I think this discussion would benefit from knowing more about the motivation of this session, the anticipated audience and subject matter.
Is it going to be a bunch Russian speaking students showing their projects and making friends? Or will it be Russian defense research institutions and military tech companies sharing the latest on ballistics and computational military logistics? (Yeah, there’s some gray area between those extremes, I know… )
OK, a bit more realistically, are we talking about individual enthusiasts, or institutions and companies joining?
It is not that the people could be unable to deliver it in English, but may be that the public targeted is unable to take it. By instance, I’m from México, and from some time now I’ve been making talks in Julia and its benefits on the area that people around me work on (in general, scientific computing).
I’ve got to make projects and thesis from Bachellor, PhD, and research to be programmed in Julia. Not all this people speaks, reads or hears fluently English, but they could be benefited from assisting JuliaCon talks.
Also if one of them who only talks Spanish want to make a talk, they have finally the space to do it. It is more welcoming.
I’m glad you asked this question so that I may clarify a misconception that others may also have.
There is no “Russian Session” planned in JuliaCon as much as there are no “English Sessions” or “Portuguese Sessions” planned either. This year, OrgComm, after many years of wanting to extend the JuliaCon experience to a more global audience, allows people to submit proposals (as stated in the Call for Proposals) under the following types
Talks
Lightning talks
Workshop
Minisymposia
Birds of a Feather
Poster
Experience
where the submission may be in English/Spanish/French/German/Russian/Portuguese/Simplified Chinese, as far as reviewer bandwidth and submission quality control can allow for.[1]
In this sense, the proposition at the top of this thread would mean that e.g., an Experience talk submission by a Russian speaker would be insta-rejected on the basis of the speaker’s language alone.
I believe we have yet to receive more than a handful JuliaCon proposals, and it’s unlikely we receive more than a dozen for any non-English language, but we’re betting on growth and outreach.
Coda:
For completeness sake, it’s a good bet that Keynotes will be given in English, but we’re working on ways to facilitate live captioning so that it’s easier to follow along for ESL speakers, but those are planned by OrgComm way before hand and aren’t part of the CfP.
These are the currently supported languages - feel free to PR your own and add become a volunteer to the reviewing effort, we always need more hands. ↩︎
If Julia community take sides in political matters now then we have to take political stands going onward.
There is nothing worse and more tragic than war and human loss which require immediate action, but the action needs to come from the right organization which they are taking actions. Julia is not an organization like Disney, Fifa, Apple… or a country like Switzerland(which finally broke its neutrality). The said organizations are heavily influenced by political and its advertisement influences matters.
The other issue is that there have been multiple invasion, war crimes and anti human rights actions going on through the past decade(the time that Julia has been born). From the likes of Afghanistan, Syria, Myanmar, China’s Uyghurs, Israel-Palestine, Yemen and others with some being worse than what is going on now, What was the community’s stand on these? Why are we suddenly vocal now? If anything we will be labeled racist by some and hailed by others and we will only create a fragmented community with polar audience.
We must definitely go on with the Juliacon as Julia has been taken much interest in last two years. I think we should not hinder that and continue with our best way of showing off what Julia can do.
This is a contentious matter, but I guess we have to discuss it.
I supported the call because I interpreted it as follows. Our community standards and inclusion efforts are clearly products of society around us. But that society is now moving with great momentum (you see it in business, arts, sports, research) and the question was whether JuliaCon should be seen moving in the opposite direction.
The current situation differs from previous ones by the speed and commonality of the global (civil) response. Allowing for a few exceptions, you can really talk about society moving.
We really don’t. The JuliaCon organizers have to discuss it, and they did (see the top post), but there is no reason we, as in the Internet Collective, need to discuss this. Sure, we CAN discuss it, as long as this thread doesn’t go off the rails and gets closed, but in my opinion, it’s pointless and divisive.
I think the way you phrased it was a little rude. I understand (at least try to) why you are so worried about this events (not a fan of nukes, really). I’m also worried, but shutting everything is not going to take us anywhere (literally).
In times of uncertainty (and this is a big one), the path that was in front of us is the path that we know we can take, until more information is received (at least, this is what I think).
As Jakov just said, the decision of continuing JuliaCon in the current format is already made, and continuing this threads seems not more fruitful on the matter originally posted (from my POV). I do think the discussion might be going off the rails soon (if not by now), so I’ll avoid commenting further.
I do think that the threat of WWIII and nuclear war is something beyond other geopolitical conflicts and warrants some sort of response. But that doesn’t mean we should go with the first response someone came up with.
This proposal to exclude use of the Russian language just won’t accomplish what it claims it would. English is the lingua franca of JuliaCon and programming in general. It is far more likely that any Russian Julia user has been learning English to engage in discussion than only using Russian, so this proposal will stop a far lesser proportion of Russians than hoped. The Russian language itself is a lingua franca due to historical imperialism. By the most recent figures I could find (2010ish), ~47% Russian speakers are not Russian. This proposal acknowledges it does not distinguish “good” and “bad” Russians, but it can’t even distinguish Russians and non-Russians. The proposal as it stands would only marginally inconvenience its few intended targets, and it does not make exceptions for non-Russians, some of whom are still victims of Russian imperialism. Directly asking participants if they live in Russia would approach the stated goal better than banning the language, and it is easy to lie about that and very hard to independently verify.
