14 ms·

One of the reasons I've taken an interest in this whole fiasco is that I occasionally make "colorful" jokes. Not dissimilar from the two guys at PyCon. I make e

by dos1 14y ago

One of the reasons I've taken an interest in this whole fiasco is that I occasionally make "colorful" jokes. Not dissimilar from the two guys at PyCon. I make every attempt to keep these jokes private between my friends and I, but I'm sure others have heard me make them. Some people might find them funny, others may be offended. It scares me to think that making an offhand penis joke could result in being publicly outed on Twitter with no opportunity to defend myself. I believe that Adria Richards did not handle the situation appropriately. I believe she's being a hypocrite by taking offense one day, and making her own penis joke on Twitter the next. I believe that she's further stoking the internet's rage by refusing to admit any fault. I think the other women that are jumping to her defense are doing themselves, and women in technology a disservice. They are not thinking critically or putting themselves in the conference attendee's shoes. I'm quite sure they would not like to be publicly outed for a private conversation. Public shaming was not the right way to handle the situation. An apology from Adria would have gone a long way in defusing the situation. She chose not to go this route. I'm sad that a silly penis joke turned in to this. Preemptive Edit: I do NOT believe that ANYONE should suffer the wrath of the Internet. I do NOT believe that ANY conference attendees should have to sit idly by and listen to penis jokes. I'm only saying that publicly shaming these guys was a mistake, and that an apology for the mistake could have basically fixed the problem before it got this far.

