zlacker

>>lordna+(OP)
“In April, when a story about Katie Bouman, an M.I.T. researcher who helped develop a technology that captured the first photo of a black hole, rose to the front page, users combed through her code on GitHub in an effort to undermine the weight of her contributions.”

This is an odd statement as it implies the purpose was to undermine. Reading code and critiquing isn’t meant to “undermine” but to identify truth and constantly look for better ways.

>>prepen+R
...and here we go again.

What was, or at least felt, obvious was that there was a double standard being applied. Not just in the sense that such a witch hunt would be unlikely to happen to a man being lauded. But also that if there's one point that Hacker News could probably agree on it's that lines-of-code is a bad metric for evaluating programmers, let alone scientists.

There was also the pervasive sense of being on the side of the rest of the team, even though highlighting their contribution was the first thing Katie Bouman did. And at least Andrew Chael, who did write the plurality of the code in the GitHub repo, did come out strongly in favor of her and was horrified of the hate she got. Quote:

"So apparently some (I hope very few) people online are using the fact that I am the primary developer of the eht-imaging software library to launch awful and sexist attacks on my colleague and friend Katie Bouman. Stop."

(https://twitter.com/thisgreyspirit/status/111651854496183091...)

It's curious that, at least in my subjective impression, the tech community has a far larger problem with women than any of the other groups that have traditionally suffered discrimination: racism and especially homophobia really are extremely rare, at least overtly. But the uglyness Katie Bouman, or Ellen Pao, or Marissa Meyers brought out seems to be alive and well.

>>IfOnly+b1
If a man received personal acclaim for a discovery, and someone looked at the repo and found that someone other than the man wrote most of the crunchier code, then yes I'd evaluate the acclaim for the man the same way.

Note most of the acclaim aimed at the scientist, rather than the team, was from the media. Whom as usual, likes to omit their own role.

>>nailer+t1
But would you ever go and look at his repo?

If it is the case that she didn't contribute the most complicated stuff, then I can assure you it is not the first time in history that the face of a project is not the one that did the hardest work. Also as has repeatedly been said, she always said it was a team effort.

This is all said with the caveat that I didn't follow this 'controversy' and never cared to look at the contribution distribution of all the project members.

>>moccac+82
> But would you ever go and look at his repo?

No. But if someone else checked the repo, I'd be interested. That said the media would be less likely to publish 'this young man took a photo of a black hole'.

> Also as has repeatedly been said, she always said it was a team effort.

Yep. Also mentioned in my comment you're replying to.

I think of this conflict as 'developers versus the media' - the media having pushed the narrative of 'a young woman who took a photo of a black hole'.

The media (who like to remove their own influence from discussions) have turned it into 'sexist developers vs young female scientist'. They've been very successful at doing that, yet again, because, well, they're the media. It's easy to shape a story when you control all outlets deemed noteworthy enough to cite.

>>nailer+U2
> because, well, they're the media.

And because, well, it was true ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Every person I showed this to was disgusted, as was I. So even if you disagree with the characterization, it certainly wasn't just the media, but also your fellow developers. It was a shameful moment (one of many, most of a similar kind) for HN that reflected horribly on developers, and the media called it up on that, as they should.

>>pron+S4
> because, well, it was true [...] Every person I showed this to was disgusted, as was I

What you’re saying here is: because the opinion of me and my friends is objectively correct and yours is not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

>>read_i+o5
Whoever is "right", it wasn't just the media, but also lots of developers, who felt it was a shameful display of misogyny. So it is certainly wrong to claim that the media spun this story a certain way out of the blue.

Also, if I didn't think my opinion was correct it wouldn't be my opinion.

>>pron+S6
One could say the exact same thing except for the other position. Certainly there exist a number of journalists who think the media’s reporting on the topic was biased in order to garner more clicks and/or push an agenda, so it is wrong to claim Bouman just fell victim to sexists. Total non-argument.

>>read_i+Z7
One could say anything, but while it's unsurprising that women's achievements are highlighted because they are objectively a minority in a field that, like other fields, was shown to suffer from sexism in numerous studies, the response was different from when a man's achievement is highlighted, and that, too has been shown in studies. So I do think empirical observation is on my side as well.

>>pron+r8
Maybe the response is different because if a man’s achievement is highlighted, the fact that a man did it isn’t highlighted, which isn’t exactly the case for women (apparently a woman in the team suffices for an achievement to be credited to a woman), making these two kinds of articles about fundamentally different things: “X was achieved” vs. “A woman achieved X”. One of these is far more loaded politically and hence of course more likely to elicit strong responses. There’s no reason that indicates misogyny in any form.

>>read_i+gb
Studies show otherwise, and I think that the gut reaction of those who read that discussion also shows that at least some developers felt that way, if not in general, then at least in that particular case. Also, that women's participation in software has drastically decreased since the eighties to the point they're now a small miniority is just a fact, and so focusing on them is natural, if not justified. Various causes for outbursts of xenophobia and misogyny have also been studied, and no one thinks they're unexepected, but that has nothing to do with their actual nature. I always anticipate a "strong reaction" on HN when women are discussed, but I'm still saddened by it.

I could only recommend to the curious readers of HN, if they are interested and certainly if they think they should voice their "strong reaction," to try looking at the rather vast scholarly literature that research has produced over the past decades. It's not a matter of a difference of opinions among people with equal knowledge of the subject matter, but usually one between those who have more knowledge and those who have less.

>>pron+vc
> Studies show otherwise

That’s a bold claim.

> the gut reaction of those who read that discussion also shows that at least some developers felt that way, if not in general, then at least in that particular case.

I can’t follow you here.