Follow up to the investigation results - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/1826-follow-up-to-the-investigation-results <comment><USER5> Horvath's response: "[My claims] are now, more or less, substantiated."

Is she delusional? The report doesn't substantiate her claim of sexism AT ALL. They couldn't even find the malicious code removals by "the guy who she wouldn't let fuck her" that was one of her central claims.

[https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/460865208810885120](https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/460865208810885120)

<comment> at-fates-hands This is the double edged sword she was playing with.

If her allegations are found to have merit, then a lawsuit is what she would file next with this as the only evidence she needs to confirm what she's been saying.

Now that the results are in and they found nothing to support her allegations, it looks like GitHub has a strong defamation case to bring against her.

If I was her, I'd be looking for a good attorney to represent me. Since she never filed a lawsuit, this makes her look like what most people on the GitHub side have been saying all along. That she's indignant, bitter and feels entitled. Not to mention the whole time she's been feeding GitHub plenty of ammunition via social media.

<comment><USER6> 1\. How the heck can you read that and say there was nothing to support her allegations? Did you read the same thing I just read?

2\. Github suing her for defamation would be SO counter-productive, as it would make them look awful. Also, did you see the part where they apologized to her?

Are you sure you actually read the OP?

Clearly, their FIRST public announcement was written on the advice of lawyers or PR people, where they admitted as little as possible, in part not to give her 'ammunition' in court. But it made them look bad and weasely. So this is the one they released _even though_ it gives her some ammunition.

<comment><USER7> Please read post again, according to it the investigation found two things (in summary):

1\. TPW and her spouse acted inappropriately

2\. There was no evidence of sexist behavior at GitHub (related to this instance, at least).

Horvath's claims included allegations of both 1 & 2\. It's clear that her allegations did irreparable damage to GitHub, since a lot of people won't bother to follow this story in detail and will remember it a "sexist" place where your code may get deleted if you don't put out.

As you say GitHub will not be able to bring defamation charges against Horvath due to PR reasons, this is an unfortunate and sad state of affairs (and one of the very few times I long for the strong defamation laws in Europe).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A lot of the press I saw about this case focussed on allegations of sexism.

However reading the release, the gender of the injured party seems to be independent and unrelated to the injustices which relate instead to the apparently inappropriate behaviour of TPW's spouse and her unsanctioned involvement in the company.

Sexism is a highly incendiary issue in this community. How did a case which apparently was not about sexism come to be so closely related to it? Is the report from Github incorrect or was sexism used to market this to the watching population?

<comment><USER9> > _However reading the release, the gender of the injured party seems to be > independent and unrelated to the injustices which relate instead to the > apparently inappropriate behaviour of TPW 's spouse and her unsanctioned > involvement in the company._

Reading GitHub's statements on the investigation, it seems the independent investigator they hired found no evidence that sexism at GitHub. The investigator did find issues with TPW's general professional behavior which is why he resigned.

> _Sexism is a highly incendiary issue in this community. How did a case which > apparently was not about sexism come to be so closely related to it?_

I think you answered your own question there.

> _Is the report from Github incorrect or was sexism used to market this to > the watching population?_

That is what we call a false dichotomy. I do not see how you have narrowed it down to those two choices, and it honestly seems like a veiled accusation.

<comment><USER8> I was just thinking the same thing as I re-read my comment. It is a false dichotomy and it was badly phrased.

The reason I asked it though is that if this is being used as a tool then it takes away from the real problem. I have no doubt that there are a lot of women in technology have experienced and do experience sexism and that is a very bad and sad thing

However, the amplitude and focus of how this story played out (in places as far as the British Sunday papers) and focussed on institutional sexism seems to be very different to the facts portrayed in the report. Such harassment and psychological pressure is of course terrifically difficult to document and I do know that there could be several different backgrounds that fit the report but there is still quite a distance between the two.

So the reason that I asked the question is that _if_ this is the case then it's a massive disservice to those who are feeling the effects of genuine sexism and weakens their voice. I suspect that that was the net effect of what happened in the Sendgrid case and I think that is a very sad thing.

<comment><USER10> > I was just thinking the same thing as I re-read my comment. It is a false > dichotomy and it was badly phrased.

Thank you for that. It's somehow very much appreciated.

As for the sexism accusations; Many, many women feel they're being discriminated at work ( and they're usually right.) Only a tiny, tiny percentage chooses to speak out about it though because of the very high costs associated with it.

My guess is that in this case Julie-Ann just happened to be one of those silent women and when things escalated with Tom it was just a case of 'now that my reputation will be ruined anyhow I might just as well get everything off my chest.'

If you read her original post she also doesn't make that much of a big deal about the sexism stuff; it's just 'one amongst many' of the abuses she listed.

Also keep in mind that, assuming she's acting in good faith, it's very likely that the reverted commit was indeed very small and dubious but was accompanied, verbally or non-verbally, by something that very clearly and unambiguously communicated the real reason; but of course without leaving a paper trail.

<comment><USER11> > If you read her original post she also doesn't make that much of a big deal > about the sexism stuff

I thought it was the hula hooping that was the final straw for her and the actual reason she resigned?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm glad they're flatly acknowledging the wrong doing on what compromised the majority of Julie's complaint.

As to her assertions that an engineer was keeping her out of the code if she wouldn't sleep with him, I've actually lost sleep trying to figure out how you'd handle that complaint. Where would the evidence trail be? Innocent until proven guilty but also wanting not to assume a women is lying about sexually harassed, how do you balance those two things? Given what we know about sexual harassment, it's a horrible idea to operate on the assumption the accuser is lying, but when it's just word vs. word, what do you do? Presume guilt? Can those two employees co-exist? Can you fire the accused even if there's no proof (and what proof would there be? Commit logs aren't much.)

Anyone have suggestions? Ideally you want to build a culture where this just would never come up and where nobody would tolerate it, but I just don't think that's ever going to be fool proof.

<comment><USER13> Actually I think commit logs in this case are good evidence. You can't just rewrite git history without having everyone in on it. It's not foolproof (the company could have mandated that everyone drop their local versions, or the branch with the reversions could have been shared by a small number of people who were willing to conspire), but it's very strong evidence I'd say.

<comment><USER14> Conversely it would be pretty easy to say "well this is the official repo" and ensure no one asks any further questions in a flurry of feux-outrage.

<comment><USER13> Actually, I see what you're saying. Tell the investigator some cleaned version of the repo is the official one. That is a plausible way to get around it.

I still feel like it's less likely they were willing to throw a co-founder under the bus, but would go to such great lengths to protect "some engineer".

<comment><USER14> It doesn't even really have to be malicious so much as disinterested, which is how most of these types of workplace problems fester. People don't set out to actively create a caustic environment - they just don't want to be bothered with the tricky business of preventing one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If I'm missing something, let me know, but it seems to me that GitHub did about all they could with this investigation (respected outside investigator, seem to be releasing as much as they are able to, although if they stop releasing new information/new stuff comes out through other channels, my opinion will change). They've admitted that TPW's conduct was unacceptable and are trying to correct that from happening again. The allegations about sexual harassment and locking Horvath out of code seem right now don't seem to have any merit beyond Horvath's allegations. Also, Horvath seems to have accepted the outcome, simply noting that she disagrees with the findings, but not raising issues with how they were arrived at or trying to impeach the investigator's credibility. Her belief that none of this would have happened were she male is an opinion she is entitled to, but is basically impossible to prove at this point. It's unfortunate, but, beyond GitHub having a time machine to go back and try to fix this as it happens, I'm not sure what else anyone expects them to do. My hope: GitHub continues to release what they can, they improve all their employee mediation processes, everyone agrees that they made big improvement to their internal culture, and that eventually, this whole ordeal is relegated to the annals of a Wikipedia subsection.

Have I missed anything?

