I have resigned from all roles in rustlang, effective immediately

https://twitter.com/jntrnr/status/1662229886386442242

by DaNmarner • 3 years ago

83 61 3 years ago

Here's the reasoning, should the tweets get deleted: https://thephd.dev/i-am-no-longer-speaking-at-rustconf-2023

loeg• 3 years ago

Tl;dr they got invited to talk, the organizers didn't look to closely at the talk, and the talk was rejected or downgraded at the last minute. There is some speculation this was deliberate but I did not see it substantiated. Might have just missed it, though.

Is the blog author the same person as the tweeter? My impression is phantomderp on twitter is the blogger, but the quote tweet is another account.

jcranmer2• 3 years ago

It looks like the person who is resigning is not the one whose talk was rejected/downgraded, but is doing so because of the way the talk was rejected/downgraded.

daniel-thompson• 3 years ago

How does [person A choosing not to speak at a conference] connect to [person B leaving the Rust project]?

TazeTSchnitzel3• 3 years ago

We can only speculate since the tweet doesn't explain the connrction, it only indicates one (via quote-tweeting).

jeroenhd• 3 years ago

I can't find the direct link either, but the blog post is quoted as the reason for leaving the Rust project.

Neither happens in a vacuum. There was likely a lot of internet and real-life drama between people. The basis for the blog post already shows some sign of preexisting drama.

I don't know the context so I can only theorize why they quit.

Perhaps they noticed the drama beforehand and this was the final straw. Perhaps they felt called out by the blog post. Perhaps they saw more internet drama coming and decided they've had enough.

Maybe of note: JT has been very influential in a new language originating from the SerenityOS project, Jakt [1], though his contributions died off over time. Perhaps they're searching for a new challenge and saw this as a good moment to get out?

[1] https://github.com/SerenityOS/jakt

TazeTSchnitzel3• 3 years ago

If the tweets get deleted: that post was made by a different person than the one who resigned, but it seems the latter's resignation was prompted by it.

gaws• 3 years ago

Archive link: https://archive.is/zgP6W

TazeTSchnitzel3• 3 years ago

It seems the person who resigned here was on the Rust core team, and had been involved in Rust for quite a long time (https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/announcement-jonathan-turn...).

wk_end• 3 years ago

In no way defending the sloppy conference planning or how the former keynote speaker got screwed here, but...unless I'm missing something it seems pretty disproportionate to completely leave a community you've invested over seven years of your life in over sloppy conference planning, doesn't it? I feel like I'm missing something.

dom96• 3 years ago

I really doubt this is the sole reason. It’s likely simply what broke the camel’s back so to speak.

imran-iq• 3 years ago

Allegedly this isn't the first time something like this has happened[0].

Just feels like more open source drama tbh.

---

https://twitter.com/__phantomderp/status/1662235332375347202

netaustin• 3 years ago

What you're describing may be the sunk cost fallacy [https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/the-sunk-cost-fallacy].

dahdum• 3 years ago

They reached out to him to give a talk he wasn’t ready to do. He obliges, works to make it happen, and gets blindsided by organizational politics. If he feels the organization and leadership neither respect him personally or his efforts, it’s a perfectly proportionate response.

Not sure how I’d react in his exact situation, but once trust and mutual respect are gone, so am I.

cjbprime• 3 years ago

sloppy conference planning

FWIW, the quoted thread makes it sound like the actual conference planners were no more than messengers here, so it may be fairer to summarize as ".. over capricious meddling in conference planning" or something like that.

1lint• 3 years ago

I agree it seems like a disproportionate act to take given the situation as the author described it, but this certainly does seem like the kind of scenario that involves a lot of context that goes unmentioned.

One explanation for this sequence of events is that the conference planners had since found a new compelling topic reflective of the project's direction to be covered in a keynote speech, in which case the natural topic to replace is one that discusses a "possible"/hypothetical idea. I'm sure there was a better way for leadership to handle this, in particular around communicating their intentions, but this shortcoming seems much more likely a case of incompetence rather than malice towards the speaker, given the lack of information to support the latter.

jmartrican3• 3 years ago

Rule of thumb i like to follow before making any important decisions I ask myself "am I in a high emotional state". If the answer is yes, I refrain from making a decision. I wait till I can affirmatively answer "no" to that question. Its a simple little filter you can apply to avoid rash decisions (or social media posts).

