Jim the Pleb Made Me Do It

[Apples]

The only drawback to Adria Richards' being fired is that now she's gonna play super-martyr. If she was Joan of Arc yesterday, today she's gonna be fucking Jesus Christ -- and the SJWs will portray her as a "victim" being blamed for speaking up. Anyway, I hope Sendgrid sticks to their guns and weathers the storm. :popcorn:

[JackSkeptic]

http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/3895/sendgrid.png

Wow. I'm curious what the official reasoning will be. I can understand the point of view that certain kinds of humor can make you uncomfortable and feel unsafe or unwelcome, but being afraid that someone at any time might take something you said as offensive and get you fired is just as likely if not more to make you feel unsafe and unwelcome.

Dragging the company into disrepute or something. She broke several rules by bragging about an occurrence during her company time when she represented them. They can argue her actions impinges on good employee relations. In fact I suspect they can drag up a ton of stuff if they are minded. I have no issue with her complaining, it is the way she did it and the public manner in which she did it that would be an issue.

I've owned businesses and I would not employ her as I feel her judegement is flawed, she is likely to create tension and that is very bad for business. That would be true if she was make or female of course.

[Southern]

It seems Sendgrid is suffering from a DDOS attack. Twitter chatter is suggesting they have earned the wrath of Anonymous.

This could run and run.

YESSSSSS!

Pass me the popcorn, please. That's good schadenfreude right there, and I'll watch it with gusto.

[Southern]

In other news, I just read through this: http://atheismplus.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4270

and just, holy shit, how does ceepolk even manage to get out of bed?

"I want you to wait to have sex until the person you're with asks you for it. Tells you they need you now, and that they can't wait, and they want it. Calls you by your name and asks for it."

Wait, if two people in a long term relationship waiting for each other to ask, how will they ever end up having sex?

I bet that's for the best. After all, sex is wrong and dirty, people shouldn't be doing it.

PRAISE THE LORD JEEBUS!

[welch]

One thing on the Adria Richards thing. Regardless of why, the volume of trolling/hate/whatever you wish to call it she's gotten over this has effectively killed any chance of rational discussion. Can she even think of admitting the twitter crap was a bad idea and apologizing? Ideally yes, but no. Battle Lines have been drawn, FIRE AT WILL.

As a friend of mine, who is both female, and hardly delicate said:

She doesn't have the opportunity to think about whether she did anything wrong, because she got hit instantly with "die, bitch".

When the first response is to attack, the fact that the target is no longer willing to consider rational responses is hardly unreasonable or surprising.

[LMU]

One thing on the Adria Richards thing. Regardless of why, the volume of trolling/hate/whatever you wish to call it she's gotten over this has effectively killed any chance of rational discussion. Can she even think of admitting the twitter crap was a bad idea and apologizing? Ideally yes, but no. Battle Lines have been drawn, FIRE AT WILL.

As a friend of mine, who is both female, and hardly delicate said:

She doesn't have the opportunity to think about whether she did anything wrong, because she got hit instantly with "die, bitch".

When the first response is to attack, the fact that the target is no longer willing to consider rational responses is hardly unreasonable or surprising.

I agree that it isn't surprising, but that doesn't mean people shouldn't try to do better. That Richards' first response was to attack didn't prevent the man who was fired from apologizing for his joke. And it's not like no one agreed with Richards either.

[welch]

http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/3895/sendgrid.png

YAAAY! EVERYONE'S BEEN SCREWED! WIN.

sigh.

[welch]

http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/3895/sendgrid.png

Wow. I'm curious what the official reasoning will be. I can understand the point of view that certain kinds of humor can make you uncomfortable and feel unsafe or unwelcome, but being afraid that someone at any time might take something you said as offensive and get you fired is just as likely if not more to make you feel unsafe and unwelcome.

When *PyCon* is a bastion of rational behavior in this, EVERYONE is fucked.

[EdwardGemmer]

http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/3895/sendgrid.png

YAAAY! EVERYONE'S BEEN SCREWED! WIN.

sigh.

LOL. Maybe everyone should issue a fake apology here.

[Apples]

One thing on the Adria Richards thing. Regardless of why, the volume of trolling/hate/whatever you wish to call it she's gotten over this has effectively killed any chance of rational discussion. Can she even think of admitting the twitter crap was a bad idea and apologizing? Ideally yes, but no. Battle Lines have been drawn, FIRE AT WILL.

As a friend of mine, who is both female, and hardly delicate said:

She doesn't have the opportunity to think about whether she did anything wrong, because she got hit instantly with "die, bitch".

When the first response is to attack, the fact that the target is no longer willing to consider rational responses is hardly unreasonable or surprising.

The Internet works in mysterious ways.

Seriously, this is one of those stories that really does reflect, for us old folks (anyone over 35 or so), how different the world is from the one in which we grew up -- first with email/the web/blogs, and now with fb/twitter/smartphone-cameras.

But you're right - the hater-trolling is bad for everyone, always.

[Altair]

One thing on the Adria Richards thing. Regardless of why, the volume of trolling/hate/whatever you wish to call it she's gotten over this has effectively killed any chance of rational discussion. Can she even think of admitting the twitter crap was a bad idea and apologizing? Ideally yes, but no. Battle Lines have been drawn, FIRE AT WILL.

As a friend of mine, who is both female, and hardly delicate said:

She doesn't have the opportunity to think about whether she did anything wrong, because she got hit instantly with "die, bitch".

