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Comment by isaacb | Hacker News Reader

It becomes a problem when vitriolic responses like that (death threats, etc) are taken as indicators of the entire community. It absolutely needs to stop, and we all need to work together to stop it. However, most people aren't insensitive, sexist assholes, and that's important to keep in mind (I'm not saying you claimed otherwise).

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and so it starts

when the people who respond with death threats, rape threats, and other sorts of abuse are welcome members of a community, it is indeed that community's fault. A community of actual decent human beings would blacklist people who act in these ways.

viz eg weev and Kathy Sierra

The "community" isn't a monolith. There is no central node where you can just snub out anyone you choose because of some arbitrary mob consensus. I am also curious as to how you would define a "welcome" member of a community.

Communities like Twitter are largely amorphous and chaotic. Akin to a huge bazaar where everyone is being loud. How would one go about to blacklist people? That's McCarthyist bullshit. Mob mentality is far too dangerous to pull off idiotic stunts like informal global blacklists, although many try.

Seriously, weev? Who the hell praises and welcomes weev? Everyone knows he's a despicable asshole and a troll, but nonetheless his charges over the AT&T incident are still unjust and based on a highly vague and harmful piece of legislation: the CFAA. So it is perfectly legitimate to defend him on that.

Most people aren't that kind of openly hostile extreme asshole. But I left HN for 18 months in part because it was clear to me that being a "prominent" (by karma score) female was a problem for me. And HN has been an extremely poor networking opportunity for me. I have mostly kept my mouth shut about how negative my experience here was for a time because I did not feel that would help me. I felt it would just make my situation worse.

Given that I am homeless in part because of my inability to effectively network and turn my online projects into an income stream, I feel very strongly that you don't have to threaten rape or murder to quietly and politely do egregious harm to a woman's life.

Anyway, time for me to go to lunch. Later.

> But I left HN for 18 months in part because it was clear to me that being a "prominent" (by karma score) female was a problem for me.

Can you elaborate?

If I ever choose to "elaborate" it will likely be on my blog, not some off the cuff remarks on a comment on HN that I can't later edit or delete if I decide I would like to reduce some of the shit show that is likely to ensue. I am enough of a target without actively provoking people. I sure as hell don't need the kind of trouble you are inviting me to step into.

Weren't you "inviting" attacks with your previous comment? And wouldn't a blog post be just as problematic? I don't want to get you in trouble. But you want to talk about this (whatever it is) but you also don't want to talk about it.

So I'm now even more confused about your story and the main story we were discussing...which are both incredibly vague and provide no real insight into the issue we're discussing.

No, I was not inviting attacks. A blog post could potentially be "just as problematic" but a) could be written more carefully, over a long period of time and b) could later be edited or redacted, something I have done bunches of on an old blog I no longer have so I know for a fact that it can make a difference.

FWIW, I have a very serious medical condition and I was in a lot of pain yesterday. So perhaps my remarks were not at their wisest. But I also have quite the track record for discussing hot button topics in a manner that helps vent steam and reduce the pressure everyone feels rather than leading to a big blow up. Usually, initial response is pretty ugly because people bring a lot of preconceived notions and baggage and thus fully expect me to be an asshole about it. It takes time for it to sink in that this is not the case.

Take care.

Well if you do decide to post your thoughts on a blog please make sure to post a link on HN.

Why publicize that you are female if that is the case? Why not abstain from making any references that identify your gender so that people can judge you purely by the quality of the content you contribute to the conversation? Most of the best comments I see on hacker news come from people whom I know the least about, and whose profile page tells me nothing about who they are and often lack information on how to contact them as well. Anonymity gives you the opportunity to separate the message from the messenger.

> But I left HN for 18 months

I dont mean to sound rude but I was curious what made you come back.

I happened to be moving a blog and reposted the new urls to a few things that had previously been posted here, thinking a few folks might be interested. To my shock, they were better received than the first time around, it got genuinely discussed and I made the front page three times. So I stuck around and tested the waters and it seems to be a different environment than the one I left.

I didn't really want to leave, so I am glad to feel more comfortable at the moment than I did previously. HN doesn't really have any competition. One reason I am not real keen on naming names, linking to public assholish personal attacks, etc is because I don't think that furthers any of my own goals. I would like to be able to participate productively here -- because, frankly, this is where the money and the power is for some of the things I want to accomplish. I have no desire to be relegated to a pink collar ghetto (btdt). I think most of the women who air a lot of dirty laundry are probably doing themselves more harm than good. But when I try to talk about things I think are very basic concepts in that regard, I get accused of "victim blaming" and crap like that. So I say relatively little compared to what I think about such things.

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