The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

Jim the Tool:
The RWTF is that there seems to be little point to the story. Old ladies miss hearing things is not a WTF. Neither is them complaining. OK, so maybe the WTF is that the boss thought the fella should go back to the office. But that was hardly emphasized.
ObiWayneKenobi:
This reminds me of the whole Adria Richards debacle: For those not aware there was a Python convention where two guys were talking and joking about "big dongles" and "forking that repository". A tech evangelist named Adria Richards was seated somewhere in front of them and overheard these jokes, got offended, and went and posted a picture of the guys on Twitter complaining about sexism. Ultimately one of the men was fired by his employer and there was a huge internet shitstorm, and Adria herself got fired for the whole thing later on.
No wait, the real WTF is people who don't know what the fuck happened, but can't bear to not have an opinion.
OK, so ObiWayneKenobi didn't explicitly say it. But if you (anyone) think that it is Adria Richards's fault for anyone getting fired, then you (said person) is not so bright. Moreover, if you think that Adria should have done anything differently, then again, maybe you're not so bright. Or maybe you're a white male. Whatever. Two men said some sexist jokes. It was later acknowledged publicly to be not acceptable in that context by at least one of the men. It was also acknowledged to be not acceptable by PyCon organizers, and they meet with the men, who apologized. Situation over. Well, it should have been over. See also: http://www.forbes.com/sites/deannazandt/2013/03/22/why-asking-what-adria-richards-could-have-done-differently-is-the-wrong-question/ http://pycon.blogspot.com/2013/03/pycon-response-to-inappropriate.html http://www.dogsandshoes.com/2013/03/adria.html

No, I fully believe she is responsible for getting the person fired, and fully to blame for the debacle. Instead of talking with someone, LIKE AN ADULT, or even going straight to the PyCon organizers, she decided on the extremely childish course of action of posting their picture on the internet.

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

Jim the Tool:
operagost:
What does skin color have to do with it?
Haven't you read Stupid White Men? White men are the cause of all the world's problems!
OK, no seriously, heterosexual white men are playing on easy. If you're a white man, and you're in a room full of white men like you (like you're all geeks), it's a lot easier to say, "hey, yeah that, what you just said, not appropriate". But if you're a women, let alone a black women, then it can be harder.

If Ms Richards had have turned around and said, "not appropriate", for all she knew, she could have been verbally abused. Why should she have had to potentially put up with that?

A solution for a white man, "just turn around and say, 'quit it'" is not always the best solution for anyone else. And not all white men recognize this, no matter how bright they might be. (The same applies for anyone in a position of privilege. It is context dependent.)

Oh fuck off with your privilege bullshit. And fuck off with your "she could have been verbally abused" bullshit. A guy in the same situation would have the exact same risk. And had they verbally abused her, she would have had more of a case to go to the PyCon organizers and complain.

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

trtrwtf:
operagost:
TRWTF is that I actually read an article on the incident that tried to defend Richards' haughty behavior.

Haughty behavior? An asshole was being an asshole, and she said "stop being an asshole" - what's "haughty" about that?

Richards didn't fire him, his company did. Maybe they decided that they didn't want assholes representing them in public. Apparently the guy agreed that he'd been acting like and asshole, and apologized for it.

So he's not even an asshole anymore - problem solved!

No, she did not say "stop being an asshole". If she had, we wouldn't be having this conversation. She tried to publicly shame two people for having a conversation that she didn't like. And there is nothing admirable about that.

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

s73v3r:
No, I fully believe she is responsible for getting the person fired, and fully to blame for the debacle. Instead of talking with someone, LIKE AN ADULT, or even going straight to the PyCon organizers, she decided on the extremely childish course of action of posting their picture on the internet.

So the fact that the person was doing something in public, while wearing his company's logo, which his company found so obnoxious that when they found out about it they fired him.... does that fact play any part in his getting fired?

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

I worked in a M$ shop and was one of the few that knew PHP as another language. My boss thought it was funny every time he asked for work to be done in PHP to say he needed my "PHP-ness".

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

trtrwtf:
ObiWayneKenobi:
Did you happen to miss the part where he and his friend were having a PRIVATE conversation that she happened to overhear part of?

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.

That applies to Richards as well. Posting pictures of people on the internet, and complaining because they said something you didn't like is decidedly NOT grownup behavior.

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

Steve The Cynic:
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.

Generally in evacuation situations like that, the traffic is extremely heavy.

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

trtrwtf:
Sorry, screwed up the quote tags. My bad.
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.

I can understand your argument that, if you're representing your company for a work-related function, you should behave appropriately. However, the correct option would have been to talk to them directly first; if they act flippant about your response, then you submit it to the staff. Simply making a complaint to the staff, without even addressing the parties in question is not going up the proper chain of command. As rude as their comments may have been, simply making a twitter post about it was not only rude, but cowardly.

Courtesy swings both ways.

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

trtrwtf:
Anon:
she, being that she was on some "Save The Womyn" crusade, took it completely out of context?

She was at a conference, not a crusade, and the context was "a professional conference".

I'm all for equal rights,

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"?

Why is it that people like you say you want equal rights, but really want special 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."

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.

You know what else is acting like a grownup? Not posting pictures of people on the internet because they said something you don't like. You wanna tell people to act like grownups? Perhaps you should start. Acting like a grownup would be going to the organizers of the conference, not trying to unleash the internet hate machine against people.

