Please don't apologize.

As other women before me already have, I want to apologize for this incident; honestly I probably would have been giggling myself if I was in an earshot of you. With respect to Adria's past and her sensitivity to the triggers she refers to, a comment like this is not demeaning to women and her reaction has nothing to do with supporting the future of this industry and the women who partake in it. In fact I'd say just the opposite. Just a few weeks ago we had a similar conversation when Torvalds replied to a woman with the term circlejerk (in regards to the argument they were having) and a few people raised their pitchforks thinking it was offensive in the context of her gender. It has nothing to do with gender.

Taking the photo and posting it for her global audience was just too much. The appropriate course of action would have been to show the picture privately to staff and have them talk to the parties involved individually and maybe bring everyone together to talk about it after-the-fact. I can't even fathom losing my job over something that I know I have made jokes about in the past, jokes that may have a juvenile slant, but that I thought would be acceptable because I was in the company of people who could - if not appreciate them - at least understand what I meant by them, and especially understand that it wasn't sexual.

Some jokes are not okay in the presence of certain people or during certain times. This was not one of them, and again I'm so sorry for what you're dealing with because of it. Best wishes to you.

And yeah, Adria is what I consider a bad person. Could be male, female, whatever. So, you don't have to apologize either.

Adria did a disservice to other women in IT. Also the whole "Joan of Arc" thing and "I'm fighting for the future of female developers" stuff were hilarious. I don't get how this benefits anybody. How can "I'd fork that guy's repo" be sexist? In which context? "I'd fork that guy/girl" can be, in a way (if you're Adria perhaps), termed sexist/misogynic/misoandric (yeah, lol) but IRL... Only "evangelists", PR and lawyers would do such a thing.

I'd said to my GF (yeah, she's a dev too) that I wanna fork her multiple times and I didn't get one slap or my face plastered over the internet... Behaving like a total enabler she laughed and ... She should have reported me, I'd let her know when she wakes up. Or better yet, post my pic on #sexist or something, because that's what sane people do.

Now being serious. Using offensive jokes is not appropriate. Using offensive jokes in my crowd is kind of expected. Using them outside my crowd. Big no no. I don't deem sex jokes fall in inappropriate. Sexist/racist/N-ist jokes however do. If someone got offended, I'll apologise. Promptly. Like a SANE PERSON. I don't plaster his/her face over the public 'net.

All this was a cold and calculated move that backfired (this time). It has surely done more harm than good. If any good at all. The state in the industry is now much better than it was 10-15 years ago and we should continue driving that forward. Only trust, cooperation and the direct approach in conflicts, not us-versus-them mentality, will drive that change.

Frankly, I think mr-hank should file criminal charges, under VAWA section 2261A on stalking, which states that an individual is guilty of stalking if, with intent to harass or intimidate another person, uses the mail, any interactive computer service or electronic communication service or electronic communication system of interstate commerce, or any other facility of interstate or foreign commerce to engage in a course of conduct that causes, attempts to cause, or would be reasonably expected to cause substantial emotional distress to that person.

I think it can be reasonably stated that public shaming is intended to cause emotional distress, and mr-hank suffered damages (job loss) as a result, affecting not just himself but the welfare of his family.

With the addition of the much-touted nondiscrimination clause, the law should apply equally to his situation as it would to a woman under similar circumstances.

http://lovefromkelly.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/life-as-female-d...

It's classy to apologize when you think you've upset someone. And if that's how you're going to sleep at night, apologize.

What's awful at this point is the amount of hatred going around in regards to this situation. Here we have a sane response to an immature situation. Sine then, there is an army of commenters attacking Adria with hate on your behalf (something I know isn't your fault). People are sending Adria pictures of chopped up bodies with threats that she's next. They're asking for her to be raped, or threatening to do it themselves. She's been called every word in the book, with the worst intentions ever.

Seems Adria got her feminist conversation, but not in the way she had intended. There are some really really horrible people out there in internet land.

She took a comment that had nothing, nada to do with the sexualization of women and tried to spin it into some sort of anti-women/"This is what we're talking about!" ridiculousness (p.s. this isn't actually at all what we're talking about when we bring up inequality, which is why women like me are furious about this).

We know from her blog post (and her previous tweets about stuffing socks into pants to impress TSA agents and her playing Cards Against Humanity at the same event - where she held up "Eating all the cookies before the AIDS bake sale.") that she wasn't actually offended; she saw the guy was a sponsor and determined that she was going to use him and his total non-issue of a statement to humiliate him because that little girl on the screen was going to grow up so fragile that she couldn't possibly handle two guys in public making an audible joke. Less people congregate at a random public place than at this event, does that stop you from hearing filth there? Can you handle it? Are you going to make a mockery of them over your public and professional Twitter account with thousands of followers?