<comment><USER16> You said it perfectly. However, I would add that it seems to me that at first we give more credence to the accuser than the accused. The burden of proof in this situation is always with the accuser and the fact that she assumed people would believe her, and people have, is not something I respect. And being a male has no effect on my opinion. I have pissed off my friends and especially my family, father in particular, because I've always given the benefit of the doubt to the accused in similar situations. My father found it particularly annoying, rather extremely frustrating, that I wouldn't automatically support and accept anything he would say at face value against a business partner or relative or anyone. And my behavior is the same with friends and coworkers, much to their annoyance.

Back to point of Julie's complaints --- we're adults here and if there's a pattern of behavior from a coworker, then documentation is your best friend. In fact, that should be an automatic rule: any communication with colleagues in the workplace should be documented, either via email or chat, and kept short and to the point otherwise. If there exists a friendship between coworkers and there is fallout due to conflict, assuming there is no evidence, the accuser/accused should just let it go because that's what friends do. You can't demand professionalism when the principle hasn't been observed in the first place.

Being a man, woman, father, mother, doesn't absolve one's responsibility from presenting evidence for the truth, even if they have a history of being honest. More importantly, our attitudes towards the accused should initially be of giving benefit of the doubt.

<comment><USER17> ^ This. This is a key in this story.

Consider how what the cost is to Horvath here, how she can say whatever she wants, launching a huge firestorm, and oh, 1/3 accusations is provable. (And one, about the guy removing her code, is actually pretty much disproven.)

Continuing to call the workplace "toxic" is objectively and clearly an overstatement as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This sounds very snide, but honestly, I don't think the people collectively calling for Github's head have given them any other choice. It's clear that people are unwilling and unable to listen to the facts of the case. They have their pre-set opinions on what happened based off of one side of the story. At this point, I'm not sure what Github should do. They have done their best to give lip service to these complains. Here is the first comment already:

"When you've dug yourself into a hole you should stop digging"

I agree. I don't think it's worthwhile for the Github PR team to continue to address and give legitimacy to those voices who are beyond reason and simply want to express anger.

<comment><USER19> I actually feel that this last response is exactly how PR should work. It has placed responsibility for misconduct where it for the actual misconduct that actually happened and needs correcting and has done a pretty good job of invalidating the histrionic claims of gender discrimination.

This additional information (the identity and reputation of the investigator and the level of detail investigated including review of the commits) taken together with JAH's commits to her own public projects [0][1] and exaggerated and overly dramatic behavior, there is more than enough reasonable doubt to vindicate the male engineer being accused of misconduct. Absent a reliable witness to the claimed misconduct or other solid irrefutable evidence (not just perceptions of what happened), the principle of innocent until proven guilty should extend to this accused individual as well.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7625258](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7625258)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7629283](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7629283)

<comment><USER20> Referring to Julie-Ann's complaint as "histrionic claims about gender discrimination" is unjustified and offensive.

To do so implies that she invented those feelings to further her case. There is absolutely nothing in the record to support such an accusation.

<comment><USER19> If you actually want a fair investigation where the goal is justice, the last thing you do is go to the media and kick off a trial by peanut gallery.

Going to the media first is the very definition of "exaggerated dramatic behavior designed to attract attention".

There's nothing wrong with going to the media first with a story of gender discrimination if you have the hard evidence to support your allegations. If you don't, taking that nuclear option without evidence will only discredit you because choosing the nuclear irrefutable evidence is careless and unjustified. If anything, JAH has actually damaged the ability for other women to use the nuclear option in the future. A hypothetical future situation in which a woman steps forward with gender discrimination claims like those made by JAH will be met with greater skepticism than in an alternate reality where she had stuck to only making claims about those things she could prove.

She should have only gone to the media with the story of misconduct by TPH and his wife (which near as I can tell was gender neutral with respect to the misconduct in question, since both men and women were impacted.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think this is a much stronger response than the previous one for the following reasons: 1\. It is a lot less mysterious. It tells us exactly what steps they took, and why they felt the investigator was appropriate. 2\. They do admit faults and weaknesses, especially on the truly bizarre part of the original claims (i.e. showing up at a company where you don't work). If that part had been denied, then something was factually missing. 3\. The part where they do claim they were not at fault -- the engineer's work -- doesn't come across as defensive.

I don't know how they could have done a better job. (I am not saying they could not have done a better job, just that I can't think of it).

</comment><comment><USER22> Isn't it entirely possible that the situation with TPW exacerbated the situation with the Engineer and the toxic workplace environment? At least in Julie's eyes, since she received the brunt of TPWs inappropriateness?

I'm sure that if I was under that kind of stress from one of the Founder's of the company I was working for, it would most likely contribute to me seeing other encounters as something that it wasn't...

<comment><USER23> Very much this. This report doesn't discredit's Horvath's perspective of sexism, it in fact supports it. The reality that there isn't sexism in general isn't in-congruent with that. The report also speaks of github's HR failures (that a founder (indirectly) was able to harass her repeatedly because of her gender), which Horvath explained as being a big reason for her view of sexism at the company.

<comment><USER24> I'm led to think that Tom Preston-Werner got off easy here.

 _failure to enforce an agreement that his spouse should not work in the office_

It had been a big enough problem before that they had a formal agreement prohibiting it.

<comment><USER25> Why did he get off easy? Who's going to work for him now?

<comment><USER24> Just off the top of my head, he was allowed to resign rather than fired for cause.

<comment><USER26> Perhaps he resigned before the investigation was over.

<comment><USER24> It's right there in the statement:

 _After being presented with the results we felt Tom could no longer be an effective leader at GitHub. He offered his resignation and we accepted._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Horvath's response: _I 'm pretty satisfied with @Defunkt's blog post. I disagree about the objectiveness of the "investigation," as well as the toxic workplace._

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

<comment><USER28> I disagree with the results of the investigation since they don't support my claims and actually show some of them to have no substantial evidence in their favour. I'm glad someone got fired over this even though my initial and highly incendiary claims of sexism, the grounds on which this investigation was started, were shown to be false.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is a really sticky issue, however I can't help but feel that Julie is handling this quite unprofessionally. She has been posting for the last hour on twitter about how she is satisfied with the blog post, however feels that everything was wrong, and she's actually going and naming names. (other than TPW), which is completely unfair IMHO.

She says that she strongly believes that this would have not happened to a man, and the report says that they found no evidence of sexism in the workplace. This has been brought up before, but is it at all possible that some of the treatment she received was because she is difficult to work with, rather than because she is a girl? Nothing in the report points to anything having happened that was specific to what JAH talked about, could it in fact be the case that people are treating a sub-par, or difficult employee (in their own eyes) differently to others around her, and in her mind, in (what I asssume is) a predominantly male workplace, she sees this as discrimination? I don't know what to think, but unless there's any evidence either for or against, I think the only reasonable assumption that we can make is that there may have been fault on both parties sides, the extent of which is unknown.

<comment><USER30> I wonder if she has had any legal advice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> So basically the blog post seems to me to claim this:

Ms. Horvath was right with her allegations about a founder and his wife, unbelievable as that wife story sounded at first.

She flat-out lied about the engineer who sabotaged her because she wouldn't sleep with him.

And she lied about not being contacted or interviewed in the course of the investigation.

The truth of all this is undecidable by the public, of course.

This drama can go on virtually forever, unless it is settled in court.

Maybe it's best to detach oneself emotionally from it. It's impossible to choose sides.

</comment><comment><USER32> So bottom-line: the company is not a haven for male brogrammer types, the founders fucked up and please engineers don't let this scandal affect you.

Still, there's a bitter taste left here. The whole situation remains somehow murky and nobody has benefited from this "clarification". My personal opinion is that if you have a disagreement and there's grounds for legal proceedings, you should start the legal proceedings. It might be an uphill battle, it might eventually prove useless, but at least it's a final answer to a question.

