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Admin
Uh, no. Did you even read the debacle? She didn't say "Stop being an asshole", she turned around, snapped a pic of him and his buddy and posted it in Twitter saying "Talking about dongles at a convention is bad".
Did you happen to miss the part where he and his friend were having a PRIVATE conversation that she happened to overhear part of?
Admin
If she'd have just told them to stop being assholes it would have been fine, but when she tweeted about it she became an asshole too.
Admin
TRWTF is that the file extension is not ".rlsx"
Admin
Did we mention the part yet where both of them said that they hadn't intended one of the jokes to be racy, but were actually referring to an earlier presentation, and she, being that she was on some "Save The Womyn" crusade, took it completely out of context?
I'm all for equal rights, but Richards and her ilk want guaranteed legal immunity from anything they might find offensive in any way, shape, or form. That's not "equality," that's "superiority."
Admin
Rule nr. 1 about Excellent Sex :
Never talk about Excellent Sex.
Admin
Fundamental talking points to any Adria Richards: PyCon Edition internet argument-
Whether it is appropriate or not to make sexual jokes during a casual conversation with a friend while sitting in a crowded conference hall.
Whether jokes of a sexual nature are "sexist", particularly jokes aimed at no one in particular.
If a black female in a predominately white male industry is socially victimized enough that her only safe recourse for interacting with her perceived oppressors is through mobilizing internet activists to crucify them. (Bonus round) If PyCon staff adequately investigated the complaints or simply took Ms. Richards' complaints at face value for fear of appearing to be in league with her perceived oppressors.
Whether it is Adria Richards' fault that one of the accused's employers reacted to the highly publicized incident by firing him.
Whether the men involved admitted to what they said being wrong out of a genuine belief of that, or because their livelihoods were being put on the line because they laughed at the word "dongle".
Whether Adria Richards is simply a brave, unfortunate female pioneer in an industry stacked against her for her gender.
Whether Adria Richards' employer was unfair/cowardly/potentially unlawful in firing her - not after they'd become aware of the situation at PyCon, but only after the internet got all pissed off and decided to DDoS their servers and shut down their business for three days straight.
And finally, whether we're really so far gone as a society that we'd rather get a man thrown out of a convention, publicly humiliated, and ultimately fired than risk maybe having some mean things said to us if a polite request gets taken the wrong way. (Special Tumblr bonus round) If Ms. Richards was in physical danger if she acted out of turn in this large group of male strangers in a public, professional setting.
As a point of clarification, the "forking" joke wasn't what the casual observer might think. It's part of an in-joke between the two men concerning the inherent praise paid to a project when someone wants to fork it. I don't doubt that the sound-alike wordplay was a dumb, juvenile, smile-worthy side-effect though.
Admin
Private conversation? Sorry, no. They were in public, they were at a convention at least in part to represent their employers, and they were acting unprofessionally. If you want to have a private conversation and make jokes about your peepee, don't do it in the audience at a professional conference. Save it for your hotel room.
You're a grownup now, this is not third grade, and this is not the "no girlz allowed" clubhouse. Like it or not, you have a responsibility to your employer to act like a grownup in professional situations, and you have a responsibility to require grownup behavior from your colleagues.
Admin
If this "is not third grade" then shouldn't the offended party have a rational discussion instead of "telling teacher"?
Admin
Thomas has to take some of the blame for this WTF (although not for the PyCon shitstorm, on which I have no particular opinion that I'm willing to share).
After his boss said, “Thomas, we might all be fleeing for high ground right now, but our clients still need their rosters updated!” he should have responded:
"No, they have been evacuated, too. I'll fix it up when I get to my brother's place."
Unless the clients are in less rainy parts of the country / the world, in which case they'll understand if their stuff doesn't get processed quite as soon, seeing as how their stuff is processed in what is now a hurricane zone. Thomas's boss needs to tell the clients that their data centre is closed for the duration of the storm. It's all about managing expectations. If she says nothing, the clients will expect business as normal. If she tells one and all that the data centre is CLOSED and no work will be done in the next couple of hours, they will understand.
And I have a question. From New Orleans, he has travelled "for a few hours" and he still has "a few hours" to go to get to Hattiesburg. I looked on a map. Goggle reckons it's around 140 miles from New Orleans to Hattiesburg. Stating "a few" rather than "a couple" suggests a time rather more than 120 minutes. How slow is he driving? Even if "a few" did mean "two" here, that suggests four hours for a journey that sticking rigidly to 55mph would still get you there in just under three. Granted, the traffic won't be moving as fast as normal, but my experience of driving in heavy weather is that it's only ice, snow, or thick fog that really slows us down.
