Those of us who have the nerve to express an opinion, speaking out against the abuse Adria is getting, have been getting harassed anonymously as well. People are unhinged, like THEY lost their job. People can certainly disagree with Adria’s approach, without the nastiness.

Also, THANKS for the love. I enjoy writing for “Team Madness”.

I naturally think it was a bit extreme to go to twitter with their images up there, given the knee-jerk reaction social media has nowadays, but given the fact that this is supposed to be a professional event one can’t fault her for taking offense, especially given the demographic. What people continue to miss about this situation is that criticism is far different from using racist pejoratives and threatening rape and other extremities. None of that behavior is justifiable.

Whether you agree with how Adria chose to shed light on what essentially seems like a bigger problem within the developer community or not, it still doesn’t excuse the nasty reaction. Her dissenters are acting as if *their* personal livelihoods have been threatened. And people continue to gloss over the violent threats and racism she’s been receiving.

The developer in question obviously offended enough, that his company felt it necessary to promptly fire him. And he admitted that he was speaking inappropriately. It was *his employer’s* decision to let him go. People argue that Adria misrepresented SendGrid, I opine that the fired developer also misrepresented PlayHaven, when he chose to *publicly* act the fool during a keynote session. He was supposed to be representing his company, not acting like he was in a boys’ locker room.

Adria, who has a documented history of stirring up drama, was eavesdropping on the conversation. She took a picture of the developers and used her position of visibility to publicly shame two regular guys (with kids) for a joke they made between each other. “Trial by Twitter” is both cruel and permanent.

She was the public face for SendGrid, and the one who interacts with developers. They had to let her go — you can’t have someone so polarizing representing your company. It just doesn’t make sense.

The reaction on both sides is especially ugly. Disturbing threats towards Adria, wild assumption about the character of the developers, etc. It’s all really unfortunate. But it’s not the tech community fueling it, as you suggest — it’s anonymous individuals — those not even involved in tech and drawing their own conclusions, such as yourself.

By the way:

Forking: Copying a project and modifying it to do something the original project didn’t (rightfully, legally). Usually seen as something very positive, if not flattering.

Dongle: Any small computer peripheral, like a USB drive.