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The PyCon Incident

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Re: The PyCon Incident

#391

Post by ratat »

jasonlotito wrote: post #345
ratat wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is publicly posting a creepily-taken photograph of two friends at a conference, with entirely baseless slanderous claims of something you allegedly overheard them say to each other.

Baseless? PyCon disagrees, and apparently, so do the two friends. http://pycon.blogspot.com/2013/03/pycon-response-to-inapprop... So, unless PyCon is lying, the claims were verified. If they had not been, you'd have a point. If she had made the claims, but never went to PyCon and resolved it properly, you'd be dead on.

The claims were verified after the damage was done.

My point is that at the time she decided to take this photo (seemingly just after she overheard the statement) the claims were unverified. Had they not been able to verify the claims then it would have been too late.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#392

Post by Maxious »

GuiA wrote: post #92
whalesalad wrote: post #40

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…

It is quite insane. I almost gave a tongue-in-cheek lightning talk at Pycon (mostly about python stuff, but with some tongue-in-cheek political jokes), and decided against it at the last minute. I'm glad I did, otherwise I feel like there would be HN headlines about me getting kicked out of Pycon :)

In this situation, nobody was kicked out of PyCon or at all sanctioned http://pycon.blogspot.com/2013/03/pycon-response-to-inapprop...

Re: The PyCon Incident

#393

Post by jasonlotito »

josh-j wrote: post #381
jasonlotito wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What culture is that? * Calling people out who violate PyCon's code of conduct? * Following this up by going to PyCon and getting it resolved? ( http://pycon.blogspot.com/2013/03/pycon-response-to-inapprop... ) Are we really arguing that people should keep silent when things like this happen? When a rule is violated? That they should only respond after it's taken place? Is that what people are really asking for?

I don't think assuming or mentioning negative talking points in the form of a question is a productive way to have a discussion.

So then what culture is she encouraging?

* Calling people out who violate PyCon's code of conduct * Following this up by going to PyCon and getting it resolved

Those are the two things she did. Call people out who broke a rule. She also went to PyCon organizers to resolve it.

So, what culture is she encouraging, and why would we want to discourage it?

Re: The PyCon Incident

#395

Post by obstacle1 »

mwetzler wrote: post #307

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…

>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.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#396

Post by integraton »

jasonlotito wrote: post #380
integraton wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PyCon's response was appropriate. SendGrid's representative's response was not.

What response? Speaking up?

Speaking up to the individuals or to PyCon staff would have been very appropriate. Public shaming given the circumstances was not.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#397

Post by reallyme »

wpietri wrote: post #191
Joeboy wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 he…

That feeling - I know exactly what you mean!

For me, it's not huge gay leather daddies but people in uniform - police etc. Maybe that's because I grew up in a communist country.

Still, I think that's my personal issue, I don't expect society to switch to jeans-and-polo-shirt cops.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#398

Post by josh-j »

djcapelis wrote: post #365
josh-j wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a sane move if you want to discourage the culture that Adria is encouraging. Certainly her employers don't deserve any blame, though.

> Certainly her employers don't deserve any blame, though To be clear, SendGrid is her employer and that's exactly who sergiotapia sent an e-mail to saying he was going to boycott and recommended that others do the same.

I'm clear on that. This whole issue is deeply entwined with philosophy which makes it all a bit amorphous. From one perspective, you could argue that it's moral to boycott SendGrid if it leads to "positive" consequences, for example.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#399

Post by shardling »

Zarathust wrote: post #274
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…

There is also relevant finger pointing to the company that fired his employee less than 24 hours after the incident. Now that is a company that I never want to deal with!

Psst. Do you have any information about the actual firing?

I don't see any such links in this thread, which makes it hard to judge what's going on.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#400

Post by moistgorilla »

paranoiacblack wrote: post #159
peterhunt wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wh…

I said this in another post and I'm going to repeat myself here. Social media is powerful (look at the recent Steubenville fiasco) and if you are going to put somebody out to hang you better be right. Considering she is part of the pr group for her company (developer evangelist?) I believe she has an understanding of what a twitter account with 9000 followers can do.

>Isn't this exactly what happened though?

Also, don't try to play with words, she did that and more. The sensible response would have been to tell them to stop and then if they didn't, contact one of the staff. A post on twitter saying "Conference etiquette: Sexual innuendos about forking and dongles are not cool" without a picture would have been much MUCH more tasteful.

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