[lsmarigo]

Interesting that this one is doing well compared to the longer in-depth kotaku article a few days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17710188 - fwiw that piece has since been corroborated by a ton of former riot employees on twitter.

At the risk of sounding overly cynical, this is all true and everyone knows about it, people feign disgust at these articles but we're all complicit and understanding that this is way things are. If people are truly shocked by this I would contend they are either young and inexperienced or incredibly naive. This article will get some discussion going for a few days then we'll quietly return to the status quo. Nothing will change.

[eksemplar]

This is not the way things are though. I’m a manager, and I wouldn’t tolerate any of the painted stories for a second. In fact, none of the people in my network, which includes numerous large Scandinavian tech companies would tolerate anything of the sort.

You do see that stuff, of course, but you see it mainly in children aged 10-15, and otherwise only in private, because anyone who keeps it up after that will be unemployable.

If this is commonplace in America workplace, then you truely are an odd country.

[e_proxus]

There's obviously a scale of how things are at various workplaces, and how acceptable various things are in different cultures.

I've worked at a gaming company in Europe before where among other things female team members told me they've been asked by someone "how it feels to have the biggest boobs in the team" when another female in the team left.

The company later introduced an inclusivity effort and a code of conduct, and felt obliged to offer an AMA (because "new and scary thing" or whatever). They got questions like "should we now lower our hiring standards because we want to hire more women?" and "will there be any punishments if you break the CoC?" to which the answer was "of course not, don't worry". It felt like they just did these things to show an effort, not to actually follow through on them. Leadership was of course all white middle-age straight male.

[ethbro]

There are a number of studies that show that implementing new guidelines / yearly rote training is about the least effective thing you can do to change corporate culture.

The most effective tends to be non-adversarial, regular peer meetings where actual discussions can be had.

And yet every enterprise I've ever worked at has the same canned training systems. Or implements them in response to an incident.

[softawre]

Do companies care about being effective or care about covering their liability?

[mrguyorama]

The company doesn't have to care for certain specific/influential people at the company to care and make healthy culture.

Company culture is it's employees, All the way from CEO to janitor.

[stickfigure]

If this is commonplace in America workplace, then you truely are an odd country.

This statement seems odd in this context. While Riot may be headquartered in the US, all of the events in the article took place in Ireland.

[tinco]

It would indeed be very nice to assume this is somehow unique to the US. Europe has many countries that are notorious for their machismo, or their adherence to religious beliefs that are condescending towards women. I would say Scandinavian attitude is more likely to be unique in the world than vice versa.

[eksemplar]

You’re right, I should’ve said Ireland, or maybe “in game development” as these kind of stories often seem to originate from there.

[ritchiea]

Well she says in her account the large majority of people at Riot Games are lovely. The problem tends to be that there are powerful people who the company has strong reasons not to fire that perpetuate the worst behavior. Then the culture of ignoring the worst offenders allows other people to get away with little things. And the culture of ignoring things period, eats away at employees's sense of well being and sense that their workplace is fair and looks at them with respect.

I'm sure there are plenty of managers at Riot Games who wouldn't tolerate the stories for a second, but there are a few at or near the top that will and that can ruin an entire workplace.

[CydeWeys]

It's similar to what happened at Uber, and the solution will be the same -- Replace people from the top-down, starting with the CEO.

[nkozyra]

Unfortunately, it's often suppressed by those who are offended because they feel speaking up jeopardizes their job or acceptance with coworkers. Look how much is quietly endured in this very anecdote.

Cases like this exist, where managers are subsumed into the culture (or passively even actively foster it), but more common is behavior that's increasingly tolerated because nobody wants to speak up because of the cultural implications.

I realize it's gauche to complain about downvotes but ... what?

[danShumway]

There's a subset of users out in full force bravely downvoting anyone who sticks up for her or who dares to suggest that sexism might be an institutional, culturally widespread problem. Same reason this article went from the front page to the sixth in three hours.

Don't worry about it.

[glenneroo]

That's some crazy conspiracy-theory level shit happening... it was #1 a couple hours ago with 80ish votes... now ~215 and you're right, it's dropped off to the 6th or 7th page! Is it getting flagged a lot? Why would that happen in a few hours?

[rsynnott]

The gamergate crowd, I'd assume. Normal for this sort of story, unfortunately.

[berbec]

If we quickly get these articles off the front page, we don't have to think about it anymore. Then we can go back to living in the perfect world where sexism is invented by the left to bring down people in the poor, innocent bro culture.

