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Unbelievable. What kind of idiot makes a soft porn presentation in an age when nude calendars are banned from auto shops. I grew up when off color stories wer

by russell 18y ago

Unbelievable. What kind of idiot makes a soft porn presentation in an age when nude calendars are banned from auto shops. I grew up when off color stories were ok with professionals so long as ladies werent present. It was ok to call women 'honey' and make suggestive remarks. I was glad to see that go, along with racist jokes. Women belong in every enterprise. If the screening process is passing women by because they are not technical ninjas or dont want to work 80 hour weeks or dont do so well in alpha male interviews, the group is going to suffer because it is going to miss out on a diversity of skills and viewpoints.

jrockway 18y ago
Unbelievable. What kind of idiot makes a soft porn presentation in an age when nude calendars are banned from auto shops? "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." Seriously, not everyone is that hung-up about sex. Anyway, it is amazing how much damage the community is doing to itself over a 20 minute presentation by one guy. If you resign your positions and spend pages and pages talking about it, you're just going to encourage others to do the same. This guy has power now.
- batasrki 18y ago
  That's the problem here. The presentation itself may have been tasteless and offensive to some and quite the opposite to others. That's not at issue here. The issue here is that people who lead by example in the community have completely turned a blind eye to those who were offended. A sincere apology and a few words saying that some attention will be paid towards these things in the future would have sufficed. The arrogance of the prominent members is what's spreading these flames. They have said publicly that there's no problem here and that those offended should have just left. As Mike pointed out, some more serious stuff was said privately. So, everyone, please understand. It's not the slides themselves, it's the reaction after the controversy.
  - plinkplonk 18y ago
    "The issue here is that people who lead by example in the community have completely turned a blind eye to those who were offended. " It is probably just me, but I hate these kind of group think coercion efforts. Maybe (just as a thought experiment, bear with me before reaching for that downvote button) are there circumstances in which "turning a blind eye to those who were offended." is the right thing to do? Just think about it for a few seconds. I am not sure anyone has a right not to be offended. Let me repeat that. No one has the right to insist that other people live in such a manner as not to give them the slightest offense.. If some of the people involved genuinely felt that "there is no problem" and other people say that "no there is a problem", and there is no consensus, then the best that can be done is to say, ok folks, each of you act according to what you think is right (and suffer any consequences therefrom) and we'll see who prevails. "A sincere apology and a few words saying that some attention will be paid towards these things in the future would have sufficed." This assumes that the apology needs to be made at all. For the apology to be "sincere" the person who is supposed to apologize has to feel he has done something wrong, and more importantly care that other people got offended. DHH for one obviously doesn't care what other people think, and I respect the man for being consistent in his beliefs and not backing down before people trying to lay some pc guilt trip on him. I am just a little wary of the "no one should be offended in any manner" idea. In the end, this is open source software. "Shut up and write code" is probably more useful advice than all this political correctness laden hand wringing. If people who didn't like the talk had just walked out, no one would know or care if some guy somewhere made some off kilter presentation. The "people who lead by example in the community" are as or more intelligent than the whiners and are just as free to make up their minds on whether to give any credence to the complaints or not. Some of the "leaders by example" seem to have concluded that they don't accept the validity of the complaints. So what? Don't they have the right to do so? If someone doesn't like the way Rails framework or "community" is progressing, they can fork it. Stop submitting patches or features. Don't use it. Write an alternative framework, possibly in another language. Just don't whine for blog post after blog post on what other people should do to conform to your notions of what is right. You wouldn't like it if other people forced their notions of what was right on to you and forced you to apologize when you think there is no reason to do so. Ok Thought Experiment over. Back to normal programming (pun intended). I just thought examining both sides of the issue is important.
- russell 18y ago
