Prominent GitHub Engineer Quits, Alleging Gender-Based Harassment - <AUTHOR> http://recode.net/2014/03/15/prominent-github-engineer-julie-ann-horvath-quits-claiming-gender-based-harassment/ <comment><USER2> How can I take the article seriously when it says that "GitHub has been embroiled in a series of diversity controversies, such as programmers adding racial and sexist slurs into their code", which links to an article where someone took GitHub search and found random people putting bad words into their public repos?

This author can't seem to distinguish between the code employees at GitHub write, and code users put onto GitHub.

<comment><USER3> Interesting point.

Let's say I am an open source developer and I put some crazy stuff on Github.

Some journalist does a profile on me. Am I a "Github Software Developer" to them?

* Google Name -- "aha, link to Github"

* Find crazy stuff checked into Github repos.

* Google Github -- "aha, technology company something something distributed ... eyes glaze over technical mumbo jumbo".

* Claim I am a "Github Engineer"

It is obvious to us how it works, but say someone who has no idea about repos or open source will not quite understand the separation between user content and platform.

<comment><USER4> That's like saying you find a racist post on facebook and conclude it's written by a "Facebook Poster". Also, I would expect better from a site called _recode.net_

<comment><USER5> The stupid article is on gizmodo and was merely linked as github-and-gender- related drama. Which it was. Crappily written drama, but drama nonetheless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have no idea whether her claim is true or not, and what the culture is like at Github. But from even reading the title, I do know one thing - Julie is about to get a _lot_ of negative attention directed at her _personally_ , both publicly (e.g. on Twitter) and privately (e.g. email). I don't envy what she's about to go through[0].

Ignore for a moment the company (whether it's Github, Google, or Gawker). Isn't it sad that speaking out about (perceived) harassment carries a near 100% chance of inciting exponentially _more_ harassment?

[0] Perhaps I'll be proven wrong; I'd like to be. Unfortunately, reading the article and then the comments, that's looking less likely.

<comment><USER7> > I have no idea whether her claim is true or not

The Internet has worked very hard in the last couple of decades to make the truth, the _actual_ truth, completely nonexistent in our lives. It's a discouraging threshold to realize that it doesn't even matter if what she is saying is true or not. I'm serious. It doesn't. Those days are over.

There is no truth any more. We now live in an age where one's interpretation of what is said first is the truth for them and they act accordingly. Some will interpret it as "pissing on a parade," as you see here, and will harass her. Some will interpret it as God's honest truth and will advocate accordingly. As a species, a lot of thought leaders have patted humanity on the back for how well-connected and well-informed we are with the Internet and 24/7 mentality being such a focused point of our lives, when in fact I think the truth is we're now a post-fact species.

Observe the reaction to @LeaVerou's timeline in the last couple of hours to see what I mean, in particular Ashe Dryden's condemnation of her (reasonable) position. We've long passed the era of human history wherein reserving judgment until all the facts are known was the most ideal course of action for all parties. We're never getting it back, either, and we have to live with that now. I can think of unbounded examples of this. Sunil Tripathi is the first to spring to mind.

As for the topic at hand, my cynicism tells me that I'd bet the farm on everything she's said being accurate. I do, however, wish to withhold judgment on both sides without being accused of enabling the decried behavior. That's an alarming trend from a certain vocal group in this industry, a "with us or against us" mentality that bothers me a lot. I've been called a "rape apologist" in the past for simply saying I didn't have enough information about an alleged rape to reach a conclusion.

I have to be honest, it's discouraging to be intelligent enough to see this, because it makes life feel hopeless. I can see what the old idiom about ignorance and bliss means now.

<comment><USER8> I sympathize with your position and the uncertainty it brings; I myself have struggled with these issues, which is what got me interested in epistemology.

Sadly I think, if anything, your position is still a bit naive; the Internet may have exacerbated the problem of truth by giving everyone a soapbox to spout their own version, but I think this problem has always been with us, since the dawn of human communication. While we gain some information through first-hand experience, a great deal of our knowledge comes from cognitive authorities[1] who we rely on for second-hand knowledge. So a significant portion of our knowledge rests upon our faith in the testimony of others. Granted, we can take steps to try and minimize our chance of error, such as consulting multiple sources, but it's hard to eliminate that leap of faith entirely.

But it's worse than that. Even agreeing on the "facts" is not enough to guarantee a unified interpretation. Different people may view a singular event through different lenses, based on how that event fits into their own personal narrative; this becomes especially apparent when dealing with contentious political issues.

So yeah, I agree: the Internet has made it more difficult to get a firm grasp on the truth. But when it comes to matters outside our own immediate experience, that grasp has always been nothing more than a useful fiction.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_authority](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_authority)

<comment><USER7> You concluding that I was blaming the Internet in obliviousness to all the rest of the points you shared (which I already know but deemed out of scope for my specific complaint) is, in itself, a misinterpretation. That you then built upon that misinterpretation to call my position naive is a very interesting comment in light of what I'm saying.

Before computing, I was a journalist. Nothing you said is news to me, though you used some epistemological concepts to make a similar point to my own.

<comment><USER8> Sorry if the suggestion of naivety came across too harshly; didn't mean to imply you didn't know what you were talking about. I just find this topic really interesting (competing narratives, the Lippmann-Dewey debate, etc.), so I jumped at the opportunity to ramble about it.

Again, my apologies.

<comment><USER7> No worries. I'm not offended, I just noticed the interesting irony.

I learned long ago to not be offended by things people say on the Internet, along with my ability to stomach images that would probably make anybody else pass out. I'm not convinced all of the Internet's effects on me as a human are good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It seems increasingly clear to me that there is a concerted effort to paint some tech companies as more sexist than they are. Don't get me wrong, there is definitely a problem of gender imbalance and harassment in our industry that needs to be addressed. But I have heard this "Github is sexist" meme in half a dozen of different contexts, but every time I investigate an incident it's some semantic squabbling about the word "meritocracy" or some idiot reporter who searched for racial slurs on a huge public corpus of user-submitted content, forgetting that the exact same argument could be applied to Youtube, Facebook, or literally any website.

It's equally frustrating because if Github (and others) actually do engage in despicable sexist behavior, I want to hear about it and adjust my views of them accordingly. However, when reporters, bloggers, and commentators flood the internet with harassment stories accompanied with such vitriolic language, it's harder for me to tell the actual stories apart from the bombastic linkbait.

<comment><USER10> Honest question: how does a prominent person quitting publicly make it more clear that there's a concerted effort (which insinuates an arranged effort, basically a conspiracy) to mislead people? If anything I took it as the opposite, that there is likely some incident(s) that concretely points to sexist behavior. I'm not saying you're wrong, but it seems to me that the simplest explanation is that Julie Ann Horvath quit because she was fed up, not to harm her ex-employer for a bigger cause.

I just realized you may mean the author of the article is trying to harm github's image, which I agree is possible. But the real story to me is Horvath quitting, not someone writing an article about it.

<comment><USER11> Disclaimer: I am speaking of the general case here... NOT about J.A.H.

But what you're missing is that people sometimes crack up. We're all a little unstable. You see two choices: The person is harassed out by the conspiracy in their company, or the person quits to fuel the conspiracy they're a part of.

I say there is a third choice: The person freaked out, or was under too much stress, or had a period of mental instability, and 'flamed out'. This actually happens to prominent people pretty frequently, hell it happens to most people at some time in their life. I've done it before. Fortunately I wasn't in a public position.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Eh, publicly shaming doesn't work without considerable and undeniable proof. It will just backfire into internet rage and dossing ala dongle gate. If there is real harassment best just make it hurt through state harassment arbitration. When they get tired of paying through the nose for all the stupid insensitive things naive and oblivious coworkers are bandying about, maybe they'll get serious.

Start writing things down and then contact a local equal opportunity office and start the process. It will not be cheap for them. If people keep doing this they'll change their ways.

Going public on Twitter or Hacker News though hasn't done much other than bring out nasty and unproductive fights between Social Justice Warriors and Men's Rights fanatics. They make everyone look bad and we all walk away feeling like maybe we've lost faith in humanity when in reality a serious problem just stems from mostly unintentional, but hurtful ignorance.

<comment><USER13> This is exactly what I don't understand. If I was being harassed to the point that I was considering quitting my job, I would simply gather all the evidence I could (she mentions emails, I would also carry a voice recorder) and hire an attorney. I wouldn't tweet about it, I wouldn't write a blog post about it or give a talk about it. None of those things are going to fix the problem. File the lawsuit and let the facts speak for themselves.

<comment><USER14> That's what Ellen Pao did. She got shit too, including being fired. Let's see how it pans out for her.

