Results of the GitHub Investigation • Hacker News Board

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#291

Post by gfodor » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 10:38 PM UTC

dasil003 wrote: post #163

danso wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that there was an actual romance. I meant that this immature (and shitty) behavior was based in that domain of "romance" (the existence or lack thereof, in this case) and not, from the face of Horvath's description, automatically based on gender-discrimination. From your link: > Although the law doesn’t prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not very se…

> I meant that this immature (and shitty) behavior was based in that domain of "romance" (the existence or lack thereof, in this case) and not, from the face of Horvath's description, automatically based on gender-discrimination. Don't make up soft weasel words to describe it. It's sexual harassment plain and simple. Also, this bit about classifying it as gender-discrimination seems like pointless hair-splitting. Hor…

Sorry, reverting someone's commits out of spite because they rejected you is not sexual harassment "plain and simple." Words have meanings. Furthermore it is not "pointless hair-splitting" to say it is not gender discrimination. You clearly have no understanding of what these terms mean and why it's important to not let this type of drama bleed into the wider discussion about systemic gender discrimination in tech.

http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm

"Harassment can include “sexual harassment” or unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature. Harassment does not have to be of a sexual nature, however, and can include offensive remarks about a person’s sex. For example, it is illegal to harass a woman by making offensive comments about women in general."

Harassment of someone who happens to be of the opposite gender does not make it sexual harassment. Harassment of someone for rejecting you romantically does not make it sexual harassment. If someone "feels" they would not have been harassed the same way if they were a man does not make it sexual harassment. (This is clearly false in this case, obviously, because the same thing could have happened if it were an advancement by someone of the same gender.)

Reverting someone's commit is not harassment of a "sexual nature" nor does it include commentary on the person's sex or women in general. It has nothing to do with gender or sexual comments, it has to do with an emotional reaction to rejection and an immature pathetic response.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#292

Post by cpncrunch » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 10:40 PM UTC

bitlord_219 wrote: post #151

vpv wrote: post #47

So, guy who wrote GitHub and a ton of open source stuff is ousted from his own company and sacrificed for a person whos biggest accomplishment in open source is JavaScript for Cats? https://github.com/nrrrdcore/javascript-for-cats

Why do you consider this relevant?

It would appear to be relevant because she describes herself as an engineer, and because she thought the reverts of her code and bad performance reviews were due to sexism.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#293

Post by manish_gill » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 10:41 PM UTC

res0nat0r wrote: post #208

hedwall wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you not read the article? They claim to have finished a formal, third party lead, investigation.

I did and understand everything that is going on, but reading her Twitter feed the last hour shitting on everyone and everything at Github (since they didn't find any criminal wrongdoing) doesn't make you look good or more believable, it actually does the opposite.

Yep, we should all just shut the fuck up if we feel we're wronged.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#294

Post by lifeisstillgood » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 10:44 PM UTC

it's not idea Sunday but: a wearable video recording device that documents everything.

It may sound crazy but it would be interesting to me to find out how much of my rather boring life is actionable / illegal or distasteful

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#295

Post by hackaflocka » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 10:44 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #26

chrismonsanto wrote: post #8

> The investigation found no evidence to support the claims [...] of a sexist or hostile work environment. So, are they saying that Horvath was lying? I mean, there was a lot of specific stuff she mentioned that seemed inappropriate. I don't want to get into whether the behavior was "sexist" or not, but I think we can all agree that if what she said was true, the work environment was hostile and unprofessional.

I think it's possible that Horvath was right about the poor actions of management, and at the same time, very little of what she alleged seemed to fall into the bounds of gender-based discrimination. A colleague who reverts your commits because you wouldn't date him...that's not gender-based, that's office-romance strife (though obviously, such strife can be exacerbated with a gender imbalance at the company). I'm ki…

If those women felt safe enough to be hula-hooping in front of these heterosexual men, then why was Horvath feeling so unsafe?

