6 ms·

So looking forward to Jon's book on this. "Them" was superb. Also, was it just (white, male, non-Jewish) me, or did Adria come across really badly in that inte

by sago 12y ago

So looking forward to Jon's book on this. "Them" was superb. Also, was it just (white, male, non-Jewish) me, or did Adria come across really badly in that interview?

Scramblejams 12y ago
Yep, she certainly did.
- xenadu02 12y ago
  It is merely luck that "Henry" as a developer is in extremely high demand and so got a new job right away. I'm not sure he would be so gracious and understanding about it if his family were suffering as a result of Adria's tweet. There's also the issue of blending in with the crowd... things like this can't really stick around for a white male average-looking "John Smith". But female developers are rarer and black female developers named Adria are rarer still, so in that sense the deck was stacked against her from the beginning and it doesn't surprise me in the least that she hasn't been able to find a new job yet; she also suffered a lot more as the recipient of the internet hate machine. Those things are bound to make her less happy about the whole situation.
  - sago 12y ago
    None of the victims came across as happy about the situation. Nor should they have. The things Adria suffered were despicable, deplorable and unimaginably distressing for most of us, I'm sure. But she did come across badly. Both relative to the other victims and generally. I've no idea if that was her or Jon's writing of her, but it was disappointing. My acknowledgement of my gender, race and religious privilege was intended as an invite for anyone to disagree, tbh. I'd like to know if someone who isn't male, white and non-Jewish reads the piece, whether they read her as being more sympathetic.
  - Scramblejams 12y ago
    Do we know that she hasn't been offered something? The whole thing was so high profile and she had so many defenders that I'd be quite surprised if no one had offered her a reasonable position. Now obviously whether she would have found it reasonable is another discussion.
  - A_COMPUTER 12y ago
    She was a "developer evangelist" which is really more of a people-person type of job. I feel the same way about her as about the other woman that Ronson wrote about: they didn't deserve to be mobbed, but considering that their job was effective communication I'm not surprised they'd find it hard to find work after demonstrating terrible skills at communicating.
  - chris_wot 12y ago
    Adria Richards made it very public. Whoever those developers were, they kept very quiet and Hank apologized and didn't assign any blame to Adria. That's the real difference.
MichaelGG 12y ago
> “Danger,” she said. “Clearly my body was telling me, ‘You are unsafe.’” ... I'm honestly shocked anyone could say that with a straight face. Apart from the incorrectness (is there any reason to believe a developer making a joke about dongles increases the risk of bodily harm?) -- what the hell does "your body" saying things have to do with anything? I'm a guy and my "body" says all sorts of things that I wouldn't repeat or act on. She's implying she has no civilized control over her natural, probably rather miscalibrated like everyone's, instincts? And to claim there's a risk of getting killed... it sounds like the no-fly list. Such obvious danger that we must restrict such people drastically because we're so sure they're going to kill people, but we've no actual evidence of wrongdoing to actually arrest or otherwise prosecute them. And then going on to accuse the guy of starting a hate campaign against her? When all evidence points in the opposite direction? Perhaps she's planning a career move or book or something, and it's good publicity to just double down on her position, rather than just be another person that made a mistake? It really hurts equality in tech when these incidents happen.
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  And to claim there's a risk of getting killed Not to mention the idea that the presence of 2,000 bystanders offered absolutely no protection- because they were all white & male. Like, what, they would just stand there and watch her be murdered because she's a black woman?
  - MichaelGG 12y ago
    And her tweet only said "not cool". If there was mortal danger, you'd think there'd be a bit more of a warning.
  - scintill76 12y ago
    The most charitable way I can interpret it, is that she's trying to verbalize a genuine, if irrational, fear and unconscious thought process that drove her emotions in that moment. Talking about what "the body is saying" makes sense in that context. Still, she is not quoted as saying something like "But I recognize that's irrational, and that tweeting would not save me if I were actually in imminent bodily danger." So my conclusion is also not favorable to her, or maybe that the article author has not been fair to her.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
scintill76 12y ago
> He’s a white male. I’m a black Jewish female. He was saying things that could be inferred as offensive to me, sitting in front of him. It must get really tiring, carrying such a heavy chip on the shoulder. How is anybody supposed to know she's Jewish? If they did know and modified their behavior accordingly, they might end up being called bigoted. Is there any way to win this one in Richards's book? "Could be inferred as offensive to me" -- wow. Again, how is anybody supposed to know what could offend you? If this is the standard for offense, it looks like the only winning move in communication is not to do any at all. I'd feel worse about dredging this up so many months later, but Richards is active on Twitter lately arguing about it, so I'm not really opening old wounds. Maybe she has a legitimate beef about the exact timeline and chain of cause and effect as reported in the article, but righting that would really not make her look significantly better IMO. She dug her hole deeper in this new interview (at least the way it's presented to us), regardless of small errors it may have about the post. P.S. Even if this is their fault for offending her with the joke, it doesn't follow that it's right for people to lose jobs over it. The article seems to suggest she intended that ("... people are like, ‘Adria didn’t know what she was doing by tweeting it.’ Yes, I did.") Her justification for this disproportionate response is some mishmash of the offense, race, gender, and that the offender wasn't mentally retarded (seriously.) "No one would have known he got fired until he complained... Maybe he’s to blame for complaining that he got fired." I can agree that it probably would have not turned so ugly if this fact hadn't come out. But this is not a card Richards can play without hypocrisy, IMO. They both experienced something negative in relative private, that provoked an emotional response that led them to post publicly about, that caused the "righteous pitchfork mobs" to react. If Richards had the right to tweet about the joke, "Hank" had the right to post his own negative aftermath on Hacker News. She found out the sword of righteous crusading on the internet cuts both ways, but does not admit her part in it. Also, to be clear, I in no way condone the threats to Adria Richards and have mixed feelings about her losing her job.
snowwrestler 12y ago
She did, but HN doesn't come out looking very good either. The threats against her didn't start with her public tweet, they started with the dev's post here. That doesn't exactly imply good things about the HN audience/community. (And if that feels unfairly negative to you, it might be a hint of how all the targets in this story feel.)

