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> It's unfortunate TechCrunch and Valley Wag posted the story without first corroborating at least some piece of it. I think we have to be careful with stateme

by glesica 13y ago

> It's unfortunate TechCrunch and Valley Wag posted the story without first corroborating at least some piece of it. I think we have to be careful with statements like this. Yes, they could have tried to find a Github employee who would corroborate part of it, perhaps the assertion that the wife was in the office periodically. But the problem with that is that it is perfectly reasonable to think they would have failed to find anyone willing to talk about it. Then what? Should they not publish? If they hadn't, would Github be investigating now? Would anyone be on leave? Probably not. Asking for corroboration is fine, but we should be mindful that some things that are true can't be corroborated and demanding corroboration just gives the accused party the de facto ability to suppress the information or the debate. Her story passes a basic smell test, it very well could be true, and there is no specific reason to doubt her. While this doesn't mean it is true, it isn't necessarily irresponsible to publish it either.

ssorallen 13y ago
> Would anyone be on leave? Probably not. Again, that is speculation. "What ifs" are not useful here. As "news" outlets, I expect both sites to corroborate stories before posting them. If they don't, they are effectively tabloids. Posting allegations like this is the definition of tabloid journalism. There are too many people involved in this story for me to believe that zero of them were reachable for comment. TechCrunch only vaguely mentions "awaiting comment from GitHub", which could mean anything. I do think it is irresponsible to publish such a story without any corroboration because it implicates several people directly and an entire company's work environment with nothing more than one person's word. The whole story could be true, but the fact is no one knows; TechCrunch and Valley Wag certainly don't.
- glesica 13y ago
  But again, you are proposing that all power be given to the larger, more powerful entity. And I totally disagree about the usefulness of "what ifs". Without "what ifs" we would all be stuck wandering around waiting for food to fall from a tree in front of us. We only have the luxury of observing one "version" of events (unless you can hop between multiverses). Therefore, the only way we have to evaluate past events is by asking "what if" questions. What if TechCrunch hadn't picked up the story? Basically no one would have heard about it and Github quite possibly wouldn't have felt the need to respond or investigate (maybe they still would have, another "what if", but they wouldn't have been under as much pressure). Something went down. I'm not saying we should just lynch the accused parties and move on. But I am saying that often the only way for a small actor to get attention is for a news outlet to pick up his or her story. And if they refuse to publish without some kind of official confirmation, then very few such stories will be printed, because the larger, more powerful entity will quash them with silence.

by glesica 13y ago

ssorallen 13y ago

> Would anyone be on leave? Probably not. Again, that is speculation. "What ifs" are not useful here. As "news" outlets, I expect both sites to corroborate stories before posting them. If they don't, they are effectively tabloids. Posting allegations like this is the definition of tabloid journalism. There are too many people involved in this story for me to believe that zero of them were reachable for comment. TechCrunch only vaguely mentions "awaiting comment from GitHub", which could mean anything. I do think it is irresponsible to publish such a story without any corroboration because it implicates several people directly and an entire company's work environment with nothing more than one person's word. The whole story could be true, but the fact is no one knows; TechCrunch and Valley Wag certainly don't.

glesica 13y ago
But again, you are proposing that all power be given to the larger, more powerful entity. And I totally disagree about the usefulness of "what ifs". Without "what ifs" we would all be stuck wandering around waiting for food to fall from a tree in front of us. We only have the luxury of observing one "version" of events (unless you can hop between multiverses). Therefore, the only way we have to evaluate past events is by asking "what if" questions. What if TechCrunch hadn't picked up the story? Basically no one would have heard about it and Github quite possibly wouldn't have felt the need to respond or investigate (maybe they still would have, another "what if", but they wouldn't have been under as much pressure). Something went down. I'm not saying we should just lynch the accused parties and move on. But I am saying that often the only way for a small actor to get attention is for a news outlet to pick up his or her story. And if they refuse to publish without some kind of official confirmation, then very few such stories will be printed, because the larger, more powerful entity will quash them with silence.