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

I'm not sure how much fun you can have with someone whose idea of humor is workplace safe jokes (Looks like somebody's got a case of the Mondays!) A large part of humor is tackling issues we've got reservations about - it's why we crack jokes in unpleasant situations to ease tensions. On some level humor has to incorporate an aspect of the negative, unwanted, or unspeakable. Even here on TDWTF the feature articles are frequently written at the expense of whatever rube is fouling up business that day. It doesn't always meet the mark, but my point's clear enough I hope. If your humor couldn't possibly offend someone - even if that someone is yourself in the case of self deprecation, I don't see how it could be funny at all. It's missing one of the core components of humor at that point; something to poke fun at.

Clearly that's exactly what I meant - that these fringe internet evangelists are somehow analogous to a normal group of people socializing. Given that you're discarding legitimate avenues of discussion in favor of pointless barbs, I'm guessing you're done arguing in good faith.

You go your way, I'll think you're a miserable pile of unfun to be around that murders the livelihood of any workplace unlucky enough to employ you. I'll go my way. You'll think I'm some disgusting blue collar man's man catcalling at female coworkers and doing my best to make it seem like the suffrage never happened. We'll both be wrong, but dammit we'll be right in our heads, right?

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

trtrwtf:
ObiWayneKenobi:
If this "is not third grade" then shouldn't the offended party have a rational discussion instead of "telling teacher"?

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.

Horseshit. What she did was not "getting an usher"; what she did was getting in their face about it. Except she didn't even do that; she tried to have the internet get in their face about it. And the willingness of the people to apologize so quickly completely disproves your stance that they would have been aggressive about it.

And fuck you for your prudish opinion that anyone who likes juvenile humor should be treated like a child.

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.

Which should have been the PyCon people, not the entire internet.

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

Elron the Fantastic:
trtrwtf:
Sorry, screwed up the quote tags. My bad.
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.

I can understand your argument that, if you're representing your company for a work-related function, you should behave appropriately. However, the correct option would have been to talk to them directly first; if they act flippant about your response, then you submit it to the staff. Simply making a complaint to the staff, without even addressing the parties in question is not going up the proper chain of command. As rude as their comments may have been, simply making a twitter post about it was not only rude, but cowardly.

Courtesy swings both ways.

I disagree with the idea that she was obliged to talk to the people involved first. I can quite understand that she might have been too intimidated to do that. Talking to the organizers is fine in that case.

What, undoubtedly, isn't right was tweeting their picture to the internet and shaming them. On that, I believe we agree!

Nexzus · 2013-06-17 Reply Admin

Moe K:
A coworker of mine used to pronounce SCSI as 'sexy'. That always made a few giggles around the office...

At my previous job, the lead AS/400 programmer (6 years FOB* Asian and Female) referred to user-started processes as "hand jobs"

Fresh off the boat.*

**Deal with it. Even Chinese Born Canadians refer to recent immigrants as FOB.

Addendum (2013-06-17 15:56): Sorry, that wasn't addressed directly at you, but at anyone who's offended by the term "FOB".

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

trtrwtf:
eViLegion:
But she tweeted it to the entire world and got a guy fired. There was no usher. What the fuck are you talking about?

Her tweet:

Adria Richards @adriarichards Can someone talk to these guys about their conduct? I'm in lightning talks, top right near stage, 10 rows back

The response from the convention staff:

pycon @pycon Thank you @adriarichards for bringing the inappropriate comments to our attention. We've dealt with the situation.

Sorry, you were saying?

So why did she have to make that public? Would it not be just as easy to send a private email to the PyCon people?

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

trtrwtf:
These Are Always Fun:
anti-men activists

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.

I like how, first, you get to decide how you are persecuted and belittled. But then when someone else tries to point out that you're doing the same thing to others, you get to wave your hands and go, "No, that isn't happening".

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

trtrwtf:
ObiWayneKenobi:

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.

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/

No. Your usher analogy loses all credibility once you factor in the fact that she sent the thing to the entire internet. If she had sent a private email, instead of tweeting to the whole world, then the usher thing would hold water.

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

eViLegion:
Mike:
Agreed. I wonder if they would have complained if the guy was talking about impotence instead. Europe sent us their puritans ... its time to send them back.

Er, no, we wanted them to fuck off for a reason, so we persecuted the fuck out of them for being total religious nutcases.

If you want to get rid of them, you'll have to colonise the moon or something, because if those fuckers come back, we'll have no choice but genocide. Maybe you could try a series of cattle trains leading to "special" showers... that looked like a workable solution.

Wow. People are willingly pro-Nazi now?!? What a sad, sad world this is turning into.

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

trtrwtf:
s73v3r:
No, I fully believe she is responsible for getting the person fired, and fully to blame for the debacle. Instead of talking with someone, LIKE AN ADULT, or even going straight to the PyCon organizers, she decided on the extremely childish course of action of posting their picture on the internet.

So the fact that the person was doing something in public, while wearing his company's logo, which his company found so obnoxious that when they found out about it they fired him.... does that fact play any part in his getting fired?

Not nearly as much as posting their picture on the internet for having a quiet conversation among themselves that she listened in on, took offense, and decided to try to shame them because it was something she didn't like.

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

Elron the Fantastic:

I can understand your argument that, if you're representing your company for a work-related function, you should behave appropriately. However, the correct option would have been to talk to them directly first; if they act flippant about your response, then you submit it to the staff. Simply making a complaint to the staff, without even addressing the parties in question is not going up the proper chain of command. As rude as their comments may have been, simply making a twitter post about it was not only rude, but cowardly.

Courtesy swings both ways.

If you look at the pycon code of conduct, it's pretty clear that they expect attendees to bring concerns to conference staff.

