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...and here we go again. What was, or at least felt, obvious was that there was a double standard being applied. Not just in the sense that such a witch hunt w

...and here we go again. What was, or at least felt, obvious was that there was a double standard being applied. Not just in the sense that such a witch hunt would be unlikely to happen to a man being lauded. But also that if there's one point that Hacker News could probably agree on it's that lines-of-code is a bad metric for evaluating programmers, let alone scientists. There was also the pervasive sense of being on the side of the rest of the team, even though highlighting their contribution was the first thing Katie Bouman did. And at least Andrew Chael, who did write the plurality of the code in the GitHub repo, did come out strongly in favor of her and was horrified of the hate she got. Quote: "So apparently some (I hope very few) people online are using the fact that I am the primary developer of the eht-imaging software library to launch awful and sexist attacks on my colleague and friend Katie Bouman. Stop." (https://twitter.com/thisgreyspirit/status/1116518544961830918 https://twitter.com/thisgreyspirit/status/111651854496183091...) It's curious that, at least in my subjective impression, the tech community has a far larger problem with women than any of the other groups that have traditionally suffered discrimination: racism and especially homophobia really are extremely rare, at least overtly. But the uglyness Katie Bouman, or Ellen Pao, or Marissa Meyers brought out seems to be alive and well.

nailer 7y ago
If a man received personal acclaim for a discovery, and someone looked at the repo and found that someone other than the man wrote most of the crunchier code, then yes I'd evaluate the acclaim for the man the same way. Note most of the acclaim aimed at the scientist, rather than the team, was from the media. Whom as usual, likes to omit their own role.
- moccachino 7y ago
  But would you ever go and look at his repo? If it is the case that she didn't contribute the most complicated stuff, then I can assure you it is not the first time in history that the face of a project is not the one that did the hardest work. Also as has repeatedly been said, she always said it was a team effort. This is all said with the caveat that I didn't follow this 'controversy' and never cared to look at the contribution distribution of all the project members.
  - nailer 7y ago
    > But would you ever go and look at his repo? No. But if someone else checked the repo, I'd be interested. That said the media would be less likely to publish 'this young man took a photo of a black hole'. > Also as has repeatedly been said, she always said it was a team effort. Yep. Also mentioned in my comment you're replying to. I think of this conflict as 'developers versus the media' - the media having pushed the narrative of 'a young woman who took a photo of a black hole'. The media (who like to remove their own influence from discussions) have turned it into 'sexist developers vs young female scientist'. They've been very successful at doing that, yet again, because, well, they're the media. It's easy to shape a story when you control all outlets deemed noteworthy enough to cite.
    - pron 7y ago
      > because, well, they're the media. And because, well, it was true ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Every person I showed this to was disgusted, as was I. So even if you disagree with the characterization, it certainly wasn't just the media, but also your fellow developers. It was a shameful moment (one of many, most of a similar kind) for HN that reflected horribly on developers, and the media called it up on that, as they should.
      - read_if_gay_ 7y ago
        > because, well, it was true [...] Every person I showed this to was disgusted, as was I What you’re saying here is: because the opinion of me and my friends is objectively correct and yours is not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
        pron 7y ago
        Whoever is "right", it wasn't just the media, but also lots of developers, who felt it was a shameful display of misogyny. So it is certainly wrong to claim that the media spun this story a certain way out of the blue. Also, if I didn't think my opinion was correct it wouldn't be my opinion.
- pjc50 7y ago
  But far more commentors do this kind of hyper-scrutiny for women than for men.
- megous 7y ago
  As a counterpoint, comapre that with eg. reaction to QuickJS, when it was announced. People did not know who's to be credited for most of the work (only that two people claim copyright in the code), but if you look at the comments, it's all praise for the better known name, Fabrice Bellard, and almost no mention of the other person. People will praise who they want to, and will bother to verify, only if it disagrees with their prejudices in the first place. There's also a difference if those prejudices are based on something like past achievements of the praised person, or on something unrelated, like being a woman.
cotelletta 7y ago
The only double standard is that when people are skeptical of a woman, a bunch of thirsty men jump to her defense, and turn it into a bigger issue. Not to mention the media's incessant need to profile women doing things and having a giant backpatting session for her and themselves. They are so sure women can do anything men do, they act like it's unprecedented everytime it happens. Here's a crazy idea. Maybe any of the numerous other people who worked on that project were pissed too that she was given all the attention, and they had every right to be. If someone pored over a guy's github, nobody would care, and certainly no random woman would jump to his defense. Somehow this is proof that men oppress women.