My guess is that this public storm did not help anybody: neither Julie, nor Github, nor the movement against sex discrimination in the workplace. Everybody still thinks they were right and no "final" solution was shown. And most importantly, with regard to the real issue (the discrimating treatment), nobody DID nothing. The founder just quit (without being accused of much and without "paying" for anything), Github is still the best place in the world to work in (as it was before this thing happened) and somehow Julie seems to be a little more paranoid than before (hey what can we do, an independent expert did not confirm her story).

Back to square one on this one.

<comment><USER33> So you're saying that nobody benefits unless they sue the other person?

<comment><USER32> Not exactly. I am saying that public opinion does not benefit unless the law's involved. If discrimination is not condemned clearly and if the perpetrators can hide behind press releases and teary eyed blog posts, nobody benefits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> > Employees were asked about their experiences here, good and bad. Women at > GitHub reported feeling supported, mentored, and protected at work, and felt > they are treated equitably and are provided opportunities.

I'm glad to see the claims of sexual and gender based harassment don't seem to be true. Perhaps larger companies should make it part of their culture to have a periodic audit similar to this investigation?

<comment><USER10> > I'm glad to see the claims of sexual and gender based harassment don't seem > to be true.

Not to be pedantic, but it implies there is no _systemic_ sexual and gender based harassment. It doesn't say anything about Julie-Ann's experiences except that they're not provable.

<comment><USER19> If you're a reasonably intelligent person subject to real wrongdoing of this nature, would it not behoove you to collect evidence that will support your allegations of misconduct when you finally make your claim public? The fact that there really is not one piece of evidence she's been able to produce leads me to believe that claims of sexual misconduct are anything more than imagined.

I've been in a situation where I was reasonably certain that I observed fiduciary misconduct. At the time I basically had three choices:

(1) stay at the company and ignore it (2) stay at the company and collect irrefutable evidence and expose the wrongdoing; or (3) ignore it and leave the company because it was not my problem to deal with and would be more damaging to my career to do something about it.

There was never a 4th option: "expose the wrongdoing with no concrete evidence". I didn't have enough to substantiate any allegations. It's entirely possible that I could have even been mistaken about what actually happened since my relationship with the person in question was rocky and I might have been projecting my negative perceptions of that person onto a novel situation. Without collecting concrete evidence to prove my allegations, I couldn't even be certain of what happened, much less certain that exposing the wrongdoing without evidence would be fruitful.

The burden of proof was the responsibility of the accuser, and in this instance the accuser has failed to substantiate claims made.

<comment><USER10> If we extend that line of reasoning then if you're raped but can't prove it you should stay silent because making it public without hard evidence is just not an option.

<comment><USER19> Strawman. Rapes leave evidence [0]. Spoken words don't.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_kit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_kit)

<comment><USER35> Rape kits don't necessarily show consent or lack thereof, which is crucial but usually ends up boiling down to being a he-said-she-said problem. You could know who the rapist is with a rape kit that also points to the same person and still be dragged through the mud with the "you must have enjoyed it because you're a slut/you slept with him/her in the past" kind of crap - not many people can deal with that so.....yeah. Plus they are not always the end-all to a rape case even if you have proof of physical contact with no consent.

That's before you even get to any problems before you reach the rape kit stage - I've read way too many depressing posts on r/twoxchromosomes and other sites where women don't even know if they've been raped because they don't remember it after being drugged (good luck with a kit that late) or don't think it "crosses the line" or are just like "it was a bad night" if their boyfriend rips their clothing off and tries to have sex with them even though they were saying "no" and crying the whole time. Usually comes hand in hand with a culture that likes to perpetuate bullshit like "you can't change your mind in the middle of having sex" and "married people can't be raped by their partner".

Gooood luck with rape reporting in general, there's a reason - no, many reasons - why so many people keep silent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> In regards to Julie's statement of GitHub being a "toxic workplace" and the findings of this investigation, I think what we're seeing here is how microcosms of culture can affect the whole organization.

When I worked at a large corporation, it was easy to find people who absolutely loved the culture of the company, and people who absolutely hated it. If you drilled down with each person, it would come down to their personal experiences with their everyday team members. Daily interactions are often extrapolated to the culture of the company as a whole, for better or worse.

So I think both Julie and the report are right. For Julie, her experience was very horrible, and since it involved a cofounder, it's no surprise at all that she saw this as a systemic part of the GitHub culture.

And if the other female employees did not have to endure similar experiences, it's no wonder that others do not share the belief of GitHub as a toxic workplace.

The takeaway for founders and leaders: culture can't just be set from the top, it must be reinforced at every level of an organization.

</comment><comment><USER37> And unfortunately this will change no one's opinion. GitHub got tried in the court of public opinion and was sacrificed.

Short of having audio or video or evidence those who backed GitHub feel vindicated, those who backed Julie Ann Horvath will see this as the "Mad Men" culture of Silicon Valley exercising their muscle to supress the story. The small but sane few in-between who were waiting for the full story will never get it because the other two sides are just going to throw hyperbole until the cows come home.

I wonder if we will ever be able to have a sane conversation about the "sexism in the Valley" or the fact that it concerns itself with something that is so technologically intrenched the mob mentality of the Internet will always draw centre stage.

<comment><USER10> Excuse you; it changes my opinion and I'm a pretty staunch feminist, social justice warrior or whatever else you may call me.

The previous public statement was a disgrace and is exactly what you get when you let lawyers recommend you what to do; which includes soulless recommendation to fire anyone who _raises_ harassment complaints after three months; even if they are valid.

This statement is OK and I'll give them a pass on it.

<comment><USER38> Exactly. If they came out with this response first this shitstorm probably wouldn't have escalated to this point.

<comment><USER39> This response took measured time and deep analysis. It couldn't have come out in 5 minutes by the very nature of the work done.

<comment><USER38> Then Github should have held off on that legalese post that incited anger. You can't put something like that out re: an issue that involves so much human emotion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I haven't read the rest of the comments, but am I the only one who finds it strange that GitHub says that Horvath was contacted for the investigation, yet she says she wasn't?

<comment><USER41> She retracted and said she was actually contacted (later in the day): [https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/453337287766450176](https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/453337287766450176).

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> For those who think tarring and feathering the Github organization as a whole is still justified:

What would it take to change your mind?

One of the signs of an irrational belief about the world is that it's not _falsifiable_ \-- you can't conceive of a possible future observation that would cause you to change your belief.

<comment><USER43> Was this inspired by a Less Wrong post[1]? I really liked it at first, but eventually realized it's almost completely inapplicable in real life (except possibly theological discussions).

For example, in this case, there are things well within the realm of physical possibility that would in fact change the mind of every single person "tarring and feathering" GitHub, such as Julie Ann Horvath and Melissa Severini publicly announcing this was all a hoax. And vice versa, of course.

Of course we all think that's unlikely happen, but the point stands that people on both sides of this discussion came to their beliefs through a combination of evidence and emotion, and could be dissuaded by the same; and your not-so-subtle suggestion that people on the side opposite you are being "irrational" is unfounded and in bad faith.

[1]: [http://lesswrong.com/lw/jr/how_to_convince_me_that_2_2_3/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/jr/how_to_convince_me_that_2_2_3/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I hope the chorus of people who took the accuser's allegations at face value will take GitHub's investigation results at face value as well... oh wait.

<comment><USER45> Is that usually how things work? I thought we tend to believe whistleblowers over the institutions with financial interests that they speak out against?

Obviously I'm not saying everything that comes out of a whisteblower's mouth is absolute truth, but if you take GitHub's words at face value without considering their financial interests, etc, you're thinking very uncritically.

