Harassment of Our Authors Is Not Ok: A Conversation
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Men who write articles of any quality about helping elderly people learn to code might take some shit on message board comments, but none of them become the target of organized harassment campaigns.
The notion that women should write under pen names while men freely and safely claim credit for any random achievement is a perfect example of how this industry allows itself to be rigged against women. Women aren't even supposed to identify themselves --- when they do, they're just allowing themselves to be victimized by the forces of nature, which apparently include mobs of misogynist trolls.
What's the evidence of this? If these trolls aren't using real identities I'd be skeptical if it were more than one person. Maybe even someone who knows her personally if they're dedicated this much energy.
I'm not OK with this. Nobody should be OK with this.
It may be ignorant of me to suggest blowing these trolls off and not paying them attention - but it isn't insincere or sexist. I'd like to hear your solution.
It behooves the people proclaiming "something must be done" to detail what exactly they'd like to see happen. Otherwise we just have an emotional mob seeking any convenient scapegoat.
Specific constructive ideas appear to be lacking, and in their place vague allusions and shouting down of people who do concretely point out how individuals can try to protect themselves. I think what most "detractors" are worried about is an alignment with the government desire to remove anonymity from the Internet, which seems to be implied as some kind of solution even though it should be a complete non-starter.
http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2016/06/promoting-ge...
Yes, that same link is posted elsewhere in this discussion. So far, it has gotten zero upvotes (or downvotes) or replies. Because, as usual, it is getting mostly ignored.
People making the kinds of comment you have just made seem to not actually want solutions. They seem to want a convenient excuse for dismissing the criticism entirely.
I have been working hard to bring solutions, not complaints, for quite a few years. It is mostly ignored.
If you actually want real change, you could start by paying more attention to the things I suggest, acting on them and promoting my writing. But I imagine that won't happen at all.
But I will say, despite my agreement with it, that post of yours does not actually address this current subject of outrage. It is true that one component of harassment is the pervasive social attitudes held by the majority, and thus can be changed through social integration. But concentrated harassment also comes from a small minority that are either deliberately trolling, or so socially mistuned as to use a comments section as if it were a bar. All of the outreach and awareness is not going to change this latter group - think of Pascal's Wager for a date.
It's not that I don't "want" a solution to the latter. It's that I don't see how one, as envisioned, can exist. Education and awareness can shrink the quantity. Centralized sites with heavy moderation can shrink the quantity [1] [2]. Maybe even personal filtering-assistants could shrink the quantity. But at some level of fan-in it is still going to be present and require that people build their own mental defense.
[0] FWIW, I clicked the up arrow on that comment, and this one as well. But my votes don't actually count because it was determined that I upvote "low quality" comments - a year or two ago, anti-circlejerk comments were forced to really snipe.
[1] You have a post about rejecting offers for dates on HN. I don't believe I have ever seen such a proposal on HN (and I'm showdead=yes). I'm not refuting your experience, just contrasting - an event can be objectively extremely rare, yet still quite personal, intense, and resentment-forming.
[2] Furthermore, this ignores alternative avenues of contact - I don't think Medium passed along all this harassment itself. Which is why ambiguous "something" can't not imply some greater control over the wider Internet.
I have studied social phenomenon both formally and informally for a lot of years. In a nutshell, you do not need to announce that egregiously bad things are not okay when you establish a standard of real respect. Of course, that won't stop all of it. But the overall character of the experience can be modified.
> Of course, that won't stop all of it
This is the crux of my point. The egregious things are already outliers - I don't think hitting on someone has ever been within the HN community standards, and your anecdata implies the ratio is better than 1:10,000. At that rarity, it's going to be awfully hard to even analyze how to shrink that number further.
Rereading the original post, it seems like the specific unwanted behavior in this case is having random (male) readers try to friend a young woman on Facebook with hopes of hitting on her. If that ratio were actually under say 1:1000, I don't know that we'd even be here as a species.