<comment><USER15> Counterexample: Pao's husband sued his employer for discrimination and made a sweet million:

 _Fletcher sued his employer, brokerage Kidder Peabody, for discrimination and won $1.3 million in 1991._

Read more: [http://www.businessinsider.com/kleiner-perkins-ellen-pao- law...](http://www.businessinsider.com/kleiner-perkins-ellen-pao-lawsuit-sex- scandal-silicon-valley-2012-6?op=1#ixzz2w5LxBZr1)

<comment><USER14> what does that have to do with anything?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> FTA: "Nonetheless, GitHub has been embroiled in a series of diversity controversies, such as programmers adding racial and sexist slurs into their code"

This links to a gizmodo article linking to random open source code on Github written by random people on the internet containing slurs. How is that Github's fault exactly? Should they censor "git push" with anti-slurs filters? This even links to a repo containing a list of words that should not be used by the user [https://github.com/hhzl/Cuis-Smalltalk- StyledTextEditor/tree...](https://github.com/hhzl/Cuis-Smalltalk- StyledTextEditor/tree/fe8aa4a8459618feae1d1bd615c8938b7ad0a866/scowl-7.1/misc)

Ridiculous. No idea about the rest of the accusations though.

<comment><USER16> Oh, cool. I just realized I am lucky to not be listed in Leslie Horn's terrible "article" [1]. I forked a URL shortener a few years ago. One feature I added was to avoid auto-generating offensive short URLs, which is on GitHub [2]. (In the early days of URL shorteners, TinyURL used a simple increment function to generate URLs (aa, ab, ac, …), and someone waited until "the C word" was up next and pointed it at the then-First Lady's website, apparently as a joke. Okay, that's easy enough to learn from.)

[1]: [http://gizmodo.com/5980842/there-is-blatant-racist-and- sexis...](http://gizmodo.com/5980842/there-is-blatant-racist-and-sexist- language-in-github-code)

[2]: [https://github.com/alanhogan/lessnmore/blob/master/-/banned_...](https://github.com/alanhogan/lessnmore/blob/master/-/banned_words.php)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > Prominent GitHub Engineer

When I read the title (having never heard of Julie Horvath before), I expected the article to explain her technical contributions. However, there seem to be none that would make her a "prominent github engineer".

I think that singling out people as "prominent engineers" just because they are women is sexist and does a disservice to the equality cause.

Equality cuts both ways: people shouldn't be harassed because they are a minority. But they shouldn't be put on a pedestal just because of it, either. Because it defeats the whole purpose of equality by making them "more equal" than others.

<comment><USER18> She was responsible for organizing the pretty awesome "Passion Talks" series at Github. So she was definitely more famous than the average developer working at Github. She did not invent Map/Reduce, but we are talking about Github here, not Google/Amazon/etc..

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> When a person makes a claim of intimidation or harassment, that person should not be judged on traits that have nothing to do with the claim.

Insulting a woman in the tech industry after making statements of suffering from harassment is a very tiring theme that occurs over and over again. Even on forums that pride themselves on being intelligent and tolerant.

Let's change this and stop with the insults and victim blaming.

<comment><USER20> Yes, thank you!

It seems like every time this sort of issue comes up, a large number of men both (a) take it as a personal attack, and (b) decide that the best way to handle this attack is to counter-attack someone's character with random accusations (like that they weren't a good enough engineer to talk about harassment in the workplace).

Really, really shameful to see it unfold every time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've worked in healthy and unhealthy work environments, the healthy ones have ample diversity, and the unhealthy ones were heavily male dominant. When I worked for Dell, it was so heavily skewed that several of the female workers felt unsafe, and I would walk them to their cars. Little boys who would otherwise sit in the corner at the bar and completely avoid actual interaction with women get very brave when they have 30 of their friends backing them. It was disgusting. You do what you can, but senior leadership is ultimately responsible for the tone and the hiring/firing. I on several occasions brought complaints from what I had seen, I know the women had as well, and not a single person was ever fired for this.

<comment><USER22> > I on several occasions brought complaints from what I had seen, I know the > women had as well, and not a single person was ever fired for this.

Can you give more detail on what you had seen that you felt justified being fired over?

<comment><USER21> Well, anywhere from unwarranted sexual touching (ass slaps), to coming up from behind and cozying up to a woman at her cubicle. These were all after the women had made it clear that this was inappropriate, though this shouldn't be required. Language was often beyond condescending, and often abusive and dismissive. One individual was particularly bad, he would get really upset if his advances (which could only have been learned from bad porno, they were so clueless and inappropriate), he would travel straight to verbal abuse and threats. The language was simply degrading.

This same individual, was in the elevator when my friend who worked at another company, but same building. He got into the elevator with his wife, and the individual said something along the lines of "I bet you'd like it if I bent you over now. Let everyone here have a turn" to his wife. My buddy showed far more restraint than I would have.

<comment><USER22> Somehow I was imagining something entirely different. That company should have been sued out of existence for allowing that to go on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I dont know much of the circumstances, but I feel that this particular article hurts Julie Ann Horvath more than it helps. First, it presents a series of tweets, each more vicious than the previous. Then it presents a blatantly wrong example of Github accepting racial slurs and its ilk. However, it continues to talk about how GitHub has actually been improving the culture and that more women have been joining. Next, it presents a rather weak example of 'harassment' that I can even see as the manager trying to do the right thing in his own view but presenting it entirely in the wrong way. Finally, it ends with a tweet that Julie Ann Horvath wants secret to remove a post about her (is anyone else angry about the implicit censorship here?).

Again, I do not know what is happening here, but the article has at the least made me mad that people are resorting to censorship to solve their disputes.

<comment><USER24> Censorship? Slander is illegal.

<comment><USER25> Slander turns out to not be covered under the DMCA, so the hosting site is under no obligation to remove a post after a notice and no trial or court order.

<comment><USER24> But it might be in their best interests to take it down regardless. The fact that they're not legally compelled to do so makes it even less like censorship.

<comment><USER25> You don't think it's censorship if at any time, for any reason, someone can induce them to take down any post by claiming libel? Well, I might agree with that, but it would also make every site useless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Yay! More pointless division that will improve nothing and probably make things worse. Good work people!

Now that she's gone does this mean that GitHub can get that cool carpet back?

[http://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy- rug#awesm...](http://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy- rug#awesm=~oyBwPeBjuhShE4)

<comment><USER27> That's unbelievable. I never would have guessed feminists would be actively fighting against meritocracy.

<comment><USER28> It's actually "fighting against the idea that we actually live in a meritocracy, because we don't."

You may also want to look into the history of 'meritocracy': [http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/how-we-came-to- misunderstan...](http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/how-we-came-to- misunderstand-meritocracy)

<comment><USER27> So I guess we should get rid of the term "equality" as well, right?

In all seriousness though, entirely scrapping a noble idea because it isn't yet 100% realized is beyond ridiculous and is an example of why many people can't take modern feminists seriously.

You are supposed to work toward realizing goals, not destroying them.

<comment><USER29> Meritocracy isn't an ideal – it's a joke, and everyone should be fighting it. (Quoting another comment of mine:)

Meritocracy is not a desirable state of affairs, because it should be obvious that "merit" is a false currency used to justify what is, rather than work toward what should be. It is the quintessential naturalistic fallacy. By definition, an is-ought fallacy such as Meritocracy can not be an ideal (if you misunderstand meritocracy to mean "everyone gets what they deserve" that cannot be an ideal either, as it would be no different from "a world ruled by God", which is an imagined state rather than an ideal).

It amazes me time and again how people can take the term seriously, which only demonstrates how dangerous it is. Such a blatant, perverted joke, a dystopia that some intelligent people mistake for a utopia. Wikipedia says this: "Although the concept has existed for centuries, the term "meritocracy" was first coined in the 1950s. It was used by British politician and sociologist, Michael Young in his 1958 satirical essay, The Rise of the Meritocracy, which pictured the United Kingdom under the rule of a government favouring intelligence and aptitude (merit) above all else... In this book the term had distinctly negative connotations as Young questioned both the legitimacy of the selection process used to become a member of this elite and the outcomes of being ruled by such a narrowly defined group."

I still can't fathom how meritocracy can be taken as anything but a negative. I mean, the first question that comes to mind (or, rather, the second after "what is merit") is, "who has merit and why, and who does not?" Once this question is asked, it is immediately apparent that any attempt to paint "meritocracy" in a positive light is ludicrous.

<comment><USER30> I don't understand you. Are you saying nobody has merit?

That somebody wrote a parody about it doesn't prove anything.

It's also not obvious that it would cement a status quo: people can still strive to have merit? And does the concept forbid helping people to acquire skills? You can perhaps say Meritocracy is not the whole story (because of the self-sustaining elites problem), but it could be part of the solution, together with the usual efforts to give everybody a chance.

<comment><USER29> Meritocracy, like all real or imagined power systems, isn't about merit, though – it's about power. Power is real, so who gets it in a meritocracy? Let's say it's _people with merit_. Alright then, imagine this poor black girl growing up in the projects. She sees drug abuse all around her, but she stays away from it. She grows up and tries really hard to get her kids out of poverty. While she takes two jobs and sits with her kids for hours every day to tutor them, she fails as bad influence proves too strong. Now imagine this boy growing up in Manhattan to rich parents. They send him to all the right schools and make sure he takes part in all the right extracurricular activities. He works hard and gets into Harvard, where he continues to study hard to get his Comp Sci degree. A meritocracy grants power to those with merit: which of these two people will have power?

