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I don't think what they mean is that when a minority goes to SO and they get a condescending response it's because of their race/ethnicity/gender. What they me

by fidels 8y ago

I don't think what they mean is that when a minority goes to SO and they get a condescending response it's because of their race/ethnicity/gender. What they mean is that, since minorities might have insecurities about their ability to code because there are not that many people who look like them in the industry, when they receive a condescending response their insecurities aggravate. Therefore, SO can be consider more hostile for minorities.

weberc2 8y ago
I like your explanation--I hadn't thought of it and it's less cynical/more charitable than the obvious alternative (virtue signaling). But wouldn't the same be true of anyone with heightened insecurities? Why highlight minorities?
- retbull 8y ago
  Because the community doesn't identify with them? Specific insecurities isn't something that can be addressed at a platform level but general ones like "am I a member of the group of programmers because I am black/female/gay/trans" can be better targeted. So they probably won't help everyone by doing this but they can help a large group of unserved people.
  - weberc2 8y ago
    We don't need to stop at group-level insecurities, we can just be kinder and more welcoming to everyone, thereby addressing _all_ insecurities. This has the added bonus of dodging the entirely unnecessary, divisive, and toxic political fights about which groups are the most victimized.
- saint_fiasco 8y ago
  They probably have more data on minorities than on insecurities. Some ad networks can tell your gender and ethnicity with reasonable accuracy (especially in the aggregate). Stack Overflow might be affiliated to one of those, or use data mining algorithms similar to what they use. They also run polls among their users, I believe. It's easier to ask about gender/race in a poll than about unspecified insecurities.
- commandlinefan 8y ago
  Well, the implication is still that hostility is somehow less serious or meaningful when directed at white men... I think you can imagine why that would make us uncomfortable.
  - superkuh 8y ago
    Or worse, they're implying that minorities and women are all insecure and thin skinned which is the very behavior and thinking they're ostensibly trying to prevent.
gthtjtkt 8y ago
Isn't it more offensive that you're saying minorities are insecure and/or oversensitive?
- lakechfoma 8y ago
  Read the comment from mistersquid https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16935683 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16935683 to understand the point
  - gthtjtkt 8y ago
    That comment doesn't contradict my point at all. All it says is "Someone who has been bullied may interpret future slights as more of the same bullying." That has absolutely nothing to do with race or gender, and I still think it's for more insulting to imply that people in specific demographics are more sensitive or insecure.
    - ajkjk 8y ago
      I think that the reason so many people find this implication palatable is that there are loads of examples of people saying, from experience, that it does in fact happen this way. The idea is not that they're 'fundamentally' more sensitive or insecure; it's that they're _empirically_ more sensitive and insecure, due to the circumstances of reality.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
mistersquid 8y ago
Yours is a beautifully written and well-considered reply. As someone who has had both academic and career success (and failures), I know I am capable as a developer and able to contribute meaningfully to technical discussions. As a person of color, however, I have also experienced harassment by police, suspicious looks from shop owners, and outright hostility from drunken young men. So, whenever I encounter what appears to be irrational anger or inexplicable disrespect, I cannot help but wonder and worry that I'm being poorly treated because of my race, even when I suspect that's not the case. The person who treats me poorly need not necessarily be discriminating against me because of my race, but I can never know and, of course, unless someone is calling me racial epithets such poorly behaved people are unlikely to admit bias. It's sort of like being bullied in elementary school, and then high school, and then college, and then as a working adult. You never outgrow the bullying. Indeed, the bullying seems to get worse as one matures and loses the youthful physical characteristics which people often read as non-threatening. So regardless of intention (and sometimes because of it), feeling discriminated against can be partly the result of lifelong experience and is probably fairly characterized as a form of post-traumatic stress disorder. EDIT: remove two instances of repeated "as"; add "often"; remove comma; change pronoun.
- lakechfoma 8y ago
  Well said. I didn't understand this at all until the post yesterday "Walking While Black". Essays like that and comments like this are eye openers and should be spread wide to people of privilege. Perspective is powerful
- manigandham 8y ago
  How does that work if the usernames are anonymous? Saying you feel targeted does not mean you are being targeted.
  - saint_fiasco 8y ago
    I think what they mean is that because of their experiences they have less tolerance for hostility than you do. Most of the time people are verbally hostile towards you nothing terrible ends up happening so you eventually learn to ignore minor hostility. However if you had the sort of bad experiences minorities have, you would learn to be wary of minor hostility, as it is often the precursor to major hostility or even physical harm. You know how evolutionary psychologists often attribute human stupidity to adaptations that made sense in prehistoric times? Like your instincts tell you sugar is good for you because it used to be found mostly on fruit and nutritious berries, but nowadays the instinct leads you to eat junk food. In the modern world sugar has nothing to do with high food quality (just the opposite) but the instinct remains. For minorities, their instinct to recoil at minor hostility is like that, except that instead of an ancient adaptation to deal with the life at the Savannah, it is the habit that helped you keep your sanity this very morning at the office when your asshole coworker yelled at you. In Stack Overflow nobody is going to yell at you or punch you or try to get you fired, but the instinct remains.
lakechfoma 8y ago
Also I feel like SO discourages any kind of personality showing, which in turn makes the place feel like it is occupied by a legion of "Zuckerbots". Not exactly an inclusive place for people who are proud of their identity and that identity strongly differs from "young cis hetero white male".
- ruirr 8y ago
  ...which apparently are 90% of the users by the latest stats. But do not let facts bother your fictions.
- GyYZTfWBfQw 8y ago
  People in that kind of setting don't care about your identity, they care about your contributions. People are encouraged to stay on-topic (nowadays known as: cyber-bullying) rather than spamming the site with irrelevant personal details.
wcarron 8y ago
While I agree that SO can be hostile, I hardly think it's fair to assign the blame to SO for the insecurities of some users. If the answer is given without regard to race, religion, creed, sexual orientation, etc., then misconstruing it as doing so is the doing and fault of the asker. It's looking for offense where there is none. Frankly, I have never seen racist comments on stackoverflow. I have seen curt, and even rude answers; but not bigotry. At the risk of sounding intolerant, if for example, a black programmer takes personal offense at a brusque technical answer on SO, he/she can get the fuck over it. We are not on SO to talk about their insecurities. We are on SO to find answers to programming problems. It's not the community responsibility to tiptoe around a users self-esteem issues. Again, this isn't to say SO couldn't be a kinder place, but dear god, spare us the bleeding heart spiel for once.
fareesh 8y ago
That scenario could be considered more hostile to any human having a bad day, week or year, so bringing minorities into it seems like an unnecessary distinction. There is a great deal of obsession with immutable identity in the west - it is remarkably distasteful, as someone happily outside that culture.

