5 ms·

> It was about PR and about a personal agenda You say this like it's a fact. Did I miss some detail of this incident that came out later?

rdtsc 12y ago
> You say this like it's a fact. Did I miss some detail of this incident that came out later? Yes, the part from the Esquire article revealed a few more things that was disappointing to hear, such as that she notified Hank's (not his real name I understand) employer wanting them to force Hank to remove the part of the HN comment where he said he lost his job. That is significant because it reveals her intentions of turning this into a PR campaign presenting herself as a victim. (Nevermind other references to herself of Joan of Arc). She shouldn't have cared about that part of the comment, but she zoomed in on it, because she realized her game was up -- she wasn't the public victim anymore, people will start sympathizing with Hank from that point on.
- kennywinker 12y ago
  From everything I've read, now including the Esquire article, I disagree with your interpretation. But if you believe that her actions were about "PR and a personal agenda" then I think you'd also have to agree that "Hank"'s apology was just as much about "PR and a personal agenda". Esquire article: http://www.esquire.co.uk/culture/books/7933/exclusive-extract-from-jon-ronson-book-so-youve-been-publicly-shamed/ http://www.esquire.co.uk/culture/books/7933/exclusive-extrac...
  - barsonme 12y ago
    I don't understand how it can't be for personal agenda and PR when her response to two adults making juvenile jokes to themselves is to publicly shame them. Since kindergarten children are taught to politely ask somebody to stop as their first step, and escalate from there -- not go nuclear right from the get-go. Or maybe I'm out of the loop on this -- I could be. I really only read about this the other night -- I get a healthy enough dose of drama just in my own life without having to read about somebody else's :-)
    - kennywinker 12y ago
      We don't really need to speculate why she did it. She details it quite articulately on her blog http://butyoureagirl.com/2013/03/18/forking-and-dongle-jokes-dont-belong-at-tech-conferences/ http://butyoureagirl.com/2013/03/18/forking-and-dongle-jokes... <lots of context snipped> > I decided to do things differently this time and didn’t say anything to them directly. I was a guest in the Python community and as such, I wanted to give PyCon the opportunity to address this. <more context snipped> So if "personal agenda" includes being fed up with tech industry sexism, then yeah it was very obviously because of a personal agenda. PR? Sure, she was trying to manage how her story was received by the public. Wouldn't you?
      - throwawaymaroon 12y ago
        The line is crossed when she wants to obscure the truth in her image's favor.
        kennywinker 12y ago
        Like how you're using a throwaway to obscure the truth in your image's favor?
        throwawaymaroon 12y ago
        ...I really don't know what you even intend to mean with this. The truth is that this is a forum that allows anonymous discourse, and I'm not pretending my participation is anything more than that. I hope you explain yourself, because from what I can tell, you're attempting something ugly.
        kennywinker 12y ago
        People try to control how their stories are told, how their stories are received. You are doing so by using a throwaway. As I said in this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9164064 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9164064, I don't think Adria Richards did anything out of line in asking for an apology to be modified. You're allowed to be anonymous in this context, you are allowed to try to control how your story is told.
- scintill76 12y ago
  Wow, I hadn't seen this, so thanks for the pointer. From the Esquire article[0]: > “The next day,” Hank said, “Adria Richards called my company asking them to ask me to remove the portion of my apology that stated I lost my job as a result of her tweet." Has Richards commented on this claim? [0] http://www.esquire.co.uk/culture/books/7933/exclusive-extract-from-jon-ronson-book-so-youve-been-publicly-shamed/ http://www.esquire.co.uk/culture/books/7933/exclusive-extrac...
  - kennywinker 12y ago
    I don't really see how this is a big revelation. If somebody publicly apologized to me for, say, driving drunk and hitting my car, but then went on to play up how they'd lost their job because of it I would call that a bad-faith apology. While I don't personally read "Hank"'s apology as "bad-faith", I can easily see how she might see it that way.
    - scintill76 12y ago
      Your analogy doesn't include contacting the drunk driver's former employer and asking them to ask him to change his apology. She can feel whatever she wants to about whether it was in good faith. But it feels a little underhanded to allegedly try to secretly get him to modify specific statements she doesn't like (possibly with intentional extra leverage by including the former employer.) I say secretly, because another option would be including the request to modify his comment in her own comment[0], and removing it from her own if he did. Yes, that would look silly and be easily discovered, which is probably why she allegedly tried to do it non-publicly. (To her credit, contacting the employer may have been just because it was the only means she had to privately contact him.) I wonder if she immediately saw the tidal wave coming for her when he posted he'd lost his job. If so, it's hard to blame her for trying almost anything to avoid it. Still, it fits into the original comment above, that this was a person deliberately trying to control a narrative to suit her agenda, that being transparent was less important. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5391667 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5391667
      - 12y ago

rdtsc 12y ago

> You say this like it's a fact. Did I miss some detail of this incident that came out later? Yes, the part from the Esquire article revealed a few more things that was disappointing to hear, such as that she notified Hank's (not his real name I understand) employer wanting them to force Hank to remove the part of the HN comment where he said he lost his job. That is significant because it reveals her intentions of turning this into a PR campaign presenting herself as a victim. (Nevermind other references to herself of Joan of Arc). She shouldn't have cared about that part of the comment, but she zoomed in on it, because she realized her game was up -- she wasn't the public victim anymore, people will start sympathizing with Hank from that point on.