One of the reasons meritocracy is a joke is that merit cannot be measured; only success. Those who claim to believe in meritocracy think it simply means removing power from those who've gained success without merit (say, through connections and/or inheritance). But that doesn't really change the picture much, because the biggest bias is against those who haven't had success at all, in spite of their merit.

Like I said in my previous comment, when considering meritocracy, you should ask yourself "who does not have merit and why?"

<comment><USER30> Still, you can not seriously ask of tech companies to hire the poor girl from the slum instead of the Harvard comp sci major because the girl never had a chance to learn comp sci? I don't think such a rule would be beneficial for society. If comp sci doesn't convince you, imagine you are seriously ill. Who should be your physician - somebody who studied medicine at Harvard, or somebody who never had a chance to study medicine?

As I said, I don't see why Meritocracy could not be part of the solution. I don't think it implies that society shouldn't try to give people a fair chance all along the way. It doesn't even define what kind of merits should be rewarded. Perhaps "helping people to achieve their potential" would be the merit regarded the highest.

And if you dismiss Meritocracy on those grounds you mentioned, aren't you straight back in communism territory? You probably wouldn't be allowed to pay the comp sci major more than any other unskilled worker, either. Otherwise it would be unfair, right?

<comment><USER29> > Still, you can not seriously ask of tech companies to hire the poor girl > from the slum

True, but that doesn't make meritocracy an ideal. It's just how things are.

> As I said, I don't see why Meritocracy could not be part of the solution.

Again, how is meritocracy different from the status quo, then? But the reason your meritocracy is a problem more than a solution is twofold: first, it focuses effort on the wrong people (those who have success without merit) rather than those who need society's help. If your system is first let's wrestle power from those who have it without merit and only then turn our attention to the real problem, then your priorities are messed up. Second, it does all this by believing it somehow rewards merit while it really rewards privilege combined with some merit. A system not calling itself a meritocracy at least acknowledges its own unfairness.

<comment><USER30> "True, but that doesn't make meritocracy an ideal. It's just how things are."

What principle should tech companies use for hiring? And other companies, too?

Even if you say they should hire less skilled people and try to train them, that demand sounds like a tax to me. So perhaps it would be better to simply use taxes to train people, rather than burdening companies with something they are not specialized on? To start a company to cure cancer, you would then not only have to be an expert in curing cancer, but also in teaching people skills. That would raise the bar for creating successful companies significantly.

"it focuses effort on the wrong people (those who have success without merit)"

Ah, now we arrive at a crucial point: the anti-meritocracy crowd seems to think privileged people can never have merit. So if a Harvard graduate cures cancer, it counts less than if a girl from the slums does it. In fact a Harvard graduate doesn't deserve any recognition at all, he/she should probably be ashamed for curing cancer, thereby robbing the slum girl of her chance to do so.

I don't think such a value system can ever provide good results. Why not simply stick to the facts "cancer was cured, how much is that worth to me", rather than making moral judgements on the people who cured it?

Also, how can you argue against meritocracy with the argument it "focuses on people who have success without merit", when Meritocracy demands exactly the opposite of that?

<comment><USER29> > What principle should tech companies use for hiring? And other companies, > too?

Whatever works for them. But companies, at least in America, are not in the business of fixing society but that of making profit. As long as they remember that's what they're doing it's OK. I just think it makes them look stupid if they consider themselves to be some sort of utopia.

> the anti-meritocracy crowd seems to think privileged people can never have > merit.

No. But "merit" is the least contribution to success. Otherwise, you'd think all merit is concentrated in about a billion people living in the West. Most success is 90% luck and 10% merit. Also, calling people "anti-meritocracy" is kinda funny, as meritocracy was intended as a parody of society. It was never intended to be taken seriously. I'm not against any kind of parody. I'm certainly pro-meritocracy: I think it's funny as hell.

> Why not simply stick to the facts "cancer was cured, how much is that worth > to me", rather than making moral judgements on the people who cured it?

I'm not making a moral judgement. I just don't think that people lucky enough to have opportunities should be worshipped as being more than that. But most importantly, I'm not sure why that would necessarily mean they're the best people to rule society.

> Also, how can you argue against meritocracy with the argument it "focuses on > people who have success without merit", when Meritocracy demands exactly the > opposite of that?

Again, meritocracy is a parody. It demands nothing other than your laughter at our society's hypocrisy. But if I imagine how people who think it was meant as anything other than a joke take it to mean, I think: okay, so how does meritocracy differ from the system we have now in the eyes of people who don't see it as a joke? I mean, that Harvard guy already has the power. The answer is that these people think that if you're well-nourished, well-educated and study hard at Harvard, then you're fundamentally more deserving than someone who's well nourished and well educated, but gets into Harvard because his parent are super-rich and make a big contribution. Meritocracy implies that the second guy has less merit than the first, while the truth is that they're both mostly lucky, only the first guy works hard in addition to being lucky.

Any system that focuses on taking power from the vanishingly small number of people _more_ fortunate than its believers is, in my opinion, seriously flawed. I prefer systems that focus on those less fortunate than me.

<comment><USER30> I tried to look up the original parody. Apparently it describes the meritocracy as people constantly being evaluated by IQ tests. That's not really what the current idea of Meritocracy is - I'd assume it would build on actual achievements, not potential skills. So your reference to the parody is really quite useless.

The criticism that there is no objective measurement might still apply, although I'd say sometimes there is. If cancer is cured, it is cured.

"you're fundamentally more deserving than someone who's well nourished and well educated"

I'd say he is more deserving because he can cure cancer - if I am looking for somebody to give my money so that he cures my cancer.

I agree that everything is luck. But I still want the cancer gone. What solution do you propose?

It seems to me the privileged people should receive even less credit, whereas I propose credit should be given for results. You can't blame the slum person for being born in a slum, but you also can't blame the rich person for being born rich.

<comment><USER29> > but you also can't blame the rich person for being born rich.

I don't. But I don't want to idealize his luck either. If it all comes down to luck, I see little difference between giving power to those lucky enough to be born relatively rich as well as intelligent so that they can cure cancer, vs to those even luckier to be born extremely rich. If luck is your ideology, discriminating between different kinds of luck seems sheer jealousy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Whether or not her allegations turn out to have merit, blasting them out on Twitter without having gone through the appropriate channels inside and outside the company first shows a distinct lack of professionalism.

There are plenty of professional responses when there is conflict with your coworkers and attempting to publicly shame them is very far from any of them.

<comment><USER32> Oh, I see, it's the victim's fault because she didn't engage with systems _created by the harassers_ to your satisfaction. Such elegant logic: no matter what, somehow it's the woman's fault.

<comment><USER25> If she doesn't want to go through actual channels, she could write a blog post with actual meaning instead of tweeting vague accusations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Valleywag did a more neutral job IMHO: [http://valleywag.gawker.com/github- engineer-quits-after-alle...](http://valleywag.gawker.com/github-engineer- quits-after-alleging-gender-harassment-1544559154) .. just a shame they are permanently shitlisted on HN because their quality has really gone up in the past six months.

<comment><USER34> I agree that Valleywag was more neutral, but I disagree that the quality of Valleywag has gone up. Does anyone remember the old Owen Thomas/Nick Denton era of Valleywag, when they would actually get insider scoops? Sam Biddle and Nitasha Tiku are nothing more than glorified repost kids trying to squeeze out pageviews.

<comment><USER35> _Sam Biddle and Nitasha Tiku are nothing more than glorified repost kids trying to squeeze out pageviews._

Agreed, to say nothing of the extreme left-wing bias that they bring to the table - wealth is automatically bad and suspect; startups are toxic, evil, and sexist; business needs to get out of San Francisco which would otherwise be a prosperous socialist paradise ...

It's getting harder and harder to read it on a full stomach.

<comment><USER36> I consider it performance art.

It's the legions of +1 commenters that are depressing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> _But, even in a January interview with ReadWrite about how progressive the company had become, she noted some lingering issues: "I recently got an email from a middle manager that began, 'So Julie, how are the women at GitHub?' I said, 'You should ask them'."_

Umm, maybe I'm misinformed, but from what I've read Horvath was a bit of a evangelist for women in tech at GitHub. So why is it problematic to assume she might have her finger on the pulse with regard to GitHub's female employees?

Also, if you've "been harassed by 'leadership' at GitHub for two years" why not stand up for yourself and put the jerks in their place, or talk to a lawyer? Why take to Twitter like a child and post a spate of accusations?

<comment><USER38> Being an evangelist for women at a company is actually not the same thing as having the right to speak for all of them any more than a "developer evangelist" has a right to speak for all the developers.

<comment><USER37> I didn't mention anything about speaking for them.

And wouldn't a developer evangelist have an opinion on developer culture _within_ the company?

<comment><USER39> Exactly. One thing, in her defense, is that the email sounds a little flippant (at least the one-sentence quote we get secondhand!) I'll give the emailer the benefit of the doubt and assume it was meant as an insensitively playful but well-intentioned query.

When she's positioned herself as an advocate for women in the company, why would she get so offended when someone asks how that's going? Maybe she's upset about getting the "special treatment" of being asked after specifically -- well then, she already does "special treatment" of her own by starting Passion Projects, "Talks From Incredible Women In Tech."

