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Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

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Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#71

Post by danielweber »

cooldeal wrote: post #2

For the life of me I cannot fathom why PlayHaven went to the extreme step of firing the dev in question. What he did was certainly wrong, but certainly not a firable offense. A stern warning from HR would've sufficed. Also, I don't understand the hate and DDoS directed towards SendGrid. I think if any, PlayHaven should've been subject of it and pressured to reinstate the dev in question. SendGrid should've been press…

My impression is that a lot of people who had nothing to do with this conference decided, on both sides, to make this An Issue without caring about the facts on the ground.

I saw the MRAs-vs-feminists going at it in at least two places on the Internet, one of them being HN. This issue was a microcosm of all their old fights and they were going to take us down with them.

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#72

Post by Terretta »

obviouslygreen wrote: post #3

This is a great article from a far more neutral and informed point of view than most of us have managed (or could, given what little has actually been said by first-hand sources). Thanks to the author for treating this issue both critically and realistically, and for attempting to make a difference in SendGrid's reaction, whether it worked or not.

The link to the WordCamp XKCD comic, and Adria's reaction to it, told me more than all the rest of the comments and articles over the past day.

I perceived the comic as two women:

Allegedly offensive comic: http://jenmylo.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/screen-shot-2011-...

Deep link to Adria's comment: http://jenmylo.com/2011/08/03/wcsf-shirt/comment-page-1/#com...

I would be curious to learn Adria's rationale for the presumption of gender she made. Seems as though she'd find Rorschach tests offensive too.

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#73

Post by cobrausn »

redthrowaway wrote: post #56
cobrausn wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://blog.playhaven.com/addressing-pycon/ PlayHaven adressed this directly. They are blaming it on the incident at PyCon.

>We value and protect the privacy of our employees, both past and present, and we will not comment on all the factors that contributed to our parting ways. All I get from that is that it played a role. In fact, their statement is tacit support of the argument that the controversy wasn't the only factor in their decision.

I agree - there were multiple factors. But...

PlayHaven had an employee who was identified as making inappropriate comments at PyCon, and as a company that is dedicated to gender equality and values honorable behavior, we conducted a thorough investigation. The result of this investigation led to the unfortunate outcome of having to let this employee go.

Notice the result of this investigation part. Maybe this guy has had issues in the past, or maybe they just didn't like his code, but by all appearances, he would not be jobless if this investigation had not been started.

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#74

Post by ritchiea »

cooldeal wrote: post #2

For the life of me I cannot fathom why PlayHaven went to the extreme step of firing the dev in question. What he did was certainly wrong, but certainly not a firable offense. A stern warning from HR would've sufficed. Also, I don't understand the hate and DDoS directed towards SendGrid. I think if any, PlayHaven should've been subject of it and pressured to reinstate the dev in question. SendGrid should've been press…

I think firing Adria was appropriate because her actions compromised her ability to function as a developer evangelist. Her irresponsibility in handling the situation has a direct impact on her ability to perform her job. Developer evangelist is largely a PR job, if you are generating incredibly negative PR for your company from that position you should be fired.

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#75

Post by dictum »

cglee wrote: post #59
ramblerman wrote: post #31

Without tumbling deep into a flame war, I'd like to ask a sincere question. I have trouble understanding the sexism behind the remarks, and why the instigator needs to apologize (for sexism). People get offended for all kinds of things, nobody can claim a monopoloy on that. ( http://imgur.com/EX5v4 stephen fry quote) - If they would both have been gay and talking about a homosexual topic, someone in that room would b…

Discussions like this seem to always come back to a sense of "fairness". It's not about being fair, but about how situations make people feel. Majority-group members tend to brush away the sensitivities of minority-group members. If you're straight, you can walk hand-in-hand with your spouse without issue. You may even be able to embrace publicly, and kiss, hug and display all kinds of PDA. Gay couples can't do that…

I've seen the same underlying assumption (that people should avoid accidentally offending other people even with things that aren't offensive) before.

It was when a bigot tried to explain why gay people shouldn't make public displays of their sexuality because they made him uncomfortable.

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#76

Post by rdtsc »

niggler wrote: post #67
xoail wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt if there was any other case than the controversy. I doubt that the dev was any where incompetent. I say this simply because of the dev's interest in attending a conference and his company sponsoring it to him using forking and dongles in a sentence... those are simply good signals of a good developer and he being happy at his job. I feel that Pay Haven responded in a most defensive way by simply firing him an…

" him using forking and dongles in a sentence... those are simply good signals of a good developer" Pray tell, how does a plebeian joke about dongles signal that a developer is good? "dev's interest in attending a conference and his company sponsoring it" And as for his presence, it's not uncommon for a company to send a key developer and a friendly coworker to conferences, especially when it is far away (so he may j…

> Pray tell

I will testify, brother. ;-)

It think what the gp post was saying is that usually (in most companies) developers who are not very good or are not pulling their weight, are not sent to conferences. What is the freaking reason to send someone to a conference to learn and bring new ideas if they are about to be sent out of the door?

I don't know about friendly coworkers. Maybe other companies do that, we don't. In my experience it is not about friendliness but about who deserves to go and who is passionate about programming.

And, yeah, I agree, I don't see any correlation between him making dongle jokes or being or not being a good programmer.

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#77

Post by WayneDB »

Hey, sex jokes are not always about women. Big dongles and forking could totally describe male-male sex! Also, why get so upset about sex jokes? Is there something wrong with sex? You wouldn't even be here without it!

I think that people who complain or argue quickly have some unresolved problem. I think this because I am one of those people and I KNOW that I have unresolved mento-emotional issues :) I know that I should be cool and appear to be agreeable all the time, but sometimes (more frequently, mornings or certain topics) it's very challenging. The payoff is so much better than bickering though.

The important thing is to realize you're being a righteous asshole. Then you can start changing.

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#78

Post by unreal37 »

sammyd56 wrote: post #8

"Because of my experiences growing up, I have triggers. This means that I’m always scanning for danger; for situations that seem like something from the past that could hurt me. When I recognize something that matches, I can overreact and feel intense fear, anger or anxiety. This is something I’ve worked on a lot. It’s much better now than 10 years ago but there are some things that send me over the edge." http://but…

That would require reading her blog, which I am not inclined to do. You might be the first to actually read back.

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#79

Post by nawitus »

"But at the Boston conference, great strides were made to have a strong female presence. Almost 40% of attendees at Boston were female, almost 40% of speakers (at the time these numbers were VERY high),"

That's not gender equality though, that's positive discrimination. I think conferences should try to get the best speakers available regardless of their gender.

"She didn’t get the developer in question fired"

She is clearly partly responsive for the company's reaction to the "incident".

"How it Could Have Gone"

The best alternative future is of course clear: act like an adult in a conference. If you think an overheard joke about "dongles" is not to your liking, then too bad. It's rude trying to control other people.

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