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For the life of me I cannot fathom why PlayHaven went to the extreme step of firing the dev in question. What he did was certainly wrong, but certainly not a f

For the life of me I cannot fathom why PlayHaven went to the extreme step of firing the dev in question. What he did was certainly wrong, but certainly not a firable offense. A stern warning from HR would've sufficed. Also, I don't understand the hate and DDoS directed towards SendGrid. I think if any, PlayHaven should've been subject of it and pressured to reinstate the dev in question. SendGrid should've been pressured to warn her, not fire her like it happened. We commit mistakes every once in a while, and losing your job is a big punishment. It's like getting your car seized by the government for speeding 10% over the speed limit. Unfortunately the outcome is that a message is sent that DDoS works to get people that the internet mob doesn't like fired, and that a part of the male tech community is wielding that power. What if parts of the female tech community retaliate with a DDoS against SendGrid now? Looks like the male privilege extends to having the resources to perform DDoS.

btilly 14y ago
For the life of me cannot fathom why PlayHaven went to the extreme step of firing the dev in question. They had 2 devs involved that incident. One they fired. One they publicly said was a valued employee. We will never know why they did what they did, why those devs were treated differently, and whether they had cause for their action. I personally find it hard to believe that this event would be enough cause by itself for a reasonable employer to fire an employee in good standing. Which means that some combination of these three are wrong: my belief, the claim that the employer is reasonable, the claim that the employee was in good standing. Guess whatever combination you want - we are unlikely to ever know the truth. (Though your comment is perfectly in line with my belief.)
- scarmig 14y ago
  But it's a terrible tactical move. They fired one dev out of two, presumably as a value proposition: this was just the one thing to break the camel's back. Which is reasonable, but the issue is that it looks like they fired him entirely for the comment, which obviously has the potential to create a PR fiasco. Lo and behold...
  - jrs235 14y ago
    Perhaps the one that was fired was on probation or already on a performance plan for other issues. This may have been the "not gonna work here" moment.
- konstruktor 14y ago
  As commenter mr-hank, supposedly the person making the dongle-joke, posted yesterday, the other developer was the one who talked about forking a repo, which was not sexual at all, and only sexualised by Adria Richards.
corresation 14y ago
SendGrid should've been pressured to warn her, not fire her like it happened. Their entire business was under assault. They really had no choice in the matter and really are the biggest victims of the whole ridiculous ordeal. This has all turned into farce.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  That sets a rather worrying precedent though, if someone takes a dislike to me because of some perceived grievance and proceeds to DDOS my employer's website is that justifiable grounds for firing me?
- WalterSear 14y ago
  She also said that sendgrid supported her actions.
  - manicdee 14y ago
    She was employed by Sendgrid at that time, so since they were paying her salary, it was obvious to her that she was supported by Sendgrid. I suspect the realisation that they were employing a time bomb as their developer evangelist caused them to rethink the value of employing her in that role. This whole incident could have been averted if Adria had followed her own advice: rather than stir up foment on the Internet (the "thermonuclear option") she could simply have turned to the guys and said, "this is not cool." Adria tries to explain that what was going on in her head was an unfortunate sequence of triggers: she's had a traumatic history, so it's to be expected that some things will "get her goat" and trigger her into irrational behaviour. In this case she apparently believed that telling these men that the jokes were not appreciated would have ended up with her being exposed to ridicule on the Internet. So she took the obvious (to her) course of action which was a thermonuclear preemptive strike.
    - WalterSear 14y ago
      I mean, she tweeted that she was specifically supported by Sendmail in this circumstance.
mhurron 14y ago
> For the life of me cannot fathom why PlayHaven went to the extreme step of firing the dev in question. The appearance of bringing negative publicity to your employer will often get you fired. Make the complaints sexual in nature and you can probably kiss that job good-bye, this is how society handles these things basically everywhere. She brought negative publicity on her company, so she also risked her position. > Looks like the male privilege extends to having the resources to perform DDoS. Oh pull your head out of your ass. This is by far closer to give a man a hammer and every problem looks like a nail. People acted angrily with the tools they knew best.
- recoiledsnake 14y ago
  >Oh pull your head out of your ass Do you really need to use abrasive language like this to get your point across? This isn't Reddit. >People acted angrily with the tools they knew best. Yes, the people who were looking to get her fired did so, and succeeded very well. Do you seriously believe the female or feminist tech community has the resources to perform DDoS?
