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Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

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

#261

Post by tatsuke95 »

zeteo wrote: post #243
devilshaircut wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you are referring to the men and not Ms. Richards. Because her "little mistake" resulted in the firing of a decent human being with a wife and 3 kids.

She posted a tweet. Even had she called for his resignation (which she didn't), she didn't have any power to effect it. What about the overreacting HR people who actually fired him over that tweet (knowing about the 3 kids and all)?

How would you like to wake up one day and discover that your picture is all over the internet along with sexist/misogynistic accusations, and for all intents and purposes, you have no idea what you did wrong? Then you go to work and get canned.

This was a pretty scary scene she perpetrated, at least to me. You can really do damage to someone with a mere tweet. Over a dumb, overheard joke? Come on. Judging by the public sentiment, it'll probably be okay for this guy. He's been incredibly gracious publicly. But had he gone home and hung himself, what story would we be talking about?

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

#262

Post by ryanmolden »

michaelochurch wrote: post #129
niggler wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No court would consider him guilty of anything for a joke about a dongle." I'm not an employee of playhaven, but I'm sure new employees sign employment agreements. Usually those agreements reference standards of conduct and that violations can result in termination. The court would have to establish that the employment agreement is null and void, which is a much harder challenge. "I doubt his company had a sexual ha…

PlayHaven implied strongly that: (a) mr-hank did or said something sexually inappropriate. (He lost ground by admitting some degree of guilt on HN. Otherwise, it'd all be hearsay and he could say he was just talking about a literal dongle.) (b) mr-hank's conduct was so bad that there was no choice other than to fire him: "having to let this employee go". It wasn't we decided to fire him. It was we had to fire him. Im…

>He may settle for an amazing reference and introductions to investors

Honest question: if you essentially blackmail someone for an "introduction to investors" what makes you think the person introducing doesn't pull them aside before or after and say "this guy basically threatened to sue me if I didn't introduce him to you"? I have to imagine anyone in that position would likely do that, you could never prove they did it, and the investors would likely in no way take you seriously. That seems like the worst possible parlay I can imagine.

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

#263

Post by bmelton »

straws wrote: post #236
bmelton wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sincere question -- what if he felt that it wasn't offensive enough to have crossed her threshold and continued making similar jokes? Your assertion is that he would be in the wrong, but isn't that entirely subjective on the level of offensiveness of the joke? What if the joke were "Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side!" and she said that jokes about chickens made her uncomfortable. Is he obli…

If someone speaks up to tell another human being that what they are saying is offending them, they're going out of the comfort zone of a shared public space to express their opinion. It's not an easy thing to do, and it should carry some weight. If this guy continues telling sexually offensive jokes after being asked not to, it doesn't make him a misogynist, in the same way that continuing to tell uncomfortable chick…

Maybe this brands me an asshole, but if I'm doing something that I find to be not offensive, and somebody complains that it is offensive to them, I don't honestly know that I would stop doing it. To what extent does one go to accomodate?

If someone finds my breathing offensive, am I an asshole if I keep breathing?

I'm specifically ignoring the action of the companies, the firings and all that, because honestly, while I haven't heard the specific joke in question, it really doesn't sound offensive to me, and it seems as though Adria just decided to be offended by it, and while I'm wary of making assumptions (and even mr hank himself seems apologetic), I can't help but be thankful that it wasn't something I said. I was at PyCon, had conversations, and might have even made a joke or two. I don't think I said anything that might have come off offensive to anybody, but given how innocuous this whole thing seems to me, as somebody who admittedly hasn't followed the story, I just can't help but feel some great travesty happened.

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

#264

Post by unalone »

nsxwolf wrote: post #246
rmrfrmrf wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just like you can only be racist if you're white ( https://twitter.com/adriarichards/statuses/6039856858 ) I see people post this a lot without understanding the point of what she's saying. Adria subscribes to the belief that "racism = prejudice + power", which is basically to say that, yes, black people can be hateful towards white people and yes, racial discrimination does occur within the black community, but RA…

It's called Critical Race Theory, and it's just as valid to question it as it is to espouse it. It's not hard science. One could argue it gives minorities license to say as many racist things as they want to and claim it isn't racist. It's an argument constructed so that one side wins by default.

Well, it's an argument that one side does win by default, and that "racism" should be used to acknowledge that power imbalance.

"Minorities saying racist things", by this theory, doesn't hold a candle to, say, the fact that minorities are more frequently imprisoned, more often pulled over/searched illegally/beaten by law enforcement agents, more often feared, more often treated with bias in the workplace or dating world, and on and on and on and on and on. Racism isn't "the act of saying something bigoted", it's the acknowledgement of a systemic bias based on a person's skin color. And it doesn't deny that bigotry exists in both directions – it just insists that to focus on bigotry is to miss the deeper issue.

This is relevant to this thread, because gender inequality works much the same way. What Adria did was a dick move, and I think her actions were and continue to be rude as hell. But she acts within a greater context of sexism and misogyny in the programming world – hell, in America at large – and to completely disregard how shitty an environment exists for many women is to miss that Adria's behavior stems from a crappy reality. Doesn't make what she did any less inappropriate, perhaps, but it suggests that maybe there are issues here more important than what she did which may be more worth focusing on. I mean, any ills resulting from her behavior have been more than counteracted by the death and rape threats that have been fired her way – she may have started this, but the backlash against her has been obscenely disproportionate.

