Some of us are still shellshocked after receiving numerous death threats and having our inboxes spammed with pictures of dismembered infants. Maybe waiting one fucking hot minute would be in order?
To be precise, these are the comments that I find inflammatory:
> Because anti-woman and anti-black hate groups are trying to game HN with mass account creation and upvote spam.
> SendGrid would have come out stronger from weathering the storm as a defender and promoter of women in tech. Instead, they're giving in to terrorism. Anyone feeling a sense of relief out of this situation is out of their mind.
> I hope she sues the shit out of them and gets enough money to spend the rest of her life advocating for women in tech without fear of retaliation.
> No, this situation is the worst thing for women in tech. I can't begin to imagine the waves of misogyny that're about to run rampant through the tech community knowing that any woman who speaks out will be fired.
> Please take your special snowflakery elsewhere.
> No. (without explanation)
> In other words, it's OK if men do it, but not if a woman does it. (which was a complete non sequitur)
> I can't even begin to explain how fallacious this argument is. (without explanation, and it wasn't fallacious)
> Is it really that hard to act like a professional adult while you're at work? The simplest solution is to simply stop telling penis jokes at work.
> Still unfunny and tasteless. Imagine that.
> Really? All it says to me is that people in the tech field are so against a woman standing up for herself that they're actually willing to bring down the company she works for. It's disgusting.
> (cont.) Will you also feel schadenfreude when they hack her bank account?
> I bet he won't make the same mistake again. Perhaps we're all so used to going through the 6 month HR-slap-on-the-wrist process that we have lost touch of what it actually takes to change a person's behavior. (supporting mr-hank getting fired)
> Thank you -- all of these hate-laden comments are making me lose my mind.
> Since when is Twitter the same thing as a professional conference? Why are the majority of the commenters on HN completely missing the point?
> She @-replied pycon staff. Compare that to the HN and Reddit communities out for Adria's head.
> "We're not choosing your company because we believe in the right for men to tell dick jokes."
> (cont.) I'd quickly e-mail back: "don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out."
> Thank you, Adria, for fighting the good fight. I hope that the voices of support for you drown out the rampant hate that you're receiving. Seems like HN turns into a complete shithole the second a woman "has the nerve to choose to be offended" or whatever bullshit these misogynist assholes peddle.
> (cont.) The benefit that I always see from situations like this is that it empowers the women who, in the past, have been too nervous to call people out on their shit. Just know that you're doing amazing work and are paving the way to creating an environment of gender equality.
You just told somebody who complained of getting death threats because of his comments here to watch how he comments so "his life might get a bit easier?"
I can't imagine anything more cowardly that you could have possibly posted.
My standard for cowardly posting is verbal abuse and death threats, but YMMV.
It should be OK to express your support for unpopular ideas on HN, like saying Adria Richards was right or that the people prosecuting Aaron Schwartz did the right thing. On the other hand, people sending threats... To quote the original poster, "don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out." You disagree with stuff? Fine. Downvote and move on, or reply to it and explain why. Don't play anonymous coward.
That's 'victim blaming' and fairly inflammatory. That's not your intent. It's no different then telling women not to wear provocative clothing if they don't want to be raped (And before people suggest it, I'm not equating rape to anything here).
Basically, your intent is sound (how not to receive death threats), but your approach is insulting. The result is, the persons you are talking to are more likely to dismiss what you say because, in effect, you are blaming them for the death threats.
You seem to actually care about helping. I wish I could offer some direct advice about how to approach this different, but I can't think of any at the moment. I just know that this approach is confrontational, and completely in the opposite direction of which you seem to want to go.
It's no different then telling women not to wear
provocative clothing if they don't want to be raped
Source?
[1] Survivor is a better word, but it was a clunky read when I tried it. I won't be bothered if you use it instead if you reply.
[1] Even among 'friends' (acquaintances?), chances you will be hit on are higher when wearing 'less' and considering hitting-on-and-being-rejected is a common precursor to rape...
Anyways, I tried to address another commenters questions about my post, and address it here:
That's ridiculous. If I play in a busy street everyday, you'd blame me when I eventually got hit by a car even though cars are always supposed to be driven under control. There are actions that victims take that increase or decrease their chances of being victimized.