SallySinep 14y ago
I believe she's being a hypocrite by taking offense one day, and making her own penis joke on Twitter the next. I can't find anything resembling a penis joke in her recent Twitter feed.
- lopatin 14y ago
  https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425 https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425
  - SallySinep 14y ago
    Thanks (so it was 6 days before her "outing" those guys, not the day after). Either way, the hypocrisy she exhibits is quite astounding. Those in glass houses...
giardini 14y ago
".. I do NOT believe that ANY conference attendees should have to sit idly by and listen to penis jokes." Nobody need do so. Simply move to another seat.
- jkrems 14y ago
  Actually, if you are in the audience of a conference and there is someone talking in the front, any disturbance to the people around you is at least impolite. And if anyone should leave it's not the one who is silently sitting there and listening.
- AnIrishDuck 14y ago
  > Nobody need do so. Simply move to another seat. Or better yet, tell them to knock it off.
imsofuture 14y ago
What's amazing to me is the cognitive dissonance required to make the leap from Adria publicly outing someone (questionable, but not egregious given you know, the public venue) making an off-color joke to 'she got these people fired'. Their boss finding out what they said got them fired. Because what they said wasn't appropriate in the opinion of their employer. Period. Full stop.
- dos1 14y ago
  Totally agree. The employer owns absolutely all responsibility for terminating the employee. However, I do not believe it would have been out of line for Adria to have said something like "I heard one of the guys in the photo I posted on Twitter yesterday was fired. I just wanted to say that I'm terribly sorry to hear that and my intent was never to cause harm! I'm very sorry!" I believe contrition on her part would have nipped this whole thing in the bud. I also know that had I posted that picture which resulted in someone losing their job, I would feel great remorse and WANT to make amends. Especially given the relatively minor infraction (private, but overheard, joke).
  - king_jester 14y ago
    So she should apologize because someone was offensive, got outed for it, and their employer felt that was reason enough to can them? I have to disagree, you do not have a right to remain anonymous while making a space unsafe and if the company you are representing feels that you've made them look horrible, they have a right to discipline you (although I believe a firing was too severe, if you fired everyone who had a problem with keeping things professional you'd have no workers, companies are better off with some kind of sensitivity training for the staff).
    - mst 14y ago
      Given she tweeted shortly afterwards that pycon staff were dealing with the problem and she was happy with that, I think she implicitly wasn't condoning any action taken by anybody afterwards. Making that explicit might have been a good thing to do at the time; I don't see that such a statement would've needed to be in the form of an apology though, merely a clear dissocation from the stupid choices made by an HR department she has no control over.
frankblizzard 14y ago
Most of the people offended / affected by that are angry because the poor guy got fired over this. I think it was wrong to do this tweet, but she wasn't the one to get him fired. The employer should have the courage and stand behind his employees instead of firing him over appearantly nothing.
- pyre 14y ago
  It was an overreaction, but 'Women in Tech' is a hot-button issue. The ultra-conservative approach is to distance yourself from everything that could be construed as promoting a "boys' club" in tech. Disclaimer: I'm not supporting one side vs. the other here. I bear no grudge against her, but feel that she made a mistake in the way that she handled this.
  - king_jester 14y ago
    This is true and actually contributes to the fact that women have a hard time in tech. If a company simply fires people as a CYA move nobody is ever going to seriously learn about and address sexism within that company as the decision makers there would rather just ignore the problem than do something about it.
    - RougeFemme 14y ago
      Agreed. What did the "unfired" people left at the company learn from this? That it's unacceptable to ever have bawdy thoughts, let alone verbalize them? That it's unacceptable to make comments like that, ever - and here's why? That it's unacceptable to make comments like that in professional environments - and here's why? Or that you shouldn't make comments like that around Adria? This could've been a teachable moment for them and they blew it. Or maybe they didn't - we don't know what was said to the fired employee and remaining employees.
pfortuny 14y ago
When you are a geek and attend a conference, you are certainly going to tweet everything relevant about it. Well, Adria Richards decided that silly joke was worth tweeting. I am sad for the person evicted from his job, but then again: f you do not know your environment, you should not work in it. And tweeter is as strong as it gets. It is hard, but these are real life jobs and real life conferences and real life education and real life people. Deal with it: the only way not to appear on tweeter the way you would not like to is to... behave VERY CAREFULLY. You do not want to look dumb? Do not act dumbly. Silly jokes during a talk are like using a public wifi at RSA...
- pfortuny 14y ago
  Have I said anything wrong?
  - mtrimpe 14y ago
    When supporting women's right on Hacker News you tend to get a disproportionate number of downvotes compared to 'normal' topics. That means that if your comment usually would just not get any upvotes (which yours wouldn't since it wasn't terribly well written) you'll suddenly get into negative point territory on these issues. If you look you'll be able to find other comments as well which easily pass the 'constructive discussion' criteria of HN comments but are deeply in the gray nonetheless.
    - pfortuny 14y ago
      Thanks for the pointer and for the details. Yes, when in a rush my English gets really awful.
    - cobrausn 14y ago
      Your first statement is an unprovable assertion. He might get an equal number of upvotes from Adriana-supporting hardliners, but perhaps they are just outnumbered. You are trying to frame this conversation in terms of 'you support women in tech if you make apologist comments for Adriana, you are a hardliner if you think she overreacted and should be brought to account'. It's a bit of a false dichotomy. I think this is a particularly polarizing event that is causing a lot more downvoting than normally happens on HN.
CodeMage 14y ago
I believe she's being a hypocrite by taking offense one day, and making her own penis joke on Twitter the next. I've seen that argument tossed about. There's a difference between reading someone's Twitter stream and hearing someone's joke while sitting in the audience at a convention. The former is reading content from someone you chose to follow, the latter is the equivalent of having people talk behind you in a movie theater.
- kevincrane 14y ago
  I don't know, I felt pretty blind-sided when someone linked to that Twitter post here on HN and I was hit with a gasp penis joke. I was just on HN to be informed of the current events at PyCon and all of a sudden this lady I don't know is putting tweets about penises in a place I might accidentally read them. /sarcasm
