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I'm looking forward to the absolutely riveting discussion that will take place on this submission. Remember Noirin Shirley naming the Hadoop committer who fucke

I'm looking forward to the absolutely riveting discussion that will take place on this submission. Remember Noirin Shirley naming the Hadoop committer who fucked up at ApacheCon? Here's how this conversation goes and I remember because I was involved in one during that fallout: ------ She should name names. Why? Good to shame the asshole and get it overwith. And what good does accusing someone of something like this with an entirely one-sided account in public do for anyone? It lets other women know he's a scumbag! Why are you fighting this? You must be a chauvinist. No I just think everyone should be spared from trial by Twitter because character assassination is kind of a big deal and there is always the chance that facts are being misrepresented by either side. We do not have the full story but it will not matter because one story has already been presented and conclusions drawn. Any comeback the accused has is already lost. You're a pig and the problem with men in IT. It has nothing to do with gender or sexual assault and everything instead to do with having a chance to defend yourself. It has EVERYTHING to with gender and sexual assault. ------ Seriously, save yourself the involvement in this thread. We all know it happens but anything objective you have to say about the accusation or the person making the accusation will be drowned out by misandry. Do not read anything below my post. It is a complete and utter waste of time. Personally I think shit like this should not be blogged at all but whatever. I am not ready to fight this battle again.

