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Comment by wmt | Hacker News Reader

While everyone is riled up about Adria Richards getting offended and publicly shaming the person who made a joke about big dongles, you should keep in mind that she did not fire anyone. PlayHaven did.

PlayHaven could have decided to be the responsible party and handle the incident constructively, but they did not want to do that. Even Adria, who still appears to think that the public shaming was a good thing to do, also thinks that PlayHaven should have not fired the person.

So please, if you think firing mr-hank was unreasonable, please let PlayHaven know that, and also how this might affect your image of PlayHaven.

http://www.playhaven.com/contact

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I shot a comment over, but the damage has probably been done at this point. I can't see PlayHaven hiring mr_hank back, and to be honest, I would guess it'd be slightly awkward.

Which, if we are taking responsibility for "what we say and do," then the focus really is back on Adria because she decided to make a big deal out of nothing.

Sure, PlayHaven fired this dude. But guess what? Their employee was being marked as sexist all over Twitter? To them, they might not have had a choice.

But Adria, she had a choice. She could have kept her mouth shut like 99% of everyone else who probably also heard the remarks, but instead she decided to post to twitter to whore out her name more, and then perfectly finds herself in the spot light leaving "logical" people to blame PlayHaven for what happened.

Nope, Adria is out of line, hypocritical at best, and now men won't trust women around them in the tech industry. Two steps back for everyone. Bravo.

> I can't see PlayHaven hiring mr_hank back ... I would guess it'd be slightly awkward.

It would certainly be awkward, but it would be a pretty big PR hit not to take them back.

You're right. The company should have practiced a little rationality instead of instantly reacting. But she should be held responsible above all because she took offense to a joke instead of taking it to superiors or confronting the guy, she posted it for all to see and read. Her actions did lead to his firing regardless of the company's questionable decision. You don't publicly humiliate someone for something so small. If he had been sexist or made a sexist joke to her or to someone else around then I would understand the company taking action, but I still wouldn't condone the public humiliation unless it was very egregious.

and the dude acknowledged what he said was inappropriate, i just think the company may have been quick to fire, imho. if this was big corporation, they would have a session with HR for sensitivity training and put the dude on probationary terms and then everyone would go out for happy hour.

sad, sad adria. shes on a crusade to delete everyones opinion that outs her as a hypocrite. shes deleted all the comments on her facebook, all the negative comments on her blog, wherever she can shes deleting it. all of this couldve been avoided if she could learn to act like an adult, and apologize. i HOPE she's really reflecting on all of this and will change her ways. i doubt it though..

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