Contact Information If you are being harassed, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact a member of conference staff. Conference staff will be wearing "PyCon Staff" t-shirts. You may also contact hotel staff and ask to be put in touch with the conference chair — Jesse Noller.

This is a sane policy. In a situation like this, it's a safe bet that staff will handle things better than you will, and also that the offending parties will respond better to staff than they will to the complainant.

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

s73v3r:

Why is it that people like you say you want equal rights, but really want special rights?

Really? What special rights do people like me want, again?

You know what else is acting like a grownup? Not posting pictures of people on the internet because they said something you don't like. You wanna tell people to act like grownups? Perhaps you should start. Acting like a grownup would be going to the organizers of the conference, not trying to unleash the internet hate machine against people.

I'm having a lot of trouble finding a consistent position here. If what they did was fine, not a deal, no big thing, then why should anyone have refrained from posting their pictures on the internet? People post pictures from conferences all the time - what's the big deal?

The fact is, she sent tweets tagged for the conference organizers. Is it possible that twitter was the preferred communication channel? This is pretty common at conventions. She attached a picture, true - but if she wanted to get these guys in trouble, wouldn't she have mentioned their names? Even today, I know her name, but I don't know the names of the men involved. Doesn't that sort of spoil your "shaming" theory?

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

s73v3r:

Not nearly as much as posting their picture on the internet for having a quiet conversation among themselves that she listened in on, took offense, and decided to try to shame them because it was something she didn't like.

Oh, for the love of fuck, you don't even know what happened. Why are you even talking?

From Richards' description of the situation:

What I will share with you here is the backstory that led to this – The guy behind me to the far left was saying he didn’t find much value from the logging session that day. I agreed with him so I turned around and said so. He then went onto say that an earlier session he’d been to where the speaker was talking about images and visualization with Python was really good, even if it seemed to him the speaker wasn’t really an expert on images. He said he would be interested in forking the repo and continuing development. That would have been fine until the guy next to him… began making sexual forking jokes I was going to let it go. It had been a long week. A long month. I’d been on the road since mid February attending and speaking at conferences. PyCon was my 5th and final conference before heading home. ... They started talking about “big” dongles. I could feel my face getting flustered.

So she was having a conversation with one of the guys, and this other fellow butts in with irrelevant sexualized cracks. She wasn't sitting around eavesdropping and shouting "gotcha!", she was having a conversation and this guy starts talking about dicks.

Please shut the fuck up until you at least know something about what you're talking about.

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

Jim the Tool:
Two men said some sexist jokes.

THEY WERE SEX JOKES

NOT SEXIST JOKES

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

trtrwtf:
s73v3r:

Not nearly as much as posting their picture on the internet for having a quiet conversation among themselves that she listened in on, took offense, and decided to try to shame them because it was something she didn't like.

Oh, for the love of fuck, you don't even know what happened. Why are you even talking?

From Richards' description of the situation:

What I will share with you here is the backstory that led to this – The guy behind me to the far left was saying he didn’t find much value from the logging session that day. I agreed with him so I turned around and said so. He then went onto say that an earlier session he’d been to where the speaker was talking about images and visualization with Python was really good, even if it seemed to him the speaker wasn’t really an expert on images. He said he would be interested in forking the repo and continuing development. That would have been fine until the guy next to him… began making sexual forking jokes I was going to let it go. It had been a long week. A long month. I’d been on the road since mid February attending and speaking at conferences. PyCon was my 5th and final conference before heading home. ... They started talking about “big” dongles. I could feel my face getting flustered.

So she was having a conversation with one of the guys, and this other fellow butts in with irrelevant sexualized cracks. She wasn't sitting around eavesdropping and shouting "gotcha!", she was having a conversation and this guy starts talking about dicks.

Please shut the fuck up until you at least know something about what you're talking about.

Wow TRWTF just wow... You should take your own advice. She was NOT having a conversation with one of them, the 2 gentlemen were having a conversation with each other, she merely overheard it.

1-Your aggressive stance and use of the word 'f***' in a website which could be used at work offends me and my co-workers deeply. Please do not go around acting like a playground bully while at the same time acting so high and mighty.

2-This story has been presented at depth. The jokes she took offense to were "I would fork his repo" and a reply of "you're going to need a big dongle for that". The fact that you don't even know this much shows that you have no idea what you are talking about so please take your own advice.

3-I'm sorry you're acting like a playground bully, may I suggest some therapy or yoga? I know life can be hard and sometimes you feel like lashing out, but know that it doesn't have to be this way. You can have a fruitful life without being a dbag to everyone. There are so many other things wrong with your posts but I know it'll just get you to cuss me out and yell on the interwebs at me, so I won't bother. Just be happy knowing people that support your views are in the vast minority for good reason. Thank you.

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

trtrwtf:
If you look at the pycon code of conduct, it's pretty clear that they expect attendees to bring concerns to conference staff.
Contact Information If you are being harassed, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact a member of conference staff. Conference staff will be wearing "PyCon Staff" t-shirts. You may also contact hotel staff and ask to be put in touch with the conference chair — Jesse Noller.

This is a sane policy. In a situation like this, it's a safe bet that staff will handle things better than you will, and also that the offending parties will respond better to staff than they will to the complainant.

This may well be the policy of the event, however, that does not disregard common courtesy; indeed, her complaint does not fall under this clause, as she was subject to no personal harassment, nor was anyone else directly harassed. She took offence at some of their conversation, which is perfectly fine - that is her right, if she feels they're acting inappropriately. However, this would then fall under the domain of personal discretion.