[sctb]

Users often flag stories for crappy threads completely independently of the content, quality, relevance, or importance of the article.

[taurath]

Its shocking and horrifying to me that such a "young" company and in such liberal areas can be like this, and that it can in any way be tolerated. This culture absolutely comes from the top, in the form of who they've chosen to hire and choosing not to ever course correct (I imagine these sorts of things get brought up on a monthly basis).

Brandon Beck and Mark Merrill as the business guys are ultimately responsible for the culture allowed to flourish under them - they made the hires that made this possible, and not stopping it is on them. I look forward to an expedient response, because the fact that its gotten so far to come to a post like this means they've been negligent for a long time.

[oddthink]

I think there are self-reinforcing pockets out there. I'm a manager also, and I know if I heard any of this I'd stamp it down immediately. Heck, if I didn't, I wouldn't be doing my job, and I'd (hopefully) eventually be called on it myself.

[jjtheblunt]

American here: that sort of thing would be totally unacceptable here too, evidently except for bizarre cultures like that in the story, the bizarre aspect being the reason for the story, I'm guessing.

[mikestew]

people feign disgust at these articles but we're all complicit and understanding that this is way things are

Speak for yourself. As a manager, I've shut down far, far more innocuous things than described in the article. And now that I'm old and cranky, I'll call out those above me just as easily.

The problem is that I don't work at Riot, and likely never will, so I can hardly be accused of "knowing it's all true" nor of being complicit. I've briefly consulted at shops full of "bros", and usually ski-daddled right out (I mean, yeesh, do you never tire of being eternally 13 years old?). If they were over there calling each other "cocksuckers", I must not have stuck around long enough to find out.

So you're right about one thing: nothing will change, because decent people won't work at those places. Unfortunately, while all the decent human beings work elsewhere, some wide-eyed woman shows up once in a while.

[fatnoah]

>As a manager, I've shut down far, far more innocuous things than described in the article. And now that I'm old and cranky, I'll call out those above me just as easily.

Same here. Anything approaching the level of stuff in that article would be a "you're a hair's breadth away from looking for a new job" conversation. Hell, I had a crufty QA manager that reported to me that was a sweet human being, but I had to break him of the habit of referring to a dead server as being "tits up".

Going up the chain, I got into a very heated conversation with the EVP I reported to about his advice to a female Director that she needed to be "more agreeable". She was one of the most agreeable and accommodating people I'd ever worked with. Never mind that her peers (all male, myself included) were all very outspoken and opinionated, and never received similar advice.

TBH, if anyone described a company as having a "frat party atomosphere" that'd be an instant disqualification in my mind.

[jstummbillig]

Absolutely fucking not. If stuff like this happened at any place I ever worked at heads would roll, and fast.

These things are highly cultural: If you land at a place (like, apparently, Riot) and you are outnumbered by a few hundred people who are more or less accustomed to this behavior, the insanity is like a tidal wave and will realistically be impossible to stem and I wouldn't assume anyone to have the strength to do it (although I very much applaud anyone who does!)

The beautiful part is, that you don't. This is not normal. You do not have to endure this or be complicit. Do not work with or for assholes.

[ecshafer]

This isn't the way things are though, at least no where I've worked. I work in the finance industry as a software developer and if any of that stuff happened, there would be a huge outcry and some serious reprimands and firings.

In most of America things are nothing like that. These are immature people that got lucky and rich and still act like frat boys.

[trowawee]

Virtually every woman I know has stories like the ones in both this blog post and the original big Kotaku piece. The sheer pervasive depth of Riot's misogynistic culture is less common, but it's a difference in degree, not in kind.

[cimmanom]

And yet it’s not the case everywhere. Most women have passed through at least one workplace with a misogynistic culture. But there are also workplaces out there where women are treated professionally. I know because I’m a woman and have worked at a few of them. Misogyny isn’t some inevitable way the world has to be. It’s the result of choices and social signaling that treats it as acceptable.

[lsmarigo]

That's good to hear honestly.

In most of America things are nothing like that.

Can't speak to America at large but the game industry in California is absolutely like this, tech seems to be in a similar situation. It's a v complex problem with no apparent fix.

[noelsusman]

It's true that the majority of workplaces are not like this, but it's also true that damn near every woman has stories about behavior like this.

