14 ms·

The Developer Formerly Known as FreeBSDGirl

168 points by tshtf 11y ago

ChrisClark 11y ago
What the fuck is wrong with these GamerGate idiots? Is it a mental illness or something?
- Tomte 11y ago
  Additionally, what's wrong with FreeBSD? I'd like to hear their take on this. Because while I'm generally highly sceptic of this "everyone needs a CoC now!", the alleged reaction by Core goes much much further and is simply astonishing. Maybe someone needs to explain to them that freedom of association includes freedom not to associate. "His harassment was outside our mailing list" is not a good reason to decline any action.
  - lillian-lemmer 11y ago
    I love FreeBSD! I have a GitHub record to show that! :3 It's my sweet little darling angel. But it's sick. :< We need routes to ensure safety and respect for everyone. If someone makes others feel endangered, it is not unreasonable for there to be immediate recourse and resolution. That's what a Code of Conduct is all about.
    - Tomte 11y ago
      My problem with Codes of Conduct is mostly how to write them. The Swing dancing scene had a big scandal this year, and everywhere CoCs are popping up. But do you really need to write down that an adult (quite old, in that case) dance teacher is not allowed to sleep with just-teenage dance students? Or that racist remarks are not welcome? No, so you adopt very broad language. Usually something like "harassing", "making uncomfortable" etc. If your community needs those two sentences to police such behaviour, you've got a much bigger problem. I simply don't believe that you can convince anybody to take action because some very broadly written CoC authorizes them to do so. They either see that the behaviour is a problem, and are willing to act, or they will just start to debate whether the CoC's specific wording is really covering the behaviour in question. Then again, I have zero practical experience with policing a community. Damn! Missed midnight. :-)
      - lillian-lemmer 11y ago
        So your answer is not to have enforceable routes for women to be safe and respected because nobody can write specifically enough? I run an organization (hypatia.software [Hypatia Software Organization]) where the Code of Conduct is enforced and it is effective.
        Tomte 11y ago
        No, my answer is to have a community where you ban those people without discussing the semantics of some sentence. In the end, it's probably equivalent to your answer. Because when the people in your organization feel someone is harassing people and you decide to kick him out, you're probably simply describing his behaviour and referencing your CoC, but not doing some detailed analysis how and why he did so.
        lillian-lemmer 11y ago
        Yeah, it's just that it is sad that it is practically required to be spelled out. But even bigger yet, is that we have to find ways to enforce it and its purpose.
        vertex-four 11y ago
        As somebody who has experience moderating groups without explicit rules - the result of this in a group of more than a dozen people is inevitably that some of them will feel that (a) the banning is unfair, no matter how egregious the behaviour, and (b) there should be a set of written rules for the leaders/moderators to follow, so that people understand clearly what is expected of them. You really can't win. Personally, I tend to steer on the side of a broadly defined CoC backed up with a very clear dispute resolution policy (there's plenty of examples of both of these - Debian has a pretty decent set for large projects). In a functioning community, reaching for this should only be required very rarely, so they shouldn't affect anyone most of the time - and they quite obviously don't in the case of open-source projects, or we'd hear about actual cases where people have been kicked out of projects for very little a lot more than we do.
        11y ago
    - dogma1138 11y ago
      >If someone makes others feel endangered That's a bit stretching it basic threat, management is to judge each threat agent by the level of intent and the ability to act on that intent for the most part the usually aholes don't pose any actual threat. I also don't understand why some one being an ahole for a specific reason is worse than some one being an ahole just for sake of being an ahole, we all had our nemeses over the years people that you just don't click with that do everything in their power to get to you - outplay them, ignore them or move on.
  - gravypod 11y ago
    If there was a priest who was homosexual, and involved himself with gay-pride rallies on his own time, would you say it is acceptable for the church to excommunicate him since he had "freedom not to associate" with the group? If don't feel that disallowing personal thinking is good for society. I also feel that it is possible for people to agree on some topics while disagree on others. Guilt by association should not be the measure we use to judge people. I'd say it is very unlikely that the person who "attacked" Harper also supports the "legalize rape" comment from RooshV. In my opinion, attempting to draw a connection between RooshV's legalize rape comment and the person the article is about is a slanderous tactic to automatically make him "the enemy" with no evidence. This seems evident when you notice there is no source for any of the tweets made to Harper. This is contrasted with the readily available links provided to support deplorable comments made by RooshV. Harper makes statements like "He started enlisting the support of his neo-nazi friends." which are obviously being used to create an us/them dichotomy for the reader. "I'm not a horrible racist like the Nazi's, that means I must hate this person who must be a Nazi." the readers would think to themselves. I have no doubt that some of the content in this article is correct. I am just taken aback by the lack of sources provided, the attempts to slander the "opposition" and the wording of the piece. Being well read on the past of Harper, I would say that the claims have merit, but were blown entirely out of proportion. I'll happily, and publicly, eat my own words if someone can source proof for her claims. I have no objection to recanting any of this.
    - freebsdgirl 11y ago
      > the lack of sources provided Sources are: emails between myself, core, and the FreeBSD Foundation. I'm not providing those. A phone call with the FreeBSD Foundation, which I did not record and will not provide. I could mention the names of the people I spoke with in FreeBSD, but why? I could provide the tweets of the guy I spoke about, but to what end? I'm not going to name names. People can find a way to dig it all up if they really want to, but I don't want this to turn into a "this person is terrible" type thing. It's not about him, and I don't want a mob going after him or any individuals inside FreeBSD. That wouldn't be right, and it would detract from the point in writing about this at all. Instead, I hope people talk about the issues of harassment and legal shadiness regarding trademark claims.
- andallas 11y ago
  What does this have to do with GamerGate? This is a feminist talking about an MRA, neither of those things are GamerGate... I feel like you have conflated the issues a bit maybe?
  - andallas 11y ago
    I went back and counted, there are 6 mentions of GamerGate (not including the tag) and all of them are anecdotal references by FreeBSDGirl. In fact, the primary article in question (the guy that wants to legalize rape) doesn't mention GamerGate at all, or even remotely allude to it. P.S. Thanks for the downvote rather than a reply. It really shows your willingness to talk about issues and not just jump to conclusions...
    - detaro 11y ago
      The guy that wants to legalize rape and the person the article is mainly about are not the same person.
      - andallas 11y ago
        Maybe I need to read a bit better. I don't deny that they are different people, but I guess I thought the linked article was more important than just a side comment.
  - scholia 11y ago
    She has, like a lot of women, been harassed by GamerGate. They actually sent a police SWAT team to break down her door (which they didn't). http://blog.randi.io/2015/04/03/swated/ http://blog.randi.io/2015/04/03/swated/ She's been viciously attacked in Breitbart, a far right-wing site that championed GamerGate's hounding of women in tech. She also created a useful tool to block GamerGate hate attacks on Twitter. It's the sort of thing a lot of women could use. http://europe.newsweek.com/one-womans-new-tool-stop-gamergate-harassment-twitter-288008 http://europe.newsweek.com/one-womans-new-tool-stop-gamergat... Basically, any women in tech who can be targeted will be targeted by Gamergate because that's what they do. GamerGate is basically a rentamob of misogynistic thugs. It's toxic. (Whether it's just misogynistic thugs exploiting the GamerGate label doesn't really matter. To all intents are purposes, they are GamerGate now.) There was quite a good BuzzFeed story on the larger picture of what's going on. http://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/in-2015-the-dark-forces-of-the-internet-became-a-countercult http://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/in-2015-the-dark-for...
- fleitz 11y ago
  It's a natural alliance between people who want to cause a reaction and people who react to anything. It was pretty much inevitable that these two groups would become the Middle East of the Internet.
- DanBC 11y ago
  You see behaviour you dislike and don't understand and you can say either "they are unpleasant people" or "they are unpleasant people and they have a mental illness". Probability tells us the first is more probable. This is the conjunction fallacy, and you need to address it because stigmatising people with mental illness causes those people harm, and doesn't help address the actual problem (which is that some people are arseholes).
  - enraged_camel 11y ago
    >>which is that some people are arseholes A lot of people who are assholes aren't actually assholes, but suffer from a mental disorder such as asperger's syndrome. By lumping all of them under the offensive label "asshole" I'd posit that you are the one stigmatizing them. Regardless, I think the question we need to ask ourselves is this: what is it about the gamer community, and specifically the "GamerGate" sub-community, that attracts such people? And what can we do about it?
