SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas • Hacker News Board

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#431

Post by jordo37 » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 8:44 PM UTC

blhack wrote: post #20

I really wish that this whole thing could have ended amicably (perhaps with Adria apologizing to the devs [by the way, the guy who was fired has already publicly apologized]). It's too bad that sendgrid had to fire her, I would never wish that somebody had their livlihood taken from them like that, but her job was to be a developer evangelist, which is a job she isn't realistically capable of performing anymore. I wo…

Not sure what subset of women you are talking with, but there seem to be plenty of women (and men! myself included)[1] who are definitely not furious with Adria over this, and instead are standing up with her. I feel bad the guy got fired, but the mass pandemonium and hateful comments being produced by the internet at large is simply disgusting.

[1]https://twitter.com/search?q=%23supportadria

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#432

Post by lifebar » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 8:44 PM UTC

djd wrote: post #212

I don't understand why this whole issue is being looked at from a feminist Angle. What would the reaction be if a guy has tweeted the same thing? I am not sure if what she did was right/wrong. deciding if she is right or wrong considering it a action of a women saddens me.

>What would the reaction be if a guy has tweeted the same thing?

He would have been fired for being misogynist. Thanks to feminism.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#433

Post by rdtsc » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 8:45 PM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #395

rdtsc wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Okay, time to speak up! Hi, I'm a woman in tech Thank you for speaking up. I imagine this is not the easiest time to do so. > This doesn't portray women as badly as it portrays our entire tech culture badly. With such a large audience there will always be extreme responses on either side. There will (and have been) DDoS attacks, personal phone calls etc. I don't think those represent the community as much as it rep…

> She claims jokes were offending, she then posts > racists and penis jokes on her twitter account. > Not only does it smell of hypocrisy it smells of > maliciousness. Wow, so if your mother (or sister, or girlfriend, or wife, or daughter) has ever made an off-color joke in her life, that gives any man in the world the right to discuss penises with her in person? I mean, wow. That's what you're getting at. Twitter ha…

> Wow, so if your mother (or sister, or girlfriend, or wife, or daughter) has ever made an off-color joke in her life, that gives any man in the world the right to discuss penises with her in person?

No but if they make those jokes and then turn around saying anyone making penis jokes is worth of public flogging I would also be the one pointing out the hypocrisy.

> I mean, wow. That's what you're getting at.

Yes. I am getting at hypocrisy. There was an element about her being so outraged at such anatomical jokes. Her credibility is slightly weakened because of her comments on Tweeter. Her credibility is even more weakened based on (what used to be) her job and community position. It more and more starts to point to her taking a calculated advantage of a situation, and also throwing someone under the bus in the process.

She also can't claim ignorance at how publicly broadcasting something like that would turn out for that person. That is what she does for a living supposedly. I think at this point, it would take a very strong argument to convince me this was a quick overreaction and an "oops".

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#434

Post by scarmig » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 8:46 PM UTC

doktrin wrote: post #178

shardling wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I would feel really uncomfortable if I was in the same room as this person. What if I accidentally say something that she finds offensive? Am I next? Next to what? Adria didn't fire anyone...

> Next to what? Adria didn't fire anyone... Being slandered on Twitter is far from non-trivial. I too would walk on eggshells in the company of someone with a track record of over-reacting like this.

Who's being slandered, exactly? They did tell the sexist jokes, right?

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#435

Post by georgeorwell » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 8:46 PM UTC

ericabiz wrote: post #217

blhack wrote: post #20

I really wish that this whole thing could have ended amicably (perhaps with Adria apologizing to the devs [by the way, the guy who was fired has already publicly apologized]). It's too bad that sendgrid had to fire her, I would never wish that somebody had their livlihood taken from them like that, but her job was to be a developer evangelist, which is a job she isn't realistically capable of performing anymore. I wo…

> "Most [all, actually] of the women I've talked to about this are furious with her over how badly this portrays women." Okay, time to speak up! Hi, I'm a woman in tech. And this upset me, but not for the reasons you think. I agree that Adria went too far in publicly Tweeting and "name and shaming" these guys. But the vitriol and hate that has spewed forth online to her is what takes my breath away. Comments calling…

I'm sorry, but you just threw up two different straw (wo)men here.

It's not sexist to make jokes about the word "dongle" sounding like "dong". They sound pretty similar. It's not very funny unless you're bored stiff or in grade five, but nevertheless it's pretty harmless joke material, and it isn't sexism. The examples you gave are sexism. If the two guys at PyCon had directed the jokes at Adria while also excluding her, then it would be sexism, but that isn't what happened. She just overheard their inane conversation.

Adria abused her power by escalating this issue to Twitter, and she got abuse thrown back at her. I don't believe she deserves it because nobody deserves abuse, but it's quite clear that it's a tit for tat kind of situation that she initiated. A clear example of her being abusive was that she fabricated the bit about forking repositories being a sex joke - and yes, jumping to conclusions and using the conclusions to humiliate someone is abuse.

As has been pointed out to you, "just snapping" is not an appropriate response to such a minor incident in a professional context. Give a talk or something. From what I've read, Adria is someone who is looking to be the centre of attention in a big drama and she got exactly what she was looking for. Losing her job will only fuel the Joan of Arc fantasies she has explicitly talked about.

