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SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

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Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#551

Post by cjbprime »

mc32 wrote: post #532
cjbprime wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would appear to be sexual. I'm not certain it needs to be sexist. This all seems like a waste of time. Here's how I think it should work: we ask women what they want ("hey, how about sexualized jokes at tech conferences?") and they tell us ("actually, we really hate it when you do that, probably much more than you realize") and then we stop, because we respect them and it turns out that making sex jokes wasn't a…

What if we polled all conferences for all language that some attending population feel is off the table? Should lawyers plan to vote to ban all lawyer jokes, even if said by insiders? What about bankers' conferences, maybe have them keep attendees from asking pointed questions about bailouts and fraud, etc? I don't think people should be jocular and act like college fraternity members all their lives, but at the same…

> What I mean is, I prefer most conversations to be free of vulgarity and expletives; however, on occasion, I think those same offenses can be a relief --it shows me, "You know what, society is still organic and it has its blemishes." It's not all purified and true.

Really disappointed in you for writing this -- as if my argument is that swearing, fun and R-rated movies should all be removed from society. I like those things sometimes too; I am not a prude.

What I don't like is telling someone that they can come to our technical conference and we will talk about technical things with them and not make sex jokes, and then doing it anyway. Going back on that promise (in PyCon's code of conduct) is not "being organic", it's being an asshole.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#552

Post by ericabiz »

georgeorwell wrote: post #435
ericabiz wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Most [all, actually] of the women I've talked to about this are furious with her over how badly this portrays women." Okay, time to speak up! Hi, I'm a woman in tech. And this upset me, but not for the reasons you think. I agree that Adria went too far in publicly Tweeting and "name and shaming" these guys. But the vitriol and hate that has spewed forth online to her is what takes my breath away. Comments calling…

I'm sorry, but you just threw up two different straw (wo)men here. It's not sexist to make 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. The examples you gave are sexism. If the two guys at PyCon had directed the jokes at Adria while also excluding…

> "It's not sexist to make jokes about the word 'dongle' sounding like 'dong'."

Is it sexist, or isn't it? You can find interesting arguments both ways. Your opinion is that it's not sexist. My opinion is that it depends on context. From what I can tell, in this context, it was probably not meant to be sexist.

> "The examples you gave are sexism."

Are they? I think they are, which is why I brought them up here. You agree. But there are others who replied to my comment who don't agree that either of those are sexist.

We all have different views on what constitutes "sexism." One person's "not sexist" is another person's "sexist." You can see that even in the comments here. That's why it's so difficult to say what the "right" thing to do is.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#553

Post by katbyte »

JohnBooty wrote: post #545
katbyte wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The line gets drawn here: it's not good behavior to subject a stranger to unwanted sexual banter. You can change the setting to a bus, or a train, or a tent in the Himalayas.

So your saying anytime in public a penis joke is out of line? So when in public we cannot say anything that may potentially offend someone? I can't say god doesn't exist for fear of offending the religious? i can't say god does exist for fear of offending the atheists?

That's some line you drew.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#554

Post by ceol »

katbyte wrote: post #550
ceol wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Adria is the only person who has the power to shame someone publicly? She's the only one with 9,000 twitter followers, she's the only one with a camera phone, and she's the only one who can upload photos to twitter? I find the concern of being in the same room as her incredibly stupid.

I don't have twitter, Facebook etc. Even if i did i doubt i would have that many followers because i don't find any appeal in it. I could not reach the audience she did. I do not have the power to easily shame someone publicly. I think that goes for most people. I would be concerned and i'm female. What if i disagree with her? Its not stupid, its cautious.

Anyone can easily reach the same audience by creating a twitter account and tagging it with something popular. I'm sure there were plenty of people in that conference with way more followers.

You should be more afraid at the veritable brigade of angry internet-goers who were stirred up to the point of DDoS'ing her ex-employer and harassing her. But no, focus on the woman who posted a single photograph on her twitter feed. I'm sure she's more dangerous.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#555

Post by katbyte »

nashadelic wrote: post #320
blhack wrote: post #20

I really wish that this whole thing could have ended amicably (perhaps with Adria apologizing to the devs [by the way, the guy who was fired has already publicly apologized]). It's too bad that sendgrid had to fire her, I would never wish that somebody had their livlihood taken from them like that, but her job was to be a developer evangelist, which is a job she isn't realistically capable of performing anymore. I wo…

We are now going to penalize people for standing up for themselves? She faced sexist remarks, she shamed them. Good on her. I'm an outside observer and I've never been to the valley but SendGrid comes off as irresponsible and not backing up their people. > What if I Accidentally say something she finds offensive Accidentally offensive? Like calling someone a nigger? Or a faggot? And at the same time you make it sound…

I don't think anyone would have blamed her if they insulted her, It wasn't an insult, it wasn't directed at her.; It was said to his friend unaware she was listening and she was offended. There's a difference there.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#556

Post by illuminate »

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, 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."

As much as I support discussion on these topics, it's the internet. Any message board will continue to bring up these issues in waves, as new events occur, as new posters join up, there is not going to be one article where everyone achieves some sort of understanding, now or ever. Set your expectations realistically :)

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#557

Post by illuminate »

Phlarp wrote: post #425
knowtheory wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Plot them by amount of karma and # of days since the account was opened. As much as i do think /r/mensrights are assholes who are making this situation worse, i would assert that there is a preexisting strain of this behavio…

>As much as i do think /r/mensrights are assholes who are making this situation worse, i would assert that there is a preexisting strain of this behavior on Hacker News, and this behavior is not an incident isolated just to this debacle. Having recently discovered the /r/shitredditsays brigades, I'm not sure I'm comfortable seeing /r/mensrights called out without a mention of /r/srs, they are both equally egregious a…

From what I've gleaned, /srs is pretty brutal, but towards the behavior of the MRAs. They are most likely a good mix of men and not attacking MRAs for being men who dare talk out about... the "gynocracy" or something. Your false equivalency is unnecessary and misplaced.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#558

Post by illuminate »

mtoddh wrote: post #361
moogleii wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sympathize, but your story seems a bit of a stretch. I thought somehow you were going to lead to how he implied you weren't smart enough to be an entrepreneur or something absurd like that. The last time I innocently chatted up a "taken" woman next to her boyfriend, I was later told by a number of individuals that it seemed like I was hitting on her and it was inappropriate. The allegations totally blew me away bec…

That's the rub these days- don't talk to her and you run the risk of making her feel "excluded", do talk her to and you run the risk of being seen as "flirting".

"do talk her to and you run the risk of being seen as "flirting"."

If this occurs more than once, chances are you are to blame for the perception.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#560

Post by hawkharris »

There seems to be a massive trend of people getting in hot water because of Tweets, then going into damage control mode to provide context for their remarks. Part of the problem is the medium itself. Arguments, especially those that are interesting and meaningful, aren't always meant to be condensed into 140-character snippets.

Take this story, for example. While I'm not taking anyone's side, I think that if Adria had been able to provide context for what happened (i.e. saying more about the nature of the employee's comments and why it offended her), this discussion would have been more meaningful from the get-go. Maybe it wouldn't devolve so quickly into speculation.

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