The Rise of the College Crybullies - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-rise-of-the-college-crybullies-1447458587 <comment><USER2> Honestly, the college admissions application should come with a single trigger warning that covers all possible inconvenient ideas you might encounter in a university setting. Uncomfortable with that? Then don't attend. Were I entering college today, I would consider all this a reduction of what I would be exposed to in a university setting. If I'm paying for an education, I want a full education, not just the parts no one is protesting.

<comment><USER3> So you have no problem trying to exclude people based on their opinion as long as it is one you don't agree with? That seem quite hypocritical. Similar to how those who supposedly value diversity of opinion have no problem trying to dismiss other peoples opinions by calling them "crybullies".

<comment><USER4> Voicing a different opinion is different than demanding someone be punished because they have a different opinion.

Maintaining diversity of opinion is a two-way street that requires tolerance from everyone. Refusing to invite intolerant people is not hypocritical; it ensures the culture of spirited debate is preserved for all comers.

<comment><USER3> That is the exact same argument that the people you are opposing are making, just that you differ in opinion what is considered intolerant.

And saying that you should try to exclude people who don't agree with you seems very much like "demanding someone be punished because they have a different opinion".

<comment><USER4> I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you're not being intentionally obtuse.

How would you design a system that is supposed to foster debate and differing opinions such that people don't shut it down because they cannot tolerate those differing opinions?

<comment><USER3> You're the one not responding to my arguments, how am I the one being obtuse?

How is excluding people you think are intolerant any better then they excluding you for thinking you are intolerant? How is calling people "crybullies" and implicitly "indoctrinated" instead of reviewing and arguing against their arguments being tolerant? How is it not you that don't tolerate people when you think it's a good idea to try to exclude others from college based on their opinion?

I think everyone has the right to campaign for their cause regardless if that cause is to stop someone else from doing something. I think it's up to the other party to argue their case as best as they can on their own merits instead of trying to shame the other group that are expressing their opinions. People who support free speech should celebrate the outpouring of free speech happening on campuses right now and they should form their own groups arguing for their causes rather than thinking they are morally superior even though they really just disagree since they want the same thing they are accusing their opponents for.

<comment><USER4> > How is calling people "crybullies" and implicitly "indoctrinated" instead of > reviewing and arguing against their arguments being tolerant?

By "intolerance" I mean "having consequences beyond having people disagree with you," for example, making you lose your job.

> I think everyone has the right to campaign for their cause regardless if > that cause is to stop someone else from doing something. I think it's up to > the other party to argue their case as best as they can on their own merits > instead of trying to shame the other group that are expressing their > opinions. People who support free speech should celebrate the outpouring of > free speech happening on campuses right now and they should form their own > groups arguing for their causes rather than thinking they are morally > superior even though they really just disagree since they want the same > thing they are accusing their opponents for.

That's not the issue here. If this were all that were happening, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

The issue is that speech is now being suppressed in higher education settings -- a place where (otherwise lawful) offense is expected to be tolerated -- by students who don't respond to offense with the sort of counterargument you're proposing. Instead, they are making demands for resignation or other forms of retribution, and these are starting to bear fruit.

<comment><USER3> > The issue is that speech is now being suppressed in higher education > settings -- a place where (otherwise lawful) offense is expected to be > tolerated -- by students who don't respond to offense with the sort of > counterargument you're proposing. Instead, they are making demands for > resignation or other forms of retribution, and these are starting to bear > fruit.

Yeah, there's not much point in continuing this discussion. I don't see how you can in one sentence claim that "(otherwise lawful) offense" should be tolerated, but in the next say that calls for resignations or retribution (like boycotts) shouldn't be? Those aren't normally unlawful. Isn't that literally "lawful offence except those I disagree with like calls for resignation"?

<comment><USER4> It's not about disagreement. It's about the institution. If you don't agree with one of the main purposes of the institution -- to inculcate tolerance of differing views -- don't go there.

Meanwhile, the rest of us think this institution as it stands today still provides an incredibly valuable function in society. We make better decisions as a result because we're able to digest more opinions without vomiting all over ourselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> To get past the paywall:

[https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QqQIwAGoVChMIuvHrzNKQyQIVgzEmCh2XTg3A&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fthe- rise-of-the-college- crybullies-1447458587&usg=AFQjCNF3OKC3CwhbQQsPh9e9OOiJInjmlQ)

</comment><comment><USER5> Just the same social justice warriors who attack tech companies and want more females and minorities in STEM, but they don't take STEM classes they take classes in the liberal arts instead.

I encourage females and minorities to take STEM classes for STEM jobs and challenge themselves.

Calling racism or sexism esp when almost none exists, there has been no evidence of racism on MU campus for six months. [http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/11/confirmed-there- is-a...](http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/11/confirmed-there-is- absolutely-zero-evidence-of-any-racist-incident-on-mizzou-campus-in- last-6-months/)

So what is the deal? If there was racism there'd be some evidence of it.

<comment><USER2> I like the litmus test that only someone with a github profile with projects of their own and commits to any projects in broad use are privvy to an opinion about tech culture.

When I see an SJC opinion on identity politics and tech, my first instinct is to check github to see if the author has ever contributed to open source or has any sizable projects of their own published. I'd guess that 99 times out of 100 they don't.

There are a lot of loudmouthed people with lots of opinions and no street cred.

Pretty much every scandal over the past few years have involved someone with little to no content in their github profile. I encourage anyone with a particular scandal in mind to go find the github profile of the person at the center of the scandal and see if they've accomplished much if anything as software engineer.

<comment><USER6> This is a bit divergent but GitHub alone is a bad litmus test to determine if someone as accomplished anything as a software engineer.

Many talented engineers are precluded by their contracts from contributing, use other channels to do so, or simply don't work on open source projects. Dismissing someone because of an empty github profile seems like a bit of a hair trigger reaction.

<comment><USER5> Agreed but the SJWs will always make an issue with a project on a political thing and ask for a code of conduct. It seems to be an annoying pattern of behavior.

You have to remember that SJWs have declared a war on hackers and people in STEM. Trying to find something wrong with them to make them lose their jobs or be kicked out of open source projects.

[http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6918](http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6918)

ESR has an opinion on it that SJWs need to be kicked out of open source projects. Most of them can't even code properly and submit buggy code that gets rejected, and then they claim discrimination.

<comment><USER7> Nowhere in that post did I see the opinion that good patches be rejected on the grounds that the author is an SJW — ESR appears to say he's quite happy to accept good contributions from anyone. What am I missing?

<comment><USER5> Good patches should not be rejected by the ground that anyone is anything. What matters is code quality.

