Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

mashable.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

521–530 of 605 posts

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#521

Post by ryguytilidie »

knowtheory wrote: post #493
ryguytilidie wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have a super inconsistent burden of proof. -Poster above who says hacker news posters are typically sexist. No problem whatsoever, no burden of proof needed. -Person responds and says they disagree that this represents HN posts. You respond and demand that they produce quantifiable proof. -You then go on to assert that hacker news posters are like this, based on 0 quantifiable evidence, but just your hunc…

Er? No? I said if he wanted to quantify his claim, he could do so, and recommended a course of action. He said he didn't have the time/effort to do so. All i was asserting was that my hunch was contrary to his. That's the perfect place for an experiment. Given that we don't have any evidence in front of us, we just have his hunch and my hunch. I'm not asserting anything beyond that.

"You are making a quantifiable assertion. If you'd really like to back up the claim, go grab some of the threads on this subject, and spider the account pages of the people posting to the threads."

My problem is simply that you demanded this of guy who disagreed with you, but you did not demand it from anyone who agreed with you. Its about the most biased/unfair way of making an argument possible.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#522

Post by katbyte »

JohnBooty wrote: post #422
misnome wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about cases where you think it's just you and your friends joking between each other, and someone overhears, takes a picture of you and then publicly crucifies you online?

This hasn't ever been an issue for me. I understand that when I'm seated at a conference, the people around me can hear what I'm saying, and adjust the volume of my voice and/or the content of my speech accordingly. > ...and someone overhears, takes a picture of you > and then publicly crucifies you online? The guy's actions and Adria's actions are two separate things, really. I'd still be in the wrong for subjecting…

you've now left the conference, you on the bus/tram/whatever on the way back to the hotel with your friends joking around. You make an inappropriate remark/joke and she overhears. She overreacts, snaps a pic of you wearing your badge/company shirt and tweets it.

Where does the line get drawn?

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#523

Post by mercurial »

niggler wrote: post #377
zevyoura wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really want to devote more mental energy to this topic than it's already consumed. I do agree that there are problematic elements within the tech community, and HN. I acknowledged this in my post: "Of course, there is some overlap between [extremists] and the tech community..."

"I don't really want to devote more mental energy to this topic than it's already consumed." The problem is, unless more mental energy is expended on this topic, it will be repeated. Better to have the full conversation now than to continually punt the issue.

The problem is that people talking about it on a geeky news aggregator won't change the tech culture, and that similar incidents are to be expected in the future.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#524

Post by toomuchtodo »

mkr-hn wrote: post #515
gre wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two things: she made a dick joke on twitter, and she plays cards against humanity which is nothing but "dick jokes with strangers".

You forgot to make a point. You only listed facts.

Point: She singled out two guys at a conference, provided no evidence/proof while burning them at the stake online, and was fired for it.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#525

Post by anigbrowl »

danilocampos wrote: post #456
anigbrowl wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Danilo, following up an argument from authority with an ad hominem attack is not constructive either.

It wasn't argument from authority – it was a response to a question as to whether I knew what these people said. I do . And it's not ad hominem to say there's no point to the conversation based on missing context. I'm reminded of when McCoy wanted to discuss death with Spock: "It would be impossible to discuss the subject without a common frame of reference." ... "You mean I have to die in order to discuss your insig…

Talk is cheap. If you know exactly what was said then present it for people to form their own opinions. Arguing that you're right adn they're wrong because of something that you know (but won't reveal) is the definition of an argument from authority.

It would be as if I responded to you by saying 'You're wrong. I'm an expert in these matters.'

And it's not ad hominem to say there's no point to the conversation based on missing context.

Just because a person disagrees with you does not mean they lack empathy or are incapable of getting the context. On the contrary, I think that person has been at pains to explore the idea in an even-handed fashion, even if s/he has not come to the same conclusions as you. I don't fully agree with that person's viewpoint either, but I don't think it justifies launching personal attacks upon them.

