4 ms·

And when someone does talk -- routinely -- about constructive action that can be taken in the here and now, it is largely ignored. You can start here for some o

by Mz 10y ago

And when someone does talk -- routinely -- about constructive action that can be taken in the here and now, it is largely ignored. You can start here for some of what I have to say on the topic of how to promote gender parity online: http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2016/06/promoting-gender-parity-online.html http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2016/06/promoting-ge... Yes, that same link is posted elsewhere in this discussion. So far, it has gotten zero upvotes (or downvotes) or replies. Because, as usual, it is getting mostly ignored. People making the kinds of comment you have just made seem to not actually want solutions. They seem to want a convenient excuse for dismissing the criticism entirely. I have been working hard to bring solutions, not complaints, for quite a few years. It is mostly ignored. If you actually want real change, you could start by paying more attention to the things I suggest, acting on them and promoting my writing. But I imagine that won't happen at all.

mindslight 10y ago
I did read that in your prior comment [0]. And I fully agree. But I will say, despite my agreement with it, that post of yours does not actually address this current subject of outrage. It is true that one component of harassment is the pervasive social attitudes held by the majority, and thus can be changed through social integration. But concentrated harassment also comes from a small minority that are either deliberately trolling, or so socially mistuned as to use a comments section as if it were a bar. All of the outreach and awareness is not going to change this latter group - think of Pascal's Wager for a date. It's not that I don't "want" a solution to the latter. It's that I don't see how one, as envisioned, can exist. Education and awareness can shrink the quantity. Centralized sites with heavy moderation can shrink the quantity [1] [2]. Maybe even personal filtering-assistants could shrink the quantity. But at some level of fan-in it is still going to be present and require that people build their own mental defense. [0] FWIW, I clicked the up arrow on that comment, and this one as well. But my votes don't actually count because it was determined that I upvote "low quality" comments - a year or two ago, anti-circlejerk comments were forced to really snipe. [1] You have a post about rejecting offers for dates on HN. I don't believe I have ever seen such a proposal on HN (and I'm showdead=yes). I'm not refuting your experience, just contrasting - an event can be objectively extremely rare, yet still quite personal, intense, and resentment-forming. [2] Furthermore, this ignores alternative avenues of contact - I don't think Medium passed along all this harassment itself. Which is why ambiguous "something" can't not imply some greater control over the wider Internet.
- Mz 10y ago
  I wrote my post about "Don't ask me for a date" in reponse to a specific comment that did not outright come out and use the term date. I left the comment out of my post and have no plans to describe it further because I am not interested in naming and shaming the individual that inspired my reaction. There have been other incidents where it became clear to me that the individual's interest in me was romantic in nature. I wouod be hard pressed to prove that to anyone. Nonethless, I have found it useful to blog about such things. It has changed my experience of HN for the better. I have studied social phenomenon both formally and informally for a lot of years. In a nutshell, you do not need to announce that egregiously bad things are not okay when you establish a standard of real respect. Of course, that won't stop all of it. But the overall character of the experience can be modified.
  - mindslight 10y ago
    Regardless of the specific content, that comment stuck with you enough to become a thing. Otherwise it would have been brushed off, forgotten about, and we wouldn't be talking about it. I was only pointing out how something can be objectively very rare, yet still personally intense. > Of course, that won't stop all of it This is the crux of my point. The egregious things are already outliers - I don't think hitting on someone has ever been within the HN community standards, and your anecdata implies the ratio is better than 1:10,000. At that rarity, it's going to be awfully hard to even analyze how to shrink that number further. Rereading the original post, it seems like the specific unwanted behavior in this case is having random (male) readers try to friend a young woman on Facebook with hopes of hitting on her. If that ratio were actually under say 1:1000, I don't know that we'd even be here as a species. If either situation were limited to a small town, there would be a manageable number of occurrences over a longer time with a wider social sphere to police them. But at Internet scale, a small chance times a stateless flash mob causes an immediate intense issue.
    - Mz 10y ago
      It wasn't a single comment and some of the more egregious things that have been said to me on HN were deleted before the edit window closed. In fact, accounts were recently banned by the mods over a particularly ugly and sexually explicit personal attack against me (which was deleted before the edit window closed). I don't believe the overall pattern of behavior where women get male attention that is motivated primarily by sexual interest is remotely as rare as you are suggesting. We would not be having this conversation at all if that were the case. Women do get treated differently than men online. I am hardly the only one that sees that.
smokeyj 10y ago
That delivery.. It needs work. It comes across as "promote my blog or you don't really support change" where the blog also links to donations and your store. Your arguments would go much further if you just bulleted them. Here's my takeaways: - Women need to create accounts and participate in voting - Post more articles by women - Have candid and honest conversation. Don't condescend I almost think not being condescending and promoting an article because the author is female is contradictory. An article should stand on its own merit. This is really a tech/startup forum. It'd be great if gender didn't matter here, right?
- Mz 10y ago
  I am aware that was not the best approach. The problem is that there seems to be no approach that is acceptable. I have tried many of the things that men get told to do and which clearly get results for at least some of them. I have tried many of the things other people have specifically suggested to me. None of it seems to accomplish much of anything. Furthermore, when men try to make money here, that's a-okay. But it's a problem if I try to monetize my work -- not just here, anywhere. Everyone seems to object to a woman wanting money for her work. Everyone seems to think women should do things out of the goodness of their hearts. Then I also get told I am crazy for suggesting that there is any connection at all between my gender and my persistent poverty. It's really rather maddening. You aren't supposed to condescend to anyone here. Asking that women not be condescended to is not asking for special treatment. It also doesn't mean you cannot critique their work. Thank you for replying.
  - kyboren 10y ago
    I don't discount that being female may indeed make it more difficult to be taken seriously, but as another commenter pointed out, the vast majority of people have no idea whose comment they're reading/replying to (insert joke here about nobody knowing you're a dog on the Internet). In my experience most male forum members have exactly the same experience. It is simply very difficult to be taken seriously, to have people invest the time to read and honestly consider your ideas, and just to get visibility at all, regardless of gender! I appreciate you're actually taking the initiative to propose concrete actions to make our community more inclusive. However, your writing reeks of egotism. This is not a gendered thing. I and many others simply can't take seriously anyone who writes, "If you actually want real change, you could start by paying more attention to the things I suggest, acting on them and promoting my writing. But I imagine that won't happen at all."