Worse, she'd already had a dialogue with the men in which she butted into their conversation to add to it just a few minutes prior. So here we have someone admitting they're eavesdropping into conversations, which in itself isn't a crime, but you can't just listen in on what people are saying when you're not a part of the conversation and pull out a penalty flag when you hear something that "offends" you. A flag so big that the dude got fired over a joke that less people overheard than people saw her tweets on stuffing pants and eating AIDs cookies.

Do you have a comprehensive list? Is it calibrated to what country or audience you are in, or do you just avoid saying anything that could offend anyone anywhere. I made a joke about corruption once that hit too close to home for the people I was with, if I would have thought harder about where I was I should have kept my mouth shut.

Like, what if you're wearing a green sweater, and somebody was once assaulted by a person wearing a green sweater and your sweater really upsets somebody? There's no way we possibly could have known.

It's really complicated sometimes.

Here's the thing though: it's not always complicated!

Sexual comments around women we don't know? Totally an easy one. We should avoid those comments. Some women don't care, some find them hilarious, but a significant portion of women really don't want to hear that kind of talk from men they don't know.

We don't have to be mind readers, or even particularly sensitive to understand this. (In fact, we don't even have to understand it. Just memorize it.)

And of course, before anyone says it.... Its not about being "PC" its about not being a douchebag.

I can always tell when I'm talking to someone with a strong filter and it always makes me feel uncomfortable. They don't seem genuine, they don't seem honest, they don't seem real. I wonder how they are really like when relaxed with their filters down. What if they really are a douchebag? I've met plenty of people who filter heavily but are still basically sociopaths.

I've heard there is now corporate training on how to have a strong filter without letting other people know that you have one, by intentionally and strategically letting out noticeable but forgivable gaffes at certain points to make it appear as if you are genuine.

"Common sense" isn't as "common as we like to think, is it? "Public" is a state of mind.

Adria was overhearing a conversation not meant for her ears. It was her error.

You can never make a joke that isn't offensive to at least one person somewhere one way or another, unless you give up joking altogether. You said it yourself "every single person has something that they are sensitive about". It could be as legitimately rightful as sexist jokes.. or as unrightful as joking about anything else entirely, maybe my mother was run over by a bus driver.. does that mean that you cannot joke about bus drivers next to me?.. Well actually yes, but only "if" you knew of my particular situation and in this case he did not.

The general rules of decency dictate that you steer away from the generally offensive jokes in your respective crowd and the joke he made was not such, it was if anything something that fits that crowd perfectly. I for one had no idea what it was supposed to mean outside the tech lingo but unlike her I was not in a PyCon conference.

Where I work, every time someone says "fsck" or "fork" or "Poller" (it's an elderly in-house system) someone snickers. Usually a woman.

The rest of us have a little fun at work, there's the occasional double entendre, and the work gets done.

Once I was in a meeting during a very high frustration time in a project and as we went around giving status everyone said "fuck" at some point. Including the very genteel female BA who said "I might as well too" right before she dropped her f-bomb. It was a good laugh and a good stress relief.

AR unquestionably went too far - she over-reacted, she broadcast what she should have uni-cast, and she appeared to have questionable motivations.

What a big mess this all is.

I guess the interesting bit the parent wanted to highlight is that a similar joke to the one that offended Adria, was showed on public television.

We were all in 5th grade once, I think a conference for adults can handle that same behavior.

Granted it's toilet humour but who doesn't like that every now and again. Being a programmer, I'd love to have more women in my industry and indeed within my workplace. The problem has been exacerbated by Adria and her knee-jerk reaction to something that should have just been a quick snigger between the two involved and then move on.

If I felt I had to tip-toe around any female colleague for fear of being fired for something so innocuous, I think I would change career or work alone. I don't need that kind of attitude.

I accept every colleague as an equal and certainly I temper the things I say around some people but I never go out of my way to offend, it's simply not worth it or called for.

I guess I hope we all forget about this incident and try to move on and rebuild the damage this has caused. Bring on more women in tech.

  "if we are able to accept a sketch on tv mentioning a
  dongle in good humour, why is it a sackable offence 
  within earshot of someone?"

Would you really see no difference between your mother hearing a penis joke on television and a stranger telling her one on a train?