potatolicious 15y ago
What is the alternative - accept that victims of sexual discrimination and harassment stay silent? If they don't name names, nothing changes; if they do name names, they're accused of submitting someone to trial-by-Twitter. A catch 22 if I've ever seen one! As to your "shit like this shouldn't be blogged about" comment, that seriously bothers me. Are you SERIOUSLY suggesting that victims of sexual discrimination stay silent? Jesus tap-dancing Christ, the Rapture came and somehow I got teleported to the 50s.
- jsprinkles 15y ago
  Wrong: if they do name names nothing changes. And I am suggesting that your first thought after being the victim of any crime should not be to broadcast it publicly on your blog. Blogs change things for the worse in a lot of cases and this is one of them. How can you expect an impartial trial when the victim has already laid out the entire crime publicly? This is why some civilized countries have insane legal controls on broadcasting a trial in progress. Seriously I am not going to fight this battle again only in the end to be accused of being a woman-hater.
  - potatolicious 15y ago
    So what's your suggestion, besides suggesting that people simply shut up about it? I think there's an appreciation to the dangers of a very public airing of dirty laundry - but the alternative (shaming victims into silence) seems far, far worse.
    - jules 15y ago
      How about reporting crimes to the police?
      - deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
      - jsprinkles 15y ago
        When Noirin Shirley wrote her blog post reviling Florian Leibert there was no mention of the police in the post. When the top comment on Reddit was calling her out for that for a while she added in "thanks to the police department!" in an edit. Why get the cops involved when your faithful blog readers can direct their hatred at your whim?
      - bigiain 15y ago
        While I agree that "trial by Twitter" (or "trial by blog-wars") is probably one of the worst ways of dealing with sexual assault, there's an awful lot of anecdotal/hearsay "evidence" that reporting it to police is likely to be even less effective and probably more personally invasive. Seriously. Google some stats about sexual assault case's successfully prosecuted. Read up on research about how few rapes are reported, and notice how often victims suggest the big reasn they don't report rapes is because of the way they expect (rightly or wrongly) to be treated by police and courts. I can fully understand why women who've been raped refuse to want to go through the standard process of reporting and prosecuting that crime. I can fully understand why anyone who suffers something short of rape would think it's not worth bothering trying to get the police to do anything about it. Seriously - what sort of reaction do you thing she would have got fronting up to a police station and saying "This guy banned me from a conference because I refused to have sex with him. Please have him charged." In an ideal world? Yeah, the "police" would fix this. In the real world, not s much...
- helveticaman 15y ago
  You're presenting a false dichotomy between staying completely silent and putting something on the internet. A victim can limit him/herself to talking to the police, his/her community, HR, the principal, his/her friends, his/her acquaintances, etc. The victim can also blog about it once the accused party is found guilty. Until then, putting something like this in writing is considered "bad" (if it's false), broadly speaking, by society, which is the reason behind libel laws. > As to your "shit like this shouldn't be blogged about" comment, He didn't write what you quoted. > Are you SERIOUSLY suggesting that victims of sexual discrimination stay silent? No, he's not.
  - jamesaguilar 15y ago
    > He didn't write what you quoted. Yes, he did: "Personally I think shit like this should not be blogged at all but whatever. I am not ready to fight this battle again." It's in the first damn comment. Read it. > No, he's not. He's advocating that they not speak about their experiences in a public forum. That's a type of suggesting that they stay silent.
    - jsprinkles 15y ago
      Even though the false dichotomy has been presented to you you are still sticking with it. I am advocating that the soldier's story of a grave misstep by a person not be presented one-sided with no opportunity for recourse in a very public manner on a very high-traffic blog.
      - potatolicious 15y ago
        If the conference organizers issued a response, is there ANY doubt that it will make it to the front page of HN? I agree that it would likely end up being an endless series of accusations and counter-accusations, but it is not as if an accusation is being made with no chance to respond.
earl 15y ago
Fuck you. There's no upside for women and enormous downside for them to go public with crap like this. For you to cry misandry pretty clearly shows your position. And your claim that she should just shut her mouth and keep quiet is at bare minimum enabling of the abuse you pretend to disdain.
- jsprinkles 15y ago
  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1875927 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1875927 I'm curious -- do you run around posting in every thread that concerns sexual assault with pitchfork in hand for the accused and ad hominem attacks for those who disagree with the methodology? Take your pants off to e-mail you? Seriously?
mkramlich 15y ago
Agreed. You're brave for saying it. This is one of those topics where if anybody says something reasonable and nuanced on a Certain Side of this topic, they get demonized by folks on the other side of it. Been there, done that, no T-shirt to show for it. Not a profitable use of anyone's time.
starwed 15y ago
To be honest you mostly come across as a troll, but there's one part of your "argument" that I've often seen folk make in earnest. And it just flat-out makes no sense. I just think everyone should be spared from trial by Twitter because character assassination is kind of a big deal and there is always the chance that facts are being misrepresented by either side. This line is basically: other people might buy into what is said even if it isn't provable, that would be an injustice, therefore don't say anything. But from the point of view of someone like Noirin Shirley, that is completely irrevelant! They know what has happened, so from their POV this is a complete nonissue! If the "bad" consequence is that someone believes the truth for the wrong reasons, well, that isn't really their fucking problem!
- Confusion 15y ago
  The logical result of "do not write about it in your blog" is not "don't say anything".
T-R 15y ago
Regardless of opinions on naming names and whatnot, we shouldn't discourage someone from blogging about it. We only have anecdotes, so we don't have enough information to prove one way or another whether this is a broader issue with our community or just with the individuals, but we shouldn't deny someone their right to raise awareness of it. I think we can agree that it's unacceptable behavior; discouraging people from raising awareness of it (by blogging or otherwise), or broadly categorizing any attempt at discussion as misandry and a waste of time, has a danger of coming off as tacit acceptance, which, if there is a broader problem, would exacerbate it.
jerrya 15y ago
A difference between Tammy Camp and Noirin Shirley is that Shirley in addition to naming names, went and made a police report. That takes Shirley's response from rumor, innuendo, and sex based side taking to falsifiable investigation. It would suck to be Florian Liebert, but Shirley provided him her name and her direct accusation, and with that, Liebert can take legal action as he desires. So I find Shirley's behavior admirable. Going after someone in print is a very gutsy thing for anyone to do. I have no idea what happened to Camp, and I am certain it will promote flame wars, division, side taking, politicization, rumors, attacks, and as of this moment, there really is no reason to believe her apart from not understanding her motive to fake such a thing.
hristov 15y ago
Whatever, anyone that is the victim of assault has a right to talk about it and publicly point out their assailant. Of course the accused has a right to defend themselves. They can blog their story too. Of course this all may result cacophony of accusations and counter accusations but I do not see how this is worse than simply pretending it did not happen. It is much preferred that they name the offending party than if they make general accusations in the direction of the tech business as a whole, which tend to paint all male engineers as potential rapists.
- pstack 15y ago
  I can't even imagine how someone accused (especially falsely accused) could even begin to respond to such a thing with any fairness. If I accuse you of the most hideous crimes against little kids, you have a right to defend yourself. You just won't be taken seriously in doing so, because I'll have already played the nuclear card on you in the act of forming the initial accusation, itself. Nobody deserves to be harassed and nobody deserves to be slandered and unfortunately both happen so often that people will simply be sided with in the court of public (and eternal internet) opinion based solely on the prior experiences and views going-in of the "reader". And, other than that, I'm staying the hell out of this entire conversation. No good can come of this, even though it would be nice to think that constructive conversations about such topics can be had. I'll move on to something a little less volatile and a little more rational, like peace in the middle east.
dannyobrien 15y ago
I am not ready to fight this battle again. Cue jsprinkles answering almost every comment on this thread. Could you perhaps save yourself a bit more effectively next time, so we could spend more time on fixing the discrimination, and less time listening to how horrible it is to be you in a discussion you can apparently choose not to be involved in?
jessedhillon 15y ago
> Seriously, save yourself the involvement in this thread. SPOILER ALERT: jsprinkles, unfortunately, proceeds to ignore his own advice. > I am not ready to fight this battle again. He finds the strength.
brazzy 15y ago
Personally I think shit like this should not be blogged at all Please not that only a very small part of the post is actually about sexual harassment or discrimination. Most of it is about how to deal with "the feeling of defeat due to injustice" in a way that is completely (and quite likely deliberately) independant from the nature of the injustice.

