I think this opinion is wrong. If one expresses his opinion about slavery, he should not be fired. Now that you had this wrong opinion about opinions, should you be fired? From work? From Hacker News? Anywhere?

Because that's what the OP was suggesting, except that they used the umbrella term "slavery" to refer to it.

Scenario A, normal job, no customer interaction, non-manager, but an irrepressibly talkative fellow. Likes to talk to his co-workers about how awesome slavery is. Co-workers have complained that they're tired of hearing him, you've talked to him, he keeps talking irregardless.

Scenario B, customer-facing job. It comes up at the company picnic that the employee thinks slavery was really awesome. You haven't yet heard him mention this to a customer.

Scenario C, manager. One of your underlings, in charge of a hopefully-diverse group of under-underlings, expresses his pro-slavery opinions to you.

Sorry for the liberal use of pronouns there. But there's an extremely worrying trend to me whereby it's no longer okay to disagree or have an open discussion about certain topics that the HN mass has decided their stance on. Most of the time I, and many others, just bow out and let everyone here virtually pat themselves on the back as each professes the moral high road they've taken. It defeats the point of having an open forum or discussion on an article. It's our equivalent of political rhetoric.

The main point of the matter is, the interests of employers and employees are not well aligned. Employers do not want employees to know what their coworkers or colleagues at other companies make. Employees benefit from having this forbidden knowledge. Employees would prefer to only be fired for direct, active malevolence towards their employer. Employers would prefer to fire anyone they think is a liability to their business.

Employee beliefs matter because, as much as employers would prefer otherwise, employees are not cogs or robots who perform mechanistically. If you don't believe in software patents, how will that affect your performance at your job? Even if your employer isn't a part-time patent troll, but is extremely concerned about being sued by them, will you generate your fair share of defensive patents to be used as a shield for a few years? Or will you knowingly violate software patents you believe are bullshit, opening up your company to 10x the penalties should you lose in court?

I think this perspective is common recently, but only due to the current boom/bubble. I don't expect that to last forever, and somewhat anticipate the kind of insecurity you're describing (although I don't feel it right now), which is why I don't say anything even slightly controversial under my True Name.

B: Either he's capable of keeping his eccentric views to himself when dealing with customers or he's not. Whether it's supporting slavery or Bush 43, he can ruin a business relationship by expressing that view at the wrong time.

C: Again, he needs management. Does his view negatively affect his capability as a manager? What if he's an evangelical Christian and he has gay underlings?

I agree it was a very sexist thing to write. It makes me wonder though:

1. Which is worse, hiring an all female serving staff (perhaps wearing uniforms that would be considered particularly attractive to heterosexual males), or acknowledging that you have done this by writing about it in your invitations? Is it inappropriate (always and everywhere) to hire only attractive females and make them wear "sexy" uniforms? If they had hired all females, but not advertised it, would people still be upset after they had arrived and seen that all the staff were female? I wouldn't be upset. But advertising it, or at least they way they did it, strikes me as offensive, but I don't know why.

2. I feel mentioning the female serving staff in this instance is inappropriate, but is it always inappropriate? Is it acceptable for a sports bar to mention their "Bud Girls" or whatever in their ad copy? I would consider this acceptable, but I don't know why. Is it because a sports bar is purely leisure, and a hackathon, while leisure, is (presumably) directly connected to your profession?

I think what they did feels wrong, but I can't think of a good explanation of why it is wrong that is logically consistent with other acceptable norms in our society.

As to the larger society, yes, "Bud Girls", booth babes, GoDaddy ads, and Hooters are all sexist.

(Not Hooters)

The problem here is that a goodly chunk of people expect the clientele of a hackathon to be developers. Developers are men and women who are professional. As much as sexuality sells beer, food, cars, etc., it is not a accepted selling point of professionals. Rather, it will get you in serious trouble in many professional environments.

Now, it is revealed that this company's fantasy event is programming while being served beer by hot women. This basically puts them in the frat with a big no hire for women.

Not to defend Sqoot at all, but... um... booth babes? Every large trade show has them. They are there specifically to excite the hormones of the male professionals in attendance. Their use is as sexist as it is effective.

Had Sqoot quietly hired a bunch of models to serve beer to the attendants, and had they had the sense not to publicly high-five themselves for doing so, there would have been no controversy. The reason Sqoot landed in the soup is because they wore their sexism on their sleeves, and handled their communications like obnoxious rubes rather than responsible business owners. Their crime was lack of finesse.

If they had quietly done it and female developers had showed up, the damage would have been worse, much worse. Words are one thing, pictures of scantily clad models serving beer at a hackathon would have been a little too juicy for the bloggers. Twitter pictures turn into mainstream media articles rather quickly these days.

Their crime is thinking it was acceptable. As my Dad told me (constantly as a youth it seemed), "I'm amazed you thought of that, and appalled you actually did it." Fantasy is best kept out of the professional workplace / event planning.

Can somebody help me to issue a DMCA notice?

I can laugh at myself (and I do quite often). If I didn't I think I would have gone insane by now. I don't even have a problem with Hooters, Playboy / Playgirl, or any of the thousands of other places sex is used to sell things. Like I said, hormones and money.