When the first response is to attack, the fact that the target is no longer willing to consider rational responses is hardly unreasonable or surprising.

I would agree with this if "attack and shame!" hadn't been her first response as well. If she had had a polite conversation with this guys, and tried to explain why she found the conversation offensive, or even reported it through official channels to pycon only, I would say that her being attacked was bad form.

But she took their picture, including badges with company names, and then gloated on the internet and called herself a joan of arc fighting horrible misogynistic trolls. In my opinion, she reaped what she sowed.

[Southern]

http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/3895/sendgrid.png

Thank you, Ms Richards, I love me some Radiohead:

[youtube]IBH97ma9YiI[/youtube]

"Karma police, arrest this girl
Her Hitler hairdo is
Making me feel ill
And we have crashed her party"

[Pitchguest]

http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/3895/sendgrid.png

Once again, I reiterate, I don't usually say things like this, but FUCKIN' A. When I saw that, I just had this urge to say 'IN YOUR FACE' all child-like, but fortunately I stopped myself before it happened.

I will just say that a nasty situation that required retribution was given it. That's end of story for me.

[welch]

http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/3895/sendgrid.png

Wow. I'm curious what the official reasoning will be. I can understand the point of view that certain kinds of humor can make you uncomfortable and feel unsafe or unwelcome, but being afraid that someone at any time might take something you said as offensive and get you fired is just as likely if not more to make you feel unsafe and unwelcome.

Dragging the company into disrepute or something. She broke several rules by bragging about an occurrence during her company time when she represented them. They can argue her actions impinges on good employee relations. In fact I suspect they can drag up a ton of stuff if they are minded. I have no issue with her complaining, it is the way she did it and the public manner in which she did it that would be an issue.

I've owned businesses and I would not employ her as I feel her judegement is flawed, she is likely to create tension and that is very bad for business. That would be true if she was make or female of course.

I wouldn't have fired her. But I would have had a LONG chat with her about just how you do shit. SOme of that chat would have been unkind.

[Stretchycheese]

http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/3895/sendgrid.png

Once again, I reiterate, I don't usually say things like this, but FUCKIN' A. When I saw that, I just had this urge to say 'IN YOUR FACE' all child-like, but fortunately I stopped myself before it happened.

I will just say that a nasty situation that required retribution was given it. That's end of story for me.

It's kind of like Adria taking the nuclear option to solve a minor social faux pas, and now she's finding that winds our blowing the radioactive fallout her way. Much like what the FTBers did do DJ Grothe with their "callout culture", they're finding that it's a two-edge sword. People aren't so interested in inviting them to conferences anymore. By using public shaming and shunning tactics, they end up getting shamed and shunned themselves.

[Percentage]

There's something. She goes on and on about all the misogynist abuse she gets, like, as she says:

fat cunt, stupid cunt, cunty-cunt-cunt, blah blah fart

.

But look at the one flame that she chose to publicize, from John Brown:

Dear Melissa McEwan. Here is my answer. No. Go fuck yourself.

Is that aggressive? Definitely. Nasty? Sure. Any worse than what every semi-public figure gets? Not so much. And if that was what she chose to publicize, you know it's got to be among the worst shit she got; there's no way the proprietor of the internet's #1 professional victim collective would settle for anything less.

So you know what I think? I think McEwan is lying through her teeth. I don't think anyone called her a "fat cunt" at all. I think she's a fucking liar and a dishonest fraud. No different than Watson- worse, actually, because I think that Watson actually does receive some nasty gendered invective.

Fuck Melissa McEwan.

[John Greg]

Hmm. I have to say I am quite split between welch's take on Adria's firing, and Pitchguest's. One minute I'm welch; the next I'm Pitchguest.

I think they both have valid, yet conflicting, points.

Challenging. I suspect it will take me a few days to resolve this for myself.

[Wonderist]

Some good points from Jack:

169 Jack March 20, 2013 at 10:56 pm

Dan L.

The problem we have is not the issue of discussing Feminism in the Atheist community. Many of us started our Anti-Theist activities because we could clearly see how badly women are treated. You can call that a Feminist issue, I might call it an equality issue derived from religious abuse but the results are the same, we fight against it. I do not give a stuff what people want to call it.

So of course I have no issue with, say, discussions on FGM in Africa or even in the UK now where it is becoming an issue amongst the religious.

What I resist is where only ONE type of feminism is considered acceptable with all the dogmatic attachment that has. And NOT accepting that one leads to exclusion as one of the ‘Suppressive Persons’

I find it hilarious only today someone calls anyone who does not subscribed to their form of feminism an anti feminist (I’ll provide the link if requested but it is a common mantra) That is complete and utter rubbish which is oft repeated to smear opponents and it is demonstrably non skeptical.

We have discussed the effects of this endlessly over the last few weeks and really I thought the position was very clear.

Feminist ideology can be part of some people’s social beliefs within the atheist community. Of course it can. They can pick from the 16 or so varieties. They have nearly as many as Heinz. But to try and force one on others is simply wrong.

This is not a political movement it is a group promoting the concept of atheism and the non interference of our freedoms, including those of men and women. That will necessarily involve getting involved with other political, religious and social organisations but that in itself does not require us to have a single political philosophy to be effective. We should be Apolitical.

I find it surprising that as rationalities this discussion is required at all to be honest. I feel like I have come from fighting Religious Dogma and woo for all these years only to find one right in the middle of a community I assumed was safe from all that.

