
My Apology to Naomi Wu and the Make Community - runesoerensen
https://makezine.com/2017/11/19/apology-to-naomi-wu/
======
cromwellian
It's really quite ridiculous, because if you watch some of her videos where
she's doing a build, it's obvious she's doing all the cutting, soldering,
drilling, etc

But more then that, if you watch videos where she is being interviewed talking
about being a Maker (e.g.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcnChnrHwXg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcnChnrHwXg))
she talks just like a real hacker. She uses the exact terminology and process
you'd expect, knowing you're not an expert in something, but just scraping a
whole bunch of different other projects that other people contributed and made
tutorials on, and tweaking them and combining them to make it your own.

It's like this CEO didn't spend even 10 minutes watching her videos and just
decided to believe a conspiracy theory.

~~~
prodtorok
what is a Maker?

~~~
badrabbit
It's a made up term. Titles are suppose to be specific. I made a nice dinner
yesterday myself. Guess I'm a maker too(no recipe used,original as well!)

Since they are using "maker" to describe persons that are engineering
electronics related work,why not just call themselves "electronics engineer"?

Edit: seems I stepped on toes with my comment,I don't know how else to react
to a term like "maker". Could have been less sarcastic but I'll eat up the
downvotes and maintain what small amount of common sense I have.

~~~
mikeash
Every term is made up. That’s how language works.

~~~
badrabbit
When you describe what you do with a term (made up or not),that term should at
the very least give your audience some idea of what you do.

Everyone is a maker. The point of a language is to communicate information,not
to obscure it. Would it be a proper use of language if a programmer called
himself a "writer"? After all he is writing. "programmer" or "software
developer" is used to distinguish what type of writing he/she works with for a
living.

Sorry if that offended you,but from my perspective,it just does not
communicate the nature of their work efficiently.

~~~
mikeash
I’m not offended, I just thought that was a really silly criticism.

Lack of specificity is a much better one.

~~~
badrabbit
Fair enough. This is why I would not ever be able to keep a silicon valley
job.

Sure language is made up,but isn't an obstacle to clear communication bad
language?

I find it hard to accept unreasonable logic(even the popular and trendy kind).

------
runesoerensen
_I consider the issue with me resolved. This apology is more comprehensive and
I have been promised tools with which I can repair my reputation here in
China._

[https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/932363497647751168](https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/932363497647751168)

~~~
smegel
That Twitter page is NSFW. Although the username should have warned me.

~~~
ygaf
Why is a warning downvoted?

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
I didn't downvote but the page is perfectly SFW. There's skin on display but
no more than in, say, a one-piece swimsuit ad (on average- there's four or
five pictures).

There's no inappropriate body parts on display. I'd feel safe to show this to
my boss, though my boss's mother would probably disaprove.

~~~
sn9
Really? I wouldn't dream of showing that page to my boss or coworkers.

Honestly, doing so could plausibly and understandably make many women and some
men uncomfortable.

~~~
viraptor
I agree these may be uncomfortable for some. But they're definitely SFW.

I'm ok with some things being uncomfortable. We got past the idea that women
can wear trousers to work. We can get past this as well. Some progress can be
uncomfortable.

~~~
ryandrake
It’s almost as if... there isn’t a single universal definition of NSFW and
different workplaces have different expectations! I know—-crazy, right?

------
Animats
Well, Dale Dougherty just saved his career. He was going to lose this one.
Naomi Wu has taken on challenges before and built things in front of an
audience. Dale Dougherty is a publishing guy from print media. He acts like
he's the head of the "maker movement", but he himself isn't a "maker". Unlike
Jim Newton, the former head of TechShop, who is really into tools. He could
have become a negative-value asset to Make Magazine and the Maker Faire
operation.

Make Magazine is dated, anyway. It's a print publication. Instructables is the
go-to site for how to make things. That's now run by Autodesk, which
encourages hobbyist use of Autodesk software in hopes that some amateurs will
become pros and buy more Autodesk software.

Naomi Wu's videos are often funny. She has a wry sense of humor. She converted
a 3D printer into a wearable device worn on her back. It runs off batteries
and prints as she rides the subway and walks through malls. The manufacturer
for which she did that can now show that their unusual device is really
robust.

When it doesn't work, she's honest about it. She did an evaluation of a 3D
printer / CNC mill / laser printer combo. The thing is an X-Y-Z platform with
changeable tool heads. It wouldn't home consistently, and Wu gave it a very
negative review.

She has some nice techniques. At one point, she needed to punch a hole through
a nylon covered foam pad, so she could put a bolt through. She heated up a
screwdriver with a butane torch and pushed it through the pad, leaving a clean
hole.

------
cjbprime
The best article I've read on the backstory:
[https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5046](https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5046)

~~~
PhasmaFelis
I've only skimmed it so I may be missing something, but what did Dale
Dougherty actually say about Naomi Wu? All I'm seeing is "Dale Doughtery
tweeted a single line questioning Naomi Wu’s authenticity."

