
The PyCon Incident - afraidofadria
http://pastebin.com/JaNh0w5F
======
blhack
I would also like a response from Sendgrid here. Somebody they sent to a
conference, who was representing their company there, went on a personal
vendetta against somebody and got them fired.

That's awful, and I join the people I see online right now in saying that I
cannot, in good conscience, ever do business with a company that supports that
behavior.

\--And to how far Adria has set back womens' rights here--

The common thread I've seen from the women I've worked with in tech has been
that they really just wish people didn't even notice their gender. They don't
want to get treated like "a girl", they just want to get treated like "a
person".

What Adria has done here is made sure that people in tech are always hyper
aware if they're working with one of the "outsiders" that she has cast herself
as.

It's really sad.

(This comment is also worth reading:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5407884>)

~~~
katbyte
as "a women in tech" (god i hate even saying it like that lol) i totally
agree. i think what she did was absurd. It wasn't even a lewd or offensive
joke.

Maybe its my social group but something like that would even cause any of us
(more women in tech) to even bat an eye. If it was bothersome in anyway it was
they were so loud she was paying more attention to them and they private
conversations and not the speaker. She should have asked them to simmer down
or take it outside. And definitely dealt with it in a less public matter, it
just screams "look at me i'ml so awesome give me some attention". It even
could have been dealt with without identifying them. that was a low blow.

And you are exactly right, the biggest issues I've had wrt my gender is that
some men feel like they can't just relax and be themselves, and that makes
some of them (either consciousnessly or subconsciousnessly) not comfortable.
Its always funny to see how relaxed and personable some people become after i
make some politically incorrect jokes/references.

~~~
Joeboy
Indeed, I am really puzzled as to why these "jokes" are supposed to be
offensive to women. They might be offensive to people raised in some cultures
/ subcultures, and they don't sound like they're great jokes in any culture,
but nobody ever told me about the meeting where women decided knob jokes were
offensive. In fact a female friend texted me one about an hour ago.

~~~
wpietri
Imagine this situation:

You are walking down the street. It starts to rain, so you duck into the
nearest business, a bar. You order a beer, and realize that you have stepped
into a gay bar. The table behind you starts making jokes about how virgin
anuses are the best. They are pretty big guys, leather daddies. You worry
they're talking about you, about your anus. You worry.

That feeling of discomfort? The way your heart speeds up as you start
wondering if you're safe? Women feel that a lot.

The jokes aren't what's offensive. It's when jokes sexualize a professional
context in a way that makes women feel unsafe.

~~~
potatolicious
> _"You order a beer, and realize that you have stepped into a gay bar. The
> table behind you starts making jokes about how virgin anuses are the best.
> They are pretty big guys, leather daddies. You worry they're talking about
> you, about your anus. You worry."_

Only if you live in a world where gay men are, by default, rapists. Are we
seriously replacing sexism with homophobia? Your analogy is far more offensive
than the penis joke it's supposed to represent.

Since what crazy day did "gay men talking crudely about sex" means "my
heterosexual anus is in danger"?

~~~
wpietri
You're missing the point.

Men aren't normally afraid of sexual assault, because most sexual assault is
perpetrated by men on women. If you want to the feeling of fear that a
potential victim feels, you have to imagine a situation where you feel at risk
of sexual assault.

If that story doesn't make you feel sufficiently uncomfortable to have empathy
for women surrounded by a bunch of men when the context suddenly turns sexual,
I encourage you to make up your own story.

For what it's worth, when I was imagining the story, the guys talking in the
bar hadn't even noticed the straight guy in front of them.

~~~
hazov
This is rape paranoia, if you feel that's fine then good for you, as I see it
it's no better than racial profiling.

~~~
wpietri
Sorry, which part is rape paranoia?

As a guy, I'm not worried about rape. It very rarely happens to adult men.

But that's the problem I'm trying to draw attention to here: a guy's intuition
of what is an inoffensive sexual comment will be very different than a
woman's, because they face very different risks of sexual harassment and
sexual assault.

~~~
hazov
I wrote both posts in hurry yesterday, now that I read your points (I read
whole threads of your posts) I generally agree with you, I think that maybe
elaborating my points would be a bit tedious. I also think "rape paranoia" was
too harsh a world, as you made me realize, I'm almost 6.4 feet tall, I
generally do not know what is to be harassed..

So saying basically about it. Yes I agree with you, women have much more to
lose in the situation you described, I do think your initial example was poor,
and having good gay friends who suffer because of that made me reply with
anger.

Sorry for that.

~~~
hazov
Just clarifying, it sucks to type on tablets, world, and a couple of other
spelling errors are mainly because of typing in tablets really sucks.

------
b0sk
Here's my blame attribution

10% - The guys. Yea, a bit moronic to make a private adult joke that can be
heard by others in a professional setting. But even in a real job setting,
they'd just get a reprimand from HR and that'll straighten most of them out.

40% - Adria. It's getting evident that she went out of the way to take offense
and sees herself as Joan of Arc (superiority complex?). She tries to make
herself the center of the story. Extra credits for implying in her twitter
feed that every criticism she's getting is from trolls.

50% - The company which fired the guy. Are you kidding me? Unless there's a
backstory or a history of such behavior from the guy, it's awfully cruel to
rob a guy of his livelihood without weighing all the facts. Yea, do an
internal reprimand.. but FIRING?! Crazy people heading the company.

0% - PyCon organizers. 0% - Adria's employers.

~~~
breadbox
"40% - Adria, 0% - PyCon organizers." Really?

I mean, PyCon had a Code Of Conduct. If you don't blame the organizers for
sticking to the published code, then how does Adria get blamed for doing the
same? Doesn't that strike you as getting mad at her for "tattling"?

On the other hand, if you think the Code itself is bogus, then why don't the
PyCon organizers get a share of the blame for a bad policy?

~~~
moistgorilla
From what I understand, she didn't stick to the code. It was stated in the
code that no pictures should be taken without the express consent of the
subject. Nobody cares about Adria writing on her twitter account that it's not
cool to say stupid jokes. Nobody cares about PyCon organizers kicking the
people out. What people care about is that she posted their faces online to
9000 twitter users which resulted in one of the people getting fired.

------
danilocampos
Couple pieces to this.

First – the fact that this guy's employer made a kneejerk reaction is no one's
fault but the employer.

Next – let's talk about this red herring of "sexism." Making a phallus joke
might be sexist depending on context. Or it might not be. Sexism is _not at
issue_ here.

The individual in question concedes that they did, in fact, make the joke.

From PyCon's code of conduct:

 _"All communication should be appropriate for a professional audience
including people of many different backgrounds. Sexual language and imagery is
not appropriate for any conference venue, including talks."_

A joke about dicks? That seems to run afoul of the code of conduct the
attendees agreed to. Sexist or not.

There's a discussion to be had around the best way to confront these
behaviors. But regardless of your position on that, it remains the
_employer's_ decision, and therefore their mistake, to fire this person.

(Disclosure: I am acquainted with Adria and we've appeared together on a
panel.)

~~~
codesuela
Are you seriously suggesting the code of conduct applies to PRIVATE
conversations between TWO people who obviously know each other? It is not like
they meant to offend somebody. I am assuming they weren't talking loudly but
rather meant to converse between each other. How I talk to my buddy is no ones
fucking business.

How about you tell your friend of of those an American, a Russian and a German
walk into a bar jokes, someone overhears it, snaps a picture and announces to
his twitter following what a xenophobic asshole you are?

~~~
danilocampos
If it were private, it wouldn't have happened with people nearby to hear it
and the photo wouldn't have depicted dozens of people surrounding.

~~~
paganel
So you're saying "private" is not in fact, well, "private". I grew up as a kid
on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, in Eastern Europe, where as it happens
walls had ears and "private" was not in fact "private". To see this stuff
repeating 25 years later in the free world is scary.

~~~
mistercow
Yes, that's right. A privately run conference asking attendees to behave
professionally around other attendees is _exactly_ like the KGB, and is a sure
sign that we are sliding downward into totalitarianism.

~~~
paganel
This is going already too far, but anyway, here it goes. First of all, during
the '80s (the time when I grew up) the KGB or the Securitate (the institution
that was operating in my country) had already left their "harsh" methods
behind, for the most part anyway, but they were instead operating through the
peer pressure of those around you (friends, neighbors, strangers on the
street, even close relatives).

More exactly, had you by chance happened to listen to Radio Free Europe or
made negative comments about the fact that there was no meat for sale in the
stores, some of those mentioned above might have just "snitched" you to the
powers that be (the Securitate in my country's case). You weren't risking that
much, "just" your day job (like one of the guys in this story) and probably
also the roof above your kids' heads (now if you don't have a job and you
can't pay mortgage/rent you're in the same situation). Like I said, maybe it
didn't seem much from the outside, but it was enough.

All this because someone might have overheard you say something that wasn't
abiding to the rules of the time. Yes, I do find the power to speak freely a
little bit scary.

~~~
mistercow
Obviously I'm not arguing that Richards behaved appropriately in publicly
shaming them. I'm saying that they behaved inappropriately in making the joke
in the first place, and that there's nothing scary or totalitarian about a
privately run conference having a code of conduct asking people to act
professionally.

Of course, the proper way to handle this would have been for Richards to talk
to someone running the conference. They would have then gone to the people who
were making the inappropriate jokes and asked them to remember that this was a
professional environment, upon which apologies would have been given, and that
would have been the end of it.

------
whalesalad
Most Europeans must just be laughing and pointing fingers at the insane
political correctness in America and more specifically, the hacker community
these days. I knew something was fishy from the get-go on this story but
waited to see what else would come out of it. Thanks for this post, it
articulates my feelings on the situation perfectly. People are outta control
these days. We're turning molehills into mountains boys and girls.

~~~
rmk2
Fefe is by no means "most Europeans", though he is quite well known as a
("political nerd") blogger in Germany. His comment on the matter, however, is
less that of pointing and laughing and more that of worry, especially
considering that there were some mild(er/ish) issues along similar lines in
the wake of the 29C3.

As a quick and dirty(!) translation of this blog post:
<http://blog.fefe.de/?ts=afb76b8d>

"The 'sexual harassment'-story at US computer conferences is escalating
further. This has poisened the climate to a degree where I fear the sentiment
towards women is shifting from 'great, we need more [of them]' towards 'risk,
risk, stay away, better not to say anything'. Smaller cons might possibly not
admit women anymore [in the future], just to avoid being subject to such
risks. This is all very unfortunate [or: distressing/regrettable]. (Thanks,
Michael)"

Everything in square brackets '[' & ']' serves as clarification.

~~~
jamesaguilar
> Smaller cons might possibly not admit women anymore

LOL? Is he serious here? If so I have to say he is misguided about how cons
weigh of priorities. No con could get sponsors while denying admittance to all
females.

~~~
cupcake-unicorn
Yeah, that quote from the blog was a bit scary to me, I do understand feeling
feeling uncomfortable of saying the wrong thing, but is it so impossible to
keep talk professional at a programming conference that the best option would
be to keep women out? I don't think it's exactly a huge sacrifice to ask
people to make at a professionally oriented conference.

~~~
jamesaguilar
It's not even scary to me. It's just outlandish and misguided, and
demonstrates that his opinions are not firmly grounded in reality.

------
orangethirty
This is a rather bizarre situation. Still, I visited Sendgrid's website to
learn more about them. Click on their "We are hiring" link and scrolled down.
What did I find? A sexual joke. On their very own company website.

See for yourself: <http://i.imgur.com/uWc8P39.png>

And before anyone says anything, the image depicts a person photocopying their
genitals. It does not show gender, but the act is quite clear. Not something
you want to have on your website.