  - bronson 14y ago
    > Do you seriously believe the female or feminist tech community has the resources to perform DDoS? You don't??!
    - mtrimpe 14y ago
      If you consider the willingness of a large group of people to engage in mildly illegal behaviour and the means to orchestrate such an attack on short notice a 'resource' then they indeed probably don't.
  - monkeyspaw 14y ago
    FWIW, I think the colorful and abusive language in this instance did a good job conveying additional information about the poster's mindset, opinion, and how they relate to others. Note that it doesn't reflect well on them. Part of their point is how they say it. To me, this says they're being reactionary and not mindful of others, which undermines their standing. Bad language is a useful signal in communication. In this case, especially, it's a negative signal about the poster.
zalzane 14y ago
>What he did was certainly wrong, but certainly not a firable offense. It's probably not his first offense. It's more likely that this was just the straw that broke the camel's back rather than his first infraction. >Also, I don't understand the hate and DDoS directed towards SendGrid. 4chan's politics+/b/ boards are chiefly responsible for the DDOS, as far as I know. Those guys love mob mentality and eye-for-an-eye, so it's likely their motivation was to get Richards fired rather than to redeem the guy who made the jokes.
- dohertyjf 14y ago
  Also, "wrong"? It was immature to be sure, but "wrong"?? There are no ethics at play here.
- bigiain 14y ago
  "It's probably not his first offense." Even if that's true (and I've got no clue either way), it's at least in retrospect turned out to be a _spectacularly_ bad PR move for them. If they wanted him gone - they should have fired him "privately", doing something like that as such an obvious response to "internet drama" was _always_ going to be "the wrong thing". (Even it it _was_ "the last straw", they should have waited a week or two - if only just to publicly disconnect their HR processes from being twitter/forum shitstorm driven.)
pyre 14y ago
| For the life of me cannot fathom why PlayHaven | went to the extreme step of firing the dev in | question. | | What he did was certainly wrong, but certainly not | a firable offense. A stern warning from HR | would've sufficed. - The ultra-conservative approach is to distance yourself from anything that could be construed as being supportive of a "boys' club" in tech. - According to CrunchBase, PlayHaven only has 50 employees. It's possible that they don't have an HR person that maybe went through some sort of training for issues like this, and instead decided to go for the approach they thought would be least likely to have fall out (e.g. people up in arms because he's not fired and they are "supporting a misogynist" or something similar). - They could have paid for his PyCon expenses (therefore he was there representing the company), and they felt that he did a poor job representing the company. - It's possible there were other reasons they wanted to fire him before PyCon, but this became a good excuse to act on them.
- niggler 14y ago
  "They could have paid for his PyCon expenses (therefore he was there representing the company), and they felt that he did a poor job representing the company." Doesn't explain why one person is still an employee while the other gentleman was canned. "It's possible there were other reasons they wanted to fire him before PyCon, but this became a good excuse to act on them." I strongly suspect this happened, given the comment in the PlayHaven response: "we will not comment on all the factors that contributed to our parting ways." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5418123 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5418123 EDIT: clarifying that one person was not fired.
  - Semaphor 14y ago
    > Doesn't explain why the other gentleman was canned. Which other gentleman got canned?
    - niggler 14y ago
      Poorly worded. One person, identified as "Andy Reid", was not fired but the other person was. Editing parent to reflect the clarification
newman314 14y ago
Just like politicians wanting to appear to be "tough on crime" often leading to horrible decisions, I'm fairly sure this is the same thing at play here. Had the complaint been private, it likely would have resulted in a warning from HR as you said. Unfortunately, because Adria chose a public forum, it demanded a public response, right or wrong regardless. EDIT: Not understanding the down-vote on my post. Someone please elaborate.
danielweber 14y ago
My impression is that a lot of people who had nothing to do with this conference decided, on both sides, to make this An Issue without caring about the facts on the ground. I saw the MRAs-vs-feminists going at it in at least two places on the Internet, one of them being HN. This issue was a microcosm of all their old fights and they were going to take us down with them.
ritchiea 14y ago
I think firing Adria was appropriate because her actions compromised her ability to function as a developer evangelist. Her irresponsibility in handling the situation has a direct impact on her ability to perform her job. Developer evangelist is largely a PR job, if you are generating incredibly negative PR for your company from that position you should be fired.
tomd3v 14y ago
"What he did was certainly wrong" - why, exactly? Telling a joke to your friend is certainly wrong?