nailer 7y ago

If a man received personal acclaim for a discovery, and someone looked at the repo and found that someone other than the man wrote most of the crunchier code, then yes I'd evaluate the acclaim for the man the same way. Note most of the acclaim aimed at the scientist, rather than the team, was from the media. Whom as usual, likes to omit their own role.

moccachino 7y ago
But would you ever go and look at his repo? If it is the case that she didn't contribute the most complicated stuff, then I can assure you it is not the first time in history that the face of a project is not the one that did the hardest work. Also as has repeatedly been said, she always said it was a team effort. This is all said with the caveat that I didn't follow this 'controversy' and never cared to look at the contribution distribution of all the project members.
- nailer 7y ago
  > But would you ever go and look at his repo? No. But if someone else checked the repo, I'd be interested. That said the media would be less likely to publish 'this young man took a photo of a black hole'. > Also as has repeatedly been said, she always said it was a team effort. Yep. Also mentioned in my comment you're replying to. I think of this conflict as 'developers versus the media' - the media having pushed the narrative of 'a young woman who took a photo of a black hole'. The media (who like to remove their own influence from discussions) have turned it into 'sexist developers vs young female scientist'. They've been very successful at doing that, yet again, because, well, they're the media. It's easy to shape a story when you control all outlets deemed noteworthy enough to cite.
  - pron 7y ago
    > because, well, they're the media. And because, well, it was true ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Every person I showed this to was disgusted, as was I. So even if you disagree with the characterization, it certainly wasn't just the media, but also your fellow developers. It was a shameful moment (one of many, most of a similar kind) for HN that reflected horribly on developers, and the media called it up on that, as they should.
    - read_if_gay_ 7y ago
      > because, well, it was true [...] Every person I showed this to was disgusted, as was I What you’re saying here is: because the opinion of me and my friends is objectively correct and yours is not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
      - pron 7y ago
        Whoever is "right", it wasn't just the media, but also lots of developers, who felt it was a shameful display of misogyny. So it is certainly wrong to claim that the media spun this story a certain way out of the blue. Also, if I didn't think my opinion was correct it wouldn't be my opinion.
pjc50 7y ago
But far more commentors do this kind of hyper-scrutiny for women than for men.
megous 7y ago
As a counterpoint, comapre that with eg. reaction to QuickJS, when it was announced. People did not know who's to be credited for most of the work (only that two people claim copyright in the code), but if you look at the comments, it's all praise for the better known name, Fabrice Bellard, and almost no mention of the other person. People will praise who they want to, and will bother to verify, only if it disagrees with their prejudices in the first place. There's also a difference if those prejudices are based on something like past achievements of the praised person, or on something unrelated, like being a woman.

cotelletta 7y ago

The only double standard is that when people are skeptical of a woman, a bunch of thirsty men jump to her defense, and turn it into a bigger issue. Not to mention the media's incessant need to profile women doing things and having a giant backpatting session for her and themselves. They are so sure women can do anything men do, they act like it's unprecedented everytime it happens. Here's a crazy idea. Maybe any of the numerous other people who worked on that project were pissed too that she was given all the attention, and they had every right to be. If someone pored over a guy's github, nobody would care, and certainly no random woman would jump to his defense. Somehow this is proof that men oppress women.