potatolicious 15y ago

What is the alternative - accept that victims of sexual discrimination and harassment stay silent? If they don't name names, nothing changes; if they do name names, they're accused of submitting someone to trial-by-Twitter. A catch 22 if I've ever seen one! As to your "shit like this shouldn't be blogged about" comment, that seriously bothers me. Are you SERIOUSLY suggesting that victims of sexual discrimination stay silent? Jesus tap-dancing Christ, the Rapture came and somehow I got teleported to the 50s.

jsprinkles 15y ago
Wrong: if they do name names nothing changes. And I am suggesting that your first thought after being the victim of any crime should not be to broadcast it publicly on your blog. Blogs change things for the worse in a lot of cases and this is one of them. How can you expect an impartial trial when the victim has already laid out the entire crime publicly? This is why some civilized countries have insane legal controls on broadcasting a trial in progress. Seriously I am not going to fight this battle again only in the end to be accused of being a woman-hater.
- potatolicious 15y ago
  So what's your suggestion, besides suggesting that people simply shut up about it? I think there's an appreciation to the dangers of a very public airing of dirty laundry - but the alternative (shaming victims into silence) seems far, far worse.
  - jules 15y ago
    How about reporting crimes to the police?
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - jsprinkles 15y ago
      When Noirin Shirley wrote her blog post reviling Florian Leibert there was no mention of the police in the post. When the top comment on Reddit was calling her out for that for a while she added in "thanks to the police department!" in an edit. Why get the cops involved when your faithful blog readers can direct their hatred at your whim?
    - bigiain 15y ago
      While I agree that "trial by Twitter" (or "trial by blog-wars") is probably one of the worst ways of dealing with sexual assault, there's an awful lot of anecdotal/hearsay "evidence" that reporting it to police is likely to be even less effective and probably more personally invasive. Seriously. Google some stats about sexual assault case's successfully prosecuted. Read up on research about how few rapes are reported, and notice how often victims suggest the big reasn they don't report rapes is because of the way they expect (rightly or wrongly) to be treated by police and courts. I can fully understand why women who've been raped refuse to want to go through the standard process of reporting and prosecuting that crime. I can fully understand why anyone who suffers something short of rape would think it's not worth bothering trying to get the police to do anything about it. Seriously - what sort of reaction do you thing she would have got fronting up to a police station and saying "This guy banned me from a conference because I refused to have sex with him. Please have him charged." In an ideal world? Yeah, the "police" would fix this. In the real world, not s much...
helveticaman 15y ago
You're presenting a false dichotomy between staying completely silent and putting something on the internet. A victim can limit him/herself to talking to the police, his/her community, HR, the principal, his/her friends, his/her acquaintances, etc. The victim can also blog about it once the accused party is found guilty. Until then, putting something like this in writing is considered "bad" (if it's false), broadly speaking, by society, which is the reason behind libel laws. > As to your "shit like this shouldn't be blogged about" comment, He didn't write what you quoted. > Are you SERIOUSLY suggesting that victims of sexual discrimination stay silent? No, he's not.
- jamesaguilar 15y ago
  > He didn't write what you quoted. Yes, he did: "Personally I think shit like this should not be blogged at all but whatever. I am not ready to fight this battle again." It's in the first damn comment. Read it. > No, he's not. He's advocating that they not speak about their experiences in a public forum. That's a type of suggesting that they stay silent.
  - jsprinkles 15y ago
    Even though the false dichotomy has been presented to you you are still sticking with it. I am advocating that the soldier's story of a grave misstep by a person not be presented one-sided with no opportunity for recourse in a very public manner on a very high-traffic blog.
    - potatolicious 15y ago
      If the conference organizers issued a response, is there ANY doubt that it will make it to the front page of HN? I agree that it would likely end up being an endless series of accusations and counter-accusations, but it is not as if an accusation is being made with no chance to respond.