~~~
fatjokes
Oh yeah? Well they have a black woman on the team, so they can't be sexist or
racist! /s

~~~
reeses
Consulting evangelist. :)

------
ahelwer
Warning regarding the comments here: r/MensRights has recently taken an
interest in HN regarding this case. A recent HN thread on this same topic is
linked on the homepage[1], and there's been discussion of HN in particular
here[2].

There's an agenda being pushed. Furthermore, the above PasteBin alleges the
forking innuendo was pure fabrication in an attempt to paint Adria as a liar;
the full story right from the source is found here[3].

The narrative being pushed is the same old feminism-has-gone-too-far crap
where we live in a world in which men are terrorized by women who have the
power to destroy lives with the snap of their fingers. Recognize this angle,
ponder its absurdity, then form your own opinion.

Some other links to r/MensRights posts, in which Adria is called a "stupid
twitter bitch" and a "terrorist" (yes, actually): [4] [5]

[1]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1aofm4/programme...](http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1aofm4/programmer_makes_a_joke_to_his_friend_about/)

[2]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1algtc/woman_at_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1algtc/woman_at_pycon_takes_a_picture_of_two_guys_after/c8yrfv3)

[3] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5398681>

[4]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1ao6mu/reaction_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1ao6mu/reaction_by_pycon_to_adria_richards_bullying/)

[5]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1aonpl/thoughts_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1aonpl/thoughts_on_donglegate_female_privilege_and/)

~~~
vor_
The fact that there are some comments on Reddit calling Adria Richards a bitch
doesn't seem relevant to this submission. You can find crazy opinions on the
internet from either side of a politically charged story submitted here. The
community here will filter the comments as they see fit.

I can't speak to the agenda of r/MensRights, or whether or not this is a case
of feminism gone too far, but it must be said that your post is itself pushing
an agenda to discredit comments posted here by implying that critical comments
are Reddit plants linked to vitriolic posts you found there. After all, your
Twitter feed states that you're a feminist and criticizes "gender role
enforcement" on Hacker News, which suggests you're coming at this story from a
predisposition. That's fine, but it means your warning may be tinted by
previously held views.

To my knowledge, nobody is putting forth the worldview that men are being
terrorized by women destroying lives. However, there are people who believe
that losing a job over something so far removed from anything that actually
matters as an overheard dick joke is step in the wrong direction for gender
equality, especially when Adria made the same kind of joke herself.

As for calling her a liar, that stems from the discrepancy in accounts. The
guy who was fired claimed there was no sexual innuendo in the forking comment,
and that it was applied by Adria in her telling of the incident.

~~~
slunk
"To my knowledge, nobody is putting forth the worldview that men are being
terrorized by women destroying lives."

I got the opposite impression from the OP. To me, this post practically
screamed men's rights. It's dripping with hyperbole (probably the worst of
which occurs in the fifth paragraph - "now men will be looking over their
shoulder every time a woman is present in the workplace or a conference
because hey, she might do what Adria did"), peppered with ad hominem (calling
her cowardly, etc...), and makes sexism the focus of the discussion. I read
her blog post. Her problem seemed to be that the dongle guys were behaving
inappropriately, not being sexist.

------
sergiotapia
I already sent SendGrid's sales department an email that I will boycott their
company and recommend others do so as well moving forward.

Where I work we were considering between SendGrid or Mandrill and this
incident practically made our choice for us. We cannot and _will not_ support
a company that backs[1] a person like this.

[1] - <https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/314452708549603328>

~~~
djcapelis
Want to tell us which company you work for so we can all avoid doing business
with firms who makes decisions about which technology to choose based on
whether or not they like the recent tweets of a company's employees on their
personal twitter accounts?

~~~
johnny4000
I think you misread sergiotapia's comment. They were objecting to how Sendgrid
was supporting the actions of Richards. The tweet seemed like a poor example.

I also don't see an issue with having non-technical attributes being part of
the equation in the criteria for selecting a vendor. Price is clearly
important, as can be a business' ethics; both are not technology related but
can important depending on the circumstance.

Lastly Mandrill does seem like a slightly better product for the cost, but
that of course might vary based on requirements.

~~~
rozap
Thanks for the heads up on Mandrill, I'll check out their solution for when I
launch my project.

------
adamnemecek
Someone on reddit dug up an old tweet from her.

"Black people CANNOT be racist against White people. Racism is a position of
the oppressor who has the power"

<https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/6039856858>

Words fail me. (I realize that it's unrelated but it provides some insight
into her mentality).

~~~
anigbrowl
This accurately reflects a particular academic school of thought. But this
whole discussion is gnarly enough already without further complicating it by
adding race issues into the mix. I'm not prepared to parse that without
understanding the context in which the remark was made, and I have no
intention of digging through a conversation from 2009 to do so. I can't help
feeling you went on a fishing expedition here.

~~~
adamnemecek
As I said, someone in the reddit thread that antirez linked to did the
digging.

>> This accurately reflects a particular academic school of thought.

Holocaust as well accurately reflected a particular academic school of
thought. Does that mean it's correct? (does this count as invocation of
Godwin's law?)

------
raganwald
"Anyone can post a photo and get you fired."

No, the photo did not get you fired, your employer's questionable policies got
you fired. If indeed a phallus joke between two persons in a private
conversation is not objectionable, why was this person fired?

As I see it here, the more and more "transparent" our private lives become
with cell phone cameras and always-on video glasses, the more protection
employees need from bone-headed employers dismissing them for reasons wholly
unrelated to their competencies performing the job they were hired to do.

~~~
petercooper
I wonder how long it'll be till we see the first "masked" conference, Italian
style. Personal identities concealed! Could be kinda fun actually..

~~~
lazugod
DefCon?

~~~
px43
One nice thing about defcon is that people WILL get kicked out for taking
pictures of others without permission.

~~~
djcapelis
Actually this is no longer true. Last year DefCon recently changed this policy
because they kind of recognized the world has kind of changed and moved in a
pretty fundamental way and maybe it wasn't the most valid thing anymore.

There's still some sorts of "it's not super cool to take pictures of specific
people" vibe going on, but it's definitely no longer a "no pictures allowed"
type of situation.

~~~
derrida
The Chaos Communication Congress, about 30-50% of the space is no pictures.

------
tobych
In her blog post, Adria writes:

"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."

Hey, that's a strong claim.

This sounds like an anger management problem to me.

She writes that she's been on the road for ages. Sounds like she's exhausted,
and needs a break. I used to react over-the-top to stuff like this, and used
to work with others who did. I think the more politically aware you are, and
the more your ideals and goals are at odds with how much of society is, the
more effort you need to put into being able to deal with the inevitably strong
feelings that come your way daily, unless you choose to just avoid being
around stuff that triggers you, assuming that's even possible.

------
gfunk911
I want to make a point that may or may not be applicable to this situation.

Talking about sex is not inherently sexist. Making jokes about sex is not
inherently sexist.

It's inappropriate in a large number of places, but that doesn't make it
sexist.

~~~
ceol
You're absolutely right it isn't inherently sexist. However, when these types
of jokes become _so common_ , and are almost always made by men, and sometimes
made towards women, it _contributes_ to a sexist atmosphere.

I can't even use the example "What if you had to hear jokes about vaginas and
breasts all the time?" since it doesn't carry the same weight for men as the
opposite does for women.

I wish commenters here would realize this is supposed to be a professional
convention, and these two were supposed to be representing their companies, so
making jokes about their genitalia might be in bad taste. I really can't
believe the comments here. Those remarks didn't happen in a vacuum. She had to
deal with them multiple times beforehand. Her actions were not out of line.

~~~
gfunk911
I agree they were inappropriate, just not obviously sexist.

------
jamesaguilar
I think there are a few points to be made here:

    
    
        - First-offense phallus jokes should probably not be dismissable.
        - Phallus jokes should probably not be made in professional, public contexts.
        - It would be surprising if the guy was a valuable member of the team and fired on this basis alone.
        - Adria's reaction probably didn't follow any principle of measured escalation.
    

I take issue with folks who say "it's a harmless joke!" But I'd also take
issue with someone saying the dev who got fired earned what he got.

~~~
blhack
You know, I've been thinking...

It's also pretty unprofessional to wear jeans to work, and beer after 4:00pm
on Friday is just a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Also the schedule that the developers keep is _really_ unprofessional. If one
of the accountants tried to show up at 11:00am, they'd be fired!

I also saw some pictures of one of our devs at Burning Man last year. He was
wearing some sort of black, canvas skirt, and no shirt.

TOTALLY unprofessional.

Don't even get me started on the guy who tried to start a "nerf war" at work.
A WAR! Excuse me, but people DIE in wars. How on earth did he think that was
okay? It's like he was saying that he wanted to kill his co workers.

/s

~~~
tomjakubowski
Starting a 'nerf war' at work is entirely unprofessional, and I hope to never
work with someone who is so childish as to think that's reasonable workplace
behavior.

~~~
dandellion
A 'nerf war' might be something acceptable as long as:

1\. the work environment allows it

2\. the participants agree to it

3\. it's done in at the appropiate time (during a break, for example)

Games and childish behaviour are different things and, according to one of my
professors, not being able to distinguish between them is a sign of
immaturity.

------
integraton
Her own phallus joke, as mentioned in the pastie, which she made on Twitter, a
much more public venue:

<https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425>

Incredibly hypocritical on her part.

~~~
jasonlotito
PyCon has a code of conduct. The write up regarding this specific incident is
here:

[http://pycon.blogspot.com/2013/03/pycon-response-to-
inapprop...](http://pycon.blogspot.com/2013/03/pycon-response-to-
inappropriate.html)

People are allowed to make offensive jokes. Except when they agree not to. By
attending PyCon, you are making that agreement.

In the end, the result was resolved well by all 3 parties.

The issue is that one of the parties got fired. An overreaction by his ex-
employer. In part, I blame the community. The employer probably thought to
quickly defuse the situation and distance themselves. It's been mostly
effective, with the blame primarily being put on the woman. Most people seem
to be ignoring the actual perpetrators of the real problem, the firing.

~~~
integraton
> PyCon has a code of conduct.

PyCon attendee procedure for handling harassment:

[https://us.pycon.org/2013/about/code-of-
conduct/harassment-i...](https://us.pycon.org/2013/about/code-of-
conduct/harassment-incidents/)

"Report the harassment incident (preferably in writing) to a conference staff
member - all reports are confidential...The staff is well informed on how to
deal with the incident and how to further proceed with the situation...Note:
Public shaming can be counter-productive to building a strong community. PyCon
does not condone nor participate in such actions out of respect."

~~~
jasonlotito
And she followed it, in writing.

------
tiredofcareer
I think all of us would agree that technology has a sexism problem. _However_
, the environment in 2013 and the way, as a whole, it seems that we have gone
about countering it is roughly equivalent to napalming six city blocks to get
rid of bedbugs in an apartment. (Edit: On reflection, a better analogy would
be napalming New York City to eradicate bedbugs. I am aware of the scope of
the sexism problem.)

This little saga merely reminded me that I'm walking from computers after my
next position. Gone. Before 35. I'm going to go a career that isn't completely
nonsensical, like fishing. I can't imagine I'm the only one. The
overcompensation and hypersensitivity to combat sexism in technology is,
rather amusingly, making technology even more hostile and demoralizing.

I don't want to read the fallout from a conference any more. This PyCon was
apparently so much of a shitshow that I'm glad I didn't go. The decision to
ban someone for smoking pot really cracked me up, given who I smoked pot with
at PyCon 2012.

This fucking industry. So many double standards and emotional children. It's
like I never left high school.

~~~
kstrauser
> The decision to ban someone for smoking pot really cracked me up, given who
> I smoked pot with at PyCon 2012.

I've said this elsewhere, but:

The pot smoker was a few feet from me in an informal conference late one
evening. I don't think anyone complained that pot was smoked at all. They
complained that it was smoked inside a crowded room.

I would've been as personally annoyed if someone lit a tobacco cigarette in
the same close quarters. It stunk. Badly. I also imagine that PyCon _had_ to
say and do _something_ lest they get a reputation for condoning illegal
substance abuse in the middle of open sessions.

