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The PyCon Incident

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Re: The PyCon Incident

#121

Post by SODaniel »

djcapelis wrote: post #69
SODaniel wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty obvious they fired the wrong person here. If someone worked for me and posted inflammatory images/statements about/involving a co-worker they would be the one needing to worry about their job.

Please clarify if it is in fact the policy of the company you work at that employees should be "worrying about their job" based on the contents of their Twitter accounts. If so, please let me know so I can ensure that I never work with you.

I am not in a position where I hire or fire people, but if so was the case I would consider her reaction to a private conversation where neither of the participants intended any harm very bad judgement.

Tweeting and blogging about this with images in the manner she did clearly steps over the line where it in my opinion is 'ok'.

I can absolutely guarantee that the people involved in the conversation felt absolutely ambushed by the event, and that is not a very enjoyable work environment.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#123

Post by milesskorpen »

codesuela wrote: post #65
danilocampos wrote: post #22

Couple pieces to this. First – the fact that this guy's employer made a kneejerk reaction is no one's fault but the employer. Next – let's talk about this red herring of "sexism." Making a phallus joke might be sexist depending on context. Or it might not be. Sexism is not at issue here. The individual in question concedes that they did, in fact, make the joke. From PyCon's code of conduct: "All communication should…

Are you seriously suggesting the code of conduct applies to PRIVATE conversations between TWO people who obviously know each other? It is not like they meant to offend somebody. I am assuming they weren't talking loudly but rather meant to converse between each other. How I talk to my buddy is no ones fucking business. How about you tell your friend of of those an American, a Russian and a German walk into a bar joke…

Whether they meant to offend people is irrelevant — its pretty clear that jokes w/ sexual innuendo in a public context isn't okay. Period.

Also, as others have said, this clearly wasn't a private situation. The whole problem with these jokes, even if not told directly to someone's face, is that they create a poisonous atmosphere.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#124

Post by llimllib »

Joeboy wrote: post #116
llimllib wrote: post #46

Again I would like to point out that to slander somebody, you must tell lies about them. Nobody is claiming that Adria is lying , even the person she's talking about. She is clearly not slandering anyone. (Please note: this does not mean that I'm taking a position in any way on this issue)

> Nobody is claiming that Adria is lying The linked pastebin says "the "forking" reference turned out to be a fabrication".

If this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5398681

is indeed a comment by the person who lost his job, then it does not seem to be.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#125

Post by djcapelis »

josh2600 wrote: post #72

Why didn't she just stand up and say something in a loud and authoritative voice? Wouldn't that have lent at least as much credence to her words as her tweet did without the permanent public embarrassment? To put it bluntly, Social media is a complicated echo chamber fomenting sentiment into an explosion of mob mentality. Using it for this sort of point reflects negatively on the perpetrator, but also the victim. The…

> Why didn't she just stand up and say something in a loud and authoritative voice?

Because it usually just leads to stigma against the person who speaks up and rarely yields actual change since most people just ignore it or rapidly justify it and minimize what happened and then immediately move on with their lives. You'd know this if you've ever had to deal with this type of thing in a room full of men.

Turns out, if you make a big deal out of something, people get angry at you for making a bigger deal out of it. If you make a small deal out of something, people ignore you.

There's no good answer. Each person has to decide how they want to address the issue in their own way.

> This was not an eye for an eye.

There's no way to do eye for an eye when you're not on a level playing field and women in tech aren't.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#126

Post by rhizome »

moistgorilla wrote: post #100
wpietri wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the abuse? She described what happened right next to her.

Taking a picture of two people without their permission and posting it on the internet eventually causing one of them to get fired doesn't seem like abuse to you? Why didn't she tell them to just be quiet? That's what normal people do.

As a matter of fact, if you read her blog post about all of this, she recommends the same thing:

What has to change is that everyone must take personal accountability and speak up when they hear something that isn’t ok. It takes three words to make a difference:

“That’s not cool.”