by Mz 10y ago

mindslight 10y ago

I did read that in your prior comment [0]. And I fully agree. But I will say, despite my agreement with it, that post of yours does not actually address this current subject of outrage. It is true that one component of harassment is the pervasive social attitudes held by the majority, and thus can be changed through social integration. But concentrated harassment also comes from a small minority that are either deliberately trolling, or so socially mistuned as to use a comments section as if it were a bar. All of the outreach and awareness is not going to change this latter group - think of Pascal's Wager for a date. It's not that I don't "want" a solution to the latter. It's that I don't see how one, as envisioned, can exist. Education and awareness can shrink the quantity. Centralized sites with heavy moderation can shrink the quantity [1] [2]. Maybe even personal filtering-assistants could shrink the quantity. But at some level of fan-in it is still going to be present and require that people build their own mental defense. [0] FWIW, I clicked the up arrow on that comment, and this one as well. But my votes don't actually count because it was determined that I upvote "low quality" comments - a year or two ago, anti-circlejerk comments were forced to really snipe. [1] You have a post about rejecting offers for dates on HN. I don't believe I have ever seen such a proposal on HN (and I'm showdead=yes). I'm not refuting your experience, just contrasting - an event can be objectively extremely rare, yet still quite personal, intense, and resentment-forming. [2] Furthermore, this ignores alternative avenues of contact - I don't think Medium passed along all this harassment itself. Which is why ambiguous "something" can't not imply some greater control over the wider Internet.