<comment><USER46> Actually things generally only work that way when the whistleblower has evidence of the things they claim. For instance, if Edward Snowden had come forward with claims of pervasive global surveillance by the NSA he would have been written off as paranoid like the many, many people who had made that claim before him. What made Snowden different is that he also brought with him verifiably authentic documentation of said surveillance among other things.

In this case we have the difficult choice of either dismissing claims of harassment and sexism, which is not a good thing to do if we want to help put an end to those things, or uncritically accepting someone's word without any evidence to back it up. And in fact with evidence going the other way, however insubstantial it may be. Doing that would not be good for the precept that one is innocent until proven guilty, which is something that is important to preserve for the disadvantaged, even when it benefits those in power.

At this time the only people who are making verifiable claims are github: They have hired an investigator who they believe to be competent and impartial. They name this person and their record can be investigated by anyone who cares. The investigator's report turned up evidence of bad behavior by the CEO and they took it seriously enough that he was removed.

Where do we go from here? As I said above, neither road is desirable and there isn't an easy answer. But I don't think that you can just say we should accept Ms. Horvath's word uncritically either, at least not when we have nothing to back up her claims.

<comment><USER45> Yeah, that's fair. I'm not sure GitHub's verifiable claims are worth anything though.

I think there are some good reasons to assume Julie's credibility. Like other whistleblowers, the consequences for speaking up are extreme. Not a lot of people I know would open themselves up to the kind of harassment and character assassination that Julie has for no reason.

While it's good that she hasn't turned out to be "unemployable," as many people insisted, the reality is that she has made her life a lot more difficult by speaking out than she would have if she kept quiet. What would she have gained by lying? I'm open to suggestions, but I feel like most of the things people are saying comes down to "disgruntled employee wants revenge" which I find really unconvincing considering the attacks on her character.

If someone doesn't believe that there is pervasive sexism in ANY male dominated industry, I don't know what I can say to convince them. But the truth is that if any HR person (and that's really what this independent investigator is, an HR contractor) asked people if they experienced sexism at work at any of my jobs, people would've been reluctant to be the one to call it out even though it is pervasive.

You're right though, I don't pretend to know objectively what happened. I just think there are a lot of good reasons not to weigh the words of a whistleblower equally with the company trying to protect itself and its investors.

<comment><USER47> > Not a lot of people I know would open themselves up to the kind of > harassment and character assassination that Julie has for no reason. [...] > What would she have gained by lying?

Some people really like attention. I've known people who'll lie about things like that just for the sake of being in the public eye.

Alternately, she might have not expected the harassment, and thought of it as extra fodder for getting GitHub to compensate her for the stuff that their investigation says definitely happened.

To be clear: I'm not saying either of these _is_ the case for Horvath. Just that the hypothetical "she was knowingly lying" case could be explained by these motivations.

<comment><USER45> > Some people really like attention.

Really? Like what? Can you give an example relevant to this discussion?

> Alternately, she might have not expected the harassment

Lol, I don't think it's possible to be a woman on the internet as much as she is and think something like that. This statement is ignorant of the reality of literally every woman on the internet who criticizes a predominantly male community.

> To be clear: I'm not saying either of these is the case for Horvath. Just > that the hypothetical "she was knowingly lying"

Sure, I just think those hypothetical explanations are weak considering the arguments I put forward. I think Julie would have to be really dense not to know that coming forward the way she did would have consequences.

<comment><USER47> >Really? Like what? Can you give an example relevant to this discussion?

Sure... here's a recent news story that springs to mind, from back in December: [http://abcnews.go.com/US/waitress-anti-gay-tipping- scandal-l...](http://abcnews.go.com/US/waitress-anti-gay-tipping-scandal- longer-restaurant/story?id=21140626)

That's someone who made up an attack, presumably for the purpose of gaining sympathy. I doubt they intended it to go national like it did, but...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I was reading this intently to find an answer to the central question that was alleged and provable beyond reproach. Did another developer "...rip out code" from the git repo due to personal issues?

Almost every thing else could devolve to he-said-she-said (or she-said-she- said in this case). However code commits (and subsequent reverts) are extensively tracked.

Assuming they can roughly pinpoint the time window involved I genuinely wonder how they conclusively proved that it did not happen.

If it were true, then that engineer should have been immediately terminated FOR CAUSE and sued in court. Also given the fact that he is still employed (and presumable just recently promoted) would have made GitHub look much worse. Regardless, it looks like that allegation was unsubstantiated,

<comment><USER47> It says in the post.

> The commit history, push log, and all issues and pull requests involving > Julie and the accused engineer were reviewed. The investigation considered > all possible commits surrounding the accusation of passive-aggressive code > removal. One instance was found where the engineer updated and broke some > CSS in an internal application, which was fixed in a later commit. The > investigator determined this change did not appear malicious.

Sounds like they reviewed all commits by the accused person, and found nothing that fit the accusation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Well, for all the mistakes they've made, I'll give Github credit for one thing, at least: they're listening.

</comment><comment><USER50> An agreement that a spouse shouldn't work in the office. Gosh, this is even worse then the original complaint. In California you can't have such agreements, this is marital status discrimination. I don't know what kind of job Teresa was doing, but even thought she wasn't on a payroll, being a volunteer or an informal adviser is perfectly acceptable. If anything might be wrong here, this would be mixing up corporations or such. But employees are in the company to do their job, not to control borders, and "this person is not supposed to be here" sounds territorial and toxic. You're busy, not open for certain interactions, tell about it. I suspect it wasn't Julie who got harassed, especially combined with spreading gossip. And I find it incredibly sexist consistently referring to a professional woman as a "wife". Compare to: "I insist that this engineer/marketer/director shouldn't be on the floor".

<comment><USER51> No, you misinterpret. "Your wife, who is not employed by the company, cannot keep coming to our headquarters and using it / setting up a de facto office, let alone harassing employees to do pro bono work for her startup." Not "your spouse cannot be employed here".

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Regardless of what actually may have occurred at Github between Horvath and any other Github employees, in court the case would be dismissed on lack of evidence.

Her response on Twitter, on the other hand, will stand for all time as a testament to her character and I'm afraid it won't do her any favours as she comes across as having a strong sense of entitlement.

I don't think people should be expected to accept mistreatment. But it swings both ways - they shouldn't be allowed to believe that their point of view is any better or more right than anyone else's and the things she said smack of someone who is angry they didn't get what they wanted.

There were hurt feelings at Github. I can appreciate that. In the public eye, though, you have to handle it with dignity - you have to be beyond reproach. And I think the things she said on her Twitter feed have done a remarkable job of painting her in the worst light possible and put her credibility beyond repair.

</comment><comment><USER53> I'm still sceptical. I'm not a woman but it sounds reasonable to think that woman have a hard time talking truthfully about how bad they are really treated. It is less likely for a woman to convince the public that something bad was really bad and even from day one of coming out the woman receives more hate than the man.

I also heard that statistics say, there are more false negatives (= woman said bad things happened but investigation says it's untrue) than false positives (=woman successfully lied about things happened).

All that decreases my trust in such a clear "false positive" investigation result, although I admire GitHub for publicly working on that issue. I hope that beside saying that they didn't do much wrong, that they increase whatever they are doing to keep the workplace safe and healthy for the female employees.

</comment><comment> jim-greer If every company were run with as much thoughtfulness, talent, and passion as Chris Wanstrath has, our industry would be a lot better for everyone - <USER2> included.

</comment><comment><USER54> >Even so, we work in a world where inequality exists by default and we have to overcome that. Bullying, intimidation, and harassment, whether illegal or not, are absolutely unacceptable at GitHub and should not be tolerated anywhere. GitHub is committed to building a safe environment for female employees and all women in our community... I'm sorry to everyone we let down, including Julie. I realize this post doesn't fix or undo anything that happened. We're doing everything in our power to prevent it from happening again.

Why the apology on Github's part after it was concluded that there was no gender-based harassment towards the engineer in question? Is this apology pertaining to the other issues?