We should be fighting other people Dogma’s that affect people’s daily lives not have to worry about one in our own backyard.

The obvious point to me is that even if we all agree here it will change nothing. We are not the issue. We DO talk despite out differences.

Others are the issue and they seem very reluctant to come forward, at least publicly for now. Which is why I hope Michael has been reaching out and receiving contacts from people not directly involved in these discussions.

As an aside....

Jack, one thing about frustration and going in circles. Yes, the conversation will go in circles, just like religious dogma. And it is *very* easy to get frustrated and even burnt out from that.

When arguing against theists, for example, you quickly run up against the dogmatism, and at first it can seem like "What the fuck's the point of going any further? I'm getting sick of this. Over and out." Indeed, that's why *many* people avoid such discussions in the first place, and I imagine the same is true with dogmatic feminism. The dogmatists haven't got any 'push back' so far, because no one has had the *extreme* patience to stand up to them for a sustained period of time.

Well, how did we solve that 'burn out problem' in the atheist movement? Well, each person is their own, I won't pretend to speak for everyone, but I *do* know that a lot of people 'keep it interesting' by trying to be 'creative' about it. For example, one of the easiest and most entertaining ways to put some creativity into it is the whole 'snark gambit', that many gnu atheist types have honed and perfected over the years. Very effective against theists. Tends to backfire when used against *other* gnu-ish types who *also* are expert snarksters.

But really, that's just *one* way to keep it interesting. When I do an Evidence Chicken style attack, I *know* the thread is going to become long and tedious, and it's going to become something of an endurance test. So, personally, the only way I can keep myself motivated to follow through to the finish line (which is a necessary component of any chicken game) is to 'have fun with it', but that doesn't mean I have to be *snarky*. Instead, sometimes I just go a little goofy with a clown act, or sometimes I try to look for new and interesting obscure references that I've never used before, to back up my points (and I have a kind of fetish for learning new things, so this can keep me motivated for hours). And also, when you 'have fun with it', it can often make it fun for the onlookers too, making the thread more *effective* overall at getting your point across. Of course, too much goofiness in the wrong place will get you banned or whatnot, but I think you'll pretty much have free reign on Nugent's threads, and certainly you do here.

So, perhaps, play around a bit. Your own way, of course, your own sense of fun and humour, and your own specific interests. That's diversity. That's a strength.

In order to get through to people, it is 100% absolutely necessary that we will *have to* repeat our cases, over and over again. Having good reference links helps a lot, or just good google fingers, but copy pasta doesn't work, so you gotta put in *some* of your own time and effort to write the *same fucking thing* over and over and over. So, write that *same fucking thing* in a *new and interesting way*.

Try different angles, different debate techniques. When you see someone making a good point in a new way, try the same thing yourself and see if you can make it work for you.

Now, I *know* (absolutely) that most of this post you already knew and it might come off as condescendingly pedantic. And sorry for that. But again, I'm not only writing for you, so what you already know, just skip, and *hopefully* I actually said something you can use to alleviate some frustration and boredom.

Most importantly, if you feel like you're burning out. Take a break! Relax. Do something completely different for as long as it takes, even if that's weeks, months, or years. Our mental health is far more important than it's worth the risk of burning out and losing *all* motivation and enjoyment. I've burnt out a few times on a few different things (e.g. politics). It's not fun. Take care of yourself first. This is key.

Again, hope you can forgive the pedantry. Cheers!

[AndrewV69]

Regarding the guys fired for making a dongle joke affair; I'm looking for some sort of verification that this actually happened. Is there a source other than the woman who blogged it?

The escapist had an article on it Sourced to The original blog, reddit and news.ycombinator

MMO-Champion article also sourced to butyoureagirl

Was picked up by venture beat seems to have lots of details, including interview with one of the two men involved. No directly attributed sources other than butyou'reagirl

comment on news.ycombinator from one of the men

More in depth discussion of identification and firings here

The guy who was fired for his comments at PyCon about dongles and forking is named Alex Reid

Update: It seems we may have a case of mistaken identity, sort of, and this does not bode well for Ms. Richards. The guy who is shown looking at the camera in the photo tweeted by Adria Richards is named Alex Reid, and he works for PlayHaven. But the guy who was actually fired from the company says that Alex was not involved in the incident and that he is still with the company.

Update II: Figured out who the guy on the left is. Waiting for responses from various people involved before I go any further. Lots of people not saying much.

Just read the story. That's just completely bizarre and pretty scary. Is this the kind of stuffy environment the FTB/Skepchick radfems want for the Amazing Meeting and skeptic conferences? Where a person has to constantly walk on eggshells for fear of offending some overreactionary political correctness drama queen who will resort to public shaming tactics at a whim?

Ironically, I think she may have done as much damage to herself as to the men she attacked. No one will want to hire someone like that. She completely fails conflict resolution 101. If an interviewer for a job asked how you would resolve an uncomfortable comment or situation, the answer would be to communicate this personally to the people involved initially, not humiliate and defame people publicly in an outrageous way that can affect their livelihoods. I would never want to work with someone like that and if I was a manager, I would never hire someone like that.

Breaking: Adria Richards fired by Sendgrid
http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/21/break ... n-twitter/

Email delivery company SendGrid has fired developer evangelist Adria Richards (pictured above) after she outed a developer who was allegedly making sexual jokes during a conference, via Twitter.

