11 ms·

Harassment of Our Authors Is Not Ok: A Conversation

57 points by DinahDavis 10y ago

EliRivers 10y ago
"A lot of the comments were about the post’s grammar and structure; far fewer were about the actual content." Of course they were. There is a despicable passive-aggressive smugness that is far too common, involving demonstrating one's superiority by sniping at the medium (no pun intended) instead of addressing the message; it allows one to show off without having to take any risks. I've found it very common in circles in which many participants spent their formative years being clever and being told how clever they are.
- xemdetia 10y ago
  Aside from the other bits mentioned in the article isn't 'comments about the post's grammar and structure' one of the most valuable pieces of feedback? I am not sure why they would call it out as a bad thing. If you are trying to send ideas and the person trying to receive the ideas is having more trouble trying to decode how you sent it rather than work with the idea being sent you have a problem. When you get earnest critical critique that is more rewarding any day than a +1 or like on facebook, since you know exactly what needs to be done for next time.
  - KendraRoss 10y ago
    As a writer, I completely agree with you. Solid feedback about grammar, sentence structure, and even tone of voice would have been super helpful. That said, not all feedback is meant to be constructive - that can come across clearly, even on the internet. It's unfortunate that a young woman, clearly still in high school, felt torn down instead of built up. The most important feedback I'd like to send to the young women who publish with us is that there's room for your voice and your opinion, and you'll be treated with respect.
  - seanyo 10y ago
    Co-Editor of the Medium publication here. You're definitely right that we can't share our ideas if we don't effectively communicate them. I know I deeply appreciate when people take the time to respond with comments to help make what I've shared better. +1 are always great, but comments are better :) For me, how we write is as important as what we right - both need to be good enough to successfully communicate our ideas. I also want to share that I often encounter copy-editing responses that I see as cover for bias. Not all copy-editing feedback is a cover for bias, but much of what I see is - I think this happens because it is easier and less risky to comment, critique or outright attack the form of a position rather than engaging with the with substance of the position. The kind of bias I'm referring to, and the sort of responses it can lead to is described in this article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fact-checking-is-largely-irrelevant-because-deceit_us_57ea8cd3e4b07f20daa0fbd2?ncid=engmodushpmg00000003 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fact-checking-is-largely... Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts on this. I really appreciate it. Sean Yo
    - EliRivers 10y ago
      For me, how we write is as important as what we right I see what you did there, and it suggests a playfulness that means a question I was crafting about the literalness of that statement can be dumped. If anything, you've demonstrated that the wrong word in the right place can carry an enormous subtext. This, though, is a layer beyond merely correct spelling.
  - EliRivers 10y ago
    I am not sure why they would call it out as a bad thing. It is a bad thing when it is used as a way to belittle someone. As a way to smugly dismiss their argument without having to actually examine it. That's bad, and it's common, and it's often done with a childish, passive-aggressive meanness of spirit. There's nothing inherently wrong with helping someone communicate better; it becomes a bad thing when it's used as a way to belittle someone and dismiss their argument on grounds that have nothing to do with the actual argument. In this very thread, clifantic makes it clear that s/he will ignore what someone has to say if they are bad at expressing it. one of the most valuable pieces of feedback? Not nearly as valuable as feedback about the actual message, I would say. Even Shakespeare couldn't turn falsehood into truth by beauty of expression.
- clifanatic 10y ago
  I don't know what grammar points they were discussing, since the post was taken down, but usually when I see comments about grammar on the internet, they're about pretty egregious mistakes - usually the kind that very, very uneducated people make. Here's the thing that you "I'm not writing a college essay!" people seem to miss - for a lot of us, keeping track of the difference between "your" and "you're" or "their", "there" and "they're" takes literally zero concentration. I'd go so far as to say that a majority of native English speakers have never, ever (since elementary school, anyway), mixed those words up accidentally. These aren't mistakes that non-native English speakers make either. Keeping track of proper grammar is, by far, the least difficult part of expressing thoughts in written form. If you're prone to making mistakes like that... you probably aren't very smart. And what you have to say probably isn't very profound. You really shouldn't be writing, you should be reading. You shouldn't be talking, you should be listening.
  - kevin42 10y ago
    > "You really shouldn't be writing, you should be reading" So basically you are the type of person that caused the problem being discussed here. There is a difference between someone making mistakes and someone feeling the need to point them out in public or private, or to judge who should be writing. Maybe they should be reading more. But who are you or any other anonymous person to comment on that. If you don't have anything nice to say...