If either situation were limited to a small town, there would be a manageable number of occurrences over a longer time with a wider social sphere to police them. But at Internet scale, a small chance times a stateless flash mob causes an immediate intense issue.
I don't believe the overall pattern of behavior where women get male attention that is motivated primarily by sexual interest is remotely as rare as you are suggesting. We would not be having this conversation at all if that were the case.
Women do get treated differently than men online. I am hardly the only one that sees that.
My ratios were meant as lower bounds. As in, I would expect at least 1 in 1000 readers to attempt to friend the author [0], especially as such an action can be plausibly denied as just friendly professional networking. In reality that number is much higher [1], but I'm using a conservative estimate to make the point that even if it is this rare, multiplied by a huge audience still creates an issue.
[0] I certainly wouldn't do so myself and I'm not condoning the behavior either. I'm just saying that there are going to be at least this many asshats.
[1] In fact I now see that the original post only had 3k views, so I should revise that to 1:100 - without contradiction.
- Women need to create accounts and participate in voting
- Post more articles by women
- Have candid and honest conversation. Don't condescend
I almost think not being condescending and promoting an article because the author is female is contradictory. An article should stand on its own merit. This is really a tech/startup forum. It'd be great if gender didn't matter here, right?
Furthermore, when men try to make money here, that's a-okay. But it's a problem if I try to monetize my work -- not just here, anywhere. Everyone seems to object to a woman wanting money for her work. Everyone seems to think women should do things out of the goodness of their hearts. Then I also get told I am crazy for suggesting that there is any connection at all between my gender and my persistent poverty.
It's really rather maddening.
You aren't supposed to condescend to anyone here. Asking that women not be condescended to is not asking for special treatment. It also doesn't mean you cannot critique their work.
Thank you for replying.
In my experience most male forum members have exactly the same experience. It is simply very difficult to be taken seriously, to have people invest the time to read and honestly consider your ideas, and just to get visibility at all, regardless of gender!
I appreciate you're actually taking the initiative to propose concrete actions to make our community more inclusive. However, your writing reeks of egotism. This is not a gendered thing. I and many others simply can't take seriously anyone who writes, "If you actually want real change, you could start by paying more attention to the things I suggest, acting on them and promoting my writing. But I imagine that won't happen at all."
This is not what is being said.
I think you have found a very small number of comments and extrapolated them to take a side on the argument you want to have.
And I think in doing so you are confusing the issue and hope of progression.
Firstly, what I am seeing said in these comments and in other articles and circles is that harassment is something that happens, something that is worse if you are seen as vulnerable, and many suggesting that more women are seen as more vulnerable than men.
As a response to that a lot of people are suggesting that perhaps vulnerable people should use pen names. The response to this is that pen names hamper the point of writing.
Nowhere have I seen serious claims that they were "begging for harassment".
What I have seen are people who receive hate simply for 'being ginger' in photo's on Reddit. People who are harassed and followed in the street for being obese or mentally ill. People who are teased and chased or excluded for being weaker or slower. People who receive hate for making political comments on Facebook or twitter. I have seen these people have real problems with those that harass them following and abusing them from site to site, stripping them of their self-worth.
These are the things I am not OK with.
I am also not OK with you marginalising the problems of others (which in this case appears to be any vulnerable person sporting a penis).
I don't know who gets harassed more, men or women, but I'd definitely guess women. That being said, the advice is pretty standard for everyone.
The internet is still a dangerous place for everyone. If you want to pretend it's not, have fun and let me know how that works out for you.
Women don't.
I'm not OK with it. Nobody should be OK with it.
Nobody is saying it's OK. We are saying that's just how it is.
That's quite dismissive of men who have become the target of harassment campaigns.
>The notion that women should write under pen names while men freely and safely claim credit for any random achievement is a perfect example of how this industry allows itself to be rigged against women. Women aren't even supposed to identify themselves --- when they do, they're just allowing themselves to be victimized by the forces of nature, which apparently include mobs of misogynist trolls.
