
Official comment from HN on dead threads - bryogenic
Please give us an official comment on this...<p>20 points - Why are all the posts related to Aria [sic] Richards getting deleted? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416578<p>45 points - Effective immediately, SendGrid has terminated the employment of Adria Richards - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416514<p>81 points - Effective immediately, SendGrid has terminated the employment of Adria Richards - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416422<p>48 points - SendGrid has terminated the employment of Adria Richards - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416312<p>148 points (not dead, just shadowed) - SendGrid has terminated the employment of Adria Richards? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416021
======
pg
We're assuming these are fake, and that someone just got hold of their
Facebook and Twitter passwords.

On the other hand, I notice the same statement has appeared on their blog. So
maybe it's real. Or maybe their blog was compromised too.

The really suspicious thing is that they don't seem to have confirmed it to a
reporter yet, which presumably they'd be willing to do if they were so eager
to spread the news that they tweeted about it.

~~~
Udo
I'm hoping it's a fake, too, but three compromised accounts (Twitter,
Facebook, and company blog, all of which are still active) showing the same
thing would make this the most well-executed hack I've seen in a while -
usually fakes like that are just quick drive-by posts.

The Twitter straw man brigade is already making it into "fired for for
speaking out against sexism". I'm really hoping Sendgrid doesn't give them
their martyr. And I'm also hoping Sendgrid didn't do that just to surrender to
the crazy male attack squad that seems to be so vocal and abusive, not to
forget criminal.

On a side note, Twitter has really turned into an absolute sewer, with polemic
knee-jerk reactions and utter foolishness ruling supreme. I wish it was the
idiots on Twitter who were getting fired - both the threatening jerky men as
well as the opportunistic feminist ones.

~~~
anigbrowl
_Twitter has really turned into an absolute sewer_

Content-wise, I don't think any service is immune from that - Reddit can be
pretty horrible and I was shocked by some of the stuff posted to HN Tuesday &
yesterday (though it was quickly cleaned up).

My problem with Twitter is that the brevity and emphasis on the present moment
makes for bad social interactions; the faux-urgency of social media in general
elevates sensation above substance. It's so easy to get the Internet Hate
Machine going, and offers such large ego rewards for people who feel they are
able to shape and direct it, that it's become a regular part of discourse.
Back in pre-web days when NNTP was in regular use, discussions of contentious
subjects were just as vigorous but nowhere near as vicious or reductionist.

Our ability to project our own ideas has significantly outpaced our
willingness to consider those of others, it seems.

~~~
Udo
> _I was shocked by some of the stuff posted to HN Tuesday & yesterday_

As was I, but it got taken care of. I still wish people wouldn't have
downvoted Richards' comments into oblivion though.

 _However_ , what's really different on HN is not that sometimes bad things
happen, it's that there are a lot of people here capable of considering a
balanced opinion and, perhaps most importantly, willing to question the
premise of things. Users on HN often did not simply fall in line behind the
stereotypical camps that feed on this kind of issue, and I don't see that same
capability for actual thought anywhere on Twitter.

By and large we may disagree (hopefully with civility) on conclusions, and
those are productive discussions to have, but we're as a community able to
examine the issue as a whole. That's a pretty unique and valuable trait.

I'm still marveling at how ridiculously easy it is to create fake wedge issue
drama like this, and all of a sudden it's #teamadria on the one side, and
creepy macho assholes on the other, without a single neocortical neuron to
share between them.

~~~
untog
_Users on HN often did not simply fall in line behind the stereotypical camps
that feed on this kind of issue_