If you have a personal problem with someone's conduct, the appropriate response is to tell them directly. If you do not trust yourself to properly handle the situation, then how can you trust your ability to gauge the situation in the first place?

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

trtrwtf:
Really? What special rights do people like me want, again?

The special right of prosecuting people who you see swinging their arms and intentionally walk into the area of their swing in order to prove your claim that they shouldn't be allowed to swing their arms.

trtrwtf:
I'm having a lot of trouble finding a consistent position here. If what they did was fine, not a deal, no big thing, then why should anyone have refrained from posting their pictures on the internet? People post pictures from conferences all the time - what's the big deal?
The fact is, she sent tweets tagged for the conference organizers. Is it possible that twitter was the preferred communication channel? This is pretty common at conventions. She attached a picture, true - but if she wanted to get these guys in trouble, wouldn't she have mentioned their names? Even today, I know her name, but I don't know the names of the men involved. Doesn't that sort of spoil your "shaming" theory?

You don't know the names of the men involved? Don't you find it likely that in the moment she didn't know the names of the men involved, Doesn't that sort of spoil your "She didn't do it to shame them" theory?

I'm finding it a bit disingenuous of you to claim "I'm having a lot of trouble finding a consistent position here" when you admit to knowing about the "shaming" theory.

You already know the answer to the question, "If what they did was fine, not a deal, no big thing, then why should anyone have refrained from posting their pictures on the internet?" Intent. She intended to shame them, whereas their intent was merely to have fun.

It may be pretty common at conventions for many types of communications at them to use a public twitter message, but bringing the attention of conference organizers to what may uncharitably be called a disruption, is not one of them. Since you seem to be so familiar with the situation, I must assume that you realize that Twitter has a direct messaging feature that even if Twitter was the proper platform, and not an email, a public Twitter post was unnecessary, thus indicating further probability not only that your "she wasn't shaming them" theory is unlikely, but that it is likely you are being disingenuous as well.

By your logic, if Twitter was the preferred communication channel at conferences, that must make it okay to tweet your company's trade secrets so long as you are at a conference.

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

too subtle (I assume they're alluding to XLS)
I thought the idea of UPS was to allow enough power for a server to power down - not to keep it running indefinitely when the power's out....(although I gues hte word uninterrupted would imply otherwise)

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

Robert Claypool:
The special right of prosecuting people who you see swinging their arms and intentionally walk into the area of their swing in order to prove your claim that they shouldn't be allowed to swing their arms.

That's a pretty lousy metaphor. I frankly don't see how it has anything to do with anything we're talking about here.

trtrwtf:

You don't know the names of the men involved? Don't you find it likely that in the moment she didn't know the names of the men involved, Doesn't that sort of spoil your "She didn't do it to shame them" theory?

Considering that you can see huge badges on each neck, with their names on them, which I can't read due to the resolution of the photograph and the angle, but which would have been clearly visible to someone sitting a few feet away from them, no I don't find it likely that she didn't know their names. In fact, I consider that pretty close to impossible.

I'm finding it a bit disingenuous of you to claim "I'm having a lot of trouble finding a consistent position here" when you admit to knowing about the "shaming" theory.

Now you're making no sense at all. Several comments here have made reference to a notion that her intent was to shame these guys publicly. Well, if telling the world what happened is "shaming" them, then what they were doing must have been pretty shameful, right? So which way do you want it? Were they doing something wrong (for which they could be "shamed") or were they doing nothing wrong at all (in which case the "shaming" idea is nonsense) Take your pick, but you can't have both.

What was her intent? I have no idea. I don't know her, and I've spent almost no time following this story. From what I've read, she was well within her rights to report on what was going on where she was. This is what twitter is for, isn't it? So if you're correct, and she wanted the world to know about this, then she took a remarkably gentle approach - she didn't identify the culprits, she didn't identify their employers, she just pointed out that it's not cool to make dick jokes at a professional conference.

And guess what? It isn't. This isn't a baseball game, this isn't your frat party, this is a gathering of industry professionals, and some sort of professional behavior is expected. Anyone who doesn't think so is going to find that they're getting more and more cold shoulder over time, so get used to it. Play time is over, this is a business now, and you have to let your balls drop and act like big boys.

Don't worry, it's not such a bad thing. You might find that when you treat people with respect, they like you better, and you'll get laid once in a while. You'll like that, it's nice.

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

QJo:
... but TRWTF is of course the fact that the words "excellent sex" are categorised as "very offensive". I'd go further: TRWTF is the fact that there are people in the world who believe that sex should always be unpleasant, painful and inconvenient, and should be abstained from in all circumstances except for the purposes of procreating into the appropriate religious upbringing.

it's all about the dongle....oops. Please don't sack me.

I find the idea of publicly outing people who make inappropriate or discriminatory remakrs a bit strange. Rather than publicising what was wrong with what people said, it seems to reiterate to people how to be offensive, and increases their arsenal of comments.