"You should ask them." In a perfect world, sure, but is she seriously saying Mr. Middle Manager should walk around the cubes asking, "So, Jane, how do you feel as a woman at the company?" She probably meant that management should listen in general (to all employees.) Well then, is she playing "I know some specific things that are suboptimal, but I want you find them yourself"? What if they are already improving things they know of, and they just wanted her input on anything they're missing? So she spits back some quip to make them feel bad, nobody wins, and they won't ask again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Taking into account the normal backlash that ensues against any woman who raises issues of sexism in the workplace, i think she was very brave. typical reaction is let's not judge company A but let's really judge the woman, instead of the more sane reaction of let's not judge either the woman or the company. as for going to court, i know plenty of people who bitch about the workplace publicly and never go to court. the only difference is harassment is actually a crime but proving it is typically hell so most woman don't bother (and it could hurt them real bad professionally) - they just deal with it the best they can. Anyway, let's not judge either github or julie - they both deserve fair treatment.

</comment><comment><USER41> This looks pretty toxic to me, either way:

        > @getsecret told me they took down a post that's attempting to
        > assassinate my character. They didn't. It continues.
        >
        > "Removed my comments, but why are people using Secret as an
        > outlet? Internally, "Queen" has history of RAGING against any
        > professional riticism. Leadership has stood idly by while she
        > lied about contributions, threw hardworking oworkers under the
        > bus (again and again), and spread vicious rumors about women at
        > work and in the community. That's fucked. Maybe we shouldn't
        > discuss that in the open, but unethical behavior should be
        > exposed. If you have similar stories, please share with
        > greenshirt on Anonyfish. This will be private. Just a safe way
        > for us to talk. Thanks."

[https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/444646082857820160/phot...](https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/444646082857820160/photo/1)

<comment><USER35> Either the person in question behaved in a toxic manner, and was called out for it secretly, or else she did not behave in a toxic manner and the secretive calling-out is the toxic behavior.

Who's telling the truth? I wasn't there for any of it - so I have no idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Reporting based on unconfirmed reports and allegations from twitter is the best kind of reporting.

I'm not saying there is not a story here, yet. But let's wait until there are some facts to report.

</comment><comment><USER43> I worry about the unintended side effects of posts like these.

Who will read this and hesitate the next time they're about to hire a woman because they're the best candidate for the job?

"If one person claims there's gender-based harassment in the company, it would really affect our valuation...Better go with the slightly less-good-fit male candidate."

Of course I don't know what happened exactly, but fixing problems from within seems more effective than leaving a place and pointing fingers. Nobody likes to get pointed at.

<comment><USER44> > Who will read this and hesitate the next time they're about to hire a woman > because they're the best candidate for the job?

Lazy, sexist assholes, that's who.

<comment><USER43> They don't need more ammo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> This is a poorly-written article focusing on insignificant tidbits of illegitimate controversy attributed with GitHub which distracts from actually discovering the details of an unhealthy work environment that may exist at GitHub.

The bit about racial and sexist slurs in some random users' code? Completely irrelevant. GitHub is a platform to host code. They are not and should not be responsible for what people commit to repositories. To suggest otherwise is to suggest that GitHub should take on the role of a censor, and at that point, code associated with any gray area (like Popcorn Time) becomes a target for the vocal minority.

Let's wait for Horvath to finish her side of the story and go from there.

</comment><comment><USER46> I have a question. Her tweets were posted multiple times last night to HN. They were up voted and commented on, yet within 20-30 minutes each time, they were flagged as dead and no longer on the front page.

On some, there were newly created accounts commenting in defense of Github and claiming her comments and reasons were fraudulent.

What's up with that?

<comment><USER47> Hacker News users flag posts relating to gender whenever they come up. It's long been my opinion that flagging is too powerful on HN. Legitimate stories about Titstare and that hackathon where women fetch drinks for you were disappeared very quickly.

Though in this instance I'm not sure it's so bad, we have very little to make a meaningful discussion out of yet.

<comment><USER48> There's a better-written story over here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7405510](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7405510)

But it's magically vanished from being listed on the front page: [http://hnrankings.info/7405510,7405325/](http://hnrankings.info/7405510,7405325/)

The discussion about the tweet mentioned above is here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7403344](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7403344) (and it looks like it was flagged off the front page almost instantly)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I am quite frankly disappointed in the behavior of my peers whenever a story like this comes out. It makes me ashamed of my industry - we are so much better than this!

There is no place for discrimination in this world. Ever.

<comment><USER16> Oh, blanket statements. If you are against discrimination, always, you must then be opposed to Horvath's creation of a series of talks that discriminate against men? It's explicitly woman-only. _The only discrimination that has demonstrably occurred at GitHub is the anti-male selection criteria of Passion Projects._

Shouldn't have to say this, but I'm merely pointing out that you probably aren't saying what you think you are saying, and I am neither condoning nor condemning Passion Projects, GitHub, or Julia.

<comment><USER20> Having a speaker series featuring women in tech is not "anti-male discrimination". Maybe it would be if there weren't 1000+ other tech conferences where the majority of speakers are men. How someone can say stuff like this in 2014 honestly baffles me.

<comment><USER16> It's obviously "anti-male discrimination," by definition. It's just not evil or unwarranted. Discrimination is not a synonym for hate; it basically means selection criteria or bias, which obviously applies. For pete's sake. Are you so eager to prove you're a good guy that you're going to paint everyone else as a bigot?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I can see two basic solutions to these issues:

        1. Purge every company of assholes

        2. Allow complete freedom of association

#1 is hard to implement because assholes are everywhere. #2 is the obvious solution, and in fact it is so obvious that Julie Ann Horvath's actions implicitly endorse it—don't work for companies filled with assholes.

Alas, the obvious solution is illegal under US federal law. Asshole-filled companies are required by law to hire the kind of people assholes love to harass. In other words, the very laws designed to promote the interests of asshole-targets guarantee that they will come into contact with assholes. (Medical geeks might recognize this as _iatrogenesis_.)

Of course, there's always:

        3. Convert all assholes to non-assholes

This can be considered a special case of #1, and would be the best of all possible worlds. Indeed, a great deal of energy goes into achieving it. But it essentially reduces to "eliminate the existence of assholes". It doesn't take a particularly subtle grasp of human nature to understand why this doesn't appear to be working.

In sum, the obvious solution is illegal and the desirable solution doesn't work. Is it any wonder this conflict seems never-ending?

<comment><USER38> It sounds a whole lot like you're saying:

A. There are only two impossibly simplistic solutions to the problem.

B. Neither of them are workable in practice, so clearly the problem is intractable.

There are people out there who have spent more than 10 minutes considering the problem. Many of them have conducted research and published on the topic. You might consider reading some of them before concluding that it's hopeless.

<comment><USER50> _A. There are only two impossibly simplistic solutions to the problem._

Can you think of a solution that doesn't fall into either of the categories I suggested?

 _B. Neither of them are workable in practice, so clearly the problem is intractable._

Don't shoot the messenger.

 _Many of them have conducted research and published on the topic._

This is exactly what you would expect when there's an illegal but obviously workable solution. Nobody ever got a job for saying "let companies hire whomever they please", so researchers have an incentive to make the impossible solution seem possible—if only we would listen to (and fund the research of) people like them. The results simply involve increasingly complicated ways of purging (or converting) assholes.

<comment><USER14> I can think of a solution: enforce the law regarding gender harassment. Face lawsuits otherwise. Period.

<comment><USER50> Companies facing gender harassment lawsuits need to purge assholes or risk going out of business. In other words, your solution reduces to solution #1.

<comment><USER14> Upvoted for elegance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> > The controversy calls to mind that of Adria Richards last year

False.

<comment><USER52> I have to agree. Adria Richards took a picture of two guys then posted the, to twitter, complaining about a conversation the two were having that possibly contained sexual innuendo. The same sort that she made on twitter earlier.

In this case, someone has quit and said that a company hasn't been doing the right thing. That's a far more ethical stance to make.

Mind you, I've no idea what the issues were/are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> ...'The issue has spilled over into other Internet companies too, as Horvath quite correctly called out Secret, the anonymous-sharing app, for leaving up what is an appalling post about her, in which she is called "Queen.".....

I signed up for the Secret yesterday based on the HN comments of their UX interactions and I immediately noticed that in comments below Secret posts, people are assigned random icons and then refer to each other by what the icon looks like. She refered to the author of that Secret comment as "greenshirt" in her tweets. Is it possible that the "Queen" was a reference to her icon(which we dont see from the screenshot), rather than an insult. It could be just be attributed to a chess figure icon.

<comment><USER54> Is it wrong to call a woman a "Queen"? What.the.fuck.

I call my wife 'mi reina' and my daughter 'princesita'. Are you telling me these retards are saying that's a no-no?

<comment><USER55> Yes. You don't use gendered pronouns to refer to your coworkers and professional associates because you're reducing that person to their gender when it rarely matters. Also, you don't call people 'retards' because that's insulting to people with disabilities. What you call your wife and daughter is between you and your family.