<comment><USER55> I think this is saying that even though GitHub is not guilty in this case, sexism is a real issue in the industry.

<comment><USER19> Most all the sexism issues in the industry start in elementary school and persist until anyone, male or female, enters the work force. Teachers and parents (male or female) all participate in fostering and perpetuation the issues encountered in industry.

To claim its an "industry thing" is naïve. Open-source isn't an industry and almost every single open-source community begins and matures absent any industry involvement at all. By the time business opportunities arise in a community, the culture is already mature and well-formed.

NodeJS for example is a viable part of the tech industry now, but 4-5 years ago it was a bunch of hobbyists. There was no industry to speak of. I imagine that most of the members of that community back then were men, just as it is today. This suggests that the entire NodeJS like almost every other tech community has formed its identity well before every being an "industry".

Want to solve this issue? Find out how to make sure future new tech communities are more egalitarian and inclusive from day one. Trying to bolt that on afterwards may mitigate the harms, but it certainly isn't going to fix them. Path dependency has presents problems, but you can't just ignore the role of path dependency in getting us to where we are now.

<comment><USER56> This is a great point. Open source communities are ones in which you are very unlikely to see any sexism, as most people in these communities neither see each other, nor have a very clear way of identifying gender, and generally hold egalitarian political beliefs to boot.

So its clear that the idea of gender roles starts much earlier. Now whether you think that gender roles are a bad thing, or you think they are a reasonable evolutionary strategy that has contributed to our success (we are certainly not the only mammals who adopt gender roles), that's a separate question.

There are also certain biological reasons that may lead to more men being attracted to these fields - Robert and Chevrier found boys performed significantly better in spatial tasks than girls, but girls performed better at language tasks. So maybe as programming moves from lower-level languages (more spatially oriented) to higher level languages, we'll see more women get into the field.

I personally have worked with some excellent women in the tech world, and think the presence of at least some women on the team changes the dynamic for the better, but if we want to do it correctly, we cannot pretend that biology doesn't play a role. We'll have to make the strengths of the different genders work together.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> it's interesting how public opinion is always right (even thus it generally has none of the facts), and public opinion is also always looking to accuse 'guilty until proven innocent' corps - if possible, the ones that have been actually nice and caring to the said public.

Be it GitHub, Mozilla, what not - the last weeks have been particularly sad.

<comment><USER58> Indeed... now more than ever it seems that computer technology is under assault by different fractions furthering their own political ideals... My bet is it was ultimately caused by money - as there is more and more money to be made in/with tech, more and more people who cannot compete with ideas start competing with politics _cough_ managers _cough_ :) Why can't we just work together, and view other people through the lens of how exceptional their work is?! Ironically, GitHub's Meritocracy Rug was one of the first victims.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> This would go down so much better if the conclusions were released by the investigator, in her own words...

<comment><USER60> I would be really surprised if that entire blog post wasn't reviewed and re- reviewed by the investigator (and their new head of HR) several times over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Can anyone share context here? This post mentions a post from last week, which itself references something from last month. What allegations were made, by whom, and where?

<comment><USER62> You can find Github's last statement on the matter here [0]. As to the allegations they were made by Julie Ann Horvath [1] and you can find them in the following articles:

Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism And Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit [2] HN [4]

GitHub Engineer Quits After Alleging Gender Harassment [3]

[0] [https://github.com/blog/1823-results-of-the-github- investiga...](https://github.com/blog/1823-results-of-the-github- investigation)

[1] [https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore](https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore)

[2] [http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/15/julie-ann-horvath- describes...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/15/julie-ann-horvath-describes- sexism-and-intimidation-behind-her-github-exit/)

[3] [http://valleywag.gawker.com/github-engineer-quits-after- alle...](http://valleywag.gawker.com/github-engineer-quits-after-alleging- gender-harassment-1544559154)

[4] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7408055](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7408055)

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> > _Our rapid growth left the leadership team, myself included, woefully > unprepared to properly handle these types of situations._

Can we now stop touting immature companies and bad employership as the future corporate organization? Please?

When you put people together in an organization, shit happens. There has to be absolutely no malice involved for things like this to happen. Shit just happens. People fuck up, and sometimes their fuck ups hurt other people. I did it, you did it, we all did.

But not creating a decent company structure to deal with that reality and instead make your company an experiment in social Darwinism under the guise of "meritocracy" and "no managers" is utterly irresponsible. It's begging for shit to escalate and people to take advantage.

If you have over an x-number of people in your company, you need people to manage that, which has fuck all to do with hierarchy.

So Github " _recently we hired an experienced head of HR_ ". Over 200 employees, over $100 million in funding, and now they finally fucking bother to hire someone to look out for them.

I'm not so much pissed off at Github as I am at the entire tech community that have been cheer-leading running a company so badly.

"People are their own managers" works fine when it's just about work. But it isn't. It never is, _because they are people_. With all the dumb, stupid and sometimes ugly stuff they do besides just work.

Employees are not lab rats.

P.s.

And don't use "rapid growth" as an excuse. It was an ideology. Github's leadership didn't believe they needed to be prepared, that somehow these things would magically not happen in their happy start-up commune.

</comment><comment><USER64> If only there were another woman to whom very similar events had happened at GitHub...someone well-respected, like, I dunno, the very first hire they ever made...if only she had an incredibly similar story to tell that ended with her leaving and then winning a settlement from the company for the abuse she suffered...OH WAIT

 _" We've confirmed with a GitHub employee that "the wife" is in fact Theresa Preston-Werner, making her husband complicit in covering up (or at least condoning) repeated allegations of harassment and abuse at the company he helped create. We're told this is certainly not the first time the Preston- Werners have treated a female employee this way: Melissa Severini, the company's very first hire, was allegedly paid to sign a non-disparagement agreement after being victimized by Theresa Preston-Werners and subsequently terminated. Other employees have been pressured to do pro bono work for Theresa Preston-Werner's own startup, Omakase."_ (From ValleyWag, March 17th)

According to Severini's Twitter feed (as of early April), the "investigator" never contacted her.

<comment><USER65> Just a question partially unrelated: Since when it is legal to make a non- disparagement agreement? It is like a wtf limitation of freedom to speech and tell the truth

Never ever heard of something like this in EU and I can find only articles related to US. Anyone can instruct me?

<comment><USER25> In general there is no legal or moral barrier to being paid for your silence, as long as you are not covering up an actual crime by doing so.

Keep in mind that this isn't an employment contract clause, it is a cash bribe to stay quiet. Your freedom is not impaired: you have the choice between saying whatever you like or taking the money.

<comment><USER66> No judgement on GH but isn't a cash bribe to cover up harassment exactly that - covering up a crime? California doesn't have state laws against harassment?

<comment><USER67> With the massive prevalence of twitter, facebook, tumblr and other social platforms where people not just speak about work but are actually hired in this day because of their crowd appeal, I think these agreements are a lot less about covering up crimes.

Far more torrid things have happened at the biggest companies in the world. Stuff like outright sexual favors for advancement. Just bad stuff, the big difference seems to be active HR, active corporate attorneys and the general ban on talking about what goes on at work in your social media. It doesn't take many 6 figure settlements to "fix the culture" at a place, and if fixing it means removing a highup officer, that happens too ([http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2012/11/13/lockhe...](http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2012/11/13/lockheed- martin-ceo-to-be-scandal.html))

Honestly, I'd think more start-ups would start to develop more serious twitter and social media policies. I don't know of one that didn't have some disgruntled former employees, just due to the demands and the personal nature of start-ups.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Does this report say that the investigator talked to Julie, or atleast tried to talk to Julie?

That was one of Julie's original complaints about the original post.

If I'm investigating a complaint by someone, it seems reasonable that the person making the complaint would be the main person to talk to. Otherwise its impossible to say you did a thorough investigation.