Google: "Ape King King Goodes Collingwood"

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

Jim the Tool:
The RWTF is that there seems to be little point to the story. Old ladies miss hearing things is not a WTF. Neither is them complaining. OK, so maybe the WTF is that the boss thought the fella should go back to the office. But that was hardly emphasized.
ObiWayneKenobi:
This reminds me of the whole Adria Richards debacle: For those not aware there was a Python convention where two guys were talking and joking about "big dongles" and "forking that repository". A tech evangelist named Adria Richards was seated somewhere in front of them and overheard these jokes, got offended, and went and posted a picture of the guys on Twitter complaining about sexism. Ultimately one of the men was fired by his employer and there was a huge internet shitstorm, and Adria herself got fired for the whole thing later on.
No wait, the real WTF is people who don't know what the fuck happened, but can't bear to not have an opinion.
OK, so ObiWayneKenobi didn't explicitly say it. But if you (anyone) think that it is Adria Richards's fault for anyone getting fired, then you (said person) is not so bright. Moreover, if you think that Adria should have done anything differently, then again, maybe you're not so bright. Or maybe you're a white male. Whatever. Two men said some sexist jokes. It was later acknowledged publicly to be not acceptable in that context by at least one of the men. It was also acknowledged to be not acceptable by PyCon organizers, and they meet with the men, who apologized. Situation over. Well, it should have been over. See also: http://www.forbes.com/sites/deannazandt/2013/03/22/why-asking-what-adria-richards-could-have-done-differently-is-the-wrong-question/ http://pycon.blogspot.com/2013/03/pycon-response-to-inappropriate.html http://www.dogsandshoes.com/2013/03/adria.html

I agree.

When I have a peronal conversation with the person next to me (who I know) and some dick [am I allowed to say that] in front of me eavesdrops and decides that I'm not just being childish, I'm being offensive. And therefore decides to plaster my mug across the web with what a thoroughly bad piece of work I must be, they should be lauded from the rafters for it.

Seriously, although I can imagine a joke involving a dongle or forking being sexist it would kind of need to involve something a bit deeper (no pun intended) for it to be so.

But I guess it's just like we accept that a lot of people are offended by cunst, but few by dicks (or cocks). What's the difference?

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

QJo:
Evo:
Pippo:
How is xlsx pronounced? Whatever I try my tongue just ends up all skewed.

Actually, it's simply pronounced "Excel-sex".

Or just Excel-Essex.

Brits would of course find this funny, as Essex is a region of the UK upon which a whole genre of humour is founded.

For example: why does an Essex girl wear underwear? To keep her ankles warm. How does an Essex turn on a light after intercourse? By opening the car door. And so on.

Yeah, we used to say "Blonde" but that wazs considered sexist. somehow the same joke with a regional influence not so much (Paramatta, Charnwood....etc)

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

operagost:
Jim the Tool:
The RWTF is that there seems to be little point to the story. Old ladies miss hearing things is not a WTF. Neither is them complaining. OK, so maybe the WTF is that the boss thought the fella should go back to the office. But that was hardly emphasized.
ObiWayneKenobi:
This reminds me of the whole Adria Richards debacle: For those not aware there was a Python convention where two guys were talking and joking about "big dongles" and "forking that repository". A tech evangelist named Adria Richards was seated somewhere in front of them and overheard these jokes, got offended, and went and posted a picture of the guys on Twitter complaining about sexism. Ultimately one of the men was fired by his employer and there was a huge internet shitstorm, and Adria herself got fired for the whole thing later on.
No wait, the real WTF is people who don't know what the fuck happened, but can't bear to not have an opinion.
OK, so ObiWayneKenobi didn't explicitly say it. But if you (anyone) think that it is Adria Richards's fault for anyone getting fired, then you (said person) is not so bright. Moreover, if you think that Adria should have done anything differently, then again, maybe you're not so bright. Or maybe you're a white male.

What does skin color have to do with it?

According to every article I've read about the Richards thing (oops, hope that's not misinterpreted) is that the whole problem with the world is working white hetero-sexual males.

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

trtrwtf:
operagost:
TRWTF is that I actually read an article on the incident that tried to defend Richards' haughty behavior.

Haughty behavior? An asshole was being an asshole, and she said "stop being an asshole" - what's "haughty" about that?

Richards didn't fire him, his company did. Maybe they decided that they didn't want assholes representing them in public. Apparently the guy agreed that he'd been acting like and asshole, and apologized for it.

So he's not even an asshole anymore - problem solved!

What a crock. So people only apologise when they agree they were wrong?

Some people apologise because they feel forced into it. Some people apologise because they feel it's a type of damage control. Some people apologise because they think they did wrong and/or are remorseful

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

trtrwtf:
ObiWayneKenobi:
Did you happen to miss the part where he and his friend were having a PRIVATE conversation that she happened to overhear part of?

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.

you really are trtrwtf...or maybe you're a troll....

so you're saying that anytime I want to make a joke, I should go to a cone of silence with my intended audience, sweep the room for bugs (just in case) and then whisper it to them?

Can't do it on the bus, can't do it in an auditorium, can't do it at the ball gamem can't do it in the shops>?

Some people need to grow another layer of skin....

Dogsworth · 2013-06-17 Reply Admin

trtrwtf:
Boohoo. Blah, blah, blah, etc, etc.

I work in the "tech field" with several females (of a variety of races, no less), all of whom have much thicker skin (and probably do their jobs better) than you and the whiny, hypocritical bitch you're defending. Perhaps you should stop taking offense at every little thing that people say in your presence.

Others constantly poke fun at or even belittle my political, religious, or whatever miscellaneous beliefs, but I don't whine about it and try to publicly shame them. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter. Maybe you should stop trying to piss in everyone else's Cheerio's.

Workplace segregation is still a real issue, and you're belittling it by getting mad at SHIT THAT DOESN'T EVEN AFFECT YOU OR ANYONE ELSE. Why don't you take up your flag and march about real issues like equal pay and opportunity for females?

PS: Yeah, some of the stuff people say is lame. Tell them that to their faces. You have a spine, right? Especially around a bunch of likely impotent nerds.