If you hear a joke you don't like on television, you change the channel and maybe don't watch that show again. Somebody's making sexualized conversation you don't want to hear in public, it's not always fair/convenient/possible for you to leave. In the case of the PyCon thing, perhaps Adria could have handled it better, but why should she have to give up her seat and leave the presentation (or even go to a worse seat) because she doesn't want to hear the guys behind her making sexual jokes?

If he was telling it to her she would have every right to feel offended and report to the authorities. But that's not the case here.

If you made a penis joke to a friend, would you want — or indeed, expect — to be fired for it?

Thanks for speaking up, contributing your viewpoint on HN and not attacking me.

I'm sorry to hear your employer deciding to not to work with you on this and I hope they reconsider, bring you back on and dealing with it constructively.

For context, I'm a developer evangelist.

That means I'm an advocate for developers, male and female. While I hear abou demanding bosses with impossible deadlines for product launches, I also hear about the experiences of women working at startups.

In both cases I offer suggestions, ideas and mentoring to help the developers become problems solvers. Sometimes the answer is our API or not answering email after 7pm while other times it about being assertive and shedding impostor syndrome.

The forking joke set the stage for the dongle joke.

Yes, this time I decided I didn't want to argue my perspective. I decided instead to accept it bothered me and took action based on the PyCon Code of Conduct. It sounds like if I'd said something about the forking you would have denied it having a sexual association. Not sure if I smiled but I'm also unsure what facial expression you would have expected.

I just got done writing my blog post you can read here: http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-dont...

See you next year.

If you report a crime to the police and as a result the person gets sent to prison did you send them to prison? Of course not.

She reported something that happened (which the person in question doesn't deny) - that's a reasonable thing to do.

The neutral party you ask for should then be the employer who can listen to both sides of the story and work out the appropriate way forward. If they felt there was damage to their reputation it feels a public apology from both the individual and the company, plus possibly some sort of corrective training seems more than enough.

Instead, based on what I've read the employer has over reacted and that balance didn't happen, but you can't blame that on the person reporting the event.

Yes it's utterly shitty that he lost his job over this and it really shouldn't have happened but it's not fair to lay it at her door in this way.

Now, if I take said picture and hand it to the police, they investigate, then I've done the right thing: The justice system gets to work and the decision about the appropriate punishment is made by a neutral party in due process. This is how we handle things since we've become a civilized society.

Don't get me wrong: The OP may be right and the guys made inappropriate jokes - but she's at least partially wrong as well. She didn't give them any chance to hear their side, maybe clear up any misunderstanding - instead she called for the lynch mob. That's the point I'm criticizing. The way I see it is that she's to blame as well. It's a pity since she's right in what she wanted to achieve, but her means didn't justify that goal.

I agree that it wasn't the best way to handle it (at least publishing the photo wasn't, I'm fine with the rest) but that's different to being held responsible for all actions that follow.

The person in question has responsibility for what they did, the company has responsibility for what they did. There are many points during this whole process where the chain can be broken, not just one.

The company had plenty of other options about how they handled it and firing was in no way a foregone conclusion.

As an aside it is another reminder that we now live in an age where we may all be held to account for things that would otherwise have passed largely unnoticed. There needs to be adjustment on all sides - we all need to start acting in ways we'd be happy to be publicised, we all need to be aware that publicising others behaviour might have wider consequences than we'd initially anticipate, and we all also need to be a little more balanced in our judgement when it comes to behaviour which might be closer to an isolated incident than representative of something more.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/12/newtown-shooter-face...

And if it's different than the one stated so far, why?

What would you do in this day if you were a company? No one wants to be dealing with a potential major sexual harassment case ever. This country is based on such limited knowledge of how to communicate with one another, it is upsetting. This post upsets me because she just sounds like a typical American person in that she used others to attack someone, rather than talking to him. Judging by his response, he was not some crazy college kid with aggression problems that would have physically attacked her.

The tech community is not perfect, but I think people in tech are far more open to talking through things than any other spots. SF especially. Maybe these people are not from the bay area,.. I don't know.

I hope I'd also look at the cost and difficulty of recruiting decent developers, the opportunity to possibly salvage the PR situation (which I think a constructive approach might get us, unlike sacking someone) and the fact that there seems to be genuine remorse and that the individual in question seems like a reasonable guy who did an unreasonable thing rather than some arsehole.

The police here would be the pycon would acted responsibly and dealt with the issue accordingly.

But the report was not towards the police but towards a potential mob of vigilantes, namely the internet at large and an opinionated group of followers which would probably be outraged by the way the report was crafted.