The developer in question was fired by his employer, PlayHaven, after Richards posted his picture and a few details about what he said. VentureBeat broke the story last night.

Now what?

[Zenspace]

<snip>

Just read the story. That's just completely bizarre and pretty scary. Is this the kind of stuffy environment the FTB/Skepchick radfems want for the Amazing Meeting and skeptic conferences? Where a person has to constantly walk on eggshells for fear of offending some overreactionary political correctness drama queen who will resort to public shaming tactics at a whim?

Ironically, I think she may have done as much damage to herself as to the men she attacked. No one will want to hire someone like that. She completely fails conflict resolution 101. If an interviewer for a job asked how you would resolve an uncomfortable comment or situation, the answer would be to communicate this personally to the people involved initially, not humiliate and defame people publicly in an outrageous way that can affect their livelihoods. I would never want to work with someone like that and if I was a manager, I would never hire someone like that.

As a manager myself - I will confirm this happens IRL. A happy workforce needs a comfortable working inter-personal dynamic. Having to be constantly on guard for that kind of drama takes a real toll on a staff and the person perceived as the source for that dynamic will never be integrated into the employee group, which is a detriment to both general morale and efficiency. In other words, it makes for a working environment that really sucks. Over the years, we have detected at least two of those personalities during the trial period and neither individual was hired. One was male, the other was female.

[Guest]

With the whole 'Donglegate' mess, I initially took the view that Adria Richards should've been reprimanded sternly, rather than fired. However, her "developer evangelist" role was more to do with PR than coding (AFAIK), so she had to uphold higher standards than a regular programmer would've.

[Wonderist]

172 Dan L. March 20, 2013 at 11:00 pm

As for the reason you put, not allowing people to say it because they could use it to hurt others and lie about why they used it, that sounds like a new reason you’ve just added.

I don’t understand. “New” in what respect? What have I “just added” it to? Surely you’re aware that forum moderators can’t judge a commenter’s intention by issuing an http “READMIND” request?

That's coming in HTTP/2.1, I believe.

[Remick]

Hmm. I have to say I am quite split between welch's take on Adria's firing, and Pitchguest's. One minute I'm welch; the next I'm Pitchguest.

I think they both have valid, yet conflicting, points.

Challenging. I suspect it will take me a few days to resolve this for myself.

I am more with Welch on this. But as with the guy who lost his job, we have no idea if there have been other issues at work with her. Given her choice to totally blow something up despite how minor it is, it is very possible she's created issues before.

I mean, what would she have done if it was her work instead of a conference? Post pictures of her co-worker in the cafeteria with a caption "This man is a sexual harrassers..." or something like that. Most companies have a guideline for how these things are handled, what she did would never be included.

Ideally, the guy who was fired would get his job back, but considering his 'crime' was lesser in comparison, I don't see why she should keep her job either. She made three errors, 1) what she did initially, 2) bragging about it, drawing attention, 3) specifically including her employer's name in tweets about it.

Three strikes, you're out.

[Remick]

With the whole 'Donglegate' mess, I initially took the view that Adria Richards should've been reprimanded sternly, rather than fired. However, her "developer evangelist" role was more to do with PR than coding (AFAIK), so she had to uphold higher standards than a regular programmer would've.

Ah, if she has anything to do with the public face of the company, yes, I completely understand her being fired.

[welch]

One thing on the Adria Richards thing. Regardless of why, the volume of trolling/hate/whatever you wish to call it she's gotten over this has effectively killed any chance of rational discussion. Can she even think of admitting the twitter crap was a bad idea and apologizing? Ideally yes, but no. Battle Lines have been drawn, FIRE AT WILL.

As a friend of mine, who is both female, and hardly delicate said:

She doesn't have the opportunity to think about whether she did anything wrong, because she got hit instantly with "die, bitch".

When the first response is to attack, the fact that the target is no longer willing to consider rational responses is hardly unreasonable or surprising.

I agree that it isn't surprising, but that doesn't mean people shouldn't try to do better. That Richards' first response was to attack didn't prevent the man who was fired from apologizing for his joke. And it's not like no one agreed with Richards either.

Exactly, and I'm really glad he was honest to himself at least. If he really felt that way, and I see no reason to doubt it, then good on him. But on a battlefield, it's hard to get people to stop shooting.

[welch]

One thing on the Adria Richards thing. Regardless of why, the volume of trolling/hate/whatever you wish to call it she's gotten over this has effectively killed any chance of rational discussion. Can she even think of admitting the twitter crap was a bad idea and apologizing? Ideally yes, but no. Battle Lines have been drawn, FIRE AT WILL.

As a friend of mine, who is both female, and hardly delicate said:

She doesn't have the opportunity to think about whether she did anything wrong, because she got hit instantly with "die, bitch".

When the first response is to attack, the fact that the target is no longer willing to consider rational responses is hardly unreasonable or surprising.

I would agree with this if "attack and shame!" hadn't been her first response as well. If she had had a polite conversation with this guys, and tried to explain why she found the conversation offensive, or even reported it through official channels to pycon only, I would say that her being attacked was bad form.

But she took their picture, including badges with company names, and then gloated on the internet and called herself a joan of arc fighting horrible misogynistic trolls. In my opinion, she reaped what she sowed.

I completely agree her actions there were wrong. But had the hater trolls backed the fuck off, her boss, or someone else could have, in private, said "WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING" in whatever way they wanted to say that, and perhaps, just perhaps, she could have apologized for the tweets. NOT reporting the incident to PyCon, but just the tweets, and then the guy's apology for the joke could have happened and maybe no one had to lose their fucking job.