btilly 14y ago

For the life of me cannot fathom why PlayHaven went to the extreme step of firing the dev in question. They had 2 devs involved that incident. One they fired. One they publicly said was a valued employee. We will never know why they did what they did, why those devs were treated differently, and whether they had cause for their action. I personally find it hard to believe that this event would be enough cause by itself for a reasonable employer to fire an employee in good standing. Which means that some combination of these three are wrong: my belief, the claim that the employer is reasonable, the claim that the employee was in good standing. Guess whatever combination you want - we are unlikely to ever know the truth. (Though your comment is perfectly in line with my belief.)

scarmig 14y ago
But it's a terrible tactical move. They fired one dev out of two, presumably as a value proposition: this was just the one thing to break the camel's back. Which is reasonable, but the issue is that it looks like they fired him entirely for the comment, which obviously has the potential to create a PR fiasco. Lo and behold...
- jrs235 14y ago
  Perhaps the one that was fired was on probation or already on a performance plan for other issues. This may have been the "not gonna work here" moment.
konstruktor 14y ago
As commenter mr-hank, supposedly the person making the dongle-joke, posted yesterday, the other developer was the one who talked about forking a repo, which was not sexual at all, and only sexualised by Adria Richards.

corresation 14y ago

SendGrid should've been pressured to warn her, not fire her like it happened. Their entire business was under assault. They really had no choice in the matter and really are the biggest victims of the whole ridiculous ordeal. This has all turned into farce.

jiggy2011 14y ago
That sets a rather worrying precedent though, if someone takes a dislike to me because of some perceived grievance and proceeds to DDOS my employer's website is that justifiable grounds for firing me?
WalterSear 14y ago
She also said that sendgrid supported her actions.
- manicdee 14y ago
  She was employed by Sendgrid at that time, so since they were paying her salary, it was obvious to her that she was supported by Sendgrid. I suspect the realisation that they were employing a time bomb as their developer evangelist caused them to rethink the value of employing her in that role. This whole incident could have been averted if Adria had followed her own advice: rather than stir up foment on the Internet (the "thermonuclear option") she could simply have turned to the guys and said, "this is not cool." Adria tries to explain that what was going on in her head was an unfortunate sequence of triggers: she's had a traumatic history, so it's to be expected that some things will "get her goat" and trigger her into irrational behaviour. In this case she apparently believed that telling these men that the jokes were not appreciated would have ended up with her being exposed to ridicule on the Internet. So she took the obvious (to her) course of action which was a thermonuclear preemptive strike.
  - WalterSear 14y ago
    I mean, she tweeted that she was specifically supported by Sendmail in this circumstance.

mhurron 14y ago

> For the life of me cannot fathom why PlayHaven went to the extreme step of firing the dev in question. The appearance of bringing negative publicity to your employer will often get you fired. Make the complaints sexual in nature and you can probably kiss that job good-bye, this is how society handles these things basically everywhere. She brought negative publicity on her company, so she also risked her position. > Looks like the male privilege extends to having the resources to perform DDoS. Oh pull your head out of your ass. This is by far closer to give a man a hammer and every problem looks like a nail. People acted angrily with the tools they knew best.

recoiledsnake 14y ago
>Oh pull your head out of your ass Do you really need to use abrasive language like this to get your point across? This isn't Reddit. >People acted angrily with the tools they knew best. Yes, the people who were looking to get her fired did so, and succeeded very well. Do you seriously believe the female or feminist tech community has the resources to perform DDoS?
- bronson 14y ago
  > Do you seriously believe the female or feminist tech community has the resources to perform DDoS? You don't??!
  - mtrimpe 14y ago
    If you consider the willingness of a large group of people to engage in mildly illegal behaviour and the means to orchestrate such an attack on short notice a 'resource' then they indeed probably don't.
- monkeyspaw 14y ago
  FWIW, I think the colorful and abusive language in this instance did a good job conveying additional information about the poster's mindset, opinion, and how they relate to others. Note that it doesn't reflect well on them. Part of their point is how they say it. To me, this says they're being reactionary and not mindful of others, which undermines their standing. Bad language is a useful signal in communication. In this case, especially, it's a negative signal about the poster.