It would be closer to printing hundreds of tracts and poster and posting them in the neighborhood and distributing them to concerned people hoping someone from law enforcement would see them than reporting to the police.

The employer is all but neutral in this issue, the neutral party is obviously the PyCon staff and they did their part as expected from reasonable and sound responsible people, respecting the privacy of everybody involved.

I wonder how you can not see how her actions lead to his demise.

And this after you make "sock down your pants" jokes on Twitter. The irony is delicious.

I hope the OP sues you for reproducing his likeness without his permission. PyCon is, after all, a private gathering.

Nope, I never said it.

Nope, she misheard me.

Nope.

Nope.

Nope.

Fuck you, pay me.

Can you say sexual harassment lawsuit?

LOL. This woman is bad news.

She clearly broke the PyCon rules with her public shaming as well. I hope they don't invite her back.

This is exactly the type of attitude that perpetuates the idea that a woman should not say or do anything if uncomfortable.

see: https://twitter.com/jackdanger/status/314604363614134272

I'd even go an extra step and say IMHO what she did was misplaced sexism as she misinterpreted and misrepresented the situation and would probably not have done anything if women were making the same dongle joke.

If someone is making you uncomfortable, you say something. You don't go nuclear just because someone else, somewhere else called you a whore.

Option 1 - Hire a guy Option 2 - Hire a woman, and out of nowhere she'll cause me trouble with some random harassment charge.

Harassment is a SERIOUS offense. If everything becomes harassment then it stops being serious and it becomes a reason to not hire women.

How many men have caused a stir on a conference over sexism? EVERY single woman so far behaved correctly, in every single conference?

Or is it the fact that when women misbehave men laugh it off (cause it's cool, right? She made a pass at me, right? right?) and women get on a stupid crusade over ANYTHING and EVERYTHING???

She OVERHEARD them talking. Completely different matter.

I, for one, am offended when people eavesdrop me.

I have been to many conferences, and have, many times, told something to someone that I thought might have been funny. While I don't think I have ever said something that I would think was harmful I nonetheless have said things that I would be embarrassed of they went "public", because I simply would not have wanted to be the focus of the attention.

I have read Adrian's blogpost, and she doesn't give enough detail for me to know just what it was about the comments that was offensive. Whether they were or not, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that the two developers were expecting their conversation to be quasi-private.

You've never wished the people behind you in a movie theater would hush up?

Unlike your explanation states you did not let the staff resolve it. You took matters into your own hands, and served up justice vigilante style. Just as someone has to watch their mouth, you also have responsibilities. I am sure you are sorry mr-hank lost his job. But just like his dumb ass comments posting photos cannot be undone.

You want to do something that fits with your supposed goal set that you keep talking about. Own up to your behavior and take a stand for what is actually right. His company did nothing to defend him for fear of looking bad. At the same time that company and other companies allow behavior that you are so opposed to happen in offices all over the bay.

If you want to be a leader than take an honest evaluation of what beliefs are for the better whole and what you are taking personally and reacting to. I am embarrassed that you are representing us as a female activist because you are actually making it HARDER to gain equality in the space.

If she really wanted to make a point she could have turned around and told the guy that what he said was not OK. Not only would it would have driven the point across that some people are more sensitive than others, but it would be treating the guy like a fellow human being.

I actually read more of Adria's site and I read http://butyoureagirl.com/13871/success-against-the-odds-fill....

"Because of my experiences growing up, I have triggers. This means that I’m always scanning for danger; for situations that seem like something from the past that could hurt me. When I recognize something that matches, I can overreact and feel intense fear, anger or anxiety."

Which explains a lot. I am shocked to read about Adria's experiences as a child, and would urge everyone to go a little easier on her.

She is aware of her behavior and that she overreacts, and also has to take responsibility when she chooses to be a public figure. She makes her choices very clear, and her actions have very real repercussions, just as her childhood experiences had repercussions on her.

30%.Just remember that.

By the way, me personally, I would have told them to stop being ass holes. However, many women would not. Many women would silently put up with that kind of horse-shit, as Tey do, daily. You really have to wake up, guys. Wake Up. It's not you, who are spending your lives looking over your shoulders. It really isn't. So. Whilst I do not agree it was the best of actions, I wholly defend the right of anyone to take it. And will therefore stand by them if they do.

I just want to highlight that you're supporting an exaggerated public shaming for people who were just exchanging words in a semi-private conversation. Not even particularly offensive words at that. Words that are and were clearly misconstrued.

And you defend this behaviour because many women suffer sexual abuse? Tell me, should preachers be forbidden from speaking in public because some people were caned by priests as children too? Should visible minorities be cautious around everyone because some people have been mugged by black men?

