I have been very surprised at the discrepancy between the level of dialogue.
When the discussion on HN is around almost anything, I find myself often learning, and surrounded by comments that are smarter, and more informed than any I would find in the real world.
When it comes to gender issues though, I think we as a community in general tend to be pretty behind.
I truly love HN. More than any other place on the interweb, this one has impacted my life in very real ways. I do however, cringe when the topic veers towards sexism. I think we can do better.
I haven't been. Without doubt there are some brilliant minds on HN, but even this populace is not immune from "believing first, proving second". The group writ large tends to fall into that trap on different topics than most people, but it falls eventually. Not just regarding sexism in tech either; there are others.
Well, we see a very different subset of comments, apparently.
Look at the top comments in this very thread, for example...
The last one before that got flagged off the front page after one commenter declared that he was flagging it because programs that help women are sexist (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5353136). The story was highly upvoted, but it only takes a handful of flags to relegate a story to oblivion. Pg commented that it was an abuse of flagging, and it was restored, but pg usually doesn't show up, and most of these stories get buried, even when they're upvoted.
This story is a perfect example. With "19 points, 3 hours ago", it is ranked 151, right next two stories with "3 points, 14 hours ago".