by sago 12y ago

So looking forward to Jon's book on this. "Them" was superb. Also, was it just (white, male, non-Jewish) me, or did Adria come across really badly in that interview?

Scramblejams 12y ago

Yep, she certainly did.

xenadu02 12y ago
It is merely luck that "Henry" as a developer is in extremely high demand and so got a new job right away. I'm not sure he would be so gracious and understanding about it if his family were suffering as a result of Adria's tweet. There's also the issue of blending in with the crowd... things like this can't really stick around for a white male average-looking "John Smith". But female developers are rarer and black female developers named Adria are rarer still, so in that sense the deck was stacked against her from the beginning and it doesn't surprise me in the least that she hasn't been able to find a new job yet; she also suffered a lot more as the recipient of the internet hate machine. Those things are bound to make her less happy about the whole situation.
- sago 12y ago
  None of the victims came across as happy about the situation. Nor should they have. The things Adria suffered were despicable, deplorable and unimaginably distressing for most of us, I'm sure. But she did come across badly. Both relative to the other victims and generally. I've no idea if that was her or Jon's writing of her, but it was disappointing. My acknowledgement of my gender, race and religious privilege was intended as an invite for anyone to disagree, tbh. I'd like to know if someone who isn't male, white and non-Jewish reads the piece, whether they read her as being more sympathetic.
- Scramblejams 12y ago
  Do we know that she hasn't been offered something? The whole thing was so high profile and she had so many defenders that I'd be quite surprised if no one had offered her a reasonable position. Now obviously whether she would have found it reasonable is another discussion.
- A_COMPUTER 12y ago
  She was a "developer evangelist" which is really more of a people-person type of job. I feel the same way about her as about the other woman that Ronson wrote about: they didn't deserve to be mobbed, but considering that their job was effective communication I'm not surprised they'd find it hard to find work after demonstrating terrible skills at communicating.
- chris_wot 12y ago
  Adria Richards made it very public. Whoever those developers were, they kept very quiet and Hank apologized and didn't assign any blame to Adria. That's the real difference.