I'm just a little sick of the lack of empathy in this situation. The "midwestern" discussion had the same vibe (obviously not as damaging). Maybe I'm just sick of TV Shows showing a buffalo every damn time they talks about ND, or (much, much more importantly) I'm just sick of thinking about how many developers we have lost because of stuff like this. Can't really be a Meritocracy if stuff isn't based on merit.

So one is only allowed to have the "right" opinions?

And who gets to judge that? If it's the majority, then what if a poll showed that most Americans are against, say, abortion or gay rights? (Or most of Utah residents, at a local level). If it's just some minority with power (the government, the PC police, etc), why should they get to say it instead of the majority?

So, you're walking a very fine line here. He is entitled to think whatever, include slavery or the annihilation of mankind, and people should not only not put him in prison for it, but not even fire him for it.

They can disagree all they want with him for it, though. Now, if he tries to put his slavery ideals to practice, that's a totally different matter.

I think this is exactly analogous to this case. Sqoot could have held a successful hackathon if they didn't display their sexism in their ad copy, but the root problem is the sexism, not the ad copy. That's why the apology rubs people the wrong way.

Case in point. I am from a different country, and we would probably laugh at the very idea of the apology, not on the "sexism".

Why something that's ok for, say, a casino or a sports bar (female waitresses) is bad for a hackathon? Because a coding marathon should be for both sexes? Well, aren't casinos for both sexes too? How come they get to have women waitresses? Also, who said the organizers of this PARTICULAR hackathon want it to be?

Is it that they SHOULD want it to be? Is the message that one cannot organize an event the way he likes it, provided he doesn't do anything illegal?

I think it has a lot to do with expectations. People held the hackaton to a higher standard than, for example, a strip club, and therefore they are a lot more vocal about it when the organizers fail to live up to what was expected of them.

> Is it that they SHOULD want it to be? Is the message that one cannot organize an event the way he likes it, provided he doesn't do anything illegal?

They have all the rights in the world to organize a hackathon the way they want it, but that also means that the general public has all the rights in the world to dislike it, i.e be outraged.

Maybe. For me a hackathon is a pointless thing, like a "machismo" competition for nerds.

They have all the rights in the world to organize a hackathon the way they want it, but that also means that the general public has all the rights in the world to dislike it, i.e be outraged.

Well, with that I fully agree.

If someone wants to kill me and everyone I care about, then surely it is reasonable for me to be somewhat irate at that person, up to and including choosing not to do business with them.

I think it's pretty obvious that everyone should try to have correct ideas. For example, if you think that Mac OS X is the world's most widely-used desktop OS, then you are wrong, and you should revise your thinking on the subject. Similarly, if you think that IP guarantees reliable delivery, you should think something else, because you're not right.

Thinking that it's ok to make people slaves because of the color of their skin (or any other reason) is also wrong, and if you think that (I assume no one on HN does), you should revise your thinking on the subject.

Saying, at work, that you think your coworkers should be made into slaves seems like a pretty obvious firing offense to me.

As for whether an event can be both legal and a bad thing, I think it's pretty obvious that something can -- imagine I organized an event to write patches with backdoors for the linux kernel. If you said you were going to organize an event like that, I would say that you shouldn't do it.

That about factual correctness. Another ballgame altogether.

Whether a hackathon should have female waitresses or not is an ethical/moral issue. In any case, not something that can be objectively counted and checked.

And regarding the slippery slope you tried to construct, I don't think there is one, unless you are a moral relativist. Anyone that thinks anyone else is wrong should be able to tell them so (or fire them if it's an at-will situation[1] or part of the contract). If it turns out the majority (or those that are the most vocal) are wrong, then I can only hope that the right opinion will win because of its rightness and/or the persuasiveness of its proponents. Will this situation inevitably lead towards a more moral, ethical society? No. Does it have the potential to categorically exclude/supress correct opinions? No.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment

Only women are not listed as percs.

The PRESENCE of beautiful women serving beer is used as a perc. It's not like you BUY these women or use them as slaves...

In other words, not very different from a Hooters.

And for what was supposed to be a professional event (in the eyes of its sponsors and potential audience at least), the answer is a clear "No."

I'm unsure about the "clear" though.

How much of the potential audience would rather enjoy such an event, but is afraid to say so, because it's not PC?

As a non american(coming from a more egalitarian society, or at least a less objectifying society about women) this is for me a totally ridiculous issue. I'm pretty sure the same people that are being so offended by that small sentence have been in the last months to a Strip Club or a bar with prettier than average waitresses.

Some users talk about professional events and that it should not have been like that, go one day to any tech/arm/car/comic con expo and tell me the hostess are not "hot" and chosen because 1) they are women 2) They are good looking.

What a non-issue and HN front page was flooded with that today...

The message I'm getting from you is that you care more about group A than group B. Group A is all of the poor men that would like to see beautiful women while at API Jam and don't care about how that would make their fellow professionals feel. Group B is all of the women that want to go to a hackathon as professional coders, and not have to worry about people from group A. Will people from group A show up to any event? Yes, but they shouldn't feel that their sexism is welcome. I think group A has enough privilege, and they can do without this one perk for the sake of group B.