ESR was talking about the issues the SJWs make wanting a code of conduct and other political things. That they should be kicked out of projects when they do that sort of thing.

If they submit good patches, it should be accepted. If they cause a political issue instead of a coding or debugging one then they are just stirring up trouble.

In the example the POC (People of Color) submitted several patches but only one or two got accepted because they were good enough. The SJW got upset over the fact that not all of them got accepted. Called the project leader a white straight male, and project leader replied back he was a Latino and accepted a few patches from POC and goes by quality not race to accept or reject a patch.

Really hard to tell a SJW from a troll pretending to be a SJW, Poe's law and all of that.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Windows 8 To Have Built-in PDF Reader, Platform Independent Apps - <AUTHOR> http://digitizor.com/2011/04/06/windows-8-pdf-immersive-appx/

<comment><USER2> Funny to see the "return" of pdf for Windows, after the failed experiment that was .xps.</comment>


Sex, drugs, dopamine and exceeding expectations - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2010/12/22/sex-drugs-dopamine-and-exceeding-expectations/?utm_campaign=The+Next+Web <comment><USER2> "It isn't just a feeling but your brain releasing dopamine"

Is there actually any difference between the two? Emotions are extremely chemical things, after all.

<comment><USER3> Most theories today posit that dopamine encodes the positive predictive error between a true reward and an expected reward. So if the reward is much more than you expect lots of dopamine will be released, but if it is exactly what you expected then none will be released. Dopamine enhances the experience of the reward by lowering the rate of firing required in the reward area to experience the same reward in the absence of dopamine. Thus, lesser rewards feel better when there is differential expectation. So dopamine enhances the feeling that's already there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The author used the word, "sticked" to describe customers sticking with a car salesman. What chemical gets released in your brain when you're underwhelmed by the copy writing?

<comment><USER5> When I read that sentence, I felt like I did the last time I ran out of sex.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think I practice this - I call it managing expectations. Microsoft does it with their call support, as well, albeit rather more in your face (an email sent shortly after first contract describing what they are going to set my expectations to - And we did not discuss it):

"As discussed, I am providing you a copy of our scope agreement for your issue.

Issue Definition: Users unable to login to xp workstations intermittently

Scope Agreement: Once we make sure that users are able to login to XP workstations the issue would be considered resolved"

But I find assisting clients with expectations, positive or negative, has great benefits for long term relationships. They learn that I am not just feeding them a line.

I tend to under-promise, and I warn clients when they get too exuberant after small initial success in a larger problem. I consider it Murphy, rather than cynicism/pessimism.

</comment><comment><USER7> To be fair, not all drugs release dopamine but those that are addictive do. In a sense, the salesmen had his customers addicted to an experience of buying from him. In another sense, Apple has the customers addicted to experience of buying and using their technology.</comment>


On ZFS deduplication and compression support - <AUTHOR> http://www.leaseweblabs.com/2014/01/zfs-one-file-system-rule/

<comment><USER2> You should not enable deduplication unless you have a lot of RAM to spare. Isn't the rule something like 6GB per 1TB of storage? The exact amount is not mentioned in the article.

</comment><comment><USER3> I prefer lz4 (article uses gzip) for zfs compression. a nice cpu/compression tradeoff.

</comment><comment><USER4> Use deduplication with caution, and only if your datasets are useful for dedup.

It uses a lot of memory (or SSD, you can add drives as L2ARC to save some money), and it can give you a lot of problems when deleting many files and large datasets.

The somewhat recent addition of LZ4 compression is quite nice.

</comment><comment><USER5> At the very least you should always enable ZLE compression to deal intelligently with sparse-like files.</comment>


Building a SaaS in Public: Bookmark App – Day 1(ish) - <AUTHOR> https://charlesthecoder.dev/building-saas-in-public-bookmark-app-day-1/ <comment><USER2> As someone who is just getting over the hump of actually getting people over a long period of time to use a app and give feedback.

I think the best thing I did was find someone willing to talk and test the app outa few times per week. When I talked to users and built and talked it didn't work as well as finding someone willing to look at a half finish product to test the product. I used them almost like product managers and I was a bespoke dev shop.

One since they help build it they more usually use it and will tell you what's broken. They are also are super willing to tell others about it since they have skin in the game.

<comment><USER3> I've previously had a Pocket subscription and switched to Bear Pro to track bookmarks but neither is perfect. I would be happy to offer feedback each week as you build out your app.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Metabeard! If you're interested in having a chat about your experience with other tools and possibly becoming an early adopter of my app you can shoot me an email at firstname.lastname@example.com :)

<comment><USER2> Dope, also I got this advice from the Mom test. Another thing I got from it is informal meetings work best. Just get a number and call.

<comment><AUTHOR> I also read the Mom Test! I'm almost done with the book it's been a great resource to learn from! My telegram is [https://t.me/celoubao](https://t.me/celoubao) we can schedule a call or direct message from there if you want</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


PyCon Code of Conduct changed to avoid public shaming - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/python/pycon-code-of-conduct/commit/500a3d25c27065598002f7c999de3fdfb7ab18b1 <comment><USER2> After reading all sides of the story, I see why there is so much anger towards Adria. However, it is unacceptable for her or SendGrid to be attacked digitally.

Adria did an arguably right thing in a wrong way at the wrong time.

1\. Assuming the way she said it happened is correct, the guys behind her made a _sexual_ (forking/fucking; Dongle/Penis) not sexist joke. If it were even to be seen as sexist, it was towards men.

2\. I find it hard to see how taking their pictures and "shaming" them would have made anything thing better. It only set them up to be lynched verbally or otherwise.

3\. It was a PRIVATE conversation in a public setting that was overheard. It happens to the best of us. There are 100s of bloopers on YouTube of broadcasters saying embarrassing things when the mic was supposed to be off.

4\. She appears hypocritical because at the same PYCON she sexual jokes on Twitter (far much more public) while representing her company (having your company on your profile is almost same as wearing a badge at a conference. Not to include the use of the PYCON hashtag)

5\. As a DEVELOPER evangelist for her company, she should be more patient with developers by a massive factor compared to people in other roles. It makes no sense evangelizing for/to people that would be uncomfortable dealing with you. Appeal to understanding, not fear.

6\. It is good to know she can stand for herself. Unfortunately, I have to say she got the incident and methodology wrong.

All this will pass, and hopefully serve as a lesson for participants and us observers.

 _Edited: Spelling of Adria_

<comment><USER3> 1) You don't get to tell someone what is offensive to them. 2) Totally agree, it was not a wise choice. 3) You don't get to tell someone what is offensive to them. 4) You don't get to tell someone what is offensive to them. 5) You don't get to tell someone what is offensive to them. 6) It's true, not all the best choices were made.