MichaelGG 12y ago

> “Danger,” she said. “Clearly my body was telling me, ‘You are unsafe.’” ... I'm honestly shocked anyone could say that with a straight face. Apart from the incorrectness (is there any reason to believe a developer making a joke about dongles increases the risk of bodily harm?) -- what the hell does "your body" saying things have to do with anything? I'm a guy and my "body" says all sorts of things that I wouldn't repeat or act on. She's implying she has no civilized control over her natural, probably rather miscalibrated like everyone's, instincts? And to claim there's a risk of getting killed... it sounds like the no-fly list. Such obvious danger that we must restrict such people drastically because we're so sure they're going to kill people, but we've no actual evidence of wrongdoing to actually arrest or otherwise prosecute them. And then going on to accuse the guy of starting a hate campaign against her? When all evidence points in the opposite direction? Perhaps she's planning a career move or book or something, and it's good publicity to just double down on her position, rather than just be another person that made a mistake? It really hurts equality in tech when these incidents happen.

sliverstorm 12y ago
And to claim there's a risk of getting killed Not to mention the idea that the presence of 2,000 bystanders offered absolutely no protection- because they were all white & male. Like, what, they would just stand there and watch her be murdered because she's a black woman?
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  And her tweet only said "not cool". If there was mortal danger, you'd think there'd be a bit more of a warning.
- scintill76 12y ago
  The most charitable way I can interpret it, is that she's trying to verbalize a genuine, if irrational, fear and unconscious thought process that drove her emotions in that moment. Talking about what "the body is saying" makes sense in that context. Still, she is not quoted as saying something like "But I recognize that's irrational, and that tweeting would not save me if I were actually in imminent bodily danger." So my conclusion is also not favorable to her, or maybe that the article author has not been fair to her.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

scintill76 12y ago

> He’s a white male. I’m a black Jewish female. He was saying things that could be inferred as offensive to me, sitting in front of him. It must get really tiring, carrying such a heavy chip on the shoulder. How is anybody supposed to know she's Jewish? If they did know and modified their behavior accordingly, they might end up being called bigoted. Is there any way to win this one in Richards's book? "Could be inferred as offensive to me" -- wow. Again, how is anybody supposed to know what could offend you? If this is the standard for offense, it looks like the only winning move in communication is not to do any at all. I'd feel worse about dredging this up so many months later, but Richards is active on Twitter lately arguing about it, so I'm not really opening old wounds. Maybe she has a legitimate beef about the exact timeline and chain of cause and effect as reported in the article, but righting that would really not make her look significantly better IMO. She dug her hole deeper in this new interview (at least the way it's presented to us), regardless of small errors it may have about the post. P.S. Even if this is their fault for offending her with the joke, it doesn't follow that it's right for people to lose jobs over it. The article seems to suggest she intended that ("... people are like, ‘Adria didn’t know what she was doing by tweeting it.’ Yes, I did.") Her justification for this disproportionate response is some mishmash of the offense, race, gender, and that the offender wasn't mentally retarded (seriously.) "No one would have known he got fired until he complained... Maybe he’s to blame for complaining that he got fired." I can agree that it probably would have not turned so ugly if this fact hadn't come out. But this is not a card Richards can play without hypocrisy, IMO. They both experienced something negative in relative private, that provoked an emotional response that led them to post publicly about, that caused the "righteous pitchfork mobs" to react. If Richards had the right to tweet about the joke, "Hank" had the right to post his own negative aftermath on Hacker News. She found out the sword of righteous crusading on the internet cuts both ways, but does not admit her part in it. Also, to be clear, I in no way condone the threats to Adria Richards and have mixed feelings about her losing her job.

snowwrestler 12y ago

She did, but HN doesn't come out looking very good either. The threats against her didn't start with her public tweet, they started with the dev's post here. That doesn't exactly imply good things about the HN audience/community. (And if that feels unfairly negative to you, it might be a hint of how all the targets in this story feel.)