PPS: Dead baby jokes are much more offensive than jokes about a fucking "big dongle" or "forking a repo," which make reference to a very common, normal, and even enjoyable human activity. If you laugh at dead babies, I would guess you've never had a child. That would be a completely innocent human life. To recap, making fun of the death of an innocent human life is probably worse than making fun of an activity that most of the world engages in for recreation.

PPPS: Go fuck yourself. You are defending one of the increasing number of groups that are offended by seemingly everything but would like to say or do whatever the hell you want and get off scot-free, somehow maintaining the victim role at all times.

PPPPS: I am not a sexist (cue half-ass repartee). A sexist would advocate unequal rights, which is something you seem much more disposed to.

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

john:

So people only apologise when they agree they were wrong?

I usually assume that someone's apology is an honest one, unless they make that hard to believe. In this case, why wouldn't I assume he was an honest person? Do you think he wasn't?

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

trtrwtf:
ObiWayneKenobi:
If this "is not third grade" then shouldn't the offended party have a rational discussion instead of "telling teacher"?

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.

How does everyone know that it happened during the convention when there was someone on stage and people were meant to be quiet and not during an intermission when people chatter amongst themselves?

If it was the former, then perhaps there's a bit of an issue (although photograph and ridicule is not the appropriate response - someone once tried to teach me the ludicrous idea that two wrongs don't make a right). If it was the latter, then tough titties.

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

trtrwtf:
Sorry, screwed up the quote tags. My bad.
These Are Always Fun:

Different people have different ideas of what's acceptable in a public setting.

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.

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.

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.

Jonathan Kratz:
In hotel rooms I worry. I can't be the only guy who sits on the furniture naked.

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

Dogsworth:

I work in the "tech field" with several females (of a variety of races, no less), all of whom have much thicker skin (and probably do their jobs better) than you and the whiny, hypocritical bitch you're defending. Perhaps you should stop taking offense at every little thing that people say in your presence.

Richards doesn't seem to have a particularly thin skin, honestly, and she surely doesn't need me to defend her. Is she a hypocrite? Not on this, as far as I can tell, and I haven't read anything else about her to know.

Dead baby jokes are much more offensive than jokes about a fucking "big dongle" or "forking a repo," which make reference to a very common, normal, and even enjoyable human activity.

Do you miss every point this well? I don't care how offensive your jokes are, if you have the sense to understand that you don't tell them all whenever they occur to you. I'm not going to tell dead baby jokes when I'm around people who I suspect won't enjoy them, because that's what being polite means. If you can figure out how to write a piece of code that doesn't crash, you're smart enough to figure out ordinary politeness, and at least fake it when you're out in public. If you can't be bothered to do that, you're just a plain ordinary garden variety asshole and deserve no courtesy or respect from anyone.

What kind of world is this that simple fucking courtesy is considered some sort of plot against our rights and dignities? What morons am I talking to?

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

trtrwtf:
eViLegion:
But she tweeted it to the entire world and got a guy fired. There was no usher. What the fuck are you talking about?

Her tweet:

Adria Richards @adriarichards Can someone talk to these guys about their conduct? I'm in lightning talks, top right near stage, 10 rows back

The response from the convention staff:

pycon @pycon Thank you @adriarichards for bringing the inappropriate comments to our attention. We've dealt with the situation.

Sorry, you were saying?

You're right. TRWTF is using a public forum (twitter) rather than a private channel (publicised mobile number) to allow people to complain.

When I go to sports events, they publicise a number to call to report offensive or otherwise worrying behaviour. This is the way it should be done. Using a public forum to report all your gripes is only going to bring a public reaction - that's the internet (and even more so social media.
I'll concede that may not be entirely her fault (she might have been to naive to think that through - although personally I doubt it), but the bottom line is when you PUBLICLY complain about something, you have to accept that other people will PUBLICLY disagree with you. This doesn't justify threats and intimidation as might have been seen in this case - in fact any public reaction is probably not justified at all, but when you post things publicly you have to understand that there will always be potential repercussions (whether justified or not).

FWIW from what little I've read on the incident, I tend to think that the public forum was DELIBERATELY used to either:

pressure Pycon people into doing something
stir up a campaign

If she was after the first, it seems she succeeded (albeit at some cost). If she was after the second (and I'm betting she did - at least to some degree) then I'd say it backfired pretty spectacularly.

Either way she's either incredibly naive or she tried to incite hatred and it worked (just in the other direction to which she expected)

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

It could have been much worse. Imagine if he were talking about his Unicode Byte Order Mark detection code at an airport.

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

trtrwtf:
These Are Always Fun:
Where we're going to fundamentally disagree, I think, is that these jokes cause harm.

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?

anti-men activists

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.

Very hard to find a joke that doesn't offend SOMEBODY - most jokes are at someone's ex[ense, so the idea of using "...jokes that are actually funny..." is kind of a strange idea.

There is a massive difference between equal opportunists and feminists. I think this might be the problem most "stereotypical white males" have issue with. When groups who feel like they're being discriminated against speak up, they generally want the imbalance reversed, rather than balanced.
Sometimes this is sub-conscious, and sometimes not, but the most obvious example is qorkplace equality. Equal opportunity is about hiring the right person, not creating some arbitrary demographic. What this means is that if we expect a representive demographic in the workplace, it would take time for it to occur - because in the past we have discriminated based on gender and race (and probably a whole host of other factors). Equal opportunities means that we will not see roughly 50-50 men-women divides in the board room tomorrow, but rather that (all else being equal) we would expect new members of the exectutive to be equally represented. Over time, this should see a roughly 50-50 divide.