Note: I'm just a bystander, a regular attendee like everyone else. I didn't
report or complain about the pot smoker even though it reeked. The reaction of
everyone around me wasn't anger, but sheer disbelief that someone would be
that stupid.

~~~
necaris
> The pot smoker was a few feet from me in an informal > conference late one
> evening. I don't think anyone > complained that pot was smoked at all. They
> complained that > it was smoked inside a crowded room.

I was there too. They were being obnoxious by stinking up the place (it didn't
help that they got louder & less funny, i.e. more obnoxious, through the
evening), and that is what got people's attention.

Anything that happens on the official premises of a professional, heavily
sponsored and highly scrutinized conference is to some extent the
responsibility of the organizers. They _had_ to do something.

------
guelo
This is really unfortunate. I don't see how Adria can keep her job since
she'll now have this reputation which just isn't compatible with being an
evangelist. The joker guy and Adria will now both have reputations that will
affect their careers. But the fact that they were both being paid to be at
PyCon means they're both probably good at the work they do. It's all so
unnecessary and sad.

------
mwetzler
Not mentioned is the fact that Adria has received a FLOOD of hateful, violent,
racist, and misogynistic comments as a result of a _tweet_. Adria DID NOT get
someone fired. She tweeted a picture and comments about something that made
her uncomfortable at a tech conference.

As a result she has now been called a b_tch, c_nt, wh_re, n_gger, and an
"affirmative action hire".

People are saying things like "someone with her sensitivity level should stay
home and have babies".

People are saying she is privileged and has nothing to complain about (despite
the fact that she is a victim of domestic abuse).

Is this how we should treat women when they speak out in public? Two months
ago I mentioned some sexist remarks I got at a hackathon and this community
told me to SPEAK OUT. Reveal the identity of the person. This tragedy is a
good example of why that's scary.

It's hard enough to speak up when something makes you uncomfortable. Now it's
terrifying.

No one deserves this kind of all-out character defamation because they thought
a comment was inappropriate.

No one deserves to get fired for this kind of joke either.

Out of all of this I'm most shocked by how many people are OPENLY and PUBLICLY
misogynistic and racist. It is a very sad day for our industry. Deep-seated
resentments are being voiced loud and clear.

Look at the Reddit comments and Adria's twitter mentions if you want to see
just how hateful people can be.

~~~
obstacle1
>Is this how we should treat women when they speak out in public

This is how people on the Internet treat anyone with any significant
following, male or female.

She doesn't deserve the insults you describe. But she "spoke out" in a
ridiculous way and does deserve to be shamed. Shamed tactfully, but still
shamed.

The appropriate course of action when you run into something that offends you
is to deal with it head-on. That is, rotate your neck, look at the source of
your discomfort, and address the concerns that you have. It is not appropriate
-- ESPECIALLY not for someone whose professional role is representing and
advocating for a company's employees -- to play judge and jury yourself,
starting a witch hunt without even engaging the other party in dialogue. Using
the platform you've gained as a result of your professional privilege, no
less.

------
wmt
While everyone is riled up about Adria Richards getting offended and publicly
shaming the person who made a joke about big dongles, you should keep in mind
that she did not fire anyone. PlayHaven did.

PlayHaven could have decided to be the responsible party and handle the
incident constructively, but they did not want to do that. Even Adria, who
still appears to think that the public shaming was a good thing to do, also
thinks that PlayHaven should have not fired the person.

So please, if you think the firing was unreasonable, please let PlayHaven know
that, and also how this might affect your image of PlayHaven.

<http://www.playhaven.com/contact>

~~~
rdl
Damn, maybe they have such successful HR/recruiting that they have a surplus
of developers and just wanted to reduce headcount? :)

------
TomGullen
The emerging trend of people thinking they can just take photos of anyone
anywhere for the sole purpose of uploading to the web for groups of people to
laugh at or make judgement of leaves a pungent aftertaste in my mouth. Sure
you might be legally allowed to but it doesn't mean it's not incredibly rude
and inappropriate, with total disregard/ignorance of potential consequence
like we are witnessing at the moment.

I see it on social media sites, people who feel comfortable sitting on a bus
and just lifting a camera up to snap someone going about their day who just
happens to look different to someone else so everyone can have a laugh at
them. Sometimes presented under a thin guise of intelligent wit when actually
it's vacuous bullying. Totally oblivious or carefree to the fact the subject
matter may have actually noticed them photographing them, I wonder how that
makes them feel?

This situation feels associated to me. I just don't understand how anyone can
be comfortable just snapping a picture of someone to immediately upload on the
internet to share with people in a negative way. Are people starting to lose
their common sense and decency?

------
mortov
Sounds like a looming PR disaster because of a serious error in dealing with a
perceived inappropriate comment (even if we discount eavsdropping on a private
conversation being considered bad manners).

Sendgrid should be sending people who have enough skill and experience to know
how to represent their company and what they stand for. This includes basic
manners and enough insight to remember that all their actions are a direct
official reflection of the company ethos.

Right now, their reputation just took a serious hit in my books because they
feel best represented and aligned with someone who does not get basic courtesy
(don't listen to other peoples private conversations) and think it's cool to
damage someone's career and have them fired because of what they say in
private by making highly public criticisms and maximising their distribution
(i.e. twitter).

It did cause me to have a quick check over my mail scanning logs for a number
of my clients and Sendgrid do seem to be a source of lots of complaints from
my customers for spam. This whole thing pretty much cements my intention to
just block their traffic in future without asking too many questions instead
of suggesting customers use the opt-out links. It will cut down my own work
and based on this incident I think I'll be doing my customers a favor.

------
jetsnoc
Didn't she violate the spirit of the PyCon 2013 Code of Conduct? Here's the
relevant quote from the CoC: "Note: Public shaming can be counter-productive
to building a strong community. PyCon does not condone nor participate in such
actions out of respect."

We're trying to build a strong community here.

I personally think she handled this poorly and should be dealt with by the PSF
for live tweeting images of attendees and shaming them. She too violated the
Code of Conduct. I don't think she should be allowed to attend next year. I'm
concerned I will see her next year and she'll misunderstand or misrepresent a
comment of mine!

~~~
wpietri
That doesn't strike me as a violation of the code of conduct. The CoC says
PyCon won't participate in public shaming, but it definitely doesn't forbid
attendees from talking about things they experienced at PyCon.

~~~
camelite
Wrong. The CoC asks _attendees_ not to participate in public shaming.

[https://us.pycon.org/2013/about/code-of-
conduct/harassment-i...](https://us.pycon.org/2013/about/code-of-
conduct/harassment-incidents/)

------
rdl
Based on just this pastebin, I'd be inclined toward crucifying her.

However, after reading her longer blog post
([http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-
dont...](http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-dont-belong-
at-tech-conferences/)), it seems pretty clear that the guys were in the wrong
for a professional setting (as were several others at the conference).
Ideally, another person who was less personally offended would have said
something (such as a coworker -- if I heard a coworker making potentially
EOE/etc. offensive comments, I'd just say "hey, not appropriate, we could get
in trouble for that".) and it would have gotten resolved politely. She has
some elements of "concern troll" going on, but not unjustifiably.

I have no real problem with people being offensive at social events if they
want to be, or at a conference on their own dime (although it's stupid, and if
the consequences are their professional reputation, that's their own fault),
but if you're identified as an employee of a company or representing another
organization, you have to abide by that organization's code of contact.

(Which is why my car has no identifying marks beyond a license plate, and why
I never wear corporate logo-wear; I like being able to be an asshole when
necessary or appropriate without representing anything but myself.)

~~~
mwetzler
Just FYI this can be interpreted as a physical threat against Adria. Probably
not what you meant and you might want to revise.

~~~
rdl
I think it's pretty clear that "crucify" in the context of online discussion
means "excoriate in discussion", not track down and nail to a physical cross.
:)

~~~
mwetzler
Normally I would agree with you but I heard someone on HN posted her address
and said they were going to "slit" her. The situation has escalated quite a
bit and includes actual violent threats against Adria.

~~~
rdl
Yeah, I thought about it a bit more and was going to edit to say (textually)
crucify, but it was past the edit window.

I really don't understand WTF is with people. Some guys were mildly to
moderately objectionable, to the point where I would have glared or asked them
to grow up, and "counseled" them if they worked for or with me. Hypersensitive
person goes nuclear in parallel with using appropriate channels (for whatever
reasons one may wish to ascribe). Conference responds entirely appropriately.
(shitty) employer overreacts. None of this warrants threats of physical
violence or anything. And the way to address someone who you may feel is
hypersensitive and overreacts to alleged sexism is NOT to actually be sexist
and harassing toward her.

~~~
mcherm
Thank you for a succinct and SANE assessment of the entire situation.

------
amykhar
I'm a woman programmer and I'm probably the most likely person in my company
to make a big dongle joke. I often cringe at oversensitive women whining about
gimme t-shirts and other inconsequential things such as mildly raunchy jokes.

Somebody not hiring a programmer because she is a woman is a real problem.
Somebody not paying a woman the same as a man is a problem. Somebody firing a
woman for getting pregnant is a problem. Why can't we worry about the real
problems and just get over the silly inconsequential stuff?

------
fjorder
Here's an interesting line of reasoning:

Had Adria posted the photo of the two men and made her claims about their
conversation anonymously, would they have been taken as seriously?

Probably not. How many people are fired over a harmless photo and
unsubstantiated anonymous claims? It was Adria's reputation and position that
lent weight to her claims and got mr-hank fired. Now, let's follow up with
another question:

The next time Adria Richards makes a similar claim, will it be taken
seriously?

Almost certainly not.

The negative effects of Richards' actions were only made possible by being
tied to her identity, which is now basically discredited. This is interesting,
because it shows that social media is really starting to settle down and
behave like more traditional manners of human interaction. Completely
anonymous interactions are still possible, but lack power. Conversely,
identity carries power, but if that power that is misused it quickly
dissipates.

When I first read the reactions to this incident, I initially felt sympathy
for mr-hank and outrage over his firing. This naturally led to anger against
Richards, and I had to wonder if this anger might cause people to overreact
and shame her excessively. However, this is exactly what would happen in a
traditional human social setting, and it's healthy. She abused her power and
hurt another person, failed to show any form of remorse, and now this reaction
by the community is disarming her so that she can't immediately harm others.
She will have to earn that power back, and it's not going to be easy. This is
as it should be. The HN community also appears to be rallying around mr-hank
and trying to see that he's looked after. Again, this is very heartening to
see.

Like nature in Jurassic park, established patterns of human interaction in a
community setting seem to find a way.

------
llimllib
Again I would like to point out that to slander somebody, you must tell lies
about them. Nobody is claiming that Adria is _lying_ , even the person she's
talking about.

She is clearly not slandering anyone.

(Please note: this does not mean that I'm taking a position in any way on this
issue)

~~~
Joeboy
> Nobody is claiming that Adria is lying

The linked pastebin says "the "forking" reference turned out to be a
fabrication".

~~~
llimllib
If this: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5398681>

is indeed a comment by the person who lost his job, then it does not seem to
be.

~~~
tadfisher
> While I did make a big dongle joke about a fictional piece hardware that
> identified as male, no sexual jokes were made about forking. My friends and
> I had decided forking someone's repo is a new form of flattery (the highest
> form being implementation) and we were excited about one of the presenters
> projects; a friend said "I would fork that guys repo" The sexual context was
> applied by Adria, and not us.

~~~
jeltz
That is my reading too. Still misunderstanding does not make something a lie.

------
restalk
I may get downvoted to hell for saying this but I need to say it.

First of all, the forking one, according to the guy who said it and
considering he is not lying (why would he, his explanation makes sense) it was
simply refering to a code repo fork nothing wrong with that or am I the only
one who thinks that?

The "dongle" joke may not be the most correct thing to say I will agree on
that, but seriously I can't see a problem with it considering it was not
directed at anyone just a "private" conversation, I even know women who could
laugh at some kind of joke like that, what is wrong with it? I fail to see any
kind of sexism in it, (sexual innuendo yes, I can see that).

Now here comes what bothers me most, adria actions, taking the picture and
posting it online I seriously have a problem with that (public attack is
definately NOT the right way to handle the issue), and even worse for me is
her attitude, "being a hero" "feeling like joan of arc" (not exact quotes im
writing it from memory) and even more hypocritical is claiming others can't do
any kind of sexual joke because if offender her, and then tweeting this
<https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425>

Before I continue I want to say that I am in favor of gender equality. But
this reaction does not help at all, makes me think twice before adding a
female member to my team, no matter how skilled she may be (and I think like
me more will think about it) so as you can see its not helping at all with
equality.

And more unrelated to the specific post but something that can be related to
the feminist movement, I can't really understand why but some women only claim
equality when it is useful to them, when its not they claim to be weaker than
men, that does not sound right. One simple example from my country (cant
really speak for others) in the army men have to cut their hair, women don't,
if asked those women will say they want to be treated equal, but when asked to
cut their hair like men they will refuse.