  This isnt about sexual hangups. It's about respect for others in the workplace and similar venues. Most HNers are to young to know what it was like for a woman a few decades back where propositions, sex for promotions, and the like were common. Talk to some women in their 50's about what it was like when they first entered the workforce. It seems alien to us technical types, because we are pretty respectful of others, at least in person. The outrage is there because an awful lot of us dont want any backsliding, not because we are prudes.
  - jrockway 18y ago
    Why is sex offensive to women but not men? Would there not be outrage if the pictures were of scantilly-clad guys?
- jimbokun 18y ago
  "Seriously, not everyone is that hung-up about sex." Feeling a need to put porn in your presentation about CouchDB is a hang-up about sex. There are all kinds of activities that, while perhaps unobjectionable in and of themselves, just do not go well together. I do not understand how so many seem to have lost the idea that context matters. What might be perfectly appropriate content or behavior at a party or a club in mixed company can be totally inappropriate at a business meeting, wedding, funeral, or conference presentation. Why does this idea even need explaining? DHH was commenting that doctors, lawyers, and other professional groups have far raunchier conversations than programmers, and manage to attract women just fine. So my question is: do doctors routinely slip porn into a presentation about a clinical studies trial? Does a lawyer slip porn into his slides for his closing remarks? Does anyone honestly think either of those would go over well?
  - rimantas 18y ago
    How can you call images in that presentation porn?
    - plinkplonk 18y ago
      " So my question is: do doctors routinely slip porn into a presentation about a clinical studies trial? Does a lawyer slip porn into his slides for his closing remarks? Does anyone honestly think either of those would go over well?" The point is not everyone agrees those images are "porn". And if they were, that it is inappropriate to do so. People have a range of opinions from "utterly disgusting" to "wtf? It is just a presentation at a conference." That is the "problem".
      - ankhmoop 18y ago
        The inappropriateness of the images is their context -- whether classified as porn or merely risque, their only purpose in this talk was to cloud a technological discussion on the state non-relational distributed key/value databases and their comparison to RDBMs systems, and in doing so unnecessarily offended a significant subset of the audience. For example, compare slides 15 (RDBMs): http://www.slideshare.net/mattetti/couchdb-perform-like-a-pr0n-star/15 http://www.slideshare.net/mattetti/couchdb-perform-like-a-pr... and 52 (CouchDB): http://www.slideshare.net/mattetti/couchdb-perform-like-a-pr0n-star/52 http://www.slideshare.net/mattetti/couchdb-perform-like-a-pr...
- agola 18y ago
  I'm pretty sure I'm not hung up about sex, and I'm still uncomfortable bringing it into semi-professional environments where others will be uncomfortable with it. Not because it's sex, but because it's unnecessarily provocative and rude (most of the people defending it seem completely stuck on the "you all think sex is bad!" trip, but a number of other non-sexual issues would fit the same bill, depending on the group you were trying to work with). There are other social contexts in which I would fight for someone's right to display stuff like that (e.g., for an individual's right to have a personal off-hours blog with nudity and sexual content, or march in a gay pride parade wearing only a bullwhip, and not suffer workplace consequences if someone from HR happens to discover it)--but a coding presentation is one of the least important places, in my personal estimation, for me to be arguing for the right to show that stuff. By forcing it, I lose more than I gain: I get to see babes in the slides (big woop), and the people who aren't comfortable with it are told to go to hell if they don't like it, regardless of whatever other value they may have. It's no particular skin off my male, porn-loving back, but I don't need to see stuff like that in a rails presentation (aside from the fact that it's distracting: as Alan Moore has commented about the difficult balance in writing intellectual porn, "too much blood to the dick means very little blood to the brain"). I can live without the slides, but I do need to be able to work with people who come from different (possibly conservative and religious) backgrounds. Having lived and worked around people like that for years, I may strongly disagree with them on some pretty basic social/political issues, but we can get along fine professionally without stepping into those waters, and they're often valuable colleagues. Much more valuable to me than porn in my presentations.
cjbos 18y ago
"If the screening process is passing women by because they are not technical ninjas or dont want to work 80 hour weeks or dont do so well in alpha male interviews" Except for your last point there the others are pretty bad stereotypes. For example women have no trouble finding employment as lawyers or doctors which comes with 80hr work weeks... yet they are still vastly underrepresented in IT.