<comment><USER69> _Rhoma identified the employees she wanted to talk to based on an initial list we provided, the evidence she gathered, employees who asked to speak with her, people Julie asked her to speak with, and anyone else she determined was relevant, including Julie herself_

You have to read the article if you are going to comment on it.

<comment><USER68> Ummm, that just says that Julie was put on an initial list. It does not say in any clear way that the investigator contacted and interviewed Julie.

So to quote another hacker new user "You have to read the article if you are going to comment on it." :)

<comment><USER47> I'd think that "people Julie asked her to speak with" strongly implies some direct communication between them...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Much better.

</comment><comment><USER71> _" GitHub is committed to building a safe environment for female employees and all women in our community"_

Why can't this be stated as: _GitHub is committed to building a safe environment for ALL employees and all PEOPLE in our community._

<comment><USER72> Context. The issue at hand is regarding the mistreatment of women. Of course it makes sense to frame it that way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> I don't like the defense I'm seeing here of "Oh, we're not talking about outright sexists, just equal-opportunity jackasses. Therefore, the claims of a sexist environment don't hold".

I've worked with very few outright sexists/racists/whatever-ists in tech (and judging by this discussion, they definitely exist, they're loud, but the vast majority of us have a consensus as to what we think of them). But I've worked with a large number of people (and occasionally/regretfully have ventured into this group myself) who can be described as "equal opportunity jackasses".

The reality is this - the damage of being an "equal opportunity asshole" is felt more strongly by marginalized groups. When a white male is mistreated by $jackass, the thought process goes like: "$jackass is being a jackass to me.". When a member of $marginalized_group is mistreated by said jackass, the thought process is: "$jackass is being a jackass to me. Is it because I'm a member of $marginalized_group?" and every future interaction with that person is tinged with that thought process: "I'm still $marginalized_group... Is $jackass going to be a jackass to me?" The motivation of the jackass is irrelevant - they creates a space where the negativity falls more heavily on marginalized groups - that is, behavior that isn't overtly discriminatory creates a space that is.

Can we please try being nice to each other for a change? Not just because it creates a more inclusive environment, but because it creates one that's a whole lot healthier for all of us. We in tech idolize a whole lot of people who can probably be described as equal opportunity assholes (Jobs, Bezos, and Torvalds immediately jump to mind), but really - let's look at what our words and actions are doing to each other. I don't think there's a single one of us here who isn't guilty of this at some point - and I don't think any of us can promise never to be a jackass in the future. But let's not call it a mark of honor -- or behavior to be imitated. If you're being a jackass, don't justify it. Apologize for it. And try to do better in the future.

</comment><comment><USER74> "Our rapid growth left the leadership team, myself included, woefully unprepared to properly handle these types of situations."

Sorry, but mature and responsible people would look out for bad attitudes and bad workplace relationships since before the company begins operation. The only people who are "unprepared" to deal with abusive behaviour are those insensitive and morally corrupt enough to tolerate bad people and bad habits until actual trouble begins.

It sounds like external social pressure is forcing GitHub management to grow up all of a sudden, confirming the existence of serious problems.

</comment><comment><USER75> While some have already shown this sentiment. Can I just say that we should all give mad props to github for taking additional steps to provide this transparency. They could have just ended with their original post, taken the windfall, and let the controversy die down. It takes guts to put out a statement like that (both legally as well as an admission of wrong doing) and I think it shows that Chris Wanstrath is the right person to take lead of the company. Removing a person (or couple) who abuses their power like Tom Preston-Werner is probably for the best.

</comment><comment><USER76> TBH if on one side I appreciated Github transparency I feel this story made the company very vulnerable to a point (of no return?) that I think will be hard to recover.

Also, I wish false allegations in this world will be treated in the very same way if were true: so instead of "We apology with Julie ..." I prefer "Julie said in public false allegations, we'll made a lawsuit against her"...

I mean Julie put tons of "bad" on top of a company without any proof (about sexism) and she exasperate (seeing the report) mostly everything.

Should this be allowed to do and be unpunished?

<comment><USER76> To add more: [https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/459358875213238272](https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/459358875213238272)

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> I'm not sure what more GitHub can do that isn't outlined in this post.

It would be good to hear from people with perspective what they think the next steps should be.

</comment><comment><USER78> Woman-on-woman bullying is a big issue in the tech community. My closest friend at company I work at now is a female developer and she is constantly being bullied by the women on our design team. A lot of women who work in tech are threatened by female developers, especially when they are straight and attractive.

If you guys want to frame this issue in terms of gender that's what you should be talking about.

</comment><comment><USER79> "Furthermore, there was no information found to support Julie's allegation that the engineer maliciously deleted her code. The commit history, push log, and all issues and pull requests involving Julie and the accused engineer were reviewed"

isn't one of the whole things about git as a VCS the ability to re-write its history?

<comment><USER80> History rewrites must be force-pushed and force-pulled, which would have been very conspicuous to everyone who had a checkout of the repository in question.

<comment><USER79> Do we know (a) how many people would have updated their copy after her commit and before his revision and (b) how many of those people don't just automatically do a forced pull when necessary?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> If I were one of the developers Horvath named, I'd be lawyering up right now, and considering a libel suit.

</comment><comment><USER82> Based on the first two paragraphs of the "independent" investigator website, [http://www.ryaa.com/](http://www.ryaa.com/) the "independent" investigator seems to be biased in favor of the company. It could be argued that github is using their CEO as a scapegoat in order to avoid having to confront a possibly sexist internal culture. I wish companies and individuals were not afraid to address their sexist cultures or thoughts. Living in post modern society, it's almost impossible not to have a sexist thought - it's what we do with these thoughts that matters. I look forward to seeing the new initiatives github will be launching, and hope the initiatives will bring about real change in company culture, and cause people to question their beliefs. Meanwhile, I'm trying to decide if I want to switch to a different company to host my code. Any ideas?

</comment><comment><USER78> This basically boils down to one woman (Teresa Preston-Werner) bullying another woman (JAH). So can someone please explain to me why all of the feminists are turning this into a "women being victimized by men" thing?

</comment><comment><USER83> This is not a case of sexism. This is good case of nepotism and extra- organizational power. There are more than one guilty party here.

It is not sexism if you are harassed by the person of your own gender.

</comment><comment><USER84> Just out of curiosity, did anyone reduce or end a paid plan with GitHub over this controversy?

<comment><USER85> I did move to a self-hosted git server ([http://git.devlinzed.com](http://git.devlinzed.com)) for a number of reasons. This is one, but the server: costs less to run than the smallest paid GitHub account; supports unlimited private repositories at sizes up to 20GB; has never ever went down; is considerably faster (due to geography and SSD); and doesn't allow GitHub to harvest information about who (including myself) is using my code.

Realistically, whether you're offended by GitHub's sexism or data collection policies or not, it doesn't make any sense to use them strictly from a pragmatic cost-to-benefit perspective. They simply charge far too much for far too little.

<comment><USER84> I think one big redeeming factor for GitHub is the extensive and robust API. It's very easy to hack together a custom version controlled app or system using GitHub as the backend.

<comment><USER85> It's true that GitHub has a great API, but when you run your own server and have access to the running software and file system you get the best API for working on git repos there is: git. Or perhaps libgit2 and your favourite language's bindings.

Subjectively, I haven't found GitHub's API to be great to work with, but this is because they use OAuth and OAuth is just needlessly complicated and inconvenient.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> I don't understand how so many people are claiming that #1 had nothing to do with sexism. The whole thing was about a founders wife harassing an employee because of suspected infidelity.

This is NOT something that would happen to man and had EVERYTHING to do with the fact that she's a woman.

<comment><USER78> This actually reenforces what I said in my unpopular comment. Only two women would have such an issue:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7668733](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7668733)

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> Best place to work?

