Adria Richards's statement quoted in TFA is self-serving, disingenuous, and contains some obviously false statements, but oh well, so what. Passing judgement on this incident is beneath me (I strive to one day act as I preach). Adria, and arguably dongle-joke-guy, made some mistakes, and the use of this incident to third parties like myself is to take a moment to contemplate how to avoid making similar mistakes.
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Some choice snippets from her statement:
"I have always tried to conduct myself in a way that builds bridges for everyone"
Almost no one can honestly claim this, and we've seen plenty of comments in the past weeks which, if true, show that Adria is no paragon of virtue, including a few from activist feminist women in tech who feel that Adria's high-profile unreasonable belligerence has repeatedly damaged the cause of equality. The claim seems likely to be a self-serving lie, although perhaps she believes it herself.
"the severest of consequences have manifested"
Seriously? You can't imagine any more-serious consequences for starting a fight with someone? Idiot.
"we can welcome newcomers, women and people of color"
Good job, focus on YOUR visible minority statuses. Way to build bridges for everyone.
"all of these issues have reasonable, and, I think, easily reached solutions"
That's fascinating optimism. Easily reached, eh. Seems so delusional to me that I think she's lying.
"conference spaces are workplaces!"
Well, yeah, some people are working at conferences, but some people are not. Public parks are someone's workplace too, and so are strip clubs. What's your point?
"I want to be an integral part of a diverse, core group of individuals"
Yeah, I bet she wants to be a core individual. Way to focus on your own ambitions.
"I want to be ... part of a ... group ... that comes together in a spirit of healing and openness"
This is... not consistent with much of her publicized behaviour. Is it?
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So, I don't give a rat's ass about Adria, Sendgrid, the guy who got fired, his company, whatever. And honestly I think most of HN shouldn't either. This is still a tempest in a teapot, ignore it. Passing judgement, a thing I love to spend time doing, is spectacularly unproductive most of the time, and often is damaging to your own mental flexibility (even aside from the time wasted).
And PyCon, which I do care about, seems to have had a proportionate level of response (deal with the incident reasonably and in line with policy, also update policy to clarify that public shaming isn't wanted either), and is getting on with more interesting things. So, the incident in question has taken care of itself.
The interesting part for all of us, I believe, is whether we can learn anything useful to ourselves. For myself, I can remind myself that throwing javelins is dangerous, because it can bite you, and building bridges is usually more effective. And though I'm personally not a huge fan of the wording of PyCon's conduct policy, that's fine, it's their con and I see the advantages, so for myself I can remind myself that reasonable people hold this position, and if I don't want to offend those people and start fights, I should take that into account.
>>>>"we can welcome newcomers, women and people of color"
>> Good job, focus on YOUR visible minority statuses. Way to build bridges for everyone.
She started with newcomers. I'd argue that focusing on minorities when building bridges for everyone is more important than focusing on those that already have bridges.
I think you're largely ignoring how micro-aggressions come into play here. Also, shaming someone on twitter can only be considered bad if you think she did it knowing the outcome.
More at fault are sendgrid and the companies that fired employees over this. Also, her publicly shaming them is nothing compared to the backlash, sexism, racism, and harassment she has faced.
My initial reactions were a lot like yours, then I put myself in her shoes. I think she felt like she could make a difference by publicly shaming them and had no idea they'd encounter such harsh backlash, nor that she would encounter such backlash.
If I'm right in assuming those things, Adria Richards didn't really doing anything that bad.
But that's kind of the point; she knew what she was doing and that's exactly why she did it, she just hoped that in mislabeling it a women's issue, people would be empathetic to the fact that she was shaming someone that couldn't possibly set the record straight before the internet started hacking away at him. You can't just wrap anything with a feminist bow and expect people to say "Yeah, totally justifiable to shame that nameless guy in his company t-shirt that didn't actually do anything sexist in front of thousands of people." To add insult to injury, her self-made claims of being Joan of Arc and her out-of-touch legion of supporters humiliated the guy further into needlessly apologizing more in one post than she has in a week after he lost his job over it.
Starting wars on Twitter doesn't make you a crusader, it makes you no better than most of the people insulting your willingness to use your celebrity against everyday people just trying to enjoy a conference they were there to help support, all because you couldn't just say "Come on, guys."
