I was in the room with Mike Perham when we confronted Ruby Central’s executive leadership over their decision to invite DHH to RailsConf (which sponsors were not made aware of ahead of time). They knew that multiple sponsors had a problem with the continued relationship.
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Wait, they didn't even tell the sponsors?
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Not ahead of time, no.
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I learned about it inadvertently in a Google doc shortly before the official comms went out announcing it.
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Yikes ????
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Doing that, then having the gall to ask for money during the conference is…A Real Choice
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Brandon, they didn’t even tell the program committee until it was a done deal.
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.....they are really doing themselves no favors here for optics.
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Noel, this is quite disingenuous. In the kick-off meeting for the PC, I told the group that we were having conversations with DHH to be at RailsConf, and it wasn't finalized but if anyone had any problems with that, they could choose to not join the PC. Anyone else on that call can vouch for this.
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I remember the claim as being that he was going to speak but that the conversations were about what the format was going to be, but it's not like I was recording it or anything. If you say it wasn't finalized, then I'm wrong.
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I will say that other times that I've been on the program committee, the committee co-approved keynote speakers with the program chairs and that did not happen here.
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Ok, then we are agreed that I stated all this to the just-forming PC, before we discussed any other topic. At the time, a lot of the details weren't finalized. But, in effect, we communicated the information at the earliest possible moment to the PC. I don't know how else we could have done this.
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I don't mean to imply bad intent. I mean, I stayed on the committee,
But objectively, other times I've been on the program committee, the committee was asked to suggest, vote on, and approve keynote speakers.
Again, without meaning to imply any particular intent, that did not happen here.
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Ufuk, none of this is what I recall Shan telling me as she understood it. You were in the room when she explained it to me. I'm even more confused about that conversation now.
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I find it telling you responded to Noel's comment and not Josh's. Should we take that as you did fail to inform your sponsors about DHH's involvement, if so why are you over here trying to convince others you did it right?
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But yes, I agree that it was presented to the PC before other business.
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Nothing the ruby central board has done about this situation has been done right so maybe break a bit, reflect, and then post some **actual** clarification on the situation and how you plan to ensure it doesn't happen again moving forward.
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I was in that room with Josh at the conference, so we talked about that topic in person. Nothing telling here at all.
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So if what Josh is saying is true your other efforts to save face seem rather disingenuous, and a waste of your time no? Your face is covered in oil and you're using q-tips to clean the mess.
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This is true, we did discuss it. Also, I wouldn't necessarily expect to have the full schedule ahead of time as a sponsor under normal circumstances, but I was surprised in this case since it's obviously a controversial decision.
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They didn’t even tell the employees. I found out via the public marketing email
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Who actually made the decision? What was that conversation like?
