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My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

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Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#191

Post by matz1 »

UncleMeat wrote: post #128
suifbwish wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the modern day equivalent of being accused of witchcraft. You get a trial but good luck getting your reputation back. People are trained not to doubt this sort of thing end assume guilt, then when confronted they rattle off some supposed statistical fact that it’s virtually impossible for the accuser to be lying.

What are people supposed to do then. If your friend sees somebody at the store and says “that guy is an asshole, he used to beat me up in middle school” do you respond “wait I can’t develop any opinion of that person without a trial”?

What are you going to do ? Just believe it ?

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#193

Post by calylex »

dheera wrote: post #2

Related: Open letter of support for community members targeted by Jon Pretty https://github.com/scala-open-letter/scala-open-letter.githu...

You have no evidence to be smearing someone's name and defaming them on HN in this way. Stop this behavior until there is legal grounds for doing so.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#194

Post by devilduck »

fishnchips wrote: post #41
api wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like this court-of-public-opinion stuff much either and the abuse potential is real. At the same time: what else are people going to do? There seems to be no other recourse. Most people let bullies get away with it because even stepping in as a third party means standing up to a bully. It can be scary, but even if there's no real risk it's still a fucking pain in the ass. Who wants to get into a mud slinging…

Contact law enforcement.

Yes because that has proven to be extremely effective! Amazing insight here.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#195

Post by goblox »

rodgerd wrote: post #61
QUFB wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How are people still getting away with this kind of abuse? How? Read the comments in this thread six hours from now and you'll understand.

Six hours? It'll be flagged out of existence by then, most likely. On edit: it took mere minutes for the HN rape apologists to show up!

She is definitely the kind of woman where a man shouldn't be making such advances. Let her be the acting party. She would have been telling another story if she were on top and had taken the initiative. One of the simplest ways for a man to avoid the problems of consent where he suspects there may be is to be the one from whom consent is needed.

That is the absolute safest other than leaving. If you as a man attempt to get consent that may not be something you're able to obtain. She might be intoxicated and unable to consent. You might not know that. However what's safe is to let anyone initiate sex with you while you remain passive and let them have sex with you.

If you leave then I would strongly advise to say it is because you are feeling sick and think it's something you ate. Go to the toilet first and say you have the runs. That will cushion her pride and make her just glad you left. No chance of something mean-spirited.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#196

Post by Pfhreak »

ipaddr wrote: post #146
Pfhreak wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which part? The part where people are saying they've become aware of several independent, substantiated accusations against Pretty? The part where they state that sexual assault is unacceptable? The part where they demand that Pretty stop this behavior, and that communities put stronger code of conducts in place to specifically call out preying on/sexually assaulting members of that community as unacceptable? Refusin…

"We will not use or promote any software artifacts that are maintained by Mr. Pretty" This part seems over the top. You go down this road and you end up in some foss hell. Later you find out someone who abused someone checked in code in linux. You can't use windows or a mac because of jobs and gates and you are back on a c64 until you realize what a bad person Jack was and you end up on OS/2. I guess those who signed…

Edit: Would you characterize that part as "a bit like a public lynching"? Because I definitely wouldn't, even if I disagreed with it or felt it was too much.

---

I think you are very uncharitably reading that comment. There's a difference between, "This person checked some code into a repo" and "this person is the maintainer of a project".

And I think that it's reasonable for people to hold the stance of, "I don't want to run this person's code because I believe they are a serial abuser" and to clearly state why. If other repos see that, maybe they decide to take on that stance, maybe they don't.

They encourage others to consider doing the same, but the don't demand them.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#197

Post by joshuamorton »

JPKab wrote: post #173
solosoyokaze wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also a completely false argument since there's libel and slander laws. If the accused was innocent, they would simply sue the false accuser. That they don't says everything. The barrier and punishment for coming forward as a victim of sexual abuse, rape or harassment is great indeed. Questioning every case is ignorance of existing laws setup to handle any false accusations.

So in your judgement, a person who is accused is guilty if they don't retaliate with a slander/libel lawsuit? Did you ever stop to think that maybe, just maybe, lawyers and filing lawsuits might be expensive, prohibitively so? The "existing laws setup to handle any false allegations" exist only for accusations made in the court system. It's amazing to me how little thought people like you have behind your beliefs. Yo…

> The "existing laws setup to handle any false allegations" exist only for accusations made in the court system.

This is wrong though.

> Did you ever stop to think that maybe, just maybe, lawyers and filing lawsuits might be expensive, prohibitively so?

Indeed, and reporting a crime, and ensuring it is handled appropriately by a police force is also exceedingly costly, though perhaps not financially.

Significant portions of your post violate the HN guidelines.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#198

Post by willeh »

This may be a tone-deaf sidetrack but also perhaps an important piece of advice for some. There should be an impenetrable barrier between ones love life and ones professional life. While there are certainly people who have met their significant other in a professional setting, there are much better ways of doing that, especially nowadays. By striving to keep this separation water tight we can avoid both unwanted advances and false allegations.

The above is not comment on the allegations in the post, any more than if everyone followed the above basic principle we would not have to deal with disturbing stories such as this one. It is important that stories such as this one are told but perhaps with the names left out.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#199

Post by [deleted] »

Fern_Blossom wrote: post #175
btilly wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only kind of agree. In this case a Chinese woman living in the USA apparently got raped in Germany 3 years ago. To involve law enforcement she would have to travel to a country where she doesn't speak the language, to make an accusation for which she has no evidence but her word, against a man who lives in another city. What, exactly, do you imagine that the police are likely to do with her report? I hate the court…

>To involve law enforcement she would have to travel to a country where she doesn't speak the language, to make an accusation for which she has no evidence but her word, against a man who lives in another city. That's what an embassy is for... they help deal with these situation. >And there is also a chance that we can hit a critical mass where law enforcement somewhere may take an interest after all. Don't complain…

[deleted]

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#200

Post by JPKab »

baryphonic wrote: post #141
JPKab wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A massive company that makes overpriced, low-quality athletic products that double as status symbols, which they manufacture overseas (often using child labor) but then sell for massive markups in the US, Europe, etc. They have an extremely aggressive "woke" presence in their advertising, because as long as you care about social justice for your targeted customers, who cares that "people of color" in the developing w…

Sounds like your brother believed in something and sacrificed everything. If I were him, I might hire an employment lawyer and sue the shit out of them. Ya know, "Just do it."

The cost was hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the company would have fought it for about 3 years, based on the advice of the wrongful termination specialist he consulted. He would have been bankrupted, and did what most people do, and just moved on.
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