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The PyCon Incident

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Re: The PyCon Incident

#501

Post by reeses »

thejsjunky wrote: post #478

Ugh, both this and the original post disturb me greatly. I sense a good deal of hypocrisy and bad faith on both sides (though much much more so on the, and excuse the terminology but I can't think of any better, "anti Adria" side). The original story should have been a good one: PyCon has codes of conduct, and procedures in place if those are not followed. Some jerks weren't behaving appropriately, it was settled in…

While I don't completely agree with every nuance of what you present, I am impressed with your ability to understand and articulate the complexities of the situation.

"PyCon has codes of conduct, and procedures in place if those are not followed. Some jerks weren't behaving appropriately, it was settled in a fair and appropriate manner - everyone wins!"

This is the core of what happened. PyCon issued a statement saying that the guys apologized and were not removed from the conference. This is the way to correct this sort of action. Remind people that they are behaving inappropriately and give them the chance to respond and, if appropriate, acknowledge their mistake and apologize. Assume they are decent people who made a minor error in judgment.

Adria could have handled her side anonymously without reducing the impact of her message. That said, I'm going to assume as well that she's a decent person who made a minor error in judgment as well.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#502

Post by eridius »

blhack wrote: post #86
eridius wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to take sides here, but I do take issue with the claim that the "forking" thing was fabricated, or was irrelevant, because the intent of the person who spoke it was not sexist or even meant as a joke. The fact is, the way language is interpreted by the listener is far more important than how it was meant by the speaker. And it should be pretty obvious that the phrase "I want to fork his repo" could be ea…

"Fork his repo" is a reference to git. There is nothing sexual about it. Here's a repo for my hackerspace's website. At the top right of the page is the word "fork". https://github.com/heatsynclabs/new-hsl It's worth pointing out that Adria isn't a developer, and might not have realized that this wasn't a sex joke, he was talking about flattering somebody by forking their git repo.

I know exactly what forking is. And the term "forking" has been used, intentionally, as sexual innuendo before. As simonster said, even GitHub used to say "hardcore forking action".

So yes, "I want to fork his repo" is a phrase that can definitely be taken to be sexual in meaning, depending on context and tone of voice.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#503

Post by tadfisher »

shardling wrote: post #360
blhack wrote: post #7

I would also like a response from Sendgrid here. Somebody they sent to a conference, who was representing their company there, went on a personal vendetta against somebody and got them fired. That's awful, and I join the people I see online right now in saying that I cannot, in good conscience, ever do business with a company that supports that behavior. --And to how far Adria has set back womens' rights here-- The c…

>Somebody they sent to a conference, who was representing their company there, went on a personal vendetta against somebody and got them fired. I went back and looked at Adria's comment (conveniently not quoted), and you're completely misrepresenting the situation. She didn't have a vendetta, she didn't try to get them fired. She simply asked that someone talk to them about the language which made her uncomfortable.…

And then she took their picture and posted it on Twitter.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#504

Post by shuzchen »

Domenic_S wrote: post #434
mturmon wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember, they were literally in a crowded auditorium with hundreds of people around them. It's just not private. If you happen to work in California, you should know that this kind of remark, if repeated and unwelcome, would constitute harassment. If the person concerned was in management at a company, that's a problem. As for her reporting method, the conference organizers specifically say they want information in…

> If you happen to work in California, you should know that this kind of remark, if repeated and unwelcome, would constitute harassment. True, but unwelcome is key. How do you know if a remark is unwelcome? Someone tells you so -- either the offended or HR (whom the offended told). They don't post it on Twitter or blog about it, they talk about it with people in a position to correct the problem. I know plenty of wom…

I think you had to be there. This year (and last year as well), there was a ton of messaging from the organizers/presenters/leaders regarding the past/future efforts to bring more women into the python community.

They were really proud that 20% of attendees were female (that was on a keynote slide), Guido wore a "python is for girls" shirt (as he did last year), the Pyladies organization sponsored a ton of events (pycon after party, a mani-pedi get-together, auction [1]), there were at least 4 groups with a booth in the vendors section with the goal to include more women (pyladies, ladycoders, ada initiative, some other one I forget).