One last thought why are the olympics separated in female and male, why are
sports like football (soccer for americans) separated too? Are we not supposed
to be equal?

------
piquadrat
While I agree with some of the points made, I don't think that posting them
anonymously on pastebin and then submitting them on HN using the pseudonym
"afraidofadria" is of any help if you're actually interested in a balanced
discussion.

~~~
Zikes
If you agree with the points, should the identity of the person that makes
them have a significant bearing?

I can't say I blame them, she does have a virtual mob at her disposal, and mob
justice can be a scary thing.

~~~
Semaphor
> she does have a virtual mob at her disposal, and mob justice can be a scary
> thing.

Becomes abundantly clear when you look at her twitter feed. She seems to have
an army who hangs on her every word.

------
antirez
This Andria that I don't know who she is at all and I don't care may be in
error, or in bad faith, or whatever. But remember that to get another person
fired you need a stupid cultural movement that is addressing sexism in the
wrong way. So to start, blame the multitude of people that put the discussion
at a level that the ancient greeks would mark as primitive.

EDIT: On Reddit there is a comment that explains much better my point of view.
[http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1am37v/technolog...](http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1am37v/technology_evangelist_adria_richards_tweets/c8yvgeb)

~~~
lizzard
Thanks for the lesson in how to fix our oppression.

------
Semaphor
> the "forking" reference turned out to be a fabrication.

> She never exchanged a word with the men.

Anyone got a source for those claims? I thought her actions were undefendable
the way she described them, but this would make it a whole different beast.
And thanks to a lack of sources at the pastebin I don't know if that's true or
made up (and I hadn't seen those mentioned anywhere so far).

~~~
minimaxir
From Adria's post: [http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-
dont...](http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-dont-belong-
at-tech-conferences/)

 _I stood up slowly, turned around and took three, clear photos. I said back
down, did another gut check and started composing a tweet. Three things came
to me: act, speak and confront in the moment. I decided to do things
differently this time and didn’t say anything to them directly._

The true "forking" meaning was described in the HN post by the one who was
fired.

~~~
eridius
I don't want to take sides here, but I do take issue with the claim that the
"forking" thing was fabricated, or was irrelevant, because the intent of the
person who spoke it was not sexist or even meant as a joke. The fact is, the
way language is interpreted by the listener is far more important than how it
was meant by the speaker. And it should be pretty obvious that the phrase "I
want to fork his repo" could be easily construed as being a crude sex joke.

~~~
blhack
"Fork his repo" is a reference to git. There is nothing sexual about it.

Here's a repo for my hackerspace's website. At the top right of the page is
the word "fork".

<https://github.com/heatsynclabs/new-hsl>

It's worth pointing out that Adria isn't a developer, and might not have
realized that this wasn't a sex joke, he was talking about flattering somebody
by forking their git repo.

~~~
simonster
It's also worth noting that GitHub used to show a page that says "Hardcore
forking action" when you fork a repo, which seems far more objectionable than
"I'd fork his repo" if you object to those sorts of things.

------
autarch
This write up is ridiculously biased. If you read Adria's write up, which
includes the photo, you can see that there's absolutely nothing private about
the conversation.

Look at the photos in [http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-
jokes-dont...](http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-dont-
belong-at-tech-conferences/)

You can see that the two guys are in very crowded presentation room surrounded
by other people. Their conversation, unless whispered, would be clearly
audible by many people around them.

Given that context, I think the outrage in this (bravely) anonymous pastebin
posting is way over the top. Maybe Adria could've handled this better, but her
disgust and frustration are entirely reasonable.

~~~
vilda
"Private" does not mean "noone can hear us". Private is more about the limited
"address" of your conversation.

~~~
3rd3
Your definition does not make sense in this context. If it was loud enough the
”damage“ was done (in the shape of an uncomfortable situation).

~~~
vilda
That's the point. Loudness defines the address.

------
kanja
Adria's actions really clearly violated the pycon code of conduct - has there
been an official response yet?

~~~
incongruity
Because nobody explicitly filed a complaint with the PyCon organizers.

I believe the role they've attempted to take is arbitrator, not police officer
or enforcement authority. In short, they don't go looking for infractions, but
instead deal with them when someone feels wronged.

And they handle themselves extremely professionally from everything I've seen.

Full disclosure, I previously helped organize PyCon, but haven't been actively
involved in a few years.

Disclaimer: My opinions are my own and I do not speak for anyone else or any
organization in the Python world.

------
edmond_dantes
I am feminist. As a visible minority, heterosexual, cisgendered, able-bodied
man I try to be acutely of my own prejudices and cognitive biases.

I sympathize with women who experience hostility and chauvinism at tech
conferences. "Brogrammers" and male-exclusive behaviour is bad for the
industry and should be written about and exposed.

What these two men did was not sexist. It was unprofessional but it was not
exclusionary. Penis puns can be made by anyone and these comments were not
meant for an audience, just the two people in question. While not
"appropriate" it's not the same, "it's a joke" defense that many make because
the subject matter, a play on the words being euphemisms in not material that
excludes or generalizes.

Dongles = Penis, Box = Vagina (or workstation), Forking = fucking, etc... is
not NECESSARILY exclusionary but of a sexual nature. Context matters. Based on
the comments, she took forking out of context. IMHO: These men should have
been told that they're a little loud and to knock it off (regardless of the
subject matter). They are bot being chauvinists and not being exclusionary.

The firing is unfortunate but they sound like a company you don't want to work
for anyway.

Adria was out of line for taking the photo but she's within her right to
document her life/encounters. It does open her up to criticism. Personally I'd
avoid her because of her inability to judge context and be easily offended.
This incident hurts her credibility and I wouldn't trust her opinion in future
incidents.

~~~
newnewnew
It looks like those that say the goals of feminism are to create a privileged
class of women have some evidence. Women can now rule men by right of whether
or not they are "offended" (note, that only the offense of protected classes
are holy, and men are not a protected class).

~~~
edmond_dantes
What evidence did you find in my comment that privileged women over men? Adria
was offended and I disagreed with her assessment of sexism and exclusion.

What your describing isn't feminism, but some kind of matriarchy where we must
appease and not offend the ruling class of women.

~~~
newnewnew
If a man gets offended, nobody gives a care.

If a woman gets offended, it's a corporate crisis and you have to fire the guy
responsible and publicly apologize.

There's some real bad harassment and sexism out there. But we need to be
careful what we label. The fact that someone took offense isn't the standard
by which it ought to be judged.

------
josh2600
Why didn't she just stand up and say something in a loud and authoritative
voice? Wouldn't that have lent at least as much credence to her words as her
tweet did without the permanent public embarrassment?

To put it bluntly, Social media is a complicated echo chamber fomenting
sentiment into an explosion of mob mentality. Using it for this sort of point
reflects negatively on the perpetrator, but also the victim. The public
embarrassment of a loud plea for discretion would've sufficed.

This is just my opinion as a Monday morning quarterback, and while I don't
think Dick jokes are appropriate at PyCon, I also don't think the reaction was
appropriate.

This was not an eye for an eye.

The part where she makes a Phallic joke the next day via Twitter really set me
off and it's probably the main reason I'm writing this reply.

~~~
djcapelis
> Why didn't she just stand up and say something in a loud and authoritative
> voice?

Because it usually just leads to stigma against the person who speaks up and
rarely yields actual change since most people just ignore it or rapidly
justify it and minimize what happened and then immediately move on with their
lives. You'd know this if you've ever had to deal with this type of thing in a
room full of men.

Turns out, if you make a big deal out of something, people get angry at you
for making a bigger deal out of it. If you make a small deal out of something,
people ignore you.

There's no good answer. Each person has to decide how they want to address the
issue in their own way.

> This was not an eye for an eye.

There's no way to do eye for an eye when you're not on a level playing field
and women in tech aren't.

~~~
josh2600
I don't think it's ok to just say "she's a woman so she automatically will be
crucified if she speaks up". To me that's much more damaging than the initial
sentiment of speaking up in the first place and the potential damage therein.

I believe that you're perpetuating the idea that women aren't on a level
playing field by repeating that point. Whether or not it's true, repeating it
does nothing to solve the problem.

Whereas my points offered a potential way to alternatively address the
situation, yours seem to throw your hands up in the air and say "gee this is
pretty bad huh. Somebody should really clean that up...".

In short, what would you say should've been done if being loud or being quiet
have negative consequences?

~~~
djcapelis
> I don't think it's ok to just say "she's a woman so she automatically will
> be crucified if she speaks up"

That is in fact not what I said. What I said was more along the lines that
you're in a bad position to be giving advice on what women should do when they
encounter this situation.

(And for what it's worth, if you were a woman (which I made the assumption
from your username that you weren't, feel free to correct me) I would write
the same thing except I would say "other women". I don't think it's terribly
productive for anyone to spend a lot of time telling someone else how to raise
a point in a situation they weren't a party to.)

> I believe that you're perpetuating the idea that women aren't on a level
> playing field by repeating that point.

I happen to know that women are not on a level playing field in tech and I
happen to chose not to pretend like the world is a different place than it is.

> what would you say should've been done if being loud or being quiet have
> negative consequences?

I think it's important to respect an individual's choice in terms of how they
react to dealing with a situation they find problematic.

Which isn't to say someone's actions can't be questioned, but engaging in a
discussion of how you think someone that isn't you and who was in a situation
you weren't in should have gone about raising a point seems a lot less useful
than actually addressing the point they were trying to raise.

------
azov
No sane company fires a developer over some random acquisitions on twitter.

I wonder if he can sue them for wrongful termination. He can probably even
claim gender discrimination - would he be fired if, everything else being the
same, he was a girl? It would be ironic, given that this kind of lawsuits is
probably the reason why his employer reacted this way in the first place.

~~~
utunga
I totally agree. Firing someone over a tweet sent by a third party - is just
nuts. The tweeter (Adria) is not really responsible here, rather the person(s)
that overreacted to it.

------
tn13
This is what happens now:

In an all male team we decide to hire a girl. But then someone says "we wont
be able to crack fallus jokes anymore? ".

Screw it lets hire a guy ...

~~~
pencilcode
Sure. Single gender teams tend to achieve less in the long run so you
basically get what you deserve.

~~~
obstacle1
We all know that you can't provide any evidence to back this up. What is your
agenda? Why do you think we are stupid?

~~~
djcapelis
Try using google:
[http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=single+gender+teams+perf...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=single+gender+teams+performance)

I grabbed a couple citations while I was there because I was also curious:

* [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-0432.00129/a...](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-0432.00129/abstract) \- "Although generalizations from student-based studies to the workplace is problematic, the results indicate that groups may be more effective when women outnumber or equal men, especially in complex management activities requiring extensive information management and processing, planning and decision-making over protracted periods."

* <http://sgr.sagepub.com/content/27/1/79.short> \- "Overall, in this study, gender diversity facilitated task performance for a male-oriented task[1] without sacrificing cohesion or at the expense of increased decision-making time." (From the full text of the paper, the last concluding sentence.)

So I'm not sure why you would assert:

> We all know that you can't provide any evidence to back this up

[1] I have no idea what they mean by this, but I'm going to guess "tech" would
probably be classified as such.

~~~
obstacle1
From the first paper:

>This study has four limitations. First, the sample comprised students only
working within fictitious enterprises in hypothetical industries and, as such,
may not represent what actually happens in reality.

>Second, the sample size was smaller than ideal.

>Third, ethnic minorities were not identified among group members ... non-
European individuals were present, but comprised less than 10% of the total
sample.

>Finally, no all-women groups were included within the study.

>The use of student subjects is problematic, however, they remain one of the
few sets of participants who are readily accessible

And regarding the second study, I have no idea what that concluding sentence
even means. Because in the discussion, the authors state:

>As expected the task was oriented toward males. Consequently, as the male
gender ratio increased, decision quality improved. However, the lone-female
teams outperformed the all-male teams.

