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A Guide To Hacker News For People Who Aren’t Men (2018)
- gas9S9zw3P9c 6y agoI'm sorry that this is off-topic, but we can we please ban Medium links? I cannot read the article because of the paywall and I have no interest in spending my time hacking around it.
- thereyougo 6y agoUse incognito
- kimi 6y agoIt would be trivial to, but it's more a matter of principle. You write content for a blog so Medium can monetize it and track your readers? that's good, but I would prefer not to have it on HN.
- jolux 6y agoEvery major newspaper does this too.
- kimi 6y agoAgreed. And I'd happily do without. I'm not a luddite; I have been a subscriber of The Economist for like 20 years and I appreciate what they do. Still, I think that it is not appropriate for HN posts to point to paywalled content.
- jolux 6y agoI’d rather know that the community thinks it’s worth reading and make my own decision to circumvent the paywall, because it keeps us in the good graces of those organizations and they produce interesting articles.
- thereyougo 6y agoI actually enjoy reading some Medium articles but I get what you mean. A more fair approach would be to mark Medium articles and other with sort of an icon that will let us know they have signup/paywall
- seesawtron 6y agoOne can always choose not to read blogs/websites that don't suit their principles (hidden behind paywall). For example, I always look for a comment from some user who has pasted the article behind paywall on archive so as not to increase traffic to the website whose policies I dislike. That way if the blogs get no significant traffic, they will be motivated to update their content policies. If they continue to get traffic, then the unwilling readers might reconsider to update their principles. It seems like an ideal ecosystem governed by compromise between writer, reader and intermediate the medium.
- seattle_spring 6y agoI would love for the author to share some of the comments she thinks were unfairly flagged.
- untog 6y agoKeep an eye on this thread. I would not be at all surprised if it is flagged! Sometimes you'll see that posts with a ton of upvotes still slide down the front page very quickly and disappear. That's because users are flagging the post. EDIT: this post has been flagged, 30 minutes after it was posted. So if you're looking for an example, look no further.
- seattle_spring 6y agoIt's a good example of something being flagged because it's a baseless claim with no evidence-- one that tries to use an unarguable fallacy as a winning argument: "You're silencing me because I'm X", not because you're just wrong.
- thereyougo 6y agoI worked in an office few years ago, we were mostly mens and a certain kind of (in my opinion) toxic jargon was developed there. It might be an unpopular opinion but I do think that when men and women are at the same place the chances the environment will be come toxic is way lower. I wonder if it will happen in online community such as HN or even /r/programming on Reddit.
- jsinai 6y agoI 100% agree. For most of my undergraduate, the male-female ratio was a close to 40:60 (yes there were more women in my undergraduate maths classes than men, sample size ~400-1000). When I moved overseas to study Part III in Mathematics at Cambridge, the male-female ratio soared to about 95:5. This was the first time I was in an absurdly male dominated environment since my karate classes in primary school and I found it to definitely be more toxic. My experience thereafter has been the same: more balanced environments are healthier and less prone to toxic weeding of viewpoints.
- commandlinefan 6y agoHow do you know that the males in the 40:60 class didn't feel that the environment was "toxic" in the other direction?
- jsinai 6y agoI don’t recall this being a problem in 4 years. Men weren’t put down or treated in derogatory ways because they weren’t women. If I try to enumerate typical toxic behaviours, it certainly wasn’t the case that any of this was systematically disadvantaging men. Contrast that with modern work environments ...
- vixit 6y agoAgreed, this is what I've noticed as well. My bachelors program in electrical engineering was about 90:10 and was noticeably more toxic than my classes with a closer to 50:50 distribution.
- 6y ago
- seattle_spring 6y agoNeeds a (2018) tag
- dybber 6y agoI've been a Hacker News user since August 2007, and I still don't have the ability to downvote. For many many years I didn't even know it was possible to downvote. I guess I'm not posting enough, but I didn't really feel any need to obtain the karma even after learning about downvoting was a thing. After reading this, I feel more obligated to get above the threshold and help weeding out in the comments.
- majkinetor 6y agoYou need around 500 karma.
- gnulinux 6y agoI think you need exactly 501. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
- majkinetor 6y agoI dont know, who cares :) There also seem to be 2 treasholds - one for topic and one for users.
- gus_massa 6y agoNote that the highlighted comment was already downvoted, flagged and with a warning comment by the mods. Try to upvote good comments, and unjustly downvoted comments. You need 501 points to downvote. Here you get one! Try to use the downvote button wisely when you get the ability.
- syllable_studio 6y agoThank you for this article! If you are a minority of any kind and would like some more HN karma, please leave a comment in this thread and I invite everyone to upvote all of you! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23677936 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23677936
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- syllable_studio 6y agoIt would not surprise me if the mods shut down this thread. But I question whether they should. And I question whether they would shut it down if they had more diversity. Why should I not be able to upvote someone's comment just because they say "I'm a proud minority"? and I want to support their voice?
