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The PyCon Incident

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Re: The PyCon Incident

#151

Post by andrewflnr »

Joeboy wrote: post #116
llimllib wrote: post #46

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)

> Nobody is claiming that Adria is lying The linked pastebin says "the "forking" reference turned out to be a fabrication".

I don't recall exactly, but did she actually claim they said that, or just implicitly link the two guys with "other people" who make forking jokes?

Re: The PyCon Incident

#152

Post by 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.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#153

Post by integraton »

blhack wrote: post #7

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 c…

As a SendGrid customer, it concerns me that SendGrid would stand behind the initiation of a public controversy under such questionable circumstances, especially one that resulted in the firing of a developer from his job. SendGrid should be in the business of email deliverability, not public shaming.

Edit: I've tempered my phrasing above quite a bit and removed references to individuals.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#154

Post by numbsafari »

emiljbs wrote: post #108
numbsafari wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... what if the situation were just a tad different.. Let's say it was an Indian guy who is a tech evangelist for a successful startup and two guys behind him in a "private conversation in the middle of a crowded room" made jokes about how indian people speak or act. Those are jokes, and totally unprofessional in a work environment where you are representing your company that is sponsoring the event, right? But we…

That's a very bad analogy though. Perhaps if it was an Indian who made a joke about how Indians talk/act, but even that's stretching it.

That doesn't make sense. It was a man making sexual jokes in front of a woman, not a woman making sexual jokes in front of a woman... and probably besides the point in any event.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#155

Post by wpietri »

SODaniel wrote: post #52
danilocampos wrote: post #22

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…

Not being able to make sexually explicit jokes in private at a public conference is absolute ludicrous. No question that the offender here is the person posting this out of context and seemingly out of spite.

This was not in private. Their mouths were, what, two feet from the ears in front of them?

Re: The PyCon Incident

#156

Post by 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.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#157

Post by 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?

Re: The PyCon Incident

#158

Post by gokulk »

revelation wrote: post #141
djcapelis wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I cannot, in good conscience, ever do business with a company that supports that behavior. I think we need to stop doing this bullshit in general. I'd much rather have our community check each other and shame each other on Twitter than having employers step in and decide that thing X or thing Y is not okay for their employees to say in their personal capacity at a conference or on Twitter. As far as I've heard, Adr…

If I understood correctly, Adria is not another employee, but has the role of developer evangelist. In that role, your twitter account is very much an extension of your job.

I second this. The person is there at the conference as a rep for her company therefore it's speaking for the company.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#159

Post by paranoiacblack »

peterhunt wrote: post #107
djcapelis wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Skewering someone in public on the Internet like that is immature and irresponsible. There are a million better ways she could have dealt with this. I'm pretty sure relating and disclosing a situation that happened in a public place fully to the best of her ability shouldn't be something we call irresponsible. In fact, women who do otherwise are often asked to disclose in exactly the manner she did. No matter how a…

This is not about her being a woman. This is about responsibly dealing with a situation. "Exactly the manner she did?" No one has ever been asked to disclose a photo with faces on Twitter to 9k followers. The right thing to do is either deal with the person directly or escalate above them, whether you're a woman or not. Going straight to the mob is never the right answer.

> The right thing to do is either deal with the person directly or escalate above them, whether you're a woman or not. Going straight to the mob is never the right answer.

Isn't this exactly what happened though? She posted on her feed and asked if someone could speak to them and the Pycon officials saw her post and did exactly that. You're treating this as if she posted on her feed something like, "Can the people who employed these guys please fire them? Also, I want each of my followers to retweet this and make sure they get fired."

Re: The PyCon Incident

#160

Post by djcapelis »

dbaupp wrote: post #103
djcapelis wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please clarify if it is in fact the policy of the company you work at that employees should be "worrying about their job" based on the contents of their Twitter accounts. If so, please let me know so I can ensure that I never work with you.

Presumably the key point is not that it was on Twitter, but rather it was said in public. The medium is unimportant: its the same as if someone posted such things as a blog post, or said it on TV or whatever. You might like to treat Twitter like a private conversation, but when the posts are completely publicly accessible (and when the person has 1000s of followers) it is certainly not private.

IMO: unless you're in front of a podium with your employers logo on it or representing yourself as speaking for your employer, your words are your own stupid (or hell, maybe sometimes even wise) decisions.
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