[stickfigure]

this one is doing well compared to the longer in-depth kotaku article

This article rocketed to 180+ points in two hours, yet it's already on the second page and falling fast. Moderator activity? Flagging? Some algorithmic quirk?

Possibly the first article had the same problem. There's enough hidden behavior on HN that I don't think you can trust individual story ranking to express anything about the HN community. Unfortunately, because this is an interesting story.

[dragonwriter]

> This article rocketed to 180+ points in two hours, yet it's already on the second page and falling fast. Moderator activity? Flagging? Some algorithmic quirk?

Judging from the topic and actual discussion, I would think the flamewar detector, which is algorithmic, but not a quirk.

[DatBear]

I'm sorry to hear that this is the way things are for you. I've never worked at a company with this kind of culture, and would leave one in an instant. This is disgusting, and shouldn't be the way things are.

[belorn]

Nothing will change because no one addressing or discussing the underlying causes for a culture that is drenched in gender roles and a corresponding social status ladder. All focus is being spent on either attacking "them" in as much generalized way as possible or defending "us" and the product of that fight is almost always status quo and further polarization.

Imagine if we instead used classical scientific method of measuring and correlating. What is the correlating attributes of an employee and advancement in a major game studio. What is the correlating attributes of social rank within the local culture and do those positive or negative correlate with with advancement and wages. Does fear of loosing social rank correlate to increased negative behavior? Are the multiple competitions over social rank and does there exist inter-sex competition in connection to competition where both men and women compete on the same ladder?

But I digress. The only change this kind of articles has can be seen in comments here and the linked one. More polarization, more generalization, and in a few days replaced with the next article to repeat over.

[TooBrokeToBeg]

> Nothing will change because no one addressing or discussing the underlying causes

What exactly are you describing? I don't see the same world you do. These stories are top concern and referenced in almost every forum from niche game communities to political discourse (ie everywhere). The underlying causes are assessed and measured in various countries (eg http://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-girl...) and is a topic of serious discussion. Seriously, what are you talking about, that you think it's being ignored in any fashion?

[belorn]

There is plenty of article like that which explore a single area of gender segregation and ask the question of why, and those that are close to a popular political subject like STEM get attention. What is missing is the larger context where those studies are cross referenced from multiple professions and applied with behavioral science to find common theory of underlying causes.

In the context of this (and the linked) article however, there is not much serious discussion that explore the cause of work place harassment. If I take a random article on school bullying it will contain a magnitude of deeper thinking and serious discussion compared to ones like this. A major reason for that is that school bullying is not politically polarized into a them vs us narrative, and society in general seems to be more focus on trying to understand why and how to prevent it from a perspective of behavioral science.

As long are this topic get more polarized we will likely not see any change.

[FlipperBucket]

I disagree. The larger context and underlying causes are not possible without the groundwork. The claims that it isn't being done reads like you just want the answers faster, while simultaneously implying that proper rigor is not being applied. I'm surprised that someone thinks this way. The studies in the nordic countries are far more aggressive than anything else in existence, but you seem unfamiliar. SMH

[fl0wenol]

The problem is that there aren't enough people with spines working in these companies to smack the heads of their colleagues when they act out inappropriately because they think they have their "dream job" and don't want to attract negative attention to themselves. This is just as bad as the people who flagrantly act out.

Then the worst get get no negative feedback and continue to be assholes, and the whole culture / Overton window of the environment is perceived to be shifted in that direction.

People need to take the perceived risk and tell each other to grow the fuck up. The worse thing that can happen is you end up getting a new job somewhere else less dysfunctional that you needed but deluded yourself into not getting sooner.

Usually this works in your favor in the long term no matter what.

[jmull]

> ...this is all true and everyone knows about it... I'm with you up to here. (Well, not everyone knows about it, but if you're paying attention to the issue at all yod do.)

> ...people feign disgust at these articles... My disgust is not feigned. So would guess many feel genuine disgust because it's disgusting behavior.

> ...but we're all complicit... I don't think so. One has to participate, condone or accept it to be complicit. Are you're making an oblique confession?

> ...and understanding that this is way things are. Absolutely not! There is no reason it needs to be this way, even at a game company.

> ...Nothing will change. Perhaps, perhaps not. It would certainly be a shame if nothing did. Riot may not find it as easy to continue in this vein as they have in the past now that it's been exposed to daylight. Many of their customers certainly don't care if even like it. But many do. Hopefully they will see the light and figure out how to grow up.

[ggregoire]

https://twitter.com/sama/status/1027272580925935616