</comment><comment><USER88> Feels directionally correct.

</comment><comment><USER89> It's amazing to see how many people here are commenting and voting on emotion.

The facts are:

1) We have an ex-employee who is very disgruntled.

2) Said employee has laid some serious allegations regarding genderism

3) No allegation is provable nor has been proven

4) Other female employees interviewed have countered the allegations

5) Independent audit found no proof whatsoever, yet commented that some things in the company could use improvement (as with all companies, especially large ones)

This is not a sexism issue here guys. It's a typical case of an upset ex- employee -- it happens all the time, just with much less media.

Other Github employees even said she was really not good at her work, difficult to work with, didn't except criticisms, etc.

<comment><USER23> Independent auditor hired by the company being audited, instead of hyping her record, they should have provided evidence of it. I'm not saying the auditor wasn't independent, just that I don't trust the claim coming from the company that paid for it and is presenting the view.

<comment><USER72> With respectable auditors, independence is what you're paying for. Auditors that are found out not to be independent quickly go up in smoke. Just ask anybody who worked at Arthur Andersen about the Enron scandal.

<comment><USER90> Arthur Anderson was founded in 1913, so they were around for quite some time before they "went up in smoke". Anderson started auditing in the early 90s, and apparently was ignoring serious red flags from the very beginning. I guess auditors can get away with biased/dependent behavior for a long time.

<comment><USER72> And yet up in smoke they went. Here today, gone tomorrow.

<comment><USER90> Yes, but they lasted for a nearly a century first. While corrupt auditors will fail _eventually_, it isn't realistic to expect auditors to all be honest because they bad behavior will kill them in the long run. They can do a lot of damage in the short term before they fall apart.

It'll be interesting to see how this situation shakes out for this auditor, but I suspect they'll keep ticking along just fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> I saw this in the comments on the tech crunch story about JAH. It's priceless:

Please change the title of the article from: "Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism And Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit", to "Julie Ann Horvath Describes Harassment From The Founders Wife, The Founder, And Has A Problem With Hula Hoops (For Some Reason)"

</comment><comment><USER89> I'm rather disappointed in GitHub allowing one of their founders and top executives to be run out of town over a wrongful controversy contrived by a disgruntled ex-employee with a bone to pick.

<comment><USER91> And what about this part?

"GitHub's CEO acted inappropriately, including confrontational conduct, disregard of workplace complaints, insensitivity to the impact of his spouse's presence in the workplace, and failure to enforce an agreement that his spouse should not work in the office. There were also issues surrounding the solicitation of GitHub employees for non-GitHub business and the inappropriate handling of employee concerns regarding those solicitations."

If that described the CEO of my company I'd want him out too. And that's GitHub's own words.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> Based on the results of the investigation, it seems the sexual harassment / gender-discrimination allegations are bogus. What we are left with is a female employee who was systematically mistreated by the CEO's wife, and a CEO who was unable or unwilling to put a stop to it.

So what can we learn from this apart from the obvious deficiencies of said CEO and said CEO's wife?

1\. Nothing causes more trouble at a company than two women who don't get along. I'm sorry to say this, and I know it's politically incorrect, but women are catty and it's very difficult to get women to work together without all sorts of drama.

2\. Women in tech frequently play the gender card when their jobs don't work out. Whatever the reason for their resignation or termination, they are highly likely to perceive that their gender was a major factor in the outcome.

</comment><comment><USER92> Big kudos for doing this but I feel like they are ripping up a wound that was healing just fine.

I mean.

Most people already forgot this.

The people who want to make this a bigger issue than it is not going to be convinced.

I think most people didn't think they needed to explain more than they already had.

<comment><USER93> I think this is an example of Wanstrath kow-towing to a small, outspoken subset of GitHub's employees to avoid bad PR. This has happened before. At some point a group of GitHub employees were offended by a rug that said something to the effect of "United Meritocracy of GitHub." This rug strikes me as being not at all divisive - not even subtextually, not even under an extremely charitable reading of the argument. I'm very familiar with knee-jerk reactions of this kind - I went to an extremely politically liberal, East Coast university that reacted to every conceivable slight with a blizzard of sometimes phony outrage, the kind that makes even people who agree with them (such as myself) completely unsympathetic to their argument.

Interestingly, the "divisiveness" of this rug was apparently turned into an issue by none other than Julie Ann Horvath.

([http://www.businessinsider.com/githubs-ceo-ditches- meritocra...](http://www.businessinsider.com/githubs-ceo-ditches-meritocracy- rug-2014-1))

Now I absolutely think that Preston-Werner's wife and Preston-Werner himself acted extremely inappropriataly towards Horvath. But, since it appears that Horvath's other claims do not seem to have a basis, she has yet again taken a situation where she had a legitimate point to make and completely blew it out of proportion.

Wanstrath will learn eventually that he sometimes just has to say no more. There are more important goals for his organization to accomplish than to be accommodating to every single grievance.

<comment><USER94> Negative reaction to "meritocracy" is hardly knee-jerk. In fact, the word was coined as criticism of the concept: [http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment](http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment)

<comment><USER93> Then the rug is a declaration of values. The US has often failed to live up to its own founding values - should we shred the preamble and the declaration of independence? No - those two documents have shaped US history, mostly because we're more and more trying to live up to them.

It just seems awfully silly. The legitimate point here - that there should be more female engineers - seems a) not specific to GitHub and b) to be lost under a shroud of phony outrage over a rug.

<comment><USER94> Missing the point. Meritocracy is not something to aspire to. In practice it masks and reinforces power structures, increasing inequality:

> The main finding is consistent across the three studies: when an > organization is explicitly presented as meritocratic, individuals in > managerial positions favor a male employee over an equally qualified female > employee by awarding him a larger monetary reward.

From: [http://asq.sagepub.com/content/55/4/543.short](http://asq.sagepub.com/content/55/4/543.short)

Which was recognized by Chris Wanstrath when they removed it:

> @defunkt: We thought 'meritocracy' was a neat way to think of open source > but now see the problems with it. Words matter. We're getting a new rug.

[https://twitter.com/defunkt/status/426104782894284800](https://twitter.com/defunkt/status/426104782894284800)

<comment><USER93> The problem wasn't the meritocracy it was the failing to live up to it. Meritocracy is absolutely something we should aspire to. In these examples the men who were paying other men more were simply not being meritocratic - <USER3> they were, then they would have hired/given raises to just as many equally qualified women as they did men.

That calling something a meritocracy when it isn't may have a paradoxical effect may be true. But I'm not sure it warrants getting rid of meritocracy as the guiding principle of an organization. We should just be doing a better job of being meritocratic.

<comment><USER11> Have you actually read the linked article by the man who invented the term? It's not about meritocracy done badly, it's about it being a destabilizing force when done well.

<comment><USER93> Yes, and I think that he's mistaken.

The meritocrats - the 'beneficiaries of nepotism' in the article - aren't actually where they are (wholly) because of merit. It's because they were born into a social structure where they were already beneficiaries of wealth and privilege, and were able to accrue various 'merit badges' because of this wealth and privilege. But this isn't actually meritocracy.

What I'm saying is that the system that the author claims to be meritocratic actually isn't - if it were, starting with our early childhood education system, it would be promoting people based on talent and aptitude and not keeping them down because they were born into the wrong class.

And this is what I'm saying actually constitutes meritocracy. Do I think we should be advancing people simply _because_ they are poor? I do not. Similarly I do not think we should be advancing people simply because they are already rich. I think we should be giving those who have been historically denied these opportunities the same opportunities to advance as we do to everyone else, elevating them rather than diminishing others. That to me would represent an actual 'meritocracy', not the false version that the coiner of the term is criticizing.