- syllable_studio 6y agoIt was flagged. And fairly so I realize, because I see now that it did violate the guideline. > Don't solicit upvotes, comments, or submissions. So, sorry.... But you have to admit it would have been a simple hack for redistributing some much needed karma to minorities.
- ddevault 6y agoThe flagging system on HN is terribly broken. I sent this to dang a while ago on the subject: I realized something interesting the other day - users gain access to downvote comments once they reach 501 karma. I've always inferred that this is to make it so that users cannot downvote until they have demonstrated some understanding of the community and an ability to fit in with its norms. However... users get access to flagging at 31 karma. A flag is basically a super downvote in several respects: - It works on comments and posts - It works on direct replies to your own comments - Just a few flags is enough to remove content entirely - A flagged post cannot be vouched for until after it's been removed, whereas a post can be upvoted before it's downvoted. It's a bit weird to me that the OP version of downvotes is available to users 16 times sooner than the neutered version. I feel like HN has a problem with flagging being abused for censorship - this might provide an explanation. Food for thought. I won't disclose the response without his permission, but dang: if you're ITT, feel free to share.
- tasuki 6y ago> I’d love to downvote comments like: "Males have evolved to extract resources from the environment. Females have evolved to extract resources from males." But for a long time I couldn’t. Yes well, because you didn't have enough magical points. Other HN participants had more magical points and downvoted that comment to oblivion. This isn't a good example to show how HN is sexist. > That’s nice but like many well-meaning men they can’t seem to realize that more sophisticated forms of sexism cloaked in fancy language (“women are biologically programmed to XYZ”) aren’t any better than the crude type. I'd like to think I'm well meaning and don't get that. Are you saying the phrase "women are biologically programmed to XYZ" is always sexist? What about "men are biologically programmed to XYZ" - is that also sexist? Why? What about "turtles are biologically programmed to XYZ"? Or "plants are biologically programmed to XYZ"? Where is the boundary between what's ok and what isn't? (I am biologically programmed to ask these questions.)
- untog 6y ago> Yes well, because you didn't have enough magical points. Other HN participants had more magical points and downvoted that comment to oblivion. This isn't a good example to show how HN is sexist. It is. Or at least, it's an example of how karma point systems like those on HN and Reddit reward groupthink. If you say something the majority of people agree with they'll give you points, and then you can use those points to upvote other people with the same opinions. If enough people holding the power to give karma are sexist, they'll reward sexist behaviour, and the site will become sexist. In any case, this post has already been flagged so I guess the community won't be having that discussion, yet again. Until next time...
- RHSeeger 6y agoAt it's base level, the groupthink thing is > If you tend to voice ideas that the majority of the group believes are not constructive, then you do not get to participate in deciding what comments are constructive to the group. That is not the same thing as the group being sexist/racist/any-other-ist. It can lead to the same outcome of the majority of the group thinks various-ist comments are constructive (or, more specifically, if the majority of the group is unwilling to flag various-ist comments as unconstructive). However, the underlying cause is not the same. It's the difference between a person being racist and a person not taking a stand to help prevent others from feeling the effects of racism.
- JamesBarney 6y ago> On Hacker News it is used to remove content from the front page that people simply dislike. Often this means content about sexism in tech I think the main reason these posts are flagged is because the discussion turns toxic quickly, and not because users are adverse to these posts.
- jolux 6y agoI think it’s a bit of both.
- indigo945 6y agoThe discussion on this post itself was not toxic, and it has been immediately flagged anyway. Clearly some users very much are adverse to these posts.
- JamesBarney 6y agoYou don't usually get feedback on your intuition so quickly, but it looks like I was wrong, and Melissa was right.
- jolux 6y agoIn your defense it’s already teetering on the brink, so I think it’s honestly a difficult decision to make.
- syllable_studio 6y agoThat is a toxic reason to flag something! You can't just run from an important topic because some people will troll it.
- JamesBarney 6y agoDefinitely not making the argument that it's a good reason to flag, or flagging content like that is good for the health of the community.
- capableweb 6y agoIronically, this submission has now been flagged so won't appear on the frontpage anymore, only had about 25 minutes of visibility before disappearing into the ether.
- raverbashing 6y agoHence supporting the article's point
- thereyougo 6y agoThe mods can still vouch for it if they find this topic relevant
- hckr_news 6y agoThe hckrnews.com client doesn't hide anything
- bryanlarsen 6y agoP.S. the hckrnews guy is https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=wvl https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=wvl Using his site for your username feels a little scummy.
- hckr_news 6y agoI couldn’t really think of a username when I signed up and this is the first thing that came to mind. I’m willing to change it to something else.