But right now, NOTHING good has come from this, and I really doubt it will.

[welch]

Hmm. I have to say I am quite split between welch's take on Adria's firing, and Pitchguest's. One minute I'm welch; the next I'm Pitchguest.

I think they both have valid, yet conflicting, points.

Challenging. I suspect it will take me a few days to resolve this for myself.

I agree. Luckily, this isn't highlander. We can both be right and not in complete agreement.

[Dave]

I wouldn't have fired her. But I would have had a LONG chat with her about just how you do shit. SOme of that chat would have been unkind.

I dont know that she was fired based on her actions alone. Upthread there is a comment that Sendgrid has come to the attention of Anonymous. The attached snapshot from the Sendgrid FB page could be read to support that.

Untitled.png

Sendgrid FB

(69.99 KiB) Downloaded 191 times

Anonymous -- the Arnaud Amaury of the Internet.

[Wonderist]

Good point from welch:

184 John C. Welch March 20, 2013 at 11:20 pm

Actually, PZ banned oolon for being…i’m not REALLY sure. A poser? Two-faced? Anyway, you don’t have to guess, here, the dungeon entry on Oolon:

Poseur who pretends to be neutral, while defending the indefensible. Warned not to put on his act in a thread, he promptly ignored me. Now I’ll ignore him.

it was also not within the last few weeks by any stretch, and his banning was before Reap Paden’s.

I don’t think any of this really matters, but you don’t have to guess at why someone was put in PZ’s dungeon, the info is usually right there. Except for renee’s. He appears to have memoryholed her entry. Which is kind of amusing, because were she still up there, she’d be the only obvious woman in the dungeon.

I think there needs to be some common ground on 'transparency', namely being able to see what the truth really is. Only PZ really has a comprehensive knowledge of who's banned and who's not. And he keeps his reasons vague and snarky so they can be interpreted extremely flexibly. If he instead had a transparent list of people/IPs/emails banned, with links to specific details as to why they were banned (and true details, as transparency would inherently require), then none of these arguments would be spinning around.

[debaser71]

Why was the man fired in the first place? IMO that's where the rub lies.

Anyway some companies have policies about social media. If you mention the company, at all, you get fired. One can say, "I work for an email company" and be ok. But if they say, "I work for SendGrid" they can be fired.

[Submariner]

News from Playhaven:

Mar 21, 2013 / 1:56am
Addressing PyCon
Andy Yang
Andy Yang
CEO
View other articles
0

It has come to our attention that a topic concerning a former PlayHaven employee has generated a passionate online debate.

There are a number of inaccuracies being reported and I would like to take this opportunity to provide some clarity.

PlayHaven had an employee who was identified as making inappropriate comments at PyCon, and as a company that is dedicated to gender equality and values honorable behavior, we conducted a thorough investigation. The result of this investigation led to the unfortunate outcome of having to let this employee go. We value and protect the privacy of our employees, both past and present, and we will not comment on all the factors that contributed to our parting ways.

This employee was not Alex Reid, who is still with the company and a valued employee.

We believe in the importance of discussing sensitive topics such as gender and conduct and we hope to move forward with a civil dialogue based on the facts.

In that spirit, I would personally like to hear your thoughts and concerns.

Email me at ceo@playhaven.com. I will do my best to respond and encourage an active and civil dialogue.

https://twitter.com/playhaven

[Wonderist]

Welch on accuracy:

184 John C. Welch March 20, 2013 at 11:20 pm

Actually, PZ banned oolon for being…i’m not REALLY sure. A poser? Two-faced? Anyway, you don’t have to guess, here, the dungeon entry on Oolon:

Poseur who pretends to be neutral, while defending the indefensible. Warned not to put on his act in a thread, he promptly ignored me. Now I’ll ignore him.

it was also not within the last few weeks by any stretch, and his banning was before Reap Paden’s.

I don’t think any of this really matters, but you don’t have to guess at why someone was put in PZ’s dungeon, the info is usually right there. Except for renee’s. He appears to have memoryholed her entry. Which is kind of amusing, because were she still up there, she’d be the only obvious woman in the dungeon.

To me, this shows a connection between the concept of transparency (making claims that *are* backed by evidence, not just assumed to be), and the earlier idea I wrote about of having people express their beliefs/preferences/goals/whatever, *explicitly*, via some system (as yet hypothetical only, but some ideas might be something like via polling or survey, or via a person's self-described 'profile' on some website (that you can link to, for example), or something along those lines; obvious major issues such as privacy would have to be hashed out).

If, when making claims about people, they were required to be transparently verifiable (e.g., by referencing the person's self-described positions), then a *lot* of these ad homs and straw man attacks would be strongly undermined. Problem with the current way we do things is a) memoryhole, and b) way too scattered verifiable information all over the place, requiring dedicated people to keep track of it all.

[masakari2012]

Adria Richards commented on that facebook thread....

Adria Richards I have to learn about this on here? Very professional to not involve me in the process. You will be hearing from my lawyer!

Adria Richards I did not try to get anyone fired. His employer made the decision based on his actions!

[Cunning Punt]

One thing on the Adria Richards thing. Regardless of why, the volume of trolling/hate/whatever you wish to call it she's gotten over this has effectively killed any chance of rational discussion. Can she even think of admitting the twitter crap was a bad idea and apologizing? Ideally yes, but no. Battle Lines have been drawn, FIRE AT WILL.