<comment><USER56> Can't speak for the person who called her "queen", but that's the problem with some words being gendered and others not. Most words in my mother tongue are gendered even if the thing they're referring to are objects with no innate gender. Cultural insensitivity or not, I fail to see how calling a woman a queen reduces her to her gender. Hell, I can't see how calling a man a queen reduces him to any gender.

I'm assuming whoever called her a queen wanted to allude to a domineering personality, and indeed nobody is called a "king" for being pushy and domineering, but the sentiment is also expressed in regards to men, as in "he does X like he fucking owns the place".

<comment><USER47> Also, being pushy and domineering is seen as a positive in men, but is almost always seen as a negative in women.

<comment><USER56> I don't know, I've personally seen both men and women be criticized for domineering attitudes in similar situations. Some men are less likely to criticize men for their domineering attitude for fear of starting a fight (some men don't physically attack women, but will attack men), making an enemy with bully tendencies, losing their job, etc. Perhaps it's not that men being pushy and domineering is really appreciated, it's just accepted as a fact of life to prevent uncomfortable repercussions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Article looks sensationalist without any concrete details, however I will reserve my judgement and wait for more information before condemning either party.

</comment><comment><USER58> >But, even in a January interview with ReadWrite about how progressive the company had become, she noted some lingering issues: "I recently got an email from a middle manager that began, 'So Julie, how are the women at GitHub?' I said, 'You should ask them'."

This is pretty telling of her attitude, I think.

</comment><comment><USER59> There is no proof (yet). So let's not make a big deal and judge neither Julie nor Github unless something solid comes out.

<comment><USER60> If a publicly distributed first-hand account by the person in question isn't "solid proof," what exactly are you looking for? What reason do you have to think she's being anything less than truthful?

<comment><USER61> Not judging her story as truthful does not imply judging it as not (or "anything less than") truthful either.

Her story as far as the article describes, is not an account, it's an accusation without much factual, actionable data. You normally don't judge on accusations until you have tried within reason to obtain factual data from both parties involved.

<comment><USER62> My approach is different actually. While I think the criminal justice "beyond a shadow of a doubt" standard is sensible for many criminal trials, because I have no legal power over github, I treat these things more like civil suits. Which means I just look for "the preponderance of the evidence". In this case there are varying amounts of evidence for all three of the following:

1) workplace harassment against women is quite common

2) such harassment is frequently ignored

3) there was some harassment in this case

And there's no evidence that I've seen that suggests there was no harassment or that it was handled properly by management. Therefore for the time being my assumption is that the harassment and mismanagement both happened.

That said, although I have seen mountains of evidence for 1) and 2), because the amount of evidence for the specific situation is small, that means a small amount of counter-evidence about the specific situation could easily shift the balance of probabilities.

That said, I have seen quite a bit of evidence that such accusations are only rarely false, so while I would change my balance of properties readily, I don't expect that to happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63>
        > look

You look around the article, and see real news of someone quitting, and a few incensed tweets. Around these things lie a vast and billowing cloud of baseless speculation, which smells uncomfortably of sulfur and bile.

        > examine speculation

The wispy and insubstantial cloud seems formless at first, but if you stare long enough, you can almost see the shapes of your foes. Or possibly bunny rabbits. None can say.

        > take speculation

You try to grab the cloud of speculation, but it slips through your fingers. This is consistent with the behavior of most clouds.

</comment><comment><USER64> I don't really understand the motivation behind spamming twitter with vague messages. If you care about problematic treatment of women in tech, this seems completely counter-productive. Why not talk about what happened, how it could be avoided in the future? Inform people about the nature of the problem and it becomes possible to find solutions.

I do believe that sexism is a real problem in this industry. But this woman's behaviour is childish and a completely inappropriate response no matter what it is that happened.

</comment><comment><USER65> _I 've been harassed by 'leadership' at GitHub for two years. And I am the first developer to quit._

And

 _Julie Ann Horvath, an influential engineer at GitHub who has been vocal about the company's increasingly positive culture for women_

Hmmm. I don't think this is going to serve her well. So if you have been harassed for two years, why did you find the culture in Github positive for women?

<comment><USER20> I think you are jumping to conclusions. The situation could have changed during the time she was there. It's also quite likely that she put a positive spin on things when describing GitHub publicly because it was part of her job, and she wasn't willing to go public with her accusations until it reached a certain level.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> The allegations thus far are extremely vague. We don't even have complete _stories_ from both sides, let alone conclusions.

Until we know what actually happened (if we ever do) it will be hard to judge.

</comment><comment><USER66> But, but, .. what do you mean? Just yesterday, that nice founder of GitHub showed us all of their mobile-first bring-your-life-into-work-and-never-leave tools for communication! It was all open and stuff!

You mean there are still informal networks? Power gradients? Alliances? They lied to us!

<comment><USER67> Obvious troll is obvious.

<comment><USER66> Just pointing out theres a difference between "we are actually this honest and open" and "we just hate accountability".

GitHub seems to fall to the right of the divide.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Will HN ever be capable of having a rational discussion of women in engineering and the issues they face? Most of these comments are face-palm worthy.

</comment><comment><USER69>
        "I recently got an email from a middle manager that began,
        'So Julie, how are the women at GitHub?' I said, 'You
        should ask them.'"

What is so wrong with that email? I can see how it could be misconstrued by someone with a chip on their shoulder, but I could also see the original sender thinking that that is a totally innocent constructive question to posit to a woman who has been with the company for a long time. I would expect men to know more about what's going on with the men in a company and for the women to know more about what's going with women in a company. At the end of the day there are conversations at work with are always inappropriate and conversations at work which are inappropriate to have with members of the opposite gender, but are likely not to be considered inappropriate by members of the same sex. Or am I just missing something here.

</comment><comment><USER70> What exactly is the issue? the whole article does not say anything. At all. It just highlights her vague accusations. Sounds like a disgruntled employee. or did I miss any actual accusation there?

</comment><comment><USER71> This is probably totally OT, but on the subject of women in CS and other STEM fields/professions:

It seems like - while I'm sure the numbers like payscale and demographics probably still heavily favor male vs. female, looking around, you see pretty accomplished women in leadership positions - Jennifer Widom, Daphne Koller, heck you can even cite Ginny Rometti. Why don't we ever hear from/about them?

</comment><comment><USER54> I just don't take these people seriously anymore. It seems like a uniquely north american woman phenomenon.

Why is that I almost never hear about a German female software developer crying wolf?

This person could have been legitimately harassed, but all of the bullshit flooding online has made me grow a thick skin and just not care anymore because I think it's fake.

<comment><USER72> There is a lot of sexism in Europe. e.g. the European Union tried to get more women into science with a campaign called "Science: It's a girl thing"[1]. The promotional video[2] is painfully archiac. It looks like something straight out of Mad Men. "Pete, women are only interested in make up, so make sure we have lots of that"

[1] [https://science-girl-thing.eu/en/splash](https://science-girl- thing.eu/en/splash) [2] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g032MPrSjFA](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g032MPrSjFA)

<comment><USER54> That video is just cringe-worthy. What were they thinking?!

<comment><USER73> It's cringe-worthy for you, but it's actually popular amongst the target demographic and has probably done more for getting girls into tech than most other initiatives. You can deny it all you want, but many girls really do like that kind of thing - and denying their right to like that stuff is just as bad as denying their right to join the tech workforce.

EDIT: I mean the initiative as a whole, not the video alone. The whole initiative has been done in a fairly cringe worthy way for me though, but for the target audience it mostly gets it right.

<comment><USER72> The video itself was taken down _very_ quickly after numerous actual women in science saw it and (publically) WTFed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> Beyond the stuff that is harder to substantiate, putting stuff in your comments that isn't related to the code you've written is incredibly unprofessional. I wouldn't do that at any of the jobs I've been in.

It's a shame there's a lack of professionalism in the industry.

</comment><comment><USER75> OK, as a minority myself -- maybe not in tech today, but growing up in a region that was 99% white and not anywhere near Silicon Valley -- this really irritates me:

[https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/444662613020913665](https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/444662613020913665)

 _" The shitty thing about all of this is that by being open and honest about my experience I'm devaluing stock options of people I care about."_

So Horvath is alleging what most definitely sounds like civil-court level of damages, if not _criminal_ , but she won't provide details _or file a lawsuit as a whistelblower_ because she fears for her friends' financial profit?

How _the hell_ does that even make sense? What amount of IPO profit is worth the level of systematic oppression and discrimination that she is alleging here? And what kind of friends -- the ones privileged enough to earn a spot in Github's ranks and could easily get a job at a less purportedly evil company -- would be unsympathetic toward Horvath calling out her abusers, given the level of harassment and cruelty they have inflicted upon her, as she tells in her tweets?

I hate to pull the "I'm a minority card" too, but I am someone who can _completely believe_ that a situation like Horvath's could exist "under the radar" and yet cause lasting harm to equality in society...it's a common fallacy to think that racism/sexism only exists when physical violence and criminal malfeasance (of the media frenzy kind) occur.