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

#265

Post by steveax »

eurleif wrote: post #228
michaelochurch wrote: post #45

Let's simplify the rules to basic decency. Don't Be a Dick. Oh wait, I guess I can't say that now. Well, fuck me. Whoops, can't say that either. I hope mr-hank gets a huge severance out of PlayHaven. (At-will employment is not as simple as employers like to say it is.) At this point, he has position for something substantial, given that they discussed the termination in the public (disclosing an opinion that he is gu…

>given that they discussed the termination in the public (disclosing an opinion that he is guilty) The actual wording is: "The result of this investigation led to the unfortunate outcome of having to let this employee go." It's not explicitly stated what (if anything) they determined he did; just that the end result was firing him.

And what a classic passive-evasive BS way of saying it. "Mistakes were made."

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

#266

Post by erikpukinskis »

nsxwolf wrote: post #246
rmrfrmrf wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just like you can only be racist if you're white ( https://twitter.com/adriarichards/statuses/6039856858 ) I see people post this a lot without understanding the point of what she's saying. Adria subscribes to the belief that "racism = prejudice + power", which is basically to say that, yes, black people can be hateful towards white people and yes, racial discrimination does occur within the black community, but RA…

It's called Critical Race Theory, and it's just as valid to question it as it is to espouse it. It's not hard science. One could argue it gives minorities license to say as many racist things as they want to and claim it isn't racist. It's an argument constructed so that one side wins by default.

Do realize that your superparent (who you are associated with by arguing with your parent) is not criticizing Critical Race Theory. They are claiming it is racist.

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

#267

Post by erikpukinskis »

cameronh90 wrote: post #245
rmrfrmrf wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just like you can only be racist if you're white ( https://twitter.com/adriarichards/statuses/6039856858 ) I see people post this a lot without understanding the point of what she's saying. Adria subscribes to the belief that "racism = prejudice + power", which is basically to say that, yes, black people can be hateful towards white people and yes, racial discrimination does occur within the black community, but RA…

That definition of racism is certainly a minority one, and isn't supported by the dictionaries I checked. To intentionally misunderstand what most people mean by racism, and then tweet like that, it seems like she's setting up a straw man in order to get into a fight.

The popular definition of racism is popular because it robs the word of it's purpose, which is to fight power, not pattern matching.

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

#268

Post by michaelochurch »

ryanmolden wrote: post #262
michaelochurch wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PlayHaven implied strongly that: (a) mr-hank did or said something sexually inappropriate. (He lost ground by admitting some degree of guilt on HN. Otherwise, it'd all be hearsay and he could say he was just talking about a literal dongle.) (b) mr-hank's conduct was so bad that there was no choice other than to fire him: "having to let this employee go". It wasn't we decided to fire him. It was we had to fire him. Im…

>He may settle for an amazing reference and introductions to investors Honest question: if you essentially blackmail someone for an "introduction to investors" what makes you think the person introducing doesn't pull them aside before or after and say "this guy basically threatened to sue me if I didn't introduce him to you"? I have to imagine anyone in that position would likely do that, you could never prove they d…

Honest question: if you essentially blackmail someone for an "introduction to investors" what makes you think the person introducing doesn't pull them aside before or after and say "this guy basically threatened to sue me if I didn't introduce him to you"?

You get that in the settlement contract, two-way non-disparagement including your right to see any communication about you, that must be furnished in writing.

That's impossible to perfectly enforce, but if you suspect he's talking off the books, you trap him and hit hard for breach of contract. He should know that you intend to be checking. He should expect that and be careful. It's your job to make that so. You might not be able to catch all cases (he might say things to people he really trusts but not to everyone) but you can have some degree of a chilling effect on negative communication of the sort you described.

Also, what's better for him, once the contract is signed:

1. Make the introduction and leave it alone, or:

2. Make the introduction, then backtrack, making himself look inconsistent and weak to that investor? ("Yeah, I wasted your time, and here's why...")

He cares about his image in front of that investor, and will probably prefer (1). This assumes he doesn't hate your guts, which he might. That's a danger of doing the right thing.

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

#269

Post by andsosayallofus »

zeteo wrote: post #243
devilshaircut wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you are referring to the men and not Ms. Richards. Because her "little mistake" resulted in the firing of a decent human being with a wife and 3 kids.

She posted a tweet. Even had she called for his resignation (which she didn't), she didn't have any power to effect it. What about the overreacting HR people who actually fired him over that tweet (knowing about the 3 kids and all)?

Either we hold everyone responsible for what they say publicly, or we don't.

On one hand a person was having a conversation that was over-heard and caused offence. We admonish him and hold him responsible. Is this right and fair? Consensus seems to be yes. Whether it was a private conversation or not, and whether it was intended to cause offence or not is irrelevant. He spoke publicly and whatever the result was was his responsibility.

If this is the standard we want to live by then it is absolutely immaterial whether or not Adria intended for the man to be fired. She spoke publicly and his firing was the direct result of that, hence she is responsible.

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