Don't leave out the best part (the very next sentence)

> Joel (who I greatly respect, and consider an asset to the data science community) was not involved in NumFOCUS’s action, was not told about it, and did not support it.

Excuse me sir, you've committed a thought crime for not following propaganda guidelines on independent thought and expression.

You have violated the CoC by presuming to use the honorific "sir", thus promoting gender opression!

FWIW I've got a female friend who was in enlisted the US Navy and she spoke of female naval officers who were addressed as "Sir" rather than "Ma'am" (though most went by "Ma'am").

So I don't know how to feel about anything anymore.

That's a common trope in sci-fi -- I think Star Trek TNG and Battlestar Gallactica had the female officers addressed as "sir".

We can criticize this specific instance of CoC enforcement without making fun of legitimate gender issues in technology.

Not OP, but I don't think they were making fun of the legitimate issues. There have been plenty of instances of pronoun-related overreactions in and outside the tech sector - see the recent-ish StackOverflow mess for an example. There are obviously many issues, but there are also many overblown non-issues and I don't see much harm in making fun of those.

Some people make jokes and don't realize the effect they have on the people who have to be the victims of those comments day in and day out. I'm sorry if that's not easy to understand. These are the same people who think women don't belong in tech, or that people who choose pronouns are "snowflakes". It's why we don't have as many women in tech and it really needs to stop.

Remember, this is just one side. Is there any detailed response from the other side? With something like this the tone and atmosphere has a grave weight on the perception. Like you can say someone is wrong in a nice, professional way, but also in a meany, bullying way.

And it doesn't even need to be seen by the involved people as mean, if they have such a "toxic" type relationship. But a Code of Conduct is also a bit about the perception of others, and how it sells a project.

In his statement there are hints indicating in this direction. He mentions his talk was made as a parody. Parodies by nature are on a thin line between being funny englightment, and being mean bullying. So it can be the case that his see himself as funny, while other might see it as a mean insult.

And he mentions some unwritten rules which were applied to him specifically because his talk was somewhat special because it was an opener(?) or something. Which means he got more attention than your regular talk.

AFAICT, according to the apology he had been accused but not convicted of the violation.

According to his account, he was told that he had been convicted.

According to him, now, he disagrees with that assertion in their apology. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24946688.

> According to his account, he was told that he had been convicted.

The apology states that this was a "crucial miscommunication that we take responsibility for"

OTOH, from Jeremy Howard's account it really does sound like the committee doubled down on that miscommunication so often that it seems hard to believe that's all it was.

And my judgement after all available information is that they are straight up lying.

Here is why.

His stated recollection is that they said, “that is what the reporters stated, and what we found” and to his asking why his statement was not requested, “we all watched the video, so we could see for ourselves the violation”.

What they said in his version is very clear. That is not a miscommunication. Calling it a "miscommunication" sounds like nothing more than the best excuse that they came up with for themselves.

Therefore this reduces down to a simple "he said, she said" type of conflict. What I have to judge on is what is publicly known of his character, their incentives, and indications about their character. He has a solid public reputation as an upstanding person. Their incentives are to minimize perception of wrongdoing in their actions. Both the fact that they got into this mess, and their non-apology in attempting to get out of it, suggests that they lack even a shred of integrity.

Therefore it is his word against theirs. He is believable. They are not. And so I conclude that they are lying on this point.

Isn't concluding that they are lying without solid evidence basically the same crime that you're accusing them of committing against Jeremy Howard?

No, not even a little bit. There is a gigantic gulf between an organization with power in the situation making an official finding, and an individual with no power over the situation looking at the facts and forming a conclusion.