Admin
Admin
She was at a conference, not a crusade, and the context was "a professional conference".
Why is it that "I'm all for equal rights" is the phrase that people always use when they're about to say "except I'm not really"?
This is purely idiotic. Richards can speak for herself, but as one of her "ilk", what I want is a working environment in which people act like grownups. When I was eight years old - this was back in 1981 - I thought "rubber balls and liquor" was one of the funniest jokes I'd ever heard. I got over it. You can too. You probably should.
Admin
Admin
Don't forget the slowdowns created by many thousands of other people trying to evacuate.
Imagine trying to leave Houston at 5 pm on the evening before Thanksgiving and then multiply those delays by at least ten times.
Admin
And if everyone is leaving the city, then traffic is ungodly heavy. Like leaving the Bay area on a normal Fri. It only takes 1 hr to drive 10 miles on I-680 (oh Sunol, how I hate you...).
Admin
Grownups can think these things are funny too. A lot of them do! "Adult Humor" is totally a thing. It's okay not to like it. It's a bit presumptuous to say nobody beyond a certain age should like it.
Different people have different ideas of what's acceptable in a public setting. It's pretty easy to just tune out a distasteful conversation. "Why should I have to?" Because, as you're so fond of saying, you're an adult so you should be plenty capable of carrying on unharmed when people aren't acting precisely like you'd like them to.
Admin
Small world.
Admin
So at least his boss didn't call him about a problem with the MSexchange server?
Thank you, you've been a wonderful audience, and don't forget to tip your waitress!
Admin
Interesting question. I would frame it a little differently: if you're at a movie, and someone's making a ruckus, do you go over and get in their face, or do you call an usher? You could do either, but probably the usher is going to handle it better than you will, with less disruption to everyone around you.
Given your response and the other discussion of this situation, I think it's not likely, that approaching these guys would have led to a "rational discussion". After all, the offending parties were more or less advertising their lack of self control and maturity - why would you suppose they would have responded in a reasonable and adult manner when someone challenges them? If they're acting like children, it's reasonable to treat them like children.
The best situation would have been for one of the jerkwads' co-workers, or someone known to them, to take them aside and explain to them what incredible knobs they were being. Since no co-worker was present with the maturity to do this, the best response was to let a third party handle it.
Admin
She could have done this. Instead, she shared their joke with the world. Look, world, here's a guy being funny! Heh, heh, he said dongle, get it? Oh, look, the world thought it wasn't very funny. So sad.
Admin
Sorry, screwed up the quote tags. My bad.
Are you really resorting to moral relativism? "Oh, little Johnny pooped on the rug, but that's okay, everyone has their own ways of being and we just have to accept him for who he is."
No, sorry, can't agree with you on that one. Moron-for-brains shit the bed on that one, and they got caught, and they got fired. This is a good thing.
She could have done this. Instead, she shared their joke with the world. Look, world, here's a guy being funny! Heh, heh, he said dongle, get it? Oh, look, the world thought it wasn't very funny. So sad.
Admin
[quote user="trtrwtf"]Interesting question. I would frame it a little differently: if you're at a movie, and someone's making a ruckus, do you go over and get in their face, or do you call an usher? You could do either, but probably the usher is going to handle it better than you will, with less disruption to everyone around you. [/quote]
The problem wasn't that the two men were talking so loudly that Ms. Richards couldn't hear the speaker, or rather if that was the problem she didn't mention it. Her issue was with the content of their conversation, which once she caught a strain of she made it a point to listen in on the rest. These two weren't the only ones talking amongst themselves at the conference - it's a pretty common occurrence and how disruptive that action is to their neighbor's viewing experience is wholly dependent on acoustic conditions and how the sound system delivering the speaker's address.