  - CaptSpify 10y ago
    > keeping track of the difference between "your" and "you're" or "their", "there" and "they're" takes literally zero concentration For you. People think differently, and something that comes natural to you does not come natural to others.
    - clifanatic 10y ago
      Sure. There are people who are actually incapable of learning how to tie their own shoelaces, too. We (rightly) pity those people, but we don't turn to them for deep intellectual insights.
tombert 10y ago
While I don't support harassment in any way, isn't it an inevitability when posting something on a public forum? I've gotten plenty of comments telling me to "kill myself", despite being a male and despite being an adult. I'm not saying that my level of harassment is comparable to that of a young lady coder, but I am saying that it's not exclusive to any one demographic.
- some-guy 10y ago
  > despite being a male and despite being an adult I think there's your answer. I'm also male and adult, but I've been online long enough to know what the dark side of the internet is like. Like you, I also don't take these things as personally. But why should be only accept the lowest common denominator of "inevitability"? Why should me being okay with something mean that everyone should be okay with it?
  - sickbeard 10y ago
    Just like fame, harassment is inevitable for public figures. What the OP is trying to say that it's not just a female thing, it happens to males just as much. It reminds me of this bodybuilder on Youtube, i believe Scooby was his name, about as tall and muscular as they come and he still got harassed to the point where he had to leave his house.
    - peterbonney 10y ago
      > it happens to males just as much This, sadly, is just not true. One anecdote does not a pattern make.
      - tombert 10y ago
        I don't think it happens quite as much to males, but it certainly does happen to males still.
        peterbonney 10y ago
sosuke 10y ago
Are they drawing a conclusion that, because the majority of the visitors came through the Hacker News link, that Hacker News users are the source of the negative commentary? Seems like conjecture at best. It is a dangerous thing to put yourself out there to the public. It takes a lot of courage to do it and often you get no response at all. I agree we should strive for a better community I'm merely thinking out loud. I've seen more and more outlets removing or minimizing comment sections because of what kind of content they fill up with.
- anexprogrammer 10y ago
  I vaguely remember the discussion on their first response. The HN commentary was very negative, and very much not what I usually expect to see on HN. I was rather surprised at the tone. That HN post was flagged and removed fairly quickly if I remember right - perhaps from the tone of dicussion.
  - GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
    The only reason I can think of that would not be exactly what I expect from HN is because it got flagged and hidden before too many of the usual kind of commentators showed up. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12115921 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12115921)
- whybroke 10y ago
  You do know you can calculate the likelihood of a proposition from inductive evidence.
  - sosuke 10y ago
    That is true you can get a probability of it being true from the information provided. But it still doesn't make it true, or true for the entire community. I guess I don't like the implication that I, as a commentator on Hacker News, am now grouped along with a person or persons I wouldn't want to be associated with. There has to be some kind of phrasing for that. I put myself in a group, a member of that group does something atrocious I don't agree with, the world at large vilifies the group and I feel defensive because I put myself in that group.
falcolas 10y ago
I think it's a truism that if you put yourself out there on the internet, you're going to be harassed. Full stop. It won't matter if you're male, female or other. If you're tall, short, skinny, young, old, fat, white, black, green. If English is your first or your 10th language. If you confuse their and they're. There's always going to be a subset of people out there who are going to attack you no matter what. Are some subsets of characteristics more susceptable to abuse than others? Yes. Try being overweight and admitting to that on any message board. It sucks, but it's reality. I firmly approve of the use of pseudonyms (or even better "anonymous"); it's the only thing that will make people focus on the content, not your physical characteristics. I'm truly sorry this young woman had to learn this fact in this way. I hope she continues her work with the elderly, and continues to write under a pseudonym. I wish she didn't have to, but the reality is people will respect what she has to write more if she does.
- peterbonney 10y ago
  > It won't matter if you're male, female or other. Unfortunately some are more likely to be harassed than others. I don't know a male writer who has been consistently, systematically harassed. I don't know a female writer who hasn't been. (For avoidance of doubt I know several writers of both genders.)
  - falcolas 10y ago
    How about a white male youtube personality? Boogie is harassed with every video he puts up. How about Total Biscuit, who receives death threats pretty regularly from anti-gg folks.
    - peterbonney 10y ago
      Of course there are male media personalities who are harassed, and (maybe?) female media personalities who aren't. The point is that no rational person could possibly claim that the frequency and severity is the same for writers/hosts/etc. of both genders.