WatchDog• 3 years ago

Resigning over someone else’s talk being bumped into a different slot? All seems overly dramatic.

jcranmer2• 3 years ago

My understanding (I've never had the mispleasure of running a conference) is that keynote talks are very different from regular talks. With regular talks, presenters submit talk proposals, the conference committee select which talks to give. With keynote talks, the committee instead asks a specific presenter to give a specific talk.

So when someone, who is hesitant in the first place about the appropriateness of their material for a talk, is asked to give a talk, communicates their concerns, is emphatically encouraged by the committee to do so anyways, and is suddenly told by the committee that "never mind, we don't want your talk"... at best, that speaks poorly of the committee.

nonethewiser• 3 years ago

But to be clear, in this case they werent asked to give a specific talk. The speaker came up with it.

m0llusk• 3 years ago

Was not able to load this. Maybe it is time to reconsider using Twitter this way?

pwdisswordfishc• 3 years ago

https://nitter.unixfox.eu/jntrnr/status/1662229886386442242#...

sergiotapia• 3 years ago

What is it about Rust that attracts so much drama like this? Someone has to do the calculus here. It can't be the sheer number of developers because Rust is still a niche language.

Why does Rust have these kind of shenanigans and attract people that either cause these problems or experience these problems?

The only other language that comes close is the V language, but that's mostly people shitting on the language (for no good reason) and not infighting drama like Rust has.

camdenlock2• 3 years ago

Terminally-online people behave like this, on average.

worik2• 3 years ago

Terminally-online people behave like this, on average.

No we do not. Do we?

worik2• 3 years ago

What is it about Rust that attracts so much drama like this?

Any group that aims for inclusivenes, and gets large has the problem. Individuals, especially bright motivated people often get frustrated and a proportion of them do not have the social skills and maturity to avoid tantrums

herbstein• 3 years ago

As an example; John A De Goes, one of the most prolific advocates for Scala and developer and lead of the Zio ecosystem, has announced that he is stopping his advocacy, stepping down from leading the Zio ecosystem, and is going to branch out. A big piece of "drama"/community turmoil that gained exactly one comment on the four posts created for it.

https://degoes.net/articles/splendid-scala-journey

jasmer2• 3 years ago

Rust is exactly the kind of movement where everyone is going to take themselves very seriously at every turn, this is bound to happen.

klabb3• 3 years ago

My working hypothesis: it attracts puzzle solvers, people who have a passion for – and sometimes an obsession with – perfect systems. When applied to life outside of the confines of the type system, it can lead to a black and white thinking that ironically explains the behavior of both parties: the organizers unwilling to admit to their medium sized mistake and the speaker rage quitting in response. It’s all or nothing. It either compiles and is correct or it’s incomprehensible nonsense.

All organizations and their people make mistakes. Most people intrinsically expect that the world is somewhat fuzzy, including most engineering types. Responsibilities and conduct isn’t formalized, it loosely follows a set of cultural expectations. The good side effect of this fuzziness is that mistakes happen so often that you start expecting them. And then you don’t have to get upset or part ways when something bad happened. How you as an individual or organization recover from these mistakes is a lot more important than trying to stop them from happening.

People who think mistakes are unacceptable are often the same types who are the most unwilling to recognize their own mistakes.

dralley• 3 years ago

What is it about Rust that attracts so much drama like this?

Well, one has to ask whether Rust actually has "more" drama than average, or if it just tends to be more public. I lean towards the latter. I mean, people have gotten into shouting matches that nearly escalated to fistfights at CPP conferences, but that all happens behind closed doors.

rvz2• 3 years ago

So someone getting upset over their powerpoint presentation getting downgraded from being part of the RustConf keynote.

That’s it? Much like an explosion in an ant hill.

nabakin• 3 years ago

1. They didn't submit a talk or intend to give one

2. They were specifically invited to give a keynote and decided to do so at their request

3. Repeatedly confirmed the topic was ok

4. Put a lot of work into the keynote

5. Told last minute they would not be giving a keynote with no reason

I'd be upset. This is not how you treat your community.

rvz2• 3 years ago

That is even worse.

But ever since the Rust Foundation was formed there was no 'community', only corporate interests, so actions like this is typical of them.

Either way, it seems that the 'Rust foundation' is taking everyone involved downhill. Perhaps the Rust core team are realising very late on the way that the structure of the foundation being a big problem as I said before. [0]

Focusing more on 'code' than on the problems with the governance structure which is the reason why they are now finally realising that they have created the same problems which has been seen before in the Linux foundation.