- pyre 14y ago
  While annoying, "talking in a movie theater" should not be a valid way to push something from "acceptable" to "offensive."
- SeanDav 14y ago
  Since when did it become ok to vilify someone for a private conversation? A private conversation in a public area is still private. This woman was guilty of listening to a private conversation, taking some sort of offence and then going out of her way to publicly shame them. Anyone trying to defend her is not thinking very clearly. If you look at her own posting history she is guilty of off-colour jokes and downright racist comments. The whole thing smacks of hypocrisy and self publication.
  - mtrimpe 14y ago
    It's not a private conversation. I can't even ignore the conversation of annoying people three seats down in the train. When people in the seat behind me will start talking during a conference there would be no way for me not to listen to their conversation.
aviraldg 14y ago
<offtopic>Sorry - I hate to be a grammar nazi, but this is something I feel more people should know about: "wraith" means "ghost" whereas "wrath" means "anger."</offtopic>
- dos1 14y ago
  Yes, thank you very much! I constantly make this mistake. I've edited :)
jasonlotito 14y ago
> Public shaming was not the right way to handle the situation. I find it odd then that the mob went after Adria, doing exactly what they are calling her out for doing, and publicly shaming her. Saying that she started it, or that two wrongs make a right, or any like that is only highlighting the hypocrisy.
- largesse 14y ago
  You're assuming that the people who are against public shaming are the ones doing it to her. "The mob" you speak of is not a thing.
- uptown 14y ago
  One distinction is that the comments made by the developer were directed at his colleague, while her tweet was directed to the public, or at the very least to those that followed her on Twitter at the time of her tweet.
  - freehunter 14y ago
    That's the distinction. The joker made a private comment, which was made public by a third party. Adria made a public statement. There's no hypocrisy here; Adria wanted attention to her comment.
    - jasonlotito 14y ago
      It was not a private comment. People keep saying it. Speaking to someone does not make it private.
      - vidarh 14y ago
        Was there a large audience to the comment? Was it directed at a general group of people? No. It was directed at a single other person, and she happened to overhear it. So it was private. That it was made in public and within earshot of others does not make it a public statement.
- deleted 14y ago
robomartin 14y ago
In many ways, the issue here boils down to what happened to these guys in the context of having joked around with each other in a private conversation. And what happened is tragic. Someone got fired for it. Someone's livelihood was affected by this. Not to mention the emotional shock this surely caused. What's right and what's wrong? Sometimes the answer isn't easy. Private conversations between friends have been known to have content that surely someone, somewhere is bound to find offensive. The other effect is that there are people who hear what they want to hear --or read what they want to read-- rather than what was actually said or written. All you have to do is watch Fox News, CNN or, for that matter, any news show to see this effect. HN is perfect proof of the fact that this happens. I've seen it a bunch of times and I've experienced it myself. A joke is a joke. A dumb comment is a dumb comment. It happens. And, if it hasn't happened to you (plural) yet it surely will at one point or another. I don't know any perfect people. What saddens me in this case is the firing. I think that was wrong. Way wrong. And absolutely unfair. One thought that went through my mind is the idea of surveillance cameras picking up private conversations. One could argue: Well, be aware of it and act accordingly. Then there's the question, perhaps legal, of what actually constitutes a private conversation protected by privacy laws. Does one have the right to publish the contents of someone else's private conversation, whether it was overheard or picked-up via intentional or unintentional surveillance? I don't know. It's a bit disturbing because of the potential implications on the assumption of privacy in otherwise public settings. Now you have to look around before having any kind of a conversation because you don't know if anything you say, offensive or not, might come back to pummel you on the Internet. I would not be surprised if lawyers are involved at this point. I'd certainly go talk to one right away if I was on the receiving end of something like this and it affected my job.
- mst 14y ago
  Once, sat in the audience at OSCON with people I knew, a particularly inappropriate joke occurred to me that I thought the friend sat next to me would appreciate. I sent it to him via private message using my laptop. That way, the conversation was -actually- private, rather than 'private plus whoever else sat near me overheard what I said'. This is not a difficult concept for me, though my primary motivation was 'not distracting the people around me' rather than what they might have thought of the content.
michellegreer1 14y ago
Call me crazy, but something tells me this guy wasn't just fired for this incident. Good Python help can be hard to come by and firing someone over a private dongle joke has been seen by everyone, including Adria, as a total overreaction. That being said, telling a woman that she should be raped or killed over such a circumstance (which did happen on Twitter) is also an overreaction. This sort of thing happens quite a bit to any woman who seems to challenge the status quo culture of tech. Both women AND men I know are saddened that this happens. People shouldn't feel that the speech police will reign down on private jokes not directed towards specific people. And no woman should ever be threatened with rape or death, especially when she is not reponsible for the overreaction that ensued. While you are right in thinking that perhaps an apology would stop all this, you have to consider the price that Adria paid because she was sick of hearing evidence of "bro culture" in programming. Have you ever had someone tell you that you should be raped? Do people wish you dead? I doubt Adria would disagree with your assessment, as she could never have anticipated that the man would have been fired. At this point though, she is probably hoping she can still do her job without getting hurt by some. Your hindsight observation doesn't really help here.
- Torgo 14y ago
  Some people posting on here seem to think that what Adria had done represents an evolution of social pressure for change. But in the end they will both have been fired by their employers because they were associated with bad publicity and not because of what they may have done. I think that is the lesson of this event for why, regardless of the reasons or the legitimacy of her being offended (I think a separate but legitimate discussion btw,) the way she responded was a mistake.
jack_trades 14y ago