There are plenty of men who cannot safely claim credit for their writings, though the reason is usually ideological rather than rooted in their identity. If you, as a man or a woman, post something which is found disagreeable by a large majority of your peers in 2016, someone will come after your job. Someone will try to find out where you live. To ignore this problem and solely focus on the fact that women receive snide, misogynist comments sometimes when they write innocuous articles seems intellectually dishonest.
"men become targets of similar harassment campaigns"
was the case.
Not
"men become targets of similar harassment campaigns because of their gender"
If you want to qualify away from beliefs towards physical properties then fine. Lets turn around and look at those harassed for their hair colour. How about skin colour? Origin? Things other members of their family have done?
> If you want to qualify away from beliefs towards physical properties then fine. Lets turn around and look at those harassed for their hair colour. How about skin colour? Origin? Things other members of their family have done?
I do not understand why this is not sufficient to preempt your comment.
In case it is not here are some example I have found alongside their google search terms:
* "Ginger driven to suicide" http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2507153/Bullied-ging...
* "footballer harassed racial" https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2013/may/13/racism...
* "father harassed by" http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-28/sandy-hook-massacre-vi...
Not as often as women, but that wasn't the claim being made.
And yes, some authors have been "selected for the sin of being a man".
Thank you. If I had myself suggested people believed that, I'd be accused of caricaturing. But we'd both know: I wouldn't have been.
† (or "patronizing", a word that means literally the exact same thing and has somehow been used for centuries without mortally injuring our manly feels)
No and that isn't what I said. That was in reference to a certain demographic of people that do target men specifically because they are men and men are equivalent to being the devil, since their beliefs are borderline a religion to begin with I feel fine in making that equivalence.
Similar here is what is often called a "weasel word" -- to make the whole thing subjective and impossible to disprove (since nobody knows what would be "similar" enough to satisfy the un-disclosed similarity criteria -- in other words, sort like the "no true scotsman" fallacy).
If we omit that word, the truth is simply this: men who write or men who post online in general also can and often do become targets of harassment campaigns. Especially on the internet, where harassment comes as easy as writing a swearing/threatening/derogatory comment and mobs are quick to jump on mass attacks.
Their attackers may not call them "bitches" and "sluts" (so in that sense it's not "similar") but they do call them tons of other things, including things that they don't call women (e.g. "faggot").
Here are some examples grabbed from literally the first page of Google search:
Overall, men are somewhat more likely than women to experience at least one of the elements of online harassment, 44% vs. 37%. In terms of specific experiences, men are more likely than women to encounter name-calling, embarrassment, and physical threats.
http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/22/online-harassment/
One blogpost (civilly) critical of Sarkeesian and her supporters offers a fully sourced compilation of online comments wishing death, rape, mutilation and deadly diseases upon Jack Thompson, an activist critical of violent and sexual content in videogames—as well as death threats directed at male videogame developers who ran afoul of their fans.
Meanwhile, role-playing game designer James Desborough claims to have been viciously threatened for defending the use of sexual violence as a plot element in games.
And film blogger Alex Sandell (Juicy Cerebellum) has described receiving not only a deluge of hate mail but threatening phone calls—sometimes in the middle of the night, and sometimes made to his relatives—after writing negative reviews of the first two Lord of the Rings movies.
In the political sphere, several conservative male writers and activists have been targeted for rape and death threats, with their phone numbers publicly posted, after producing a documentary critical of the Occupy movement.
Right-wing bloggers involved in the bizarre war with leftist activist Brett Kimberlin that David Weigel recently chronicled in The Daily Beast have faced scary cyber-harassment from some of Kimberlin’s supporters, including graphic fantasies of violent revenge, lurid sexual slurs, and accusations of child pornography. (Particularly disturbing examples are documented in a blogpost by First Amendment advocate Ken White.)
On the other side, Charles Johnson, who runs the blog Little Green Footballs, relocated to a gated community because of threats he received after breaking with the right and embracing more liberal politics.