[quote user="trtrwtf"]Given your response and the other discussion of this situation, I think it's not likely, that approaching these guys would have led to a "rational discussion". After all, the offending parties were more or less advertising their lack of self control and maturity - why would you suppose they would have responded in a reasonable and adult manner when someone challenges them? If they're acting like children, it's reasonable to treat them like children. [/quote]
Children aren't the only ones who appreciate this sort of humor, and it isn't shameful for an adult to. That attitude is toxic, stifling, and more offensive than what it tries to silence. More to the point, it's pretty fair to assume the social setting was fairly casual at PyCon if these guys felt comfortable enough to sit around joking. I like how you're envisioning this giant gathering of nerds and developers as some sort of uptight suit and tie business affair. Any time you get a bunch of geeks together in a semi-professional setting they're on good behavior, but inevitably someone lets something slip and everyone realizes how like-minded they are, then proceeds to revel in that with good humor and general socialization. [/quote]
[quote user="trtrwtf"] The best situation would have been for one of the jerkwads' co-workers, or someone known to them, to take them aside and explain to them what incredible knobs they were being. Since no co-worker was present with the maturity to do this, the best response was to let a third party handle it. [/quote] The best solution would have been for Ms. Richards to take personal responsibility for herself, since no one else was being bothered in that area. It would have been even better if Ms. Richards hadn't jumped to conclusions or mixed gender politics in to what could have been an incredibly minor social interaction.
Instead we got the debacle we have now, where hyper-sensitive jackasses look for opportunities to make the other gender feel victimized for a while in some twisted form of "How's it feel?" and harm everyone involved (including themself) because their unreasonable way of interacting with people (or not, in this case) doesn't get them what they want.
Not to mention the damage this to the larger public discussion about women in the tech industry.
Admin
RULE 34 (If it exists, there is porn of it) has been invoked.
RULE 34A (If it doesn't make the porn yourself) has been activated.
You're welcome: The Internet
Admin
You can try to build authority by recruiting the rest of the audience and setting up a many vs. one situation, but if the rest of the audience doesn't care, or didn't notice/hear the "ruckus", now YOU are going to be the one creating the ruckus, and things may backfire.
Admin
Sorry, I screwed up my tags too. I don't comment often here, and I don't see an edit button, so screwed they will stay.
Little Johnny pooping on the rug causes property damage, raises safety concerns, etc. Two guys joking amongst themselves in a conference hall among a large population who are probably doing the same thing, only perhaps about slightly safer subject matter - well, I don't see how that causes much harm at all. Unless you want to talk about creating an unsafe work environment or something, but I'd have to call shennanigans there. If you seriously feel threatened because some guy thinks "dongle" is funny you've got some growing up of your own to do.
Also, Ms. Richards has a pretty large following of like minded, anti-men activists. That made up a pretty large portion of the ones complaining. Most developers don't really care, or would probably snicker given sufficiently casual conditions. I certainly don't think anyone should be fired for making an unfunny joke.
Where we're going to fundamentally disagree, I think, is that these jokes cause harm. Ms. Richards did what she did because of the little girl she saw on stage and her fear of how put-off that little girl would be getting in to the tech industry if she'd have to deal with jokes like that. Maybe this is all that gosh darned privilege talking, but I find it difficult to accept that an emotionally mature woman would ditch her dream career over one of the tamest sex jokes I could imagine, or an industry that finds those jokes acceptable in moderation.
Admin
But she tweeted it to the entire world and got a guy fired. There was no usher. What the fuck are you talking about?
The simple fact is that she might have started with the moral high ground, but managed to roll all the way downhill by being totally disproportionate and vindictive in her response. The guys in question might have been being inappropriate, but they were not in any way malicious, yet her response was both calculated and malicious.
On these grounds it's an open-and-shut case that she is the more offensive human being in this situation.
Addendum (2013-06-17 12:36):
But she tweeted it to the entire world and got a guy fired. There was no usher. What the fuck are you talking about?
The simple fact is that she might have started with the moral high ground, but managed to roll all the way downhill by being totally disproportionate and vindictive in her response. The guys in question might have been being inappropriate, but they were not in any way malicious, yet her response was both calculated and malicious.
On these grounds it's an open-and-shut case that she is the more offensive human being in this situation.
Also... what they said wasn't even sexist. It might have been inappropriate, but since when did simply making a reference to genitals equate to discrimination on the basis of gender? Why don't people understand words properly any more?
Admin
everyone knows that it's "scuzzy"
Admin
Is TRWTF all the code for this site itself?
Admin
Admin
Her tweet:
The response from the convention staff:
Sorry, you were saying?
Admin
An example of two things that those of the older generation are very unlikely to understand: Excel and Excellent Sex.
Captcha: transverbero - a latin verb with gender issues.
Admin
Admin
My favorite is: KeePass
Admin
Fair point, but she didn't get a third party (which would have been the conference organizer or someone there). She snapped a pic and tweeted with the intent to shame these guys.