And all those problems haven’t even broached the debate on whether excluding Russians over geopolitical events is something that should be attempted or what effects it would have in practice. As I’ve commented earlier, there are a couple things I think would be more effective or at least more worthy of debate:
Warning or banning people from Julia forums for using their platform to vocally support the Russian invasion. It’s a fair interpretation that such rhetoric attacks people based on politics and ethnicity, which are violations of the community standards.
Banning people known to use Julia for any Russian aggression (or any nation’s aggression for that matter), though hackers are probably using the more popular programming languages and would not even hint at these activities on public forums.
Cutting ties or refusing association with Russian organizations and businesses. I don’t know of any, but this is an action more similar to the various sanctions and boycotts by nations and large corporations, just on a far lesser scale. However, it focuses the impact on where there would be an impact, however small.
For completeness, we could show our support for Ukraine by having a raffle or an online fundraiser event and donate the proceedings to relevant charities. I believe that even a small charitable donation would have a real, noticeable impact.
I believe it is clear that this call does not accomplish much in concrete terms. For that you have to act elsewhere (sending money, perhaps).
However, the call does address one concern: reputational risks. I think JuliaCon is unnecessarily running the risk of upsetting (1) Julians in Ukraine; (2) sponsors; (3) media.
I didn’t explicitly mention this, but a significant proportion of Ukraine primarily speak Russian. The proportion increases the further east and south, reaching a majority in several oblasts. A blanket ban on the Russian language would undoubtedly impede some Ukrainians (though again, they’d probably be using English to learn programming, so this would only be a minor inconvenience).
I think you are in general mistaken about the reputation of speaking Russian. People object to the Russian invasion, not the Russian language. Most people don’t even know what Julia is, let alone would be outraged that a JuliaCon participant could write a proposal in Russian. They are more preoccupied with the war, the refugee crisis, and economic devastation.
I understand your desire to make a stand for all to see, I do, but this proposal really does not address anything to that effect. If anything, shoddy performative activism would put the Julia community in the same tone-deaf light as AnnaLynne McCord’s Twitter poem about how Putin should’ve had a good mother like her, or Andy Cohen posting the Wordle guess “PEACE” on Instagram. If you want a good reputation, you need to do things right.
Don’t we know people who are Russian Julians but are currently in upheaval as well because of all of the riots and panic in the major cities? We’re not talking about some nefarious dark foe, these are people that we talk to daily on these forums. They are being targeted by the police for not joining the military efforts / protesting. They are fleeing their homes too. They are losing their paycheck because of the SWIFT proposal. Yes, there are the issues of the invasion, but at a human level, not everyone is part of the invasion and some of these people are just our peaceful friends caught up in the war. Aren’t you talking to these people and helping them as well?
Why throw the baby out with the bathwater?
Here’s a major Julia supporter.
What do they have to say about the war?
I am citizen of Russia. I am not a public person. I am apolitical and more interested in science. I think that LinkedIn is not a place for analysis of politics and statements. So, you can see that there are a lot of “no” to publish here what I would like to say. But I cannot keep silence regarding current situation in #Ukraine and want to express my own opinion. I am against the war. I am against deaths of Ukrainians and Russians in this meaningless conflict. I do not support and do not understand the decision of government of my country to invade Ukraine.
And one more thing I would like to say. I am ordinary person and I am afraid for myself, my children and my family, I am afraid for the work that I have been doing all my life and all persons surrounding me, I am afraid for our future. But it is this fear that pushes me to publish this post.
I apologize for too many “I” in the post and for publishing my position with regard to the question which is far away from science and business.
All that was stated above is my personal point of view, i.e. point of view of Oleg Demin not point of view of InSysBio.
Should any talk on the HetaSimulator project be rejected because of where they live?
Or LikelihoodProfiler-based practical identifiability analysis?
So they should be disallowed from JuliaCon?
The last part of this sentence is what I think is the most important. Issues are much less complex when not speaking about the nuance of specific humans. We need to think deeper than the surface level. We need to take things on a case-by-case basis. Let’s discuss humans and what they say and do, not ill-defined aggregates like “Russian speakers”. Let’s appreciate each human as an individual, making individual actions, influenced by the collective they constitute but not defined by the collective.
Oleg Demin sounds like a good example of a Russian who isn’t “complicit” or “being compelled into complicity”, in OP’s words. Granted, he specifies he is not speaking for his company, but it’s not nothing. A state-owned television channel suspended a decade-long talk show because the host posted a single sentence against the war on Instagram, it’s far more dangerous to voice dissent there.
Boycotts and sanctions are intended to cause economic pressures that can be used in political negotiations (effects on public opinion and culture are more of a mixed bag), and it’s not immediately apparent how InSysBio independently writing open-source systems biology software in Julia would at all be relevant. Not as obvious as say, hypothetical contracts between Julia Computing and the Russian military, banks, or industry, which seems so far-fetched I specified “I don’t know of any.”
Why not let those groups – at least (1) and (2) – say what they actually think instead of speculating on it?
Also, I really, really want to emphasize the false equivalence of language, ethnicity, nationality and state/government. The current proposal impacts (speakers of) the Russian language as a proxy for the Russian state. The historical precedents for targeting language and ethnic groups as a proxy for nations/supporters of a nation aren’t the company I want to be in.
Thanks everyone for participating in this conversation. I think between the Organizers’ statement and the subsequent discussion we’re at a point that we can bring this to a close.