And so I'm equally frustrated that she, out of concern for her friends' bank accounts, will not do the right and just thing, given that she asserts to have irrefutable evidence and a solid case. And if there are enough good people at Github, as she also asserts, then legal and decisive action will only _help_ Github to become a great company.

</comment><comment><USER76> I'm really not surprised at this after all the publicity about GitHub's immature "no managers" frat boy culture.

Really, what do you expect to happen when you put a bunch of young men with little life experience together and let the inmates run the asylum?

Also not surprised at the many blatantly misogynist comments here on HN.

If there was ever any doubt about how our industry treats women, all you have to do is let the industry speak for itself, like it does here on HN.

<comment><USER14> right? In a most unexpected way (to me) I do appreciate that HN allows all these disgusting comments to remain, vs. whitewashing them away. It gives credence to claims about what people really think in this industry.

<comment><USER14> go ahead kids, downvote me. I love it. I eat it for breakfast.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> after reading the article and links - i think i can safely say some people are batshit crazy - and that the only harrasment at github was this women harrasing others.

even thus this article was supposed to be in her defense. batshit crazy.

<comment><USER55> > and that the only harrasment at github was this women harrasing [SIC] > others.

How do you know this? Do you work at GitHub?

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> Philosophy departments are also having their troubles with sexism, sexual harassment and allegations therof, as one can find by perusing [http://leiterreports.typepad.com](http://leiterreports.typepad.com), [http://philosophysmoker.blogspot.com/](http://philosophysmoker.blogspot.com/) and [http://beingawomaninphilosophy.wordpress.com/](http://beingawomaninphilosophy.wordpress.com/) The serious problems in professional philosophy with sexism and harassment are exacerbated by an other-worldly proclivity among some philosophers to theorize the possibility of harassment out of existence.

</comment><comment><USER79> I believe her completely, because I would frankly be _shocked_ in this day and age to see a company that didn't treat its employees like shit. Especially a Silicon "better-than-the-old-dog-chow" Valley company.

How hard is it to treat people with respect, to treat them--ya know--like people?

</comment><comment><USER80> Disgusting. I don't know how in 2014 we still judge people by their gender or sexuality.

All businesses should really care about is if the employee is a value add to the company. Male or Female, it should not matter.

Disgusting GitHub, didn't expect this from you.

<comment><USER52> Expecting what exactly? What did they do?

<comment><USER81> I also am mind-boggeled about this.

She said so many times how bad her employees were treating her but she never said exactly _what_ they were doing.

<comment><USER52> She may not be easily able to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> Information is vague, so it's best not to take side (yet, at least).

This caught my eye, though: "In one day, all of the work I've done at that company to be a better place for women to work has come undone."

"All work undone in a day" feels off. Either too impulsive, or speaking ill of her alleged work.

I'd be suspicious of anyone claiming great progress in their activist agenda (or whatever agenda) for _two years_ , and then suddenly announcing it was all undone by a single remark or in a single day.

</comment><comment><USER83> Basically, how any incompetent person behaves in the workplace. People getting shit done don't have time for this nonsense.

<comment><USER84> You mean people who are productive don't have time to harass other people? That does not sound convincing, because there a plenty or documented events were that happened.

Or do you mean, people who are productive don't have time to defend themselves against harassment? In this case you are definitely blaming the wrong people because you should blame those who still don't manage to keep the workplace, and the rest of society, free of sexism, racism and so on.

<comment><USER85> No, people who are productive don't get harassed. Meritocracy, bro!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> Until she posts about what happened I don't understand the point of her Tweets.

If you are accusing a company of something, do so with facts.

This is not something you beat around the bush with.

</comment><comment><USER87> __Females != Feminists __

Going into a workplace with a feminist agenda is a distraction and problem waiting to happen.

 __Twitter Followers != Engineer __

[https://github.com/nrrrdcore](https://github.com/nrrrdcore) \- she didn't even have any code. She's not a prominent engineer IMO. More of a marketer / enthusiast type.

Edit: Does anyone here have proof of gender discrimination or she was a good engineer?

<comment><USER88> Going into a workplace with the idea that everyone should be treated fairly and equally is a distraction and a problem waiting to happen? "Feminism" isn't "women better, dudes worse."

(And the always popular implication that people who aren't engineers don't matter...)

<comment><USER87> > the always popular implication that people who aren't engineers don't matter

There is also the popular implication when there is a girl on twitter starting trouble again, they're not coding and trying to claim some form of discrimination, instead of developing programming skill.

<comment><USER88> Implied by the _deranged_ , yes. Are you deranged?

You can't--and obviously I mean in the "if you're a basically functioning, mostly vertebrate human being it's morally repugnant" sense of "can't", not the physical, over-literal sense that I feel like you're going to use--blame shitty workplace behaviors (and this isn't the first I've heard of GitHub having problems) on _people not knowing how to code_. I mean, what kind of world do you want to live in where you can excuse mistreating people because they don't "develop programming skill"?

Actually, don't answer that. I don't want to know what kind of world you want to live in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER89> I'm glad to see a lot of people sticking up for her here in the comments but an equal number of these comments disgust me.

Take a look at the gender disparity in the top 10 tech companies. Most of them are about 80% male. It's not that women don't want to work in tech, it's that society as a whole including the entire tech community is entrenched in a neo- good ol boys only mindset centered around a false meritocracy. Fuck the techies and fuck silicon valley. I grew up romanticizing the industry and in my adult life I've found it to be the ultimate disappointment.

</comment><comment><USER87> To non-US people:

In USA, we have a special sub-type of "office lady", which is the "marketer / enthusiast" twitter troll.

The issue is, in other countries, office ladies are happy to just dress professionally and do their clerical work.

In USA, we have self-esteem bubbles, an education system, a political culture that create a factory of women like this. Basically, office ladies who act like bulls, get enabled by nice-meaning people, then bite off more than they can chew.

Also in USA, understand that our english isn't to be taken literally; it infers complicated politically-charged emotions. Americans react very harshly and nit-pick blunt truths, our public discourse is not one of reflection, clarification or debate, but projecting emotion at an idea we don't feel reaffirms our view of the world.

These people are a tiny sliver of our society, but since we in USA are good people, we tend to give them benefit of the doubt. Because of the abuse by this type of women in the workplace, some Americans are associating women in distress with people like this. The boy who cried wolf.

People like this can really hurt things for actual victims of discrimination who do their job.

<comment><USER90> I don't understand what this has to do with "office ladies" specifically.

You could make similar claims about any cult personality. Anyone in a typical low-to-mid-level corporate job who has more social capital in the external world (twitter, etc.) than social capital inside the company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER91> Terrible! Can't believe such a progressive company like Github would stoop so low.

</comment><comment><USER92> This shows why it is best to ignore women's complaining from the start.

Github has bent over backwards for Horvath, and it only fueled and enabled her delusions.

This "gender based harassment" was most likely someone disagreeing with her that Github did not need to be feminism 24x7.

<comment><USER68> Is this a satirical post? I cannot imagine anyone writing this in 2014 and actually believing it.

<comment><USER93> Read the whole thread, it's rampant with sexism and victim blaming. Typical for a HN discussion about anything related to gender issues, really.

<comment><USER94> Trigger Warning: HN

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> Thanks a lot github. This is why we can't have nice things.</comment>


The "Steam Box" era begins with the Piston, a $1,000 PC-in-a-console - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/03/the-steam-box-era-begins-with-the-piston-a-1000-pc-in-a-console/ <comment><USER2> Ringing in the new era with a dud.

Why does it need to fit in the palm of your hand when it will most likely sit on a shelf its entire life? And who thought there was demand for a $1,000 mid- range gaming console? A cheap, low-performance device could at least be justified as an emulator/HTPC if it couldn't serve as a dedicated current-gen gaming console (which the Piston can't do either).

If this is any preview of what's to come from the "Steam Box" lineup, consider my excitement totally extinguished.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think it's important to note that this actually isn't the Valve branded "Steam box", but actually a similar spec hardware platform to the one Valve is developing internally. It's unfortunate that a lot of the momentum and hype Valve can leverage with their name is being wasted on this particular platform which they have nothing to do with.

<comment><USER4> > _they have nothing to do with_

They may not be the ones creating this, but they do have something to do with it, in that they have officially partnered with Xi3 and call this system a "third-party prototype" of the Steam Box. Arguably the momentum/hype wouldn't be "wasted" (subjective term) if Valve hadn't chosen to "waste" (/"use") it on this product.

<comment><USER5> Valve just stated that they "began some exploratory work with Xi3 last year, but currently has no involvement in any product of theirs."

And by "just stated", I mean they just stated it today. I thought they were still associated as well:

[http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/12/valve-disassociates- itself...](http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/12/valve-disassociates-itself-from- xi3/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This product is an awful bunch of compromises. The price is far too high for the performance it delivers. No console owner will be tempted by a $1000 price tag and limited game catalog. No PC gamer will be tempted by tepid performance in a small package.

<comment><USER7> It's a first generation product—nobody in their right mind would buy it anyway. Setting the price at $1000 means people who buy it probably know what they are doing and can help valve improve the most—think paying for a beta test.