    - andallas 11y ago
      I understand how you were just trying to make a point, but it just doesn't make any sense. You say that "people who are assholes, aren't assholes". Well... are they or aren't they? Then you say that they may be suffering from Asperger's and that the commenter above is lumping them together. The issue with this argument is that the commenter above took problem with the other commenter about saying these perceived assholes have a mental illness, and how that negatively impacts those who actually have a mental illness. Your argument (metaphor?) is that by saying someone is an asshole is lumping those with Asperger's in, when Asperger's wasn't even mentioned. Regardless of how your metaphor didn't actually make any sense, you then go on to say that "GamerGate" sub-community (what does that honestly even really mean???) attracts 'such people', implying that GamerGate is full of people with Asperger's. Then imply that something needs to 'be done about it'. What is wrong with people with Asperger's? Why are you picking on them?
      - enraged_camel 11y ago
        Read my response above. I'm not "picking on" anyone.
- fche 11y ago
  Randi's accusation about actual gamergate participation in her recent freebsd ordeal consists entirely of: "GamerGate hopped onto all of this." No claims of gamergate people actually doing anything, just hopping.
Tomte 11y ago
She's talking about some guy and his "campaign to legalize rape". I thought she was exaggerating or maybe misunderstanding something. Sure, this guy is probably an asshole, but legalizing rape, come on! I followed the link and... it is kind of almost entertaining. He means it. Literally. You can't stop reading that trainwreck of an argument, because it gets worse and worse. And then you've lost all hope in mankind. I thought I knew what misogyny was about, but that is absolutely breathtaking.
- draw_down 11y ago
  He writes such extreme things to get a reaction (and a following of complete morons). Attention is oxygen in that business. Not that that makes it any better of course. Notice how you said it's "almost entertaining", well, that's what he's aiming for.
  - lillian-lemmer 11y ago
    Don't do this. It's implying that people should just "not be hurt by it and move on." ... That the problem is with the people reacting. Surely, I agree that giving attention to stuff often fuels the flames, but the answer isn't to place the burden on the victims. The answer is to actually DEAL with the issue and have shit HAPPEN to make people (women, trans, queer, minorities) safer!
    - fleitz 11y ago
      You can tell from identity politics in the brackets who is people and who isn't people. Why not just say what you mean?
  - geofft 11y ago
    OK, so if that's true, then by treating him as a legitimate member of the community and not making any sort of statement against his views, the FreeBSD project is giving him attention, and they should stop doing that. Which is exactly what Randi asked for. It's one thing if you keep your horrible-person persona separate from your technical one (as e.g. the Strange Loop thing earlier this year), although I still think it's legitimate to say that's too much. But when someone is deliberately tying their work in a project with their views that drive out other people from that same project, it's not giving them attention to kick them out. It's giving them attention to keep them in.
kevinbowman 11y ago
I still, deep inside, hold a dwindling hope that all humans can one day learn to treat humans as humans. Basically, literally, to treat others as they themselves would like to be treated. As humans. It saddens me to hear of times when that doesn't happen, particularly in such devastating ways that affect someone's life so fundamentally.
kev009 11y ago
I know most of the people involved in this and it's just a shit sandwich. Randi wanted a person crucified, that's not how companies and foundations function, and thankfully so. I hope she finds success in new endeavors and am sad she had to leave under gross circumstance.
- dietrichepp 11y ago
  "Randi wanted a person crucified…" I didn't see that in the article, could you point us to that information?
  - andallas 11y ago
    I agree with you, but I think they were talking about past events maybe? Their is a history between FreeBSDGirl and the roosh guy. (By history, I mean going back and forth online, not a personal history).
    - freebsdgirl 11y ago
      Citation needed. I've never talked to him (or, for that matter, the person that said they know all the parties involved).
      - andallas 11y ago
        That's a nice trap there. If I don't mention anything, you'll claim (or at least there will be a tacit implication) that you've "won" any argument here. However if I do provide sources (articles written by you and/or rooshv), tweets, whatever, then there is the implication I'm "stalking" you or him. I'd rather not get involved in any such drama. To be clear, by history I meant that the two of you have both written/talked/tweeted about each other (in generally negative ways). My intent there was to agree with the person who commented about how this whole situation is a "shit sandwich".
      - kev009 11y ago
        s/all/most. I'm not notable and am much newer than you to the community.
ps4fanboy 11y ago
If Randi Harper the serial harasser and professional cry bully is getting a platform on hacker news than this place has finally kicked the bucket.
- badsock 11y ago
  Oh yeah, for sure. This is a terrible place. You should go somewhere else.
eeZi 11y ago
:(... As someone who didn't really follow the whole controversy the past years, this was an eye-opener for me. Did it really get that bad? Stop tolerating the intolerant! Also, I don't understand the point of GamerGate. As an outsider, all I see is two groups making themselves look really bad and everyone else loosing. You don't convince others by threatening and harassing them, something the extremes at both sides seem to do. Why? By the way, note how she did not mention the harasser's username in her post.
- Pharaoh2 11y ago
  It's a shit storm, which might have had meaning at some point but it's now mostly a way to grab attention by a group of people, mostly looking for ways to make money out of it.
  - eeZi 11y ago
    How is this about making money?
    - Pharaoh2 11y ago
      For all the hate in GG, it's a anonymous/pseudo anonymous mob on the internet. It seems hate is the default language of the louder minority. Somehow, not surprising really, the loudest people are also the worst. On the pro-GG side, look at the supposedly pro-gg websites that have sprung up that sell things or review things basically do everything that they are saying the current status quo is doing wrongly or unethically. On the anti-GG side, look at how much the leaders are charging for talks related to inclusion issues, something that they want to help spread. I am not saying they should run a charity (which they actually do from what I remember, literally run a NPO), but at some points it just looks like they are doing it for the money. The talks are weird, after seeing them, they looked like more about the person giving the talk and less about the actual issue at hand. Every Time things quiet down another shitshow start from nowhere. It's like a massive online bait. If things keep going, the people making money keep making money. If you look at it from an outside perspective, both sides are right. There are huge inclusion issues in gaming. Actually there are huge inclusion issue in almost everything, not sure what makes computer games special. On the other side, there are certainly ethics issue in game media. But then there are ethics issue in every media. Not sure what makes game media special. So now the question why all the fight, especially when both sides are fighting for different things. Both sides are obviously right. The only reason I can think of it is, and it's actually pretty evident, that people have found ways to make money out of it and they rile up the crowd every time things calm down to ensure the money keeps coming in. If both the sides worked on this together both of their problems can be solved mutually, but I am not sure why that is not happening. It's like they don't want to work together. I am sure the people smart enough to figure out how to control this also know that neither side is the picture they have painted, so if they actually wanted to solve this, they can easily do it.
Jach 11y ago
Meta: avoiding pointless drama on HN is probably easiest if you avoid posting articles from/about people with long Encyclopedia Dramatica articles.
- bendbro 11y ago
  I'm betting whatever comments end up on this post will be used as ammo for further drama.
bendbro 11y ago
Notice that this blog post provides zero in the way of evidence. Before assuming everything written here is true, it would be worthwhile to fact check.
- geofft 11y ago
  "Zero" seems like a bit much! There's a link to trademark policy as archived by the Wayback Machine. It indeed seems correct that they added "usernames" to the policy without updating the date on it. The rest of it is generally consistent with what's been reported about this elsewhere, including on /r/KotakuInAction. But I'm not going to point you at each individual piece of evidence when there are things literally linked in the article that you didn't see.
- Jogyn 11y ago
  I agree this is basically a work of fiction until someone can fact check all this. "A reporter stalked me on twitter" rolls eyes
stripemango5 11y ago
Randi brought it completely upon herself with her insane radical feminist bigotry and disgusting identity politics. Dig a bit further and you see a deeply troubled narcissist. The community is so much better off without her.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
thanksalot 11y ago
What did she contribute to FreeBSD? It appears she was involved with marketing and after bullying a bunch of nerds who fought back FreeBSD didn't want her using their trademark.
- dietrichepp 11y ago