One male victim of cyberstalking, British expatriate novelist James Lasdun, told his story in the 2013 memoir, Give Me Everything You Have: On Being Stalked. Lasdun’s stalker, a former creative-writing student whose romantic overtures he had rejected, not only barraged him with abusive messages but emailed his colleagues accusing him of stealing her work, preying on female students, and even setting her up to be raped; she posted similar slanders on websites including Amazon.com and Wikipedia. But an experience like Lasdun’s gets no political sympathy; indeed, the review in The New Yorker chided him for failing to admit his “crush” on the woman and his role in leading her on.
[a] study, conducted by the British think tank Demos, was limited to a fairly small sample of British celebrities, journalists and politicians whose Twitter timelines were tracked over a two-week period, its findings are nonetheless interesting. On the whole, 2.5 percent of the tweets sent to the men but fewer than 1 percent of those sent to women were classified as abusive. Male politicians fared especially badly, receiving more than six times as much abuse as female politicians. The only category in which women got more Twitter abuse than men was journalism: abusive messages accounted for more than 5 percent of the tweets sent to the female journalists and TV presenters in the study and fewer than 2 percent of the ones sent to the male journalists.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/04/men-are-har...
It's tough in the real world (which is bigger than tech) for everybody.
Bullying and harassment on the internet is a fact for both women and men (as it is in real life for that matter. Male geeks, for example, hardly get much love in high school from the "football team" type guys, and same for geeky/unpopular females from the schools "a-list").
Women have the historical baggage of sexism and double standards to fight against, which has been closing down since the 60s.
Men who are not of the macho/alpha-male type (that is, most of us tech geeks) have the macho/violence/"bro"/anti-"faggot" etc crap to put up with, which doesn't get much attention, but is a real problem too.
It is possible (and I'd say, preferable) to acknowledge both, and their unique mechanics, without flying any flags for one or the other.
Is it only meaningful when it gets physical?
Or are violence threats and death threats, internet mob justice, bullying and the like is not "meaningful harassment" if it happens to men?
And why would that be?
Is that because most attacks on men are mere jokes, or maybe most men are thick-skinned Rambos that just brush them off?
And, the corollary, is that because most attacks on women are real-world threatening, or most women are little delicate creatures that can't take a verbal/written attack?
I find it hard to agree with either idea.
Maybe there's some other possible intended meaning behind this "meaningful harassment" notion that I've missed?
I'm not interested in the noodling semantic argument. Don't bullshit me. You're not getting anywhere with it.
I stand by everything I've said on this thread. Anyone who suggests men in this industry deal with harassment of the same kind women do should be embarrassed. Will, inevitably, be embarrassed. I'll happily sign my own name to that.
>in other words, sort like the "no true scotsman" fallacy).
Further, you don't seem interested in any form of conversation. I can't say you're posting in good faith - but rather have already made your mind certain of something with no intentions of discussing it. Calling others names and taking the moral high ground, even when that moral high ground has little to no basis in reality and you've been given evidence otherwise.
Have you recently done any of the following on HN:
Engaged a woman in good faith discussion?
Upvoted her comments, submissions, or written work?
Addressed the substance of her points instead of nitpicking minor issues or focusing on her gender in some way?
Engaged with her in a manner that in some way enhanced her public reputation as a professional or otherwise enhanced her professionally?
These things happen routinely for men on HN. I think they are far less common for women.
I am not afraid to stick my neck out, but I am unusual for a woman in many ways, yet I am still finding it enormously frustrating. The degree to which expressing myself gets hatred, sexual harassment or dismissal vastly outweighs the degree to which anything I do gets taken in any way seriously. The sad thing is that I suspect my experiences are dramatically more positive than what is typical for a woman online.
How are we to know? People here are just usernames. If there are any substantial number of women here, then I've certainly had the same mix of positive and negative interactions with them as anyone else on this site (I'm green because someone changed the password to my account, and I didn't have an e-mail registered to it).