bargl 10y ago
My suggestions to mitigate this issue are as follows: 1) Educate readers that it is not ok to harass your Authors (or anyone really) but I get that your job is to protect your people. 2) Protect your authors through anonymity and teaching them good online habits. Pen names for younger authors is a great idea. Especially for first time authors who don't like the limelight and don't want to deal with the direct messages they will inevitably receive. And if you have a first time author coach them on the kinds of responses they can expect. Some negative reviews will get through unless you go to anonymous so education has to be part of that. 3) Join in the fight against online harassment. I don't have any links but this is a problem and people need to know that bullying (online) isn't OK. 4) Edit your posts. Grammar is much harder to make fun of if the mistakes aren't there. This is not a justification of others actions but a suggestion on how to avoid this specific type of bullying. 5) Be active in the HN comments and point out that specific comments aren't addressing content but instead just being nit picky. This could fall into the gratuitous negativity section of the HN guidelines but that's kind of a stretch. EDIT: The following are options but things you should not do. I tried to make that clear with the comments associated with these two options but I didn't make it clear enough. Don't do the following two unless you want to completely change your community. 6) This is optional but you can implement a login feature that requires people to link to facebook and then you can monitor your readers activity. It will loose you a ton of traffic but if it's really that important to you this is a way you can limit who can read your articles and thereby protect your authors. I don't think this is a good idea personally but it is an idea, only you can decide to lock down your content like that. 7) Public shaming, which IMO should be avoided at all costs, but if someone is harassing someone else this can turn the tables. It also leads to witch hunting and perpetuates a whole different problem that should be avoided at all costs. Online communities have jerks. No matter where you go you'll find them. HN is no exception. This community does not ban people from reading articles or monitor it's users outside of this site, so HN as an organization can't enforce this other than to spread the message and show people it's not OK. My suggestion is try 1-5 for now and see how it goes.
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- KON_Air 10y ago
sickbeard 10y ago
It feels like the entire community is being blamed because she received unwarranted attention from one reader? isn't this a common problem for people who put themselves out in public? Why wouldn't using a pen name suffice?
- peterbonney 10y ago
  Why should a woman be forced to forego the kind of writing credit that helps build her CV, while her male peers aren't forced to do the same? It's patently unfair to say "if you don't like it, write anonymously" when men are far less likely to receive this treatment than women.
  - rubidium 10y ago
    I'm not disagreeing with your statement, and the harassment of authors is definitely not ok. But it's worth saying that pen-name !=anonymous. For most publications, you can put articles you write under a pen-name and have the publication verify your pen-name for CV purposes.
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seibelj 10y ago
Anytime you put yourself out there, a not-insignificant portion of the commenters will have negative things to say. I think there is a lesson about getting thicker skin. And yes, there is no doubt that being a woman in the internet, especially a young woman, gets worse criticism and creepiness. It's a tough world
- etjossem 10y ago
  Have you considered that this might instead be a lesson in not contributing to the problem of harassment? Hacker News prides itself on an atmosphere of civil discourse - and that's reflected in our guidelines. We're not Reddit and we certainly aren't 4chan. We as a community dropped the ball by allowing this to happen.
  - seibelj 10y ago
    I'm not approving what happened. I don't think we are going to solve this issue, as it's a problem on every website everywhere and no one has been able to keep a forum anonymous and civil at the same time without heavy handed moderators policing all speech and manually approving every comment. The easier solution is to say to yourself, "by posting this on the internet some people may be mad at me and voice their displeasure, but it's a risk I'm willing to take".
    - etjossem 10y ago
      It is very easy for you and I to throw up our hands and say the online trolling problem will never be solved, because we don't generally experience it in full force. We have the ability to shrug off comments that are unconstructively critical of us, because they only come very occasionally and are drowned out by positive comments. Meanwhile, there are new voices that want in on the conversation - maybe they're young, or female, or minorities. They are routinely getting shouted down by our community, and here we are, admitting that they wouldn't face the same ire if they obscured their experience/gender/race by writing under psuedonyms. I will do my part. I will downvote trolls, and I'd encourage others to do the same.
roughly27 10y ago