<comment><USER4> You seem to believe that offense is subjective to the individual. Should we then be responsible for everything we do that offends others? What level of recourse should they have for being offended? If we think that punitive action is appropriate given an offense, how do we determine what a legitimate offense is, versus a non-legitimate offense?

<comment><USER5> > Should we then be responsible for everything we do that offends others?

Yes.

> What level of recourse should they have for being offended? If we think that > punitive action is appropriate given an offense, how do we determine what a > legitimate offense is, versus a non-legitimate offense?

If people finding out publicly that you did it would cause you to lose your job, that might be a good indicator.

<comment><USER4> Well, let's say I'm offended by your username. I'm so offended that I feel the proper punishment should be paying reparations of no less than $1M to the charity of my choice. Is it my offense taken by your username a fair offense? What standard is used to determine what offenses are legitimate, and what determines a proper punishment for that offense. Furthermore, how are you to know in advance that your username is offensive to me?

<comment><USER5> Sure, and let's say that I'm offended by your face, and I want a million dollars for _that_. How _do_ we resolve this?

It seems to me that we exist in a community that has a pretty well-evolved process for determining what is reasonable.

<comment><USER4> We take it to court, and if it doesn't fit within the boundaries of law, a judge has two options: toss out the case, or attempt to expand the boundaries of law by interpreting existing law in a new way. If the former, we are at an impasse, so how can we determine if our offenses are legitimate or not? If the latter, then now it is up to a judge and/or jury to use their subjective reasoning to pass judgment on whether the offense is legitimate.

The point I'm getting around to is that everyone tosses about objective judgments for people who cause subjective offenses. To me, this is pretty illogical. Most times, what we perceive as legitimate offenses are those by people who are the loudest, most influential, or greatest in number. It has very little to do with what the truth is, rather an opinion of the masses that has been manipulated that way.

<comment><USER6> For a functioning society, there must be some kind of barrier between "legally acceptable" and "socially acceptable."

"If it's not illegal, then it's okay" will not lead you anywhere you like.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Instead of a learning opportunity, this has turned into an enormous fustercluck.

It would have been better for Adria Richards to address the matter directly rather than post a photo on twitter, but it was not wrong for her to address the matter.

Similarly, nearly everyone can agree - including Richards - that the employer who allegedly fired one of the people involved in the incident clearly overreacted.

There are learning opportunities in these incidents - opportunities to learn the best way to address a real issue when it comes up. The goal should be growing awareness and respect, apology and forgiveness, and reconciliation.

But the extreme outburst of misogyny - the insults, abuse, and physical threats including threats of rape - is perhaps the biggest learning opportunity of all: the opportunity for an entire community to recognize that it is still dysfunctional in terms of gender equality.

 _Edit_ \- SendGrid just announced that they have fired Richards. Yet another instance in this cluster of reactive ugliness and missed opportunities.

<comment><USER8> > It would have been better for Adria Richards to address the matter directly > rather than post a photo on twitter

This isn't a case of "it would have been better", it was a case of "what she did was clearly wrong". She overreacted as did the man's employer, and she has not shown any remorse.

> But the extreme outburst of misogyny - the insults, abuse, and physical > threats including threats of rape - is perhaps the biggest learning > opportunity of all: the opportunity for an entire community to recognize > that it is still dysfunctional in terms of gender equality.

I haven't seen here on HN any of the insults, abuse, or threats you mentioned, nor have I made any myself. Do not blame all of us just because a vocal minority have gotten out of hand, and certainly do not use it as a tool to shame us into silence and shut down what is so far a reasoned discussion on the matter.

<comment><USER9> "She overreacted as did the man's employer, and she has not shown any remorse."

The problem is that people are attributing to her certain actions that she was not involved in. She didn't fire the guy; the employer did, based on his interpretation of the actions.

If calling attention to potential misogyny results in a witch-hunt or in victim-blaming, the underlying problems won't be addressed.

lizzard (<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5411276>) wrote this earlier:

"We need to be able to call out bad practices. People deny doing this stuff, they say we should report it, they say we should report it non-anonymously. Sadly every time we do... the same thing happens as a result."

<comment><USER10> >If calling attention to potential misogyny results in a witch-hunt or in victim-blaming, the underlying problems won't be addressed.

What misogyny? From what I understand, they made a joke about the word dongle in a gender-specific way. Does a play on words about your gender's anatomy really equal misogyny? Maybe some people need to learn what misogyny actually means.

<comment><USER9> I wrote _potential_ because, although I see it as a joke between two people, I can see how others could be offended.

<comment><USER10> Offensive or even offensive to women doesn't mean misogyny. Misogyny is a hatred of women. Nothing in his comments comes close to demonstrating a hatred of women, or even intent to offend women.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Having experienced PyCon for the first time this year, I am extremely saddened by how these events have unfolded. Ironically, I think this particular issue is eclipsing how female and kid friendly this conference is.

I have attended and spoken and several conferences (probably reaching the upper 80s) and this year's PyCon was more female-supportive than any other conference I have ever attended (Google IO, OSCON, WWDC, Where, BarCamps, etc etc).

Honestly, I was (happily) surprised about how many women attended and spoke. 20%! Of course, this number may seem low if you just blur it out, but in our industry, if you have ever attended any other tech conference, you will realize why 20% is such a high number.

The amount of attention and support PyLadies got from the PyCon/Python community was nothing short of _outstanding_. I sat during the PyCon PyLadies Fundraiser auction. I saw how crappy card games and posters signed by Guido and PyCon organizers sold for $300. I saw how the community managed to get "A 30-min Walk from Jack Dorsey" as one of the things to be auctioned. You don't just get that an item like that by sitting idle. Somebody from the PyCon community had to pull some strings and go through some efforts to get that for PyLadies. Heck, some guy, 1hr before the auction just gave __his personal Chromebook __for auction because he wanted to help the PyLadies cause. PyLadies raised 10K in less than 2hrs. All community-driven. I have never seen - in any conference - a community putting so much effort to push the goal of increasing women in tech. Never.

And yet all this drama is painting such a different picture of what I would consider the best conference I have ever attended. The biggest effort I have seen for women in tech, out-shadowed by a silly penis joke and all the drama that ensued after that.

To the PyCon organizers and PyLadies community as a whole: Don't let this get to you. You did an amazing job. To me, it was such an inspiring conference, that it will always be in my schedule. The large amount of kids coding in python and playing with their Raspberry Pis, the ad-hoc tech donations that were being done teachers, the support to PyLadies, all that stuff that really matters, did not go unnoticed. It is just that we are not as loud as the rest. But we care. Thank you!!!