There are few enough people that explicitly mention their gender here, and I'd always assumed it wasn't an issue (within this community, at least). It's sad to hear that you're having trouble.
Probably. I engage commenters -- and because of the handles (which I don't even check before commenting) I seldom know whether they are men or women (or LGBT), and basically I don't even care whether they are X or Y sex or not, as long as they have something interesting to say, or say something that I disagree with and want to comment on.
I'm an equal opportunity "somebody is wrong on the internet" commenter.
>These things happen routinely for men on HN. I think they are far less common for women.
Maybe because woman are much fewer than men on HN? I engage with both men and women on somewhat equal frequency on other forums and media, e.g. Facebook.
My point is this: at least our industry recognizes a problem and is slowly doing something about it. So don't stop just because it seems overwhelming to fix the issue; we've already come a long way and can continue to progress.
I have no idea how to solve the monstrous problems related to internet harassment. It is well out of hand, especially as regards women on the internet (see: Anita Sarkeesian).
I think a discourse definitely needs to happen. But maybe the only solution lies in the education and mental health systems. But again, I don't know. Wish I knew, wish I could do more to help. Wish my gender weren't responsible for the vast majority of the harassment, violence, and threats of violence.
Best of luck. Please keep posting about this topic and looking for and experimenting with solutions. Progress can only be made by people like you taking the time to try to do something about an urgent problem like this.
I wonder if there's more we can be doing in schools to teach good conduct and respectful discussion on the internet.
Is there anything that can be done to bolster the new public personas and strengthen them? Perhaps having a moderated comment section for new or unseasoned authors might be work well. Maybe only allowing an authors name to appear when the post count is under a certain threshold. Then the name and photo, then name photo and Twitter or other contact method. Overrides possible of course.
You are an individual not nameless member of a gang called 'men'. Its strange to hold yourself accountable for some random person on the internet.
It is harassment--and the apologists for harassment--who advocate for a collectivist approach to society, in which individuals must cloak their true identities if they dare to challenge the herd, or be punished.
... by curtailing the freedoms of other individuals, in the name of group wellbeing.
Regardless of whether harassment is collectivist or not, I was simply pointing out that feeling guilty for actions of people in a similar demographic group to you (an overtly collectivist action) is currently wildly popular.
We can enforce our guidelines and keep the discussion civil, so everyone involved feels comfortable bringing new ideas to the table. Or we can let HN slip in the direction unmoderated communities usually go; rife with trolling, undue negativity, and direct harassment.
Whether or not to cast that downvote and show the trolls the door [1] is a choice we each have to make, but I for one feel an obligation to help build a civil community.
When a woman expresses herself in a substantive way, and gets 100 responses telling her to get back in the kitchen, get raped, etc., it is the harassers who are employing group-first thinking: something like, "she's a woman, so she should shut up and just do what I want all women do."
Gender-based harassment is essentially homogenous. Suppressing such harassment prioritizes the unique expression of an individual over the horde. This is analogous to how laws against assault and battery improve individual freedom of movement, despite constraining your freedom to punch people in the face whenever you want.
Anyway, the poster at the top of this subthread didn't even say he felt guilty. He just said, "Wish my gender weren't responsible for the vast majority of the harassment, violence, and threats of violence." That's just stating a personal opinion about a fact.
If 'harassment' is to be filtered content, then you must appoint someone to decide what is harassment and what is not. This person (or algorithm) will select what they view as harassment based on their ideological position. It's a far simpler and less dangerous task to block or ignore unwanted information than it is to filter every tweet, email, and status update and decide if it qualifies as 'harassment' or not.
This is a problem that transcends identity. There is an urge to control the discourse. It shows up when basement-dwellers harass a medium author for posting an article they find goes against their ideals, and it shows up when people like Curtis Yarvin are denied entry to conferences because they post political opinions that others disagree with. Some indie game devs get harassed to the point where they feel too unsafe to stay in their homes, and some indie devs have people persistently trying to make them unemployed and unemployable.
