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Comment by wpietri | Hacker News Reader

What's the abuse? She described what happened right next to her.

Taking a picture of two people without their permission and posting it on the internet eventually causing one of them to get fired doesn't seem like abuse to you?

Why didn't she tell them to just be quiet? That's what normal people do.

As a matter of fact, if you read her blog post about all of this, she recommends the same thing:

What has to change is that everyone must take personal accountability and speak up when they hear something that isn’t ok. It takes three words to make a difference:

“That’s not cool.”

However, she appears to have not followed her own advice. I think it probably would have turned out differently if she had, though.

The conference organizers ask you to not handle it yourself: see https://us.pycon.org/2013/about/code-of-conduct/harassment-i..., where it says:

"Report the harassment incident (preferably in writing) to a conference staff member"

If she had asked them to quiet down, it could have turned into a pissing match. Or maybe they would have complied. You never know how it's going to play out.

It does say in the code of conduct that you shouldn't handle it yourself. Also, due to "offensive verbal comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, religion, sexual images in public spaces" I'd agree that what these men were doing was against the code of conduct.

However, she did report it to pycon. She tweeted about: "Can someone talk to these guys about their conduct? I'm in lightning talks, top right near stage, 10 rows back". She also says that she "began to contacting the PyCon staff via text message".

What she didn't have to do is take pictures of them without their permission and post their pictures on her public twitter feed. That is the part that steps over the line in my opinion.

Agreed. What she did was sub-optimal.

Please be kind and indicate where conference organizers ask you to:

1) post the picture on a world wide forum (twitter)

2) contact them via public channel (twitter)

Thank you

Other commenters here noted this before you did, without the false courtesy.

yes, report it to the conference staff, not post it to twitter for the world to see. a world of difference there.

We're all adults, there's absolutely no reason to take it to the internet when simply mustering a little courage and saying something will do.

She took the cowardly way out and a man was fired for it. And that's assuming it was even true.

Taking pictures at conferences and posting them on Twitter happens all the time. That's definitely not abuse. Quoting what people say at conferences also happens all the time. So that's not abuse. She was not involved in the firing; if that's abuse, it's not hers.

She explained why she didn't just tell them to be quiet on her blog. But here's my take:

It is not her job to teach people how to behave properly in public. It is their job to behave properly. And it's the conference organizers' job to maintain a safe space, one where everybody is behaving according to conference standards. And when they heard about the problem, they jumped on it.

Context matters what you are trying to prove is a false equivalence. She chose to post them up on her personal wall of shame that has thousands of followers with a clear picture of both their faces and without their permission. Anyone with any experience on the internet understands how potentially ruining social media can be. Look at the recent Steubenville scandal (these people actually deserved it though). If you want to use something as powerful as social media as a tool for justice you better be ready to take responsibility if you are on the wrong side.

I also agree that the company that fired the person should also be held responsible for caving in to social pressure so easily. They are both responsible for the outcome.

Using status to distribute pictures and quotes of conference attendees in an attempt to publicly shame them for conduct that she clearly misinterpreted as sexist, and also to force her own values onto others, is pretty much the definition of abuse (of both power and public trust).

By defending her and using phrases like "maintain a safe space," you make it sound like quietly speaking innocuous words is of any legitimate concern or consequence. In reality, Adria's behavior was far, far worse and did, in fact, have serious consequences that will adversely affect an individual's career.

Of course she was involved in the firing. She supplied publicly searchable documentation that made the employer fatally vulnerable to every "hostile environment" lawsuit that would follow until they fired the guy. Adria Richards is professionally offended and vindictive and no space can remain safe for others after admitting her.

How is a borderline offensive joke impacting the concept of a "safe space" in any way?

Her description of events was so vague that it caused me to misidentify the person she was talking about from the photo, and I wasn't the only one.

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