Of course, there's a whole host of other factors which influence that too. The most important is that we're all different (don't know if you noticed that - there's noone else in the world quite like you - frightening, I know). Because of this, there will never ever be perfect representation of a particular demographic in any group of people - including workplaces. One of the things people seem to forget is that men don't give birth and feed children - and even when we try to absolutely minimise the time that a woman absolutely has to be the primary care-giver (during gestation and while breastfeeding {although you can bottle the boob these days}) there would still be some months where some women will take a break from their career (even for a few months). All of this means that (in all likelihood) the male/female balance in many professions will continue to skew to having more males.
In fact, for any demographic there are probably reasons why they'd have an unusually high or low representation in a particular workplace. The whole idea of equal opportunities is not about modelling the workplace demographic on the broader world (how broad would you go), but hiring the best person for the job.

But I'm a (relatively) young, straight, white male living in a first world country and working a white-collar job. So I've always been given everything on a platter - what would I know?

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

trtrwtf:
ObiWayneKenobi:

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.

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/

That's very nice.

What was sexist about what was said? or is it some other item on the CoC they've breached?

I notice "Contact us on Twitter" is not one of their recommended ways of reporting issues.

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

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.

That's sexist.

Or did you mean the kind of knob on a door? I doubt it.

But guess what -- no normal adult will care if you call people peepees. Apparently you do, but it's okay for you to do the same.

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

Elron the Fantastic:
trtrwtf:
Sorry, screwed up the quote tags. My bad.
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.

I can understand your argument that, if you're representing your company for a work-related function, you should behave appropriately. However, the correct option would have been to talk to them directly first; if they act flippant about your response, then you submit it to the staff. Simply making a complaint to the staff, without even addressing the parties in question is not going up the proper chain of command. As rude as their comments may have been, simply making a twitter post about it was not only rude, but cowardly.

Courtesy swings both ways.

That's a very good point. When someone's being offensive on the bus, you probably don't approach them. In a conference like this that is a reasonably well controlled environment when people are being distracting there's usually little risk of asking them to shut up and/or puill their heads in.

I'm sort of starting to wonder, though, whether it was a private conversation as most people here seem to think, or whether they were quite deliberately talking at a volume others could (in their eyes) appreciate their humour. I don't think it was sexist, and I think even the bashups here are a bit of an overreaction, but I can't help buit think maybe the guys were actually being dicks and distracting people from the conference (I never really understand people who go to a conference just to talk or make smart-arse comments - so your company gave you a free trip, just don't show up to the boring bits - they don't take attendance <and if they do, then sign in and walk straight back out>).

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

trtrwtf:
s73v3r:

Why is it that people like you say you want equal rights, but really want special rights?

Really? What special rights do people like me want, again?

You know what else is acting like a grownup? Not posting pictures of people on the internet because they said something you don't like. You wanna tell people to act like grownups? Perhaps you should start. Acting like a grownup would be going to the organizers of the conference, not trying to unleash the internet hate machine against people.

I'm having a lot of trouble finding a consistent position here. If what they did was fine, not a deal, no big thing, then why should anyone have refrained from posting their pictures on the internet? People post pictures from conferences all the time - what's the big deal?

The fact is, she sent tweets tagged for the conference organizers. Is it possible that twitter was the preferred communication channel? This is pretty common at conventions. She attached a picture, true - but if she wanted to get these guys in trouble, wouldn't she have mentioned their names? Even today, I know her name, but I don't know the names of the men involved. Doesn't that sort of spoil your "shaming" theory?

You quoted the code of Conduct earlier, so I (possibly stupidly) assume you read it.
It doesn't look like posting to twitter was their preferred method of communication - and I'm sort of surprised that it would be for anything.

Some things do not need to occur in the public domain.

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

Ralph:
trtrwtf:
s73v3r:

Why is it that people like you say you want equal rights, but really want special rights?

Really? What special rights do people like me want, again?

You know what else is acting like a grownup? Not posting pictures of people on the internet because they said something you don't like. You wanna tell people to act like grownups? Perhaps you should start. Acting like a grownup would be going to the organizers of the conference, not trying to unleash the internet hate machine against people.

I'm having a lot of trouble finding a consistent position here. If what they did was fine, not a deal, no big thing, then why should anyone have refrained from posting their pictures on the internet? People post pictures from conferences all the time - what's the big deal?

The fact is, she sent tweets tagged for the conference organizers. Is it possible that twitter was the preferred communication channel? This is pretty common at conventions. She attached a picture, true - but if she wanted to get these guys in trouble, wouldn't she have mentioned their names? Even today, I know her name, but I don't know the names of the men involved. Doesn't that sort of spoil your "shaming" theory?
You quoted the code of Conduct earlier, so I (possibly stupidly) assume you read it.
It doesn't look like posting to twitter was their preferred method of communication - and I'm sort of surprised that it would be for anything.

Some things do not need to occur in the public domain.

oh, and how do you propose she get their names? If they have nametags, the photos already done that, but if she's scared to talk to them I;m not sure how else she would find out.

Irrespective of the actions, tweeting to the organisers is at the very least a MASSIVE fail in judgement, and at worst a deliberately public name and shame. Given she had a background as an advocate against the nasty male geek bullies in IT I'd say a deliberate stunt is more likely than a brain fart. Perhaps the intention lies somehwere in between, but I'd stake my house on the fact that it's closer to deliberate name and shame than a naive attempt to contact the organisers.

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

trtrwtf:
s73v3r:

Not nearly as much as posting their picture on the internet for having a quiet conversation among themselves that she listened in on, took offense, and decided to try to shame them because it was something she didn't like.