<comment><USER12> > Ironically, I think this particular issue is eclipsing how female and kid > friendly this conference is.

This is the biggest thing that bugs me. PyCon this year was awesome, and instead of talking about record attendance and all the other positive things we're talking about a stupid dick joke.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I applaud the PyCon organizers for clearly delineating what is acceptable behavior and what is not. I especially applaud them for including public shaming in the "unacceptable" category.

The rest of their code is there to protect conference goers. The sections discussing harassment are there for a reason - harassment is a real problem at these events.

Similarly, conference goers should be protected from the threat of being publicized as a less-than-human creature on the Internet. There's been some discussion of the reaction to Adria and Jesse. There could just as likely have been a strong, dangerous reaction to the men who made the comments. Saying "these guys are a threat to women" on the Internet could actually put them in danger, and no one should expect to be put in that situation by attending PyCon.

<comment><USER14> > There could just as likely have been a strong, dangerous reaction to the men > who made the comments.

'dangerous'? Really? Are people who fight against sexism really 'just as likely', is in, have displayed a pattern of the same behaviour in the past? Or is this a false equivalency?

<comment><USER13> Let me put it another way. Do you think that every conference goer should behave the way Adria did? Whenever a conference goer feels offended, he or she should immediately take photos, publish them on Twitter and on a blog post along with insults like "asshat" and otherwise humiliate the individuals as publicly as possible?

The reason I ask is so I can figure out whether you're debating whether it's OK to publicly shame people in this manner, or whether you're quibbling over the degree of risk you're exposing someone to when you publicly shame them the way Adria did.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think it's interesting that public shaming isn't the answer to problems, but that a lot of people don't seem to appreciate that.

It's not just Adria. Remember John Scalsi and "When Gut-Boys Attack"? <http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/11/14/when-gut-boys-attack/>

Same thing. Take a person, smash them publicly, and hope that the everyone watching will get the idea and stop doing that thing, _because of fear of similar punishment_.

...but, I was under the impression there was a pretty well defined protocol for handling public sorts of hate-speech like antisemitism, and trolling, and that had been shown in all kinds of circumstances _not_ to work.

You get all the same reactions we've seen here; a social reaction against the 'shaming' group to socially prevent similar shaming from happening in the future.

 _Which totally mitigates the potential benefit of the original action._

The correct responses have always been:

1) Don't engage with obvious trolls. These are a lost cause. You're wasting everyone's time.

2) Speak positively about the topic instead of negatively about the other person

3) Engage with the people who are doing the wrong thing and try to correct their behavior so they become mini-champions of 'the right way' in their own community, thus spreading correct behavioral policy organically.

I thought that this was well known stuff; we certainly covered it in college. I'm boggled by this whole bizaar extravaganza. It's such a cliche.

<comment><USER16> 3) is horrible. It only works if you assume that you are so much smarter and have more knowledge than the people who are involved in the issue, and that you can therefore come up with an argument that they haven't heard before that is still so utterly convincing that they turn 100% around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think the key here is to treat everyone like people. By publicly shaming two individuals and associating them with sexism they are being turned into figureheads for sexism. Real people make mistakes, say stupid things, are affected by their environments and upbringing, have prejudices and biases that they acquired from a life-time of interacting with other people. Everyone is like this, many people do not even realize what some of their biases or prejudices are. Turning them into into figureheads strips away the complexity and says "these guys are what is wrong". Which is complete and utter bullshit. They were just two guys having a private conversation.

If someone says something in private that you disagree with then you should bring it up with them in private or get and intermediary, like the conference organizers to. They may have been very sensitive to gender issues and sympathetic to her agenda but she will never know because she never put the effort into discussing it with them.

</comment><comment><USER18> The problem is not PyCon. This is not an issue that should be solved by changing a code of conduct.

This is a problem with a person and her over zealous and ridiculous actions.

Let's be clear here, there should be nothing wrong with making dick jokes to your friend. Did he say "Haha, look at these dongles. They look like dicks. But we don't need them because have dicks! Maybe they should give these to the women so they can be better programmers with big dicks like us."? No.

We are living in a world where people increasingly feel the need to be "personally offended" by things that don't even involve them.

What if the male in question made an Englishman, Irishman, and Scotishman joke? Hell, they're pretty fucking funny! And you know what? They involve the Englishman doing something desperately stupid. Being an Englishman, am I offended? Fuck no.

This entire situation is beyond ridiculous.

<comment><USER16> It seems that of late sex (or talk about sex) = sexism.

Well no wonder then, that we can't have decent penis joke no more.

<comment><USER19> Let it not be forgotten that talking about sex in the wrong way in the wrong context actually is abusive.

If they were talking about Adria's body parts, or what they would like to do to Adria. Or propositioning her for sex. Or saying "hey baby" to her. Or trying to start a creepy conversation with her about her sex habits. These are among astronomically many possible examples of how you can talk inappropriately about sex to someone.

As a general rule, don't talk about sex to strangers, if you can't pick up any pattern of what is abusive or not.

<comment><USER16> Ah, but then they would be talking about _her_ , not about sex.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Props to PyCon (and jnoller especially) for taking the issue seriously _and_ not over-reacting or playing CYA.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm a little confused, what about privacy laws? Yes, you are at a conference, but that doesn't give anybody the right to take your picture and post it on twitter, without asking your permission, right? (Sorry, German here, so if the laws in the US are completly different, please ignore).

<comment><USER22> > _"Yes, you are at a conference, but that doesn't give anybody the right to > take your picture and post it on twitter, without asking your permission, > right?"_

Even in Germany this is legal. The right to photograph someone is usually delineated by the principle of "reasonable expectation of privacy". Note that this is a legal term that has been defined both through legislation and via decades of case law in many countries - so personal definitions of it don't apply here.

Common places where courts have upheld the reasonable expectation of privacy include restrooms (including public ones), a home, a hotel room, etc. A conference talk is _not_ one of these places. Which is to say, people are free to photograph at will.

Note that should the property be private, the owners (or agents thereof) are entitled to disallow photography. Note _also_ , importantly, that the right to disallow photography _does not include_ the right to confiscate any photographs already taken. The most the property owner can do is remove the individual from their premises or have them arrested for trespassing.

Note also that while photographing someone in a public place is not a violation of any criminal law in most Western countries, it does not shield you from civil liabilities - you can still be pursued for damages, libel, or defamation (which seem like it may be relevant in this situation).

There are some countries and territories with substantially stricter laws regarding the likeness of people. Japan and Quebec for example are places where the right to photograph someone in public is not protected by default.