Public shame is not a problem. Public shame is less about an individual and more about sharing expectations with a community. Shame on people who can't help but blurt out clumsy penis jokes in essentially tight quarters at a professional conference. Go and make colorful jokes everywhere and then defend yourself on twitter. Who's stopping you/them? They have twitter accounts, no? Represent yourselves. More words tell us more about you. Maybe we can laugh with you. Maybe your words are so witty that they make us believe you should build our next project? Maybe someone's inability to control their thoughts and words hints at their abilities to develop solid projects following best practices? Seeing, mostly, entitle, white men parse apart interpretation and imply that women are not thinking critically when supporting an small instance of truth to power smacks of just how low social IQ is amongst the development community. It is inspiring to see the scale of the backlash. More acts of this nature will follow and awareness of expected behavior will have positive effects for women in tech. Nobody is really arguing that clumsy penis jokes have a place in "beige" professional environments, right? It's not about a silly penis joke. Adria is obviously comfortable with silly penis jokes. It wasn't content, it was all about context. She's not comfortable with certain attendees' sense of entitlement to communicate a message that turns her professional environment into a space where she is not considered equal, let alone valuable. She mentioned the catalyst of the young girl's picture. She and that girl are not annoyances within the men's club of seriously capable developers. They are humans on some point of the same journey as everyone else in attendance. Why should they not be afforded the same benefit of NOT having to constantly worry about some set of barriers to success? Certain communications in a professional environment indicate if people within that environment have power and control. These comments, in that context, imply that those individuals felt they could not be compelled to behave in socially acceptable ways. If they weren't willing to stand up with their company's logo on their chest and say it through the mic, they know that expressing it in the seats signals to surrounding ears that they have the power to act outside normal bounds of decency. The environment is toxic and hints at even worse environments outside that venue. Also, wordplay on forking a repo is particularly anti-social. The developer is the actor who is enabled to control the object of the action because the object was not performing for them. An analogy to rape is too obvious. It's just not joke-worthy. The outcome should have been expected. The more we talk, the louder the backlash, but the public awareness is likely to have a net positive effect long-term.
rmrfrmrf 14y ago
Is it really that hard to act like a professional adult while you're at work? The simplest solution is to simply stop telling penis jokes at work.
- RougeFemme 14y ago
  Agreed. But there are obviously huge differences in definitions for acting like a professional adult. I think people even disagree on when/where you should have to act like a professional adult - if at all.
jessedhillon 14y ago
I'm quite sure they would not like to be publicly outed for a private conversation. It's not private if you're in public and other people can hear you. What would you think if they were describing the details of their company's upcoming S-1 filing? Private conversation still?
horseface 14y ago
there's no opportunity to defend yourself from a tweet? tweet back. certainly you agree twitter is effective now that a bunch of racist, sexist scumbags used it to harass her company into firing her.
- danielweber 14y ago
  I look forward to the day when debates are settled by who has the most twitter followers. Or who has the loudest voice.[1] [1] http://youtu.be/IiZeOgxpCmI?t=1m43s http://youtu.be/IiZeOgxpCmI?t=1m43s
antihero 14y ago
I agree except I don't think there is anything wrong with some silly innuendo. If that really offends you, you need to sort your life out.
MartinCron 14y ago
I do NOT believe that ANYONE should suffer the wrath of the Internet I would encourage everyone to react more slowly and deliberately to stories like this that outrage them. This applies to companies firing people as well as people using the complex facts to support their existing points of view. Slow down, everyone. Injustice will still be there for you after your blood pressure goes down.
- Domenic_S 14y ago
  Makes me wonder if our glacial justice system in the US is intentional, to avoid this kind of thing.
  - MartinCron 14y ago
    I'm sure that's a big part of it. Things like due process and jury trials are slow, but they're the best things we've got.
  - lmickh 14y ago
    There is plenty of commentary from the founders to indicate that. Judges are suppose to be above the "rule by mob" mentality. Choosing justices according to hot topic political views as we have been recently is directly counter to the whole purpose.
- fafner 14y ago
  > Slow down, everyone. Injustice will still be there for you after your blood pressure goes down. That's why you should follow Prussian military complaint rules. The Prussian military allowed all soldiers to file complaints, even against officers. However the rule was that you could only file a complaint after one night had passed. The idea is of course that you can think about what happened and reevalute it. Naturally the rule has its limits. If you are actively harassed then try to find help immediately. But in most cases it is a pretty good rule.
  - MartinCron 14y ago
    I very deliberately didn't comment on this story when it broke yesterday and had to actively fight my instinct to point out just how obviously wrongheaded some people were. Now, if nothing else, I can look back and be proud that I wasn't baited into saying anything hostile or embarrassing.
rayiner 14y ago
Fucking NorCal. Nobody in NYC would've blinked at that joke. Relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FAI_-woNh4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FAI_-woNh4
- hprx 14y ago
  http://cmx.io/#5214736 http://cmx.io/#5214736
- SallySinep 14y ago
  This is so true. Mind you, I run with a fairly politically-charged crowd -- pro-feminist, pro-gay, firmly anti-racist and anti-sexist -- the kind of people who wouldn't think twice of throwing you out of a bar, physically if necessary, for saying something legitimately creepy or offensive. But still I can't imagine that kind of a joke getting anything more than smirk, or a roll of the eyes out here. Really now, some people need to get a grip, and a sense of perspective.
  - laichzeit0 14y ago
    "the kind of people who wouldn't think twice of throwing you out of a bar, physically if necessary" How is this type of reaction any better than saying something anti-feminist, anti-gay, racist or sexist? Sorry but people need to get over the idea that they have the right not to be offended. If you're offended then you can say "I'm offended", you can leave, you can ask the person to leave, you can offer a rebuttal, etc. But physically man-handling someone or reacting in a way that suggests that they have someone violated your "right not to be offended" is wrong because you have/should have no such right.
    - SallySinep 14y ago
      Apparently you don't hang in bars too often. If you're at a bar and you're ruining the vibe in any way, you need to get out. If you don't leave when asked, you will be gently but firmly escorted to the door. It's just the way things work. But again, this refers to bars and other private establishments. I wasn't talking about how things should be handled in society at large.
lucisferre 14y ago
Whether you believe she was appropriate or not (I don't but that doesn't matter) the fact is conversations and actions made in public are not ever really "in private".