  Did you read the article? She says she was a committer. > Eventually, with the help of the dev community answering some of my basic questions and with Colin reviewing my code, I finally found my place in the project. I was still a senior sysadmin, but I got really angry because I couldn’t install FreeBSD from a usb thumbdrive. This seemed so easy. So, I drank some scotch (probably too much scotch) and started digging through sysinstall code. I didn’t really know C at that point. I learned C just so I could fix that. Then I started working on a few other things with sysinstall, like autodetection of network devices that have an active link.
  - VLM 11y ago
    Its unfortunate the question was flagged. For example lets say Don Armstrong from Debian retired; he's done an excellent job at a stressful job but all jobs eventually end of course. You could look at the Debian wiki and say, OK we need to recruit qty one listmaster team member and you can use DDPO to look up a list of packages he maintained and someone needs to look after his former pkgs X Y and Z, etc. Debian carefully documents all delegations on the wiki and there's a bazillion automated tools to track. Presumably freebsd has something... something containing whatever Randi had ongoing responsibility over or was currently in process. That would certainly provide a measurable documentable level of damage (... X and Y will be delayed by an unknown period and Z is now not being looked at)
    - Amezarak 11y ago
      At least according to alleged FreeBSD developers on Reddit, she hasn't committed any code in three years and wasn't responsible for anything.
- hyperpape 11y ago
enraged_camel 11y ago
>>Basically, literally, to treat others as they themselves would like to be treated. So if I enjoy being hunted with high-powered assault rifles, does that mean I should also do the same to others? :)
- dang 11y ago
  We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10819993 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10819993 and marked it off-topic.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- unimpressive 11y ago
  Well it's a fairly obvious drama bomb. I'm not sure the nature of the drama factors in so much as how loud it is.
- andrewprock 11y ago
  I noticed that myself. Such actions make the moderators look like they are taking sides.
  - dang 11y ago
    No moderator touched this post.
    - andrewprock 11y ago
      Something caused the post to vanish.
      - DanBC 11y ago
        A mod has said that user flags caused the post to vanish. And it hasn't vanished, it's just dropped off the front page. It hasn't been closed or deleted.
  - detaro 11y ago
    Why do you believe this was a mod and not users flagging? Given the [flag]-fest below I'd expect the submission itself got a few flags as well.
    - andrewprock 11y ago
      It's not clear what the difference between mod and user flagging is. It's not clear that it matters. If the users are flagging it, then they are taking sides.
dang 11y ago
We've closed this thread to comments by new accounts because of trolls. If you have a new account and want to comment here, you're welcome to email us at hn@ycombinator.com.
- gravypod 11y ago
  Hopefully this will help keep discussion civil, thanks for jumping on this one quickly.
ps4fanboy 11y ago
This is why no one will ever take them seriously, by spamming this thread out to their followings in this way they are attempting to create outside focus on the HN community not within it. I invite you to see how Hacker News responds to an inherent problem with misogyny in open source. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10819778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10819778 … https://twitter.com/LilyLemmer/status/682688557018828802 https://twitter.com/LilyLemmer/status/682688557018828802 Admittedly really curious to see how the HN community responds to this. https://twitter.com/randileeharper/status/682683554447265792 https://twitter.com/randileeharper/status/682683554447265792
- freebsdgirl 11y ago
  A lot of my followers are in the tech community and part of HN. My apologies, and if people find it to be a problem, I'll gladly delete the tweet. I think it's interesting watching how HN responds to posts like this, because they are kind of political, and HN is a good representation of how a lot of people in tech feel. I'll get a lot of support on Twitter (because I've blocked most of the trolls), and 140 characters isn't very much to leave a detailed response, anyways. I like seeing thoughtful criticism, and the HN community is (mostly) good at that. It's why I don't excessively comment in these discussions, except maybe to clear up a point here and there. HN brings up points I haven't thought about, and I don't want necessarily to be part of the discussion about things I've written except as an observer.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    You can ignore the person you replied to. Do you have "showdead" turned on in your profile? They've written an abusive post about you in this thread, but it got flagged.
    - freebsdgirl 11y ago
      I saw. But it didn't make this comment necessarily invalid. If there's a policy against putting an HN post on social media when said post involves the person publicizing it, I'm not aware, and I'm happy to fix it if it's a problem. I knew when I posted it that this made the post more likely to attract trolls (sorry, dang), but I know I'm not the only one that watches how HN responds to this kind of topic.
wila 11y ago
@freebsdgirl, thank you for sharing your story. Hope it helps in improving the community to handle this better in the future.
eadler 11y ago
does this same thing eliminate the upvote option? https://www.dropbox.com/s/ub98ewlux598o8p/Screenshot%202015-12-31%2015.09.48.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/ub98ewlux598o8p/Screenshot%202015-... sorry if this is off-topic :\
- dang 11y ago
  No, that's unrelated. The vote arrow disappears once you've voted. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10820149 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10820149 and marked it off-topic.
andallas 11y ago
Thanks for the vicious attach. I consider myself as 'GamerGate' and like MOST of that community haven't participated in any such 'toxic' non-sense. I get it, you hate some bad people who try to cling to a name for recognition, but just broadly labeling the whole group as such, when literally your only evidence is of a few notable individuals is a bit unsettling. In reality, the waters are a bit dirty on both sides. That 'useful tool' you mention was literally a blacklist. If you had actually opened up the github page and looked at the code you would have seen ample comments in their calling it as such. Also, it literally just blocked thousands of people based off of an idea of guilt by association. Now, people wanting to block people is their own prerogative, but let's call things what they actually are. The vicious attacks by Breitbart are certainly not fair to her. But to play devil's advocate, she herself is not exactly known for holding back when it comes to literally anyone who disagrees with her, even politely. I don't think it's right on either side, but I also can't see myself jumping to the aid of someone for a slight against them, when they've done the same/similar to others. The swatting thing is horrible. It's a dirty tactic that is VERY dangerous and those responsible should be jailed for it. However, their is also the possibility that the swatting thing was faked. Read it or not (it's RalphRetort so you'll probably ignore it) but here is an article that shows some other bits of info that allude to her maybe faking this, especially considering the timing of the incident. The broad stroke argument that GamerGate (because it's some sort of entity, right?) 'targets' ALL women in tech just doesn't make any sense. If you actually followed these things, you would know that there is in fact a lot of disgusting harassment that goes on. But guess what, it's not GamerGate, and it's not even 'anti-GG', it's third-party groups like GNAA and what not who are very open about how they do those things to get GG and anti-GG at each others throats because they think it's funny. In all reality, outside of the gross methods used, the end result is a bit sad/funny. There are two large groups of people who in all reality are very similar, that largely hate each other because neither like to actually fact check and see WHO is actually doing the harassment. Who on either side has been arrested for all of this illegal activity (The harassment being the illegal activity)? Nobody, and that's because it's all a big conflated mess that is incredibly hard for those involved to piece together, let alone outsiders who haven't been even remotely involved.
- dang 11y ago
Jogyn 11y ago
Why the hell am I seeing a Randi Harper Post. This place is going downhill. =( Randi Harper is a bad actor. A crybully of the highest order and a complete wrecking ball to any community she tries to join.
engi_nerd 11y ago
Here's what confuses me. What actually happened to her? Without any context, all this can really be is her word against someone else's. She says she forwarded on relevant harassment incidents, but without context, the actual truth of what happened to her is unknown. >Don’t tell people to stay quiet about abuse. This removes them from their support network of friends and family. Didn't they just tell her to stop talking about it in public, though? And really what mechanism does anyone have to force her to do this? >If you’re a dude, don’t reach out to women leaving other open source projects saying “join us here!” On the surface, that sounds like she wants men to...not be welcoming? This is, perhaps, poorly worded. >You have no idea if women in the community have problems or not. Women will talk to other women about the quality of the community. But it’s also just really bad taste. Instead, find someone in your community that is also part of that minority group to reach out. They’ll know more about potential issues than you will. Not sure how this follows from the previous sentence. How is it in bad taste to reach out to someone in a welcoming way? Does this mean that I, as a straight white male, should only communicate with other straight white males? She probably doesn't mean it this way, but boy, am I confused. >Publicly stand behind the women in your community, or eventually they will leave and write a post just like this. I find it amusing that someone who has written a tool that allows you to filter out a specific block of individuals (as trollish as they may be) can write this post at all. The cynical side of me thinks the attitude shown here is, "Hear me, but here's a way you can systematically ignore people that I fundamentally disagree with". I often feel like tolerance and progressivism has wrapped all the way around to discrimination. Am I wrong to feel that is part of what's happening here? EDIT: I'd like to make it clear that I'm genuinely not trying to troll. If I'm being wrongheaded, then please show me how my thinking is wrong.