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#296

Post by michaelt » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 10:44 PM UTC

leccine wrote: post #232

jessaustin wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accounting firms provide a pretty good counter-example here. Everyone thinks of Andersen, who actually had to close as a result of their "customer-focused" service at Enron, but actually all the "big" firms were implicated to varying degrees in the subsequent unpleasant business with CDOs. Any service business will hesitate to piss off the guy who hires them every year.

This is an exception and a single case does not prove that all of the companies are like that. There is enough money to bribe anybody. As i said, 50K (or so) is not enough for that.

Another example from the financial crisis is the fact that many credit rating agencies gave triple-A ratings to CDOs that were later downgraded to junk status. Guess who selects and pays the credit rating agency? As it happens, the very financial firms who originated the CDOs and want them triple-A rated to sell.

See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_rating_agencies_and_the...

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#297

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 10:44 PM UTC

Someone wrote: post #262

jfc wrote: post #165

These memos are often more about what isn't said: > The investigation found no evidence... This doesn't mean there isn't any evidence--it just means that their internal investigation didn't find any. If read carefully, this statement tells us nothing about the universe of evidence that exists, but only about what GitHub didn't find. A different investigator might come to a completely different conclusion, or find oth…

"The investigation found no evidence..." That's the only thing you can say. Moving this to another, more objectively verifiable domain: let's suppose you want to buy a house, and you ask the seller whether asbestos was used in its construction. A seller would be stupid to go further than "to the best of my knowledge…". Problem is: if you buy the house and ten years later find asbestos behind some wall, and the seller…

[deleted]

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#298

Post by stormbrew » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 10:46 PM UTC

lexcorvus wrote: post #225

dreamfactory2 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going by the TC account (and taking the account there at face value) it sounds very much like bullying of an individual rather than anything gender-based. What's missing is why they got so paranoid about her as a potential troublemaker in the first place before they (allegedly) started handling it like chumps.

This story (unfortunately now dead on Hacker News) claims to fill in what's missing: https://medium.com/p/d96f431f4e8e Money quote: Around the end of 2012, Julie started dating a close male friend of the cofounder’s wife and didn’t like that they were close. She asked them to stop being friends and when they would not end their relationship, Julie started telling coworkers that the wife had affairs and that the cofou…

Of course, if you doubt Horvath's story, what makes this one any more credible to you?

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#299

Post by pdonis » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 10:47 PM UTC

theorique wrote: post #263

pdonis wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unprofessional workplaces are generally celebrated in the tech community, often for good reason Why for good reason? Do you have any specific examples in mind?

Not the OP but here's an example. And yet conventional ideas of professionalism have such an iron grip on our minds that even startup founders are affected by them. In our startup, when outsiders came to visit we tried hard to seem "professional." We'd clean up our offices, wear better clothes, try to arrange that a lot of people were there during conventional office hours. In fact, programming didn't get done by wel…

Ah, ok, I agree there's a big difference between an ultra-early-stage startup and a company the size of Github. But the latter criterion is what seems relevant to me for this thread, since it's about what happened at Github.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#300

Post by x0x0 » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 10:49 PM UTC

DannyBee wrote: post #35

cjbprime wrote: post #14

There appear to have been weirdnesses around the investigation, such as Julie Ann Horvath (and other ex-employees) remaining uncontacted until it was wrapping up: https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/453298152569720832 So I don't know how much stock you can place behind the idea that the investigators GH hired, who did not contact ex-employees competently, found them blameless. The resignation probably speaks for mor…

So, remember that what Julie says about them not contacting her is itself, and allegation. Her picture proves nothing, after all. Your conclusion about "how much stock to place" does not follow, since this allegation has not been proven true. Having been involved in this sort of thing before, both on the "asked to investigate" and "asked to play witness for an employee side", i'd say the truth always lies somewhere i…

Nonsense. Her picture probably opens her up to suit, where she lying about the company. At the bare minimum, any lawyer would tell her to not post demonstrable lies about the company, for many reasons. Not least of which is regardless of the whole truth, in any lawsuit (filed by her, or github, or Tom, or Tom's wife, or other parties), opposition counsel will attempt to discredit your whole testimony by finding small lies and tainting you in the eyes of the jury.