As pointed out, this isn't a situation of a developer dealing with a troll or someone being a complete jackass. This was a developer overreacting to a civil post from a known customer and partner of her company who had a slight disagreement and not being keen to just keep the reaction to a single tweet. She took to trashing them through additional tweets for the whole world to see. Mind you, the person who she did this to has an NPC in the game named after them. That should give you an idea how prominent this member of the community is. If she talks that way to someone like him, one can only imagine how she responds to others. She tried to play the gender card for someone disagreeing with her.

Blizzard Entertainment, the makers of another MMO called World of Warcraft... you may have heard of it, get tons of people daily telling them what they think the game should be. How something should be done. What they would like to see and where they think the developers are going wrong. Some of it is civil and some of it is vile and many times they are directly responding to or initiating the conversation with a dev or community manager. Guess what... many of those developers they are "telling how to do their job" are male. That's the point. These people don't give a flying fuck about your gender. They have an opinion on the game you're making, the game they love and spend tons of time and money on, and they want you to hear them. This was not a gender issue until she turned it into one. This was a bitch issue from the beginning.

A bunch of sweaty, basement dwelling mongrels taking that as an opportunity to attack her for being a female developer isn't the narrative here. It's not what caused this situation and it's not the reason she got fired.

That is the whole point.  You all got offended because she flipped a switch on this fan.  She could have been joking.  She could have thought that it was tongue and cheek and nothing would come of it.  It could be a lot of things but what it turned out to be is that she was fired for speaking to a fan on a public forum in a way people did not like.  Its a pandora box because it really does not matter if the guy she was abusive was civil or not.  Once you support companies firing you based on your opinions in public forums then if anyone wants to get your fired all they need to do is find out what company you work for and send them your, tweets, facebook page, forum post you name it.

I am not saying that she should not be fired, what I am saying is that no matter how much a dick a person can be, if you support them getting fired then you support anyone getting fired for anything they say outside of work.  If you want corporations to stay out of your private life then you have to support the dicks as well as the angles because they rules will apply to both.

That is the whole point.  You all got offended because she flipped a switch on this fan.  She could have been joking.  She could have thought that it was tongue and cheek and nothing would come of it.  It could be a lot of things but what it turned out to be is that she was fired for speaking to a fan on a public forum in a way people did not like.  Its a pandora box because it really does not matter if the guy she was abusive was civil or not.  Once you support companies firing you based on your opinions in public forums then if anyone wants to get your fired all they need to do is find out what company you work for and send them your, tweets, facebook page, forum post you name it.

I am not saying that she should not be fired, what I am saying is that no matter how much a dick a person can be, if you support them getting fired then you support anyone getting fired for anything they say outside of work.  If you want corporations to stay out of your private life then you have to support the dicks as well as the angles because they rules will apply to both.

Notice that you keep bringing up the word public forums, then in your conclusion talk about people interfering in her private life.  There's a contradiction there.

First off, the interaction was about something she posted in regards to storytelling in gaming.  It was a topic directly related to her job.  She chose to put this out to the public, and then she chose to engage with a customer of her company.

Secondly and more importantly, twitter is not a part of your private life.  It is public.  It is a site designed with the specific purpose of broadcasting your opinions to a large number of people.  You do not have any right or reasonable expectation to privacy when you are posting a public message.

A company absolutely has the right to fire an employee who is adversely effecting their brand in a public forum.  This was neither a topic which was unrelated to her job, nor was it a private comment.  This has always been the case as far as I know.  The difference is that people are shockingly slow to understand that posting on twitter is the equivalent of making a press release.

No. She tried to use her vagina as a shield from criticism and she was being a cunt. She acted unprofessional when she was representing her company. It's not about taking offense and firing someone over it. It's about acting in a reasonable way with others. Companies will fire you if you damage the brand by doing something they don't agree with. That line is gonna different with each company and situation.

I did not notice I said public, I said it on purpose.  Would it be any different if someone took a video of you out in public berating someone or doing something stupid and you lost your job for it.  No matter the media used, if you are not actively working for a company or doing anything on company time then you are just an individual.  So would you agree that if a company viewed your twitter post and saw that you got drunk, pulled over by the cops and put into jail, and fired you for it that's fair game.  Same would be for Facebook or anything else.  Where is the line drawn and how much are you so accepting of this practice.  I keep reading about SJW all the time but it seems people just pick and choose what they consider SJW.

So what you saying as a developer, if I post something that I do, its considered fair game for my employer to fire me because they disagree how I handled the topic in public.  So basically what we are all saying is that you are always on the clock for your company no matter if you are on the Job or just speaking in general.  I am not saying that this isn't the world we live in, I am saying people seem to be more accepting of it and thus cannot complain when its used for someone they do like.  Its a double edge sword that bites on both ends.  No one seem to ask was there a process.  Was she just fired outright.  What policies did she break and how many chances do you get.  Nope, it was one and done but it only seems to be that way because the general people who support her getting fired has an ax to grind.  If this was your favorite developer, I wonder if support would have been different.