- DanBC 11y ago
  > I find it amusing that someone who has written a tool that allows you to filter out a specific block of individuals (as trollish as they may be) can write this post at all. The cynical side of me thinks the attitude shown here is, "Hear me, but here's a way you can systematically ignore people that I fundamentally disagree with". Give me your twitter handle, and your employer's email address, and I'll send 800 death threat tweets and I'll spend weeks bombarding your employer with stuff. One thing that is often said to the victims of trolls is "just ignore it" (we see that in this thread), so she wrote a tool that allows her to just ignore it and you're telling her that she's wrong.
SliderUp 11y ago
You can, and lots of people will, wave their hands and ignore/belittle FreeBSDGirl's account. Certainly the trolls will. But, it is just another example that the larger tech community has a problem. GamerGate et al, they are not fantasies. Women who want to create, same as any developer, getting SWAT teams sent to their homes, this stuff is real, and indicates a real problem. Ask yourself, are you helping fix this behavior? Because if not, then you are part of the problem.
nske 11y ago
Before googling Randi's name with some relevant keywords I had no idea about the amount of people past puberty that are behaving like this. I was about to say that I'm glad I've never met their kind, but then I remembered that I actually have: in highschool. No idea what happened to them, I assumed they grew up and the few that didn't, found their place at the very bottom of society that is not good for anything. To them usually it's not really about genre, race or any particular property, their disturbed mentality causes them to look for ways to attack and inconvenience anyone they don't like for any reason. I actually think they're even looking for an excuse to find a target, because they are amused by the whole thing and it makes them feel good and important. I can see how many of them would make it as gamers, I'm just surprised that a person like this would also make it as a FreeBSD committer. I wonder why they silently forced him to turn his commit bit off, but they don't want to update their CoC or condemn this behaviour in public. The stealth editing of the Trademark Policy to include this particular case (even though they missed the exception for old uses, which made that change pointless) also deserves some explanation, it's wrong.
Globrazu 11y ago
If you look at the actual facts of the matter you will see a vastly differing view of who was "harassed" and who was the "harasser" than this Blog post tries to paint, here's where most of this started: https://twitter.com/xmjEE/status/613083223086768128 https://twitter.com/xmjEE/status/613083223086768128 https://archive.is/9KGyX https://archive.is/9KGyX And here's a "discussion" on the matter between Randi, Colin and Johannes on /r/FreeBSD: https://archive.is/wH4Rg https://archive.is/wH4Rg
- joeemison 11y ago
  I just spent far too long reading both of those links, and I don't see anything there that contradicts anything Randi said in her post. If someone is regularly and routinely attacked (and all the bullshit about "Randi can't code" / "Randi hasn't contributed" is just obnoxious), it's reasonable for them to be pissed off and get angry. That doesn't somehow negate the fact that they were badly mistreated. In hindsight, it's telling that people making the above comments are posting links to longreads and not citing anything specific--just seems like more of the misogynistic campaign.
  - Globrazu 11y ago
    I think it's rather telling that this "exposé" Blogpost doesn't link to anything actually incriminating and tries to call someone a "rape apologist with neonazi friends" based on supposedly who they might have talked to once on Twitter, since there are links to RooshV who doesn't seem to have anything to do with the entire matter or FreeBSD in any way, but no links to what the accused supposedly did wrong. The links I posted indicate the moment these two people intersected, after Randi Harper was furious someone didn't like the idea of "safe spaces" and "Code of Conducts" and went after him, herself acting like a harasser on IRC and otherwise. Not to say that this is not the only or first time Randi has behaved like this or done this to someone if you are aware of her larger Online presence, for instance she did it to Vivek Wadhwa: http://www.stopthegrbullies.com/2015/06/01/randi-harpers-bully-review/ http://www.stopthegrbullies.com/2015/06/01/randi-harpers-bul... She said this about Anne Rice, the 74 year old female author of The Vampire Chronicles / Interview With A Vampire: https://twitter.com/randileeharper/status/605650789348995073 https://twitter.com/randileeharper/status/605650789348995073 https://twitter.com/randileeharper/status/605736216625938432 https://twitter.com/randileeharper/status/605736216625938432 https://twitter.com/freebsdgirl/status/605636162653417472 https://twitter.com/freebsdgirl/status/605636162653417472 She even did this to Open Source developers like Ted Neward (who she wanted to "drive out of the industry" over a single inappropriate comment) and pulled his supposed "target" Iris Classon into it, upon which she had to defend both herself and him from Randi: https://twitter.com/randileeharper/status/535151831027302400 https://twitter.com/randileeharper/status/535151831027302400 http://archive.is/g2556 http://archive.is/g2556 http://archive.is/T9Hvm http://archive.is/T9Hvm http://archive.is/9GUle http://archive.is/9GUle Another Open Source developer, who was chairman of the IGDA Puerto Rico and part of several Open Source communities, and was subsequently forced to step down from the IGDA any Python Cuba she did it to was Roberto Rosario: https://twitter.com/siloraptor/status/624257540948393988 https://twitter.com/siloraptor/status/624257540948393988 https://twitter.com/siloraptor/status/625866078925647872 https://twitter.com/siloraptor/status/625866078925647872 https://twitter.com/siloraptor/status/588123915488223232 https://twitter.com/siloraptor/status/588123915488223232 What exposing someone who pretends to lead an "Online Abuse Prevention Initiative" while being one of the biggest abusers has to do with a "misogynistic campaign" you'll have to explain. It's very basic DARVO. It's a pattern of pathological behaviour with this person of attacking/going after someone and calling everyone that calls it out "bullies" or "harassers".
fche 11y ago
There is a thread on KiA where references to the original materials (transcripts of Randi's dispute with the freebsd developer) are available. The raw materials paint a rather less flattering portrait of who was attacking / harassing / abusing whom. This may be one of those cases where discretion (withholding names / evidence) does a disservice to the truth.
meesterdude 11y ago
Wow, really disgusting to hear how FreeBSD core reacted to this. I've read through a lot of the source materials; she hasn't been perfect in every move; but that's she's been able to be so level headed and professional about it in the face of an onslaught of sexism, intimidation and smear campaigns is... nothing short of a miracle. I don't care about any argument of if she's ever committed, or if her code is any good; that's bike shedding and irrelevant to the fact that no HUMAN BEING should be treated this way, let alone in a leading open source project. > The next communication from core asked me to stop talking about this publicly. They told me to tell everyone it was being solved through private mediation, and that the problem committer was on vacation for a week, so they didn’t want to do anything about it until he got back. WHAT > I had talked to someone from the FreeBSD Foundation earlier on the phone about what was happening. During this same conversation, they actually said “maybe you should be nicer.” THE > A week later, I received an email from this person threatening to involve the FreeBSD Foundation lawyers if I didn’t change my username immediately. They tried to pass it off as a trademark infringement ACTUAL > The FreeBSD Foundation had stealth added ‘usernames’ just prior to her sending that email, adding the word but not updating the date at the top. FUCK The shit she's had to go through makes me lose hope for humanity. While the way she's handled it has restored it. We need more people in tech like this, and I'm glad she's putting up such a fight. It would be easy for anyone to just be a loudspeaker for change; but she's actually getting her hands dirty, talking to people, and engaging about it, and learning and sharing along the way. I seriously doubt most of us would have the gumption and fortitude to handle this the way she has.
- jfarmer 11y ago
  Sounds like they're a bunch of dude-nerds who want to handle every problem as if it were a technical problem. Their "process" seems tantamount to separating the two sides and telling them to sit down and shut up. That's a not-unreasonable policy when we're talking about a technical debate that becomes acrimonious It's a terrible policy when we're talking about threats or threatening behavior by one party against another. My experience is that most dude-nerds are oblivious by default to those sorts of non-technical, purely human issues. It's made all the worse because their behavior is more-or-less indistinguishable from genuinely malicious behavior. From the perspective of the person being threatened, it doesn't make much practical difference whether they're doing it out of ineptitude or malice.
Esau 11y ago
I believe Ms. Harper to be both abuser and abused. And it should be noted that she now has a financial interest in keeping these kind of things active.