Of course they were. There is a despicable passive-aggressive smugness that is far too common, involving demonstrating one's superiority by sniping at the medium (no pun intended) instead of addressing the message; it allows one to show off without having to take any risks. I've found it very common in circles in which many participants spent their formative years being clever and being told how clever they are.
That said, not all feedback is meant to be constructive - that can come across clearly, even on the internet. It's unfortunate that a young woman, clearly still in high school, felt torn down instead of built up.
The most important feedback I'd like to send to the young women who publish with us is that there's room for your voice and your opinion, and you'll be treated with respect.
You're definitely right that we can't share our ideas if we don't effectively communicate them. I know I deeply appreciate when people take the time to respond with comments to help make what I've shared better. +1 are always great, but comments are better :)
For me, how we write is as important as what we right - both need to be good enough to successfully communicate our ideas.
I also want to share that I often encounter copy-editing responses that I see as cover for bias. Not all copy-editing feedback is a cover for bias, but much of what I see is - I think this happens because it is easier and less risky to comment, critique or outright attack the form of a position rather than engaging with the with substance of the position.
The kind of bias I'm referring to, and the sort of responses it can lead to is described in this article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fact-checking-is-largely...
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts on this. I really appreciate it.
Sean Yo
I see what you did there, and it suggests a playfulness that means a question I was crafting about the literalness of that statement can be dumped. If anything, you've demonstrated that the wrong word in the right place can carry an enormous subtext. This, though, is a layer beyond merely correct spelling.
It is a bad thing when it is used as a way to belittle someone. As a way to smugly dismiss their argument without having to actually examine it. That's bad, and it's common, and it's often done with a childish, passive-aggressive meanness of spirit. There's nothing inherently wrong with helping someone communicate better; it becomes a bad thing when it's used as a way to belittle someone and dismiss their argument on grounds that have nothing to do with the actual argument.
In this very thread, clifantic makes it clear that s/he will ignore what someone has to say if they are bad at expressing it.
one of the most valuable pieces of feedback?
Not nearly as valuable as feedback about the actual message, I would say. Even Shakespeare couldn't turn falsehood into truth by beauty of expression.
Here's the thing that you "I'm not writing a college essay!" people seem to miss - for a lot of us, keeping track of the difference between "your" and "you're" or "their", "there" and "they're" takes literally zero concentration. I'd go so far as to say that a majority of native English speakers have never, ever (since elementary school, anyway), mixed those words up accidentally. These aren't mistakes that non-native English speakers make either. Keeping track of proper grammar is, by far, the least difficult part of expressing thoughts in written form. If you're prone to making mistakes like that... you probably aren't very smart. And what you have to say probably isn't very profound. You really shouldn't be writing, you should be reading. You shouldn't be talking, you should be listening.
So basically you are the type of person that caused the problem being discussed here.
There is a difference between someone making mistakes and someone feeling the need to point them out in public or private, or to judge who should be writing.
Maybe they should be reading more. But who are you or any other anonymous person to comment on that. If you don't have anything nice to say...
For you. People think differently, and something that comes natural to you does not come natural to others.
I find it hard to take that argument seriously
I think you vastly overestimate how many people are aware of these things. The people that are aware, are only aware because of experience with assholes like you. You don't need to show off how clever you are that you know some pointless rule.
Like Jesus, how fucking arrogant and smug you must be to say "you probably aren't very smart" over a trivial grammar mistake. There may be some correlation between spelling errors and intelligence, but certainly not a 100% correlation.
It is a dangerous thing to put yourself out there to the public. It takes a lot of courage to do it and often you get no response at all. I agree we should strive for a better community I'm merely thinking out loud. I've seen more and more outlets removing or minimizing comment sections because of what kind of content they fill up with.
The HN commentary was very negative, and very much not what I usually expect to see on HN. I was rather surprised at the tone.
That HN post was flagged and removed fairly quickly if I remember right - perhaps from the tone of dicussion.
