Problems only arise when professional activists try to change existing communities. E.g. the new linux kernel code of conduct and it's, let's say "questionable", author.
We don't discriminate against you, but you have to hide every aspect of who you are otherwise we're going to threaten to rape you to death.
Edit: The point being that the mailman is a red herring. If the internet is really an extension of public space as (presumably) claimed, let's treat it like one.
In my country, I can open a police report for online harassment.
We are now in an endless debate. Internet isn't the problem. Bad behaviours, uneducation, missinformation, fake news, etc are the problem. Blaming internet won't solve those. And they will be ready for the next tool.
So think carefully when you ask for this kind of environment. I think what some people are actually asking for when they say "non-discriminatory" is an environment where people who do not accept minority members or opinions are not welcomed.
These are not the same thing.
What about convictions that compel action (Jihadis, Jehovas, militant atheists, Nazis) it might serve to eject people of those convictions because it should be expected they take those actions.
It is like asking for bullets which only hurt guilty people whom it would be necessary to shoot.
Death and rape threads on the intertubes is just people being mean.
Deal with it, there will always be somebody who hates you. Life's tough.
It doesn't have to be.
I suspect this is a big part of the divide between the old guard "nobody knows you're a dog" and the new "broadcast your identity". I turn to the Internet to not be participating in the monkeysphere. Any trace I leave behind is due to laziness rather than intent.
I do have to wonder how much this is just inevitable "normie" human behavior, and how much it has been stoked by companies pushing realname policies and profile selfies.
Would you please stop upping the inflammation like this in HN comments? You've been doing it a lot, and we've been cutting you a lot of slack because you've been a good contributor over the years, but this is not cool, and I can feel my roll of slack running out. If your taste for ideological warfare is growing, please gratify it elsewhere, not here.
This comment violates numerous site guidelines, including:
"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
"Eschew flamebait."
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
There are a bunch of women who don't post to HN at all.
I'll dial it back a bit, but you need to regain control from the misogynists who are making this place hostile to others. Parent post is literally telling women not to identify as women, yet you didn't say anything to them. Respectfully, you need better aim.
It's subjective in some ways which makes the discussion complicated.
I can think of four removeyish things that happen to comments and threads: (1) downweighting of rank; (2) collapsing by default; (3) killing (marking [dead]); (4) deleting altogether. Moderators and software do the first three. We never do #4, except when the author asks us to, or—exceedingly rarely—when our attorneys tell us we have to (less than half a dozen times in ten years, and we push to avoid it, except one time when an HN user was exposed).
In cases 1, 2, and 3, nothing is deleted. Anybody can still read everything if they want to. They can read #1 by scrolling; #2 by expanding a subthread; #3 by setting "showdead" to "yes" in their profile.
Are those removal? censorship? Sure, if you like—people use those words to express a feeling. But deletion, in the sense of "you used to be able to read something but now you can't", is a question not of feeling but of fact, and the fact is we don't do that.
I don't think these are narrow distinctions. To see why, try this simple thought experiment: imagine what would happen if we removed the "showdead" option and simply made all dead comments permanently unreadable. There would be a huge uproar in the community—a scandal to end all scandals.
It's "heavy-handed" when there's too much and "cesspool" when there's not enough. There are as many definitions of enough as HN readers.
> arbitrary
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> unaccountable
You must not know what it's like to get flamed by this community if you think that!