Mz 10y ago
I wrote my post about "Don't ask me for a date" in reponse to a specific comment that did not outright come out and use the term date. I left the comment out of my post and have no plans to describe it further because I am not interested in naming and shaming the individual that inspired my reaction. There have been other incidents where it became clear to me that the individual's interest in me was romantic in nature. I wouod be hard pressed to prove that to anyone. Nonethless, I have found it useful to blog about such things. It has changed my experience of HN for the better. I have studied social phenomenon both formally and informally for a lot of years. In a nutshell, you do not need to announce that egregiously bad things are not okay when you establish a standard of real respect. Of course, that won't stop all of it. But the overall character of the experience can be modified.
- mindslight 10y ago
  Regardless of the specific content, that comment stuck with you enough to become a thing. Otherwise it would have been brushed off, forgotten about, and we wouldn't be talking about it. I was only pointing out how something can be objectively very rare, yet still personally intense. > Of course, that won't stop all of it This is the crux of my point. The egregious things are already outliers - I don't think hitting on someone has ever been within the HN community standards, and your anecdata implies the ratio is better than 1:10,000. At that rarity, it's going to be awfully hard to even analyze how to shrink that number further. Rereading the original post, it seems like the specific unwanted behavior in this case is having random (male) readers try to friend a young woman on Facebook with hopes of hitting on her. If that ratio were actually under say 1:1000, I don't know that we'd even be here as a species. If either situation were limited to a small town, there would be a manageable number of occurrences over a longer time with a wider social sphere to police them. But at Internet scale, a small chance times a stateless flash mob causes an immediate intense issue.
  - Mz 10y ago
    It wasn't a single comment and some of the more egregious things that have been said to me on HN were deleted before the edit window closed. In fact, accounts were recently banned by the mods over a particularly ugly and sexually explicit personal attack against me (which was deleted before the edit window closed). I don't believe the overall pattern of behavior where women get male attention that is motivated primarily by sexual interest is remotely as rare as you are suggesting. We would not be having this conversation at all if that were the case. Women do get treated differently than men online. I am hardly the only one that sees that.

smokeyj 10y ago

That delivery.. It needs work. It comes across as "promote my blog or you don't really support change" where the blog also links to donations and your store. Your arguments would go much further if you just bulleted them. Here's my takeaways: - Women need to create accounts and participate in voting - Post more articles by women - Have candid and honest conversation. Don't condescend I almost think not being condescending and promoting an article because the author is female is contradictory. An article should stand on its own merit. This is really a tech/startup forum. It'd be great if gender didn't matter here, right?

Mz 10y ago
I am aware that was not the best approach. The problem is that there seems to be no approach that is acceptable. I have tried many of the things that men get told to do and which clearly get results for at least some of them. I have tried many of the things other people have specifically suggested to me. None of it seems to accomplish much of anything. Furthermore, when men try to make money here, that's a-okay. But it's a problem if I try to monetize my work -- not just here, anywhere. Everyone seems to object to a woman wanting money for her work. Everyone seems to think women should do things out of the goodness of their hearts. Then I also get told I am crazy for suggesting that there is any connection at all between my gender and my persistent poverty. It's really rather maddening. You aren't supposed to condescend to anyone here. Asking that women not be condescended to is not asking for special treatment. It also doesn't mean you cannot critique their work. Thank you for replying.
- kyboren 10y ago
  I don't discount that being female may indeed make it more difficult to be taken seriously, but as another commenter pointed out, the vast majority of people have no idea whose comment they're reading/replying to (insert joke here about nobody knowing you're a dog on the Internet). In my experience most male forum members have exactly the same experience. It is simply very difficult to be taken seriously, to have people invest the time to read and honestly consider your ideas, and just to get visibility at all, regardless of gender! I appreciate you're actually taking the initiative to propose concrete actions to make our community more inclusive. However, your writing reeks of egotism. This is not a gendered thing. I and many others simply can't take seriously anyone who writes, "If you actually want real change, you could start by paying more attention to the things I suggest, acting on them and promoting my writing. But I imagine that won't happen at all."