Comment by denton-scratch | Hacker News Reader

Comment by denton-scratch | Hacker News Reader

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> my own reservations against using "robust" as a descriptor

I thought for a few minutes about what word to use there. Perhaps "direct" on its own would have been better; but I wanted connotations of "assertive" and "strong".

I used to participate in certain political mailing lists that had a much higher proportion of women participants than, say, Usenet (and I knew many of the participants in these lists IRL). My experience was that it was predominantly women that objected to the style of discussion that inline replies often led to. Inline replies being the Usenet norm, perhaps that explains why Usenet was such a male-dominated environment.

FWIW, I don't think it's misogynistic to say that on the whole, women have different attitudes from men, or behave differently. To what extent that's the effect of hormones or socialization, I don't care to speculate.

I gradually came round to the view that the objectors had a point, and I toned down my use of inline replies a lot.

I'm now fascinated by this insight.

Forget human beings for a minute here and just think in terms of masculine/feminine energy. Where the masculine energy is defined as the "breaking apart" and the feminine is defined as the "coming together". You can see how this describes so many aspects of reality. Also understand that all humans, both male and female, have aspects within them of both natures. Okay.

Now, is it just the case that the "threaded" reply style you see on Reddit and HN is just, simply, masculine in it's purest form. It branches endlessly. Dividing and sub-dividing forever. Destructive. Masculine. Not necessarily bad but, you know, masculine.

Whereas the inline nature of traditional forums is not that. The chronologicalness ensures that arguments are either resolved relatively quickly or become lost in the noise. There is no real opportunity to break down an idea. As a result, you don't see that extreme division take place.

So it may be the case that the structure of the site determines what sort of moderation you need to do. If the site is threaded, you're going to need to worry a lot more about divisive topics. Whereas, tradition-style forums will probably need to set out separate dedicated spaces for, say, "serious discussion" so that conversations with more depth are allowed to take place.

If you want to get into the reeds of it, I think "assertive" and "strong" are too positively loaded (which I guess is why you didn't use them). However I would say the same applies to robust, coupled with the fact that "robust" on its own is not really applicable to the kind of communication you're referring to. The positive undertones are probably also why you saw a bunch of unnecessary knee jerk virtue signaling in response.

I would personally have stuck with just "direct" (which is neutral), and perhaps added "blunt" (which is neutral-negative).

> (which I guess is why you didn't use them)

You're right! (I don't think I considered the word "strong"). On further reflection, I think I chose "robust" as an evasive euphemism.

I think "robust" was applicable to the kind of communication I was referring to, in the sense in which some meetings of diplomats are described as "a robust exchange of views" (that's euphemistic too).

"Blunt" would have been less euphemistic; but it carries violent connotations that I didn't want to convey, as in "blunt instrument trauma". It's not one of the words I considered, and anyway "direct" covers it.

Thanks for your thoughtful reply.

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