If you post content on the internet, it's not reasonable to expect that no one will find issues, disagree, or even directly confront you over the content you post. While outright, persistent harassment is undeniably a problem, the 'solutions' proposed to solve it invariably impose onerous restrictions on freedom. If 'harassment' is to be filtered content, then you must appoint someone to decide what is harassment and what is not. This person (or algorithm) will select what they view as harassment based on their ideological position. It's a far simpler and less dangerous task to block or ignore unwanted information than it is to filter every tweet, email, and status update and decide if it qualifies as 'harassment' or not. This is a problem that transcends identity. There is an urge to control the discourse. It shows up when basement-dwellers harass a medium author for posting an article they find goes against their ideals, and it shows up when people like Curtis Yarvin are denied entry to conferences because they post political opinions that others disagree with. Some indie game devs get harassed to the point where they feel too unsafe to stay in their homes, and some indie devs have people persistently trying to make them unemployed and unemployable.
abcdthrowEw 10y ago
As I have conservative political views I am forced to use a pen name and the drawbacks are real.
- sosuke 10y ago
  Anonymous users, handles, they are much harder to cultivate a solid reputation around.
  - CaptSpify 10y ago
    You are correct, but so what? I personally like the anonymization that the internet provides via handles, because it allows ideas to stand stronger in seclusion than be propped up by reputation.
Kurimo 10y ago
I support this discourse and hope the author of the original article will feel confident to write again. I have no idea how to solve the monstrous problems related to internet harassment. It is well out of hand, especially as regards women on the internet (see: Anita Sarkeesian). I think a discourse definitely needs to happen. But maybe the only solution lies in the education and mental health systems. But again, I don't know. Wish I knew, wish I could do more to help. Wish my gender weren't responsible for the vast majority of the harassment, violence, and threats of violence. Best of luck. Please keep posting about this topic and looking for and experimenting with solutions. Progress can only be made by people like you taking the time to try to do something about an urgent problem like this.
- KendraRoss 10y ago
  Thank you so much for your support! I was thinking about mental health solutions while responding to an earlier comment on Medium. It's easy to talk about short term protection like anonymizing content, but I'm so frustrated that we're accepting hate and harassment as inevitable. I wonder if there's more we can be doing in schools to teach good conduct and respectful discussion on the internet.
  - sosuke 10y ago
    I think you're right about trying to indoctrinate a more respectful future generation of net users. But the current environment, which no one would say is healthy, is what public personas need to be prepared for. I always modulate my writing with the Internet in mind, which is probably why I don't write as much. Is there anything that can be done to bolster the new public personas and strengthen them? Perhaps having a moderated comment section for new or unseasoned authors might be work well. Maybe only allowing an authors name to appear when the post count is under a certain threshold. Then the name and photo, then name photo and Twitter or other contact method. Overrides possible of course.
    - xherberta 10y ago
      I often wonder why there's only one internet. Is it elitist to want to be a part of a more selective net? Are there alt-net movements today?
tptacek 10y ago
To everyone suggesting that women likely to be harassed should "learn to write under pen names": Men who write articles of any quality about helping elderly people learn to code might take some shit on message board comments, but none of them become the target of organized harassment campaigns. The notion that women should write under pen names while men freely and safely claim credit for any random achievement is a perfect example of how this industry allows itself to be rigged against women. Women aren't even supposed to identify themselves --- when they do, they're just allowing themselves to be victimized by the forces of nature, which apparently include mobs of misogynist trolls.
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- smokeyj 10y ago
  > which apparently include mobs of misogynist trolls What's the evidence of this? If these trolls aren't using real identities I'd be skeptical if it were more than one person. Maybe even someone who knows her personally if they're dedicated this much energy.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    It doesn't matter. The suggestions are repeated and clear: a woman putting herself out in public talking about her work is begging for harassment. Women should write under pen names, so we can learn from their work and they can trade any credit or career improvement for "not dealing with harassment". That is not a deal men are required to make. I'm not OK with this. Nobody should be OK with this.
    - smokeyj 10y ago
rndmind 10y ago
If you cannot deal with controversy and criticism, regardless of its merits, do the yourself a favor and stay at home away from danger and critics.
- etjossem 10y ago
  How about you "do the yourself a favor" and proofread your comments? I'm sorry, I just meritoriously criticized you in a way that was still rude as hell. That was completely my fault. Just like the young woman mentioned in the blog post: no matter how thick your skin, you don't deserve unkind jabs at your grasp of the English language.
otempomores 10y ago
Harrasment of individuals with diffrent opinions and avoiding of discussions with real arguments by our authors ..very okay.

