Comment by bobby_9x | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bobby_9x | Hacker News Reader

I think one of my problems with all of this is that many communities allow people with unchecked mental illnesses to continue to manipulate and harass everyone around them.

I ran a meetup group with a few other co-organizers and it's amazing the amount of abuse people will take.

We had members that would come into the group, harass the rest of the members and continue with inappropriate behavior during our meetups.

We had one guy that would come in and basically corner any girl in the group and ask them out. During the meetup he looked like he wanted to hurt someone (he had angry looks on his face all the time), and wouldn't really talk to anyone or get to know the members.

After confronting the member, it continued. Since I was running the group with other people, I told them we needed to kick this guy out of the group. They outright refused. They felt that we shouldn't be exclusionary and that this would be 'mean'.

This guy eventually left when he was trying to get into an ivy league school and he sent us a blank entrance form and wanted us to fill it out for him. He sent us all angry emails and never came back.

I left the group shortly after this because I couldn't be part of a group that didn't protect its members.

More communities need to kick people out for inappropriate and harmful behavior.

I've heard that this is somewhat common in nerdy communities, or at least common enough that someone felt moved to write about "geek social fallacies": http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html

It's not really common in nerdy communities as such, just mostly those somewhere between the mainstream and the incredibly niche. There's an interesting TV Tropes write up on that here:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheLawOfFanJackas...

That article would be better if it removed all the "geek" spam. It isn't a "geek" phenomenon.

I run a nerdy community. #1 and #2 are so impossibly ingrained in my users that this was both painful and cathartic to read. The only "potential fix" the author has is for people to read this and recognize the signs, but #2 prevents me from telling anyone there about it sigh

> I left the group shortly after this because I couldn't be part of a group that didn't protect its members.

Interesting. I've left groups that aggressively "protect" members, particularly those who do so even in online interactions. I find the aggressive protection detracts from honest and blunt communication or debate, I've seen people who basically think any remotely conservative opinion is rooted in misogyny or racism and should be immediately dismissed. It's something to weigh certainly, have to find the right balance appropriate for the group.

I find this believable. Having real empathy demands strength of character; it requires putting yourself in the shoes of a victim and feeling what it's like to be shat on. If you do it, and still find their suffering to be overblown, then that's your call to make. Most seem not to however: most will simply call an act of cruelty "awfully insensitive" or "woefully misguided" or some light phrase until it happens to them.

Good on you for leaving those weak-minded people behind.

What are these people supposed to do? Your solutions sounds like certain cities solution to the homeless problem...kick them out of the city. I'm pround of the other members of your group. The mentally ill and socially inept should be shown kindness and we should lead by example. Not just kick everyone out that makes us uncomfortable.

I have the opposite reaction. That group sounds like one where women aren't safe. It's important to show abusive people that their behavior won't be tolerated in the spaces they want to occupy. No consequences = no change.

That group sounds like a place where I wouldn't feel safe, or particularly welcomed.

The "homeless" analogy fails, because the Meetup isn't a city; it's an optional event run by volunteers. They don't owe a particular asshole membership, and they harmed the very group by allowing him to stay.

If we do want to try to stretch the analogy, with the meetup-as-a-social-gathering being our city, then the asshole was breaking one of the city's ordinances - a social rule of not being an asshole who harasses others. Homeless and homeful alike would be arrested and fined, or put in jail, if they flung bricks through the windows; someone who's breaking social norms and making others feel unsafe ought to be expelled from the group.

The question is, do you completely ostracize the immature and potentially abusive people or do you socially shame them but offer them a legitimate path to being able to be in a group? Geek groups are frequently the last resort socially - its way down on the social ladder (at least when I was growing up) and people frequently are way behind on both social skills and tact. As such, they end up being a catch-all, and the last place that they can go to grow without completely removing themselves from society. Should that mean that people should feel safe? Of course - thats why you meet in public, and have other people around.

Not defending this person, of course - just offering a wider perspective. I'd certainly pull this person aside frequently - if the group allowed for it constantly rather than shaming the person then I'd immediately look to leave the (now toxic) group if I couldn't convince them of the danger.

It sounds more like the group in this case had a "hands off" approach. If they talked with the individual, gave him chances to change behaviour, which he did not do, and then cut him loose that's one thing. Ignoring his bad behaviour, and just asking like if you stick your head in the ground for long enough it will go away isn't useful to anybody.

There is a line somewhere between 'this person makes me uncomfortable' and 'this person is a real threat to my/our safety.' We should always show kindness, but we also need to protect ourselves and people we care about. It's a tricky balance, for sure - but I don't think we can say that we must always tolerate everyone being a part of any group regardless of their behavior.

I think the difference is whether the problematic behavior is actively engaged in, or passively. Being uncomfortable by being in proximity to a homeless person is your problem, as that is a passive state of theirs, but being uncomfortable with a homeless person that confronts you about how you have money and they don't is their problem, as they are actively causing the situation.

As communities we deal with situations like this all the time. That's why we put criminals into jail, for forcibly separate them from the community at large (the nation) because they are actively causing problems (and to punish them), and it's not feasible to exile them anymore.

Let's keep going with this analogy. A city has some set of just laws - assault, for example: you can't just run up to strangers and scream at them and make them feel unsafe.

A meetup is a social event, and as such it has social rules, which are the equivalent of laws here. Making people feel unsafe and being an asshole is breaking those social rules.

A city can fine people or put them in jail; a meetup can forbid people from attending.

One key problem with this analogy is that everyone has to live somewhere, even the homeless. But not everyone needs to go to a special interest meetup. The organizers of the meetup didn't owe more to this one asshole than they did to the group, yet they made the entire group pay the cost of interacting with him.

Very fascinating story to me, especially regarding the behavior being face-to-face, so I'm grateful you shared. I'm behind in getting my tail in gear, but I do have a personal essay in the works refelecting on my experiences with un-moderated vs. moderated forums and comment platforms. I've witnessed some pretty clear social behaviors (e.g. forming cliques, 'groupthink' habits) which seem to vary by the platform and moderation level. A dynamic exists, in my opinion, that can turn a community into a cesspool.

I left Wikipedia because of the user Giano. Whilst he is good at writing articles (but consistently violates NPOV), he is a bully that has somehow managed to remain on the Wiki.

What is an 'unchecked mental illness'? Are you a Doctor?

If the member's behavior was so inappropriate, why did everyone else refuse to not associate with this person?

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