As a friend of mine, who is both female, and hardly delicate said:

She doesn't have the opportunity to think about whether she did anything wrong, because she got hit instantly with "die, bitch".

When the first response is to attack, the fact that the target is no longer willing to consider rational responses is hardly unreasonable or surprising.

Sounds like some we know, back in June of 2011.

[John Greg]

How do these people parse this kind of contradiction:

A. "There are a number of inaccuracies being reported and I would like to take this opportunity to provide some clarity."

B. "We value and protect the privacy of our employees, both past and present, and we will not comment on all the factors that contributed to our parting ways."

C. "We believe in the importance of discussing sensitive topics such as gender and conduct and we hope to move forward with a civil dialogue based on the facts."

I don't get it. It equates to:

We want to discuss why we fired the guy, but we are not going to discuss why we fired the guy, so let's discuss why we fired the guy; but not really.

[LMU]

How do these people parse this kind of contradiction:

A. "There are a number of inaccuracies being reported and I would like to take this opportunity to provide some clarity."

B. "We value and protect the privacy of our employees, both past and present, and we will not comment on all the factors that contributed to our parting ways."

C. "We believe in the importance of discussing sensitive topics such as gender and conduct and we hope to move forward with a civil dialogue based on the facts."

I don't get it. It equates to:

We want to discuss why we fired the guy, but we are not going to discuss why we fired the guy, so let's discuss why we fired the guy; but not really.

I thought it was weird too. Like it was written by multiple people, or one person who forgot to proofread after they edited parts. Are they going to talk about the facts of the matter or protect the privacy of their former employee? It might just be that they're willing to listen to all complaints that people want to make about the issue, though it's unclear what new "facts" random people on the internet would be able to contribute.

[Submariner]

How do these people parse this kind of contradiction:

A. "There are a number of inaccuracies being reported and I would like to take this opportunity to provide some clarity."

B. "We value and protect the privacy of our employees, both past and present, and we will not comment on all the factors that contributed to our parting ways."

C. "We believe in the importance of discussing sensitive topics such as gender and conduct and we hope to move forward with a civil dialogue based on the facts."

I don't get it. It equates to:

We want to discuss why we fired the guy, but we are not going to discuss why we fired the guy, so let's discuss why we fired the guy; but not really.

Sounds like Corporatese. It is often hard to parse.

[AndrewV69]

Adria Richards commented on that facebook thread....

Adria Richards I have to learn about this on here? Very professional to not involve me in the process. You will be hearing from my lawyer!

Adria Richards I did not try to get anyone fired. His employer made the decision based on his actions!

Eh? Well I believe Abbie mentioned the possibility of hacked Facebook account(s)? I think I am just going to STFU while I :popcorn: at this point.

Perhaps things will become clearer in the next few days?

[Wonderist]

Submariner makes an interesting, and new to me, objection against 'dilution of resources':

210 Submariner March 21, 2013 at 12:35 am

@ Dan 193:

If you’re not proposing to forbid discussing topics that large proportions of convention-goers want to discuss then what are you proposing?

Thank you for asking.
Convention goers may discuss anything they like, it is a free country after all(US here). What I’m talking about are the invited speakers.

Which groups from the the website linked in my post at #3 in this thread shall we as atheists/skeptics allow under the banner of our few groups?

Many of these organizations are, I’m sure, fine advocacy groups and do wonderful things in the community. The point is, they already exist.

How dilute must we who all agree (presuming we do) on the declaration statements from Atheist International, make our resources for advocacy of those core values?

I’m proposing truth in advertising. Talk primarily about those core principles under which you fly your organizational flag.

I think that, yes, potentially, having 'movements' for this that and the other thing *would* end up leading to a thousand conventions, where at each one only a single person shows up, as opposed to one convention where all 1000 show up.

However, that ties in to non-mutual-exclusivity, and the idea of each person having a self-descriptive profile of interests/causes/beliefs/issues/whatever that they want to participate in. Then, if enough people want to have a convention on X, they can at least find each other to do that; they won't be drowned out by 'the majority' who aren't interested in X. But at the same time, if 95% of people all tick the 'fighting off religious intrusion in gov't and schools' checkbox, then you can easily defend the idea of this 95% having their 'secularism' conference, and the other 5% not. And all of these tick-boxes are independent, so you 'pick n choose' what you want to support. You define yourself however you like. It introduces *accuracy*, to revive the point from welch.

[masakari2012]

SendGrid's tweet...


Perhaps Adria Richard's fb account may be a fake or hacked. But yeah, I think I'll STFU too and wait.

[Remick]

Adria Richards commented on that facebook thread....

Adria Richards I have to learn about this on here? Very professional to not involve me in the process. You will be hearing from my lawyer!

Adria Richards I did not try to get anyone fired. His employer made the decision based on his actions!

At will employment in CO, so... SoL for Adria.

[Al Stefanelli]

http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/3895/sendgrid.png

Good. I'm glad she got shit-canned. I can tell you as a former employer, and the author of several HR manuals with accompanying sign-off sheets regarding the dissemination of private company information, including information about other individuals employment status and/or disciplinary statuses, her actions in making this public falls squarely under the 'she was asking for it' category.

[JackSkeptic]

This is a core, central issue. This issue of overlap, and non-mutual-exclusivity.
(Is Remick an SP? Does anyone know how to contact him/her? )

136 Remick March 20, 2013 at 9:30 pm

@doubtthat 123.