<comment><USER11> You do realise the author coined the term 'meritocracy' in the first place and therefore gets to decide what it constitutes? I think you have the wrong end of the stick in any case as he contrasts it with class and nepotism and finds it an even worse form of government. I suspect his definition isn't far off yours or mine: "merit is equated with intelligence-plus-effort, its possessors are identified at an early age and selected for appropriate intensive education, and there is an obsession with quantification, test-scoring, and qualifications." That's precisely why his critique of the arrogance and complacency this elitism leads to is interesting and not so easily dismissed. He thinks that a system where "every selection of one is a rejection of many" is overall a net loss.

<comment><USER93> I did misread the nepotism part - but he is mistaken about the pitfalls of a meritocratic society. While I do agree with his idea that the values of standardized, mass education that functions like a sieve are too narrow - <USER4> that being branded a failure too early can leave one unemployed for life. But on the whole that is becoming rarer, not more common. We - as well as Britain - have a system of public and private education that lasts until an individual is aged 18 - 22 years. We at least to some degree invest in our youths and give them many chances to succeed. And yes, it is far from perfect - but it is also still far from a true meritocracy, which functioning perfectly would find and cultivate talents from all individuals and allocate them to a task suited for them, and would give every student similar opportunities to discover and cultivate their own talents.

I just don't see what a better alternative to this perfect meritocracy would be. I don't see any alternative proposed. I don't see a better way to allocate labor. You choose people for positions that are well suited to those positions. How else would we have it? How else would we build/accomplish/organize anything?

A selection of one is a rejection of many. Likewise, choosing to fulfill a single duty means choosing not to perform all other duties. Should we do nothing? Should we hire no one? In the end I think this critique of meritocracy collapses to Marxism or some form of communitarianism - a nice idea in principle, but a failure in practice. To even remotely be able to accomplish the same kind of technological and societal progress that a true meritocracy is capable of you need to make decisions about who is and who isn't suited to particular functions.

So this seems like less a criticism of meritocracy than a criticism of the economic inequality that necessarily emerges in a society where individuals are different from each other.

Also, I somewhat disagree with the idea that a coiner of a term gets to decide its meaning in perpetuity. Language changes and terms get repurposed and given new connotations

<comment><USER94> (My other reply is dead, apparently?)

The point is we can't be truly meritocratic. It's a utopic ideal that doesn't hold up in the real world. Those who are deciding what merit is are the ones who already have power. Also, there are many barriers to entry before supposed meritocratic judging can even take place. The goal isn't to completely abandon the idea of judging people based on their accomplishments, but to recognize that the supposed ideal of meritocracy is a harmful fantasy, and to think more critically and about how we evaluate people.

Selenda Deckelmann's on meritocracy in the Postgres community:

"[…] in a truly meritocratic organization, privilege wouldn't matter. But the truth is, not everyone can join the Postgres project. […] So, ending the pursuit of a mythical meritocracy doesn't mean that we start accepting code which doesn't meet high standards, or that all of the sudden we're going to include more code from people in the bottom 1% of the world in terms of salary. It means that we take a look at different aspects of our project and see what is within our means to open up and make accessible to people who aren't exactly like us." — [http://www.chesnok.com/daily/2011/03/30/where- meritocracy-fa...](http://www.chesnok.com/daily/2011/03/30/where-meritocracy- fails/)

Everything else here is very much worth reading: [http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Meritocracy](http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Meritocracy)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> Definitely firing was the right thing to do here. I mean, it's unacceptable, a CEO acting like an asshole, that's totally unheard of. There's no room for reproval or a 'three strikes' policy here, companies should immediately fire their founders for the pleasure of the audience. It shows character, morals and strength of leadership, which inevitably lead to robust success.

</comment><comment> dav-id When you've dug yourself into a hole you should stop digging.

<comment><USER96> Could you elaborate on how this is making the situation worse rather than better?

<comment><USER97> Continued attention in the media, I'm guessing. While this issue seems to have died down mostly (still going on Twitter a bit), it's important to patch this up properly so it doesn't affect recruiting talent.

<comment><USER39> And god forbid let's just avoid doing the right thing because the fervor is dying down.

Good on GitHub for updating.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bit.ly's Grand Plans, And Their Inevitable Clash With Digg: Bitly Now - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/29/bitlys-grand-plans-and-their-inevitable-clash-with-digg-bitly-now/?awesm=tcrn.ch_4re&utm_campaign=techcrunch&utm_content=techcrunch-autopost&utm_medium=tcrn.ch-twitter&utm_source=direct-tcrn.ch

<comment><USER2> If bit.ly would put in the referer logs the url where the bit.ly link is, then bit.ly would be much better for recipients of traffic from bit.ly.

As it is, the actual _producer_ of the content being linked to has no idea where that link is on the web. Is it in a tweet? A blog comment? Where?

Bit.ly and other url shorteners are robbing content producers of valuable traffic information and giving it to the linker, but I would argue that it is much more important for the producer of the content to know who is clicking links and from where than it is for the person who links to the content.

This, of course, is one problem in addition to the increased layer of indirection and reduced reliability of content acquisition in the future due to the disappearance of the shortener.

<comment><USER3> I'm pretty sure it's impossible for bit.ly to set the referer since it is supplied by the browser. If you could actually spoof the referer that would have fairly serious security consequences.

<comment><USER2> yep, that's a good point. I guess there's just no saving it then...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> They seem to be doing well, but just having good popularity data doesn't make you a strong digg competitor. People don't think of bit.ly as a destination site and that's not going to be easy to change.

<comment><USER5> I agree with this. But look at what Arrington's really saying with this article. He's positioning bit.ly as his new favorite startup to write about and preparing his readers for an avalanche of stories about it. Having Techcrunch blast your marketing message out to the early adopter crowd every day for 6 months will certainly help reposition bit.ly as a destination.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A close parsing of this article ("filter massively for fraud", "flawed human voting system") suggests that Mr. Arrington is privy to some stuff about how digg works. Nudge, nudge.

</comment><comment><USER3> I doubt people are using URL shorteners because they're bumping up against twitter's 140 character limit. It has become the trendy thing to do, and most non-technical users probably use it only because everyone else is. Anyone know where to find a large corpus of tweets? It would be pretty straightforward to do the analysis.

Additionally, why doesn't anyone talk about doing URL shortening on the CMS side? Sure the host portion of the URL might be a little longer than say 'bit.ly', but the remaining portion could be compressed. You could have a blog, news article, or whatever with an unobtrusive "twitter link" on the side. That way content owners still have some view into who is linking to their content.

<comment><USER7> > Additionally, why doesn't anyone talk about doing URL shortening on the CMS > side? Sure the host portion of the URL might be a little longer than say > 'bit.ly', but the remaining portion could be compressed. You could have a > blog, news article, or whatever with an unobtrusive "twitter link" on the > side. That way content owners still have some view into who is linking to > their content.

Some sites do this. I bought some shoes the other day on Zappos and noticed all their permalinks have a shortened URL ready. Example: <http://www.zappos.com/product/126799/color/53739>

Amazon should do this if for no other reason than most of their URLs are giant and unfriendly.

<comment><USER8> Google Maps should also do this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't see this as a competition with Digg unless they also implement some sort of social aspect to it. I think a lot of people use Digg, Reddit and the like more for the conversation and community aspects than anything else.

The article posits the theory that Bit.ly, with access to more URL submissions a day has an advantage over Digg for that reason. I don't but it. The killer app of social book marking is as a filter. Bit.ly will still have to lick the filtering issue, just as other social book marking sites have had to. I just find it funny that the article seems to state that Digg receiving 20,000 links a day is a disadvantage when in reality, it's sort of the entire point of a service like that.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> "...7 million URLs are shortened via [Bit.ly] each day, the company says, and 2-3 million of those are unique URLs Bit.ly has not seen before. Those Bit.ly URLs are clicked on 150 million times per week"

"20,000 or so new links a day are submitted to Digg"</comment>