After all, both are 501(c)6 orgs and serve the interests of corporations more than the community and if they were a community then it should have been set up as a 501(c)3 instead.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35592650

DocSavage• 3 years ago

What does "last minute" mean here? Isn't RustConf in mid-September and it's a single track conference so speakers are heard by all participants? It would be a good way to get your work and opinions out to the broader community.

Clearly the process was botched and more effort should've been made to come to a mutually beneficial solution, but going from an invited keynote (great honor) to an invited talk (honor) is not what I would call a deliberate attempt to "disgrace one of the experts in my field."

fwlr2• 3 years ago

My understanding of the situation is this:

At the request of Rust Project, JeanHeyd is asked to give a keynote at RustConf. JeanHeyd is reluctant, worried that their topic is too speculative and too much like a proposal for implementing a Rust feature. They ask around and get told it’s definitely ok, please don’t decline the talk, etc. Later, after the talk is prepared, RustConf contacts JeanHeyd to say their talk has been downgraded from keynote, at the request of Rust Project. The reason given is that Rust Project does not want to endorse their direction on this feature. It is not a very good reason, as JeanHeyd had already taken many steps to make it clear in the talk that this is speculative, was not offered a chance to make changes to the talk that make it even more clear that Rust Project doesn’t endorse it, was only giving a talk on this topic because Rust Project requested it in the first place, and there have been other keynotes that also run afoul of this reason but were not bumped in this manner. JeanHeyd writes a blog post explaining this, retracting their talk entirely, and posing the question: what is the real reason for the bump? Later, JT resigns from all roles in rustlang, citing JeanHeyd’s blog post but not otherwise elaborating.

Obviously, all the interesting stuff is happening below the surface here. I’ll hazard a few guesses (and that’s all they are, just guesses; I don’t know the situation and I don’t know the people in it, nor am I speaking for them):

1. “Losing an internal political battle”. JT may have been involved in having Rust Project push JeanHeyd for the talk. Others in Rust Project were against the talk, and had Rust Project reverse course on it. JT resigns in protest.

2. “Discovering and being dismayed by internal politics”. People outside the Rust Project were echoing JeanHeyd’s question, what is the real reason here? JT is well-connected and respected in the Rust community and may have tried to find out the real reason. Perhaps JT finds the real reason and is disgusted (or perhaps JT gets similarly stonewalled, and is disgusted by that), and resigns.

3. (More speculative, based on both JeanHeyd and JT being open about their neurodivergence, drawing on my own as well) “Autists trying to avoid internal politics”. Many aspects of how Rust Project handled this situation would be uncomfortable for autistic individuals (opaque decision-making process, abrupt reversal, inadequate justification, not up for debate - to name a few). JT may therefore find it inhospitable, and so resigns.

BrandoElFollito3• 3 years ago

Completely unrelated, but as a non native speaker of English I was completely lost in the "their"s, not knowing who they refer to.

Then I realized that JT may prefer to be addressed this way, which is indeed the case according to their Twitter handle.

It is a shame that better pronouns were not promoted in English to simplify the understanding of sentences where they both refer to a single person and a group.

rsynnott2• 3 years ago

English is extremely stingy with pronouns in general; beyond singular vs plural they, there's also no proper plural you, no modern informal you (it was 'thou', but that's archaic), no exclusive vs inclusive we, and so on.

fwlr2• 3 years ago

I noticed this when I was writing it and tried to use names rather than pronouns as much as possible. I actually use “their” all the time for everyone, I wasn’t aware that JT requests it in their Twitter profile. About fifteen years ago, when I first heard about gender-neutral pronouns, the objection at the time was “it’s harder to write and more confusing”. I started doing it as a challenge to see if it really was hard or not. In that fifteen years, you are in fact the first person to have ever noticed and said something (congratulations).

hprotagonist• 3 years ago

Sayre’s Law

PeterWhittaker• 3 years ago

avinassh• 3 years ago

Wait, there are two entities now, Rust Project and Rust Foundation?

macobrien• 3 years ago

The Rust Foundation is the legal entity that owns the trademark, accepts sponsorships, provides grants, etc. The Rust Project is the technical organization that makes decisions about the language and ecosystem.

v3gajerusalem• 3 years ago

Sounds like a normal work week to me. Try working at amazon lol. Oh the shit can change…and it will! It will change.

jmartrican3• 3 years ago

Oh wow. How long you been there?

I have resigned from all roles in rustlang, effective immediately

Related Stories