by dos1 14y ago

SallySinep 14y ago

I believe she's being a hypocrite by taking offense one day, and making her own penis joke on Twitter the next. I can't find anything resembling a penis joke in her recent Twitter feed.

lopatin 14y ago
https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425 https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425
- SallySinep 14y ago
  Thanks (so it was 6 days before her "outing" those guys, not the day after). Either way, the hypocrisy she exhibits is quite astounding. Those in glass houses...

giardini 14y ago

".. I do NOT believe that ANY conference attendees should have to sit idly by and listen to penis jokes." Nobody need do so. Simply move to another seat.

jkrems 14y ago
Actually, if you are in the audience of a conference and there is someone talking in the front, any disturbance to the people around you is at least impolite. And if anyone should leave it's not the one who is silently sitting there and listening.
AnIrishDuck 14y ago
> Nobody need do so. Simply move to another seat. Or better yet, tell them to knock it off.

imsofuture 14y ago

What's amazing to me is the cognitive dissonance required to make the leap from Adria publicly outing someone (questionable, but not egregious given you know, the public venue) making an off-color joke to 'she got these people fired'. Their boss finding out what they said got them fired. Because what they said wasn't appropriate in the opinion of their employer. Period. Full stop.

dos1 14y ago
Totally agree. The employer owns absolutely all responsibility for terminating the employee. However, I do not believe it would have been out of line for Adria to have said something like "I heard one of the guys in the photo I posted on Twitter yesterday was fired. I just wanted to say that I'm terribly sorry to hear that and my intent was never to cause harm! I'm very sorry!" I believe contrition on her part would have nipped this whole thing in the bud. I also know that had I posted that picture which resulted in someone losing their job, I would feel great remorse and WANT to make amends. Especially given the relatively minor infraction (private, but overheard, joke).
- king_jester 14y ago
  So she should apologize because someone was offensive, got outed for it, and their employer felt that was reason enough to can them? I have to disagree, you do not have a right to remain anonymous while making a space unsafe and if the company you are representing feels that you've made them look horrible, they have a right to discipline you (although I believe a firing was too severe, if you fired everyone who had a problem with keeping things professional you'd have no workers, companies are better off with some kind of sensitivity training for the staff).
  - mst 14y ago
    Given she tweeted shortly afterwards that pycon staff were dealing with the problem and she was happy with that, I think she implicitly wasn't condoning any action taken by anybody afterwards. Making that explicit might have been a good thing to do at the time; I don't see that such a statement would've needed to be in the form of an apology though, merely a clear dissocation from the stupid choices made by an HR department she has no control over.

frankblizzard 14y ago

Most of the people offended / affected by that are angry because the poor guy got fired over this. I think it was wrong to do this tweet, but she wasn't the one to get him fired. The employer should have the courage and stand behind his employees instead of firing him over appearantly nothing.

pyre 14y ago
It was an overreaction, but 'Women in Tech' is a hot-button issue. The ultra-conservative approach is to distance yourself from everything that could be construed as promoting a "boys' club" in tech. Disclaimer: I'm not supporting one side vs. the other here. I bear no grudge against her, but feel that she made a mistake in the way that she handled this.
- king_jester 14y ago
  This is true and actually contributes to the fact that women have a hard time in tech. If a company simply fires people as a CYA move nobody is ever going to seriously learn about and address sexism within that company as the decision makers there would rather just ignore the problem than do something about it.
  - RougeFemme 14y ago
    Agreed. What did the "unfired" people left at the company learn from this? That it's unacceptable to ever have bawdy thoughts, let alone verbalize them? That it's unacceptable to make comments like that, ever - and here's why? That it's unacceptable to make comments like that in professional environments - and here's why? Or that you shouldn't make comments like that around Adria? This could've been a teachable moment for them and they blew it. Or maybe they didn't - we don't know what was said to the fired employee and remaining employees.