However, she appears to have not followed her own advice. I think it probably would have turned out differently if she had, though.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#127

Post by ajross »

crag wrote: post #66
ajross wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's cool down a little here. An irresponsible tweet doesn't really constitute a "personal vendetta" (it's not even personal -- as far as I can tell she never knew their names). And while the post was (apparently, I don't know what the evidence here is) the proximate cause, you really can't say that she "got [him] fired", as she wasn't the employer nor did she advocate for his termination. It's just a bad situation…

BS. I'm getting sick and tired of people not taking responsibility for their actions. Now I do agree with you somewhat. I doubt she saw this "joke" as an opportunity to screw someone over (at least I hope so. If she did, then all bets are off); but that doesn't excuse her wrong. Her actions caused this guy to be fired. She needs to own it. Apoligize, Offer amends and move on.

Isn't the guy getting fired a symmetrical example of failing to take responsibility for one's actions? Presumably (and I'll say again: there remains NO actual evidence about this termination) he was fired for making an offensive joke in public. And he works for an employer that finds that to be a termination-level offense.

Now, presuming he knew that: shouldn't he, too, be "taking responsibility" for his actions instead of blaming some girl with a blog?

I just don't see where that logic goes. Everyone can be at fault here. But it seems like you (and most other men here) only want one person's head. That strikes me as distasteful.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#128

Post by dmishe »

wonderyak wrote: post #74
dmishe wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and there goes the freedom of speech

People used to conduct themselves with at least a bit of decorum and that affected 'free speech' very little. Manners, common sense and general pleasantness seem to have been completely forgotton.

>Manners, common sense and general pleasantness seem to have been completely forgotton.

I would agree with you here. In my idealistic image of the world, she would told them to please shut up because it's not good of a joke, they would say sorry and that'd be all.

Actually I think she advocates this point on her blog, but only in aftermath

Re: The PyCon Incident

#129

Post by wpietri »

moistgorilla wrote: post #100
wpietri wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the abuse? She described what happened right next to her.

Taking a picture of two people without their permission and posting it on the internet eventually causing one of them to get fired doesn't seem like abuse to you? Why didn't she tell them to just be quiet? That's what normal people do.

Taking pictures at conferences and posting them on Twitter happens all the time. That's definitely not abuse. Quoting what people say at conferences also happens all the time. So that's not abuse. She was not involved in the firing; if that's abuse, it's not hers.

She explained why she didn't just tell them to be quiet on her blog. But here's my take:

It is not her job to teach people how to behave properly in public. It is their job to behave properly. And it's the conference organizers' job to maintain a safe space, one where everybody is behaving according to conference standards. And when they heard about the problem, they jumped on it.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#130

Post by paranoiacblack »

codesuela wrote: post #65
danilocampos wrote: post #22

Couple pieces to this. First – the fact that this guy's employer made a kneejerk reaction is no one's fault but the employer. Next – let's talk about this red herring of "sexism." Making a phallus joke might be sexist depending on context. Or it might not be. Sexism is not at issue here. The individual in question concedes that they did, in fact, make the joke. From PyCon's code of conduct: "All communication should…

Are you seriously suggesting the code of conduct applies to PRIVATE conversations between TWO people who obviously know each other? It is not like they meant to offend somebody. I am assuming they weren't talking loudly but rather meant to converse between each other. How I talk to my buddy is no ones fucking business. How about you tell your friend of of those an American, a Russian and a German walk into a bar joke…

You're doing a bit of mental gymnastics here, especially with your last example. Obviously, you're concerned with your security and comfortability, but you're taking it out of context.

Indeed, if I tell a hilarious racist joke as you've mentioned around the wrong people, it is very likely there will be a commotion that will get me removed from the setting. Even more so, the same wrong people might post it to their personal feed, announcing that you are, as you portrayed yourself, a xenophobic asshole. Now, if your boss happens to read that stream and hear that codesuela is a xenophobic asshole, they might decide to terminate you.

Your argument is that it wasn't meant to offend anybody. But it did, so that's out of play. You also seem to assume that they weren't talking loudly and somehow Adria was simply eavesdropping on them, which is just speculation on your part. While I agree that how you talk to your buddy is no one's business, that doesn't mean you're now exempt from being called out because it was meant to be private.

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