[jrm415]

I think most HN readers are intelligent enough to be able to consider the quality of advice as something separate from its source. That is, a source need not be perfect to be worth listening to.

Riot's obviously far from perfect, but this advice seems reasonable to me. Do you think following it is likely to lead to problems similar to Riot's? If there's some sort of causal link between empowering teams and failing to build an inclusive culture, I'd really find that interesting.

[fulafel]

Good point, and to penalise companies practicing transparency also means boosting those that work to hide problems and fake the context in these kinds of interviews.

[user-the-name]

What transparency are they being penalised for?

[colonwqbang]

The implication is that many companies have the problems which Riot are notorious for. They are just better at hiding them from public view.

[user-the-name]

Riot wasn't transparent about them either. They just failed at hiding them.

[colonwqbang]

I think that's what I wrote?

[an_opabinia]

> If there's some sort of causal link between empowering teams and failing to build an inclusive culture...

I don't know. Listen to yourself. There are a lot of companies out there that manage people well, and also didn't have such pervasive sexism problems. Let's talk about those instead.

And before you say no such company exists, listen, I personally just don't say and do obviously sexist shit. It's really easy! A lot of people go their whole lives without farting on someone's face, unlike that Riot exec. So of course if you can't get these basic things right - if you don't know you can't fart on people's faces - why are we elevating your opinion on "self managed teams"?

The bigger takeaway here is that their sexism problem was so much more devastating than their executives could have ever anticipated. It has miscolored every single aspect of what they do, a complete trashing of years of hard work by thousands of people. Why in the world would you ever want to work for these people? There are a lot of shitty MOBAs out there, truly, there is nothing they have besides a player count, that will someday be zero that no one else has or ever will have.

[mikkergp]

How do you determine quality of advice separate from the source without research? "seeming reasonable to me" is not science; In a vacuum, all you have is one case study that links this set of advice to a toxic culture.

[user-the-name]

Ignoring context is not a sign of intelligence.

[yesenadam]

The way you replied to a comment that mentioned people being "able to consider the quality of advice as something separate from its source" as if it had instead said "Ignoring context" breaks the guidelines in several places, e.g. Be kind...Please don't sneer...Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize etc.

[sidlls]

Advice always depends on the context, which includes the circumstances and history of the provider. The comment was a bit too mean (I'd have objected to "not a sign of intelligence"), but it's definitely not bad for the "ignoring context."

[yesenadam]

I've already given a reason in a sibling comment why I thought the phrase "ignoring context" was bad—it's a straw man: it acts like it's refuting a particular argument, but it's actually refuting something else.

> Advice always depends on the context

It's not clear to me whether that's true, or what it means exactly. It seems to mix at least two senses together, one (A) where it's self-evidently true, one (B) where it's not true. (I believe that's called equivocation, and it's a very common way of going astray, in philosophy, informal arguments etc)

(A) Yes, when someone tells you something, you should take into consideration who is telling you, like when you assess the credibility/reliability of what an unfamiliar website says. Not doing that would be very foolish.

(B) The sense of the original "quality of advice" quote: You can read a quote somewhere, not knowing where it came from, or it's some author you know nothing about, or anonymous etc, and think it's good advice, and follow it. Where it came from doesn't really matter, i.e. the quality of the advice is separate from its source. Good advice can come from a "bad" source, or bad from a "good" source.

[chris_wot]

I didn’t consider that to be an unreasonable response.

[yesenadam]

Ok thanks, fair enough. It seems to me a textbook example of attacking a straw man.

[Flex247A]

Ignoring context where necessary is a sign of intelligence.

[user-the-name]

It really isn't.

[nlitened]

I think you're missing some context here.

[chris_wot]

Ah, but was it necessary?