Oh, for the love of fuck, you don't even know what happened. Why are you even talking?

From Richards' description of the situation:

What I will share with you here is the backstory that led to this – The guy behind me to the far left was saying he didn’t find much value from the logging session that day. I agreed with him so I turned around and said so. He then went onto say that an earlier session he’d been to where the speaker was talking about images and visualization with Python was really good, even if it seemed to him the speaker wasn’t really an expert on images. He said he would be interested in forking the repo and continuing development. That would have been fine until the guy next to him… began making sexual forking jokes I was going to let it go. It had been a long week. A long month. I’d been on the road since mid February attending and speaking at conferences. PyCon was my 5th and final conference before heading home. ... They started talking about “big” dongles. I could feel my face getting flustered.

So she was having a conversation with one of the guys, and this other fellow butts in with irrelevant sexualized cracks. She wasn't sitting around eavesdropping and shouting "gotcha!", she was having a conversation and this guy starts talking about dicks.

Please shut the fuck up until you at least know something about what you're talking about.

I am getting confused. you're original stance seemed to be that she might be intimidated to bring it up with them. Given she had just (at random, it seems) engaged them in conversation, why would she suddenly be too scared to mention directly to them that one of them was being a bit of a turd?

You seem to be very heat up about this either way...

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

trtrwtf:
s73v3r:

Not nearly as much as posting their picture on the internet for having a quiet conversation among themselves that she listened in on, took offense, and decided to try to shame them because it was something she didn't like.

Oh, for the love of fuck, you don't even know what happened. Why are you even talking?

From Richards' description of the situation:

What I will share with you here is the backstory that led to this – The guy behind me to the far left was saying he didn’t find much value from the logging session that day. I agreed with him so I turned around and said so. He then went onto say that an earlier session he’d been to where the speaker was talking about images and visualization with Python was really good, even if it seemed to him the speaker wasn’t really an expert on images. He said he would be interested in forking the repo and continuing development. That would have been fine until the guy next to him… began making sexual forking jokes I was going to let it go. It had been a long week. A long month. I’d been on the road since mid February attending and speaking at conferences. PyCon was my 5th and final conference before heading home. ... They started talking about “big” dongles. I could feel my face getting flustered.

So she was having a conversation with one of the guys, and this other fellow butts in with irrelevant sexualized cracks. She wasn't sitting around eavesdropping and shouting "gotcha!", she was having a conversation and this guy starts talking about dicks.

Please shut the fuck up until you at least know something about what you're talking about.

I am getting confused. you're original stance seemed to be that she might be intimidated to bring it up with them. Given she had just (at random, it seems) engaged them in conversation, why would she suddenly be too scared to mention directly to them that one of them was being a bit of a turd?

You seem to be very heat up about this either way...

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

trtrwtf:
Robert Claypool:
The special right of prosecuting people who you see swinging their arms and intentionally walk into the area of their swing in order to prove your claim that they shouldn't be allowed to swing their arms.

That's a pretty lousy metaphor. I frankly don't see how it has anything to do with anything we're talking about here.

trtrwtf:

You don't know the names of the men involved? Don't you find it likely that in the moment she didn't know the names of the men involved, Doesn't that sort of spoil your "She didn't do it to shame them" theory?

Considering that you can see huge badges on each neck, with their names on them, which I can't read due to the resolution of the photograph and the angle, but which would have been clearly visible to someone sitting a few feet away from them, no I don't find it likely that she didn't know their names. In fact, I consider that pretty close to impossible.

I'm finding it a bit disingenuous of you to claim "I'm having a lot of trouble finding a consistent position here" when you admit to knowing about the "shaming" theory.

Now you're making no sense at all. Several comments here have made reference to a notion that her intent was to shame these guys publicly. Well, if telling the world what happened is "shaming" them, then what they were doing must have been pretty shameful, right? So which way do you want it? Were they doing something wrong (for which they could be "shamed") or were they doing nothing wrong at all (in which case the "shaming" idea is nonsense) Take your pick, but you can't have both.

What was her intent? I have no idea. I don't know her, and I've spent almost no time following this story. From what I've read, she was well within her rights to report on what was going on where she was. This is what twitter is for, isn't it? So if you're correct, and she wanted the world to know about this, then she took a remarkably gentle approach - she didn't identify the culprits, she didn't identify their employers, she just pointed out that it's not cool to make dick jokes at a professional conference.

And guess what? It isn't. This isn't a baseball game, this isn't your frat party, this is a gathering of industry professionals, and some sort of professional behavior is expected. Anyone who doesn't think so is going to find that they're getting more and more cold shoulder over time, so get used to it. Play time is over, this is a business now, and you have to let your balls drop and act like big boys.

Don't worry, it's not such a bad thing. You might find that when you treat people with respect, they like you better, and you'll get laid once in a while. You'll like that, it's nice.

if she intended to shame someone it means she thinks there's something to be ashamed of, not them. Further, given the backlash, it's probably questionable whether they did have something to be ashamed of or not.

2013-06-17 Reply Admin

trtrwtf:
ObiWayneKenobi:
If this "is not third grade" then shouldn't the offended party have a rational discussion instead of "telling teacher"?

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.

If I'm at a movie, and soemone is making a ruckus, and there's actually an usher nearby that would notice me beckoning them, chances are they'd notice the ruckus too and I wouldn't have to do anything.

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.

At a bar, perhaps. This was a conference for professionals. Even civilised professionals can say some disrespectful stuff sometimes, but there's a good chance they'd be reasonable if you asked them to stop.

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.

A third party such as the convention staff, not Twitter followers.

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