My analogy was wrong; instead of "telling teacher" this was the equivalent of telling everyone on the playground that Little Johnny eats boogers, or something similar, to get other people to make fun of him and make him feel miserable.
Admin
Admin
Jeeeez, maybe some people can "get a life".
The remarks (wherever they happen to be performed) almost always are taken out of context, and just about anyone can be offended by someone's speech, but you may need to find the correct audience.
Think back a few years to my mom's experience. She was one of 4 females in her business school class (it was MANY years ago) and they had a field trip to some sort of manufacturing plant. When the machine broke, she said she learned some "new vocabulary", but wasn't offended. So, give me a break!
My experience: I was doing some testing and had setup a bunch of machines to do testing with. They had a server on them that would respond locally with an "oooh" sound (female voice) whenever the remote client machine would use the "finger" (look it up in your Unix manual) command. It was in a testing rack and sometimes I would do this remotely for several machines in the rack as the command yielded some information about how the machines were working. It seems that someone (female I believe) didn't like this action and complained. I changed the audio file, but felt that it was totally out of line. I thought it was a neat feature. Go figure!
Yes, you WILL be offended. Does it affect how you do your job, probably not, so carry on.
Admin
Admin
As much as trolls infest these comment pages, I'd think you idiots would be better at recognizing them by now.
Admin
I don't think this is where we disagree. I don't think it's reasonable to argue that these jokes cause harm in any direct or indirect way. Nor do I think this is a case of someone ditiching their career over "one joke". I do think these jokes, when repeated ad nauseum, are part of a corrosive workplace culture that ratifies and asserts male superiority, throughout the day, every day. It's crude, and it's unpleasant, and it's unprofessional, and it's not necessary. Women can respond to this by becoming similarly crude, unpleasant, and unprofessional, or they can choose to leave, or to not enter the profession in the first place.
Or they can choose to hold up a mirror, and let the community see themselves at "play". This is what Richards did, and many people in the community didn't like it. The serious people, especially, are finding this stuff repulsive, and conferences are starting to change their policies to make sure this stuff doesn't happen. This is a good thing. Even better, though, is a culture that's changing whether you like it or not.
"Booth babes" are rapidly fading away as more and more people see them as an embarrassing affectation from a decade of dumbshits. Dev teams don't go to strip clubs as much any more, it's considered a little crude. Developers are slowly starting to concede that women can do more than develop pink-themed sites for women-oriented products. The tech field is slowly entering the 1980s. I think the Owen Wilson comedy routines that some developers indulge in today will probably cause cringing embarrassment when we remind you of them in five years. Change is coming. So why not be part of it?
I I guess I don't think I'm going to be able to convince you on this, but I want to ask you to consider this question: what harm is really done by growing up and acting like mature adults? And if this makes women feel more comfortable in the workplace, and if this makes more women join the tech field, and gives you more good co-workers to work with - is this worth it? Even if you don't agree that the problem is really a problem, wouldn't it be worth taking the trouble to make jokes that are actually funny, to make everyone feel welcome, to treat people with respect - just to be nice?
I first started thinking about feminism and listening to feminists over twenty years ago. I've never met an "anti-men activist" or heard of any, except as a sort of bogeyman from people who knew nothing about feminism.
Shenanigans, I say.
Admin
I think the usher analogy is probably closest. She alerted the people running the conference that there were people who were violating the conference's posted code of conduct. The people running the conference responded, exactly as you would expect them to.
Your playground analogy would make more sense if she had tweeted something other than what the guys were actually doing. They were in fact making crudely sexual jokes in the middle of a presentation attended by people who weren't there for their comedy routine. Again, this was in direct violation of a code of conduct that they had agreed to be bound by.
https://us.pycon.org/2013/about/code-of-conduct/
Admin
This is about as stupid a comment as I could imagine anyone making. I especially like the "between intelligent people" part. As if.
Admin
TRWTF is this comment thread. I mean holy shit, I had no idea so many programmers were so awful (and/or trolls).
This response is awesome.Admin
Moderation in all things, of course. There's definitely a difference between a locker room situation where every other joke is raunchy and a casual work environment where it's okay to be yourself. That's sort of what's so caustic about this conversation from the other end - someone's telling me it's not okay to laugh at these sorts of things. That they're bad. Shameful. Inappropriate. That I'm "not an adult" because of it. I choose not to be part of the inevitable change because that change vilifies me when I've done no harm.
Since when did "being an adult" mean acting like you're in a PG rated film all the time? Many workplaces enforce that sort of policy, and there's definitely a type of person that that appeals to, but to me (and many like me) that's a horribly stifling environment that removes the human element out of social interaction.
