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> The sexual-harassment stuff is unfortunate, but organizations of primates have things like that happen now and then, it's just rare that the victims decide to

by rntz 11y ago

> The sexual-harassment stuff is unfortunate, but organizations of primates have things like that happen now and then, it's just rare that the victims decide to go public. This does not excuse it but it doesn't necessary say anything about the culture Harassment does say something about the culture in which it happens. What you're pointing out, correctly, is that it's not exceptional for this kind of stuff to happen - that Github is probably not much worse than most other tech companies in this respect. As you say, this is no excuse. Change has to start somewhere; we can't keep saying "oh, it just happens, you know, it's not worse here than anywhere else". > Maybe Github should split into a corporate division and an open source division. The OSS division could make all of its work and decision making distributed and public, and the corporate division could do business development and attack new market opportunities. I would like that, but how would it make investors money? If the answer is "it doesn't", then it won't happen.

PieterH 11y ago
Interesting how so casually you assume there was sexual harassment. As spangry notes later in this thread (https://github.com/blog/1826-follow-up-to-the-investigation https://github.com/blog/1826-follow-up-to-the-investigation), there was an apparently thorough investigation by a reputed external investigator who found that the claims were false. There is/was no culture of harassment in GitHub. And yet this single person's claim was enough to force out the CEO and tar GitHub with the "harassment" reputation. We live in interesting times.
- rntz 11y ago
  I had not seen that post about the investigation before; it's very enlightening, and I upvoted spangry for linking it. My default assumption is that when there are claims of harassment, there is some substance to them, even if the specifics are wrong. Bringing forward claims of harassment in the tech world turns your life (and that of the accused, if their name is publicized) into a shitstorm; people don't tend to do that without reason. But this is just a heuristic. It looks like Horvath's claims of harassment might be unsubstantiated in this case. It's hard to tell, though, because most of the things she complains about (with the exception of the code-review stuff, which appears to be just false, which is worrying) is unverifiable outside of he-said/she-said. Note the noncommittal wording: "The investigation found no information to support misconduct or opportunistic behavior by the engineer against Julie or any other female employees in the workplace." No information to support suggests "neither evidence for or against". Which is natural. Harassment is hard to prove or disprove precisely because it usually doesn't leave evidence. > there was an apparently thorough investigation by a reputed external investigator who found that the claims were false. [...] And yet this single person's claim was enough to force out the CEO Specifically regarding the ousting of the CEO, let me quote the investigation you linked: > The investigation found Tom Preston-Werner in his capacity as GitHub’s CEO acted inappropriately, including confrontational conduct, disregard of workplace complaints, insensitivity to the impact of his spouse's presence in the workplace, and failure to enforce an agreement that his spouse should not work in the office.
  - walterstucco 11y ago
    > My default assumption is that when there are claims of harassment, there is some substance to them So, you think we are alle guilty of harassment, until proven innocent? I wonder what my fellow countryman Cesare Beccaria (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Beccaria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Beccaria) would think about this kind of mindset. > Harassment is hard to prove or disprove precisely because it usually doesn't leave evidence. But we live in a legal system that is based on proofs, not on suspects or claims. > and failure to enforce an agreement that his spouse should not work in the office. Anybody knows that it's safer to jump in the mouth of a T-Rex than doing something like that. I think this is the reason he resigned: to save his marriage.
    - rntz 11y ago
      There is a difference between believing some particular individual is guilty of harassment and accepting that a harassment problem exists in an industry or company. If we want to convict someone, either in the court of public opinion or in a court of justice, we must hold ourselves to a high standard of proof. Better a murderer go free than an innocent be hanged, and so forth. But if we're interested in whether the industry itself has a problem, in whether a problem exists, then we should take women (or anyone else!) at their word when they say they experience harassment, absent strong evidence that they are lying or mistaken. Otherwise, we are violating the same rule: assuming they are guilty of lying until they prove themselves innocent!
      - EvanPlaice 11y ago
        "There is a difference between believing some particular individual is guilty of harassment and accepting that a harassment problem exists in an industry or company." You're right, and legal protections exist to protect individuals under these circumstances. It's a primary responsibility of Human Resources department to document such occurrences and justifiably fire bad actors when they occur so things don't devolve into 'he said, she said' chaos. Instead there was no documented attempt at intervention. The woman in question reached out mass media to garner sympathy (a fireable offense in and of itself); 'he said, she said' was accepted as fact, and the man was asked to step down as a result. "Better a murderer go free than an innocent be hanged, and so forth." That's quite the slippery slope. The burden of proof exists to protect individuals from unjust accusation. Libel is a crime for a reason. It's the legal and ethical duty of an organization to prevent from blindly taking sides in the absence of proof. Toxic, spiteful, aggressive, conniving, manipulative personalities aren't exclusive to any gender, race, creed, etc. Considering the evidence after the fact, it seems that this was an organizational failure. As a result it set a bad precedent. GitHub lacks the ability to protect the well-being of its employees and worse, protection is exclusively granted to women. To quote: "Even so, we work in a world where inequality exists by default and we have to overcome that. Bullying, intimidation, and harassment, whether illegal or not, are absolutely unacceptable at GitHub and should not be tolerated anywhere. GitHub is committed to building a safe environment for female employees and all women in our community." GitHub should be committed to building a safe environment for all employees. The resulting outcome proves that their neither willing nor capable of protecting the well being of their employees absent of institutional bias. ----- As far as it concerns Tom Preston-Werner, he failed in his duty as the leader of the organization. From all outward appearances it seems like he's well aware of where things went wrong. Unfortunately, the damage is already done. As much as we'd all desire to be friendly and personable with our colleagues, leadership should always maintain a degree of separation from those they lead. The military has clear rules about fraternization, well established businesses usually have similar rules. Startups are, well... startups. Their greatest strength -- to break common convention -- is also their greatest weakness.
walterbell 11y ago
> how would it make investors money? It could be a PR and branding expense, to prevent a "Twitter Kills Ecosystem" event that drives away developers who have been evangelizing Github within large enterprises. Preventing investor losses = making investors money.