Oh god, they do. There are certainly dissenting voices but Hacker News has
proven itself time and time again to be unable to examine the issue of gender,
or more tellingly, unwilling to. These posts disappearing is not a one-off,
there have been numerous instances of people flagging 'difficult' posts on HN,
so that we can all continue arguing about semi-colons.

~~~
Udo
I must confess my knowledge into things that got unfairly flagged away is
pretty limited, so you may well be correct. But as I said, the point is not
that bad things happen here as well. It's that this is the only place where I
actually found worthwhile opinions, whether they may be surrounded by bad ones
or not. Maybe the signal-to-noise ratio is still too low, and we need to fix
that, but at least it's not quickly approaching zero as is the case on, say,
Twitter.

------
ramblerman
I don't really understand the general surprise here over her dismissal.

1) She was effectively a glorified PR person (Developer Evangelist) who went
on to call people asshats on twitter on some personal crusade, whilst bringing
massive negative publicity to the company she is supposed to represent:

"Hey @mundanematt, it's clear from the last 24 hours you're a bully. @SendGrid
supports me. Stop trolling."

2) She drags the discussion down to one of racism because someone uses the
word lynching in a completely different context.

3) She refuses to express any apology or remorse even after it excalates to
the firing of people and a sincere apology from the person involved.

I can't really say I'm shocked the company has let go this person they are
paying to bridge a positive relationship with developers.

~~~
danso
The surprise is that she was fired _so quickly_ and _in the middle_ of a
crippling DDOS attack. What startup has the resources to effectively
adjudicate a sensitive, sensationalized personnel matter while the _goddamn
building is on fire?_ The profanity isn't directed at you: I'm trying to
simulate what I think the DEFCON level should be within SendGrid today.

If she was thrown out in hopes of appeasing the DDOSers, that may be a first.
And because the nature of the episode involved discrimination, they could have
very well opened themselves to a lawsuit if they didn't word their internal
communique carefully.

And, as I said, who has the ability to carefully adjudicate matters when the
building is on fire?

~~~
wakaflaka
Because the ops people do HR as well?

~~~
danso
Even in large companies, hiring and firing is not solely in the domain of the
HR department. Firing decisions usually involve at least the employee's direct
superior. Given that SendGrid is a small company, and that this employee was
involved in a very public controversy, I imagine that the executive team also
had to weigh in on the matter.

Because the controversy involved an allegation of sexism, a prudent company
would also bring in a lawyer. Besides the usual covering-the-bases needed when
firing anyone, you have an employee who believes she acted to stop sexual
harassment. She could very well try to frame the firing as something that
stems from gender discrimination.

Oh yeah, you also want to talk to the employee herself.

So, trying to get what is at least 5 to 6 different people on the same page
and in meetings takes time, logistically, to schedule. Nevermind the time it
takes to investigate the matter and doublecheck the facts and have give-and-
take debates about it.

You really think that when a enterprise company like SendGrid goes under
attack, only the ops people are the ones up late at night? Don't you think the
executives and customer relations have some weight to pull?

All of the above factors make it difficult to believe that the firing took
place after a deliberate, thorough process in the span of two days. It's not
impossible, but it's unlikely enough that no one can be blamed for being
skeptical or surprised.

------
breadbox
It's one thing to delete posts on a certain topic. But deleting posts asking
WHY these posts are getting deleted? How can that possibly end well?

~~~
freehunter
Because posting asking why something got deleted is not terribly constructive
to the mission of HN. It just adds noise. If you have issues with the way the
site is run, making drama on the frontpage is not a great way to settle
things.

~~~
breadbox
I don't think anyone had issues; they were just confused and asking for
clarification. If it's not constructive to have such things on the homepage,
then let it get buried by better subjects. Deleting requests for information
is just going to engender more confusion, and thus score more upvotes for the
next request for information. Case in point: this thread. Which is currently
on the homepage.

------
rahvin
It's also on their official status page: <http://status.sendgrid.com/>

~~~
dageshi
You'd assume that in a worst case scenario where their facebook, twitter
e.t.c. had been hacked and had the passwords changed they'd at least be able
to change this page... presumably?

If not, things are really not going well for sendgrid at the moment.

------
jellicle
It's disappointing to see pg as well as the mods on several pertinent Reddit
subreddits censoring discussion of this story. Yes, the resulting discussion
is going to be a mess filled with misogyny. So what? There's clearly a great
need for discussion of this subject.

~~~
TranceMan
From the FAQ

 _If you turn it on, you'll see all the submissions and comments that have
been killed by the editors. They're mostly spam and duplicates._

Along with unverified information [Facebook/Twitter are not legitimate sources
this early on] I am not surprised at all that these stories were 'deleted'.

