. It is definitely not how one should do their business communications.
BonoboIO 8y ago
I think this is not a private or personal thing, this just unprofessional handling of an yet unclear situation. Like beeing conficted without a trial (of course this is just a business relationship between him and the conference). Imagine that Hacker News would ban your account jakobegger, no explanation, no way to get informations why or what you did wrong. Would you just accept this as just "leave me alone"?
- goldenkey 8y ago
  The reason we respect HN and its respective admins, is because they explain their decisions quite openly and transparently, and will even discuss issues over email. I was actually banned a few years ago because I was being a negative, hateful, POS due to some events in my life combined with clouded judgment. But I appealed, and began posting better comments that were more in line with what one would expect from a discussion forum for positivity (startups) and rationalism (tech.) I'm sure there are many others like me who the admins treated quite fairly and with respect. "Silent treatment" is a last resort, in all other cases it is just a weak and impotent thing to do.
  - PhasmaFelis 8y ago

lgleason 8y ago

Given the people they gave speaker slots to this year I don't think you are missing a lot. This conference has become blatantly political, vs focusing on tech, the later of which I'm assuming is why are you wanting to attend.

frindah 8y ago

You can talk to us about this blog post in length? https://twitter.com/0ndras/status/960901913624576001 https://twitter.com/0ndras/status/960901913624576001

jlebrech 8y ago

that's one way to turn someone over zealous for you (a fan) into someone overly zealous against you (a troll)

WalterBright 8y ago

I would never join a club that would have me as a member. (stolen from Groucho Marx)

alanfranzoni 8y ago

Slightly off topic: I've always found twitter-style blocking totally nonsensical. I mean: you've got a public account. Blocking should prevent people from replying or tweeting at you, and from sending you DMs, maybe even retweeting what you said (even though I'm not sure about the usefulness of this last thing)... but why should ANYONE be prevented at just READING PUBLIC CONTENT when LOGGED IN? (I think the same applies for Facebook and yes, I think that's nonsensical as well)

bodas 8y ago
Twitter realises it is stupid. However many of their technologically illiterate users don't and when they tried to change it there was an outcry that Twitter was helping abuse or something silly like that. Keeping the feature is as is easier than educating their users how computers work.
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
I've also wondered about this, and the only conclusion I could come to is quite cynical. Think about the practical effects. It encourages people to create multiple accounts and also encourages warring of various sorts. These behaviors send Twitter's usage and user numbers up without bots while enabling complete plausible deniability about any complicity. It's a problem with ad-driven networks. Their goal is to increase user numbers which enables them to inflate their advertised reach and thus increase their overall revenue. One might joke about Facebook bragging about its reach: "We have more than 2 billion users and only 25% are located in the USA!" Subtlety, math, and statistical references all in one one-liner joke - what could be better?
- Sean1708 8y ago
  They tried to change the behaviour to the one that makes sense (to us) but there was backlash from users and so they reverted the change.[0] [0]: https://www.imore.com/twitter-changes-how-block-works-heres-what-you-need-know https://www.imore.com/twitter-changes-how-block-works-heres-...
  - 8y ago

sparkling 8y ago

This type of drama is why i don't attend conferences anymore. It is a social minefield.

goldenkey 8y ago
DefCon and HOPE usually have an assortment of real solid talks, a few 0-days, and new maker products to mess around with or buy. Plus there are plenty of people who actually know their shit. I don't think you'll get the same kind of entertainment from a bunch of coders who solely do JS. But yeah, something about mass audience, technology, and a detached culture makes these conferences more watery every next decade. Still worth it at least for now but I acknowledge your point.

notananthem 8y ago

Everything about the post makes my skin crawl. The weird vaguely sketchy tweets, overly needy behavior, constant need for validation.

saintPirelli 8y ago

After reading the "code of conduct" on their homepage I would assume that you have unknowligly broken something like > "Using gendered terms like “dude” or “guys” to address a mixed-gendered group of people contributes to furthering exclusion of underrepresented individuals." The fact that they included an option to "make an anonymous" report furthers the assumption that you just got under the political wheels of the conference.

aembleton 8y ago
At least they make it clear, but that is quite a lot to consider https://2018.jsconf.eu/code-of-conduct/ https://2018.jsconf.eu/code-of-conduct/
- saintPirelli 8y ago
  I really don't get how and - more importantly - why we moved from a common sense of "don't be a dick to other people" to the need to spell out pages and pages of behavioural guidelines.
  - krainboltgreene 8y ago
    Yes, I too wonder why all social issues can't easily be solved by 7 word phrases. I also find myself, like you, thinking that everyone has the same "common sense"!
    - saintPirelli 8y ago
      Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know this conference was aiming to "solve all social issues" with their code of conduct.
  - struppi 8y ago
    OK, this is now totally off-topic WRT the original blog post, but... We had a very short code of conduct at SoCraTes Austria. Then we thought about what might happen when we have a violation (endless discussions about whether that was actually a real violation and whether our response was justified, maybe even within the team). So, we sat down and wrote a slightly longer version, which tries to spell out some unwanted behaviour and some guidlines for conference stuff ( http://socrates-conference.at/code-of-conduct/ http://socrates-conference.at/code-of-conduct/ ). We also wanted to explain why we have the CoC in the first place and how we'd like people to behave. It surely is not perfect (probably too long and too short at the same time). But if you think "don't be a dick to other people" would suffice as a CoC, imagine you are the organizer of an event, and then try to list all the things that might go wrong. Be creative - I'm sure you can imagine situations where it does not suffice.

cuillevel3 8y ago

You submitted 30 proposals? Maybe they are just annoyed by you spamming them? Also, they just banned you on twitter, what's the big deal here? You can still attend the conference.

sylvinus 8y ago

This is rather surprising coming from JSConf.eu, which is widely respected and run by people who really care about their community. I'd like to hear their side before making any judgement.

carlossless 8y ago

Meh, I was hopping to see some conclusion at the end. I hope there will be some followup.

hyperfekt 8y ago

oh no

petercooper 8y ago

I've been blocked by a related account for years, the only altercation I ever had with them was when their founder was drunk one night (their admission) and went nuts at me for not linking the conference enough in my newsletter :-D Social stuff is hard, running events is hard, and people get stressed - it is what it is.

mlang23 8y ago

20-30 submissions, in 4 years? Maybe he was blocked as a spam protection measure?

intothemild 8y ago

Look, this is a Javascript conference, and these now are just super about getting only candidates who are "Javascript famous" or have a lot of twitter followers. I wouldn't waste your time, either applying or attending. If being on the conference circut is what you want and in javascript then you've got two choices. 1. Create a Open Source library that is suuuuuuuper popular. 2. Get a shitload of Twitter followers. Conferences are a business, that business is selling tickets.. big names sell tickets. It's like if I have a music festival, and I open up applications to everyone. I'm only doing that on paper, realistically I'm only getting the biggest musicians.. cause that sells tickets. If conferences are your dream... Chose a different language, because JS is toxic and the ONLY voices you will hear now are those that have already become "Javascript Famous".

adamrezich 8y ago
maybe by posting this he is doing (2.) :)