Further the study is based on asking groups of undergraduates to carry out the
winter survival task (i.e. if your plane crashed in a forest, rank these 12
items in order of importance for survival). It is beyond ridiculous to
extrapolate anything from these results and apply it to group productivity in
extremely technical professional fields.

~~~
djcapelis
Please feel free to cite studies with better methodologies! I merely cited
what I found on a cursory search. I entirely agree that the methodology of the
studies is limiting, however at the moment, the only evidence I've discovered
points towards the position you made the following assertion about:

> We all know that you can't provide any evidence to back this up. What is
> your agenda? Why do you think we are stupid?

The assertion you made is that there was _no_ evidence to support pencilcode's
assertion that gender diverse teams perform better. I believe this assertion
is false, the top results of a cursory search that I made out of curiosity
provided evidence which supported pencilcode's position.

However, I of course agree that two papers is hardly conclusive, so feel free
to cite more studies if you want to start wading into the pool of evidence
available to us on this topic.

------
steeve
You know, it really is becoming tiring to hear about these people getting
offended. Men, women, religious people, <insert adjective here> people alike.

------
rachelbaker
To everyone angry at Adria for not "just asking them to stop": I am a female
developer that attends 4-5 conferences per year. I have had experiences
similar to that of Adria's, and I pretend I can ignore them. Why? Because
confronting a guy (or guys) I don't know, in a room where my gender is clearly
in minority, and explaining why I found something offensive is not an action I
have been brave enough to take.

I applaud Adria for being braver than I could ever be. I am responsible for my
actions (or lack of action), and you are responsible for yours. Hopefully,
together we can keep our conferences and communities accepting and fun.

~~~
heili
If you are so fearful, perhaps the conference circuit is something you should
just opt out of.

------
runewell
I just switched my Sendgrid API to Amazon SES. It won't matter to Sendgrid but
at least it's $500 less a month in their pocket. In this economy I can't
support a company that gets developers (with a family to support) fired over
immature dongle jokes. I've heard much more offensive remarks come from
presenters at conferences, this whole ordeal is ridiculous.

~~~
tom399
Did you tell them why you canceled?

------
vor_
Being offended by that type of humor is certainly one thing, but I can't
figure out why Adria seemed so upset by it when she publicly made the very
same type of joke on Twitter with a friend of hers
(<https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425>). As a result,
I'm finding it difficult to understand where she's coming from.

~~~
obstacle1
Someone with a platform should take this and run with it. Pretty disgusting.
This kind of hypocrisy can't be allowed to stand, especially not from a
"developer advocate" who supposedly works to further the state of our
industry.

------
songzme
This is blown way out of proportion.

Adria has the right to post what bothers her on her blog. It is her blog. Read
it and get over it.

No one should get fired over this, and Sendgrid does not have to respond to
something this trivial. If playhaven really fired Mr-Hank over this, then it's
probably a shitty place to work anyways. I work in a place where no matter
what mistakes I make, TokBox will always have my back.

This incident should not even be trending on Hacker News. What value do we get
out of this other than suppression of free speech and finger pointing?

~~~
vor_
Nobody's arguing Adria doesn't have the right to post what bothers her on her
blog. Just as much, the community has the right to vocalize their disagreement
with her actions because of their potential consequences. On Twitter and
elsewhere, many women have been criticizing her, not just for her overreaction
to a type of humor they themselves use, but also because of the backwards
effect on gender equality in tech this might have.

That said, the biggest question for me is why she seemed so upset by the joke
when she made the very same type of joke in public with a friend. I'm finding
it very difficult to see where she's coming from because of it.

~~~
tom399
Because she seems to play by a different set of rules than what she holds
others accountable for.

------
Maxious
It was unacceptable that Adria indirectly got someone fired by their employer
so lets demand a direct response from her employer?

~~~
WalterSear
This snapshot is from her employer's website.

<http://i.imgur.com/uWc8P39.png>

------
erik_landerholm
There will be no response from SendGrid, imo. Last thing they want is an
unstable employee suing them. Any company that makes it far enough and hires
enough people deals with this more than once. But, it's always hard.

I doubt she wanted to get them fired, but her hyperbole (joan of arc
reference, and her comment on her blog "Yesterday the future of programming
was on the line and I made myself heard") and complete lack of remorse tell me
there is a lot more going on her then a one or two 'off color' jokes.

------
julesie
I appreciate the irony of being outraged about someone else's misplace
outrage. But I am.

As a female tech co-founder I am disgusted by the actions of Adria at PyCon.

First and foremost, other than the irritation of chatting during a
presentation I see nothing sexist about the comments made by the guys. Sexual
innuendo != sexism

Secondly, if she had an issue she should have let them know. Posting their
pictures to Twitter along side allegations of 'harassment' is orders of
magnitude worse than anything they may or may not have done.

Adria, your actions were not in the interest of furthering women in tech. If
anything these ostracise women further by making men feel uncomfortable about
what is and isn't permissible to say.

Not in my name!

------
trbs
I think Adria should have responded in a different manner first (by just
turning around and saying "Please stop."), but neither of them deserve to lose
their jobs over this. Most of the blame lies on PlayHaven for firing the guy
anyway.

------
kalethrowaway
Why wouldn't she approach them directly? This is such a weird interaction.

~~~
lizzard
Because people don't respect those requests and just joke more, get hostile,
mock us. It is not about personal publicity. The fallout from reporting
incidents like this (or documenting them at all in public) is extreme. It
isn't good for the reporter.

~~~
gsibble
That sounds like an appropriate time to escalate the situation publicly if you
are mocked and is absolutely inappropriate when it happens. But how does
posting it publicly on Twitter instead of privately asking for it to stop not
result in hostility or mocking? Seems like it does....(this thread is case in
point).

(not disagreeing, just trying to gain perspective)

------
bmjunk
Now this is funny. I just expressed my opinion on the PyCon incident on
Twitter where I wanted SendGrid to take strict action on Adria for abuse of
power and also stated that it sets a scary precedent if they turn a blind eye
to this. And what happens in like 5 minutes? I get added to long list of
people in a Twitter list by this lady @estellevw. The list is called
"Priviledged Asshats" (No idea if the spelling is intentional).
<https://twitter.com/estellevw/priviledged-asshats> You heard it right folks!
Someone has painstakingly created a list and is scanning Twitter for tweets
and is adding them to the list. Pretty much over the top reaction to a
balanced statement made on Twitter. Just as over the top as Adria's childish
actions.

~~~
integraton
Not funny. Disgusting. Clear-cut harassment.

Estelle Weyl's actions and twitter bio (an emoticon with two middle finger
gestures) reveal a lot.

------
ignostic
The author slams Adria for taking the "cowardly" way out, all while remaining
completely anonymous. It takes courage to accuse someone in public. It's a
shame the accuser lacks courage.

The author's claim, "You've taken feminism in tech a step backwards" stinks of
sensationalism in the same way Adrias closing sentence, "Yesterday the future
of programming was on the line and I made myself heard."

Get a grip, people.

------
noname123
Let's be honest, political correctness culture is here to stay. The accused
will be accused by the accuser who feels that they are standing up for
racial/gender/sexual orientation equality. Then, there'll be a backlash
against affirmative action/preferential treatment for those who feel that they
are not privileged and have been reverse-discriminated.

Publicly shaming this black woman is like condemning a person without
considering her character, poetic justice or further evidence of shadow white
male privilege depending on your creed.

I hope the guy who gets fired finds a new job with a pay-rise; and the woman
also gets to keep her job and moniker. Everyone should learn a lesson, just be
superficial and PC in public and don't take things so personally. Otherwise,
you might get fired or shamed upon in the blogshere.

~~~
fatjokes
> just be superficial and PC in public

This sounds like a frightening world. Eh, freedom in America has had a good
run.

~~~
pyre
Even in such a world, there is 'freedom.' The 'freedom' in America was freedom
from _government_ repression. The Salem witch trials aren't exactly recent
history.

------
scrapcode
In the Navy we called the preferred action in this post a "informal
complaint," in which you took it upon yourself to confront the issue and
devise a solution amongst yourselves. If that action did not resolve the
issue, you then commenced to file a "formal complaint," where it was wide
spread knowledge that something, usually much more disciplinary, would be done
about the issue. The knowledge that a formal complaint would bring about
unwanted consequences is often enough deterrence to such actions, however in
the case that one may get a little too comfortable, or cross the line, at
least they could rely on that "brotherhood" (whether it be a female or a
male), that their comrade would remind them of their boundaries instead of
immediately throwing them under the big yellow bus.

------
ErrantX
What's confusing to me is that it is unclear exactly what comments were made.
Something about "forking" repositories and big dongles. It would be much
easier to take a "side" if this were made clearer.... (one reason I'm not
outright defending Adria here is that she is very specific in some details in
her post, but when it comes to the actual jokes made she appears deliberately
vague).

What's wrong with lewd comments, in ''general''? Men and women make them all
the time, even in professional contexts. I had to suffer a summer working in
an office with 90% female staff and some of the conversations there.. well, I
learned a lot! One woman there spent a substantial amount of time lecturing me
(aged 17) about how men could benefit from using feminine hygiene products to
keep our junk smelling nice. And, yes, I've been in offices where I've cringed
at some of the comments made by guys in the presence of girls.

The point is: in specific lewd behaviour isn't good, and perhaps these guys
were crossing the line by having their jokes in such a public venue.

But the heat here is ridiculous, from both "sides". And is really rather
detracting from core gender issues.

Every industry has sexism issues. I've worked in a few different jobs and seen
this; and it works both ways. Some jobs are hell for women, some are hell for
men. It's a broad societal issue that isn't helped by witch hunts, either
against these guys or against Adria.

~~~
anigbrowl
I too find the vagueness troubling. The incident she described earlier in the
day (describing a lame joke involving skirts) was described in much more
detail, making it far easier to understand what was said and how offensive and
discomfiting it must have been. The later incident (involving talk of dongles)
may have been equally offensive, or it may have been nothing more than
banter/wordplay. I really can't tell, and wonder why this important context is
absent.

------
89vision
Regardless of how you feel about this incident, the hate filled comments and
threats Adria is receiving on her facebook are absolutely disgusting and
aren't helping the cause.

------
agentultra
Posted anonymously.

It sounds like those involved were spoken to and the issue was handled. Good.

Sexism doesn't belong any where. Believe it or not but I experienced it myself
at Pycon. Private conversation with a male colleague became weirdly sexual and
offensive. I had to point out that it was inappropriate and end the
conversation. I urge everyone to not tolerate this kind of behavior. It's not
appropriate to be making dongle jokes in a public, professional setting
period. Deal with it.

A "private" conversation is one where the participants are alone. These two
people clearly were not.

Yes getting fired over this sort of thing is rather extreme. Does that make
Adria wrong and this stupid post worth getting up in arms over? No. I think
SendGrid is right to back her and they would be crazy not to. The Pycon
organizers handled the situation appropriately and I think the attention it
has drawn is a good thing.

I hope that this sort of incident will become less prevalent in the future.
With more outreach and good work perhaps my daughter won't have to "get used
to" this sort of thing when she grows up.

------
darkxanthos
The real fear here is someone lost their job without all the facts being
presented. That irrationality is scary. I don't mind being accused of
something if I feel it will lead to a rational discussion. If this is true,
then the issue is less the woman and more the company and our industry being
irrational and emotionally and haphazardly ruining the lives of others.

------
tmsh
It's worth reading the original blogpost:

[http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-
dont...](http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-dont-belong-
at-tech-conferences/)

I hope this developer will be able to find another job.

But consider that conference rooms are different. You can't make a joke about
fire or a bomb there without potentially threatening public safety. By a
similar logic, if you say things which negatively affect my state of being in
the conference, then you are potentially at fault.

So is it possible to make a private joke in a conference room while someone is
giving a presentation? I would argue that it is possible in some situations,
but not in all situations. So before everyone rushes to judgement, consider
whether this particular venue and setup does make the context for this joke
different.

I think the employer overreacted. But while I think everyone has a right to
tell whatever joke they want in private, in conference rooms, there are
different rules for conversation being private.

------
shill
Just say "hashtag joke" after saying something offensive. Problem solved.

<https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312293950058815488>

------
rabino
It is incredible that Adria is presenting herself as a kind of hero here. The
problem for "women in tech" is exactly people like her.