by fidels 8y ago

weberc2 8y ago

I like your explanation--I hadn't thought of it and it's less cynical/more charitable than the obvious alternative (virtue signaling). But wouldn't the same be true of anyone with heightened insecurities? Why highlight minorities?

retbull 8y ago
Because the community doesn't identify with them? Specific insecurities isn't something that can be addressed at a platform level but general ones like "am I a member of the group of programmers because I am black/female/gay/trans" can be better targeted. So they probably won't help everyone by doing this but they can help a large group of unserved people.
- weberc2 8y ago
  We don't need to stop at group-level insecurities, we can just be kinder and more welcoming to everyone, thereby addressing _all_ insecurities. This has the added bonus of dodging the entirely unnecessary, divisive, and toxic political fights about which groups are the most victimized.
saint_fiasco 8y ago
They probably have more data on minorities than on insecurities. Some ad networks can tell your gender and ethnicity with reasonable accuracy (especially in the aggregate). Stack Overflow might be affiliated to one of those, or use data mining algorithms similar to what they use. They also run polls among their users, I believe. It's easier to ask about gender/race in a poll than about unspecified insecurities.
commandlinefan 8y ago
Well, the implication is still that hostility is somehow less serious or meaningful when directed at white men... I think you can imagine why that would make us uncomfortable.
- superkuh 8y ago
  Or worse, they're implying that minorities and women are all insecure and thin skinned which is the very behavior and thinking they're ostensibly trying to prevent.

gthtjtkt 8y ago

Isn't it more offensive that you're saying minorities are insecure and/or oversensitive?

