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Results of the GitHub Investigation

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Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#331

Post by personZ »

pdonis wrote: post #167
personZ wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, are they saying that Horvath was lying? Neither party has to be lying. She might honestly believe she was treated in a specific way because of her sex, while others may have treated her in a specific way because of, for instance, her competence. Both may be 100% honest in their assessment of the relationship, yet be completely at odds. The workplace absolutely sounded unprofessional, which often means the entire…

> 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?

Unprofessional workplaces-

Limited or no dress code No set hours Limited involvement of HR Wide degree of responsibility -- limited written work descriptions Amorphous groups of collaboration that develop and disband

And on and on. Most technology companies, even once they are larger, try to hold onto those "unprofessional" traits. A strong HR group with heavy controls limit or eradicate the ability for some of the less pleasant behaviours, but they also can completely undermine self-motivation and creativity. It's a delicate balance.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#332

Post by stormbrew »

teacup50 wrote: post #329
stormbrew wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's much closer to how people actually behave.

I don't think I could ever so narrowly define "how people actually behave," personally. I'm not even sure what you're implying the implausible behaviour in Horvath's account is.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#333

Post by kelnos »

jfc wrote: post #245
facepalm wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This doesn't mean there isn't any evidence--it just means that their internal investigation didn't find any." How could you ever claim anything else, though? You can only make a claim about the things you did find (including absence of things), not about things you didn't find, because you can not know about them. This is just another example of human communication depending on goodwill. If some involved parties wan…

Again, in my comment I mention that this memo is no different than other corporate statements. My point is that some comments on here say "there is no evidence", which is not what the memo says. Saying you didn't find something isn't the same as saying that something doesn't exist.

Right, but there is no actual way that you can say that something doesn't exist; you can't prove a negative. There is absolutely no other wording you can ever use. Pointing that out as some sort of indicator that it's possible that there is some evidence is a little silly, because... well, duh.

Ultimately it depends on whether or not you trust the investigator to be thorough, and to be able to ferret out the truth where people lie and omit details.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#334

Post by teacup50 »

stormbrew wrote: post #332
teacup50 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's much closer to how people actually behave.

I don't think I could ever so narrowly define "how people actually behave," personally. I'm not even sure what you're implying the implausible behaviour in Horvath's account is.

> I don't think I could ever so narrowly define "how people actually behave," personally.

Really? I can. They behave messily and almost always with a keen eye towards advancing their own position, whatever it may be, rational, honest, or otherwise.

> I'm not even sure what you're implying the implausible behaviour in Horvath's account is.

The part where complex, multi-party, interactions are dramatic in the extreme, bad behavior is completely one-sided, and the entire situation ascribed to a simplistic (gender bias) narrative.

That never happens.

Putting the pieces together, what seems to make a more convincing narrative is that Howarth was a bully herself.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#335

Post by chippy »

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…

This is a great example of the type of critical looking at the evidence. The words that are used should be examined closely - especially official / legal words. There should be no reading between the lines if written properly.

Here we have "no gender based..." of Tom and his wife. Nothing mentioned about whether there was other people who did were involved in that type of activity, nor whether the two individuals were involved in other types of activity.

Basically, legal speak only addresses a specific thing. The objective is not to uncover the whole truth about an event, but to reveal only as much as necessary.

In short, the report on the investigation should not if done properly comment on anything outside of it - even if evidence of those things are found.

Thus, looking at it - it gives no evidence of other things.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#336

Post by 001sky »

chippy wrote: post #326
mtrimpe wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not go there. Incorporating random anonymous posts will only make things worse. For all we know Julie-Ann started dating someone close to Theresa Preston-Werner who shared that he, and several others, slept with her and could even be the father of Tom's child and then refused to distance himself from Theresa. When she shared this sad state of affairs in her private love life with some colleagues she was suddenl…

>if Julie wants to share this story so publicly then everyone should at least have all of the story the whole thing is crass and distasteful to my british sensibilities, but if this the future of how conflict in internet corporations is represented, then we shouldn't be surprised to see allegations from all sides. The key skills that we as audience have to develop is critical thinking, impartiality and a good sense o…

we shouldn't be surprised to see allegations from all sides.

The line is drawn at "anonymous internet sources". At least in the sense of euclidean geometry, that is not a "side" of the argument as much as it is a literary device to create an infinite attack surface.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#337

Post by Allan_Smithee »

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

The guy who wrote Github is responsible for some of the worst coding atrocities in a major piece of F/OSS. (Evidence: the Linguist debacle.)

JS for Cats is, in comparison to Linguist, a work of towering intellect.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#338

Post by [deleted] »

mtrimpe wrote: post #312
abalone wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget this link, the anonymous GitHub employee response to Horvath's claims: "Facts Conveniently Withheld". https://medium.com/p/d96f431f4e8e

Let's not go there. Incorporating random anonymous posts will only make things worse. For all we know Julie-Ann started dating someone close to Theresa Preston-Werner who shared that he, and several others, slept with her and could even be the father of Tom's child and then refused to distance himself from Theresa. When she shared this sad state of affairs in her private love life with some colleagues she was suddenl…

[deleted]

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#339

Post by samstave »

jacalata wrote: post #308
samstave wrote: post #38

I have a question/observation that may be offensive, and it is not meant to be - so pardon my ignorance if this is a misguided perception: When this story first ran and I was reading JA Horvaths tweets in the surrounding days - and reading whatever other articles related to this story were - I got the impression that she didn't necessarily seem like the most easy-going-innocent victim, and I wondered; what if she was…

It certainly could be, but in general what she's accusing them of would be wrong regardless of what a terrible person she could be. If someone is a bad employee/co-worker you can fire them, but you can't bully/harass them out of the place.

True. The weirdest accusation is that toward the wife... That just sounds.... strange.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#340

Post by kelnos »

stormbrew wrote: post #332
teacup50 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's much closer to how people actually behave.

I don't think I could ever so narrowly define "how people actually behave," personally. I'm not even sure what you're implying the implausible behaviour in Horvath's account is.

Honestly, I found Horvath's account to be fairly implausible from the first time I read it. The kinds of things she alleged don't happen in a vacuum: if what she was saying was true, there should have been a lot of other instances of that sort of harassment, or at least indicators that something like that could happen. Horvath described some very extreme behaviors that just don't appear out of the blue.

The anonymous account just makes the whole store make a lot more sense.

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