pfortuny 14y ago

When you are a geek and attend a conference, you are certainly going to tweet everything relevant about it. Well, Adria Richards decided that silly joke was worth tweeting. I am sad for the person evicted from his job, but then again: f you do not know your environment, you should not work in it. And tweeter is as strong as it gets. It is hard, but these are real life jobs and real life conferences and real life education and real life people. Deal with it: the only way not to appear on tweeter the way you would not like to is to... behave VERY CAREFULLY. You do not want to look dumb? Do not act dumbly. Silly jokes during a talk are like using a public wifi at RSA...

pfortuny 14y ago
Have I said anything wrong?
- mtrimpe 14y ago
  When supporting women's right on Hacker News you tend to get a disproportionate number of downvotes compared to 'normal' topics. That means that if your comment usually would just not get any upvotes (which yours wouldn't since it wasn't terribly well written) you'll suddenly get into negative point territory on these issues. If you look you'll be able to find other comments as well which easily pass the 'constructive discussion' criteria of HN comments but are deeply in the gray nonetheless.
  - pfortuny 14y ago
    Thanks for the pointer and for the details. Yes, when in a rush my English gets really awful.
  - cobrausn 14y ago
    Your first statement is an unprovable assertion. He might get an equal number of upvotes from Adriana-supporting hardliners, but perhaps they are just outnumbered. You are trying to frame this conversation in terms of 'you support women in tech if you make apologist comments for Adriana, you are a hardliner if you think she overreacted and should be brought to account'. It's a bit of a false dichotomy. I think this is a particularly polarizing event that is causing a lot more downvoting than normally happens on HN.

CodeMage 14y ago

I believe she's being a hypocrite by taking offense one day, and making her own penis joke on Twitter the next. I've seen that argument tossed about. There's a difference between reading someone's Twitter stream and hearing someone's joke while sitting in the audience at a convention. The former is reading content from someone you chose to follow, the latter is the equivalent of having people talk behind you in a movie theater.

kevincrane 14y ago
I don't know, I felt pretty blind-sided when someone linked to that Twitter post here on HN and I was hit with a gasp penis joke. I was just on HN to be informed of the current events at PyCon and all of a sudden this lady I don't know is putting tweets about penises in a place I might accidentally read them. /sarcasm
pyre 14y ago
While annoying, "talking in a movie theater" should not be a valid way to push something from "acceptable" to "offensive."
SeanDav 14y ago
Since when did it become ok to vilify someone for a private conversation? A private conversation in a public area is still private. This woman was guilty of listening to a private conversation, taking some sort of offence and then going out of her way to publicly shame them. Anyone trying to defend her is not thinking very clearly. If you look at her own posting history she is guilty of off-colour jokes and downright racist comments. The whole thing smacks of hypocrisy and self publication.
- mtrimpe 14y ago
  It's not a private conversation. I can't even ignore the conversation of annoying people three seats down in the train. When people in the seat behind me will start talking during a conference there would be no way for me not to listen to their conversation.

aviraldg 14y ago

<offtopic>Sorry - I hate to be a grammar nazi, but this is something I feel more people should know about: "wraith" means "ghost" whereas "wrath" means "anger."</offtopic>

dos1 14y ago
Yes, thank you very much! I constantly make this mistake. I've edited :)

jasonlotito 14y ago

> Public shaming was not the right way to handle the situation. I find it odd then that the mob went after Adria, doing exactly what they are calling her out for doing, and publicly shaming her. Saying that she started it, or that two wrongs make a right, or any like that is only highlighting the hypocrisy.

largesse 14y ago
You're assuming that the people who are against public shaming are the ones doing it to her. "The mob" you speak of is not a thing.
uptown 14y ago
One distinction is that the comments made by the developer were directed at his colleague, while her tweet was directed to the public, or at the very least to those that followed her on Twitter at the time of her tweet.
- freehunter 14y ago
  That's the distinction. The joker made a private comment, which was made public by a third party. Adria made a public statement. There's no hypocrisy here; Adria wanted attention to her comment.
  - jasonlotito 14y ago
    It was not a private comment. People keep saying it. Speaking to someone does not make it private.
    - vidarh 14y ago
      Was there a large audience to the comment? Was it directed at a general group of people? No. It was directed at a single other person, and she happened to overhear it. So it was private. That it was made in public and within earshot of others does not make it a public statement.
deleted 14y ago