- voisin 6y agoIs there a level of karma that upon reaching allows the user to get email updates to replies to submitted news or comments?
- YetAnotherNick 6y agoThat seems like a good weekend project idea if there is no such system now.
- gus_massa 6y agoNote that the comment highlighted in this article https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13020973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13020973 is already downvoted and flagged by the community. It has even a warning comment added by dang (that is the mod here) (and the warning doesn't use the usual polite tone).
- harryf 6y agoMy feeling over the last 2 years is HN has largely steered clear of topics related to gender, as they lead awful comment threads. That's an impression which implies the HN moderators have adopted this policy. And in general I think it's a good. thing - there's enough discussion of gender in tech elsewhere.
- jsinai 6y agoIgnoring the problem is a failure to recognize the problem and only to serves to entrench the viewpoints of the moderators. For some, shutting down the conversation may not be seen as harmful, but all it does is protect the people who most likely to have harmful views against non-males. This in turns makes it harder for other people to be heard. So maybe it is not a good thing, in general (strictly speaking).
- golf3 6y agoThat's not true though, the various gender gaps have been discussed here endlessly. I'm baffled when anyone says there's not enough discussion of these things when they dominated HN for months at a time.
- jolux 6y agoWhat there isn’t a lot of discussion of is how the space functions in a holistic sense for women, but so it goes for other groups as well. I don’t think “more discussion” is what this situation is lacking, though I couldn’t tell you what it is.
- syllable_studio 6y agoAre you serious? Was this article really just FLAGGED? Was it flagged just because the article mildly criticises Hacker News and it's moderators for not having enough diversity?
- golf3 6y agoIt's clickbait.
- RHSeeger 6y agoI don't agree with what some of what the article says, but it certainly doesn't seem like clickbait. It appears to be an honest expression of someone's opinion and attempt to help others navigate shortcomings they see with HN.
- curation 6y agoWhat you call clickbait is something I think about _every_ time I visit this site - years and years. Your experience online is as gendered as mine is - it's just that your perspective is normal and mine is abstracted to 'clickbait'.
- thereyougo 6y agoI think that it's enough several community members flag a post in order for it to become irreversible. Then only a mod can probably unflag the post.
- bryanlarsen 6y agoI didn't flag it, but I suspect it was flagged by users for the same reason Melissa recommends: "Don’t click on threads that discuss gender unless you’re prepared to wade through crap"
- jolux 6y agoCaveat: I think it’s valuable to avoid creating threads that devolve into flame wars over gender politics, and largely respect the decision of moderators to flag these articles as a result. However, I’m a woman, 21 years old, and I’ve been a Hacker News member since 2014 and a reader for much longer (perhaps since I was 11 or 12?). I passed 500 karma years ago. I lament that I cannot easily connect with other women over our use of this medium, because this article alone gave me a lot of valuable advice and more things like it would definitely help me feel more welcome in the community. It’s a complicated situation and I think dang and sctb have done a laudable job of splitting the difference in this space over the years, one that more internet moderators of tech spaces that want women to participate would do well to emulate.
- bE9a3S5So8igd3 6y agoI don't really understand what "welcome" means. Historically on the internet people are simultaneously "welcome" and "not welcome," i.e. people discover places of socializing and choose to participate or not. In my decades of socializing on the internet, most places are hostile to some degree. I also wouldn't bother to complain, because hostility is an unavoidable part of human nature, even hostility toward hostility. Some set of people within a given community will be "nice," and some will be "mean." Most people inhabit some indefinite point on the nice-mean continuum. It would be ideal if comments like "females suk lol" were removed, but something tells me that's uncommon. I think that "I would feel more welcome if..." (a very common motif in modern activism) suggests a few things: (1) The operators should care about me/my demographic (2) The operators should signal that they care about me/my demographic (3) The operators should preferentially signal that they care about me/my demographic (4) The operators should counter-signal, i.e. counter-welcome other people/other demographics (determined by perceived opposition to me/my demographic) This may seem like a trivial exercise, but consider how non-welcome a person with conservative political interests would be not only on HN, but in the tech industry as a whole. Consider how non-welcome a white male might feel on Twitter, etc.. Hell, consider how non-welcome a person who thinks Rust sucks would feel on news.ycombinator.com. (tip: very non-welcome) It seems futile to resolve each individual's sense of welcome; to provide a safe-space concurrently for religious white nationalists and black trans activists, and assorted fringes.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jacknews 6y agoI'd quite like HN to be completely free of anything to do with sexism, racism and politics.
- davidgerard 6y agoI'd quite like tech to be completely free of anything to do with sexism, racism and politics, but it turns out it's part of the world.
- seesawtron 6y agoI'd quite like the world to be free of hate, narrow-mindedness and biases, but it turns out wishful thinking does almost no good.