by rntz 11y ago

PieterH 11y ago

Interesting how so casually you assume there was sexual harassment. As spangry notes later in this thread (https://github.com/blog/1826-follow-up-to-the-investigation https://github.com/blog/1826-follow-up-to-the-investigation), there was an apparently thorough investigation by a reputed external investigator who found that the claims were false. There is/was no culture of harassment in GitHub. And yet this single person's claim was enough to force out the CEO and tar GitHub with the "harassment" reputation. We live in interesting times.

rntz 11y ago
I had not seen that post about the investigation before; it's very enlightening, and I upvoted spangry for linking it. My default assumption is that when there are claims of harassment, there is some substance to them, even if the specifics are wrong. Bringing forward claims of harassment in the tech world turns your life (and that of the accused, if their name is publicized) into a shitstorm; people don't tend to do that without reason. But this is just a heuristic. It looks like Horvath's claims of harassment might be unsubstantiated in this case. It's hard to tell, though, because most of the things she complains about (with the exception of the code-review stuff, which appears to be just false, which is worrying) is unverifiable outside of he-said/she-said. Note the noncommittal wording: "The investigation found no information to support misconduct or opportunistic behavior by the engineer against Julie or any other female employees in the workplace." No information to support suggests "neither evidence for or against". Which is natural. Harassment is hard to prove or disprove precisely because it usually doesn't leave evidence. > there was an apparently thorough investigation by a reputed external investigator who found that the claims were false. [...] And yet this single person's claim was enough to force out the CEO Specifically regarding the ousting of the CEO, let me quote the investigation you linked: > The investigation found Tom Preston-Werner in his capacity as GitHub’s CEO acted inappropriately, including confrontational conduct, disregard of workplace complaints, insensitivity to the impact of his spouse's presence in the workplace, and failure to enforce an agreement that his spouse should not work in the office.
- walterstucco 11y ago
  > My default assumption is that when there are claims of harassment, there is some substance to them So, you think we are alle guilty of harassment, until proven innocent? I wonder what my fellow countryman Cesare Beccaria (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Beccaria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Beccaria) would think about this kind of mindset. > Harassment is hard to prove or disprove precisely because it usually doesn't leave evidence. But we live in a legal system that is based on proofs, not on suspects or claims. > and failure to enforce an agreement that his spouse should not work in the office. Anybody knows that it's safer to jump in the mouth of a T-Rex than doing something like that. I think this is the reason he resigned: to save his marriage.
  - rntz 11y ago
    There is a difference between believing some particular individual is guilty of harassment and accepting that a harassment problem exists in an industry or company. If we want to convict someone, either in the court of public opinion or in a court of justice, we must hold ourselves to a high standard of proof. Better a murderer go free than an innocent be hanged, and so forth. But if we're interested in whether the industry itself has a problem, in whether a problem exists, then we should take women (or anyone else!) at their word when they say they experience harassment, absent strong evidence that they are lying or mistaken. Otherwise, we are violating the same rule: assuming they are guilty of lying until they prove themselves innocent!
    - EvanPlaice 11y ago
      "There is a difference between believing some particular individual is guilty of harassment and accepting that a harassment problem exists in an industry or company." You're right, and legal protections exist to protect individuals under these circumstances. It's a primary responsibility of Human Resources department to document such occurrences and justifiably fire bad actors when they occur so things don't devolve into 'he said, she said' chaos. Instead there was no documented attempt at intervention. The woman in question reached out mass media to garner sympathy (a fireable offense in and of itself); 'he said, she said' was accepted as fact, and the man was asked to step down as a result. "Better a murderer go free than an innocent be hanged, and so forth." That's quite the slippery slope. The burden of proof exists to protect individuals from unjust accusation. Libel is a crime for a reason. It's the legal and ethical duty of an organization to prevent from blindly taking sides in the absence of proof. Toxic, spiteful, aggressive, conniving, manipulative personalities aren't exclusive to any gender, race, creed, etc. Considering the evidence after the fact, it seems that this was an organizational failure. As a result it set a bad precedent. GitHub lacks the ability to protect the well-being of its employees and worse, protection is exclusively granted to women. To quote: "Even so, we work in a world where inequality exists by default and we have to overcome that. Bullying, intimidation, and harassment, whether illegal or not, are absolutely unacceptable at GitHub and should not be tolerated anywhere. GitHub is committed to building a safe environment for female employees and all women in our community." GitHub should be committed to building a safe environment for all employees. The resulting outcome proves that their neither willing nor capable of protecting the well being of their employees absent of institutional bias. ----- As far as it concerns Tom Preston-Werner, he failed in his duty as the leader of the organization. From all outward appearances it seems like he's well aware of where things went wrong. Unfortunately, the damage is already done. As much as we'd all desire to be friendly and personable with our colleagues, leadership should always maintain a degree of separation from those they lead. The military has clear rules about fraternization, well established businesses usually have similar rules. Startups are, well... startups. Their greatest strength -- to break common convention -- is also their greatest weakness.

walterbell 11y ago

> how would it make investors money? It could be a PR and branding expense, to prevent a "Twitter Kills Ecosystem" event that drives away developers who have been evangelizing Github within large enterprises. Preventing investor losses = making investors money.