<comment><USER23> You are wrong about the law in Germany.

As you correctly stated, _taking_ photographs is very unregulated (and wasn't regulated at all until a few years ago) in Germany. It's only illegal to _take_ photos in the places you listed. (Actually it's not so much about specific places. The photos have to invade a private area of life, though that usually means places like the home, hotel rooms or restrooms are off limits.) This barrier is actually relatively high, not everything is immediately an invasion of a private area of life, even if it might seem so. A normal shot of you hanging out in a conference room with hundreds other people? Not an invasion of a private area of life.

This also means that privately owned but public spaces are not included there, like, say, conference halls or train stations or shopping malls and similar such places. As you also correctly stated, the owner can disallow photographs, though by default (i.e. if the owner doesn't have any rules) _taking_ photographs is perfectly ok.

The issue is _publishing_ photographs. There the barriers are much, much higher in Germany. If there are people in it, the default is that you are not allowed to publish them unless every person in the photograph agrees. Now, as always with the law, there are (of course) exceptions (e.g. if people are only incidental to the photograph and not the main subject, say if you take a photo of a building and there happen to be a few people in front of it), though none of them apply in this case. _Publishing_ this photo wouldn't be legal in Germany ( _taking_ it would), though it is important to note that in Germany those depicted in the photo would have to come forward and press charges. Otherwise the police is not allowed to investigate or charge people. (You could say that the default assumption of the law is that everyone in published photographs agreed to it and if you don't it's on you to come forward.)

However, that is not the case in the US where both taking and publishing this photo is perfectly legal. So I do not really see the relevance of this discussion.

<comment><USER22> You're right - I looked into this and it looks like Germany actually has very strict laws regarding this - as strict as Japan's, on cursory examination.

It's a shame, IMO - Europe is the birthplace of photography, and of street photography in particular, and we are still reaping the benefits of the historical record provided by decades of laissez-faire attitudes re: photographing strangers.

<comment><USER23> As I said, there are exceptions. As there always are with the law. Here they are (in German): <http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/kunsturhg/__23.html>

You don't need permission to publish photos of historical significance. That's pretty much why newspaper photographers can exist in Germany. All those kinds of photos – if they do not invade some private area of life of the depicted persons – are totally fine.

As I already mentioned, the same is true for photos in which the people are not the main subject – though if some person is easily identifiable you likely do need their permission, even if they are not the center of the attention. This exception is mostly so that someone ten pixels in size or so cannot rain into the photographer's parade.

Or – and this can apply to street photography – if it serves a higher interest of the arts. I think the general recommendation for street photographers is to make eye contact with who they photograph and check that way whether it's ok. Also, walking up and talking to who you photographed isn't super hard. As I already said, photographing without publishing is nearly always ok, so you can shoot first and get permission later. Also, since those depicted actually have to press charges it's not like the police will bust your exhibition and confiscate your photos. Someone who is on some published photo has to complain. And even then there still is legal wriggle room. The right to privacy is one of the rights defined in the German constitution – but so is the freedom of the arts. If those two collide judges have to weigh them against each other and decide which wins. I guess shots of someone picking their nose in public might might make privacy win, shots of someone drinking coffee in a cafe might make freedom of the arts win. (Also, it's not like this is a felony. It's a private law issue.)

Photos of assemblies or demonstrations or similar such events are also ok. Huh, now I'm questioning my statement that the published photo is not covered by one of the exceptions. My interpretation of this was always that this covers all kinds of political events. Being able to publish photos of political events or demonstrations is important for a democracy, that's the light in which I always saw that exception. However, the actual text of the law is very generic and probably makes reference to all kinds of events, not just political ones. I wonder how the courts interpreted this in the past.

So I guess I can't say after all whether publishing the photo is ok – not the least of which because the paragraph ends with a sentence that screws up all clearly delineated lines: All those exceptions are null and void if those depicted have a justifiable interest in preventing that. So an exception of an exception.

Now I'm frustrated. And actually want to study law.

<comment><USER22> > _"You don't need permission to publish photos of historical significance."_

That's insufficient for the sort of photography I mean. There is a tremendous amount of historical value provided in even shots of the mundane. Look up the works of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Garry Winogrand, Treng Parke, among many others - these are photographers who captured regular people, in regular situations, in daily life, and in doing so provide a valuable historical record decades later.

The historical record of a people is, IMO, not embodied in photographs of famous politicians and actors, but rather in regular people - and to disallow their photographing by default inhibits this. The concern isn't just historical, it's also artistic - if we disallowed photography of people without explicit model releases almost all of the photography in art museums today would not exist.

> _"Or – and this can apply to street photography – if it serves a higher > interest of the arts."_

That's an incredibly vague - and conservative - angle on it. Street photography has traditionally pushed the boundaries of what society finds acceptable, and for the most part it is always vindicated over time. Most of the challenging, worthwhile street photography would _not_ hit the "higher interest of the arts" bar at the time they are taken.

Your standard basically means that whatever is being done has been accepted by mainstream society already as a valuable art form. Now tell me, how much of new art is already accepted by society at large at the time of creation?

Take a look at, for example, the work of Bruce Gilden, whose working method is still controversial today, but I for one am glad he has the freedom to do it.

> _"I think the general recommendation for street photographers is to make eye > contact with who they photograph and check that way whether it's ok. Also, > walking up and talking to who you photographed isn't super hard."_

I do street photography almost every day. I know this - it's _easy_ to get _permission_ , it's hard to shove a piece of paper in someone's face and have them sign their legal rights away. The bar isn't "subjects should be consenting", it's "subjects should have signed a legally binding agreement". That is the part that is unreasonable.

> _"As I already said, photographing without publishing is nearly always ok, > so you can shoot first and get permission later."_

You want to track a stranger on a street down later, put a legal agreement in front of them, and get them to sign it?

> _"The right to privacy is one of the rights defined in the German > constitution – but so is the freedom of the arts."_

All around the world, almost universally, the protect of the "arts" extends only to what has already been deemed acceptable. Street photography still isn't recognized consistently as an art form, much less a protected one. Like I said before, to define acceptability as "worthwhile arts" merely protects what doesn't need protecting: art forms that mainstream society already finds palatable and desirable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> That's nice.

Especially when the harassment is "two friends taking to each other in some row".

</comment><comment><USER25> Since when does everyone have the right to being offended?

To put this into context, Adria is most certainly allowed to be bothered the comments made during this conversation. However, there has to be a distinction between whether or not this is private or public.