168 points by tshtf 11y ago

ChrisClark 11y ago

What the fuck is wrong with these GamerGate idiots? Is it a mental illness or something?

Tomte 11y ago
Additionally, what's wrong with FreeBSD? I'd like to hear their take on this. Because while I'm generally highly sceptic of this "everyone needs a CoC now!", the alleged reaction by Core goes much much further and is simply astonishing. Maybe someone needs to explain to them that freedom of association includes freedom not to associate. "His harassment was outside our mailing list" is not a good reason to decline any action.
- lillian-lemmer 11y ago
  I love FreeBSD! I have a GitHub record to show that! :3 It's my sweet little darling angel. But it's sick. :< We need routes to ensure safety and respect for everyone. If someone makes others feel endangered, it is not unreasonable for there to be immediate recourse and resolution. That's what a Code of Conduct is all about.
  - Tomte 11y ago
    My problem with Codes of Conduct is mostly how to write them. The Swing dancing scene had a big scandal this year, and everywhere CoCs are popping up. But do you really need to write down that an adult (quite old, in that case) dance teacher is not allowed to sleep with just-teenage dance students? Or that racist remarks are not welcome? No, so you adopt very broad language. Usually something like "harassing", "making uncomfortable" etc. If your community needs those two sentences to police such behaviour, you've got a much bigger problem. I simply don't believe that you can convince anybody to take action because some very broadly written CoC authorizes them to do so. They either see that the behaviour is a problem, and are willing to act, or they will just start to debate whether the CoC's specific wording is really covering the behaviour in question. Then again, I have zero practical experience with policing a community. Damn! Missed midnight. :-)
    - lillian-lemmer 11y ago
      So your answer is not to have enforceable routes for women to be safe and respected because nobody can write specifically enough? I run an organization (hypatia.software [Hypatia Software Organization]) where the Code of Conduct is enforced and it is effective.
      - Tomte 11y ago
        No, my answer is to have a community where you ban those people without discussing the semantics of some sentence. In the end, it's probably equivalent to your answer. Because when the people in your organization feel someone is harassing people and you decide to kick him out, you're probably simply describing his behaviour and referencing your CoC, but not doing some detailed analysis how and why he did so.
        lillian-lemmer 11y ago
        Yeah, it's just that it is sad that it is practically required to be spelled out. But even bigger yet, is that we have to find ways to enforce it and its purpose.
        vertex-four 11y ago
        As somebody who has experience moderating groups without explicit rules - the result of this in a group of more than a dozen people is inevitably that some of them will feel that (a) the banning is unfair, no matter how egregious the behaviour, and (b) there should be a set of written rules for the leaders/moderators to follow, so that people understand clearly what is expected of them. You really can't win. Personally, I tend to steer on the side of a broadly defined CoC backed up with a very clear dispute resolution policy (there's plenty of examples of both of these - Debian has a pretty decent set for large projects). In a functioning community, reaching for this should only be required very rarely, so they shouldn't affect anyone most of the time - and they quite obviously don't in the case of open-source projects, or we'd hear about actual cases where people have been kicked out of projects for very little a lot more than we do.
      - 11y ago
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    >If someone makes others feel endangered That's a bit stretching it basic threat, management is to judge each threat agent by the level of intent and the ability to act on that intent for the most part the usually aholes don't pose any actual threat. I also don't understand why some one being an ahole for a specific reason is worse than some one being an ahole just for sake of being an ahole, we all had our nemeses over the years people that you just don't click with that do everything in their power to get to you - outplay them, ignore them or move on.
- gravypod 11y ago
  If there was a priest who was homosexual, and involved himself with gay-pride rallies on his own time, would you say it is acceptable for the church to excommunicate him since he had "freedom not to associate" with the group? If don't feel that disallowing personal thinking is good for society. I also feel that it is possible for people to agree on some topics while disagree on others. Guilt by association should not be the measure we use to judge people. I'd say it is very unlikely that the person who "attacked" Harper also supports the "legalize rape" comment from RooshV. In my opinion, attempting to draw a connection between RooshV's legalize rape comment and the person the article is about is a slanderous tactic to automatically make him "the enemy" with no evidence. This seems evident when you notice there is no source for any of the tweets made to Harper. This is contrasted with the readily available links provided to support deplorable comments made by RooshV. Harper makes statements like "He started enlisting the support of his neo-nazi friends." which are obviously being used to create an us/them dichotomy for the reader. "I'm not a horrible racist like the Nazi's, that means I must hate this person who must be a Nazi." the readers would think to themselves. I have no doubt that some of the content in this article is correct. I am just taken aback by the lack of sources provided, the attempts to slander the "opposition" and the wording of the piece. Being well read on the past of Harper, I would say that the claims have merit, but were blown entirely out of proportion. I'll happily, and publicly, eat my own words if someone can source proof for her claims. I have no objection to recanting any of this.
  - freebsdgirl 11y ago
    > the lack of sources provided Sources are: emails between myself, core, and the FreeBSD Foundation. I'm not providing those. A phone call with the FreeBSD Foundation, which I did not record and will not provide. I could mention the names of the people I spoke with in FreeBSD, but why? I could provide the tweets of the guy I spoke about, but to what end? I'm not going to name names. People can find a way to dig it all up if they really want to, but I don't want this to turn into a "this person is terrible" type thing. It's not about him, and I don't want a mob going after him or any individuals inside FreeBSD. That wouldn't be right, and it would detract from the point in writing about this at all. Instead, I hope people talk about the issues of harassment and legal shadiness regarding trademark claims.
andallas 11y ago
What does this have to do with GamerGate? This is a feminist talking about an MRA, neither of those things are GamerGate... I feel like you have conflated the issues a bit maybe?
- andallas 11y ago
  I went back and counted, there are 6 mentions of GamerGate (not including the tag) and all of them are anecdotal references by FreeBSDGirl. In fact, the primary article in question (the guy that wants to legalize rape) doesn't mention GamerGate at all, or even remotely allude to it. P.S. Thanks for the downvote rather than a reply. It really shows your willingness to talk about issues and not just jump to conclusions...
  - detaro 11y ago
    The guy that wants to legalize rape and the person the article is mainly about are not the same person.
    - andallas 11y ago
      Maybe I need to read a bit better. I don't deny that they are different people, but I guess I thought the linked article was more important than just a side comment.
- scholia 11y ago
  She has, like a lot of women, been harassed by GamerGate. They actually sent a police SWAT team to break down her door (which they didn't). http://blog.randi.io/2015/04/03/swated/ http://blog.randi.io/2015/04/03/swated/ She's been viciously attacked in Breitbart, a far right-wing site that championed GamerGate's hounding of women in tech. She also created a useful tool to block GamerGate hate attacks on Twitter. It's the sort of thing a lot of women could use. http://europe.newsweek.com/one-womans-new-tool-stop-gamergate-harassment-twitter-288008 http://europe.newsweek.com/one-womans-new-tool-stop-gamergat... Basically, any women in tech who can be targeted will be targeted by Gamergate because that's what they do. GamerGate is basically a rentamob of misogynistic thugs. It's toxic. (Whether it's just misogynistic thugs exploiting the GamerGate label doesn't really matter. To all intents are purposes, they are GamerGate now.) There was quite a good BuzzFeed story on the larger picture of what's going on. http://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/in-2015-the-dark-forces-of-the-internet-became-a-countercult http://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/in-2015-the-dark-for...
fleitz 11y ago
It's a natural alliance between people who want to cause a reaction and people who react to anything. It was pretty much inevitable that these two groups would become the Middle East of the Internet.
DanBC 11y ago
You see behaviour you dislike and don't understand and you can say either "they are unpleasant people" or "they are unpleasant people and they have a mental illness". Probability tells us the first is more probable. This is the conjunction fallacy, and you need to address it because stigmatising people with mental illness causes those people harm, and doesn't help address the actual problem (which is that some people are arseholes).
- enraged_camel 11y ago
  >>which is that some people are arseholes A lot of people who are assholes aren't actually assholes, but suffer from a mental disorder such as asperger's syndrome. By lumping all of them under the offensive label "asshole" I'd posit that you are the one stigmatizing them. Regardless, I think the question we need to ask ourselves is this: what is it about the gamer community, and specifically the "GamerGate" sub-community, that attracts such people? And what can we do about it?
  - andallas 11y ago
    I understand how you were just trying to make a point, but it just doesn't make any sense. You say that "people who are assholes, aren't assholes". Well... are they or aren't they? Then you say that they may be suffering from Asperger's and that the commenter above is lumping them together. The issue with this argument is that the commenter above took problem with the other commenter about saying these perceived assholes have a mental illness, and how that negatively impacts those who actually have a mental illness. Your argument (metaphor?) is that by saying someone is an asshole is lumping those with Asperger's in, when Asperger's wasn't even mentioned. Regardless of how your metaphor didn't actually make any sense, you then go on to say that "GamerGate" sub-community (what does that honestly even really mean???) attracts 'such people', implying that GamerGate is full of people with Asperger's. Then imply that something needs to 'be done about it'. What is wrong with people with Asperger's? Why are you picking on them?
    - enraged_camel 11y ago
      Read my response above. I'm not "picking on" anyone.
fche 11y ago
Randi's accusation about actual gamergate participation in her recent freebsd ordeal consists entirely of: "GamerGate hopped onto all of this." No claims of gamergate people actually doing anything, just hopping.

