For that particular tweet: this is what we call trolling. Shanley's MVC (which is a very interesting site that everyone should read, its proprietor notwithstanding) has a "feature" where they highlight the worst and most clueless comment on HN of the month. This entire imbroglio has doubtlessly netted MVC a very rich upcoming "worst of HN" piece. Joy.

Substantively: why should the previous behavior of the reporter matter one bit? If someone does something bad, whether a person complaining about it is "good" or "bad" is sort of besides the point, and digging into how evil that person is amounts to an all-too-transparent attempt at deflection. Shanley, for better or for worse, takes advantage of that to generate news. That means that even if you get provoked, external observers won't and shouldn't care enough to get caught up in whether Shanley's a bad person or not. (Your takeaway, by the way, should be "do not engage" because she's communicating with an audience that's not-you when she engages with you. Also: all comments on this story amount to engagement, hence the heavy flagging.)

My sympathy for the fired guy is very limited. He clearly fucked up, and immediately knew it and took it down (before she even posted her screenshot, it seems), either because a friend told him he was out of line or he realized it himself. Which does elicit a bit of sympathy from me, and if I were in her shoes, I'd have let it slide--there's more than enough misogyny in tech than to need to scrape the bottom of the barrel here. Despite that, he did fuck up. Freedom of speech is not an issue: if he had posted a long stream of tweets calling for Jews to be slaughtered, no one would be upset that his company let him go. She has just as much freedom-to-report-speech as he has freedom-to-insult-speech, and freedom of association is an equally important right.

I think it's clear he realized soon after he posted that he did something wrong, either because a friend told him he was out of line or he realized it himself. Getting him fired doesn't help him realize more that he did something wrong.

I think the main point is the precedent that Jon Snoeder tweeted about. This isn't to just punish the fired guy. It's to set an example to everyone else about what would happen if you are out of line.

We saw his retweets and insults, for example retweeting someone calling her "animal". No, he didn't accidentally slip up with a single tweet.

That's straight-up whining. She doesn't deserve to be called a "ct" but insults because of her behavior are perfectly valid.

> Substantively: why should the previous behavior of the reporter matter one bit?

If someone is actively baiting people on the basis of gender, it should have equal consequences regardless of the speaker's gender.

> My sympathy for the fired guy is very limited.

I never said he shouldn't have been fired. I think the problem is trolls can provoke people to the point they get fired and the trolls suffer no repercussions which is a point I should have made clearer, my apologies.

She's an entrpreneur, and has a small but healthy Gittip stream. So, she can freely troll without major economic repercussions.

That also presumes the trolling is as bad as the offense, I don't think it is.

When a person consistently trolls on the basis of gender and race, like Shanley does, I'm uncertain why you think that is not "as bad" except because a woman is doing it?

The employer doesn't care because no one on the internet is going to look into the backstory.

It's realpolitik my friend, if you don't engage trolls you can't be bitten by them.

I thought it was all about the noopolitic these days.

I guess. I just don't like the idea of cowering in fear because trolls will be trolls.

No no, don't cower in fear, change tactics.

To what?

Pointing out a troll's hypocritical behavior seems to be the only one that is effective with both trolls and rational people.

This doesn't work. It gives the troll and their followers more fodder to troll about.

The only winning move is not to play. Completely ignoring them.

I have no idea because I have no idea what your objective is...

Which eludes to my original point of why one would engage with them... what did he hope to accomplish?

> I have no idea because I have no idea what your objective is...

I'd like to see equal, proportional response regardless of gender or the size of your soapbox.

> Which eludes to my original point of why one would engage with them... what did he hope to accomplish?

You'd have to ask him that :/

Not if the troll's entire audience doesn't care if (or won't accept that) their troll leader is hypocritical.

> Is it just me that feels people who attack people on the basis of their gender shouldn't be able to get people fired for doing the same thing?

I certainly don't agree with that logic in general. If the offense was valid (which I don't think it is in your specific example), I am fine with offenders reporting other offenders. For example, I am fine with a murderer turning in another murderer.

Did you miss the edit? I was trying to avoid changing it to avoid confusing what I was trying to say further :/

But that's basically saying "all employers should have exactly the same standards for when to fire someone" which is silly.

If you feel "insulting people on the basis of their gender" isn't something that should be universally vilified and cause for firing someone....I'm really not sure what to say beyond making sure that is what you mean?