Joking around is immature, particularly sexist and racist humour, but it's not irresponsible. Suggesting that public witch-hunts are the way to solve these problems is just plain irresponsible.

No but I will be speaking up and attacking you.

> bring you back on and dealing with it constructively.

And by constructively you mean maybe they'll post his picture on the billboard and call him publicly an "ass clown".

So yeah, how about them insults? Is PyCon a conference where taking face shots of attendees and posting them for the whole world to see then calling them ass clown?

> to not to work with you on this and

Not to work with him on what. What kind of double speak is that? "Don't use toilet humor when talking to your co-workers at a conference". Yes, I hope his employer 'works' hard with him on that.

> I also hear about the experiences of women working at startups.

Do you hear about backstabbing, public humiliations and taking advantage situations for personal profit at the expense of other's lives?

> Sometimes the answer is our API or not answering email after 7pm while other times it about being assertive and shedding impostor syndrome.

Sometimes the answer is public flogging in a middle of the street.

> The forking joke set the stage for the dongle joke.

You are a developer's evangelist and you don't know what "forking" a repo is. You might consider filing a lawsuit against Github and Linus Torvalds because that's all they do. One invented it then other place is where forking happens all day every day.

> It sounds like if I'd said something about the forking you would have denied it having a sexual association.

And that is because ... it doesn't. Your title has 'developer' in it, you should at least find out what forking really means.

Since Sendgrid continues to employee you, I'd encourage any developers using Sendgrid to switch to an alternative like Postmark or Mailgun. Let Sendgrid know why you are switching.

For the record, I agree with you that those jokes were inappropriate, but what you did was orders of magnitude more inappropriate and unprofessional.

I also fail to see what she had to gain by this directly. Best case, she achieves community awareness and growth (which doesn't seem to be happening judging by the threads I've read) and worst case being vilified for speaking out (which is happening).

Jobs are always on the line. If you are at a conference, you are the face of your company and your actions reflect on that company.

Yes, there are massive issues with women in the tech community, but colossally overreacting to something that isn't even wrong isn't going to help, it's just going to create an atmosphere of paranoia and distrust.

You didn't want to argue your perspective so you went full nuclear on people. And that full nuclear got someone fired, simply because you didn't want to have to talk to them. I can understand you may be sick and tired of arguing your perspective with other people, but I hope you've learned something as well here as I doubt that this was the outcome you were looking for.

Outright pathetic.

Others are focusing on whether or not you can take a joke or if you should have discussed it with the people you publicly shamed instead. We know you weren't really offended, that wasn't the point. This was a prop for you. This is unfair to women that face will discrimination, prejudice, and so on that we should all denounce. This is just opportunism potentially gone awry.

I could applaud you for actually coming to HN and making a statement but what you wrote is just smug and serving.

adriarichards 473 days ago

We all should realize it's Twitter, home of public flame wars.

It seems she had a pretty good understanding of what she did, and from this we can assume she acted with intent.

Anyone who makes up a title like this is an ego-maniac, regardless of their sex. Good thing that the start-up you work for is crap and won't get acquired any time soon. Once you hit the job market, HR departments and hiring managers will remember your name and I doubt you will get many call-backs.

A "trigger" is something which leaves the sufferer (and it is suffering) with absolutely NO choice in how we react.

How many terrible jokes have been made along the lines of "I'd like to put my hard drive in her RAM slot".

Jokes like that were old and corny 20 years ago.

HINT: though it uses the terms "hard drive" and "RAM slot", as used, they don't actually refer to a hard drive or a RAM slot.

It's entirely reasonable to know what forking and dongles mean in the normal sense, yet to hear comments about "forking" and "big dongles" and understand they're not being used to refer to the usual things.

And your defense of possible misunderstanding is, to be blunt, far short of logical. You don't know that he didn't defend himself to the organizers and that they rejected his defense (unless I've missed something).

Shhhhh.

Take it outside.

You're not funny, and I can't hear the talk.

I'm going to call the conference police if you don't quiet yourselves.

Or something to that effect? If somebody persists after you ask them to quit, fine, blast away.

It's actually a serious offense and even a crime in other parts of the world, the kind that can send you in jail for quite some time, and on many websites and communities this could get you a ban.

And you are deserved to be forked for being a nasty person. And no, your repos on Github (if you have any) are not even worth to be starred.

This guy has all rights to feel angry about what she did, but this is not a welcome comment and he should probably be reported to the law enforcement authorities.