If this fellow went on stage and then started to make these jokes, it could be considered inappropriate and as a result she would in my mind have a valid complaint. It is similar to how Michael Richards made some rather off-colour remarks about a certain ethnicity on stage, which as a result ruined his career. If he had made these comments in private, I'd imagine that he'd still be making terrible attempts at sitcom pilots.

However, when it is a conversation between two parties where she wasn't included but just ended up overhearing it, then she has no right to complain. These guys may be obnoxious to you, but you can remove yourself from the situation quite easily. Tweeting a photo of them was uncalled for however, but she could have still made a photo-less quip about them which would have been appropriate.

Public shaming people for their private conversations is uncalled for when it is specifically targeted. Adria doesn't need to apologise for being bothered over it, but she certainly should for going about it the way she did.

[edit]

Sendgrid responded:

Effective immediately, SendGrid has terminated the employment of Adria Richards. While we generally are sensitive and confidential with respect to employee matters, the situation has taken on a public nature. We have taken action that we believe is in the overall best interests of SendGrid, its employees, and our customers. As we continue to process the vast amount of information, we will post something more comprehensive.

</comment><comment><USER26> They forgot to add that all childish jokes should not be shared amongst each other, ever.

<comment><USER27> Childishness, silliness, and lewdness is a core part of what Monty Python was about. Monty Python's style of humor was encouraged in the Python programmer culture from the beginning. It's ironic that Pycon's policy would prevent me from publicly reciting some of my favorite Flying Circus skit lines.

<comment><USER28> She could have just slapped him with a fish like any grown adult would do and found a more deserving target of righteous indignation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> There is a certain category of an especially nasty person who loves taking up 'high moral ground', as it is generally promulgated by powers that be of their time, and using it to mercilessly destroy their fellow human beings. They are drunk with evil power and the sheer simplicity of it: just apply a glib label to your victim.

Pagan, heretic, catholic, protestant, blasphemer, republican, communist, anti- communist, racist, sexist....

Nothing new under the Sun. I wonder what will be the next 'in-vogue' label. The labels change but the type of person who is fond of using them is always the same, always nasty.

</comment><comment><USER30> Seriously? Dick jokes aren't misogynist,and the joke the guy made wouldn't even earn a PG rating. Plus, it's a private conversation. If they had said something truly sexist (eg commenting about the body parts of a female presenter) I would at least understand being offended, but public shaming would still not be justified for an eavesdropped conversation.

It sucks, but it's really apparent that this woman used the hot button issue of sexism at tech conferences (which is a legitimate problem in professional presentations) to get attention for herself and her personal "brand" of anti sexism crusader... meanwhile, crying wolf like this potentially reduces the chance that later complaints will be taken seriously, and that actual sexism will be written off as a similar case of 'help help I'm being oppressed'!

<comment><USER14> Dick jokes may or may not be misogynistic depending on the intent and the context. The default assumption that a woman's actions are to attract attention? That's misogynistic. Stop doing that.

<comment><USER30> OK, so I should have clarified the type of dick joke.. if the joke was "I'd like to put my dongle in her input jack" it'd be at the very least sexist. This one was not.

"The default assumption that a woman's actions are to attract attention" That is not at all my default assumption. In fact, I'm very much on the side of the women who do experience sexual harassment at conferences and are brave enough to speak up about it.

But as for the circumstances here (joke that was pretty benign and didn't concern her, public shaming) and the person involved, yes, I do believe it was for attention.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is tricky.

"Dear Attendees,

If you feel you're being harassed, please don't tell anyone but us. Thanks."

As a general rule I think we should be working to empower people to handle situations on their own (part of that handling will likely include notifying organizers). Not disenfranchising them so they've got no recourse but to report something to a group of people selected for their ability to run a conference, not necessarily mediate disputes.

Do I happen to think that "public shaming" was appropriate here? Probably not. Do I think it's been effectively used by many groups in the past to effect change, yes. The fact that PyCon and many other conferences have adopted a code of conduct is evidence of this.

When a group asks me to constrain how I behave outside the confines of their event (on twitter for example) I tend to apply it universally. If I can't talk about the bad I most definitely will not talk about the good. I'll not have a third party filtering my communication that way.

<comment><USER32> That's not really what it says though - "Report the harassment incident (preferably in writing) to a conference staff member - all reports are confidential, please do not disclose public information about the incident until the staff have had sufficient time in which to address the situation. "

It's saying 'please tell us first and give us a chance to sort it out to everyone's satisfaction'.

That's really not tricky at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> > _Note: Public shaming can be counter-productive to building a strong > community. PyCon does not condone nor participate in such actions out of > respect_

I think the "out of respect" is unnecessary and somewhat nonsensical. Out of respect for whom? I think it's fine to just say that PyCon, like any reasonable organization, doesn't participate or condone in such public shaming, period...because the reasons to not engage in it are myriad.

<comment><USER34> It's on Github... Fork it and make a pull request?

<comment><USER10> Easy with that word...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The comments here are curious. The bulk of them are arguing the finer points of rampant speculation. Why did the guy get fired? What were her motives? Was their conversation intended to be private?

This is all beside the point. Engaging in such conversations is feeding a witch-hunt (on either side).

The facts as I've seen them are simple. He made a penis joke which could be overheard. She took offense. He admitted it was an offensive penis joke. He got fired.

The telling point for me is her other behavior. She made a penis joke on Twitter. Unless she admits that that joke was offensive, she's a hypocrite.

I find that more offensive than the original joke. Being offended at behavior you do yourself is at best naive. At worst deliberately hypocritical and amoral.

</comment><comment><USER36> Less than 30 mins ago: "Effective immediately, SendGrid has terminated the employment of Adria Richards"

<https://www.facebook.com/SendGrid/posts/10151502570463967>

</comment><comment><USER37> Passive public shaming could be the future with Google Glass and like tech. Your behavior won't need to be actively "reported". If it happens within range of someone wearing Glass, what you say and do could simply be recorded, indexed, and searchable by anyone.

</comment><comment><USER38> I don't see how penis jokes, fucking jokes, etc. are in anyway sexism, misogyny or otherwise against women. They're against prudes and the sexually repressed. They're inappropriate in some contexts.

If you feel they are sexist, etc. It is you who are being sexist and demeaning cause you've accepted the stereotype that women should be virginal, sexually repressed, are frail and weak needing protected from thoughts of sex, sexual innuendo, etc.

</comment><comment><USER39> Nothing to see here. She manipulated a bunch of guys (dressed up as woman, smiled while taking their pictures, giving a very false and manipulative premise) and publicly difamed them over something he/she overheard. Which could be totally taken out of context...

To be honest, anon taking an interest on her is a fitting end for someone who values the privacy of others so low like she proven to.