57 points by DinahDavis 10y ago

"A lot of the comments were about the post’s grammar and structure; far fewer were about the actual content." Of course they were. There is a despicable passive-aggressive smugness that is far too common, involving demonstrating one's superiority by sniping at the medium (no pun intended) instead of addressing the message; it allows one to show off without having to take any risks. I've found it very common in circles in which many participants spent their formative years being clever and being told how clever they are.

xemdetia 10y ago
Aside from the other bits mentioned in the article isn't 'comments about the post's grammar and structure' one of the most valuable pieces of feedback? I am not sure why they would call it out as a bad thing. If you are trying to send ideas and the person trying to receive the ideas is having more trouble trying to decode how you sent it rather than work with the idea being sent you have a problem. When you get earnest critical critique that is more rewarding any day than a +1 or like on facebook, since you know exactly what needs to be done for next time.
- KendraRoss 10y ago
  As a writer, I completely agree with you. Solid feedback about grammar, sentence structure, and even tone of voice would have been super helpful. That said, not all feedback is meant to be constructive - that can come across clearly, even on the internet. It's unfortunate that a young woman, clearly still in high school, felt torn down instead of built up. The most important feedback I'd like to send to the young women who publish with us is that there's room for your voice and your opinion, and you'll be treated with respect.
- seanyo 10y ago
  Co-Editor of the Medium publication here. You're definitely right that we can't share our ideas if we don't effectively communicate them. I know I deeply appreciate when people take the time to respond with comments to help make what I've shared better. +1 are always great, but comments are better :) For me, how we write is as important as what we right - both need to be good enough to successfully communicate our ideas. I also want to share that I often encounter copy-editing responses that I see as cover for bias. Not all copy-editing feedback is a cover for bias, but much of what I see is - I think this happens because it is easier and less risky to comment, critique or outright attack the form of a position rather than engaging with the with substance of the position. The kind of bias I'm referring to, and the sort of responses it can lead to is described in this article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fact-checking-is-largely-irrelevant-because-deceit_us_57ea8cd3e4b07f20daa0fbd2?ncid=engmodushpmg00000003 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fact-checking-is-largely... Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts on this. I really appreciate it. Sean Yo
  - EliRivers 10y ago
    For me, how we write is as important as what we right I see what you did there, and it suggests a playfulness that means a question I was crafting about the literalness of that statement can be dumped. If anything, you've demonstrated that the wrong word in the right place can carry an enormous subtext. This, though, is a layer beyond merely correct spelling.
- EliRivers 10y ago
  I am not sure why they would call it out as a bad thing. It is a bad thing when it is used as a way to belittle someone. As a way to smugly dismiss their argument without having to actually examine it. That's bad, and it's common, and it's often done with a childish, passive-aggressive meanness of spirit. There's nothing inherently wrong with helping someone communicate better; it becomes a bad thing when it's used as a way to belittle someone and dismiss their argument on grounds that have nothing to do with the actual argument. In this very thread, clifantic makes it clear that s/he will ignore what someone has to say if they are bad at expressing it. one of the most valuable pieces of feedback? Not nearly as valuable as feedback about the actual message, I would say. Even Shakespeare couldn't turn falsehood into truth by beauty of expression.
clifanatic 10y ago
I don't know what grammar points they were discussing, since the post was taken down, but usually when I see comments about grammar on the internet, they're about pretty egregious mistakes - usually the kind that very, very uneducated people make. Here's the thing that you "I'm not writing a college essay!" people seem to miss - for a lot of us, keeping track of the difference between "your" and "you're" or "their", "there" and "they're" takes literally zero concentration. I'd go so far as to say that a majority of native English speakers have never, ever (since elementary school, anyway), mixed those words up accidentally. These aren't mistakes that non-native English speakers make either. Keeping track of proper grammar is, by far, the least difficult part of expressing thoughts in written form. If you're prone to making mistakes like that... you probably aren't very smart. And what you have to say probably isn't very profound. You really shouldn't be writing, you should be reading. You shouldn't be talking, you should be listening.
- kevin42 10y ago
  > "You really shouldn't be writing, you should be reading" So basically you are the type of person that caused the problem being discussed here. There is a difference between someone making mistakes and someone feeling the need to point them out in public or private, or to judge who should be writing. Maybe they should be reading more. But who are you or any other anonymous person to comment on that. If you don't have anything nice to say...
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  > keeping track of the difference between "your" and "you're" or "their", "there" and "they're" takes literally zero concentration For you. People think differently, and something that comes natural to you does not come natural to others.
  - clifanatic 10y ago
    Sure. There are people who are actually incapable of learning how to tie their own shoelaces, too. We (rightly) pity those people, but we don't turn to them for deep intellectual insights.

