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Comment by javadocmd | Hacker News Reader

> But this isn't true...

You completely missed this point. To quote the article:

> Many people, especially those in marginalized groups do feel less welcome. We know because they tell us.

Hanlon doesn't claim to know why the marginalized groups feel unwelcome. He doesn't even claim that the root cause is a bias of action -- conscious or subconscious -- on the part of SO's users or staff. What he said was these groups report at a higher than average rate the feeling of being unwelcome. That is a simple fact, and can only be dismissed at the cost of saying those people's opinions are not worth addressing. Acknowledging it, saying "maybe if we get creative we can improve it", is not virtue signaling, it's the most fundamental requirement to:

> shift from “don’t be an asshole” to “be welcoming.”

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What he said was these groups report at a higher than average rate the feeling of being unwelcome

As a non-white I call shenanigans. My non-whiteness is very obvious in my SO profile pic and not once in 8 years of active use of the site has it ever come up, nor have I perceived being treated any differently. Also, no one ever asked me if I felt “unwelcome” nor is there a button to click for that, so I don’t know where this really comes from...

Else-net, there was a theory put out that if one feels marginalized already, then the perception of "Stack Overflow doesn't want my question, they down voted it because it lacks any code" is evidence of that marginalization even though its directed at everyone.

Being treated exactly the same as everyone else is concrete evidence of non-marginalisation, in my book - and what everyone claims to want

This seems likely. If you are mistreated for a given reason, you would likely attribute mistreatment elsewhere to having the same cause, and given that would be ones first impression of mistreatment, even with evidence that the mistreatment is for another more broader issue, people will likely contribute the mistreatment to the original reason they were mistreated in the first area. It is similar to making a bad first impression; it takes a lot more effort to correct a bad first impression than to maintain a good first impression.

With Stack Overflow, its also important to remember the 0th impressions of people finding the site through google.

Finding material that is off topic but preserved for some reason is often cited as a negative experience. The "I searched for XYZ and it was closed as not constructive" (note: not constructive hasn't been a valid close reason for several years).

This brings up the question of "should that material be findable on Stack Overflow if people are having such poor experiences when finding it?" and "are people finding the closed questions of yesteryear a disincentive to participate today?"

The finding things closed as a duplicate sign post isn't working as intended with redirecting them to the proper question - because when there is an answer to the question (that may or may not properly answer it) it prevents the logged out user from getting redirected to the duplicate.

You got this exactly wrong:

The negative experience is that the interesting/useful questions/answers aren't rewarded.

It's bad that they are closed with harsh and false ("not constructive" on some of the most useful question there was...). It would be even worse if they were entirely removed so we couldn't find the answer.

> > Many people, especially those in marginalized groups do feel less welcome. We know because they tell us.

This particular argument is really bad IMHO. OP has a point - nobody knows who you are. That means if some people feel they are treated worse it is due to their own perception. After all, objectively they are not treated worse then everybody else. Which to me sounds more like a bias in their perception. They may have that perception for a reason, but that does not seem to me to be something attributable to SO.

People are not claiming they are being treated worse than less marginalised people. They’re claiming they themselves do not feel welcome. It’s definitely all about perception, but that doesn’t mean it’s invalid.

> What he said was these groups report at a higher than average rate the feeling of being unwelcome. That is a simple fact

Is it a fact? I'd like to see the evidence behind that claim, so I asked for that: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/366692/41071.

> We know because they tell us.

But not marginalized groups also tell them. Now the question is who tells more? I think marginalized, because they read all these blogs and tweets about being opressed, shift their selective focus to minor injustices, and feel empowered to complain. The SJWs are the complainers, they are the warriors, that's why you hear from them more than from anybody else. They have the momentum of complaining, so they are more likely to continue to complain. I'm certain most of them are addicted to complaining and will never stop, no matter what. Also, minorities have higher social status within those ranks, and therefore more likely to be SJW.

So it's not necessarily Stack Overflow's fault at all.

The only information we have from the blog post is that Stack Overflow has survey results telling them that marginalized groups feel particularly unwelcome, unless you have some other source of info I didn't notice.

From that single datum, you've concluded that this is because marginalized groups must over-complain, and in fact, you claim to have achieved perfect certainly that most members of marginalized groups have an addiction to complaining and will never stop, and therefore the only sensible course is to completely disregard any survey results saying that marginalized groups feel particularly bad about anything.

That's a pretty strong conclusion from hearing about a brief allusion to the results of a survey you didn't see. Your argument says a lot about you and very little otherwise.

Alternatively, assuming good faith, he claims that this is a possible explanation, and that perhaps Hanlon fell victim to the very common base rate fallacy on his off-hand comment.

Or Simpson’s Paradox

"I don't understand the problems you face so clearly it's just you making up shit."

That's an anstoundingly lack of emapthy and self-awareness. Also extra points for the unironic use of SJW.

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