</comment><comment><USER40> They can amend the rules all they like but they'll never arrive at a set that properly covers all the various behaviors that people rightly find objectionable.

In the process of trying they'll very likely end up with a set of contradictory and/or impossibly ambiguous rules. They'll also encourage people to think that by compliance with the rules they've done all they need to. They'll encourage still others to abuse the rules in ways detrimental to other people. And they'll discourage a lot of harmless and possibly useful / interesting / fun discussion out of fear that it will be interpreted as a violation.

Gender bias and stereotyping are problems of culture. The various violations are all questions of judgment. Those judgments will always depend on questions of context. That doesn't mean the problems are unimportant or that there can't be consensus judgments of a full set of facts. But it does mean you cannot solve questions of integrity and intent and interpretation with external rules.

</comment><comment><USER8> Should this open the door to a discussion about the ethics of public shaming?

<comment><USER41> Public shaming is a tool in the kit, but in this case it was the first one that she reached for. From her blog post, it sounded like it was out of frustration over other incidences (maybe even worse cases of offence / harassment) that she had also ignored. It was the 'straw that broke the camel's back' so to speak, and unleashed her pent up anger/frustration.

Personally, I think that there were other avenues to pursue this, without resorting to public shaming. It adds nothing to the generic goal of 'improving the community for women (present and future)' which seemed to have been on her mind (at least from her blog post). Talking about it in public promotes that goal, but naming names does not.

<comment><USER16> Public shaming is a tri-edged blade with no handle, made of fire. Yes you can wield it, but you are going to get hurt, possibly badly, likely you are going to take somebody who just stood next to you down with you too. If you hurt your intended target, you can't control the degree and it is going to have unintended consequences that you can't stop, let alone control.

Do you really think it should be in the toolkit?

<comment><USER41> As a weapon of last resort. Even then, only when retreat / choosing your battles doesn't make sense.

For example, if something progressed to getting the police or lawyers involved, at least some amount of it is going to be public record. Even though it might not (initially) be broadcast widely, it would eventually hit the tech press if it stemmed from events at a tech conference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I just want to remind everybody in this thread that the "offending, sexual comments" were two adult men joking that "dongle" and "dong" sound the same.

</comment><comment><USER43> I'm incredibly impressed by how PyCon has handled this whole thing (both their CoC and how they arbitrated it, and their success in attracting 20% women to a programming conference.) Compare it to e.g. the BSidesSF fiasco.

One of the awesome things about Python is that two of the best Python developers I know are female, along with maybe 20-30% of "good" programmers who program primarily in Python being female as well. It really seems like one of the more inclusive technical communities.

I wonder how much of that is due to the language itself, how much is how it's been used in academic programs, and how much is due to the people who were originally involved in the language, the conferences, etc.

</comment><comment><USER44> It appears that Adria Richards herself was just fired. <https://www.facebook.com/SendGrid/posts/10151502570463967>

</comment><comment><USER45> I just issued a pull request that would add test cases to the Code of Conduct. It's at [https://github.com/kstrauser/pycon-code-of- conduct/commit/14...](https://github.com/kstrauser/pycon-code-of- conduct/commit/1448bf5f9a40ef2ab29b2869329a96f4de01c371) .

The idea is that:

1\. It's good to define exactly what we want to happen in various test cases. Either we can get consensus ("yeah, that's how it should turn out!") or decide that there's no clear answer. Both results add valuable information to the process. 2\. We have examples to compare the actual Code of Conduct against to decide whether it achieves the results we want.

I'm not directly related to PyCon in any way other than as a happy attendee. As of this moment, I have no support (official or otherwise) for this project. I just think it could be a useful tool and an interesting exercise. Please jump in if you agree!

PS: The syntax is awful. I'm keenly aware of that, but I'm not aware of other testing frameworks for English documents and I'm making it up as I go along.

</comment><comment><USER46> This doesn't seem very well thought out outside of the present scenario.

If someone is raped at a conference and blogs about it, naming their attacker, are they in violation of conference policy for engaging in "public shaming"?

In a non-sexual context, if someone is caught trying to hack into attendees' computers (another code of conduct violation), is tweeting a photo of them saying "look out for this guy" a violation of conference policy?

Remember this: The best solution to offensive speech is more speech, not less.

</comment><comment><USER47> Everything else on the side, but taking pictures of unknown people and publishing them along with the names and full info constitutes a serious invasion of privacy. Not sure about US laws, but almost everywhere in Europe this is totally illegal to do. Model or owner release is absolutely required to be able to publish any pictures of regular people or private properties. For exactly this kind of reasons.

</comment><comment><USER48> When the history of our times is written, I trust that someone will note the enormous addition of rules to cover situations that should be managed by common sense and good will, the subsequent discovery that the rules do not prevent all bad behavior, and the addition of still more rules.

Does anyone really believe that the Code of Conduct will effect a real change?

</comment><comment><USER49> Both Adria and the guy who made the joke lose their jobs? What a disaster.

NOBODY should have been fired over this an any side. WTF.

</comment><comment><USER50> IMHO, this is another perfect example of conflict caused by communication failure. If Adria communicated her feeling when she heard the joke to the joker he would've apologized immediately and nothing would've happened afterwards. Many more people would've remained a calmer and more pleasant mood.

</comment><comment><USER51> The comment thread here is incredibly sad and depressing and perfectly illustrates how deeply misogyny is threaded through this community and industry.

You might want to go and find a female friend and have them read what you wrote. I think their responses might be enlightening.

<comment><USER52> Please do not attack entire communities. Especially like now when there have been very few misogynist comments in this discussion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Huh. And here I thought the reason people organized socially was to exclude the unlikable.

</comment><comment><USER54> Here is the tweet that seems to have motivated the patch to the PyCon Code of Conduct: <https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/313417655879102464>

</comment><comment><USER55> Why does a conference about a programming language need a code of conduct? Does anyone even read it before conducting? I know it gets a lot of attention after conducting.

</comment><comment><USER56> Why does everyone care? There has to be some point where people realize how insignificant the issue that they are freaking out over is, on all sides.

</comment><comment><USER57> There are some things people in these threads are chronically getting wrong.

First, lots of people are making the claim that this was a "private" joke. It was not. If it was a private joke and they shouldn't be punished for that reason, then they should have been able to say _anything_ , and as long as everyone who was meant to be in the private conversation appreciated it, it would be wrong to punish them because it was private.

So here's an example: What if they made a joke wherein they said, "Let's lynch a <n word>"? They likely would have been kicked out, could easily have been fired, and no one would have much sympathy for them. Why? Because _it's not in private_. They were at a conference, which is a community gathering with community standards to make sure that everyone feels welcome, and they were talking when literally surrounded by attendees they don't know. What they say absolutely has an effect on how welcome others feel. We've decided that it's important enough that all feel welcome that we've made codes of conduct.