tombert 10y ago

While I don't support harassment in any way, isn't it an inevitability when posting something on a public forum? I've gotten plenty of comments telling me to "kill myself", despite being a male and despite being an adult. I'm not saying that my level of harassment is comparable to that of a young lady coder, but I am saying that it's not exclusive to any one demographic.

some-guy 10y ago
> despite being a male and despite being an adult I think there's your answer. I'm also male and adult, but I've been online long enough to know what the dark side of the internet is like. Like you, I also don't take these things as personally. But why should be only accept the lowest common denominator of "inevitability"? Why should me being okay with something mean that everyone should be okay with it?
- sickbeard 10y ago
  Just like fame, harassment is inevitable for public figures. What the OP is trying to say that it's not just a female thing, it happens to males just as much. It reminds me of this bodybuilder on Youtube, i believe Scooby was his name, about as tall and muscular as they come and he still got harassed to the point where he had to leave his house.
  - peterbonney 10y ago
    > it happens to males just as much This, sadly, is just not true. One anecdote does not a pattern make.
    - tombert 10y ago
      I don't think it happens quite as much to males, but it certainly does happen to males still.
      - peterbonney 10y ago

sosuke 10y ago

Are they drawing a conclusion that, because the majority of the visitors came through the Hacker News link, that Hacker News users are the source of the negative commentary? Seems like conjecture at best. It is a dangerous thing to put yourself out there to the public. It takes a lot of courage to do it and often you get no response at all. I agree we should strive for a better community I'm merely thinking out loud. I've seen more and more outlets removing or minimizing comment sections because of what kind of content they fill up with.

anexprogrammer 10y ago
I vaguely remember the discussion on their first response. The HN commentary was very negative, and very much not what I usually expect to see on HN. I was rather surprised at the tone. That HN post was flagged and removed fairly quickly if I remember right - perhaps from the tone of dicussion.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
  The only reason I can think of that would not be exactly what I expect from HN is because it got flagged and hidden before too many of the usual kind of commentators showed up. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12115921 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12115921)
whybroke 10y ago
You do know you can calculate the likelihood of a proposition from inductive evidence.
- sosuke 10y ago
  That is true you can get a probability of it being true from the information provided. But it still doesn't make it true, or true for the entire community. I guess I don't like the implication that I, as a commentator on Hacker News, am now grouped along with a person or persons I wouldn't want to be associated with. There has to be some kind of phrasing for that. I put myself in a group, a member of that group does something atrocious I don't agree with, the world at large vilifies the group and I feel defensive because I put myself in that group.

falcolas 10y ago

I think it's a truism that if you put yourself out there on the internet, you're going to be harassed. Full stop. It won't matter if you're male, female or other. If you're tall, short, skinny, young, old, fat, white, black, green. If English is your first or your 10th language. If you confuse their and they're. There's always going to be a subset of people out there who are going to attack you no matter what. Are some subsets of characteristics more susceptable to abuse than others? Yes. Try being overweight and admitting to that on any message board. It sucks, but it's reality. I firmly approve of the use of pseudonyms (or even better "anonymous"); it's the only thing that will make people focus on the content, not your physical characteristics. I'm truly sorry this young woman had to learn this fact in this way. I hope she continues her work with the elderly, and continues to write under a pseudonym. I wish she didn't have to, but the reality is people will respect what she has to write more if she does.

peterbonney 10y ago
> It won't matter if you're male, female or other. Unfortunately some are more likely to be harassed than others. I don't know a male writer who has been consistently, systematically harassed. I don't know a female writer who hasn't been. (For avoidance of doubt I know several writers of both genders.)
- falcolas 10y ago
  How about a white male youtube personality? Boogie is harassed with every video he puts up. How about Total Biscuit, who receives death threats pretty regularly from anti-gg folks.
  - peterbonney 10y ago
    Of course there are male media personalities who are harassed, and (maybe?) female media personalities who aren't. The point is that no rational person could possibly claim that the frequency and severity is the same for writers/hosts/etc. of both genders.