I come to Hacker News for the reason that pg and the mods built and maintain
it. Your speak of censorship is sensationalism. [which coincides with this
whole story] This post is on the front page and I predict will get many
points, not deleted and contain valuable discussion.

I am all up for discussion on this story - after reading her blog post [1] and
the fact she posted here [2] - [which I wasn't even aware of until I came to
this thread - thanks to the user down votes she received] her aim was not to
get somebody fired, nor as it appears to me was trying to get herself fired.
She was taking a stand - it had unintended consequences.

The key part of her blog:

 _Have you ever had a group of men sitting right behind you making joke that
caused you to feel uncomfortable?_

Every single conference I have been to in the 'tech' industry the delegates
have been 90%+ males [very often the number of women facilitating was more
than the number of men facilitating]

I have rarely felt 'uncomfortable' by a group of men making a joke - if they
were drunk would more people have felt uncomfortable? Probably. Is that
acceptable at a python conference? No.

Another quote from the blog post:

 _Jesse was on the main stage with thousands of people sitting in the
audience. He was talking about helping the next generation learn to program
and how happy PyCon was with the Young Coders workshop (which I volunteered
at). He was mentioning that the PyLadies auction had raised $10,000 in a
single night and the funds would be used the funds for their initiatives.

I saw a photo on main stage of a little girl who had been in the Young Coders
workshop.

I realized I had to do something or she would never have the chance to learn
and love programming because the ass clowns behind me would make it impossible
for her to do so.

I calculated my next steps. I knew there wasn’t a lot of time and the closing
session would be wrapping up. I considered:

    
    
        The type of event
        The size of the audience
        How the conference had emphasized their Code of Conduct
        What I knew about the community and their diversity initiatives
        How to address this issue effectively and not disrupt the main stage

_

To avoid spamming this thread - read the rest of her blog for her reasoning
and thinking in using twitter and not the pyCon code of practice route.

Nobody should have been fired for this, these [unamed?] 'guys' should have
been told [and hopefully understand] why these sort of 'jokes' are not welcome
and make people feel uncomfortable. If they still choose to make people feel
uncomfortable they should be asked to leave and not return. [Maybe asking them
why they feel the jokes are acceptable]

This could easily derail into a censorship/free speech/sexism flame war -
let's not becuase it's not about that - these guys could have easily tweeted
their immature discussion on twitter or just kept it between themselves - they
didn't and got called out.

1 [http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-
dont...](http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-dont-belong-
at-tech-conferences/) 2
[https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/comments&q=by%3A...](https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/comments&q=by%3Aadriarichards)

------
kjackson2012
This entire incident has snowballed from ridiculous to insane.

However, I find it interesting that Playhaven wasn't DDOS'ed for firing the
guy. If they had acted rationally and didn't fire him, this wouldn't have been
the unmitigated clusterfuck that it has turned into.

------
obituary_latte
I expect this one won't last long either.

Seems like it'd be much easier to make a post explaining the why. We're mostly
smart people here; I think people would understand if there were a decent
explanation (which there likely is).

edit: thanks; <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416979>

------
benjaminwootton
Firing her would be such an obviously dumb move that people are thinking it
must be fake.

And yet it's probably true....

~~~
adrr
I assume they asked her apologize and she refused. The only recourse would be
to terminate her employment. Apology would have been a logical move because it
could have defused the situation.

~~~
Shank
She apologized on HN two days ago.

~~~
eitland
Do you have the source?

(I have read comments about the guys apologizing but you are the first I see
to mention that she made any kind of apology.)

------
goodwink
I think the blog post, twitter post, facebook post, all out push to get this
"news" out leans towards the firing being fake. This isn't the sort of thing
you'd really want to spam over all your official channels. The people who have
a horse in this race are aware of the issue and will know what the outcome is
and the rest of their customers don't care.

------
meritt
So, has anyone reputable simply called over to SendGrid and asked them instead
of spending time speculating?

~~~
thomasz
I guess everyone reputable knows that they have better things to do right now
than satisfying our curiosity, like, for example, dealing with a ddos.