So once we've established that there are things they could have said that would make their behavior unacceptable, you're now saying "that comment didn't warrant this response", not "this was a private conversation! how could they ever kick them out or fire them for that?"

And at that point, we get to all the arguments that this joke "wasn't sexist". It is true, that the joke itself was not sexist; it did not objectify women, suggest that they are less than men, etc.

But it was contributing to aspects of the tech industry's culture that make it less welcoming to women, and for that reason, it is unacceptable at a professional conference. (It's also just crude and might make some men uncomfortable, and so is unacceptable for that reason too.) In nearly every context that a woman in tech finds herself, she is surrounded by men. This can often make them feel somewhat unwelcome or uncomfortable. Even little things, like a few people who make comments suggesting that they're nontechnical, or a few people asking them out at every single meetup they go to, can make them feel less comfortable and less valued for what they came to the conference to do--be technical.

Anything that contributes to the feeling of the conference being a boy's club, or sexualizes the environment, can make this worse.

Finally, many people ask, "Why didn't she just say something to them?" While I don't think going straight to twitter was the best she could have done, I also don't think people understand how difficult it can be to approach someone and call them out on behavior that makes one feel uncomfortable, especially in a space where one already does not feel especially welcome or taken seriously. If everyone yells, "you should have just talked to them!" every time a woman immediately complains to organizers about inappropriate behavior, you're just encouraging more women to silently feel unwelcome, and likely drop out of the community, rather than speaking up and helping make the community better. I agree that, when comfortable, directly speaking with the offending party is best way to deal with these problems, but those who have been made uncomfortable have absolutely no responsibility to do so, and shouldn't be pushed to do it even if they are not comfortable with it.

<comment><USER58> > "Let's lynch a <n word>"? They likely would have been kicked out and no one > would have much sympathy for them. Why? Because it's not in private.

Your point about the n-word is wrong. Being private has nothing to do with it. It is using the word at all, and the type of person that using such a word implies, that would cause the huge backlash. It wouldn't matter if someone were secretly recorded in their own house making that joke and then publicly outed on youtube--they would still be fired/shunned etc. Public vs private has nothing to do with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I flirted with Python for a while, but couldn't stop obsessing over the built- in recursion limit. Now, seeing what goes on at PyCon, I'm SO glad I switched to brainfuck. There's not only no brittle speech police there, there's NOBODY there.

</comment><comment><USER60> Feminists so fun

</comment><comment><USER61> One of the reasons I've taken an interest in this whole fiasco is that I occasionally make "colorful" jokes. Not dissimilar from the two guys at PyCon. I make every attempt to keep these jokes private between my friends and I, but I'm sure others have heard me make them. Some people might find them funny, others may be offended. It scares me to think that making an offhand penis joke could result in being publicly outed on Twitter with no opportunity to defend myself.

I believe that Adria Richards did not handle the situation appropriately. I believe she's being a hypocrite by taking offense one day, and making her own penis joke on Twitter the next. I believe that she's further stoking the internet's rage by refusing to admit any fault. I think the other women that are jumping to her defense are doing themselves, and women in technology a disservice. They are not thinking critically or putting themselves in the conference attendee's shoes. I'm quite sure they would not like to be publicly outed for a private conversation.

Public shaming was not the right way to handle the situation. An apology from Adria would have gone a long way in defusing the situation. She chose not to go this route. I'm sad that a silly penis joke turned in to this.

Preemptive Edit: I do NOT believe that ANYONE should suffer the wrath of the Internet. I do NOT believe that ANY conference attendees should have to sit idly by and listen to penis jokes. I'm only saying that publicly shaming these guys was a mistake, and that an apology for the mistake could have basically fixed the problem before it got this far.

<comment><USER3> What's amazing to me is the cognitive dissonance required to make the leap from Adria publicly outing someone (questionable, but not egregious given you know, the public venue) making an off-color joke to 'she got these people fired'.

Their boss finding out what they said got them fired. Because what they said wasn't appropriate in the opinion of their employer. Period. Full stop.

<comment><USER62> It was her public outing that caused this situation in the first place!

Also, do you think if there wasn't as much drama going around that these men still would have been fired?

There is much more to this situation then an employer finding out that one of their employees make a dongle joke at a conference, and decided that was grounds for them to be fired. It is much more likely that the employer doesn't want to be associated with the debate taking place online, rather than being appealed by their employees actions.

<comment><USER3> If a man had posted that tweet, their firing would not have been notable and the internet would not be calling for boycotts, 'justice', apologies nor issuing death threats.

<comment><USER63> That's an unsupportable assertion.

<comment><USER64> But shucks, it "feels" like it's true. Therefore, in the poster's mind, it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Nice start, but it needs to come down directly on use of social media to harass a conference participant. It's not strong enough for what she did.

</comment><comment><USER66> Eventually, egalitarians will noticed that they are being played the fool by self-serving hate-mongers who care nothing about building a better world, and care everything about picking fights and dragging people down.

</comment><comment><USER67> Too little, too late.

</comment><comment><USER68> Good. I think Adria might even agree in retrospect given the way she responded to the man who joked about saved pubic hair. Or should a picture have been taken and posted of him too? Curious what she thinks.

</comment><comment><USER69> I disagree. Public shaming is the right way to make harassers actually fear the consequences (to their career, for example).

<comment><USER70> That may or may not be true, but it's not really relevant to this. Adria wasn't harassed, she over heard something, and took offence to it. That's her problem.

When ever someone claims to be offended, I'm always reminded of Stephen Fry's excellent response - <http://imgur.com/EX5v4>

<comment><USER71> Exactly. Penn and Teller did a bit on it too: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bwGsOBTlhE>

So fucking what, indeed.</comment></comment></comment>


The water is so hot in Alaska it's killing large numbers of salmon - <AUTHOR> https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/16/us/alaska-salmon-hot-water-trnd/ <comment><USER2> > " _2019 exceeded the value we expected for the worst-case scenario in 2069_ > "

Exponential curve? This is highly worrying.

<comment><USER3> We're screwed.

Or, some people in some socioeconomic classes are screwed because they won't have the money or network to adapt healthily to climate change and will suffer materially.

What should we learn from our mistakes leading up to this crisis, going forward?

What shall we, as technologists, do to reduce the suffering and to simply Make Things Better for all people?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> We should have listened to the Club of Rome in 1972, "The Limits to Growth". Now, it is too late.</comment>