Tomte 11y ago

She's talking about some guy and his "campaign to legalize rape". I thought she was exaggerating or maybe misunderstanding something. Sure, this guy is probably an asshole, but legalizing rape, come on! I followed the link and... it is kind of almost entertaining. He means it. Literally. You can't stop reading that trainwreck of an argument, because it gets worse and worse. And then you've lost all hope in mankind. I thought I knew what misogyny was about, but that is absolutely breathtaking.

draw_down 11y ago
He writes such extreme things to get a reaction (and a following of complete morons). Attention is oxygen in that business. Not that that makes it any better of course. Notice how you said it's "almost entertaining", well, that's what he's aiming for.
- lillian-lemmer 11y ago
  Don't do this. It's implying that people should just "not be hurt by it and move on." ... That the problem is with the people reacting. Surely, I agree that giving attention to stuff often fuels the flames, but the answer isn't to place the burden on the victims. The answer is to actually DEAL with the issue and have shit HAPPEN to make people (women, trans, queer, minorities) safer!
  - fleitz 11y ago
    You can tell from identity politics in the brackets who is people and who isn't people. Why not just say what you mean?
- geofft 11y ago
  OK, so if that's true, then by treating him as a legitimate member of the community and not making any sort of statement against his views, the FreeBSD project is giving him attention, and they should stop doing that. Which is exactly what Randi asked for. It's one thing if you keep your horrible-person persona separate from your technical one (as e.g. the Strange Loop thing earlier this year), although I still think it's legitimate to say that's too much. But when someone is deliberately tying their work in a project with their views that drive out other people from that same project, it's not giving them attention to kick them out. It's giving them attention to keep them in.

kevinbowman 11y ago

I still, deep inside, hold a dwindling hope that all humans can one day learn to treat humans as humans. Basically, literally, to treat others as they themselves would like to be treated. As humans. It saddens me to hear of times when that doesn't happen, particularly in such devastating ways that affect someone's life so fundamentally.

kev009 11y ago

I know most of the people involved in this and it's just a shit sandwich. Randi wanted a person crucified, that's not how companies and foundations function, and thankfully so. I hope she finds success in new endeavors and am sad she had to leave under gross circumstance.

dietrichepp 11y ago
"Randi wanted a person crucified…" I didn't see that in the article, could you point us to that information?
- andallas 11y ago
  I agree with you, but I think they were talking about past events maybe? Their is a history between FreeBSDGirl and the roosh guy. (By history, I mean going back and forth online, not a personal history).
  - freebsdgirl 11y ago
    Citation needed. I've never talked to him (or, for that matter, the person that said they know all the parties involved).
    - andallas 11y ago
      That's a nice trap there. If I don't mention anything, you'll claim (or at least there will be a tacit implication) that you've "won" any argument here. However if I do provide sources (articles written by you and/or rooshv), tweets, whatever, then there is the implication I'm "stalking" you or him. I'd rather not get involved in any such drama. To be clear, by history I meant that the two of you have both written/talked/tweeted about each other (in generally negative ways). My intent there was to agree with the person who commented about how this whole situation is a "shit sandwich".
    - kev009 11y ago
      s/all/most. I'm not notable and am much newer than you to the community.

ps4fanboy 11y ago

If Randi Harper the serial harasser and professional cry bully is getting a platform on hacker news than this place has finally kicked the bucket.

badsock 11y ago
Oh yeah, for sure. This is a terrible place. You should go somewhere else.

eeZi 11y ago

:(... As someone who didn't really follow the whole controversy the past years, this was an eye-opener for me. Did it really get that bad? Stop tolerating the intolerant! Also, I don't understand the point of GamerGate. As an outsider, all I see is two groups making themselves look really bad and everyone else loosing. You don't convince others by threatening and harassing them, something the extremes at both sides seem to do. Why? By the way, note how she did not mention the harasser's username in her post.

Pharaoh2 11y ago
It's a shit storm, which might have had meaning at some point but it's now mostly a way to grab attention by a group of people, mostly looking for ways to make money out of it.
- eeZi 11y ago
  How is this about making money?
  - Pharaoh2 11y ago
    For all the hate in GG, it's a anonymous/pseudo anonymous mob on the internet. It seems hate is the default language of the louder minority. Somehow, not surprising really, the loudest people are also the worst. On the pro-GG side, look at the supposedly pro-gg websites that have sprung up that sell things or review things basically do everything that they are saying the current status quo is doing wrongly or unethically. On the anti-GG side, look at how much the leaders are charging for talks related to inclusion issues, something that they want to help spread. I am not saying they should run a charity (which they actually do from what I remember, literally run a NPO), but at some points it just looks like they are doing it for the money. The talks are weird, after seeing them, they looked like more about the person giving the talk and less about the actual issue at hand. Every Time things quiet down another shitshow start from nowhere. It's like a massive online bait. If things keep going, the people making money keep making money. If you look at it from an outside perspective, both sides are right. There are huge inclusion issues in gaming. Actually there are huge inclusion issue in almost everything, not sure what makes computer games special. On the other side, there are certainly ethics issue in game media. But then there are ethics issue in every media. Not sure what makes game media special. So now the question why all the fight, especially when both sides are fighting for different things. Both sides are obviously right. The only reason I can think of it is, and it's actually pretty evident, that people have found ways to make money out of it and they rile up the crowd every time things calm down to ensure the money keeps coming in. If both the sides worked on this together both of their problems can be solved mutually, but I am not sure why that is not happening. It's like they don't want to work together. I am sure the people smart enough to figure out how to control this also know that neither side is the picture they have painted, so if they actually wanted to solve this, they can easily do it.

Jach 11y ago

Meta: avoiding pointless drama on HN is probably easiest if you avoid posting articles from/about people with long Encyclopedia Dramatica articles.

bendbro 11y ago
I'm betting whatever comments end up on this post will be used as ammo for further drama.

bendbro 11y ago

Notice that this blog post provides zero in the way of evidence. Before assuming everything written here is true, it would be worthwhile to fact check.

geofft 11y ago
"Zero" seems like a bit much! There's a link to trademark policy as archived by the Wayback Machine. It indeed seems correct that they added "usernames" to the policy without updating the date on it. The rest of it is generally consistent with what's been reported about this elsewhere, including on /r/KotakuInAction. But I'm not going to point you at each individual piece of evidence when there are things literally linked in the article that you didn't see.
Jogyn 11y ago
I agree this is basically a work of fiction until someone can fact check all this. "A reporter stalked me on twitter" rolls eyes

stripemango5 11y ago

Randi brought it completely upon herself with her insane radical feminist bigotry and disgusting identity politics. Dig a bit further and you see a deeply troubled narcissist. The community is so much better off without her.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

thanksalot 11y ago

What did she contribute to FreeBSD? It appears she was involved with marketing and after bullying a bunch of nerds who fought back FreeBSD didn't want her using their trademark.