> it's no different then telling women not to wear provocative clothing if they don't want to be raped (And before people suggest it, I'm not equating rape to anything here).
What about if it is telling women to go out with their friends and look after each other when they are at bars? To be aware of their surroundings? Is that victim blaming to prepare your daughter for the realities of the world?
> If I play in a busy street everyday, you'd blame me when I eventually got hit by a car even though cars are always supposed to be driven under control.
Context. You are supposed to comment on HN. You are not supposed to play in the street. If you played in a park, I'd expect you not to get hit by a car. If someone does get hit by a car while playing in a park, you don't suggest to that person they should avoid playing in the park.
> What about if it is telling women to go out with their friends and look after each other when they are at bars? To be aware of their surroundings? Is that victim blaming to prepare your daughter for the realities of the world?
No, that's good advice! And there is a distinct difference.
Yes, I know, the reality is that wearing provocative clothes can entice men, and some men will get the wrong idea, and might do bad things. But it's a bad solution to adopt the "change what you wear" approach. It doesn't solve the problem.
Basically, it's the same as this type of advice: If you don't want to get into an accident, don't use a car. Of if you dont' want to get into an plane crash, don't fly a plane. If you don't want to drown, stay out of water.
Or, if you don't want to get raped, look ugly.
But telling you daughter to go with friends, to be aware, to check in? These don't change her behavior. It minimizes risk. Indeed, if you think about it, the advice you give up there is much better than not wearing provocative clothing. Mostly because wearing provocative clothing has little to do with getting raped.
Anyways, I hope you understand better what I was trying to say. Again, it's not some new concept that I'm spouting. Spend some time reading up on it. Others do a better job at explaining it then I do.
Kids don't deserve to get hit even if they play in the street -- even if it is expected to eventually happen. I just think there is a cognitive break in responsibility (don't blame the victim -- they have 0 responsibility for their actions) to taking some responsibility for limiting your risk.
I'm not touching the provocative clothes argument, because it's extreme and might not be backed up by the statistics. I'm just saying there are some careless actions by victims (like flashing money around in really really bad areas by yourself) that means the victims while completely undeserving of being victimized realistically need to shoulder some of the responsibility.
The poster above suggested, that if an action a poster is doing is causing death threats, it might be prudent to tone it down. I don't see that as blaming the victim.
And I'm sorry, but if you know that a park is dangerous because a bunch of drunken teenagers are driving around doing donuts in it, you absolutely don't send your kid to play in it, no matter how safe it's supposed to be. And in particular, if they are, you tell your kid to stop yelling at the kids in the cars. (I realize this isn't what you suggested, but it makes your analogy less of a straw man.)
So, this isn't "don't play in traffic", this is "don't actively provoke known-to-be-crazy drivers while running around in oncoming traffic". It's just a bad idea. Especially if you're complaining about getting hurt.
Yes, all of these examples are hyperbole, but then again we have no idea about the seriousness of the threats.
I realize you did. And I'm not suggesting you are a bad person or anything. =)
> And I'm sorry, but if you know that a park is dangerous because a bunch of drunken teenagers
I'm sorry, but hyperbole can be too ridiculous. Tossing in additional conditions to suit your point is silly, and is really not worth my time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
All I did was attempt to make your analogy match reality more closely, to make it less of a straw man. It is a less flawed analogy now. The reality we are discussing is the situation of the person receiving death threats, not any of this other analogous stuff.
But, you know, if you just generally want to have discussions about what to do in different situations where one might or might not need to exercise caution, that can be okay. Of course if someone got hit by accident in a park I wouldn't say that other kids shouldn't play in it.
Linking to Straw man on wikipedia doesn't make it a straw man either.
But congratulations, you just discovered these things called logical fallacies.
> Of course if someone got hit by accident in a park I wouldn't say that other kids shouldn't play in it.
....
You are trolling, you have to be.
From above:
> Context. You are supposed to comment on HN. You are not supposed to play in the street. If you played in a park, I'd expect you not to get hit by a car. If someone does get hit by a car while playing in a park, you don't suggest to that person they should avoid playing in the park.