I am usually able to sigh, roll my eye and close the browser tab but your comment 'deserved to be forked' demanded a response.

Your post wasn't intelligent, wasn't constructive and offended me.

Actually, no, you are not. You are - by definition - a terrorist, applying unlawful use of force or violence against people with the intention of intimidating or coercing groups of people and societies for ideological or political reasons.

The fact that you do have supporters shows the sad state of affairs this world is in.

Terrorists don't all wear beards and have TNT strapped around their waists while piloting hijacked planes, you know?

if you're serious about that, promote this petition as hard as you did the damaging photo: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/374/323/889/give-alex-reid-hi...

One thing I will say is, that your former employer is crazy not to have your back. Is there no way they can change their mind? (I am not sure you would want your job back because they really let you down)

I think you've gone too far to apologise now, but you should try and think hard about whether you were right at all to do this.

What actually was the 'forking joke'? Because he seems to claim there wasn't one, but you think there was. He's made a claim about what he said, do you remember what it was?

Enjoy your notoriety.

There's nothing here that merits censorship or violates the rules. On the contrary, if the article itself is worthy of inclusion on HN then the interaction between Hank and Adria certainly is.

All we have so far are assertions that these remarks were sexual in nature, but not evidence. I'm not saying I'd be surprised if one, or both of them were (knowing all too well the way men sometimes are, at these conferences).

But really, it shouldn't be too hard for you to just tell us exactly what you heard, along with any supporting context that you feel would help us understand your position.

because there was no "forking" joke. There was I'd fork that guy's repo. If you don't know what forking and repo means, well to put it bluntly you're out of place @ a dev conf.

I fail to see how either of which is sexist, although if strained may be sexual. And also Adria made the much more lewd big dongle joke herself on Twitter a while back...

It's all in comments here

If you think that, you're reading way too much into my question.

Weeell, except you didn't. Or did you miss the part about how PyCon doesn't condone public shaming?

Maybe you should work on that.

This is code for professional bullshitter. We (the real developers) don't need any "evangelizing." Our work speaks for itself.

Know Copyright and publishing laws when you comment... just sayin'

I doubt they would invite you or let you attend next year. If they do, they shall have to rent a bigger venue just to make room for you and the empty seats around you. Not joking. I wouldn't want to be near you, leave alone having a conversation. Not the hate, it's fear to be fired or maybe sued for sexual harassment.

What do I mean? His employer before evaluating the situation jumped the gun and fired guy with 3 kids to support. That is fucked up.

Adria's online presence will forever be marred by this. It seemed like a win first, and her intentions were perhaps good, but it turned out to be a bad decision. I think she will regret this when the dust settles.

Anyone know the name of the company, I couldn't read it on the badge, so that next time I see them a at conference I have a nice 'pleasant' talk with them?

Some from the tech community might be immature and like to make stupid jokes. What else they don't like is bullying and irrational and bureaucratic decisions. I have a feeling this will come back and bite them harder than they expected.

Guy's company is PlayHeaven.

If I see either one of their companies' booths I will make sure to have 'a nice' chat with them.

She is a horrific bully who has destroyed an innocent person's career to advance her own personal publicity and branding. She's a bad person. I would never hire her or have anything to do with her or anyone who defends her insane, horrific and unethical actions. I also will have nothing to do with PyCon henceforth.

They have made their beds. Let them lie in them.

Back up your opinion with self-sufficient evidence and justification. It does not suffice to just point at what others have done.

Do you actually know what she was fired over? All I've seen in a statement that her employment was terminated.

For all I know the situation went like this:

SendGrid: We think you handled this situation badly, and since you were there as a SendGrid employee, that reflects badly on the company. We'd like you to make a public apology about they way in which you dealt with it. Adria: No SG: We're not asking Adria: But I'm not doing it SG: Then we don't think you can continue working here.

Which is to say, she may have been terminated because of how she handled the situation within SendGrid, rather than what she did at the Con. Or maybe not. I don't think we've been given enough information to know & nor are we ever likely to unless Adria posts it.

Edit: I've just read the more detailed blog post (http://blog.sendgrid.com/a-difficult-situation/) and it seems your interpretation is right.

http://pycon.blogspot.com/2013/03/pycon-response-to-inapprop...

Key phrase: "No individuals were removed from the conference, no sanctions were levied."

And she was being a hypocrite, as she made phallic jokes on her twitter account...

I hope sendgrid fires her. Either way I'm not using any of their products anymore.

