Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost • Hacker News Board

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#171

Post by vellum » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 11:29 PM UTC

recoiledsnake wrote: post #39

mhurron wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the life of me cannot fathom why PlayHaven went to the extreme step of firing the dev in question. The appearance of bringing negative publicity to your employer will often get you fired. Make the complaints sexual in nature and you can probably kiss that job good-bye, this is how society handles these things basically everywhere. She brought negative publicity on her company, so she also risked her position. >…

>Oh pull your head out of your ass Do you really need to use abrasive language like this to get your point across? This isn't Reddit. >People acted angrily with the tools they knew best. Yes, the people who were looking to get her fired did so, and succeeded very well. Do you seriously believe the female or feminist tech community has the resources to perform DDoS?

Considering it's something any script kiddie can do: yes.

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#172

Post by MartinCron » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 11:36 PM UTC

niggler wrote: post #96

samiur1204 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Even though I'm sure Adria has been putting up with tons of real sexism over the years in the tech industry, and that this may have been the figurative straw on the camel's back, this is definitely the wrong thing to focus on. Sex jokes are definitely not necessarily sexist. These guys were perhaps a little crude, and their puns maybe horrible, but they were essentially harmless and at worst, just annoying. W…

" There is horrifying sexism in the comments that have been posted over the past 24 hours, and it just brings to light the pervasive sexism in our industry." Exactly. Which is why I'm happy this is playing out now, because I haven't seen the industry introspect on gender issues in a long time.

I haven't seen the industry introspect on gender issues in a long time

I value industry introspection as much as the next person, but these last 24 hours have been actively painful to me.

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#173

Post by niggler » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 11:46 PM UTC

MartinCron wrote: post #172

niggler wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" There is horrifying sexism in the comments that have been posted over the past 24 hours, and it just brings to light the pervasive sexism in our industry." Exactly. Which is why I'm happy this is playing out now, because I haven't seen the industry introspect on gender issues in a long time.

I haven't seen the industry introspect on gender issues in a long time I value industry introspection as much as the next person, but these last 24 hours have been actively painful to me.

"these last 24 hours have been actively painful to me."

That's a sign you are doing it right

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#174

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 11:46 PM UTC

MartinCron wrote: post #172

niggler wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" There is horrifying sexism in the comments that have been posted over the past 24 hours, and it just brings to light the pervasive sexism in our industry." Exactly. Which is why I'm happy this is playing out now, because I haven't seen the industry introspect on gender issues in a long time.

I haven't seen the industry introspect on gender issues in a long time I value industry introspection as much as the next person, but these last 24 hours have been actively painful to me.

[deleted]

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#175

Post by vacri » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 11:47 PM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #4

Amanda Blum apparently has a history of animosity with Adria Richards, while at the same time she also isn't one of those who would stick their fingers in their ears and say there isn't sexism in tech. That makes this post pretty interesting.

The content of the post makes this post pretty interesting.

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#176

Post by ericb » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 11:48 PM UTC

georgeorwell wrote: post #162

rdl wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently it's ok to post offensive jokes/sexual innuendo if you're a woman ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/adriarichards/sets/721576169418... ) or ( https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425 ), just like you can only be racist if you're white ( https://twitter.com/adriarichards/statuses/6039856858 )

Tu quoque (appeal to hypocrisy) is a fallacy, but this annoys me too. The pictures she took at PyCon of her playing a game of Cards Against Humanity are perhaps the most galling: https://www.facebook.com/adriarichards e.g. the one on March 14th where she's holding a card that says, "Eating all of the cookies before the AIDS bake-sale."

This goes beyond Tu quoque. She claims to have been offended, enough to publicly name and shame these people over their private conversation, but she has publicly made jokes that were far raunchier days before. It isn't about hypocrisy in this case, it is about whether she was really offended.

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

I have trouble seeing her shaming behavior as anything more than self-serving drama.

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#177

Post by tmsh » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 11:48 PM UTC

One thing I will say though, ironically, is that this may be actually a good experience for the million or so male and female technology people reading about this.

If programming teaches anything, it's that common sense is not something that actually comes easily. The better term perhaps is 'good sense'. And with changing environments, it's easy to lose sight of what is good sense, in different situations. Anyway, if the net result will be that a lot of people will be talking to people first if they have issues, and being more careful about their conversations, and more sensitive generally, then there might actually be a kind of hidden, but great, good outcome to it all.

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#178

Post by Jun8 » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 11:51 PM UTC

This is by far the best post I read about this whole sordid affair. As suspected, Richards, did indeed exhibit this pattern of overreacting before. The balance of this article was amazing!

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#179

Post by nilkn » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 11:54 PM UTC

Some of the reactions to her have really gotten way out of hand. Seriously.

I was just browsing through her YouTube account and it's now spammed with tons of overtly racial and sexist slurs against her. These aren't "dongle" jokes. They're the real deal.

This is really just a tragedy. Adria Richards is not the only one who is showing her sensitive, human side here. I think she made a mistake, a big one, and I agree with the decision of SendGrid. But, oddly enough, I think some of the reactions are showing that maybe she was right all along. Her example of sexism and racism in the developer community was a terrible one, but ironically it has led to lots of legitimate examples.

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#180

Post by georgeorwell » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 11:54 PM UTC

girvo wrote: post #165

georgeorwell wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tu quoque (appeal to hypocrisy) is a fallacy, but this annoys me too. The pictures she took at PyCon of her playing a game of Cards Against Humanity are perhaps the most galling: https://www.facebook.com/adriarichards e.g. the one on March 14th where she's holding a card that says, "Eating all of the cookies before the AIDS bake-sale."

I honestly didn't know Appeal To Hypocrisy was a fallacy! Probably one I'm going to continue to make; hypocrisy is the one thing that drives me insane.

Yeah, it's a kind of ad hominem, because it says, "This person's arguments are not worth listening to because this person's behavior is not in line with what they are arguing for." But if arguments are rational things with inherent truth then it doesn't matter who says them. Her argument about overheard dongle jokes being sexist is weak enough as it is. The added hypocrisy just makes for sadly entertaining drama / gossip / whatever. In a way, by focusing on the hypocrisy, it lends credence to her claim of sexism, because there's the subtle implication that if she weren't a hypocrite then the sexism claim would be valid. Anyway, whatever, her reputation is kinda ruined now, I hope she makes it out of this okay.