~~~
mwetzler
really? that's the problem? it's not wide-spread societal bias against women
and beliefs about a women's role in regards to science and career? Come on.

~~~
singleuse
Yes sexism and witch hunt are the main issue and going after people who make
jokes you don't find funny because they're guys is sexism and a witch hunt.

Would she have done the same if it were women instead of men ? I don't think
so. It looks like a personal crusade against men.

------
themangodess
I do not feel safe when the modern idea of civil rights is blatantly accusing
people of wrongdoing and playing the victim. Being a woman does not mean your
entire focus should be on how much of a woman you are. This isn't all you are
and this isn't all we see. Professionalism is not turning around, smirking,
taking a snapshot, then tweeting it right in front of them to 30,000 people.
Professionalism is not ranting about it on a blog, accusing them of sexism,
and acting as if you're the hero.

Professionalism is not responding to a Microsoft architect on twitter and
accusing him of racism and white supremacy because he used the word 'lynching'
metaphorically to describe the mob mentality of her supporters, and then
quoting him and linking to a blog post about how straight white males are the
"lowest difficulty setting that is".

She doesn't come across as a feminist or a technology evangelist. What she
does come across to me as is something you'll find ironic. She comes across as
sexist.

------
joshdotsmith
I canceled my SendGrid in response. <http://cl.ly/image/412O0S0Y003y> I can't
really consider developing for a company whose own evangelist might get me
fired one day for something similarly trivial.

~~~
tom399
I hope you told them why you canceled.

~~~
joshdotsmith
Yes, I did.

------
tn13
Did she want them to be fired ? Cracking a fallus joke might be immature but
then putting such random photos on twitter is also equally immature. However
whoever fired those who cracked the joke seem to be at fault here.

~~~
WalterSear
She'll be ok, even with the penis jokes she made in her twitter feed, from the
same conference. Why?

She works here: <http://i.imgur.com/uWc8P39.png>

------
utunga
What upsets me is not so much that someone posted something on twitter - who
cares? But that someone got fired over it.

Surely that is the real issue - not so much what Adria did but that some other
person decided an (esentially unsubstantiated) tweet from a third party was
sufficient reason for dismissal.

If nobody got fired there would be no issue here. Let's ask for a response,
not from SendGrid, but from whoever it was that fired the fellow in question?

~~~
vilda
Not sure how's that in US, but posting someone's picture publicly is in many
European countries illegal.

------
joshontheweb
Well, guess I'm never going to PyCon.

~~~
jordanmessina
Just curious. Do you say that because of the behavior of the men making the
comments, or because of Adria's reaction to those comments?

~~~
joshontheweb
Because it looks like I would most assuredly get kicked out and perhaps
publicly shamed over a stupid joke.

------
signed0
When I first heard of this I was expecting another "CouchDb: perform like a
pr0n star" indecent. After learning that the offending comments were made in
private, not by one of the speakers, and of their lack of explicitness, this
entire thing seems entirely overblown.

------
ameen
Adria's behaviour is reminiscent of a classic high school snob. Complain about
someone you don't like, get them punished and gain fame.

If anything this reflects highly on SendGrid's work-culture. I can only
imagine what her colleagues go through on a daily basis if she can do this to
a rank outsider. Fear, intimidation and high-handedness in a workplace is the
last thing anybody should have to deal with.

------
vivin
Can the guy(s) who got fired pursue legal recourse? Could they sue her for
defamation or something? They got their picture taken and posted without
permission, but I don't know if they can argue that they have a reasonable
expectation for privacy at the conference. But what about losing their job and
having their reputation tarnished? Maybe some legal types can weigh in.

------
KVFinn
Her tweet is appropriate and mild. "Not cool" is the right response.

But they lose their jobs? Huge overreaction by that company.

This pastbin piece is an attack on HER however. "She's setting back women's
rights!" Also a huge overreaction.

If nobody got fired there would be no conflict here.

------
Proleps
I'm glad I'm not a programmer in the US with all this sexism drama happening
over there. If I where a programmer in the US I would never visit a
conference, feels like walking through a mine field when you can't even make
jokes about a dongle.

------
outside1234
I don't get it. Are there folks amongst us that really so socially inept that
they think its ok to make a dick joke at a conference regardless of context?
Its a professional conference and that is not professional behavior.

~~~
songzme
If women sitting behind me makes a period joke I'd be totally fine with it.
People attend Professional conferences and people have personality. I'd rather
to go to professional conference and meet people for who they are and not
their professional facade.

~~~
wpietri
I understand why you think reversing the genders is a good way to have an
intuition about whether this is reasonable.

But it's not, because you still bring along a lot of your experience with you
into the hypothetical. You're used to being in the majority. You are unlikely
to have experienced unwanted sexual advances, sexual harassment, or sexual
assault. You are at low risk of those happening in the future.

So a period joke (which isn't sexual) wouldn't phase you. Even some joke that
does sexualize the context probably wouldn't bother you. You'll still feel as
safe and respected as before. But that's not true for a lot of women.

------
forsaken
[http://pycon.blogspot.com/2013/03/pycon-response-to-
inapprop...](http://pycon.blogspot.com/2013/03/pycon-response-to-
inappropriate.html)

~~~
fernandotakai
> PyCon values the privacy of all attendees above everything.

She took three pictures of the two guys without their consent (something that
is against the code of conduit). Why their privacy values were not respected?

------
JDSD
Isn't this classified as slander? He could file a civil suit against this lady
for what she allegedly heard, more than likely out of context, and publicly
exposed something she had no business eavesdropping anyway.

This man wasn't being immature, he was having a laugh in a personal
conversation, and someone wanted to be an internet hero, stand on a soapbox,
and project their shitty, self-righteous opinions.

What if he was talking about chaining multiple USB Dongles. It would be a HUGE
dongle, and it could theoretically be marketed as a PHALLUS DONGLE.

Please see George Carlin on soft language for further reference..

------
marginalboy
Am I cultivating a hyperactive sense of irony if I point out that, instead of
turning around and asking them to take it elsewhere (as a mature adult ought
to have done), she played the "damsel in distress" card and tweeted to
thousands of people to come stop the big, bad boys behind her from making
naughty jokes?

------
ChuckMcM
Wow, this is probably the first thread I've read on HN where the phase "Ok,
what the heck just happened?" seems apropos.

The cognitive dissonance of the actions and the outcomes and the timeline just
boggles the mind.

~~~
jlgreco
The whole thing appears to be a CF. I don't think it is _possible_ to learn
anything from studying this incident, it is too tangled and wrought with
distortion.

The only thing I can think of is the end of Burn After Reading:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQQdSwFgSec>

------
benjamincburns
Am I the only one who sees the irony in the fact that this happened at a
conference for a programming language which was named in celebration of a
crude, sometimes immature, comedy group?

~~~
reeses
No, you are not alone. I'm surprised we made it this far without python →
snake → penis being mentioned.

~~~
pwang
<http://holdenweb.blogspot.com/2012/12/im-sorry.html>

------
uladzislau
PyCon's response to an inappropriate incident on March 17th
[http://pycon.blogspot.ca/2013/03/pycon-response-to-
inappropr...](http://pycon.blogspot.ca/2013/03/pycon-response-to-
inappropriate.html)

"Both parties were met with, in private. The comments that were made were in
poor taste, and individuals involved agreed, apologized and no further actions
were taken by the staff of PyCon 2013. No individuals were removed from the
conference, no sanctions were levied."

~~~
tom399
Why didn't they address her taking unauthorized photos of other attendees?

------
lizzard
I was under the impression that they were talking with her when they made the
jokes. As such it is something that shouldn't be assumed to be okay and in
fact is often hostile and exclusionary.

The backlash and hatred, death threats and extreme harassment she got from
reporting this to the con, as women are often _advised_ to do rather than
confront people directly, should be instructive to you all.

------
mmanfrin
I sure trust an anonymous pastebin from a throwaway account to make
accusations about Adria's 'unfound accusations'.

/s

~~~
lopatin
Accusations? There's nothing to be taken on faith in the post. All facts are
backed up by proof. There's nothing to "trust". Just stuff to agree/disagree
with.

~~~
pencilcode
Yes, nothing like acusations of her lying

------
andrewcooke
which company did the fired guy work for? they, to me, seem worst of all here.
and i can't work out who they are.

edit: it seems to be playhaven <http://www.playhaven.com/> \- info from
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5410967>

everything else seems to be a mix of stupidity, confusion, frustration, anger
and poor communication (some of those on both sides). the kind of thing better
worked out with some serious discussion rather than firing people.

------
WestCoastJustin
Added context: Inappropriate comments at pycon 2013 called out (twitter.com)
[1]

[1] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5391667>

~~~
mnicole
Note that this thread was Reddit-bombed, particularly by Men's Rights, so
don't bother engaging with some of those commenters and take some of the
upvotes/downvotes with a grain of salt. Meanwhile, my response to the victim,
mr-hank (wherein he apologizes and sides with Adria as seen here lower in that
thread: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5398681>) was [Dead] as soon as
I posted it (not sure why this happens).

------
ajays
I don't understand something. How can she find a dongle joke in a private chat
offensive, while make a phallic joke herself a day later? Sure, she can say
that they broke the conference's rules; but people break such rules all the
time. Grab an extra pastry? Borrow a colleague's badge? Sneak out some extra
food? Who hasn't done that?

This just seems bizarre, and the price paid by the guy who got fired seems to
be too much for what was, in essence, a private conversation. I can understand
(to some extent) him being excoriated for making such a joke with her; but he
was chatting with a buddy, albeit louder than intended.

Sometimes I wish people would just calm down a little, and fight the _real_
problems. And I'll be the first to raise my voice against sexism and
discrimination, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

------
devopstom
Well, now I'm pretty sure who asked this ridiculous question on Quora:
[http://www.quora.com/Did-Githubs-hardcore-forking-action-
mes...](http://www.quora.com/Did-Githubs-hardcore-forking-action-message-
discourage-contributions-by-women-to-open-source-software)

------
neya
I 100% agree. I think we need to enforce fair and strict rules for both
genders instead of going soft on one and going hard on the other just because
they're from gender 'x'. I think if someone is wrong, they are definitely
wrong, irrespective of their genders. And as for Adria's case, I can tell you
honestly that she adds 0% value to the women community - There are many people
who use feminism to make things fair for them, then there are people like
Adria who just use feminism as a personal weaponry to take down people against
whom she's had personal vendatta. I think females like Adria who add no value
to both communities - Male or Female should rot in hell (considering the fact
that she got men with kids and children and wives to support fired, stranded)

------
zabomber
Ah grow the fuck up already. You idiots make the "wider world" look at us and
laugh.

So what if some dude made a joke of a sexual nature behind you. Just because
you in a room full of dudes doesn't mean it's all about you.

And if you made that joke with her in mind, you're a dumb fuckwit who needs to
grow up.

Are we all in grade 5 here?

------
nick2
I don't know who is wrong or right(based on she said, he said), but taking a
picture of these guys and posting it on twitter was inappropriate.

------
antihero
She made a bad call with terrible consequences. She needs to make it right,
and perhaps will then start to restore the trust.

------
fatjokes
My money is that she'll just use these criticisms as "proof" that tech is
sexist.

~~~
paranoiacblack
Well, these might not be "proof", but would she be wrong in saying that?

HINT: Look at the assumptions in your post.

~~~
fatjokes
I think she'd certainly be wrong. I made the assumption based on her responses
to comments on her blog (in which she denies any hint of wrongdoing even when
confronted by a polite, rational comment by someone who appears to be a
friend/acquaintance of hers), as well as her actions to begin with.

I didn't make that assumption because she's a woman.

~~~
paranoiacblack
> I made the assumption based on her responses to comments on her blog

Fair enough.

------
wpietri
Well, how can I not believe somebody demanding forthrightness, honesty, and
the careful use of social media when they're making anonymous accusations in a
way designed to stir up emotions and on-line drama?

------
singleuse
To me this looks a lot like sexism against men. Would she have done the same
if this joke had came from a group of women ?

Then it is really inconsiderate and irresponsible to post pictures like this
online. In other parts of the world taking this picture would send you to
court and with the accompanying comment would most probable send you to jail
with a hefty fine.

And now PyCon has officially turned into Soviet PyCon where all attendees
should self-censor and be very wary of any woman there. Epic fail at creating
a welcoming atmosphere for women and gender equality.