Possibly unrelated, but I'm looking at Wu's Twitter
([https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg](https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg)),
and this is something I struggle with. People should absolutely be allowed to
dress how they please without fear of judgment. As the article says, "I do my
best engineering when sitting half-naked at my desk." There's nothing wrong
with that. But when a person or product deliberately cultivates a
hypersexualized image in a field and setting that has nothing to do with sex,
that's weird and off-putting to me. To swap the genders, I'd have no problem
with a male engineer who does his best work half-naked at his desk at home and
likes to do sexy cosplay sometimes, but it would be weird if that engineer's
professional Twitter was topped with a dozen pics of him shirtless in leather
pants--not "fake" or "inauthentic," just weird.

I realize I know nothing about Wu except a glance at her Twitter, so I
apologize if I'm missing something.

~~~
cjcenizal
I didn't downvote you, but I think you may be getting downvotes because of the
sentence that begins with "But."

> People should absolutely be allowed to dress how they please without fear of
> judgment. As the article says, "I do my best engineering when sitting half-
> naked at my desk." There's nothing wrong with that.

That's it. Full stop. There's nothing to add after that. You don't need to add
"but..." and then state the _exact opposite_ of that sentiment.

You find something weird about someone? Guess what -- we're all weird.
Somebody out there probably finds something about _you_ weird. But who gives a
shit! Life's a lot better once you just get over it and accept people despite
their weirdness. Or even better, _because_ of their weirdness.

~~~
exodust
I think _PhasmaFelis_ has a valid point.

I'd add that what she's doing is not the healthiest role model for young girls
growing up, given the issues with sexism in tech/professional industries.

Tech achievements aside, the flaunting of her breast implants is sad. In the
unlikely case she has not had plastic surgery, she still seems to be asking
people first to "check out my body" and then "btw, I make things too".

I would have the same problem with a man who got 6-pack implants and flaunted
his abs with his tech profile. It's short-term shallowness, and undoes the
achievements in her field. And so I won't be following what she does, and will
now leave this discussion for others.

~~~
billylindeman
Why is it sad? I think that its refreshing to see a woman be fearless in
expressing her femininity / sexuality AND her interest / expertise in tech.
They're not mutually exclusive. A woman saying "check out my body, I'm sexy"
shouldn't disqualify the "btw I make things." The tone of your comment is
along the lines of "she was asking for it" :\

~~~
exodust
There's nothing fearless or feminine about implants.

The "camera review" videos on her channel where she walks around with selfie
stick pointing at her boobs. That's just poor taste click bait, not
"expressing femininity". View count jumps above 1 million the less she wears,
but at what cost?

I've no idea about the main story of apology, I just found this today and
commenting on her channel and choice of brand promotion. This to me would
easily cause lack of trust with whatever she does, simply because of her
willingness to self-exploit for view count.

------
satysin
That was a real dick move by Dale. All you have to do is watch a couple of
Naomi's videos and you can see she is not a fraud. She is comfortable and
competent with all the tools she uses in her videos and not just in a studio
setting either but out and about she will hack on something.

I am glad Dale has apologised as it was long overdue IMHO. I'm not sure I
could be so forgiving as Naomi is though. For 2 weeks her reputation has been
trashed.

~~~
bigiain
Yeah - 2 weeks which I strongly suspect Dale spent arguing "What? I didn't do
anything wrong!" while legal and PR tried desperately to convince him to
publish an apology...

He gets no credit from me for a 2 week late apology that's helpfully published
with an accompanying Chinese translation. There's no sense of personal
acknowledgement of wrongdoing here, just a corporate response to a paying-
customer backlash.

~~~
gnulinux
Well said. This is exactly how I feel about this whole situation.

------
swang
this was his second "apology"

his first one was just a generic, "i'm sorry if i offended anyone" after he
publicized a conspiracy theory about naomi.

then it was revealed that andrew huang (who worked a lot on reverse
engineering the original xbox), was asked in private by dale if naomi was
real, and andrew vouched for her. yet he chose to go with the conspiracy
theory story instead.

this is a, "i better do this or my ass will be fired" deal. the original story
was never posted on hackernews (that i recall) but if she didn't continue to
fight for her reputation this dale would have just let this blow over.

------
kprime
An interesting bit of translation:

English original: I specifically apologize for the tactless use of quotes
around “her” in a tweet of mine that was offensive to Naomi and all women.