For reasons I won't speculate upon, OP seems to believe it's impossible Adria knows anything about github

I am at a loss as to how you arrived at that interpretation. Clearly we are not going to agree about this.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#526

Post by katbyte »

king_jester wrote: post #467
Proleps wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wouldn't feel uncomfortable around her at all It is extremely easy to offend this woman. Just look at her twitter posts https[0], she plays every card in the book in this occasion she plays the racism card while arguing that she can't be a racist herself[1]. [0] https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/313946261055221760 [1] https://twitter.com/adriarichards/statuses/6039856858

No, she said she as a black woman cannot be racist towards white people. On an individual level, sure she could be racist towards a white person. However, the social power imbalance is way against her in almost every way compared to white people with institutions enforcing racist actions and policies against black folks way more often and more severely.

That doesn't mean blacks cannot be racist against whites. Anyone can be racist or sexist no matter how oppressed they are.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#527

Post by fatjokes »

niggler wrote: post #398
dfxm12 wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. She didn't fire the guy. She cyber bullied him. She could have apologised for that, but didn't. N.B.: She can do (or not do) what she wants, and it doesn't bother me, but please don't confuse what she said as an apology.

She is not sorry for what she said, and that's fine. That's her prerogative. I take issue with people blaming her for the company firing the guy. She didn't accuse them of a felony or other crime. She pointed to what she thought was inappropriate and the employer overreacted. I'm frankly saddened that the discussion about the employment circles her and not the employer. Few are asking why, if the joke were so trivial…

> I'm frankly saddened that the discussion about the employment circles her and not the employer.

This definitely shows that PlayHaven does not have their employees backs, but for me at least:

1. PlayHaven is in a tough spot. If they defended their employee, it might look as if they're not being tough on sexism, which the industry is heavily focusing on right now. Perhaps they figured it would be safer to be heavy-handed. Perhaps some form of light punishment (suspension? demotion?) would've been the best approach, but too late for that now.

2. I don't know about others, but I don't expect employers to have my back. The upside of this is that I owe them no loyalty either. In a way, this is already the case. Most employees will leave when a better job comes along. It's certainly to some employers' credit that they protect their own, but it's not expected. (At least not in America. In Japan, this use to be the case, but even so, it's becoming less and less so).

I think the negativity has focused on Adria because she turned a minor complaint into a witch hunt.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#528

Post by cperciva »

scarmig wrote: post #442
cperciva wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If she was merely a developer or other non-public-facing employee, there would be no reason for her to lose her job. But she was a developer evangelist -- someone who should know that everything she says and does reflects on the company -- and even if you agree with her actions you can't deny that the storm surrounding them would make it nearly impossible for her to effectively work in a job which involves meeting an…

By that standard, people who make sexist jokes should automatically get fired, because it makes it much more difficult to effectively work in a job which involves working with women and male allies.

If someone makes sexist jokes which offend their co-workers to the point that they're unable to work together, then yes, they should be fired.

Certainly if someone working in public relations posted sexist jokes to their twitter feed I'd expect them to be fired.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#529

Post by anigbrowl »

apineda wrote: post #478
Steuard wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's not sexist to make a jokes about the word "dongle" sounding like "dong". They sound pretty similar. It's not very funny unless you're bored stiff or in grade five, but nevertheless it's pretty harmless joke material, and it isn't sexism." I really have to disagree. Dick jokes are perceived to be almost exclusively a part of "guy culture". Want proof? Watch how fast a group of guys making those jokes suddenly cl…

And being male is part of being an individual. We're against individualism now?

That could be interpreted to mean women are not individuals, which is probably not what you meant :-)

Fortunately, individuality is not like fire - it won't flicker out and die just because you turn it down a bit sometimes. I'm a guy too, and I find dick jokes annoying sometimes. Depending on the context, I might ask someone to settle down or indicate that I was finding such humor tedious.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#530

Post by niggler »

mercurial wrote: post #523
niggler wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't really want to devote more mental energy to this topic than it's already consumed." The problem is, unless more mental energy is expended on this topic, it will be repeated. Better to have the full conversation now than to continually punt the issue.

The problem is that people talking about it on a geeky news aggregator won't change the tech culture, and that similar incidents are to be expected in the future.

I have it on good authority that many tech news sources draw material from comments on this and other sites like reddit.
Post reply on HN