------
coldtea
What they said could have been sexist or whatever. If it was in the form of a
joke, and not directed at some woman, it's their bloody right to say anything
they want. Jokes are not supposed to be tame or PC. Real life is not the
Disney channel.

Being a snitch and getting people fired (and for something they merely said
--in JEST!) is far worse. What she did is so much more morally repugnant than
being "sexist" that it's not even funny.

The Puritan heritage of USA somehow always lives on, even in supposedly
"progressive" forms.

------
cupcake-unicorn
I think the issue here is more her posting the picture and identifying the
people, no? I had a strong urge to tweet "There's a guy with a Jagermeister
hat and Green Day shirt reading a Berenstain Bears book in the doctor's
waiting room" a couple months ago, and as funny as it was, I wouldn't have
posted a stranger's picture.

I think it's fine to vent on Twitter about the things going on around you, the
medium is suited to that. It's easy to use it as your own personal live log.
But it's not necessary and I think a privacy violation to post random pictures
of people.

Perhaps she just takes a lot of pictures and was in super tweeting mode, like
tweeting every meal and had a lapse of judgement? Didn't look at her other
tweets. But that is the issue, that of the picture, correct? At first I didn't
realize there was a link to a photo anyway and didn't know what the big deal
is. Not sure what kind of employer would fire someone over a photo of someone
claiming that they said something (privately) as well.

It's sad because it makes it harder for women who have more serious concerns
to be taken seriously, and to let those women also have reactions and express
their discomfort, in a way that doesn't include publically shaming all those
involved for more minor incidents like this.

------
CommitPush
Just one word that comes to my mind here: Attention whore.

Talking about penises is not sexist. Just wtf??

~~~
drivebyacct2
There's _probably_ a way you could have expressed that without using such a
loaded word of "whore" especially when allegations of sexism are in play. At
least choose your words well. Adria is a _prostitute_ because you disagree
with her sensibility and judgement? I may not agree with her either but I'm
not going to resort to name-calling. Be more mature.

------
bdcravens
My first response is the pitch-fork one that seems prevalent. However, what if
the person was making a comment about the housekeeping at the conference
hotel, or were cracking a joke about "rollin on ma 20 inch rims all up in da
hood" that were overheard by a minority? Would the same objections about it
being a private conversation apply?

------
mkr-hn
This situation is packed with a lot of cross-talk, strawpeople [1], and
derailing exaggeration. I don't know how to unravel it when everyone is so
primed to get up on soapboxes and opine about things they don't understand.

[1] I used this word back when I thought feminists were a bunch of idiots. It
sounds better to me. Get off your soapbox.

------
geekam
I was wondering that what happens if you are standing with a couple of people
and one of them drops a sexist joke. You did not have anything to do with it,
and you do not support that behavior but you just happened to be standing
there. In that case that picture that Adira took, would get you in trouble as
well. Won't it?

------
jlengrand
Everyone can make mistakes. And everyone can make things that get out of hands
(especially today, with Twitter and co).

What kills me most is when people that make those mistakes don't try to makes
things right back when it explodes. . . .

And BTW, since when a tweet from a random guy is enough of a proof to get
someone else fired?

I am deeply saddened by what happened :S.

------
codexon
Hmm this is interesting.

This post is only 2 hours old with 535 points, yet it is ranked below "You
just went to the Google homepage. What actually happened?" with 488 points at
7 hours old.

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5408597>

Is there some weighted voting going on?

~~~
DanBC
Some people are flagging the post.

~~~
codexon
Interesting, how do you know flagging acts as a downvote?

~~~
vellum
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5204046>

------
CurtMonash
When personal liberty bumps up against the right not to be annoyed, it's best
to err on the side of courtesy. At least, err on the side of courtesy up
through the point of civil discussion -- say nicely why something bothers you,
and listen if they explain nicely why they feel they have a need to keep doing
it.

If somebody explains nicely why jokes or noise or cigarette smoke or whatever
bothers them, you usually only have two decent choices:

1\. Explain your side nicely. 2\. Just give them what they want.

It's safe to say this incident never got that far. No doubt people who weren't
anywhere nearby disagree as to which of the parties first got off the track. I
generally lean to the side of the complainer, not the complainee, including in
this case.

------
pyre

      | Instead she cowardly chose to not engage
      | them directly
    

So... If someone is too intimidated for direct confrontation, their voice is
not welcome / allowed to be heard?

1\. Contacting the conference officials is a valid action to take.

2\. Turning the incident into a blog post is ok too. It sparks public
discussion.

3\. Posting pictures and names is not. Especially since this seems to be a
'straw the broke the camel's back' situation, and I doubt that these same guys
were the ones that offended her all of the other times. They get to take the
full force of her fury that built up over (possibly) several incidents. That's
not entirely fair. Even more so because she was just a by-stander to a
conversation that was intended to be private.

------
RutZap
I think people should read Paul Graham's article one more time!
<http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html>

I get a feeling some people are desperate for attention (otherwise I can't
justify many of her blog posts).

Anyway, I think there's too much energy spent on stupid arguments like this
one, and people should mind their own business and not interfere with other's
lives.

As Paul Graham says, Argue with idiots and you become an idiot. So if the guys
were being idiots with their lewd jokes, Adria became a bigger idiot for
getting involved, and even more, getting that poor guy fired (a sanction would
have sufficed).

------
smrtinsert
This is what happens when you substitute braces for whitespace. There must be
order!

------
justanother
Is it possible there's enough blame to go around? I've been to plenty of
conferences, and would never make such a joke where it could be overheard (I'd
have the common decency to type it on the iPad to the guy next to me), to
avoid exactly this situation. No, Adria didn't have to go Full Hall Monitor on
them, but since she did, her employer didn't have to fire the offenders,
either. I know for a fact that my employer might have privately been Very
Disappoint, but would completely support me in public.

The engineers have learned a valuable lesson and will soon be hired someplace
nicer.

------
rdl
Curious where the guys worked. (Oh, apparently PlayHaven, some mobile game LTV
maximization company, like Zynga with even less emphasis on gaming and more on
extracting money from idiots. So, no great loss...)

~~~
mrchess
Hey, the guy had a wife and kids. He is just trying to make a living. Come
on...

~~~
rdl
I mean he is likely to find another/better job before the end of the month.

------
coldtea
That the guy/gal reporting on this had to do it through Pastebin, in fear of
something similar happening to him, it's telling.

It seems the tech world (or the corporate US) has its own "thought crimes",
even "joke crimes".

------
johnward
I dont't know the full details only some of the HN and Twitter drama.

Here is how I think this should have played out.

dudes:"lol dude something something penis like joke" chick: "hey do you guys
mind not talking like that it's a bit uncomfortable" dude: "oh sorry I didn't
realize."(stops making dick jokes).

No need to continue to make jokes. No need to go to twitter. No need for
someone to be fired.

That is my opinion of how this could have been handled with mutual respect.
Also I think the initial joke was more childish than sexist. It's a conference
for industry professionals, not 8th graders.

------
copx
Why does this always happen at Python or Ruby conferences?

I have never heard of such ridiculous drama at C++ conferences for example.
There seems to be a curious link between programming languages and culture.

I mean people interested in Python can obviously start a major drama over a
harmless juvenile comment like that.

I remember seeing Andrei Alexandrescu (of C++ and D fame) joke about the
double meaning of the term "pussy programmer" at a conference. Now that was
way more "sexist".. but there was no drama.

EDIT: To make it clear, he did that during an interview, in front of the
camera!

~~~
PommeDeTerre
While incidents like this are common at Ruby conferences, this is actually
exceedingly rare to see within the Python community.

The Python community is generally much more like the C++, Java and .NET
communities, where professionalism and a lack of drama are the norm.

My suspicion is that at least some of the people involved here may not really
be part of the Python community in any sense, but were merely just attendees
at one of the largest and most prominent Python conferences.

The "About" page[1] of the blog of one of the individuals involved doesn't
currently mention Python once, but does list "Build a Ruby App for something
I’m passionate about" as a "Life Goal", and lists "RailsConf" under the
"Speaking Events" section. There's also a video entitled "I’m ready to start
programming Ruby on Rails" shown on the "Videos" page[2], but none about
Python. The "Speaking" page[3] lists "Instructor for RailsBridge Outreach
Workshop For Women" at "SFRuby", but again I don't see anything having to do
with Python. All of this indicates a much closer relationship with the Ruby
community, and essentially none with the Python community.

I think that the Python community, and PyCon, may be the real victims here.
They've been unjustly dragged into an incident involving at least one person
who does not seem to be part of the Python community, and have suffered
undeserved reputation damage as a result of this incident.

[1] <http://butyoureagirl.com/about/>

[2] <http://butyoureagirl.com/videos/>

[3] <http://butyoureagirl.com/speaking/>

------
hogu
I wanted to comment on a argument that is common in many of the comments.
Equality doesn't necessarily mean treating people the same. This is because
the same policy or action can have different impact on different groups. For
example, without maternity leave, women would have to choose between career
and having children, whereas while paternity leave is great, most men could
have children and keep their career without it. Arguments made should take
this into account.

------
bluehat
Does anybody know who fired the guy? I'd like to know who I'm not doing
business with anymore, that they cower to bullying so willingly instead of
protecting and teaching their engineering family? Even if you believe that
what they did was wrong, that punishment speaks more of cowardice than
justice.

If anybody knows the name of the guy, you are a derp guy, but get me your
resume so I can help you get a new job.

(And yes, I'm a lady, and no, that shouldn't be what makes you take my view on
this seriously).

------
aviraldg
I don't get the point.

1\. A said something to B (doesn't matter what he said)

2\. C _overheard_ and found it offensive.

3\. Honestly, why should A & B care? (that wasn't intended for C!)

I shudder to think of a society where I must consider every word I say, just
to avoid offending someone. Doing this will lead us to the kind of world
described in Fahrenheit 451, where nobody can really write about anything or
anyone because their opinions might offend someone.

Also, I guess someone doesn't understand the difference between `sexual` and
`sexist`.

------
tomrod
I see a number of people agreeing that this is a major overreaction. Are any
of y'all willing to hire (or even interview) the man that got fired? I think
that would be the action that would show independent thought on the matter.
Until then, I'm not sure what a concord on this action would bring beyond
posturing.

I hate to point this out, because I totally agree with the point people are
making. If I were in a position to interview the man (and had the need), I'd
probably do so.

Anyway, my two cents.

------
imsofuture
I'm shocked by the responses is on display here.

I think firing people was vastly overreacting and whatever they were saying
was probably pretty innocuous. But! Adria is well within her rights to be
offended by _anything_ and to act as she did. She hasn't done the slightest
thing inappropriate. The bandwagoning crucifixion here speaks _volumes_ about
our community. I am extremely embarrassed.

------
catweasel
This whole thing is elevator gate all over again. Feminists heading into "male
dominated spaces" with the intent of shaming men over whatever minor
transgression they can find. The foulest mouth in my workplace is a woman, a
dongle joke would be a cake walk for her. The day I see a feminist publicly
shaming a woman in a context like this is the day I'd take feminists
seriously.

------
jasonlotito
So, here in this thread, we see people calling out a woman over the internet
for calling out a man over the internet.

That's what we call hypocritical.

------
zopticity
There goes the saying, "innocent until found guilty".

So if I were a popular tech individual who decided to tweet about something I
may misheard in a bad way, I can actually get someone fired. The company who
fired the guys should have done some investigation instead of basing it off
tweets. This is ridiculous; this is the number one reason why I never went
back to PyCon.

~~~
fatjokes
Given the popularity of "perp walks", this doesn't even hold true for actual
crimes anymore, let alone this case.

------
weslly
What kind of company fires employees for childish jokes/puns (which weren't
even sexist)? This must be a very shitty place to work.

------
ianstallings
I am so sick of techno-bullying. From all sides.

------
habosa
I really don't see how two men making jokes about their bodies or about sex is
'sexist' in any way. It's not professional, but it's also not offensive. If
they speaking in public or with a group of women, then I can see how such a
comment would be marginalizing and make women feel uncomfortable. Still, I
don't see the 'sexism'.

------
afraidofsexism
Well. Whatever you think about whether the original incident was overtly
sexist or not, the response has surely been.