------
3am
Because it's a distasteful, sensationalist subject that any decent curator of
a community would try to marginalize?

~~~
jellicle
"Decent curator" is prejudging your outcome, don't you think?

If your goal for a "community" is something shallow, stage-managed, and
beautiful, then sure, you'll want to bury this story. Many communities are run
like that, to be sure.

If your goal for a community is to actually discuss the issues that people
want to discuss, or to discuss the issues that are important, then in either
of those two cases this should be front page news.

~~~
3am
I have no qualms with being judgmental. I hate this entire story. It's sad the
guy got fired. It's sad this girl may have gotten fired. I would guess that
nothing of any lasting value will come from the coming discussion.

------
fingerprinter
I posted this in a now dead thread. I'll drop it here if this is the now
official discussion thread.

=============================================

Who didn't see this coming?

And when she pulled SendGrid, her employer, publicly into the fray via her
twitter feed, who didn't know it was simply a matter of time?

I mean, what else could SendGrid possibly do? She basically forced them to
fire her. Her value to the company is being a public face to developers. She
very publicly destroyed that value. Further, she pulled SendGrid in with her
tweet about them "supporting" her. Had she not done that, she might have had a
fighting chance, but it almost seems like she wanted to get fired.

Not to mention that a company wants to employ people with impeccable
judgement, particularly for public facing positions. She showed incredibly
horrid judgment in how she initiated the situation and continued to display
horrid judgement in her handling of it. Do you want someone with horrible
judgement being your public face and voice?

I don't put much stock in the DDoS talk, FYI. No reputable company fires
someone b/c they are being blackmailed. Though, perhaps I'm giving too much
credit here, I don't know.

Either way, it should not comes as a surprise to anyone that this is the
outcome.

------
harel
I'm amazed how a gun was turned into a grenade which was then turned into a
nuclear bomb. One overreacting response after the other, each one outdoing the
one before. People take themselves way to seriously (all parties involved in
this saga).

------
pbreit
If SendGrid did not offer to let her resign, shame on them. If she refused,
shame on her.

~~~
logn
I'd imagine for the firing she's probably getting a sizeable severance pay for
this so that she'll sign paperwork agreeing not to sue them.

~~~
mullingitover
How could she sue them? She'd have to have been terminated wrongfully. I can't
think of a better reason to terminate a PR person than for the type of
misconduct she displayed. If anything I'm surprised the company isn't suing
her for the damage she's done to their business and their reputation.

------
ianstallings
_peeps out into developer land through the window_

 _CLOSES BLINDS QUICKLY_

Eesh, same old shit.

------
mickle00
Adria's post in the Facebook thread doesn't exactly reinforce that this is
fake.

Adria Richards - "It is impossible for me to comprehend the hate generated on
the internet towards me for simply doing what any sensible person would have
done in that position." 11:51am PDT

[https://www.facebook.com/SendGrid/posts/10151502570463967?co...](https://www.facebook.com/SendGrid/posts/10151502570463967?comment_id=25921451&offset=0&total_comments=832)

EDIT: It appears this is not Adria's facebook, but rather a fake profile.

~~~
animesh
That is a fake profile of Adria. This <https://www.facebook.com/adriarichards>
is hers.

~~~
mickle00
Ahh, good call. Editing my post.

------
_delirium
It's interesting seeing this from some new-ish tech companies, because the way
this episode played out is quite in keeping with standard, conservative BigCo
employment policies. Two employees from different firms got into a public
argument without formal authorization, even if not directly about their work?
"Fire 'em both" is the traditional BigCo answer: employees are expected not to
speak in public without authorization, at least not about anything
controversial.

------
lr
Maybe it is time for Sexual Harassment Prevention Training for all YC
startups...? One thing that Aaron Swartz was vehemently opposed to was
misogyny in the programming world. I think this is yet another instance where
we can honor his memory.

[http://feministing.com/2013/01/15/aaron-swartz-on-
misogyny-i...](http://feministing.com/2013/01/15/aaron-swartz-on-misogyny-in-
technology/)

------
sp332
Another dead one that made it to the front page
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5417341> Only one comment though.

------
bluebaby
They all look like duplicate posts. There was an Aria Richards firing post
earlier than these.