Chinese translation:
我还要特别为我那句不得体的在“her”加双引号的暗示她是变性人言论抱歉，这不仅冒犯到Naomi而且对其他女性来说也是不公平的。

Chinese translated back to English: I am especially sorry for my tactless use
of quotes around "her", alluding to that she is transsexual, which is not only
offensive to Naomi but also unfair to other women.

~~~
iliketosleep
That's a good find. Topics related to political correctness are often
mistranslated due to cultural differences; western-style political correctness
isn't really a "thing" in China.

------
jacquesm
What I really didn't like about this whole saga is that when miss Wu decided
to strike back she got banned from Twitter for twelve hours.

~~~
bigiain
Twitter's a fucking trashfire these days. Be an openly public Nazi? Oh no,
we'll remove your blue verified tick! Use Twotter to send rape and death-
threats? "No contravention of Twitter community guidelines..." Tell a nazi who
threatens to kill you to fuck off? Get your account suspended... I feel Dale
and Jack are from the same cult...

------
ilamont
Background:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/GamerGhazi/comments/7b1eqz/ceo_of_m...](https://www.reddit.com/r/GamerGhazi/comments/7b1eqz/ceo_of_make_magazine_dale_dougherty_claims_that/)

Cofounded O'Reilly Media, too:
[http://radar.oreilly.com/dale](http://radar.oreilly.com/dale)

------
failrate
I am super happy to see this response from Dale. I was horrified at what he
posted, as it sounds completely out of character of him from what I know of
him. Glad to see him own it and move onwards and upwards. I hope that this
fixes Naomi's situation.

------
Red_Tarsius
He turns his personal flaws into a collective bias. His first paragraph tries
to shift responsibility from the individual to a larger category of people.

> _"...the negative impact of my tweets was amplified by the fact that I, _a
> white, Western, male _CEO of a key company in the Maker community, publicly
> questioned a young, female, self-employed Chinese maker. "_

~~~
lakechfoma
He's not trying to make the whole group responsible for his mistake, he is
trying to highlight that white western males are powerful over marginalized
groups and hold unconscious biases both collectively and individually. When
someone with large white western male following sends
racist/misogynist/whateverist signals, those signals are easily amplified and
overpowering to whatever marginalized person/group is on the receiving end. So
no, the entire group did not make that mistake. But it is every group members
responsibility to understand these power dynamics and educate/change both
themselves and their peers to not abuse this power be it on purpose or
unconsciously.

When a member of the group looks at a situation like this they need to reflect
on if they are guilty at all and (regardless of if they are) how they can help
change the culture. Your comment on "shifting responsibility" is not
productive in that regard and only comes off as defensive. Not trying to say
you're a white western dude possibly guilty of abusing power dynamics over
marginalized groups, but something to keep in mind.

Also read this[0] blog, much more eloquent and detailed than my response here.

[0][https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5046](https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5046)

------
Mz
This seems to be a rare case of a woman turning a stumbling block into a
career stepping stone. Given the amendments being made, I hope future press
for Ms. Wu on HN is for her work, not her gender, wardrobe or being slandered.

------
asciimo
Fascinating story. In the end, I'm happy to have learned about a new maker
hero to follow. (Naomi Wu, not Dale Dougherty.)

------
lallysingh
What's with this invitation to the Western Maker Faire? The ones in China
aren't equal?

~~~
icebraining
The ones in China are probably not organized by the company directed by him.

------
bArray
Firstly, the public apology was required, she's clearly a maker and was
wrongly accused of being a front person.

>my response reflected my unconscious biases; and the negative impact of my
tweets was amplified by the fact that I, a white, Western, male CEO of a key
company in the Maker community, publicly questioned a young, female, self-
employed Chinese maker.

Fair point about unconscious bias. It's difficult as we are creatures of habit
and purposely always look for patterns, mostly to our advantage but sometimes
to our disadvantage. It's tough. I have seen countless times though that
gender based unconscious bias is present in reality, more times than not
against males - although rarely reported (schools, Universities and work
places).

The next point about how being a CEO for a company in a large engineering
community and then publicly discrediting another person is massively impacting
on the person being attacked. In general it seems to be that the more powerful
your voice, the more you should think about what you say. Even then, powerless
individuals can quickly be amplified for the purpose of being attacked or held
up as a leader of some opinion.

The next part grates. What has the combination of "white", "Western" and
"male" got to do with the apology? Would the CEO's voice be any less effective
if it was from an equally positioned black, African female? I would hope not.
I think this could equally have been any other person of this power
apologizing for doing little to no research. How did we get into the position
where people are apologizing for features they are unable to control, somehow
meaning they can or can't take part in some opinion/discussion? I bet the
answer to that can't be made without discriminating.