zalzane 14y ago

>What he did was certainly wrong, but certainly not a firable offense. It's probably not his first offense. It's more likely that this was just the straw that broke the camel's back rather than his first infraction. >Also, I don't understand the hate and DDoS directed towards SendGrid. 4chan's politics+/b/ boards are chiefly responsible for the DDOS, as far as I know. Those guys love mob mentality and eye-for-an-eye, so it's likely their motivation was to get Richards fired rather than to redeem the guy who made the jokes.

dohertyjf 14y ago
Also, "wrong"? It was immature to be sure, but "wrong"?? There are no ethics at play here.
bigiain 14y ago
"It's probably not his first offense." Even if that's true (and I've got no clue either way), it's at least in retrospect turned out to be a _spectacularly_ bad PR move for them. If they wanted him gone - they should have fired him "privately", doing something like that as such an obvious response to "internet drama" was _always_ going to be "the wrong thing". (Even it it _was_ "the last straw", they should have waited a week or two - if only just to publicly disconnect their HR processes from being twitter/forum shitstorm driven.)

pyre 14y ago

| For the life of me cannot fathom why PlayHaven | went to the extreme step of firing the dev in | question. | | What he did was certainly wrong, but certainly not | a firable offense. A stern warning from HR | would've sufficed. - The ultra-conservative approach is to distance yourself from anything that could be construed as being supportive of a "boys' club" in tech. - According to CrunchBase, PlayHaven only has 50 employees. It's possible that they don't have an HR person that maybe went through some sort of training for issues like this, and instead decided to go for the approach they thought would be least likely to have fall out (e.g. people up in arms because he's not fired and they are "supporting a misogynist" or something similar). - They could have paid for his PyCon expenses (therefore he was there representing the company), and they felt that he did a poor job representing the company. - It's possible there were other reasons they wanted to fire him before PyCon, but this became a good excuse to act on them.

niggler 14y ago
"They could have paid for his PyCon expenses (therefore he was there representing the company), and they felt that he did a poor job representing the company." Doesn't explain why one person is still an employee while the other gentleman was canned. "It's possible there were other reasons they wanted to fire him before PyCon, but this became a good excuse to act on them." I strongly suspect this happened, given the comment in the PlayHaven response: "we will not comment on all the factors that contributed to our parting ways." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5418123 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5418123 EDIT: clarifying that one person was not fired.
- Semaphor 14y ago
  > Doesn't explain why the other gentleman was canned. Which other gentleman got canned?
  - niggler 14y ago
    Poorly worded. One person, identified as "Andy Reid", was not fired but the other person was. Editing parent to reflect the clarification

newman314 14y ago

Just like politicians wanting to appear to be "tough on crime" often leading to horrible decisions, I'm fairly sure this is the same thing at play here. Had the complaint been private, it likely would have resulted in a warning from HR as you said. Unfortunately, because Adria chose a public forum, it demanded a public response, right or wrong regardless. EDIT: Not understanding the down-vote on my post. Someone please elaborate.

danielweber 14y ago

My impression is that a lot of people who had nothing to do with this conference decided, on both sides, to make this An Issue without caring about the facts on the ground. I saw the MRAs-vs-feminists going at it in at least two places on the Internet, one of them being HN. This issue was a microcosm of all their old fights and they were going to take us down with them.

ritchiea 14y ago

I think firing Adria was appropriate because her actions compromised her ability to function as a developer evangelist. Her irresponsibility in handling the situation has a direct impact on her ability to perform her job. Developer evangelist is largely a PR job, if you are generating incredibly negative PR for your company from that position you should be fired.

tomd3v 14y ago

"What he did was certainly wrong" - why, exactly? Telling a joke to your friend is certainly wrong?