dietrichepp 11y ago
Did you read the article? She says she was a committer. > Eventually, with the help of the dev community answering some of my basic questions and with Colin reviewing my code, I finally found my place in the project. I was still a senior sysadmin, but I got really angry because I couldn’t install FreeBSD from a usb thumbdrive. This seemed so easy. So, I drank some scotch (probably too much scotch) and started digging through sysinstall code. I didn’t really know C at that point. I learned C just so I could fix that. Then I started working on a few other things with sysinstall, like autodetection of network devices that have an active link.
- VLM 11y ago
  Its unfortunate the question was flagged. For example lets say Don Armstrong from Debian retired; he's done an excellent job at a stressful job but all jobs eventually end of course. You could look at the Debian wiki and say, OK we need to recruit qty one listmaster team member and you can use DDPO to look up a list of packages he maintained and someone needs to look after his former pkgs X Y and Z, etc. Debian carefully documents all delegations on the wiki and there's a bazillion automated tools to track. Presumably freebsd has something... something containing whatever Randi had ongoing responsibility over or was currently in process. That would certainly provide a measurable documentable level of damage (... X and Y will be delayed by an unknown period and Z is now not being looked at)
  - Amezarak 11y ago
    At least according to alleged FreeBSD developers on Reddit, she hasn't committed any code in three years and wasn't responsible for anything.
hyperpape 11y ago

enraged_camel 11y ago

>>Basically, literally, to treat others as they themselves would like to be treated. So if I enjoy being hunted with high-powered assault rifles, does that mean I should also do the same to others? :)

dang 11y ago
We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10819993 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10819993 and marked it off-topic.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

unimpressive 11y ago
Well it's a fairly obvious drama bomb. I'm not sure the nature of the drama factors in so much as how loud it is.
andrewprock 11y ago
I noticed that myself. Such actions make the moderators look like they are taking sides.
- dang 11y ago
  No moderator touched this post.
  - andrewprock 11y ago
    Something caused the post to vanish.
    - DanBC 11y ago
      A mod has said that user flags caused the post to vanish. And it hasn't vanished, it's just dropped off the front page. It hasn't been closed or deleted.
- detaro 11y ago
  Why do you believe this was a mod and not users flagging? Given the [flag]-fest below I'd expect the submission itself got a few flags as well.
  - andrewprock 11y ago
    It's not clear what the difference between mod and user flagging is. It's not clear that it matters. If the users are flagging it, then they are taking sides.

dang 11y ago

We've closed this thread to comments by new accounts because of trolls. If you have a new account and want to comment here, you're welcome to email us at hn@ycombinator.com.

gravypod 11y ago
Hopefully this will help keep discussion civil, thanks for jumping on this one quickly.

ps4fanboy 11y ago

This is why no one will ever take them seriously, by spamming this thread out to their followings in this way they are attempting to create outside focus on the HN community not within it. I invite you to see how Hacker News responds to an inherent problem with misogyny in open source. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10819778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10819778 … https://twitter.com/LilyLemmer/status/682688557018828802 https://twitter.com/LilyLemmer/status/682688557018828802 Admittedly really curious to see how the HN community responds to this. https://twitter.com/randileeharper/status/682683554447265792 https://twitter.com/randileeharper/status/682683554447265792

freebsdgirl 11y ago
A lot of my followers are in the tech community and part of HN. My apologies, and if people find it to be a problem, I'll gladly delete the tweet. I think it's interesting watching how HN responds to posts like this, because they are kind of political, and HN is a good representation of how a lot of people in tech feel. I'll get a lot of support on Twitter (because I've blocked most of the trolls), and 140 characters isn't very much to leave a detailed response, anyways. I like seeing thoughtful criticism, and the HN community is (mostly) good at that. It's why I don't excessively comment in these discussions, except maybe to clear up a point here and there. HN brings up points I haven't thought about, and I don't want necessarily to be part of the discussion about things I've written except as an observer.
- DanBC 11y ago
  You can ignore the person you replied to. Do you have "showdead" turned on in your profile? They've written an abusive post about you in this thread, but it got flagged.
  - freebsdgirl 11y ago
    I saw. But it didn't make this comment necessarily invalid. If there's a policy against putting an HN post on social media when said post involves the person publicizing it, I'm not aware, and I'm happy to fix it if it's a problem. I knew when I posted it that this made the post more likely to attract trolls (sorry, dang), but I know I'm not the only one that watches how HN responds to this kind of topic.

wila 11y ago

@freebsdgirl, thank you for sharing your story. Hope it helps in improving the community to handle this better in the future.

eadler 11y ago

does this same thing eliminate the upvote option? https://www.dropbox.com/s/ub98ewlux598o8p/Screenshot%202015-12-31%2015.09.48.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/ub98ewlux598o8p/Screenshot%202015-... sorry if this is off-topic :\

dang 11y ago
No, that's unrelated. The vote arrow disappears once you've voted. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10820149 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10820149 and marked it off-topic.

andallas 11y ago

Thanks for the vicious attach. I consider myself as 'GamerGate' and like MOST of that community haven't participated in any such 'toxic' non-sense. I get it, you hate some bad people who try to cling to a name for recognition, but just broadly labeling the whole group as such, when literally your only evidence is of a few notable individuals is a bit unsettling. In reality, the waters are a bit dirty on both sides. That 'useful tool' you mention was literally a blacklist. If you had actually opened up the github page and looked at the code you would have seen ample comments in their calling it as such. Also, it literally just blocked thousands of people based off of an idea of guilt by association. Now, people wanting to block people is their own prerogative, but let's call things what they actually are. The vicious attacks by Breitbart are certainly not fair to her. But to play devil's advocate, she herself is not exactly known for holding back when it comes to literally anyone who disagrees with her, even politely. I don't think it's right on either side, but I also can't see myself jumping to the aid of someone for a slight against them, when they've done the same/similar to others. The swatting thing is horrible. It's a dirty tactic that is VERY dangerous and those responsible should be jailed for it. However, their is also the possibility that the swatting thing was faked. Read it or not (it's RalphRetort so you'll probably ignore it) but here is an article that shows some other bits of info that allude to her maybe faking this, especially considering the timing of the incident. The broad stroke argument that GamerGate (because it's some sort of entity, right?) 'targets' ALL women in tech just doesn't make any sense. If you actually followed these things, you would know that there is in fact a lot of disgusting harassment that goes on. But guess what, it's not GamerGate, and it's not even 'anti-GG', it's third-party groups like GNAA and what not who are very open about how they do those things to get GG and anti-GG at each others throats because they think it's funny. In all reality, outside of the gross methods used, the end result is a bit sad/funny. There are two large groups of people who in all reality are very similar, that largely hate each other because neither like to actually fact check and see WHO is actually doing the harassment. Who on either side has been arrested for all of this illegal activity (The harassment being the illegal activity)? Nobody, and that's because it's all a big conflated mess that is incredibly hard for those involved to piece together, let alone outsiders who haven't been even remotely involved.

dang 11y ago

Jogyn 11y ago

Why the hell am I seeing a Randi Harper Post. This place is going downhill. =( Randi Harper is a bad actor. A crybully of the highest order and a complete wrecking ball to any community she tries to join.

engi_nerd 11y ago

Here's what confuses me. What actually happened to her? Without any context, all this can really be is her word against someone else's. She says she forwarded on relevant harassment incidents, but without context, the actual truth of what happened to her is unknown. >Don’t tell people to stay quiet about abuse. This removes them from their support network of friends and family. Didn't they just tell her to stop talking about it in public, though? And really what mechanism does anyone have to force her to do this? >If you’re a dude, don’t reach out to women leaving other open source projects saying “join us here!” On the surface, that sounds like she wants men to...not be welcoming? This is, perhaps, poorly worded. >You have no idea if women in the community have problems or not. Women will talk to other women about the quality of the community. But it’s also just really bad taste. Instead, find someone in your community that is also part of that minority group to reach out. They’ll know more about potential issues than you will. Not sure how this follows from the previous sentence. How is it in bad taste to reach out to someone in a welcoming way? Does this mean that I, as a straight white male, should only communicate with other straight white males? She probably doesn't mean it this way, but boy, am I confused. >Publicly stand behind the women in your community, or eventually they will leave and write a post just like this. I find it amusing that someone who has written a tool that allows you to filter out a specific block of individuals (as trollish as they may be) can write this post at all. The cynical side of me thinks the attitude shown here is, "Hear me, but here's a way you can systematically ignore people that I fundamentally disagree with". I often feel like tolerance and progressivism has wrapped all the way around to discrimination. Am I wrong to feel that is part of what's happening here? EDIT: I'd like to make it clear that I'm genuinely not trying to troll. If I'm being wrongheaded, then please show me how my thinking is wrong.