by russell 18y ago

jrockway 18y ago

Unbelievable. What kind of idiot makes a soft porn presentation in an age when nude calendars are banned from auto shops? "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." Seriously, not everyone is that hung-up about sex. Anyway, it is amazing how much damage the community is doing to itself over a 20 minute presentation by one guy. If you resign your positions and spend pages and pages talking about it, you're just going to encourage others to do the same. This guy has power now.

batasrki 18y ago
That's the problem here. The presentation itself may have been tasteless and offensive to some and quite the opposite to others. That's not at issue here. The issue here is that people who lead by example in the community have completely turned a blind eye to those who were offended. A sincere apology and a few words saying that some attention will be paid towards these things in the future would have sufficed. The arrogance of the prominent members is what's spreading these flames. They have said publicly that there's no problem here and that those offended should have just left. As Mike pointed out, some more serious stuff was said privately. So, everyone, please understand. It's not the slides themselves, it's the reaction after the controversy.
- plinkplonk 18y ago
  "The issue here is that people who lead by example in the community have completely turned a blind eye to those who were offended. " It is probably just me, but I hate these kind of group think coercion efforts. Maybe (just as a thought experiment, bear with me before reaching for that downvote button) are there circumstances in which "turning a blind eye to those who were offended." is the right thing to do? Just think about it for a few seconds. I am not sure anyone has a right not to be offended. Let me repeat that. No one has the right to insist that other people live in such a manner as not to give them the slightest offense.. If some of the people involved genuinely felt that "there is no problem" and other people say that "no there is a problem", and there is no consensus, then the best that can be done is to say, ok folks, each of you act according to what you think is right (and suffer any consequences therefrom) and we'll see who prevails. "A sincere apology and a few words saying that some attention will be paid towards these things in the future would have sufficed." This assumes that the apology needs to be made at all. For the apology to be "sincere" the person who is supposed to apologize has to feel he has done something wrong, and more importantly care that other people got offended. DHH for one obviously doesn't care what other people think, and I respect the man for being consistent in his beliefs and not backing down before people trying to lay some pc guilt trip on him. I am just a little wary of the "no one should be offended in any manner" idea. In the end, this is open source software. "Shut up and write code" is probably more useful advice than all this political correctness laden hand wringing. If people who didn't like the talk had just walked out, no one would know or care if some guy somewhere made some off kilter presentation. The "people who lead by example in the community" are as or more intelligent than the whiners and are just as free to make up their minds on whether to give any credence to the complaints or not. Some of the "leaders by example" seem to have concluded that they don't accept the validity of the complaints. So what? Don't they have the right to do so? If someone doesn't like the way Rails framework or "community" is progressing, they can fork it. Stop submitting patches or features. Don't use it. Write an alternative framework, possibly in another language. Just don't whine for blog post after blog post on what other people should do to conform to your notions of what is right. You wouldn't like it if other people forced their notions of what was right on to you and forced you to apologize when you think there is no reason to do so. Ok Thought Experiment over. Back to normal programming (pun intended). I just thought examining both sides of the issue is important.
russell 18y ago
This isnt about sexual hangups. It's about respect for others in the workplace and similar venues. Most HNers are to young to know what it was like for a woman a few decades back where propositions, sex for promotions, and the like were common. Talk to some women in their 50's about what it was like when they first entered the workforce. It seems alien to us technical types, because we are pretty respectful of others, at least in person. The outrage is there because an awful lot of us dont want any backsliding, not because we are prudes.
- jrockway 18y ago
  Why is sex offensive to women but not men? Would there not be outrage if the pictures were of scantilly-clad guys?
jimbokun 18y ago
"Seriously, not everyone is that hung-up about sex." Feeling a need to put porn in your presentation about CouchDB is a hang-up about sex. There are all kinds of activities that, while perhaps unobjectionable in and of themselves, just do not go well together. I do not understand how so many seem to have lost the idea that context matters. What might be perfectly appropriate content or behavior at a party or a club in mixed company can be totally inappropriate at a business meeting, wedding, funeral, or conference presentation. Why does this idea even need explaining? DHH was commenting that doctors, lawyers, and other professional groups have far raunchier conversations than programmers, and manage to attract women just fine. So my question is: do doctors routinely slip porn into a presentation about a clinical studies trial? Does a lawyer slip porn into his slides for his closing remarks? Does anyone honestly think either of those would go over well?
- rimantas 18y ago
  How can you call images in that presentation porn?
  - plinkplonk 18y ago
    " So my question is: do doctors routinely slip porn into a presentation about a clinical studies trial? Does a lawyer slip porn into his slides for his closing remarks? Does anyone honestly think either of those would go over well?" The point is not everyone agrees those images are "porn". And if they were, that it is inappropriate to do so. People have a range of opinions from "utterly disgusting" to "wtf? It is just a presentation at a conference." That is the "problem".
    - ankhmoop 18y ago
      The inappropriateness of the images is their context -- whether classified as porn or merely risque, their only purpose in this talk was to cloud a technological discussion on the state non-relational distributed key/value databases and their comparison to RDBMs systems, and in doing so unnecessarily offended a significant subset of the audience. For example, compare slides 15 (RDBMs): http://www.slideshare.net/mattetti/couchdb-perform-like-a-pr0n-star/15 http://www.slideshare.net/mattetti/couchdb-perform-like-a-pr... and 52 (CouchDB): http://www.slideshare.net/mattetti/couchdb-perform-like-a-pr0n-star/52 http://www.slideshare.net/mattetti/couchdb-perform-like-a-pr...
agola 18y ago
I'm pretty sure I'm not hung up about sex, and I'm still uncomfortable bringing it into semi-professional environments where others will be uncomfortable with it. Not because it's sex, but because it's unnecessarily provocative and rude (most of the people defending it seem completely stuck on the "you all think sex is bad!" trip, but a number of other non-sexual issues would fit the same bill, depending on the group you were trying to work with). There are other social contexts in which I would fight for someone's right to display stuff like that (e.g., for an individual's right to have a personal off-hours blog with nudity and sexual content, or march in a gay pride parade wearing only a bullwhip, and not suffer workplace consequences if someone from HR happens to discover it)--but a coding presentation is one of the least important places, in my personal estimation, for me to be arguing for the right to show that stuff. By forcing it, I lose more than I gain: I get to see babes in the slides (big woop), and the people who aren't comfortable with it are told to go to hell if they don't like it, regardless of whatever other value they may have. It's no particular skin off my male, porn-loving back, but I don't need to see stuff like that in a rails presentation (aside from the fact that it's distracting: as Alan Moore has commented about the difficult balance in writing intellectual porn, "too much blood to the dick means very little blood to the brain"). I can live without the slides, but I do need to be able to work with people who come from different (possibly conservative and religious) backgrounds. Having lived and worked around people like that for years, I may strongly disagree with them on some pretty basic social/political issues, but we can get along fine professionally without stepping into those waters, and they're often valuable colleagues. Much more valuable to me than porn in my presentations.

cjbos 18y ago

"If the screening process is passing women by because they are not technical ninjas or dont want to work 80 hour weeks or dont do so well in alpha male interviews" Except for your last point there the others are pretty bad stereotypes. For example women have no trouble finding employment as lawyers or doctors which comes with 80hr work weeks... yet they are still vastly underrepresented in IT.