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Comment by natural219 | Hacker News Reader

This sounds very snide, but honestly, I don't think the people collectively calling for Github's head have given them any other choice. It's clear that people are unwilling and unable to listen to the facts of the case. They have their pre-set opinions on what happened based off of one side of the story. At this point, I'm not sure what Github should do. They have done their best to give lip service to these complains. Here is the first comment already:

"When you've dug yourself into a hole you should stop digging"

I agree. I don't think it's worthwhile for the Github PR team to continue to address and give legitimacy to those voices who are beyond reason and simply want to express anger.

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I actually feel that this last response is exactly how PR should work. It has placed responsibility for misconduct where it for the actual misconduct that actually happened and needs correcting and has done a pretty good job of invalidating the histrionic claims of gender discrimination.

This additional information (the identity and reputation of the investigator and the level of detail investigated including review of the commits) taken together with JAH's commits to her own public projects [0][1] and exaggerated and overly dramatic behavior, there is more than enough reasonable doubt to vindicate the male engineer being accused of misconduct. Absent a reliable witness to the claimed misconduct or other solid irrefutable evidence (not just perceptions of what happened), the principle of innocent until proven guilty should extend to this accused individual as well.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7625258

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7629283

Referring to Julie-Ann's complaint as "histrionic claims about gender discrimination" is unjustified and offensive.

To do so implies that she invented those feelings to further her case. There is absolutely nothing in the record to support such an accusation.

If you actually want a fair investigation where the goal is justice, the last thing you do is go to the media and kick off a trial by peanut gallery.

Going to the media first is the very definition of "exaggerated dramatic behavior designed to attract attention".

There's nothing wrong with going to the media first with a story of gender discrimination if you have the hard evidence to support your allegations. If you don't, taking that nuclear option without evidence will only discredit you because choosing the nuclear irrefutable evidence is careless and unjustified. If anything, JAH has actually damaged the ability for other women to use the nuclear option in the future. A hypothetical future situation in which a woman steps forward with gender discrimination claims like those made by JAH will be met with greater skepticism than in an alternate reality where she had stuck to only making claims about those things she could prove.

She should have only gone to the media with the story of misconduct by TPH and his wife (which near as I can tell was gender neutral with respect to the misconduct in question, since both men and women were impacted.)

The people calling for Github's head were asking for a response like this.

Ideally they'd also apologise for accidentally enabling a work-environment that led to Julie-Ann feeling unsafe in the first place but, as even Julie-Ann herself acknowledges, this response is largely satisfactory.

It's just sad that it took so much to get there; but I guess that's how progress happens.

Except that “moving off Github” seems to have been becoming a meme that’s all over Twitter. When slander hurts your business, what do you do?

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