There has to be some kind of phrasing for that. I put myself in a group, a member of that group does something atrocious I don't agree with, the world at large vilifies the group and I feel defensive because I put myself in that group.
But if you don't want to be grouped with the haters and creeps then you had better stand up and say so. Call out the creeps and haters among us and tell them their shit isn't okay.
Stand up and say something. The problem isn't that this kid can't tell whether the creeps trying to get at her are from HN or not. The problem is the creeps.
Fight the right battle dude.
I've gotten plenty of comments telling me to "kill myself", despite being a male and despite being an adult. I'm not saying that my level of harassment is comparable to that of a young lady coder, but I am saying that it's not exclusive to any one demographic.
I think there's your answer. I'm also male and adult, but I've been online long enough to know what the dark side of the internet is like. Like you, I also don't take these things as personally.
But why should be only accept the lowest common denominator of "inevitability"? Why should me being okay with something mean that everyone should be okay with it?
It reminds me of this bodybuilder on Youtube, i believe Scooby was his name, about as tall and muscular as they come and he still got harassed to the point where he had to leave his house.
This, sadly, is just not true. One anecdote does not a pattern make.
I didn't say we should "accept" anything, and I don't endorse harassment of anyone, and I'd greatly prefer people didn't tell to go "kill themselves" (a commonly cited case of harassment).
That said, it's not like it's a big secret that jerks exist on the internet. Anyone who posts something publicly should expect some hate. I'm not saying it's right, I'm not saying it's fair, and I'm not saying I agree with it, but you'd have to be insane to deny it happens.
Because you didn't kowtow sufficiently for some people. One might think that an unambiguous start like "While I don't support harassment in any way" would be enough to defuse the emotional downvoters, but apparently not.
This is why I generally don't upvote gender or sexuality-related stories on HN, even if I agree with the author or think the premise is important: time and again contrary (politically incorrect or insufficiently supportive) opinions are punished and rational discourse goes out the window. The Brendan Eich kerfluffle is an excellent example.
The fact that you had to even start your post with a disclaimer saying that you disapprove of behavior that a typical person would disapprove of anyway should be an indicator of how irrational HN can be at times. It should have gone without saying, yet here it wasn't even good enough.
It's not a good idea to talk about this sort of thing. Those who use it tend to have no compunction using the accrued power for vigilantism
It may be that solving this problem is impossible, but I think it is good to try.
The only practical solution I can see would be total de-anonymization of the Internet. I don't think anyone wants that, though.
I personally like the anonymization that the internet provides via handles, because it allows ideas to stand stronger in seclusion than be propped up by reputation.
1) Educate readers that it is not ok to harass your Authors (or anyone really) but I get that your job is to protect your people.
2) Protect your authors through anonymity and teaching them good online habits. Pen names for younger authors is a great idea. Especially for first time authors who don't like the limelight and don't want to deal with the direct messages they will inevitably receive. And if you have a first time author coach them on the kinds of responses they can expect. Some negative reviews will get through unless you go to anonymous so education has to be part of that.
3) Join in the fight against online harassment. I don't have any links but this is a problem and people need to know that bullying (online) isn't OK.
4) Edit your posts. Grammar is much harder to make fun of if the mistakes aren't there. This is not a justification of others actions but a suggestion on how to avoid this specific type of bullying.
5) Be active in the HN comments and point out that specific comments aren't addressing content but instead just being nit picky. This could fall into the gratuitous negativity section of the HN guidelines but that's kind of a stretch.
EDIT: The following are options but things you should not do. I tried to make that clear with the comments associated with these two options but I didn't make it clear enough. Don't do the following two unless you want to completely change your community.
6) This is optional but you can implement a login feature that requires people to link to facebook and then you can monitor your readers activity. It will loose you a ton of traffic but if it's really that important to you this is a way you can limit who can read your articles and thereby protect your authors. I don't think this is a good idea personally but it is an idea, only you can decide to lock down your content like that.
7) Public shaming, which IMO should be avoided at all costs, but if someone is harassing someone else this can turn the tables. It also leads to witch hunting and perpetuates a whole different problem that should be avoided at all costs.