bargl 10y ago

My suggestions to mitigate this issue are as follows: 1) Educate readers that it is not ok to harass your Authors (or anyone really) but I get that your job is to protect your people. 2) Protect your authors through anonymity and teaching them good online habits. Pen names for younger authors is a great idea. Especially for first time authors who don't like the limelight and don't want to deal with the direct messages they will inevitably receive. And if you have a first time author coach them on the kinds of responses they can expect. Some negative reviews will get through unless you go to anonymous so education has to be part of that. 3) Join in the fight against online harassment. I don't have any links but this is a problem and people need to know that bullying (online) isn't OK. 4) Edit your posts. Grammar is much harder to make fun of if the mistakes aren't there. This is not a justification of others actions but a suggestion on how to avoid this specific type of bullying. 5) Be active in the HN comments and point out that specific comments aren't addressing content but instead just being nit picky. This could fall into the gratuitous negativity section of the HN guidelines but that's kind of a stretch. EDIT: The following are options but things you should not do. I tried to make that clear with the comments associated with these two options but I didn't make it clear enough. Don't do the following two unless you want to completely change your community. 6) This is optional but you can implement a login feature that requires people to link to facebook and then you can monitor your readers activity. It will loose you a ton of traffic but if it's really that important to you this is a way you can limit who can read your articles and thereby protect your authors. I don't think this is a good idea personally but it is an idea, only you can decide to lock down your content like that. 7) Public shaming, which IMO should be avoided at all costs, but if someone is harassing someone else this can turn the tables. It also leads to witch hunting and perpetuates a whole different problem that should be avoided at all costs. Online communities have jerks. No matter where you go you'll find them. HN is no exception. This community does not ban people from reading articles or monitor it's users outside of this site, so HN as an organization can't enforce this other than to spread the message and show people it's not OK. My suggestion is try 1-5 for now and see how it goes.

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KON_Air 10y ago

sickbeard 10y ago

It feels like the entire community is being blamed because she received unwarranted attention from one reader? isn't this a common problem for people who put themselves out in public? Why wouldn't using a pen name suffice?

peterbonney 10y ago
Why should a woman be forced to forego the kind of writing credit that helps build her CV, while her male peers aren't forced to do the same? It's patently unfair to say "if you don't like it, write anonymously" when men are far less likely to receive this treatment than women.
- rubidium 10y ago
  I'm not disagreeing with your statement, and the harassment of authors is definitely not ok. But it's worth saying that pen-name !=anonymous. For most publications, you can put articles you write under a pen-name and have the publication verify your pen-name for CV purposes.
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seibelj 10y ago

Anytime you put yourself out there, a not-insignificant portion of the commenters will have negative things to say. I think there is a lesson about getting thicker skin. And yes, there is no doubt that being a woman in the internet, especially a young woman, gets worse criticism and creepiness. It's a tough world

etjossem 10y ago
Have you considered that this might instead be a lesson in not contributing to the problem of harassment? Hacker News prides itself on an atmosphere of civil discourse - and that's reflected in our guidelines. We're not Reddit and we certainly aren't 4chan. We as a community dropped the ball by allowing this to happen.
- seibelj 10y ago
  I'm not approving what happened. I don't think we are going to solve this issue, as it's a problem on every website everywhere and no one has been able to keep a forum anonymous and civil at the same time without heavy handed moderators policing all speech and manually approving every comment. The easier solution is to say to yourself, "by posting this on the internet some people may be mad at me and voice their displeasure, but it's a risk I'm willing to take".
  - etjossem 10y ago
    It is very easy for you and I to throw up our hands and say the online trolling problem will never be solved, because we don't generally experience it in full force. We have the ability to shrug off comments that are unconstructively critical of us, because they only come very occasionally and are drowned out by positive comments. Meanwhile, there are new voices that want in on the conversation - maybe they're young, or female, or minorities. They are routinely getting shouted down by our community, and here we are, admitting that they wouldn't face the same ire if they obscured their experience/gender/race by writing under psuedonyms. I will do my part. I will downvote trolls, and I'd encourage others to do the same.