DanBC 11y ago
> I find it amusing that someone who has written a tool that allows you to filter out a specific block of individuals (as trollish as they may be) can write this post at all. The cynical side of me thinks the attitude shown here is, "Hear me, but here's a way you can systematically ignore people that I fundamentally disagree with". Give me your twitter handle, and your employer's email address, and I'll send 800 death threat tweets and I'll spend weeks bombarding your employer with stuff. One thing that is often said to the victims of trolls is "just ignore it" (we see that in this thread), so she wrote a tool that allows her to just ignore it and you're telling her that she's wrong.

SliderUp 11y ago

You can, and lots of people will, wave their hands and ignore/belittle FreeBSDGirl's account. Certainly the trolls will. But, it is just another example that the larger tech community has a problem. GamerGate et al, they are not fantasies. Women who want to create, same as any developer, getting SWAT teams sent to their homes, this stuff is real, and indicates a real problem. Ask yourself, are you helping fix this behavior? Because if not, then you are part of the problem.

nske 11y ago

Before googling Randi's name with some relevant keywords I had no idea about the amount of people past puberty that are behaving like this. I was about to say that I'm glad I've never met their kind, but then I remembered that I actually have: in highschool. No idea what happened to them, I assumed they grew up and the few that didn't, found their place at the very bottom of society that is not good for anything. To them usually it's not really about genre, race or any particular property, their disturbed mentality causes them to look for ways to attack and inconvenience anyone they don't like for any reason. I actually think they're even looking for an excuse to find a target, because they are amused by the whole thing and it makes them feel good and important. I can see how many of them would make it as gamers, I'm just surprised that a person like this would also make it as a FreeBSD committer. I wonder why they silently forced him to turn his commit bit off, but they don't want to update their CoC or condemn this behaviour in public. The stealth editing of the Trademark Policy to include this particular case (even though they missed the exception for old uses, which made that change pointless) also deserves some explanation, it's wrong.

Globrazu 11y ago

If you look at the actual facts of the matter you will see a vastly differing view of who was "harassed" and who was the "harasser" than this Blog post tries to paint, here's where most of this started: https://twitter.com/xmjEE/status/613083223086768128 https://twitter.com/xmjEE/status/613083223086768128 https://archive.is/9KGyX https://archive.is/9KGyX And here's a "discussion" on the matter between Randi, Colin and Johannes on /r/FreeBSD: https://archive.is/wH4Rg https://archive.is/wH4Rg

joeemison 11y ago
I just spent far too long reading both of those links, and I don't see anything there that contradicts anything Randi said in her post. If someone is regularly and routinely attacked (and all the bullshit about "Randi can't code" / "Randi hasn't contributed" is just obnoxious), it's reasonable for them to be pissed off and get angry. That doesn't somehow negate the fact that they were badly mistreated. In hindsight, it's telling that people making the above comments are posting links to longreads and not citing anything specific--just seems like more of the misogynistic campaign.
- Globrazu 11y ago
  I think it's rather telling that this "exposé" Blogpost doesn't link to anything actually incriminating and tries to call someone a "rape apologist with neonazi friends" based on supposedly who they might have talked to once on Twitter, since there are links to RooshV who doesn't seem to have anything to do with the entire matter or FreeBSD in any way, but no links to what the accused supposedly did wrong. The links I posted indicate the moment these two people intersected, after Randi Harper was furious someone didn't like the idea of "safe spaces" and "Code of Conducts" and went after him, herself acting like a harasser on IRC and otherwise. Not to say that this is not the only or first time Randi has behaved like this or done this to someone if you are aware of her larger Online presence, for instance she did it to Vivek Wadhwa: http://www.stopthegrbullies.com/2015/06/01/randi-harpers-bully-review/ http://www.stopthegrbullies.com/2015/06/01/randi-harpers-bul... She said this about Anne Rice, the 74 year old female author of The Vampire Chronicles / Interview With A Vampire: https://twitter.com/randileeharper/status/605650789348995073 https://twitter.com/randileeharper/status/605650789348995073 https://twitter.com/randileeharper/status/605736216625938432 https://twitter.com/randileeharper/status/605736216625938432 https://twitter.com/freebsdgirl/status/605636162653417472 https://twitter.com/freebsdgirl/status/605636162653417472 She even did this to Open Source developers like Ted Neward (who she wanted to "drive out of the industry" over a single inappropriate comment) and pulled his supposed "target" Iris Classon into it, upon which she had to defend both herself and him from Randi: https://twitter.com/randileeharper/status/535151831027302400 https://twitter.com/randileeharper/status/535151831027302400 http://archive.is/g2556 http://archive.is/g2556 http://archive.is/T9Hvm http://archive.is/T9Hvm http://archive.is/9GUle http://archive.is/9GUle Another Open Source developer, who was chairman of the IGDA Puerto Rico and part of several Open Source communities, and was subsequently forced to step down from the IGDA any Python Cuba she did it to was Roberto Rosario: https://twitter.com/siloraptor/status/624257540948393988 https://twitter.com/siloraptor/status/624257540948393988 https://twitter.com/siloraptor/status/625866078925647872 https://twitter.com/siloraptor/status/625866078925647872 https://twitter.com/siloraptor/status/588123915488223232 https://twitter.com/siloraptor/status/588123915488223232 What exposing someone who pretends to lead an "Online Abuse Prevention Initiative" while being one of the biggest abusers has to do with a "misogynistic campaign" you'll have to explain. It's very basic DARVO. It's a pattern of pathological behaviour with this person of attacking/going after someone and calling everyone that calls it out "bullies" or "harassers".

fche 11y ago

There is a thread on KiA where references to the original materials (transcripts of Randi's dispute with the freebsd developer) are available. The raw materials paint a rather less flattering portrait of who was attacking / harassing / abusing whom. This may be one of those cases where discretion (withholding names / evidence) does a disservice to the truth.

meesterdude 11y ago

Wow, really disgusting to hear how FreeBSD core reacted to this. I've read through a lot of the source materials; she hasn't been perfect in every move; but that's she's been able to be so level headed and professional about it in the face of an onslaught of sexism, intimidation and smear campaigns is... nothing short of a miracle. I don't care about any argument of if she's ever committed, or if her code is any good; that's bike shedding and irrelevant to the fact that no HUMAN BEING should be treated this way, let alone in a leading open source project. > The next communication from core asked me to stop talking about this publicly. They told me to tell everyone it was being solved through private mediation, and that the problem committer was on vacation for a week, so they didn’t want to do anything about it until he got back. WHAT > I had talked to someone from the FreeBSD Foundation earlier on the phone about what was happening. During this same conversation, they actually said “maybe you should be nicer.” THE > A week later, I received an email from this person threatening to involve the FreeBSD Foundation lawyers if I didn’t change my username immediately. They tried to pass it off as a trademark infringement ACTUAL > The FreeBSD Foundation had stealth added ‘usernames’ just prior to her sending that email, adding the word but not updating the date at the top. FUCK The shit she's had to go through makes me lose hope for humanity. While the way she's handled it has restored it. We need more people in tech like this, and I'm glad she's putting up such a fight. It would be easy for anyone to just be a loudspeaker for change; but she's actually getting her hands dirty, talking to people, and engaging about it, and learning and sharing along the way. I seriously doubt most of us would have the gumption and fortitude to handle this the way she has.

jfarmer 11y ago
Sounds like they're a bunch of dude-nerds who want to handle every problem as if it were a technical problem. Their "process" seems tantamount to separating the two sides and telling them to sit down and shut up. That's a not-unreasonable policy when we're talking about a technical debate that becomes acrimonious It's a terrible policy when we're talking about threats or threatening behavior by one party against another. My experience is that most dude-nerds are oblivious by default to those sorts of non-technical, purely human issues. It's made all the worse because their behavior is more-or-less indistinguishable from genuinely malicious behavior. From the perspective of the person being threatened, it doesn't make much practical difference whether they're doing it out of ineptitude or malice.

Esau 11y ago

I believe Ms. Harper to be both abuser and abused. And it should be noted that she now has a financial interest in keeping these kind of things active.