I mean, it's not a black and white issue and I concede that those remarks will be taken different depending on the situation. However, in this situation where everyone is celebrating the progress that's been made (and knows how much more still needs to be done), such remarks are IMO totally inappropriate.

1: Technically, the auction was supporting the pyladies group, I don't know if they ran/sponsored it, but it was all for their benefit.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#505

Post by eridius »

eridius wrote: post #62
minimaxir wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From Adria's post: http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-dont... I stood up slowly, turned around and took three, clear photos. I said back down, did another gut check and started composing a tweet. Three things came to me: act, speak and confront in the moment. I decided to do things differently this time and didn’t say anything to them directly. The true "forking" meaning was described in the HN p…

I don't want to take sides here, but I do take issue with the claim that the "forking" thing was fabricated, or was irrelevant, because the intent of the person who spoke it was not sexist or even meant as a joke. The fact is, the way language is interpreted by the listener is far more important than how it was meant by the speaker. And it should be pretty obvious that the phrase "I want to fork his repo" could be ea…

The fact that I was downvoted to oblivion on this comment speaks volumes about the mindset here on HN.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#506

Post by reeses »

reeses wrote: post #432
revelation wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I understood correctly, Adria is not another employee, but has the role of developer evangelist. In that role, your twitter account is very much an extension of your job.

It's also part of her branding. She consults and her primary web site is "butyoureagirl.com". It's completely appropriate for her to tweet her opinion. The thing I took from the photo (which I agree was a bit much) was that this woman of color was surrounded by a bunch of white dudes with corrective lenses. There was a man of color farther back, but diversity was not on display. One of the guys even had a weak smile…

Having finally gotten through the DDOS-filter, I see from her account of the situation that my hopes were not enough to change reality. There is a bit of "here's an opportunity to make my point," that leverages a minor incident to reinforce her larger message about inequality.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#507

Post by takluyver »

jasonlotito wrote: post #329
integraton wrote: post #50

Her own phallus joke, as mentioned in the pastie, which she made on Twitter, a much more public venue: https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425 Incredibly hypocritical on her part.

PyCon has a code of conduct. The write up regarding this specific incident is here: http://pycon.blogspot.com/2013/03/pycon-response-to-inapprop... People are allowed to make offensive jokes. Except when they agree not to. By attending PyCon, you are making that agreement. In the end, the result was resolved well by all 3 parties. The issue is that one of the parties got fired. An overreaction by his ex-employer. In…

The employer certainly bears some responsibility. But it also seems that Adria could have handled this better. Taking pictures of people without their consent is against the PyCon code of conduct, and it also advises against public shaming.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#508

Post by mouseroot »

blhack wrote: post #7

I would also like a response from Sendgrid here. Somebody they sent to a conference, who was representing their company there, went on a personal vendetta against somebody and got them fired. That's awful, and I join the people I see online right now in saying that I cannot, in good conscience, ever do business with a company that supports that behavior. --And to how far Adria has set back womens' rights here-- The c…

shes dead wrong if they didnt want to be treated as girls they wouldnt call use female adjectives to describe thier talks/events shes just butthurt

Re: The PyCon Incident

#509

Post by anigbrowl »

wpietri wrote: post #129
moistgorilla wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Her description of events was so vague that it caused me to misidentify the person she was talking about from the photo, and I wasn't the only one.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#510

Post by shardling »

rdl wrote: post #496
shardling wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adria did not initially raise this as a "sexism" issue from what I can see -- just something the made her uncomfortable.

This makes me uncomfortable: https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425 "Adria: you should put something in your pants next time .. like a bunch of socks inside one...large...sock. TSA agent faint." So apparently it's ok to be sexual/hostile in someone else's work environment, just not your own?

Your link is (was) 404.

Anyway, I frankly don't give a damn whether Adria is a good person or not. People are criticizing her for a specific set of actions that don't seem to be in line with what actually happened. It exposes a lot of sloppy, biased thinking that is the real problem here. :(

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