Show HN: We Got Your Back

by jdorfman • 12 years ago

7 16 12 years ago

minimaxir• 12 years ago

The way this is phrased makes this seem more creepy than genuinely helpful.

jdorfman7• 12 years ago

That's the point, we have a crisis and we need to stick up for great engineers no matter what race, religion, gender they might be.

cbeach4• 12 years ago

"We need to stick up for great engineers no matter what race, religion, gender they might be."

Repo description: "Are you a female that is scared to join the Tech Industry? Don't be, we got your back"

"No matter what gender they might be." As long as they're female.

jdorfman7• 12 years ago

For those who think this is "self-serving" you are right. My job is to recruit and hire the best engineers. I don't care what their background is, we need great people to keep up with our competition.

cbeach4• 12 years ago

Perhaps try a recruitment site if you want to recruit engineers.

Engineers won't be impressed by an empty github repo, sorry.

alialkhatib2• 12 years ago

A couple thoughts:

- +1 to minimaxir's comment; this whole thing sounds creepy. Are you offering a supportive tweet? 1-on-1 mentorship? An inside track at hiring at your respective companies? (is that last one even legal in your jurisdiction?) The vagueness here leads me to assume the worst. I'm sorry for being a cynic and for pre-judging, but not much in this industry has encouraged idealism when it comes to women in tech.

- I read "Uber" and thought of the sexual assault from March. Arguably unfair since that was one of your drivers, but that was my knee jerk reaction. You make no effort to explain why you're on the list (not that anyone bothers to explain why this list exists, see previous point), and I'm left to think whatever pops into my head. Again, cynicism reigns.

- Delete "harping". In fact, delete the whole line. The word connotes the tediousness of women complaining about all the sexist shit they deal with in Silicon Valley; it sounds like you don't really get where women are coming from (which begs the question again: why are you doing this?).

Please try to make this more substantive. I would like to support anything that supports gender equality and inclusiveness, but this is so vague that I don't know what you stand for, what you offer, or what my own support would entail.

jdorfman7• 12 years ago

"this whole thing sounds creepy." That is not the intention. Instead of sitting on my ass wondering what I can do, I took an action. Might offend some, might inspire others. I am in for a fight.

"I'm sorry for being a cynic and for pre-judging, but not much in this industry has encouraged idealism when it comes to women in tech." You are stating your opinion and I respect it. Don't be sorry.

"Are you offering a supportive tweet?" I tweet a lot: @jdorfman

"Delete "harping". In fact, delete the whole line. The word connotes the tediousness of women complaining about all the sexist shit they deal with in Silicon Valley; it sounds like you don't really get where women are coming from (which begs the question again: why are you doing this?)." I Open Sourced this for a reason. I am hardly ever right, this is how I learn about issues that I can't understand from one point of view.

"Please try to make this more substantive. I would like to support anything that supports gender equality and inclusiveness, but this is so vague that I don't know what you stand for, what you offer, or what my own support would entail." It isn't up to me, it is in the communities hands now. Fork it, make it better & promote diversity.

cbeach4• 12 years ago

"I took an action. Might offend some, might inspire others"

You took the action of making an empty github repo with no agenda? Armchair activism. Bravo.

"It isn't up to me, it is in the communities hands now"

Perhaps the community could vote whether to fork it, or delete it? What do we reckon guys?

+1 delete.

alialkhatib2• 12 years ago

- I'm sure your intentions are good, but imagine the interpretation of someone for whom most interactions of this nature are bad (or at least unrewarding). Who says you're not some lazy pervert hoping to get lots of women to contact him just so he can hit on them?

Again, I realize that's probably not you, but given that these kinds of people exist, why would someone take a chance, especially considering how little work you've put into proving your intrinsic motivation?

- Thanks for accepting my knee jerk reaction; I expected you to (rightfully) take more offense from it.

- I don't think women in tech care for a tweet (it seems impersonal and empty to me), but I could be wrong. Having your twitter handle certainly allows people to gauge how serious you are on the whole about your views though, so I appreciate your openness with it.

- I'll submit a pull request to that end when I get a chance, thanks.

- You're clearly trying to crowdsource this, but you're not scaffolding enough. Like you said, you're not sitting on your ass wondering what you can do; so what are you doing?

eculver• 12 years ago

This is the exact problem. If we have to explain this, you have missed it. Sorry, but trying to explain or try to derive a "sound" out of it is missing the point.

cbeach4• 12 years ago

"Bug: this repo is a trite, self-serving, empty platitude. Please remove it."

https://github.com/jdorfman/wgyb/issues/2

matt0perry• 12 years ago

I don't know too many women who are "scared" of joining the tech industry. I do know plenty who have run into the buzz-saw of social, cultural and educational disincentives (not to mention downright ugly sexism) that render them them either poorly-positioned or unwilling to do so.

I think your heart is in the right place with this guys, but it trivializes a really serious problem.

+1 delete

After deleting, I suggest you (and everyone else for that matter) donate to one or both of:

http://www.ncwit.org/ http://anitaborg.org/

jdorfman7• 12 years ago

I promise you this, if I'm wrong I will donate $1,000 dollars USD to each charity. I'm not rich by any means, so 2k would hurt. If you want I'll put it on escrow. I will do that to show you I'm seriously passionate about this issue.

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