lakechfoma 8y ago
Read the comment from mistersquid https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16935683 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16935683 to understand the point
- gthtjtkt 8y ago
  That comment doesn't contradict my point at all. All it says is "Someone who has been bullied may interpret future slights as more of the same bullying." That has absolutely nothing to do with race or gender, and I still think it's for more insulting to imply that people in specific demographics are more sensitive or insecure.
  - ajkjk 8y ago
    I think that the reason so many people find this implication palatable is that there are loads of examples of people saying, from experience, that it does in fact happen this way. The idea is not that they're 'fundamentally' more sensitive or insecure; it's that they're _empirically_ more sensitive and insecure, due to the circumstances of reality.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

mistersquid 8y ago

Yours is a beautifully written and well-considered reply. As someone who has had both academic and career success (and failures), I know I am capable as a developer and able to contribute meaningfully to technical discussions. As a person of color, however, I have also experienced harassment by police, suspicious looks from shop owners, and outright hostility from drunken young men. So, whenever I encounter what appears to be irrational anger or inexplicable disrespect, I cannot help but wonder and worry that I'm being poorly treated because of my race, even when I suspect that's not the case. The person who treats me poorly need not necessarily be discriminating against me because of my race, but I can never know and, of course, unless someone is calling me racial epithets such poorly behaved people are unlikely to admit bias. It's sort of like being bullied in elementary school, and then high school, and then college, and then as a working adult. You never outgrow the bullying. Indeed, the bullying seems to get worse as one matures and loses the youthful physical characteristics which people often read as non-threatening. So regardless of intention (and sometimes because of it), feeling discriminated against can be partly the result of lifelong experience and is probably fairly characterized as a form of post-traumatic stress disorder. EDIT: remove two instances of repeated "as"; add "often"; remove comma; change pronoun.

lakechfoma 8y ago
Well said. I didn't understand this at all until the post yesterday "Walking While Black". Essays like that and comments like this are eye openers and should be spread wide to people of privilege. Perspective is powerful
manigandham 8y ago
How does that work if the usernames are anonymous? Saying you feel targeted does not mean you are being targeted.
- saint_fiasco 8y ago
  I think what they mean is that because of their experiences they have less tolerance for hostility than you do. Most of the time people are verbally hostile towards you nothing terrible ends up happening so you eventually learn to ignore minor hostility. However if you had the sort of bad experiences minorities have, you would learn to be wary of minor hostility, as it is often the precursor to major hostility or even physical harm. You know how evolutionary psychologists often attribute human stupidity to adaptations that made sense in prehistoric times? Like your instincts tell you sugar is good for you because it used to be found mostly on fruit and nutritious berries, but nowadays the instinct leads you to eat junk food. In the modern world sugar has nothing to do with high food quality (just the opposite) but the instinct remains. For minorities, their instinct to recoil at minor hostility is like that, except that instead of an ancient adaptation to deal with the life at the Savannah, it is the habit that helped you keep your sanity this very morning at the office when your asshole coworker yelled at you. In Stack Overflow nobody is going to yell at you or punch you or try to get you fired, but the instinct remains.

lakechfoma 8y ago

Also I feel like SO discourages any kind of personality showing, which in turn makes the place feel like it is occupied by a legion of "Zuckerbots". Not exactly an inclusive place for people who are proud of their identity and that identity strongly differs from "young cis hetero white male".

ruirr 8y ago
...which apparently are 90% of the users by the latest stats. But do not let facts bother your fictions.
GyYZTfWBfQw 8y ago
People in that kind of setting don't care about your identity, they care about your contributions. People are encouraged to stay on-topic (nowadays known as: cyber-bullying) rather than spamming the site with irrelevant personal details.

wcarron 8y ago

While I agree that SO can be hostile, I hardly think it's fair to assign the blame to SO for the insecurities of some users. If the answer is given without regard to race, religion, creed, sexual orientation, etc., then misconstruing it as doing so is the doing and fault of the asker. It's looking for offense where there is none. Frankly, I have never seen racist comments on stackoverflow. I have seen curt, and even rude answers; but not bigotry. At the risk of sounding intolerant, if for example, a black programmer takes personal offense at a brusque technical answer on SO, he/she can get the fuck over it. We are not on SO to talk about their insecurities. We are on SO to find answers to programming problems. It's not the community responsibility to tiptoe around a users self-esteem issues. Again, this isn't to say SO couldn't be a kinder place, but dear god, spare us the bleeding heart spiel for once.

fareesh 8y ago

That scenario could be considered more hostile to any human having a bad day, week or year, so bringing minorities into it seems like an unnecessary distinction. There is a great deal of obsession with immutable identity in the west - it is remarkably distasteful, as someone happily outside that culture.