What can I say, I just genuinely don't understand why this isn't a straw man. Part of this has to do with me not being the sharpest knife in the block. Of course, if someone just randomly posted a comment here and received one death threat for doing so, I wouldn't say that they shouldn't post anymore. Isn't that the closest interpretation of your analogy? I'm serious.
The reason I think the analogy doesn't fit is due to a few differences. First, the person in question has a history of writing fairly inflammatory comments, based on my personal reaction, based on the comments containing curse words, sarcasm, insults, and all-caps (more recently), and finally based on the comments receiving downvotes. The second difference is that it's not one death threat, but multiple death threats that were alleged. The third difference is that I didn't say don't post at all, I just said don't post in such an inflammatory way. Given these three fairly significant differences, I concluded that your argument was a straw man. I could be wrong about that, but you'll have to convince me.
I now believe she was referring to Adria and not herself, so I'm really just interested in understanding whether or not the claim of it being a straw man is correct. I mean, I don't want to accuse other people of throwing up straw men if I'm just making a fool of myself. And you're right, although I've known about logic for a while, it's only recently that I started taking it more seriously in the context of discussions. I linked to Wikipedia because I thought you didn't know what a straw man was, I apologize for the insult.
Whether or not I'm trolling, I don't know what to say. It strikes me that a lot of people who troll don't even realize that this is what they're doing, so maybe I am, I don't know. It's not conscious, if so. Apologies in advance?
I don't find the above comments to be very inflammatory, though. There's a not-totally-insane POV from which Adria's actions were not only reasonable, but commendable, and necessary to disrupt an inherently hostile environment. (I don't agree with this point-of-view, and think it addresses superficial problems with culture rather than attack fundamental problems with education, but whatever.) From that same point of view, these comments are entirely reasonable - the fact that Adria is being treated as she is is only another incarnation of appalling systematic misogyny. Adria, by posting those guys' photos to twitter, was standing up to that perceived culture (if you buy into this - I personally think she was just power-tripping), and attacking Adria for doing that sounds a lot like someone saying "shut up, sit down, stop causing trouble" to someone reporting a fire.
That rmrfrmrf's comments were taken as inflammatory (by you) seems to me to be less of an indicator of the vitriol in his rhetoric, and more a measure of the gap between the two sides of this debate. (A gap this fiasco has apparently done nothing to bridge, sadly.)
That rmrfrmrf's comments were taken as inflammatory by those who sent the death threats / dismembered baby pics, on the other hand, is a good measure of the number of complete idiots who frequent HN. Hopefully not too many.
Lastly, please do /not/ tell someone who has received (or claims to have received - just to be fair) death threats to take a metaphorical chill-pill, or otherwise imply that he/she ought to correct his/her own behavior to make the death threats stop. That /is/ inflammatory.
I don't find the dongle jokes offensive, but obviously Adria did. My advice to guys at conferences would probably be, don't make dick jokes in public, because it seems somebody might overreact and you might get hurt. That has nothing to do with whether or not I think the dongle jokes are appropriate or inherently offensive. Similarly, I don't find rmrfrmrf's comments to be super inflammatory, probably because I don't feel like my position, if any, is being attacked, but if I was way polarized on the antagonist's side of things I almost certainly would.
Do we want to encourage crazy volatile feminism at conferences? Obviously no. Do we want to encourage even crazier volatile misogyny on the internet? Obviously no. Is it unreasonable, or unkind even, to encourage someone who is complaining about the negative attention they are receiving, who I perceive to be actively encouraging that negative attention without realizing it, to tone it down a little? Personally, I don't believe so, but if it falls on deaf ears, it falls on deaf ears. I just don't think that the anxiety of receiving death threats is good for anyone, and that level of anxiety can cause people to make choices that have big long term consequences. Adria has already demonstrated a predisposition to overreaction that has already led to long term consequences, and death threats are significantly more serious than whatever happened at the conference. It is not unreasonable to assume that someone actively defending her position might also overreact.
There are lots of things that I do everyday that I wouldn't do in an ideal world, but that nevertheless make existence tolerable, good even. I was simply trying to share that experience.