Boldly speaking, you are a moron. She might feel offended, but i don't think she has any right to be upset.

https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425

>@skwashd you should put something in your pants next time...like a bunch of socks inside one...large...sock. TSA agent faint

Please go away and take your name-calling someplace else. I prefer Hacker News to be a location for civil dialog.

It's apparently alright for women to make sexual references in a public setting (e.g. Twitter), but when men do it amongst themselves in a crowd it's just wrong?

Did she ever once say "Hey guys, can you keep it down?" or how about "Your jokes are making me un-comfortable, please stop."? Nope, instead she tries to get people to take out their pitchforks and torches. This is what she does.

The ends do not justify the means... especially when that one sentence was completely unnecessary. He could easily have taken a more civil tone... maybe said "Your pandering to her makes me feel uncomfortable"... the same way that you are suggesting that she approach the topic.

Please take your boldness elsewhere. This is HN, name calling is frowned at here.

I hope you find a new job soon. Don't let this unexpected bump keep you down.

PlayHaven could have decided to be the responsible party and handle the incident constructively, but they did not want to do that. Even Adria, who still appears to think that the public shaming was a good thing to do, also thinks that PlayHaven should have not fired the person.

So please, if you think firing mr-hank was unreasonable, please let PlayHaven know that, and also how this might affect your image of PlayHaven.

http://www.playhaven.com/contact

Sure, PlayHaven fired this dude. But guess what? Their employee was being marked as sexist all over Twitter? To them, they might not have had a choice.

But Adria, she had a choice. She could have kept her mouth shut like 99% of everyone else who probably also heard the remarks, but instead she decided to post to twitter to whore out her name more, and then perfectly finds herself in the spot light leaving "logical" people to blame PlayHaven for what happened.

Nope, Adria is out of line, hypocritical at best, and now men won't trust women around them in the tech industry. Two steps back for everyone. Bravo.

It would certainly be awkward, but it would be a pretty big PR hit not to take them back.

Adria is a shitty person for getting you fired over this.

Please go away and take your name-calling someplace else. I prefer Hacker News to be a location for civil dialog.

Stop apologizing.

You don't think he would have been fired for a black or Nazi joke ?

Just kidding. I make dongle jokes all the time.

>She gave me no warning, she smiled while she snapped the pic and sealed my fate.

> As a result of the picture she took I was let go from my job today. Which sucks because I have 3 kids and I really liked that job.

So she took the joke way too seriously and in turn caused you to lose your job. Great way to 'teach' someone to make a joke about dongles, right?

Even sadder that your employer doesn't see things any other way. In fact, you should be happy that you are not employed by people who easily fall to emotional terrorism. Might have been a great coding job but it's better to work with people who think like you and not just code like you.

And she REALLY hurts other women when they have legitimate causes of concern.

Also, she makes ALL men uncomfortable.

PyCon was 20% female this year which was a remarkable milestone. Along with this milestone came an amplification of why it was so hard for PyCon to reach that milestone.

This was not an isolated issue; Titus' post provides a good summary of the general harassment women faced at PyCon http://ivory.idyll.org/blog/pycon-2013-and-codes-of-conduct....

And, yeah, blame your employer for making a poor judgement call on this. If I were you I wouldn't want to work for a place that fires people over Internet drama anyway.

> In the United States [..] consent is not as a rule required to photograph people in public places and publish those photos. Hence, unless there are specific local laws to the contrary, overriding legal concerns (e.g., defamation) or moral concerns (e.g., picture unfairly obtained) [..]

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Photographs_of_ide...

Try getting away from Wiki and read your local laws. PyCon happend in California, which is so ubersensitive about privacy that even call centers and debt collectors have to inform you and recieve consent to record your conversations.

Having been a vidographer and photographer for bands in and around California, it's a pain in the ass all the legal forms and releases you need to obtain in order to publish the likeness of someone. There's a reason "extras" are paid in California.

First, for taking his photo without consent, then turning around and using it in an official disciplinary capacity - totally against the law. Whatever his wages were, she may be liable for paying him out of her pocket as a result.

Second, she even admitted here in this thread - she took something as being sexual that totally wasnt - so she's made up her mind that this was offensive and inappropriate. Shame on her, and I do truly hope that she joins the ranks of unemployed soon for her actions (turnabout is fair play after all, arent we trying for equality?)

Lastly, she admits in her blog post that they were talking amongst themselves and she overheard something and decided arbitrarily and without invitation to join the conversation. Having done so, it's also your responsibility, not the trade show organizers, to attempt to resolve the situation which she clearly refused to and even refuses to acknowledge - she should have asked them to knock it off.

Instead, she chose to rally the troops instead of talking with authorities directly and skip the step of asking them to knock it off - it's only harassing if they persist.