kennywinker 12y ago
From everything I've read, now including the Esquire article, I disagree with your interpretation. But if you believe that her actions were about "PR and a personal agenda" then I think you'd also have to agree that "Hank"'s apology was just as much about "PR and a personal agenda". Esquire article: http://www.esquire.co.uk/culture/books/7933/exclusive-extract-from-jon-ronson-book-so-youve-been-publicly-shamed/ http://www.esquire.co.uk/culture/books/7933/exclusive-extrac...
- barsonme 12y ago
  I don't understand how it can't be for personal agenda and PR when her response to two adults making juvenile jokes to themselves is to publicly shame them. Since kindergarten children are taught to politely ask somebody to stop as their first step, and escalate from there -- not go nuclear right from the get-go. Or maybe I'm out of the loop on this -- I could be. I really only read about this the other night -- I get a healthy enough dose of drama just in my own life without having to read about somebody else's :-)
  - kennywinker 12y ago
    We don't really need to speculate why she did it. She details it quite articulately on her blog http://butyoureagirl.com/2013/03/18/forking-and-dongle-jokes-dont-belong-at-tech-conferences/ http://butyoureagirl.com/2013/03/18/forking-and-dongle-jokes... <lots of context snipped> > I decided to do things differently this time and didn’t say anything to them directly. I was a guest in the Python community and as such, I wanted to give PyCon the opportunity to address this. <more context snipped> So if "personal agenda" includes being fed up with tech industry sexism, then yeah it was very obviously because of a personal agenda. PR? Sure, she was trying to manage how her story was received by the public. Wouldn't you?
    - throwawaymaroon 12y ago
      The line is crossed when she wants to obscure the truth in her image's favor.
      - kennywinker 12y ago
        Like how you're using a throwaway to obscure the truth in your image's favor?
        throwawaymaroon 12y ago
        ...I really don't know what you even intend to mean with this. The truth is that this is a forum that allows anonymous discourse, and I'm not pretending my participation is anything more than that. I hope you explain yourself, because from what I can tell, you're attempting something ugly.
        kennywinker 12y ago
        People try to control how their stories are told, how their stories are received. You are doing so by using a throwaway. As I said in this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9164064 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9164064, I don't think Adria Richards did anything out of line in asking for an apology to be modified. You're allowed to be anonymous in this context, you are allowed to try to control how your story is told.
scintill76 12y ago
Wow, I hadn't seen this, so thanks for the pointer. From the Esquire article[0]: > “The next day,” Hank said, “Adria Richards called my company asking them to ask me to remove the portion of my apology that stated I lost my job as a result of her tweet." Has Richards commented on this claim? [0] http://www.esquire.co.uk/culture/books/7933/exclusive-extract-from-jon-ronson-book-so-youve-been-publicly-shamed/ http://www.esquire.co.uk/culture/books/7933/exclusive-extrac...
- kennywinker 12y ago
  I don't really see how this is a big revelation. If somebody publicly apologized to me for, say, driving drunk and hitting my car, but then went on to play up how they'd lost their job because of it I would call that a bad-faith apology. While I don't personally read "Hank"'s apology as "bad-faith", I can easily see how she might see it that way.
  - scintill76 12y ago
    Your analogy doesn't include contacting the drunk driver's former employer and asking them to ask him to change his apology. She can feel whatever she wants to about whether it was in good faith. But it feels a little underhanded to allegedly try to secretly get him to modify specific statements she doesn't like (possibly with intentional extra leverage by including the former employer.) I say secretly, because another option would be including the request to modify his comment in her own comment[0], and removing it from her own if he did. Yes, that would look silly and be easily discovered, which is probably why she allegedly tried to do it non-publicly. (To her credit, contacting the employer may have been just because it was the only means she had to privately contact him.) I wonder if she immediately saw the tidal wave coming for her when he posted he'd lost his job. If so, it's hard to blame her for trying almost anything to avoid it. Still, it fits into the original comment above, that this was a person deliberately trying to control a narrative to suit her agenda, that being transparent was less important. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5391667 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5391667
    - 12y ago