- YetAnotherNick 6y agoThe thing is discussing it easily ruins the mood of feeling productive when opening HN. Also the benefit of discussing the same mindless discussion over internet where you already know the points of both sides are minimal in my opinion. There are better ways to spend time to benefit the minorities/females than discussing it here.
- dredmorbius 6y agoWhy does that discussion "ruin" the mood? Who is doing the ruining? Who benefits by lack of discussion? (My view is that silence on contentious issues benefits the status quo.)
- Gunax 6y agoOthers might want HN to be open to tough issues. I know this is controversial, but it's hard (perhaps impossible) to discuss something controversial without either: 1. adopting groupthink/wrongthink patterns 2. making some group uncomfortable 3. limiting the topics that can be discussed
- jacknews 6y ago
- syllable_studio 6y agoHacker News, you can't hide from this important topic about a lack of diversity. We need to discuss this and fix it as a community. https://twitter.com/syllablehq/status/1277616493149196293 https://twitter.com/syllablehq/status/1277616493149196293
- samfriedman 6y agoThe flagging comes not from moderators, but from users.
- dang 6y agoModerators did exactly the opposite of what you said in that tweet. We turned the flags off as soon as we saw them. Btw, https://twitter.com/newsycombinator https://twitter.com/newsycombinator is a third party account that is not connected to any of the people working on HN or at YC. There are many such third party feeds.
- rvieira 6y agoAlthough my account is recent, I've lurked HN for many years, almost daily. I'm not dismissing the experience in the post, and I'm more surprised by it since I rarely find examples of open bigotry or sexism in the comments (although I noticed that in recent years some discussions are getting very polarized). People in here seem to me to be open to rational discussion, and, yes, you do get controversial opinions, but mostly I think people are open for discussion.
- jolux 6y agoIt’s gotten better over the years, to the moderators’ credit, but it’s still very difficult if not impossible to have civil and compassionate discussions about articles like this here.
- trangon 6y agoHN, like Reddit, rewards you for writing comments that other people agree with. That’s why controversial opinions aren’t very common.
- Grumbledour 6y agoI am always a bit surprised how often people call hacker news toxic. Has that word changed or am I just to old and jaded? I mean, sure, it's opinionated, it's got quite a few blind spots, it's a bit rough around the edges sometime. But the only comments I would really call toxic are already dead [0]. Now, I am not saying hacker news could not be nicer, but many people here seem to at least try to make reasonable arguments and I have yet to see it devolve into shouting matches like so many other places on the Internet. Maybe I just read to many Forums back in the day, but Hacker News by and large seems civil enough to me. This is of course enforced through the only thin sheer of community, where you really have to look out for peoples usernames to get even an idea of who you are talking to. While probably beneficial in this regard, I often wish there were some sort of avatars or other features to more easily recognize people from thread to thread. [0] Though it is interesting, that among the dead comments is nearly always one that just seems harmless and often even a valid argument. So turning dead comments to display seems kind of important to not miss those. I wonder what is up with that?
- PenguinCoder 6y agoI too am surprised at that label for HN. I agree that compared to other popular social media forums (Twitter, Reddit, facebook, etc) Hacker News by and large seems civil. There are certainly some trolls and bad-faith arguments, but it's only a small subset of comments.
- djaque 6y agoI think it depends where you hang out on HN. I also think it is civil for the most part, but there are a few threads I have been apart of where I was shocked at the racist, homophobic, sexist comments coming in. They did get downvoted pretty quickly, but I was still surprised by them appearing in the first place.
- Grumbledour 6y agoI guess this has to be expected these days. This is not a small, tight knit community and there seems to be a part of the general population who revels in this kind of comments. But I see far more of them on other platforms, for example in comments sections on news sites. The fact that the most egregious ones get downvoted quickly here is something that speaks in favor of this community, I would say.
- dqpb 6y agoHere is my take on the social dynamics: a subset of group A discriminates against all of group B. In defense, a subset of group B accuses all of group A. In return-defense, a greater subset of group A accuses all of group B of unfair accusations... and so on.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mips_avatar 6y agoOne of the interesting things about the 500 vote threshold for downvoting is that it kind of incentivizes incendiary comments. If you make a comment that picks a side on a hot-button topic and delight 50% of users and annoy the other 50%, you will on net get upvotes, because the half who like the comment have more sway on the voting than the half who don't. I like that we limit downvoting, but it has side-effects.
- patrick5415 6y agoPlease. I’ve read plenty of biologically motivated drawbacks of the male sex, both here and other more “enlightened” corners of the interwebs Supposedly, they are bunch of pre-verbal, emotionally out-of-touch nitwits so focused on competition they can’t figure out how to cooperate.
- reroute1 6y agoA guide for Melissa: Shut the fuck up no one needs your "help"