But paying extras sounds like publishing likenesses in commercial work, which is (AFAIK) usually under a different part of law than publishing noncommercial photos.

And recording conversations on the phone is nothing to do with anything pictorial, that comes under telephony and wiretapping laws.

And "official disciplinary capacity"? What does that mean? What office was she holding what discipline did she decide on?

Harrasment? Overhearing? Troops rallying? Responsibility to talk? All irrelevant to picture publishing, I suspect.

"Even in countries that have no law of privacy, there is a moral obligation on us not to upload photographs which infringe the subject's reasonable expectation of privacy."

It was immoral of her to publish that photo, but not illegal.

- Source: http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm

That's about the USA, which is where they were, but I'd be hard pushed to see a public conference as a place with a reasonable expectation of privacy even in a country with no law about photographic privacy.

They turned around and made a post which is causing you harm.

In 49/50 states, it isn't. So there is no leg to stand on.

Unless he was employed in Montana.

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=lab...

All that section says is that if the guy files a claim with the labor commissioner for wrongful discharge, then the commissioner can "take assignment" of his claim, meaning they can sue the company in his name. It doesn't really say anything about whether his firing was OK or not.

A better reference on at-will employment in California is at http://business.ca.gov/StartaBusiness/AdministeringEmployees....

Edit: s/employment/discharge/ (doh)

Truth is a defense. Did they not do what she reported them as saying?

(NB: I'm not saying I approve of her behavior, but trying to paint her as legally responsible is out there.)

Sue her individually for defamation et al. and tie her up in court. Let her pay the REAL price for wielding a public, 10,000 follower strong opinion against a privately intended comment.

It just makes you look craven.

I can not believe you lost your job.

You have to laugh at how far things have come. :/

The person involved in this case does not deny the claim.

Evangelist? please.

Worse, in my book. If you differ: Why?

Best of luck to you regardless.

You're a doormat now, congrats.

It would be appropriate to submit the poster's contact information to the San Francisco police, and perhaps the FBI.

In the meantime, please flag the parent's post into oblivion. To do so, click 'reply' to the parent's post. Above the text entry field is a link that says 'flag'.

Calling that a "death threat" looks an over-reaction on a par with Ms Richards' original one to me.

Someone wrote an article (that I can't find) about how she felt bad about all those times she overreacted to an innocent remark, and how it was probably counterproductive. It's hard to filter the harmless dongle jokes from the sheer volume of real sexism that surrounds us.

Meeting her halfway with empathy and communication was the right thing to do.

...what? How much effort do you put in to finding everything sexist?

This ladybug mounting another ladybug outside my window? Sexually oppressive. The female ladybug should be capable of choosing which position is preferable for her. This pencil in my hand? It's long. Hence a phallic object. Hence sexually intimidating. I am forced to involuntarily hold penises as I write on paper. This mouse under my palm is being raped as it has no matter of choice by which I guide it and its wheel (symbolic of the empowering clitoris, which I voluntarily scroll with) to accomplish my task. It has no say in when I click it or how I click it. Hence I am depriving it of free choice. Hence I am raping it.

Less effort than you put in to dragging out absurd strawpeople.

Are even logical fallacies supposed to be politically correct now? That's hilarious. Googling strawpeople gets me a New Zealand band.

Only, it's changing the age-old term strawmen to "strawpeople" that is the language policing here.

And it was you yourself who said that language policing proves one wrong.

Sure, you do indeed have the right to prove yourself wrong.

Women in tech often are exposed to a culture of subtle denigration. A single incident may not seem like a big deal (and, in fact, isn't), but when it's the eighth one that day...

what the employers should do is poll their company employees and customers and target audiences/industry and let the population decide both the guy that got fired and Adria's fate.

I bet that we'd find an overwhelming support for the guy RETAINING his job, and Adria REMAINING fired.

The problem with this case is one woman, with a huge social following and thus a LOUD COMMUNICATOR in the social media sense had a disproportionate affect on people around her. It's always those who yell loudest who seem to get disproportionate attention and time. The best punishment for someone like her is to be shunned and ignored, thus taking away her ability to abuse the power she wields.

As another father of 3 children I am EXTREMELY OFFENDED by her reaction and the impact it has had on the guy who happened to be unlucky enough to be sitting behind her.

His wife, and all 3 of his children, not to mention himself will be put through an incredible amount of stress to their marriage and family due to the loss of his job, and that is simply UNACCEPTABLE just because she couldn't keep out of their business and do what every other mature person would do, ignore them.