> It really isn't.

If saying something like "I'd fork him on GitHub" is going to provoke you to publicly shame me, then you're difficult to be around.

With certain people, it's not just about crude jokes. I think Lyndsy Simon summed it up pretty well in his comment on Avdi Grimm's G+ post [1]. It's not possible to link to a comment, so I'll reproduce it here:

I was at a sprint on Monday, speaking to a female developer. She was discussing a project she'd worked on, and a coworker's method for solving a tricky problem. I said something along the lines of "So, which path did he take?". Her reply "She decided to..."

Oh, crap.

I honestly didn't mean to offend anyone, and I could tell she took issue with my presumption. Her tone was enough to call me out, and that was all that was said. About an hour later, I spoke with her away from everyone else and apologized. She said she didn't even notice, but I'm fairly sure she was sparing my feelings.

Now, think about that - my own inadvertent actions were approximately on par with the "jokes" that this is all about. That could be me be lambasted around the world.

I get that others feel excluded on a regular basis from things where I assume inclusion. I'm sorry, I do everything I can to make sure that's not the case when I'm involved - but the fact that someone who's "on their side" is concerned that their feet will be held to this fire is evidence that there is a lack of empathy from all sides of the debate, and that's a bad thing.

[1]: https://plus.google.com/104757475552569715504/posts/N81SaYUT...

Well, except nothing happened to him. He wasn't reported, he wasn't fired, his photo wasn't taken. So obviously it's not the same as those jokes.

That's irrelevant. Here's the concluding mark from the quote:

> but the fact that someone who's "on their side" is concerned that their feet will be held to this fire is evidence that there is a lack of empathy from all sides of the debate, and that's a bad thing.

He didn't say it was the same. He was commenting on his feelings and his perception of the social atmosphere.

Yeah, but he tried to use it as an example of something that could lead someone to shame him. But... it didn't happen. I don't know many people who would shame someone for assuming an unknown programmer is a man. It sucks, because it does kind of exclude women, but the default gender in our lexicon is aliased to "male." It was pretty tough for me to stop using it and start using "they" instead. It wasn't as tough for me to stop saying dick jokes in public.

And I'd like someone to link me to where these two guys, who are still anonymous by the way, are being "lambasted around the world." Because there's only one person being lambasted, and I'll give you one guess who it is.

I don't think me disproving their example, which is essential to their point, is irrelevant. I think it's very relevant.

> Yeah, but he tried to use it as an example of something that could lead someone to shame him.

Right.

> But... it didn't happen.

So?

> I don't know many people who would shame someone for assuming an unknown programmer is a man.

I don't know many people who would shame someone for saying "I'd fork him on GitHub" or making irreverent "dongle" jokes either. But clearly, they exist. And clearly, public shaming can do significant damage.

I understand this to be the central point of the GGGP.

> And I'd like someone to link me to where these two guys, who are still anonymous by the way, are being "lambasted around the world." Because there's only one person being lambasted, and I'll give you one guess who it is.

The first public remark in this whole incident was a lambasting of two individuals including a picture.

> I don't think me disproving their example

You didn't disprove anything. Whether or not the person quoted in the GGGP was publicly shamed was irrelevant. I stated this before and I'll say it one last time: the central point was the commenter's feelings and the commenter's perception of the social atmosphere. Those things are not dependent upon whether the commenter was publicly shamed, and yet, they can greatly affect the way we interact with each other.

Ugh, I really hate it when people split posts up like that. It gets unwieldy and strips the post of its overall context. I'm guilty of it, but I've been trying to cut back. It makes my posts smaller since I have to reply to the meat of it, you know? Not just its individual components.

Anyway, I'm saying that someone who would feel threatened by accidentally assuming a male gender might not necessarily be on their side, and their assumption might just be misguided. That invalidates the rest of his post, since it all relied on him feeling threatened when the threat doesn't exist.

I recognize the annoyance of splitting up a post. I find it incredibly difficult to avoid if I am to achieve the level of precision and concision that I want in my replies. This is partly due to my unimaginative writing and partly due to my desire to be as unambiguous as possible. Splitting out the post caters to both, but at the cost of continuity and a more pleasant reading experience.

What exactly does it take to have knowledge of the existence of a threat? In the case that has provoked all of this, there weren't any warning signs of impending doom. It therefore seams reasonable to me that nobody can know if a threat exists or not until after-the-fact. If it's unknowable, then what's the point in bringing it up anyway?

More importantly, this isn't an academic point. Feelings can't be invalidated. It doesn't make sense to speak of feelings or perceptions as invalid or valid---they simply exist in our minds. Perhaps they will go away or subside with more careful reflection and discussion, but that doesn't mean it is somehow invalid to acknowledge them. Particularly in this context, where presumably, this feeling was fostered by the recent kerfuffle.

The only thing we can say about the validity of the commenter's feelings or perceptions is that either they are truly what the commenter believes he felt, or the commenter is lying. The first is the only useful assumption given what we know; so we go with it.

So what if the commenter escaped without any public shaming? That has no impact on the commenter's feelings or perception at the time and therefore is missing the point of the commenter's reflection.

They were using their feelings to back up their point. If their feelings are misguided, the point they were trying to make is invalid. There is no proof that they would ever be publicly humiliated for misusing a pronoun, so to live in fear of that is misguided, and to use it as a reason why you should change your actions is ridiculous.

I still don't see any impending doom. Her original photograph tweet was retweeted... 20 times, I think? The only reason that guy was fired was because it was featured on HN through no action of Adria's.

I'm just going to say it. If you're going to compare these two things, you're crazy. Some assumption that is partly an accident of language, partly an accident of imagining others to be similar to your self without any other information, and the recognition of statistics, could in, any way, be shame worthy is just nuts.

Well yes... That's the point... I also think it's crazy that forking and dongle jokes are shame worthy. And yet, here we are.

Oh really? Well the question is, I am currently not sure how the person in question would react to a "Fork you" shirt. So...... that's the problem, that was my point. Where is the line? Because apparently that triggered.

But somehow, "example" is a foreign concept to you, since you sorta got stuck on the "crude joke" portion.

Way to go to miss the whole point.

The "line" for professional conduct is really simple.

If you are thinking about doing something ask yourself this question, "Would I do this if the CEO of our company was standing next to me".

My CEO? Absolutely. If I worked at another company, probably not. You have to judge the company you're in, and if someone takes offence, apologise, and be more mindful next time.

I don't think so. Many CEOs are irrational dunces and would react negatively if you admitted any flaws in the product or in yourself or anything of that nature. However, I don't think that as such makes it unprofessional. I think it's just common sense (which I'm aware is not so common).

Best behavior at offsite events... There's nothing inherently wrong with this and perhaps hard to argue with; however, it just seems like something a cog in a wheel would say ... nothing mean spirited intended, just rubs me the wrong way. :)

I'm with you there, was sorta dronish.