------
Romme
Fuck the patriarchy: <http://i.imgur.com/JioQv6f.jpg>

~~~
jaimebuelta
That image seems extremely suspicious to me. I've tried to localize the tweet
on Adria's twitter and I haven't been able.

Giving that doing some research it seems that she had a dog called Bluey that
recently pass away, I found this "image of a tweet" quite difficult to
believe.

------
johnny4000
And Sendgrid is down... <http://status.sendgrid.com/>

------
thejsjunky
Ugh, both this and the original post disturb me greatly. I sense a good deal
of hypocrisy and bad faith on __both __sides (though much much more so on the,
and excuse the terminology but I can't think of any better, "anti Adria"
side).

The original story should have been a good one:

PyCon has codes of conduct, and procedures in place if those are not followed.
Some jerks weren't behaving appropriately, it was settled in a fair and
appropriate manner - everyone wins!

It was slightly ruined when Adria decided to, apropos of nothing, go outside
those procedures by posting pictures of the "offenders" on her twitter and
complaining about them.

This is bad for a variety of reasons. It's a response that, relatively
speaking, is a "punishment" that was disproportionate to the offense. It's a
little hypocritical as it shows little consideration for the various people in
the photograph both "innocent" and "guilty". For example, someone in the
picture may have a stalker. Showing up in the background of some random
pictures at PyCon would be a bit risky, but largely acceptable. Appearing in
the foreground of a picture of picture tweeted on a popular stream and
discussed widely is much more risky. In some cases such a response may be
appropriate, from everything Adria said in her post it seems a relatively
disproportionate response.

 __More __importantly though, she didn't give a chance for the proper
mechanisms to work...it spoils the victory. This could have been an issue of
everything working as it should but now, while the outcome at PyCon (the
inappropriateness was stopped) was good...it's slightly hollow.

The other disturbing thing is there is a small degree of hypocrisy and bad
faith in Adrias original post. The focus on women as opposed to creating an
appropriate environment for EVERYONE is a little disappointed. As noted
elsewhere in general terms women are absolutely disproportionately affected by
this sort of thing in general...but this was a case where gender is less
important (contrasted to something like "booth babes" or pornography) and was
a good opportunity to make this into a discussion about how it's also
important to make EVERYONE feel welcome as opposed to a "boys vs girls"
framing which can be toxic to productive conversation.

I have full confidence that Adria was acting almost entirely in good faith. I
don't think she had anything personal against these guys, nor does she sit
around hoping to be slighted or wronged so she can blog about it. However it's
hard to sense any good faith reason to post the picture to twitter...it seems
to be entirely punitive. It wasn't out of exasperated impotence because she
hadn't even tried the proper channels. I likewise doubt it was for "help in
identification" since she published it immediately when it was unnecessary.
Also it's hard not to detect a little bit of glee in there, she clearly
envisions herself as a crusader "sticking it to the man".

Everything Adria did is absolutely understandable, the sort of thing we all
do. I agree it would be _nice_ if she could have said something and resolved
it there...however that's not reasonable to expect. There are a variety of
legitimate reasons why she may not have been able to...and why it may not have
been a good idea regardless. Simply going and talking to the appropriate
person of authority should be enough.

As an activist I find the idea of losing empathy with those you disagree with
extremely dangerous and counterproductive. It happens to all of us sometimes,
it's just important to see it when it happens and check it. Likewise it's
important to try and react appropriately/follow the correct channels. You
won't always be able to...but we need to recognize when we mess up and
apologize if necessary.

I don't think I need to spend much time discussing why this post and much of
the response to Adrias original post disturb me. A lot of it is based purely
in misogyny, reactionary, hateful, etc. I don't think it's hard to see a lack
of empathy in this post, or an excessive eagerness to attribute negative
motivations to Adrias actions.

So we end up with a victory that was deflated a bit by classic ills of
activism, and then a possible productive discussion of those ills ruined by
misogyny. As much as I hate to say it I do hope Adria apologizes - her actions
certainly could use one and it would take the ammo away from those who would
use this as ammunition against the cause she was working for in the first
place.

I hope the person who wrote this post, along with the authors of the hateful
replies apologize too...but I'm not holding my breath on that one.

~~~
reeses
While I don't completely agree with every nuance of what you present, I am
impressed with your ability to understand and articulate the complexities of
the situation.

"PyCon has codes of conduct, and procedures in place if those are not
followed. Some jerks weren't behaving appropriately, it was settled in a fair
and appropriate manner - everyone wins!"

This is the core of what happened. PyCon issued a statement saying that the
guys apologized and were not removed from the conference. This is the way to
correct this sort of action. Remind people that they are behaving
inappropriately and give them the chance to respond and, if appropriate,
acknowledge their mistake and apologize. Assume they are decent people who
made a minor error in judgment.

Adria could have handled her side anonymously without reducing the impact of
her message. That said, I'm going to assume as well that she's a decent person
who made a minor error in judgment as well.

~~~
thejsjunky
> This is the core of what happened.

The problem is it's not the entirety of what happened. We can't use this as an
example of the "PyCon system" working, because it's not that - it's some other
system where people complain publicly and then PyCon responds - hopefully not
purely out of shame (I have absolute faith in the PyCon people and their
absolute earnestness, it's just that the ambiguity is there regardless).

Likewise the actual outcome overall is not fair or satisfying for anyone in my
opinion. Some guys were publicly shamed needlessly, Adria gets a backlash
instead of focus on a real issue, and we get a bunch of heated discussions
with large unproductive sections.

I suppose it's not terribly productive to say "well this didn't work out
well", but I'm hoping we can all make sure we avoid something like this next
time.

> While I don't completely agree with every nuance of what you present, I am
> impressed with your ability to understand and articulate the complexities of
> the situation.

Thank you. I'd be curious if you cared to share some of the points you
disagree with.

~~~
reeses
"The focus on women as opposed to creating an appropriate environment for
EVERYONE is a little disappointed."

This is one of the "nuances" where I wasn't completely in accord with you. I
agree that it would have been better (and made her seem less opportunistic and
attention-seeking) if she had made the point that this kind of behavior was
unproductive for everyone, whether straight white nerd man-boys, children,
women, etc. However, I think that focusing on the female aspect is legitimate
as her personal view.

~~~
thejsjunky
That's fair.

------
porker
It would be interesting to know how companies in different countries could
handle this. Is such a comment a fireable offence in them all, or would he
have good grounds for an employment tribunal in a country _other_ than the
USA?

------
brass9
An awkward incident handled cowardly by someone, and some random anonymous
coward too afraid to put his name where the mouth is steps up in defence? feh

------
lyudmil
Everyone's natural tendency in situations such as this (ones where valid moral
principles are in conflict) is to try to look for the easy solution. We want
to determine who's right and who's wrong by determining which should take
precedence - one's right to privately hold and express (even unwelcome) views,
or one's reasonable expectation not to be bombarded with offensive language in
a setting where they cannot get away from it. In order to resolve this
conflict we try to order, add, and/or refine rules, hoping that we can make a
clear distinction between right and wrong that will be accepted by a near
consensus. This is an empty exercise and denies the nature of complex matters.

Clearly, the men involved (unknowingly) imposed speech that was deeply
offensive and uncomfortable for Adria in a situation where she couldn't get
away. She reacted, which she has the right to do, and as a consequence one of
the men is paying a price that is obviously too steep. It is clear that the
pain caused by Adria's tweet isn't proportional to the harm the initial
language caused, so what could have been constructive criticism has spun out
of control. So, it's unfair to Adria that she had to hear language she found
offensive, but it's also unfair that anyone got fired over a comment that most
of us would agree wasn't intended to offend and could've been rectified with a
simple apology.

We should acknowledge that no heuristic we can come up with will tell us how
to behave in the future in order to avoid this sort of thing. As a person who,
embarrassingly, finds toilet humor frequently hilarious and fully supports
free speech, I don't see nor want to see it go away. As a rational person I
also acknowledge this sort of thing has the potential to offend.

What we should realize is that, if we expect to progress in such matters, we
have to let go of the notion that punishment is the tool to move us forward,
and engage in conversation instead. The fact that our impulse is so frequently
to oversimplify behavior by labeling it "right" or "wrong", seeking to
penalize the "wrong" should trouble us. It denies both parties (both the
offender and the offended) the opportunity to exhibit empathy, compassion,
remorse, and forgiveness, which are at the base of anyone's morality. Thus,
the blindness to the complexity of moral dilemmas, and our aversion to the
necessary discussions deprive us of our humanity.

------
jdcaballero
in soviet pycon ...

------
farico
Sendgrid, you make us sad :( I doubt that I ever use your services, don't want
to support that kind of people.

------
jonknee
Hire an employment attorney and sue, you'll likely be compensated handily.

------
homosaur
This is more typical ignorant blogger mentality where you feel every slight is
an excuse to get on your dumb social soapbox. She should apologize to these
folks and the community at large to be honest, or this is always going to be
in my mind when her name comes up.

------
wildlogic
a bit more edgy but some of the same general points -
<http://pan.sx/Dongle_Jokes.html>

------
bm1362
And I just finally got my SendGrid t-shirt..

------
fgv
Who is Adria anyway? Is she particularly important in the SF tech scene? Why
was she given automatic credibility by Pycon and the employer of these men?

------
commanda
Why are you anonymously using Pastebin? I'd prefer if you posted it on your
own blog with your own name.

~~~
rza
Because anything you post that might remotely be labeled as politically
incorrect, you know, might get you fired.

------
largesse
_In fact, the next day she made a phallus joke herself
(<http://imgur.com/7XGY8wB>). This suggests that her motivations may be
questionable._

When you read her blog, you notice that she felt that she was taking a stand
for other women and for girls who may want to enter the industry. In a way,
this is not offense, it is meta-offense. She wasn't offended as much as she
was thinking about the effect of the men's actions on others. To me, that is a
very real problem. You can not play the sensitivity card on behalf of others.
It is a bankrupt position, and as this incident shows, extremely dangerous.

~~~
praptak
Scott Adams once wrote about this side of his Dilbert series: "It seems I
don't offend people. I offend _other people_."

(Quoted from memory. He was speaking about the letters he got about how his
jokes could offend a group of people to which the senders did not belong.)

------
edwardunknown
So now when you google this chick you'll see she likes to start trouble and
doesn't appreciate dongle humor. When you google Playhaven you'll see they
fire people arbitrarily and also don't appreciate dongle humor.

And you'll see Mr. Dongle loves a good dongle joke and is entertaining to have
around at a boring seminar. I think I know who comes out on top here.

------
largesse
Maybe PyCon's Code of Conduct should be amended to deal with bullying use of
social media.

------
andyl
Looks to me like a PR disaster for SendGrid. Last thing I'd want is my brand
to mixed up in gender politics.

------
MostAwesomeDude
Since nobody's said it yet...

Adria was playing Cards Against Humanity with a small group of people during
the conference, and tweeted about it: <http://imgur.com/a/JU8sk>

------
uribs
Who cares?

Also, what sort of moron fires an employee because a photo of him is on the
Internet?

------
drivebyacct2
Wow, if half as much attention and thought were put into how to fix real
problems with sexism in the tech community instead of on pissy temper tantrums
(on both sides), think how much actual progress we'd be able to make.

~~~
mkhattab
You're right, if only if it was just pissy temper tantrums. But a person, with
a wife and kids, lost their job and quite possibly their livelihood. You could
say that it was ultimately his fault for making such jokes but as many have
already pointed out this incident does a disservice to women in tech by
alienating male developers.

Don't know what else to say. This entire incident seems surreal to me.

------
smegel
I hate the way feminism was portrayed as the victim in this post - an innocant
was the victim of an undoubtably misandristic female.

------
ebbv
On the plus side if the guy's employer would fire him over such a stupid
incident he's probably better off working somewhere else. Hopefully some other
employer steps up and gives him a job.

My tweet on this issue:

Remember kids; if you overhear someone saying something you don't like, the
rational response is to attempt to ruin their lives.

------
unhe
i dont know what to say... this is getting quiet common in the internets to
first bully over the internet than speaking to the person directly... just
makes me wanna shutdown my twitter and my facebook account

------
rorrr
Adria Richards is an evil cunt.

SendGrid is a shit company that I would never want to work for.

------
Datsundere
Adria-chan likes jokes guys. Let's give her some
<https://twitter.com/gatordri/status/314456657340010496>