At Bolded:  How exactly can that be proven.  Even if it can be proven how can any company tie that to an employee unless it is their forum.  Just because someone knows you work for a certain company doesn't exactly give them total rights to anything you say as affecting their business.  Basically you just gave corporation to use that very line for anything they can consider as "Hurting" their brand and complete control over what you say, how you act, who you associate with and how you behave in any settings.  Its one thing understand how things are, its totally another to just accept it as if it should be the norm.

1.  Personally, I'm actually required to report any arrest as soon as it occurs, so twitter is an irrelevancy.  But, assume that's not the case, would my employer have the right to fire me?  It depends.  If I'm for instance an accountant, probably not.  If I'm a representative for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, yes.  

If I was in public and did something stupid, that is absolutely a different situation.  I have a reasonable expectation of privacy in most places, even if they are public.  But a public forum, a place specifically designed for broadcasting my ideas, I have no expectation of privacy.  Nobody videotaped her.  She chose to interact with a customer, and chose to do it in an entirely unprofessional manner.  

2.  I really don't particularly feel like addressing this, because whenever someone starts a sentence with "so what you're saying" it never is what you're saying.  And indeed, I never said anything likely.  She is not always on the clock.  But when she chooses to discuss her job on her free time, and chooses to interact with customers, then she is representing her company.  

3.  At the bolded, It's not a matter of people can say anything they want, or be totally censored.  As intelligent human beings we can decide on a case by case basis.  I would hope that we can reasonably agree that calling someone an asshat for a respectable criticism is hurting a brand.  

Saying that a company should be able to discipline an employee for calling a customer an asshat is not giving them the right to control everything a person says.  Ease up on the slippery slope fallacies.  

2.  Ok, I can agree with the "So what you are saying"  as I can definitely say this is now I interpret what you said, which is totally different.  As to her discussing her Job, that is actually not what she did.  She made a post about a topic she was interested in.  It would be different if she wrote a topic and stated this game I work on doing this part etc.  Actually from the tweet her job is never mentioned.  Just because this guy was a fan, doesn't give him any more rights than the average person on the street.  So my statement stands.  If I speak about programming because I am a developer, does it give my company rights to basically own what I say and tie that into a representation of their business.  As far as a business is concerned, everyone can be considered a customer.  Just having your own twitch, facebook and other public forum where you speak your mind can be considered property of your employer if you happen to say something they do not like.

3.  You continue to say this is a customer, but it was her own twitter account.  Like I said, its different if this was the company twitter account, facebook page or forum but it was her twitter account.  By all intent and purpose this does not define this guy as a customer for Arenanet.  Instead this means he was a fan of her.  So yes, this is a slippery slope because she was not on the clock, not speaking on company time and not speaking about company products or services.  Yes, she was triggered when she responded back to the guy and who knows, what was going on in her head at the time.  From the verge article she stated that he chose the wrong time to question her post because she got tired of people who do not work in the industry trying to tell her how to do her job.  As a developer I can understand where she comes from.  We get this all the time with people who have no clue how we do our job trying to tell us how to do our job.  Even the guy who tried to defend her basically stated the same thing.

2.  Ok, I can agree with the "So what you are saying"  as I can definitely say this is now I interpret what you said, which is totally different.  As to her discussing her Job, that is actually not what she did.  She made a post about a topic she was interested in.  It would be different if she wrote a topic and stated this game I work on doing this part etc.  Actually from the tweet her job is never mentioned.  Just because this guy was a fan, doesn't give him any more rights than the average person on the street.  So my statement stands.  If I speak about programming because I am a developer, does it give my company rights to basically own what I say and tie that into a representation of their business.  As far as a business is concerned, everyone can be considered a customer.  Just having your own twitch, facebook and other public forum where you speak your mind can be considered property of your employer if you happen to say something they do not like.

3.  You continue to say this is a customer, but it was her own twitter account.  Like I said, its different if this was the company twitter account, facebook page or forum but it was her twitter account.  By all intent and purpose this does not define this guy as a customer for Arenanet.  Instead this means he was a fan of her.  So yes, this is a slippery slope because she was not on the clock, not speaking on company time and not speaking about company products or services.  Yes, she was triggered when she responded back to the guy and who knows, what was going on in her head at the time.  From the verge article she stated that he chose the wrong time to question her post because she got tired of people who do not work in the industry trying to tell her how to do her job.  As a developer I can understand where she comes from.  We get this all the time with people who have no clue how we do our job trying to tell us how to do our job.  Even the guy who tried to defend her basically stated the same thing.