Hackers News Is a Toxic Place | Hacker News Reader

Hackers News Is a Toxic Place

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48 pointspesenti37 comments

Can HN be toxic? Absolutely.

Was it toxic in the situation the author was describing? I think reasonable people can have a discussion about this, but for arguments sake let’s say yes.

Is HN generally a positive non toxic environment? Yep! Hugely so.

HN is a remarkably diverse community. Perhaps not always from a gender perspective, but definitely in terms of background and means. I can personally attest to this as I run a mentoring program, and I tend to mostly get sign ups from HN, and they have been from all over the world.

I get that we as a community aren’t always perfect. Sometimes that’s rooted in our own biases and backgrounds. However, those comments lead to discussion, which may shape or alter the perspective of someone who had a different set of experiences, thus leading to a better future. Growth comes from points of discomfort, not from sitting on the side lines.

If I could ask one thing to every HN lurker and commenter is to continue to be open minded. Ask questions. Be thoughtful. Be respectful. Continually seek to grow.

We’re always going to be imperfect as a community, and that’s by design. All we can hope to do is be better today than we were yesterday. And better tomorrow than we were today.

"At this point HN is no different than 4chan." -gim

When people spout utter nonsense like this, I fear there's no reasoning with them.

Yea, there is one difference between here and 4chan. 4Chan is less likely to curb your freedom of speech. Sad that a site now owned by the Japanese promotes American Constitutional Freedoms more than an actual American-owned site.

1 - i agree with that sentiment

2 - your comment is exactly why.

Let me explain, first you express your opinion as a matter of fact. Their opinion is nonsense? Why not pose a question as to why one may think that? Consider the culture of 4chans various boards and some of the herd mentality you see on hn.

I can tangibly see on a daily basis trite comments which add nothing of value be upvoted because it expresses commonly held approved opinions (ie. Anti amazon comments or issues with nimbys in sf)

However someone echo a concern about the importance of us military intelligence infrastructure by virtue of supporting msft contracts with the us military, someone is downvoted as a warmonger with little discussion.

The shitposts are real randy

To claim that Hacker News "is no different than 4chan", a site where one can routinely find the most vile posts of racism, violence, child pornography and so on is utter nonsense, and that is a fact, not merely my opinion.

Agree, this place isn’t remotely like 4chan in any way.

Ok - aside from lets agree to disagree, im not equating the content are the same.

I am equating the manner pf discourse and conversation flow.

Its rather disingenuous of you to think people are claiming racism violence and child pornography here.

Besides, 4channel is now heavily modded to be sfw since it has been acquired from moot and the owner is trying to drive ad revenue.

It isnt 2008 - and please again, stop passing opinion as fact chris granger. I expect greater from hn posters.

I get some solid content here, but to downvote on disagreement and then ignote2a genuine attempt to exchange ideas is discomforting to see.

I dont anticipate you to understand and i thoroughly expect this to simply be downvoted.

If 4chan is heavily moderated and work-safe now, then I stand corrected in that regard. It's been a long time since I've been there. My reference to racism, violence and child pornography was to indicate the vast difference between the two sites' moderation and the sorts of 'toxic' things that were deemed acceptable at 4chan and unacceptable here. Although as you say, things must have improved greatly since I was last there.

Any downvotes you've received were not from me.

>Its rather disingenuous of you to think people are claiming racism violence and child pornography here

krapp did that in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19655230. You might need to turn showdead on in your profile to see it.

Ah - yea that's just plain silly right there. And frustrating bc it throws the meta discussion out the window

It’s not binary. People and forums can be fine sometimes, toxic sometimes. The question is what happens when things go wrong. Is there a way to recover? Is there enough concern and empathy to actually move forward from a possible hurtful incident? Or do we burn it all down and stop talking. We need more nuance in our lives, more willingness to actually engage, listen and change.

>Hacker News is a toxic place, but not because of all the people who make it hard for under-represented folks. But because of all the "good dudes" who act like it's not a toxic place.

Wow, the bad people are bad AND the good people are bad!

Every place is a toxic place.

More specifically, every place has toxic people.

It is your responsibility as a citizen of that community to speak up (either in the form of a flag or hiding that person) if you see content that is objectionable, off-topic, or offensive.

We will never rid the world of bad people. But we can choose to prevent their voices from echoing any louder.

> me, down voted <

HN is a toxic place.

> me, up voted <

What a fine symposium of scholars.

(Hacker news toxic... have you seen twitter...? ;)

Does anyone now, why this one is flagged? I don‘t want to contribute to discussion yet and I always tell people about the amazing and open discussions on HN, but seeing this thread flagged feels very strange.

Because this is HN. It's a forum about tech, startups, and entrepreneurship. If you want polarizing politics go to Reddit.

Hey Dang, prove otherwise. You have to reach for the hardest things to justify your actions. Are you too much of a coward to face your criticism?

Because HN is so utterly WEAK that any criticism of them must be extinguished lest it make their venture capital business look bad.

And dang is just a coward. Real mods can handle criticism of any sort. Dang is just a ten year old with power.

This thread is flagged because Dang is a COWARD like the rest of the YCombinator crew.

Read the comments. They highlight HN's underhanded censorship of people. HN is more than toxic, it is an American site run by un-American people with un-American ideals.

the comments on this post -- the apologia, the denials, the profusion of fine distinctions -- is a damning and powerful body of evidence for the claim presented.

Congrats, HN. You played yourself.

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