>>> "we can welcome newcomers, women and people of color"
>> Good job, focus on YOUR visible minority statuses. Way to build bridges for everyone.
> She started with newcomers.
Should we not worry about queer folk? Or the socially disadvantaged? Fair point about the "newcomers" notwithstanding, it doesn't count as building bridges when the only bridges you mention are the ones that would benefit yourself.
(Not that it's wrong to right wrongs that affect you personally, not at all. But combining that self-serving bias with a pretence of inclusivity is a direct route to a 100% grade on my bullshit-o-meter.)
> I think you're largely ignoring how micro-aggressions ...
> ... shaming someone on twitter ...
> ... my initial reactions were a lot like yours ...
I think you're largely ignoring the text of the comment to which you're pretending to reply. My comment, with respect to Adria, addressed only her letter. I claim that her letter was full of bullshit, both in-context and without context. I've made my own judgements about her other actions, but in fact I have not published those opinions. Maybe you'd like to post your comment as top-level, so you don't hijack the context of my comment?
> Also, her publicly shaming them is nothing compared to the backlash, sexism, racism, and harassment she has faced.
I will note that I agree with this, but consider it completely beside the point in a discussion of Adria's behaviour, especially all of the behaviour that preceded the backlash.
Well, if he was wearing his company's t-shirt, I think it was a workplace for him. Having said that, I don't agree with what she did and I don't believe he should have been fired.
> Well, if he was wearing his company's t-shirt, I think it was a workplace for him.
That's kind of a weird conclusion; most of the times I've seen people wearing company T-shirts (that weren't part of an employer-mandated uniform) have been decidedly non-workplaces.
Adria Richards's statement quoted in TFA is self-serving, disingenuous, and contains some obviously false statements, but oh well, so what. Passing judgement on this incident is beneath me (I strive to one day act as I preach). Adria, and arguably dongle-joke-guy, made some mistakes, and the use of this incident to third parties like myself is to take a moment to contemplate how to avoid making similar mistakes.
-------------------
Some choice snippets from her statement:
"I have always tried to conduct myself in a way that builds bridges for everyone"
Almost no one can honestly claim this, and we've seen plenty of comments in the past weeks which, if true, show that Adria is no paragon of virtue, including a few from activist feminist women in tech who feel that Adria's high-profile unreasonable belligerence has repeatedly damaged the cause of equality. The claim seems likely to be a self-serving lie, although perhaps she believes it herself.
"the severest of consequences have manifested"
Seriously? You can't imagine any more-serious consequences for starting a fight with someone? Idiot.
"we can welcome newcomers, women and people of color"
Good job, focus on YOUR visible minority statuses. Way to build bridges for everyone.
"all of these issues have reasonable, and, I think, easily reached solutions"
That's fascinating optimism. Easily reached, eh. Seems so delusional to me that I think she's lying.
"conference spaces are workplaces!"
Well, yeah, some people are working at conferences, but some people are not. Public parks are someone's workplace too, and so are strip clubs. What's your point?
"I want to be an integral part of a diverse, core group of individuals"
Yeah, I bet she wants to be a core individual. Way to focus on your own ambitions.
"I want to be ... part of a ... group ... that comes together in a spirit of healing and openness"
This is... not consistent with much of her publicized behaviour. Is it?
-------------------
So, I don't give a rat's ass about Adria, Sendgrid, the guy who got fired, his company, whatever. And honestly I think most of HN shouldn't either. This is still a tempest in a teapot, ignore it. Passing judgement, a thing I love to spend time doing, is spectacularly unproductive most of the time, and often is damaging to your own mental flexibility (even aside from the time wasted).
And PyCon, which I do care about, seems to have had a proportionate level of response (deal with the incident reasonably and in line with policy, also update policy to clarify that public shaming isn't wanted either), and is getting on with more interesting things. So, the incident in question has taken care of itself.
The interesting part for all of us, I believe, is whether we can learn anything useful to ourselves. For myself, I can remind myself that throwing javelins is dangerous, because it can bite you, and building bridges is usually more effective. And though I'm personally not a huge fan of the wording of PyCon's conduct policy, that's fine, it's their con and I see the advantages, so for myself I can remind myself that reasonable people hold this position, and if I don't want to offend those people and start fights, I should take that into account.