I wouldn't want to work with a woman who was as hypersensitive about these matters any moreso than I would a man. It isn't about gender, it's about a person being so uptight they're miserable to be around. We have a guy like that in a nearby department - he's a religious nut. Gets easily offended if you say something that wouldn't fly in church. Nobody wants to be around him, we hate it when he comes by, and we try to minimize our dealings with him when we can. I imagine working with Ms. Richards to be a similar situation. At least our guy has the decency to ask us himself to lay off rather than running to HR to get someone's head on a pike.
If I have to be somewhere 40 hours a week minimum, I want to make damn sure I'm happy being there. It doesn't have to be a party, but it would be real nice if I could smile without setting off some kind of alarm. I'd like to be treated with respect, I go out of my way to do the same for others. If they ask me to lay off some subject matter in conversation, I will (even though I'm so pathetically immature to find it funny in the first place, who knew?). I probably won't include them in my reindeer games later, though, and most others won't either. Nobody likes a stick in the mud.
My wording might've been hyperbolic, but if you haven't seen the very, VERY vocal minority of feminists that seek to actively diminish the opposing gender then I have to wonder what rock you've been hiding under and ask if you've got room for one more. I've got a few subreddits you can read if you like, or some Tumblr blogs.
Admin
Complaining to the organizers is the right thing to do. I can perfectly understand not wanting to confront the perps and I disagree with ObiWayneKenobi's suggestion that she should just shut up and take it (or ignore it).
Tweeting a picture to publicly shame the people involved, however, is not the right thing to do.
And I also don't know what being a white male has to do with anything.
Admin
Perhaps what was left out of the story is that all those files had female names. So all the old women heard was:
"Jane, excellent sex" "Mary, excellent sex" "Sally, excellent sex" ... "Bob, excellent sex"?!?
Admin
Have you ever driven during an evacuation? Yeah, traffic tends to get a little heavy when people are fleeing for their lives!
Admin
Admin
Pedantry seems like the name of the game when it comes to this forum, so I'd like to point out that if an individual receives a "mandatory evacuation" it means they're being forced to shit themselves. While a hurricane is pretty scary, usually only places are evacuated in such an emergency.
Admin
I wonder about this. If you find that you being yourself is offensive enough to some people that they're willing to leave the field they chose to work in or raise a public stink about it, don't you think you might want to consider just which self you want to be?
I mean, there's a lot of women who find this stuff offensive or irritating or otherwise unpleasant. They can't all be crazy man-haters, can they? Maybe some of them are people you actually like and respect, even.
I think it's more that this is not appropriate workplace banter. I can tell some pretty sick "dead baby" jokes, but I don't tell them in the office. It's not that they're not funny, but they're not appropriate for a workplace. I also enjoy drinking beer, playing the accordion, and having loud and raucus sex with my partner, but again - not in the office. There are reasonable compromises that we can make without sacrificing ourselves. We make them because we're civilized people, and because we're grown-up enough to respect other people's sensibilities even if we don't agree with them.
A nudist can be a nudist, and put on clothes in the office. A fan of erotic art can keep their collection at home. A religious believer can refrain from proselytizing, a political junkie or a militant vegan can do the same, we can all turn down our music, and so forth - we don't have to impose our full selves on others all the time. It's called getting along, and it's a big part of what we were supposed to learn in elementary school.
This is where being a grownup comes into the question. It's not the specifics of what you find funny, it's the maturity to know when to deploy that humor and when to refrain.
You can have a lot of fun with people and respect some perfectly ordinary boundaries.
This is kind of an important one. A lot of the time, maturity is about understanding other people well enough to not have to be asked. This is really a matter of intentionality, not rules. It's about recognizing that other people have feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and desires (etc.,etc.) and that those are as important to them as mine are to me, and that those feelings, thoughts, etc., are as important to me as the people who have them are.
Hm. Haven't seen them, honestly, but I mostly hang out with people, not so much on subredddits and tumblr blogs. (it's a slow day at work today) So you're saying they're acting like the men you want to hang out with in your office? Yeah, that does sound unpleasant.
Admin
You have heard of "metaphor", yes?
Admin
A figure of speech in which an expression is used to refer to something that it does not literally denote in order to suggest a similarity
What you attempted to do was to use a figure of speech that essentially means the same thing as something else to suggest a dissimilarity, and based on that dissimilarity claim the upper moral hand.