I went ahead and wrote a code of conduct for being Adria Richards for the tech world. You’re welcome

Was SendGrid evangelist Adria Richards right or wrong to take offense at the jokes in question? Were the two male developers out of bounds with their “dongle” comments? Did they even say the things they were accused of? Was taking the matter right to Twitter the wrong way to go? Was the termination of two people—including Richards herself—a preferred outcome? How did DDoS vigilantes get involved in a complaint over some genital jokes? Finally: how long until the lawsuits? – Ken Richards

Will the Riddler kill the hostages? Will Batman save the day? Did I leave my oven on?  One Ken Fisher of Ars Technica attempts to explain who is to blame for Donglegate, an incident that started as a couple of codebros making dumb sex jokes that quickly escalated into everyone getting fired, including the woman who outted the codebros on twitter.

If Ars Technica has to devote a chunky paragraph full of questions though, maybe the issue isn’t as clear as most people make it out to be.  Instead of asking questions, I think Pycon moderators and tech writers should be a little bit proactive and go about writing an official code of conduct if you are one Adria Richards, outspoken black woman in a room full of white coders.

I’d love to help.

Rules for being offended in a room full of white coders if you are Adria Richards

 

If you are Adria Richards and you hear coders making dick jokes during a seminar about including women in your area of business:

1) Do not publicly ‘out’ the male coders making dick jokes. Otherwise you will get rape threats

2) You may mention the male coders on twitter without taking a photo of them. If you take a photo of them, and they get fired, you will get rape and death threats.

3) Do: Talk to Pycon representatives about the coders making dick jokes in private. Preferably in a locked room with no windows.  Pycon reps will talk to the offending coders in a vacuum-sealed room to make sure they don’t make dick jokes around you again. It is important that only the coders making dick jokes are meant to feel bad and not anyone else.

4) Repeat #3 every time a new coder makes a dick joke. Every time.

5) Don’t be offended ever. Duh. This one probably should have been number 1. LOL

6) If offended, and Pycon Reps are not available, turn around at the offending coder making dick jokes and address them directly. We’re not sure what you should say here because nothing offends us and we don’t have experience addressing people directly, but make sure that whatever it is that you say doesn’t cause us to send you death and rape threats.

7) Failure to comply with any of these rules means, that’s right, you’ll get death and rape threats. Actually, even complying with some of these rules doesn’t guarantee you won’t get threatened somehow. Fair warning.

That’s a good starting point. I’d love to have the tech world add rules to how Adria Richards should conduct herself. Send suggestions my way and I’ll add them.