[petea]

> But critics accused the company of abandoning an employee who had stood for what’s right,

Adria Richards was the one who tried to start a witch hunt by talking photos of the two individuals who were just minding their own business joking around.

Just imagine this. Think of all the jokes you share with your close ones in your private time, off the record. Say one day, a random person suddenly takes photo of you and declare you a racist, sexist, rapist etc for overhearing what's supposed offensive to them. No matter how harmless the joke is, the damage is done. You'll be branded as whatever the person says you are.

Is this the type of behavior we want to promote by saying this is just action? Think really carefully before you defend such action. It can really ruin lives.

[etjossem]

Nobody "tried start a witch hunt"; Richards never even accused them of being sexist, let alone tried to get them fired. And they were - exactly as you say - minding their own business.

Absent any 4chan backlash or overreaction by the companies in question, it would have been two dudes cracking tasteless jokes and someone pointing out how she didn't think it was cool. You probably see that on Facebook every day.

The fact that anyone got fired over this is what made this moment infamous.

[forgottenpass]

Nobody "tried start a witch hunt"

Publicly shaming someone on twitter isn't trying to start a witch hunt? Maybe it wasn't her intention, but sending that tweet is a knew-or-should-have-known type of situation. I have 6 tweets to my name in 7 years, and even I know how these things go down. Someone innocently or "innocently" mugs for the camera about something they like/don't like and their followers overreact.

[thesteamboat]

> Publicly shaming someone on twitter isn't trying to start a witch hunt?

Publicly shaming someone on twitter isn't necessarily trying to start a witch hunt. Most tweets do not start a witch hunt and it can be quite difficult to predict in advance the size of the reaction to any particular set of comments. Furthermore someone who is regular tweeting and used to sharing inconsequential thoughts has been lulled into a sense of banality since they have many many tweets that don't provoke an over reaction.

[jgeorge]

> Publicly shaming someone on twitter isn't necessarily trying to start a witch hunt.

"Trying", no. But Twitter is (and has been for a while) The Great Internet Outrage Machine, so I think someone with any level of Twitter chops at all would realize that any public shaming (especially on a hot button topic) would likely result in someone kicking off a witch hunt just because.

I don't think she was trying to start the fire, but she /did/ bring the matches.

edit: and just for clarification, I don't necessarily think her public shaming was wrong, but I do thing the resultant witch hunt was.

[lotharbot]

My approach to conflict resolution: if you have a problem with someone, you should first approach them privately. If that doesn't work, then bring in someone who is mutually trusted by both parties. If that fails, take the problem to the broader community.

The wider you spread an issue, the less it remains under your control. Turning around and saying semi-privately "could you guys tone it down" means the issue can potentially be resolved immediately, with no fallout, and with nobody knowing beyond those who could already hear the initial comment. Bringing in a couple of conference officials means the issue can potentially be resolved after a short investigation, and that any issues that arise at that time can be de-escalated. Posting to your 9,000 twitter followers means there are 9,000 people all passing judgment in their own way, 9,000 people who have the opportunity to escalate the issue or spread it even wider. It's very hard, once you've put someone's photo and "this person is behaving badly" in front of an audience of thousands, to completely resolve the issue in everyones' minds. It may not have been intended to be a witch hunt, but it had all of the right elements to become one, and it didn't need to.

[chasing]

If I remember the story correctly, part of the backlash was that she didn't point out to them how what they were saying wasn't cool. She went straight to the conference heads, presumably to get the dongle jokers kicked out or reprimanded in some way. And then she further escalated the situation by tweeting and blogging about it.

Now, maybe that was the right way to do it. Maybe it wasn't. And I don't know if she "tried to start a witch hunt." But she did put it into the public sphere. And people reacted.

[BrainInAJar]

> Adria Richards was the one who tried to start a witch hunt by talking photos of the two individuals who were just minding their own business joking around.

Adria was complaining on twitter about some sexist jerks. Those jerks are back to work and fine, and Adria is still unhireable for daring to complain about shitty behaviour.

[pyre]

> sexist jerks

As I recall it was a joke between two men about "forking" a male speaker's repo and the size of said speaker's "dongle." I'm not sure how that's sexist. Crass, yes. Sexist? Please inform me.

> Adria is still unhireable for daring to complain about shitty behaviour

Her job was basically a public relations role ("developer evangelist"), such an incident does a couple of things:

- Destroys any goodwill she had in the developer community.

- Shows that she's ineffective in dealing with public relations.

Also, in the middle of the incident she started using her employer's name to back her actions (e.g. she said that SendGrid "stands behind her)" and I'm pretty sure no one at the company gave her any approval to make such statements. That's another public relations no-no.

Also,

> Adria was complaining on twitter

This isn't exactly true.

1. One of the big reasons it blew up is that she turned it into a blog post on her personal blog.

2. She signed her blog post with "Yesterday the future of programming was on the line and I made myself heard" (though she later removed this from the post). (This Ars Technica article quotes the line[1]).

3. Several times she likened herself to Joan of Arc for making the Twitter post.

I'm not saying that she deserved to have her life ruined, but she had an active role in the initial push that gave this incident greater publicity.

[1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/how-dongle-jokes-...

[kefka]

So, how do you challenge this shame attack?

Do you shame them back? Like, "EXCUSE ME, I WILL NOT SLEEP WITH YOU"

Do you ignore them?

Perhaps, do you challenge them in court with a slander/libel charge?

What is the appropriate response in dealing with people (well, mainly feminists) who do these attacks?

[lotharbot]

The appropriate response to the mens' jokes is what the PyCon officials did when contacted -- they spoke privately to both of the men who had been joking, the men explained their actions and that they understood how the jokes might have been perceived, and agreed that they'd put a lid on it. That's as far as it should have gone.

The appropriate response to Adria Richards' overreaction and subsequent public-shaming (which violates PyCon's code of conduct) -- and her continued insistence that she did the right thing -- is to remove her from the situation. Until she can own up to the fact that she escalated too far, she shouldn't be a "developer evangelist" at tech conferences, and the rest of us shouldn't trust her judgment when it comes to appropriate public behavior. (I don't think she should be unemployed, just that she shouldn't be working in a public-facing position.)

[kefka]

And, I heartily agree. I can imagine the 2 guys cracking jokes, meaning no offense. Just happens, that in this country, violence and gruesome details are acceptable, but sexual innuendo are evil. Thank puritanical beginnings for this country, I guess.

The appropriate response is, "Hey guys, your sex jokes are disrupting peoples' concentration. Can you quiet them please?" And if they don't, ask them to leave. We're all mature here, or should be.

But that all goes to naught when the hivemind on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, and the like take hold. It doesn't matter if it's false. Doesn't matter if it's been photoshopped. All that matters is someone poked a stick in the hornet's nest, and the sting means you lose your job, your income, your name, and your way of life.

[etjossem]

I can't downvote, but I know when a comment deserves it.

[kefka]

So, instead of modding on the cuff, tell me an appropriate response to an accusation of this manner.

There's something to be said to not post things on Social Media. Unfortunately for the 2 guys at PyCon, even that would not have helped them, as it was posted on someone else's social media account. So, how does one challenge a he-said/she-said in the time of Youtube/Twitter judgements?

[rblatz]

You comment deserves a down vote. Apparently you believe in mob rule, and that the first person to publicly state something is correct. There are bullies on both sides of every issue, and recognizing that is the first step towards progress.