robomartin 14y ago

In many ways, the issue here boils down to what happened to these guys in the context of having joked around with each other in a private conversation. And what happened is tragic. Someone got fired for it. Someone's livelihood was affected by this. Not to mention the emotional shock this surely caused. What's right and what's wrong? Sometimes the answer isn't easy. Private conversations between friends have been known to have content that surely someone, somewhere is bound to find offensive. The other effect is that there are people who hear what they want to hear --or read what they want to read-- rather than what was actually said or written. All you have to do is watch Fox News, CNN or, for that matter, any news show to see this effect. HN is perfect proof of the fact that this happens. I've seen it a bunch of times and I've experienced it myself. A joke is a joke. A dumb comment is a dumb comment. It happens. And, if it hasn't happened to you (plural) yet it surely will at one point or another. I don't know any perfect people. What saddens me in this case is the firing. I think that was wrong. Way wrong. And absolutely unfair. One thought that went through my mind is the idea of surveillance cameras picking up private conversations. One could argue: Well, be aware of it and act accordingly. Then there's the question, perhaps legal, of what actually constitutes a private conversation protected by privacy laws. Does one have the right to publish the contents of someone else's private conversation, whether it was overheard or picked-up via intentional or unintentional surveillance? I don't know. It's a bit disturbing because of the potential implications on the assumption of privacy in otherwise public settings. Now you have to look around before having any kind of a conversation because you don't know if anything you say, offensive or not, might come back to pummel you on the Internet. I would not be surprised if lawyers are involved at this point. I'd certainly go talk to one right away if I was on the receiving end of something like this and it affected my job.

mst 14y ago
Once, sat in the audience at OSCON with people I knew, a particularly inappropriate joke occurred to me that I thought the friend sat next to me would appreciate. I sent it to him via private message using my laptop. That way, the conversation was -actually- private, rather than 'private plus whoever else sat near me overheard what I said'. This is not a difficult concept for me, though my primary motivation was 'not distracting the people around me' rather than what they might have thought of the content.

michellegreer1 14y ago

Call me crazy, but something tells me this guy wasn't just fired for this incident. Good Python help can be hard to come by and firing someone over a private dongle joke has been seen by everyone, including Adria, as a total overreaction. That being said, telling a woman that she should be raped or killed over such a circumstance (which did happen on Twitter) is also an overreaction. This sort of thing happens quite a bit to any woman who seems to challenge the status quo culture of tech. Both women AND men I know are saddened that this happens. People shouldn't feel that the speech police will reign down on private jokes not directed towards specific people. And no woman should ever be threatened with rape or death, especially when she is not reponsible for the overreaction that ensued. While you are right in thinking that perhaps an apology would stop all this, you have to consider the price that Adria paid because she was sick of hearing evidence of "bro culture" in programming. Have you ever had someone tell you that you should be raped? Do people wish you dead? I doubt Adria would disagree with your assessment, as she could never have anticipated that the man would have been fired. At this point though, she is probably hoping she can still do her job without getting hurt by some. Your hindsight observation doesn't really help here.

Torgo 14y ago
Some people posting on here seem to think that what Adria had done represents an evolution of social pressure for change. But in the end they will both have been fired by their employers because they were associated with bad publicity and not because of what they may have done. I think that is the lesson of this event for why, regardless of the reasons or the legitimacy of her being offended (I think a separate but legitimate discussion btw,) the way she responded was a mistake.

jack_trades 14y ago

Public shame is not a problem. Public shame is less about an individual and more about sharing expectations with a community. Shame on people who can't help but blurt out clumsy penis jokes in essentially tight quarters at a professional conference. Go and make colorful jokes everywhere and then defend yourself on twitter. Who's stopping you/them? They have twitter accounts, no? Represent yourselves. More words tell us more about you. Maybe we can laugh with you. Maybe your words are so witty that they make us believe you should build our next project? Maybe someone's inability to control their thoughts and words hints at their abilities to develop solid projects following best practices? Seeing, mostly, entitle, white men parse apart interpretation and imply that women are not thinking critically when supporting an small instance of truth to power smacks of just how low social IQ is amongst the development community. It is inspiring to see the scale of the backlash. More acts of this nature will follow and awareness of expected behavior will have positive effects for women in tech. Nobody is really arguing that clumsy penis jokes have a place in "beige" professional environments, right? It's not about a silly penis joke. Adria is obviously comfortable with silly penis jokes. It wasn't content, it was all about context. She's not comfortable with certain attendees' sense of entitlement to communicate a message that turns her professional environment into a space where she is not considered equal, let alone valuable. She mentioned the catalyst of the young girl's picture. She and that girl are not annoyances within the men's club of seriously capable developers. They are humans on some point of the same journey as everyone else in attendance. Why should they not be afforded the same benefit of NOT having to constantly worry about some set of barriers to success? Certain communications in a professional environment indicate if people within that environment have power and control. These comments, in that context, imply that those individuals felt they could not be compelled to behave in socially acceptable ways. If they weren't willing to stand up with their company's logo on their chest and say it through the mic, they know that expressing it in the seats signals to surrounding ears that they have the power to act outside normal bounds of decency. The environment is toxic and hints at even worse environments outside that venue. Also, wordplay on forking a repo is particularly anti-social. The developer is the actor who is enabled to control the object of the action because the object was not performing for them. An analogy to rape is too obvious. It's just not joke-worthy. The outcome should have been expected. The more we talk, the louder the backlash, but the public awareness is likely to have a net positive effect long-term.

rmrfrmrf 14y ago

Is it really that hard to act like a professional adult while you're at work? The simplest solution is to simply stop telling penis jokes at work.