In the end, I feel more sorry for Adria than the unknown guy from PlayHaven making dick jokes simply because it's clear she has far more issues to work through, and because this is hardly the end of her suffering. If she wants to blame it on a sexist tech industry she can, but I think she'd do better to look a little closer to home.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#436

Post by atirip » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 8:47 PM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #279

blhack wrote: post #20

I really wish that this whole thing could have ended amicably (perhaps with Adria apologizing to the devs [by the way, the guy who was fired has already publicly apologized]). It's too bad that sendgrid had to fire her, I would never wish that somebody had their livlihood taken from them like that, but her job was to be a developer evangelist, which is a job she isn't realistically capable of performing anymore. I wo…

> I would feel really uncomfortable if I was in the same > room as this person. What if I accidentally say > something that she finds offensive? Am I next? I wouldn't feel uncomfortable around her at all, because I find it very easy to avoid saying sexually inappropriate things to women I don't know. I have quite an off-color sense of humor myself. I joke a lot and a lot of those jokes involve sex, bodily functions,…

>because I find it very easy to avoid saying sexually inappropriate things to women I don't know.

How do you know what women you do not know find sexually inappropriate??

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#437

Post by katbyte » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 8:47 PM UTC

knowtheory wrote: post #399

doktrin wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are making a quantifiable assertion. If you'd really like to back up the claim, go grab some of the threads on this subject, and spider the account pages of the people posting to the threads. I don't see how plotting thread discussions on HN would even vaguely correlate to the Twitter abuse the GP was referring to.

zevyoura was asserting that the behavior seen on twitter is not representative of our community, and that those sentiments are isolated to a set of bad actors. My assertion is that there is a substantial number of people who share that same ill will here on hacker news. Most of the threads that have been posted to HN have been dog piles of hating on Adria Richards. So the question is are those people new and in fact…

Aren't the names of new users shown in green? So unless they already had accounts waiting around then people new to hackers news would stand out pretty easily.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#438

Post by nettdata » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 8:48 PM UTC

dubfan wrote: post #246

blindhippo wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it sure as hell was not a "good business decision". They got attacked by errant children expressing sad rage at something that while bad, was not deserving of retaliation against the company. So the result: the company ditches one of their employees for very dubious reasons. Basically they caved to internet bullying and validated every sexist moron on the internet. Well done Sendgrid. Well done.

How do we know that SendGrid fired her to stop the DDOS, and it wasn't due to her poor conduct on Twitter? (calling herself Joan of Arc, posting email and IP addresses of blog commenters, baiting trolls, etc.)

Agreed.

It seems that she involved them in a battle not of their choosing, one that they apparently don't want to fight, and she has since suffered the consequences.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#439

Post by jsmeaton » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 8:49 PM UTC

ericabiz wrote: post #217

blhack wrote: post #20

I really wish that this whole thing could have ended amicably (perhaps with Adria apologizing to the devs [by the way, the guy who was fired has already publicly apologized]). It's too bad that sendgrid had to fire her, I would never wish that somebody had their livlihood taken from them like that, but her job was to be a developer evangelist, which is a job she isn't realistically capable of performing anymore. I wo…

> "Most [all, actually] of the women I've talked to about this are furious with her over how badly this portrays women." Okay, time to speak up! Hi, I'm a woman in tech. And this upset me, but not for the reasons you think. I agree that Adria went too far in publicly Tweeting and "name and shaming" these guys. But the vitriol and hate that has spewed forth online to her is what takes my breath away. Comments calling…

> This doesn't portray women as badly as it portrays our entire tech culture badly

Yep. Even after the tweeted photo it seems like this could of ended with an apology going both ways. An apology that did actually occur at PyCon from what I've read.

The guys employer knee-jerked with a firing which should have been unnecessary and the ripples of that action have just gone way out of proportion.

I don't think she needed to be fired, and she definitely doesn't need or deserve to be called some of the things that have been said. The people doing so are actively harming any real discussion that is taking place.

I feel for both sides here.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#440

Post by ceol » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 8:49 PM UTC

joshdotsmith wrote: post #308

Aloisius wrote: post #95

I can't help but feel that if I, as a male, had posted the same tweet in response to some obnoxious guys behind me making situationally inappropriate comments and I was in her shoes as an evangelist at the time, no one would have batted an eye. Granted, I probably wouldn't have written a long blog post about it, but I've certainly talked to event organizers in the past about obnoxious people before and had them eject…

Talking to event organizers is an order of magnitude different from what happened here. I'd like to believe the same outcome would have happened in this instance even if it were you.

It most certainly wouldn't have. There are legions of morons shouting about feminists in almost every discussion about these events, even when Adria said she doesn't identify as one.

After this whole debacle, I've given up hope for both the self-proclaimed "hacker" community and the tech industry at large. The response to a woman posting a photograph of two people and reporting them to convention staff should not be "send her death and rape threats," "dig up every bad thing she's ever done in an attempt to discredit her," and "DDoS her employer."

It's disgusting, and I'm not going to cop-out and say, "Well both sides were at fault!" No, the side that stirred this non-story into a full-on witch hunt resulting in her harassment and termination is the side at fault.