Online communities have jerks. No matter where you go you'll find them. HN is no exception. This community does not ban people from reading articles or monitor it's users outside of this site, so HN as an organization can't enforce this other than to spread the message and show people it's not OK.
My suggestion is try 1-5 for now and see how it goes.
You really stand by "monitor your readers activity"?
I don't think this is a good idea personally but it is an idea, only you can decide to lock down your content like that.
No I don't stand by it. It's an option, they asked for options. This is a bad one, but it depends on how serious they are about protecting their authors.
I'm sorry, I just meritoriously criticized you in a way that was still rude as hell. That was completely my fault. Just like the young woman mentioned in the blog post: no matter how thick your skin, you don't deserve unkind jabs at your grasp of the English language.
We as a community dropped the ball by allowing this to happen.
Meanwhile, there are new voices that want in on the conversation - maybe they're young, or female, or minorities. They are routinely getting shouted down by our community, and here we are, admitting that they wouldn't face the same ire if they obscured their experience/gender/race by writing under psuedonyms.
I will do my part. I will downvote trolls, and I'd encourage others to do the same.
This is the story of Reddit's 4chanization and it could be the story of HN too, if we don't make a point of caring about our guidelines.
But it's worth saying that pen-name !=anonymous. For most publications, you can put articles you write under a pen-name and have the publication verify your pen-name for CV purposes.
It won't matter if you're male, female or other. If you're tall, short, skinny, young, old, fat, white, black, green. If English is your first or your 10th language. If you confuse their and they're. There's always going to be a subset of people out there who are going to attack you no matter what.
Are some subsets of characteristics more susceptable to abuse than others? Yes. Try being overweight and admitting to that on any message board.
It sucks, but it's reality. I firmly approve of the use of pseudonyms (or even better "anonymous"); it's the only thing that will make people focus on the content, not your physical characteristics.
I'm truly sorry this young woman had to learn this fact in this way. I hope she continues her work with the elderly, and continues to write under a pseudonym. I wish she didn't have to, but the reality is people will respect what she has to write more if she does.
Unfortunately some are more likely to be harassed than others. I don't know a male writer who has been consistently, systematically harassed. I don't know a female writer who hasn't been.
(For avoidance of doubt I know several writers of both genders.)
I'm claiming it doesn't matter - if you put yourself out there, you're opening yourself up to be attacked. And the only way to avoid that is to be anonymous, and let your opinions and arguments stand on their own merits.
Anything else has been historically shown to fail. Blizzard's real name policy? Failed to stop the trolls. Community Guidelines? Trolls don't care. A sternly worded letter? Just lets the trolls revel in their success.
The fact is, any harassment, any number of death threats is bad. Period. 1 or 100 won't matter when someone is wishing violence upon you.
How do you address those populations on a way which hasn't been attempted (and failed) before?
And isn't the entire premise of Hacker News / YCombinator that there are people and companies that can do things in a new / better / more efficient way? Why should that mentality be limited solely to making money?
As is, being female, especially if reasonably attractive, is the probably single highest indicator of online harrasment.
I've had spam and harrrassment from my social media, my opinions on blog, and it's been low-level background noise and mainly related to opinion. I was perfectly relaxed about trolls, and fed them when I was in the mood.
Living with partner who had similar online profiles, blog, not wildly differing opinions, and rather less techie with less traffic was, to say the least, illuminating. Especially as I thought her the more engaging writer - I tend to write too much.
Barely a day went by without some jerk making sexual comments or sending a d* pic, then trying to track down all her accounts to fire friend requests in all. Sometimes it felt really creepy. The Middle East and Asian countries seemed especially likely to generate the "nice pic, number please" sex-object garbage.
That's in addition to the normal comments, arguments and conversations. No surprise to learn that she was the first to start locking down privacy and losing enthusiasm, and hasn't kept a blog for years now.
From what I can gather since, this is common.