RougeFemme 14y ago
Agreed. But there are obviously huge differences in definitions for acting like a professional adult. I think people even disagree on when/where you should have to act like a professional adult - if at all.

jessedhillon 14y ago

I'm quite sure they would not like to be publicly outed for a private conversation. It's not private if you're in public and other people can hear you. What would you think if they were describing the details of their company's upcoming S-1 filing? Private conversation still?

horseface 14y ago

there's no opportunity to defend yourself from a tweet? tweet back. certainly you agree twitter is effective now that a bunch of racist, sexist scumbags used it to harass her company into firing her.

danielweber 14y ago
I look forward to the day when debates are settled by who has the most twitter followers. Or who has the loudest voice.[1] [1] http://youtu.be/IiZeOgxpCmI?t=1m43s http://youtu.be/IiZeOgxpCmI?t=1m43s

antihero 14y ago

I agree except I don't think there is anything wrong with some silly innuendo. If that really offends you, you need to sort your life out.

MartinCron 14y ago

I do NOT believe that ANYONE should suffer the wrath of the Internet I would encourage everyone to react more slowly and deliberately to stories like this that outrage them. This applies to companies firing people as well as people using the complex facts to support their existing points of view. Slow down, everyone. Injustice will still be there for you after your blood pressure goes down.

Domenic_S 14y ago
Makes me wonder if our glacial justice system in the US is intentional, to avoid this kind of thing.
- MartinCron 14y ago
  I'm sure that's a big part of it. Things like due process and jury trials are slow, but they're the best things we've got.
- lmickh 14y ago
  There is plenty of commentary from the founders to indicate that. Judges are suppose to be above the "rule by mob" mentality. Choosing justices according to hot topic political views as we have been recently is directly counter to the whole purpose.
fafner 14y ago
> Slow down, everyone. Injustice will still be there for you after your blood pressure goes down. That's why you should follow Prussian military complaint rules. The Prussian military allowed all soldiers to file complaints, even against officers. However the rule was that you could only file a complaint after one night had passed. The idea is of course that you can think about what happened and reevalute it. Naturally the rule has its limits. If you are actively harassed then try to find help immediately. But in most cases it is a pretty good rule.
- MartinCron 14y ago
  I very deliberately didn't comment on this story when it broke yesterday and had to actively fight my instinct to point out just how obviously wrongheaded some people were. Now, if nothing else, I can look back and be proud that I wasn't baited into saying anything hostile or embarrassing.

rayiner 14y ago

Fucking NorCal. Nobody in NYC would've blinked at that joke. Relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FAI_-woNh4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FAI_-woNh4

hprx 14y ago
http://cmx.io/#5214736 http://cmx.io/#5214736
SallySinep 14y ago
This is so true. Mind you, I run with a fairly politically-charged crowd -- pro-feminist, pro-gay, firmly anti-racist and anti-sexist -- the kind of people who wouldn't think twice of throwing you out of a bar, physically if necessary, for saying something legitimately creepy or offensive. But still I can't imagine that kind of a joke getting anything more than smirk, or a roll of the eyes out here. Really now, some people need to get a grip, and a sense of perspective.
- laichzeit0 14y ago
  "the kind of people who wouldn't think twice of throwing you out of a bar, physically if necessary" How is this type of reaction any better than saying something anti-feminist, anti-gay, racist or sexist? Sorry but people need to get over the idea that they have the right not to be offended. If you're offended then you can say "I'm offended", you can leave, you can ask the person to leave, you can offer a rebuttal, etc. But physically man-handling someone or reacting in a way that suggests that they have someone violated your "right not to be offended" is wrong because you have/should have no such right.
  - SallySinep 14y ago
    Apparently you don't hang in bars too often. If you're at a bar and you're ruining the vibe in any way, you need to get out. If you don't leave when asked, you will be gently but firmly escorted to the door. It's just the way things work. But again, this refers to bars and other private establishments. I wasn't talking about how things should be handled in society at large.

lucisferre 14y ago

Whether you believe she was appropriate or not (I don't but that doesn't matter) the fact is conversations and actions made in public are not ever really "in private".