earl 15y ago

Fuck you. There's no upside for women and enormous downside for them to go public with crap like this. For you to cry misandry pretty clearly shows your position. And your claim that she should just shut her mouth and keep quiet is at bare minimum enabling of the abuse you pretend to disdain.

jsprinkles 15y ago
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1875927 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1875927 I'm curious -- do you run around posting in every thread that concerns sexual assault with pitchfork in hand for the accused and ad hominem attacks for those who disagree with the methodology? Take your pants off to e-mail you? Seriously?

mkramlich 15y ago

Agreed. You're brave for saying it. This is one of those topics where if anybody says something reasonable and nuanced on a Certain Side of this topic, they get demonized by folks on the other side of it. Been there, done that, no T-shirt to show for it. Not a profitable use of anyone's time.

starwed 15y ago

To be honest you mostly come across as a troll, but there's one part of your "argument" that I've often seen folk make in earnest. And it just flat-out makes no sense. I just think everyone should be spared from trial by Twitter because character assassination is kind of a big deal and there is always the chance that facts are being misrepresented by either side. This line is basically: other people might buy into what is said even if it isn't provable, that would be an injustice, therefore don't say anything. But from the point of view of someone like Noirin Shirley, that is completely irrevelant! They know what has happened, so from their POV this is a complete nonissue! If the "bad" consequence is that someone believes the truth for the wrong reasons, well, that isn't really their fucking problem!

Confusion 15y ago
The logical result of "do not write about it in your blog" is not "don't say anything".

T-R 15y ago

Regardless of opinions on naming names and whatnot, we shouldn't discourage someone from blogging about it. We only have anecdotes, so we don't have enough information to prove one way or another whether this is a broader issue with our community or just with the individuals, but we shouldn't deny someone their right to raise awareness of it. I think we can agree that it's unacceptable behavior; discouraging people from raising awareness of it (by blogging or otherwise), or broadly categorizing any attempt at discussion as misandry and a waste of time, has a danger of coming off as tacit acceptance, which, if there is a broader problem, would exacerbate it.

jerrya 15y ago

A difference between Tammy Camp and Noirin Shirley is that Shirley in addition to naming names, went and made a police report. That takes Shirley's response from rumor, innuendo, and sex based side taking to falsifiable investigation. It would suck to be Florian Liebert, but Shirley provided him her name and her direct accusation, and with that, Liebert can take legal action as he desires. So I find Shirley's behavior admirable. Going after someone in print is a very gutsy thing for anyone to do. I have no idea what happened to Camp, and I am certain it will promote flame wars, division, side taking, politicization, rumors, attacks, and as of this moment, there really is no reason to believe her apart from not understanding her motive to fake such a thing.

hristov 15y ago

Whatever, anyone that is the victim of assault has a right to talk about it and publicly point out their assailant. Of course the accused has a right to defend themselves. They can blog their story too. Of course this all may result cacophony of accusations and counter accusations but I do not see how this is worse than simply pretending it did not happen. It is much preferred that they name the offending party than if they make general accusations in the direction of the tech business as a whole, which tend to paint all male engineers as potential rapists.

pstack 15y ago
I can't even imagine how someone accused (especially falsely accused) could even begin to respond to such a thing with any fairness. If I accuse you of the most hideous crimes against little kids, you have a right to defend yourself. You just won't be taken seriously in doing so, because I'll have already played the nuclear card on you in the act of forming the initial accusation, itself. Nobody deserves to be harassed and nobody deserves to be slandered and unfortunately both happen so often that people will simply be sided with in the court of public (and eternal internet) opinion based solely on the prior experiences and views going-in of the "reader". And, other than that, I'm staying the hell out of this entire conversation. No good can come of this, even though it would be nice to think that constructive conversations about such topics can be had. I'll move on to something a little less volatile and a little more rational, like peace in the middle east.

dannyobrien 15y ago

I am not ready to fight this battle again. Cue jsprinkles answering almost every comment on this thread. Could you perhaps save yourself a bit more effectively next time, so we could spend more time on fixing the discrimination, and less time listening to how horrible it is to be you in a discussion you can apparently choose not to be involved in?

jessedhillon 15y ago

> Seriously, save yourself the involvement in this thread. SPOILER ALERT: jsprinkles, unfortunately, proceeds to ignore his own advice. > I am not ready to fight this battle again. He finds the strength.

brazzy 15y ago

Personally I think shit like this should not be blogged at all Please not that only a very small part of the post is actually about sexual harassment or discrimination. Most of it is about how to deal with "the feeling of defeat due to injustice" in a way that is completely (and quite likely deliberately) independant from the nature of the injustice.