At least that's my interpretation.

<comment><USER8> I think that's an optimistic interpretation. The "early adopter" tax people pay for the first version of something works for no-other-options devices (think the first HDTV's or Blu-Ray players). In this case however, just about can go to Microcenter and build a better-performing machine for significantly cheaper. The form factor or power consumption may not be as good, but I'm not entirely sure how much that matters compared to several hundred dollars of up- front savings?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here is a nice guide for a $500 "Steam Box"

[http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-to-build-your- own...](http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-to-build-your-own-steam- box/) Great pictures for assembly - components as follows:

      Processor: Intel Core i3-3220 ($130)
      Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H61M-HD2 Micro-ATX ($55)
      RAM: Kingston Value 4GB DDR3 1066 Low-Profile ($30)
      Video Card: AMD Radeon HD 7770 1GHz Edition ($115)
      Hard Drive: Western Digital Blue 500GB 7200RPM ($60)
      Power Supply: Antec NEO ECO 400-Watt ($40)
      Case: Antec New Solution VSK-3000 ($30)
      Cooler: Cooler Master GeminII M4 ($30)

<comment><USER10> The GPU is fine, but that build needs more RAM and possibly a better CPU. Would benefit significantly from an SSD; spend ~$100 on a 128GB SSD and watch your loading times drop.

<comment><USER11> My machine is always on. Subjectively, having 24GB of RAM made far more of a performance difference than my Plextor PX-256M3P, presumably because with 24GB of RAM pretty much everything of importance ends up being cached in RAM sooner or later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> $1000 seems a little pricey, however, a grapefruit sized, sleek computer has a lot higher Wife Approval Factor than the "On Sale" computer case with red flashing LEDs I used for my server. Even at $900, I'm not getting one pre- sale, but something like this that sits comfortably on top of/beside my stereo might happen at some point.

The video card is a 7660, so probably the highest end graphics you can get in something that isn't pulling more wattage.

Something like this might make it into my living room at some point, but I'll have to see how it performs as an HTPC type of thing before committing. The SSD doesn't bother me so much, most content is streaming or going to be stored on a main server for me.

Does it support airplay out of the box?

I don't mind having to ssh in to get things to work right, but there's a lot to be said for something that "Just seems to work most of the time" for other household members.

Edit: Looking around, it seems the amd R series is too new to have many reviews, but the 464 is the top 'APU' in the lineup and seems to be targeted at some of the i7 line from intel. There aren't many for sale retail, but just the cpu and a motherboard would run about $450 if my maths are right ($229 retail for the APU, ~175 pounds for a jetway motherboard). So, the form factor seems to be adding a really large premium. Adding in memory, disk, etc. I can see it getting to $1000. This is also a 35W system, while I still think $1000 is above my pain threshold, a 35W system doing full-on PC gaming is a little mind-blowing to those of us who remember when Pentium-based computer was a synonym for 400W 'space heater'.

</comment><comment><USER13> I think it's important to note that this is a 3rd party offering that's compliant with what we assume to be the "steambox standards", and is not Valve's first party product.

From the article:

>This is not to be confused with Valve's own Steam Box hardware development efforts, which should result in a prototype in the next few months.

</comment><comment><USER14> For the price? They should have called it the "idiot box."

<comment><USER15> That name was taken by the television.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Sadly, no matter what kind of hardware/specs it has, the price point is too high. One reason the Wii took over back a huge chunk of the market was the price point (yes, you can also talk about the novel controllers, games, etc, but it is hard to argue against the pricing argument). When I was at MS Games studio, there was a lot of research that backed up the idea of "console sweet spots". Sadly, those (Gartner?) reports cost a lot of money and are not public so I can link to them :-(

<comment><USER17> This reminds me of the 3D0. It was the first 32 bit video game console on the market and was well ahead of its time in multiple ways (Internet multiplayer). However they entered a saturated market at a very steep cost and never fully took off. This won't take off at a 1000 dollars. Who has that kind of money to spend on something that doesn't provide more value than alternatives?

<comment><USER16> Exactly. Remember the Neo Geo? Arcade-quality games... better than any other console of its time! The price point killed it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As other people point out you can always build your own cheaper, but if you want an out of the box solution, the Alienware X51 is surely already here, with a starting price of $700, a form-factor / size not dissimilar to the Xbox 360, and better (I think, though I'm not great at AMD/Intel AMD/NVIDIA comparisons) specs?

$699 gets you i3-3220, GT640, 6GB memory - upgradable at multiple price points up to $1299 for i7-3770, GTX660, 16GB memory.

<http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-x51/pd.aspx>

Disclaimer: I do not work for Dell/Alienware, however I do in some ways work with them - the above is my personal opinion, my work does not involve evangelising :)

</comment><comment><USER18> The "Steam Box" era won't/can't begin until Steam is actually delivering the "all gamepad" experience that living-room users expect.

And that sounds like it's further away than hardware that hits any particular place on the price/performance/heat/noise spectrum.

<comment><USER19> Actually, I've found a good amount of support for gamepads in Steam already. When they rolled out the Big Picture mode beta several months ago, games already started adding in controller support. Games that hadn't updated in years (Audiosurf) updated to add controller support. It's not completely universal, but it seems pretty good so far. Additionally, if they build in something like Joy2Key into the Steam Box hardware, it may be easier than you'd think.

<comment><USER18> Yes, but where gamepads are already supported, it's more the rule than the exception that you're going to run into menus and things that can't be negotiated via the gamepad.

(e.g. Windows UAC prompts, menus, pop-ups or text boxes that inexplicably demand kb/m input, etc. )

So it's not as if one flips the power on and sits on their couch with just a gamepad and has a console-style experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I agree, price seems way off. I built a Steam Box for around $400 based on a multitude of guides out there, and every game I've thrown at it so far has run wonderfully (Tomb Raider, Skyrim, NBA 2k13, etc)

<comment><USER21> What's the configuration?

<comment><USER20> Something very similar to this:

1GB XFX Radeon HD 7770 Intel Pentium G850, Socket 1155, Dual Core, 2.90GHz LiteOn IHAS124-04 24x DVD±R Fractal Design Core 1000 500W Storm Silent LPJ19-25 MSI H61M-P31 (G3) Motherboard 4GB Corsair Value DDR3 PC3-10600 (1333) 500GB Seagate ST500DM002 Barracuda SATA 6Gb/s, 7200rpm Windows 7 64BIT Professional

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> There's too many plugs on this thing for a living room box. Way too many. One USB, one HDMI, that's it. Need a headset? Use bluetooth.

The Mac Mini has fewer ports than this, and it's an honest-to-pete computer.

<comment><USER23> What are you going to plug all the gamepads into then?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is what Asia does, they skip the consumer research and just make stuff and sell it at a small markup over cost. This is not a new product, a revolution, or anything other than a tiny PC. Some people will buy it, it might even be called a platform, but it's not a revolution.

<comment><USER25> Yeah, that's all that continent of 17,212,000 square miles, with a population of around 4.2 billion people in 48 countries, does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> When I see ridiculous stuff like this 'Steam Box' it makes me really glad I joined the OUYA bandwagon early on ...

OUYA!

</comment><comment><USER27> I can't wait to get this right after I buy the chrome pixel in 2016.

</comment><comment><USER28> In order to justify that price it needs to things well other than games.

I'm curious as to what the difference is between a "Steam box" and a PC running Linux or Windows that has steam installed?

<comment><USER29> No difference beyond prepackaged software. It's just a PC in a small box, nothing special.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> What kind of changes can this 'steam-box' generation bring about for developers as well as consumers?

<comment><USER31> If it takes off you will see PC hardware become more console like than it is now, lengthened hardware cycles for GFX cards etc. Devs get a slower moving target to aim at, min specs become the current or perhaps previous gen. Steam box. Consumers get easy compatibility, Game X is compatible with Steam box 2+.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I would have kept my old Radeon 7200 if I had known it would be high tech again.

</comment><comment><USER33> Anyone know what distro it is meant to support?

<comment><USER34> Currently, Steam is only distributed for Ubuntu.</comment></comment>


Cool Clock, Ahmed. Want to Bring It to the White House? - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/potus/status/644193755814342656 <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10228217](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10228217)

<comment><USER3> I think HN's deduplication mechanism is case-sensitive, which is why this managed to get through (due to the difference between "potus" and "POTUS" in the URL).</comment></comment>


Why you should never skip writing tests - <AUTHOR> http://codeclimber.blogspot.com/2008/05/maintaining-discipline.html

<comment><USER2> When I first read the headline, I thought the poster meant "taking a writing test" like taking an exam.

Thanks for sharing. We do test first on one of the projects I've recently joined. The project uses JUnit for unit tests and integration tests, Maven for automated builds, JIRA for tracking, and Subversion. The project manager keeps things simple, no heavy process. Also, We're a geographically distributed team.

<comment><USER3> Hey.. uhh.. Do you work on the same project as me, or is this just a common setup?

<comment><USER2> You use JIRA too? What do you think of it?

<comment><USER3> We use jira, svn, maven _and_ j-unit. Jira I think is pretty good. But that's only in comparison with what I was using before, which was clear..quest? Clearcase? One of those. Man, what a terrible program.