And looking at the actions being taken in response, it doesn't make much
sense:

>* With permission from Naomi, we will feature Naomi and her work on the cover
of the next issue of Make: along with a full-length story about her work.

>* We will invite her and help her obtain a VISA to a USA Maker Faire in 2018,
covering her travel and expenses.

>* We will be publishing a diversity audit of Make: as a company and our
properties, and will be setting goals to drive progress on these issues.

>* We will be assembling advisory boards to work with our Maker Faire
organizers to ensure our events are representative of our entire community. We
will invite Naomi to be part of any advisory board for events in China.

Why is there now going to be a diversity audit of Make? What happened to
question the diversity of Make and how does that prevent this public
discrediting from occurring again? Surely a way more effective preventative
measure would be to just turn off the CEO's Twitter account and stop any one
person representative of Make from having unfiltered access to large
audiences.

On the other hand, featuring her work is a good gesture to counteract the
incorrect public statement made. The advisory board position is over the top
and again, seems to suggest that there is something wrong with the Make
community when it was the actions of the CEO.

 _Edit:_ Bad newline formatting for bullet points.

~~~
jrochkind1
Nowhere in the piece does he apologize for being a white, western, male. You
are arguing against or being grated by a straw man that's not there, he didn't
do that.

He did say that "the negative impact of my tweets was amplified" by his social
position, including being a white, western, male. I guess you disagree that
this amplified the negative impact of those tweets? And this disagreement
about assessment of negative impact bothers you for some reason?

He also, I agree, suggests, by the 'actions' they are taking that this social
position probably made it more likely for him to have made this mistake. I
guess you disagree? And are inflamed by this disagreement for some reason?
Except you did write "fair point" about unconscious bias going on here.

I'm not quite sure what is irritating you so.

~~~
bArray
>Nowhere in the piece does he apologize for being a white, western, male. You
are arguing against or being grated by a straw man that's not there, he didn't
do that.

>He did say that "the negative impact of my tweets was amplified" by his
social position, including being a white, western, male. I guess you disagree
that this amplified the negative impact of those tweets? And this disagreement
about assessment of negative impact bothers you for some reason?

Being white, Western and male is an attribute, not a social position. There's
not a single social thing Dale can do that changes those attributes, unlike
being rich and a CEO. Saying those seems to imply (from my perspective) that
those attributes are in some way connected to his behaviour or his power. Put
another way, there wouldn't be a scenario where if Dale was a black and female
I would be saying "well, this could have been a whole lot worse if she was
white and male".

The reason this bothers me is because the next time something bad happens in
Silicon Valley and they happen to be white and male (which is likely given the
overall demographic), they get grouped together and raise this general feeling
that white men are an evil group of people.

>Except you did write "fair point" about unconscious bias going on here.

Everybody has unconscious bias, or at least everybody with a functioning
brain. If I say "banana", almost guaranteed you think of something yellow,
because we make assumptions to reduce the amount of information that needs to
be interpreted about an idea. It's often difficult to work against. It's also
not a property of just white, Western males either. It's shared throughout the
world as an evolutionary advantage.

>I'm not quite sure what is irritating you so.

I know it's only a small thing, but it adds up over time towards this
negativity that's building up in various media channels for or against
different demographics.

~~~
jrochkind1
Being white, Western, and male are totally social positions. That's why they
matter, in a way an 'attribute' like your shirt size doesn't. Because our
society is literally structured around them.

Still not something you can do individually to change them, not something to
apologize for being, not something to feel guilty about it. But something to
be aware of? For sure.

Disagreeing that being white, western (when talking to/about China) and male
amplified the negative impact of the tweets is to pretend society is different
than it is. It's not one's _fault_ one is in that social position, but it _is_
a social position, and it matters.

This may be a stretch, but being an SF reader, it's helpful to imagine an SF
story about, say, aliens that take over the earth and set things up so they're
in charge. Remember the 80s show 'V'? That's pretty much what's really going
on, except not with aliens. Doesn't mean the aliens in V had to feel guilty
for being aliens, and they couldn't change being aliens. But some of the acted
against the other aliens plans to steal all the earths water and eat the
humans, others for them, and others just went along with it. But pretending
things weren't set up to give aliens power over humans wouldn't have helped
anyone (well, except power-hungry aliens).

------
badrabbit
Glad he apologized and offered to right what he wronged. I hope Naomi accepts
the apology as well. That said,unless you were personally wronged by this
man,please let it go and consider this whole drama history. I wish either
party didn't make this about a struggle between genders and classes. Guy acted
like a jerk and apologized,something any one of us can do(regardless of
gender,skin color or nationality)