I’ve enjoyed it as well.

As to the disagreement, I certainly agree, with skepticism. I imagine skeptical movements will continue to shift focus again and again, from one subject to the next, and back again.

Why does Atheism? It has one subject. Several issues affect it. But it is by and large a single point.

Atheists can be feminist and vice versa. But why would an atheist movement be concerned with feminist issues that are largely outside of its single subject? It isn’t really an atheist movement then is it. It is a feminist one. So lets call it what it is.

If you are an atheist and a feminist, why would you try to make an atheist movement do things that have nothing to do with atheism? Even if they all agree with you. Why not join a Feminist movement if that is your focus? There are plenty of spaces for overlap between the two movements, but to try to say that to be part of the atheist movement, you have to be totally onboard with a feminist movement, is out of place and frankly wrong to do.

There are atheists who aren’t feminists, and there are feminists who aren’t atheists. Why try to force them all together, rather than just allow them to come together on issues that are common?

Hi.

Hi Remick, I was posting so much at Nugent's a post went into spam filter. They really do not look at what has been said. It is like restarting new everyday. I wonder if there is a deliberate policy of wearing us down which is why I think Nugent is moving this on reasonably quickly.

[masakari2012]

I'm not sure if this video was shared already, but I think this was the video which was mentioned in this blog...

Blog: http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/21/sendg ... -at-pycon/

Video:
[youtube]Se5yacq37VA[/youtube]

[masakari2012]

Glad to see you, Al. I was so upset to read about your medical condition. I hope you overcome the condition. I'll drink a Guinness stout for you.

[Percentage]

I don’t think any of this really matters, but you don’t have to guess at why someone was put in PZ’s dungeon, the info is usually right there. Except for renee’s. He appears to have memoryholed her entry. Which is kind of amusing, because were she still up there, she’d be the only obvious woman in the dungeon.

I think PZ memory holed everyone who is a known slymepitter. Justin Vacula, Franc Hoggle and a few others are gone too. They're now all considered aggregated in "The Lymepit" section at the bottom.

[agarybuseychristmas]

Glad to see you, Al. I was so upset to read about your medical condition. I hope you overcome the condition. I'll drink a Guinness stout for you.

Drink a real stout while you're at it :snooty:

[Wonderist]

http://furiouspurpose.me/enough-with-th ... g-already/

[Tigzy]

Please, Peezee...please comment on BigDongleGate. I'd really love to know your opinion of people who make lewd jokes at conferences.

[Apples]

An extremely long autobiographical post on Adria Richards' blog --"Success Against The Odds: Filling My Technology Knapsack From Scratch" gives some insight into her background and personality. She had problems with a violent/stalkery boyfriend, among other things.

I was done being bullied and intimidated. I began blogging because my life coach encouraged me to. He said it would help many more people than if I just wrote emails to one person. Ok, I told him. I would try it. I registered the domain http://butyoureagirl.com and setup a WordPress blog. I had used WordPress a few times before. One of my first blog posts dated June 9th, 2008 urged people to consider getting rid of cars and replacing them with horses. The highways could be paved with grass and parking lots could be converted to horse stables. This was during the gas crisis so it was my attempt to be relevant.

Ok not the best but I kept trying.

I had signed up for Twitter in March 2008. I wasn’t sure how that all worked just yet. I had joined Facebook the year before because a technology client of mine kept sending me photo alerts. I joined foursquare in 2009 because Minneapolis was one of the early test cities.

I considered staying off these social networks and not blogging as way to protect myself, my location and my intents. I soon began to realize though that sharing where I was and what I was doing actually protected me because I could now notify hundreds, if not thousands of people that I was in danger. It felt comforting to think of it this way.

[emphasis mine]

The direct link to the post is not working, but it's the Feb 6 2013 post on her blog:

http://butyoureagirl.com/blog/

[Apples]

It all makes sense now: she is from Minnesota.

[masakari2012]

Adria Richards commented on that facebook thread....

Adria Richards I have to learn about this on here? Very professional to not involve me in the process. You will be hearing from my lawyer!

Adria Richards I did not try to get anyone fired. His employer made the decision based on his actions!

Eh? Well I believe Abbie mentioned the possibility of hacked Facebook account(s)? I think I am just going to STFU while I :popcorn: at this point.

Perhaps things will become clearer in the next few days?

Yes, this was a fake account. Here is [what appears to be] her real account...
https://www.facebook.com/adriarichards

[Apples]

Also from that post - she has a PTSD diagnosis:

Because of my experiences growing up, I have triggers. This means that I’m always scanning for danger; for situations that seem like something from the past that could hurt me. When I recognize something that matches, I can overreact and feel intense fear, anger or anxiety. This is something I’ve worked on a lot. It’s much better now than 10 years ago but there are some things that send me over the edge. ...

Or coming back on the plane from Mexico the other weekend. The man in front of me had both the window shades open and the light was pouring in over my face. I thought to ask him if it was all right to close the shade but in the back of my mind I thought, “What if he gets mad, yells and starts attacking me when I ask?”. I worked on this for several minutes to overcome the fear. I had to coach myself that the other thought was irrational and that I needed to say something. I finally did ask a few minutes later. He happily agreed and I closed the shade. While on the outside it seems things are simple, often they are emotionally exhausting for me on the inside.