In comparison, despite jira having a UI that was clearly created by developers, it seems quite dandy for tracking (and logically linking) bugs.

<comment><USER2> If what you used was for bug tracking it would be clearquest, rational clearquest. A program only the darkest souls of the empire would embrace.

I was held at gunpoint (exaggeration) and had to administer it. Note, this was a 7 year old version of clearquest at the time.

JIRA is clunky but it is effective. I ought not say more as it would be impolite.

I've had to formally evaluate bug tracking and issue tracking systems. They all suck to one degree or another as each has a fatal flaw, in my honest opinion. I probably ought to write a blog entry on the trackers I evaluated and the level of spam that the commercial versions send out to evaluators.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I never take a break, even an overnight break, at an "appropriate breaking point". That way, it's easy to pick up where I left off. A nice byproduct is that I rarely rush to get something done while tired.

<comment><USER5> also, never check-in code when you have been drinking. Learnt it the hard way.... twice.</comment></comment>


High-dimensional orbital angular momentum entanglement over a 1km fiber - <AUTHOR> https://www.osapublishing.org/optica/abstract.cfm?uri=optica-7-3-232 <comment><USER2> _" future OAM-based high-dimensional long-distance quantum communication"_

As a layperson, this is confusing. I thought you couldn't use entanglement for communication.

<comment><USER3> As others say, it doesn't enable FTL communication.

But if you have an entangled set X and Y, you can send your partner X while you keep Y. When you both look at X and Y, you will randomly get 0 or 1 while they get the opposite. While you can't control which you get, you _can_ take advantage of the fact that only you and your partner know what these values are and it is guaranteed that nobody else knows what they are. You don't know how your partner has used this info until you get the conventional communication.

It's more complicated than that in reality but that's the principle of why it's useful.

<comment><USER4> Can you "nudge" the system without collapsing the entanglement? And if so, could you do so in a way that predictably impacts the value of the entangled property?

I find it hard to grasp that there's no clever way to impart information over entanglement (without relying on classical messaging).

Is the state of entanglement fragile beyond our limits to record or alter? What about an ensemble of thousands of entangled particles - could we statistically sample some of them and force how they resolve?

What are the different properties that can be entangled? Angular momentum (spin, orbital) ...? Surely there's something we can clock and predict in the real world without requiring us to collapse the wave function to know what the state would be.

<comment><USER3> "Can you "nudge" the system without collapsing the entanglement? And if so, could you do so in a way that predictably impacts the value of the entangled property?"

You can nudge it in a couple ways, and you can _statistically_ predict what may happen as a result. However, none of the ways you can do that result in communication, because you can't get around the way you can't _choose_ the collapse. There is no way to communicate because you can't force the decision. If you do force the decision you break the entanglement.

I _think_ this is one of the main errors people make on this matter; you hear "ah, if mine is "up" then theirs is "down" automatically, so surely if I set mine to 'up' then I can communicate with them?" But you don't get to "set" it. You have no choice in the matter. It just happens. In communication, you are ultimately communicating your choice to have a 0 or 1, and you can't communicate when you have no choices to make. In more classical terms, it'd be like me trying to send you a message with _next week 's_ lottery numbers. I can't; I have no control over those numbers. (Not a precise analogy since there's no "quantum" there, but I think the intuition is reasonable.)

<comment><USER4> > If you do force the decision you break the entanglement.

"Measurement" causes collapse, correct? What is different about measuring the system in a way that forces how the system collapses versus a way that results in a random result?

Does the other entangled system yield random results if you try to force the collapse of its entangled sibling?

Can you describe some experimental setups? I'd like to know how we found that out.

<comment><USER3> You can't "force" collapse in a particular way. You can read UP vs. DOWN, or you can fiddle it around so you read LEFT vs. RIGHT, but there simply is no way to "measure" an outcome to be UP in the UP/DOWN direction, unconditionally, thus forcing the other side to get DOWN.

The operation you are depending on to communicate doesn't exist.

It's a bit weird that you can choose to read UP/DOWN and your counterpart can read LEFT/RIGHT, or even a bit of both by reading at an angle, but you still can't move classical bits around that way, because you can't read "RIGHT". If you do fiddle with things to force a result, the fiddling will erase the entanglement, because under the hood, in math, those two things are basically equivalent statements. If you _do_ force something, your forced result will have no bearing on what your counterpart gets; if you force "RIGHT" all that will happen is that your counterpart will still get a 50/50 in the LEFT/RIGHT basis. You didn't communicate anything.

<comment><USER4> That makes sense.

Thanks so much for explaining this!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> i thought this was about space elevators until i read the abstract

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm fascinated by the contrast of conceptual abstraction and concreteness in that title (and work of course)</comment>


The Economics and Politics of Free Basics - <AUTHOR> https://lobste.rs/s/h2xve1/the_economics_and_politics_of_free_basics_log_thoughts <comment><USER2> Could you please post original URL, not some shortener/on-line bookmark?

[https://thlog.anfedorov.com/post/free- basics/](https://thlog.anfedorov.com/post/free-basics/)</comment>


Show HN: Collection of visualizations for IPython - <AUTHOR> http://nbviewer.ipython.org/github/vidalab/vida-notebook/blob/master/visualizations.ipynb

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm the author of the collection. Would love to hear your feedback on the visualizations.

</comment><comment><USER2> I'm liking the interactivity. How did you choose which visualizations to include?

<comment><AUTHOR> We build visualizations for our customers. These are the popular viz.</comment></comment>


Rick Falkvinge: Child Porn Laws Are Worse Than You Think - <AUTHOR> http://falkvinge.net/2012/09/11/child-porn-laws-arent-as-bad-as-you-think-theyre-much-much-worse/

<comment><USER2> I applaud Rick for having this discussion. Normally I (perhaps like many others) would be turned off reading about a topic like this. When the first thread [0] came up, I ignored it. However, as it slowly accumulated more votes on HN, I felt a desire to challenge myself to read it and see how it constructively discussed the issues around child pornography.

Sure enough, I found it a very well put together piece.

I think the same can be said for this follow up article.

The discussion reminds me of the discussion around the Australian artist Bill Henson [1], who got in strife for photographs of a 13 year old. I personally don't have strong opinions one way or the other as to the rightness or wrongness of this type of art, but it was interesting to have the debate blown so widely open in the mainstream media here. Having said that, the debate was more about "Art" vs "Child pornograhy" and didn't touch on the additional areas that Rick discussed.

I do think that one point Rick may want to touch on is also the slippery slope to do with your own young children. When they are one or two years old, it is fine to take photos of them playing in the yard naked for the family album. Hell, its even frowned upon if there aren't photos like this to embarrass a child at their 21st birthday. Just as this is ok, it is also not okay for a parent to take photos of their 17yo child naked for the family album.

It seems that it would be difficult to legislate the specific point at which it is no longer okay to partake in this type of photography, but it is interesting to consider these things.

[0] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4495914>

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Henson#Images_seized>

<comment><USER3> I think the most compelling argument made in this article is that a law that by it's nature is only going to do what it's supposed to if applied selectively is a bad law. The manga image posted in the article looks more like art to me, but in the US is probably CP, though it's hard to tell at this point.

The article also touches on a more widely applicable idea that we should all push for more evidence based law making. In this case, continually making harsher punishments for simple possession, disregarding any evidence that those punishments may in fact be detrimental to preventing child molestation. More widely, I think it should also be easily applied to internet piracy law and drug decriminalization to take the low hanging fruit of evidence free lawmaking.

I'd also like to say that I appreciate a politician actively making a choice to talk about an inflammatory topic, taking an unpopular position, and risking his career to stand up for what he believes. Whether you agree with his interpretation or not, that's something I'd like to see more of.

<comment><USER4> >The article also touches on a more widely applicable idea that we should all push for more evidence based law making.

This is why I've always said laws should always be passed with a probationary period.

After a law is enacted, it would have to be voted on a again, after a few years have passed or it would automatically expire.

\--Obviously there would be some exemptions, such as annual budgets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's illegal to commit murder in real life, but a large fraction of very popular novels, movies, and TV shows are about fictional murders -- Macbeth, Sherlock Holmes, CSI -- there are literally thousands, or maybe millions, of examples.

As long as no actual murders took place in its making, art about murder is perfectly okay.

It seems logically inconsistent to be okay with artistic depiction of one crime but not another

</comment><comment><USER6> At one time, I may have agreed with the spurious claims in this article. Then I worked for the public defender, and some of my clients were pedophiles. Now I firmly believe that child porn laws are about where they should be, and possibly may even be too lenient (in the US).

The fundamental, overriding justification for child porn laws is that in most of this filth, _an actual child is being raped_. In the minority of this filth, the sexual imagery is faked or animated. The fake filth exists only because those perverts cannot get their hands on the real stuff--it's not an alternative, it's a temporary stopgap.

I know that the HN crowd is treating this as some sort of abstract, hypothetical discussion of freedom, but _if you actually talk to pedophiles_ , you will quickly realize why child porn laws exist.</comment>