roughly27 10y ago

If you post content on the internet, it's not reasonable to expect that no one will find issues, disagree, or even directly confront you over the content you post. While outright, persistent harassment is undeniably a problem, the 'solutions' proposed to solve it invariably impose onerous restrictions on freedom. If 'harassment' is to be filtered content, then you must appoint someone to decide what is harassment and what is not. This person (or algorithm) will select what they view as harassment based on their ideological position. It's a far simpler and less dangerous task to block or ignore unwanted information than it is to filter every tweet, email, and status update and decide if it qualifies as 'harassment' or not. This is a problem that transcends identity. There is an urge to control the discourse. It shows up when basement-dwellers harass a medium author for posting an article they find goes against their ideals, and it shows up when people like Curtis Yarvin are denied entry to conferences because they post political opinions that others disagree with. Some indie game devs get harassed to the point where they feel too unsafe to stay in their homes, and some indie devs have people persistently trying to make them unemployed and unemployable.

abcdthrowEw 10y ago

As I have conservative political views I am forced to use a pen name and the drawbacks are real.

sosuke 10y ago
Anonymous users, handles, they are much harder to cultivate a solid reputation around.
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  You are correct, but so what? I personally like the anonymization that the internet provides via handles, because it allows ideas to stand stronger in seclusion than be propped up by reputation.

Kurimo 10y ago

I support this discourse and hope the author of the original article will feel confident to write again. I have no idea how to solve the monstrous problems related to internet harassment. It is well out of hand, especially as regards women on the internet (see: Anita Sarkeesian). I think a discourse definitely needs to happen. But maybe the only solution lies in the education and mental health systems. But again, I don't know. Wish I knew, wish I could do more to help. Wish my gender weren't responsible for the vast majority of the harassment, violence, and threats of violence. Best of luck. Please keep posting about this topic and looking for and experimenting with solutions. Progress can only be made by people like you taking the time to try to do something about an urgent problem like this.

KendraRoss 10y ago
Thank you so much for your support! I was thinking about mental health solutions while responding to an earlier comment on Medium. It's easy to talk about short term protection like anonymizing content, but I'm so frustrated that we're accepting hate and harassment as inevitable. I wonder if there's more we can be doing in schools to teach good conduct and respectful discussion on the internet.
- sosuke 10y ago
  I think you're right about trying to indoctrinate a more respectful future generation of net users. But the current environment, which no one would say is healthy, is what public personas need to be prepared for. I always modulate my writing with the Internet in mind, which is probably why I don't write as much. Is there anything that can be done to bolster the new public personas and strengthen them? Perhaps having a moderated comment section for new or unseasoned authors might be work well. Maybe only allowing an authors name to appear when the post count is under a certain threshold. Then the name and photo, then name photo and Twitter or other contact method. Overrides possible of course.
  - xherberta 10y ago
    I often wonder why there's only one internet. Is it elitist to want to be a part of a more selective net? Are there alt-net movements today?

tptacek 10y ago

To everyone suggesting that women likely to be harassed should "learn to write under pen names": Men who write articles of any quality about helping elderly people learn to code might take some shit on message board comments, but none of them become the target of organized harassment campaigns. The notion that women should write under pen names while men freely and safely claim credit for any random achievement is a perfect example of how this industry allows itself to be rigged against women. Women aren't even supposed to identify themselves --- when they do, they're just allowing themselves to be victimized by the forces of nature, which apparently include mobs of misogynist trolls.

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smokeyj 10y ago
> which apparently include mobs of misogynist trolls What's the evidence of this? If these trolls aren't using real identities I'd be skeptical if it were more than one person. Maybe even someone who knows her personally if they're dedicated this much energy.
- tptacek 10y ago
  It doesn't matter. The suggestions are repeated and clear: a woman putting herself out in public talking about her work is begging for harassment. Women should write under pen names, so we can learn from their work and they can trade any credit or career improvement for "not dealing with harassment". That is not a deal men are required to make. I'm not OK with this. Nobody should be OK with this.
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rndmind 10y ago

If you cannot deal with controversy and criticism, regardless of its merits, do the yourself a favor and stay at home away from danger and critics.

etjossem 10y ago
How about you "do the yourself a favor" and proofread your comments? I'm sorry, I just meritoriously criticized you in a way that was still rude as hell. That was completely my fault. Just like the young woman mentioned in the blog post: no matter how thick your skin, you don't deserve unkind jabs at your grasp of the English language.

otempomores 10y ago

Harrasment of individuals with diffrent opinions and avoiding of discussions with real arguments by our authors ..very okay.