[windy]

138 doubtthat March 20, 2013 at 9:39 pm

And in reply, here we have doubtthat repeating the same SJW-motivation reply, implicitly distinguishing from the Sam Harris-motivation which many (most?) of us have been going with for years.

Again, fuck that Sam Harris shit ... :evil:

Wonderist, can you indicate which Nugent thread you're quoting from, since several are active at the same time?

I also asked you for the source for this earlier:
"...doubtthat explaining his work in poor neighbourhoods, and religion sorta helping, but helping in a corrupted way, since it involves ancient religious thought that's not up to date with modern feminism."

[cunt]

Jack making a good point about 'redress'. I think, personally, that that's got to be one of the main foundations of reasonable dialogue. Drawing a blank, help me out: Isn't there some law-related thing about there being a right to have grievances heard and redressed by the government? Is that the US? All western countries? Constitutions? Common Law? Where does that come from?

First amendment to the US constitution. I think you're confusing that with the "right of reply" though which actually isn't a right but more of a sop thrown by certain media publications entirely at their whim.

No. I can see how what I said could have come off that way, but actually I was thinking about the legal thing, being able to complain to the gov't about shit and having them have to address it (even if just to answer, no). The two are actually kind of related on a philosophical/principle/conceptual level. Basically, it stems from a concept of fairness. But I wanted the legal one because we're now (well, actually, I'm still behind, so this discussion is now old-ish (hours old, anyway)) discussing policy and process on Nugent's A proposed agenda... post.

Thanks for the info.

I'm not a lawyer but.. there's no law i'm aware of that forces the government to actually hear you out if you make a complaint, or even answer you at all. What things like the first amendment do is prohibit governments from banning you from making your complaints known in the public square.

[welch]

How do these people parse this kind of contradiction:

A. "There are a number of inaccuracies being reported and I would like to take this opportunity to provide some clarity."

B. "We value and protect the privacy of our employees, both past and present, and we will not comment on all the factors that contributed to our parting ways."

C. "We believe in the importance of discussing sensitive topics such as gender and conduct and we hope to move forward with a civil dialogue based on the facts."

I don't get it. It equates to:

We want to discuss why we fired the guy, but we are not going to discuss why we fired the guy, so let's discuss why we fired the guy; but not really.

Sounds like Corporatese. It is often hard to parse.

Lawyers were DEFINITELY involved.

[welch]

unless someone can come up with a really good reason, I'm probably done commenting on Nugent's latest. I gave multiple examples of the problem, and offered what I thought could be useful tips for fixing the basic problem.

Anything else would just repeat that.

[cunt]

Christ, this situation before social media turned every goddamn thing into an international incident.

*woman gets offended*
*woman walks up to an event employee*
woman: Hey those guys behind me were kind of making me uncomfortable.
event employee: Oh, okay ma'am i'll have a quick word
event employee: Hey guys could you tone it down a bit, we've had a complaint about your behaviour from another attendee.
guys: Oh, uh... okay. Sorry about that.

[Wonderist]

More welch on words, meanings, and crucially communication. I know this one may not seem like a big deal, but I think it really is, and I think that also, theoretically again, it can be solved with a bit of software help, kinda like a wiki:

256 John C. Welch March 21, 2013 at 2:47 am

doubtthat @217

I mean, seriously, when you’re getting this worked up about something so petty…

I deleted all the snark as Nugent requested, but holy crap, it gets more and more difficult when this is the conversation.

I’m “worked up” over it, because there are certain basic requirements for dialogue. One of the most basic is that we all agree on what words mean, and that if we say something in the room, that we aren’t going to change that the second we are out of the room.

If you say to me “this forum is unmoderated”, and then I find out that by “unmoderated” you mean “unmoderated except that I carefully control access to the forum” then it is clear you didn’t actually mean “unmoderated”. This isn’t about intent, it’s about basic meaning.

This moves out into larger issues. If you call someone a misogynist, and by that you mean “they said “cunt” once” and I mean “they have a deep, abiding hatred for every woman on the planet just because they are women”, you know, the more traditional meaning, then you using that word in your more casual meaning is going to create real problems in my ability to communicate with you, because I can’t tell what you mean by a word. If I have to ask you, over and over and over, “what exactly do you mean by [word], because I can’t rely on the basic dictionary meanings to have any validity whatsoever for you, how can I even BEGIN to communicate with you sans some form of translator.

The issue here is not that PZ moderates the friggin’ Thunderdome, or that he is so pretentious in naming it. It is that he says one thing, “it is unmoderated”, but means another, “it is actually moderated”.

That sort of thing makes communication really, really hard.

Related: This is one of the first (of only a handful) of YT videos I made a long while back, and is also one of the few things I've published till now on foundationism (though I didn't use the term there, because I really didn't know how to explain it yet; and still, don't really, except vaguely):
[youtube]NFTcfnNQlcM[/youtube]

[welch]

Christ, this situation before social media turned every goddamn thing into an international incident.

*woman gets offended*
*woman walks up to an event employee*
woman: Hey those guys behind me were kind of making me uncomfortable.
event employee: Oh, okay ma'am i'll have a quick word
event employee: Hey guys could you tone it down a bit, we've had a complaint about your behaviour from another attendee.
guys: Oh, uh... okay. Sorry about that.

Sadly, had she not chosen to lead with OMG I AM A WARRIOR FOR JUSTICE ON TWITTER, and done that, no one would have been fired, no one would be getting threats, and the entire thing would have been given the proper level of magnitude.