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Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

"Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

What's the difference between a flamewar topic or a controversial topic? This seems like a conversation killing policy to me, at least assuming you're exercising it as intended.

Killing a conversation unless you have something genuinely new to say about them sounds like a good policy to me.

What are the chances people heard it the first time? What are the chances somebody posting knows it's been posted before? To me this smacks of "yeah we've heard your stupid opinion before, it's been debunked, move on."

And by the way, the OP posted a flamewar topic. The concern here is with a flamewar opinion. Holding the opposite opinion on the same topic, I think, would get a pass. "I think it's great that they're getting up there, helping take on sexism in the industry." (And that's not to say I disagree with that opinion, I'm somewhere in the middle myself, for whatever it's worth. I'm just in favor of discourse.)

Carefull critisism of the basic idea of an event like this without trying to start a flame war is somthing that should be allowed though. We all know that things like these are issues that are part of a bigger issue (the lack of women in tech). But all issues surounding something like this should be addressed. Even if the critisism is pointed at attempts at solving/adressing these issues.

Like the trowaway account said/hopefully tried to say; segregation/discrimination is never the answer.

I would like to leave it at that before I aswell get accused of trying to start a flame war.

That was my initial reaction as well when I first heard about such an event. What's the point in segregating when there is already a segregation? But then I thought why even bother in which context an event with good intentions is held and as someone who favors utilitarianism I felt a little stupid that this wasn't my initial thought. From what I've heard these kind of events do have success, and the main motivation is, I guess, to create opportunities where women don't feel like a minority and where they can be role models for each other and people outside of tech. It's basically an attempt to break through the conjectured circular problem that women in tech are a minority because they are a minority.

Sounds like a solid point.

>where they can be role models for each other and people outside of tech.

Wouldn't it be a good idea to put more women who reach accomplisments in tech in the spotlight? Because I rarely hear about the results etc of conferences like these.

Putting more women in the spotlight might be a good idea, but these events don't prevent doing so as well. If anything, they might help by increasing their visibility.

More broadly, the point is creating safe space for learning and development. It's harder to develop new ways of being in an environment that reinforces the old ones.

Segregation is not harmful in itself. It depends on how it's applied. It's easy to see that this doesn't map to Jim Crow, and a lot of disingenuous people try to make it map anyway to serve their own agenda.

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