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> I wonder if people on HackerNews are aware that a huge percentage of female and minority engineers that I know find the HN community discussions completely di
by Sebb767 6y ago
> I wonder if people on HackerNews are aware that a huge percentage of female and minority engineers that I know find the HN community discussions completely disreputable and unappealing. And it's a direct consequence of how they treat these subjects as "uninteresting" and "off topic", because to the dominant in-group these subjects are just not relevant.
I don't quite see the connection here, too be honest. Just because D&I discussion is mostly not welcome (without judging either way) does not mean the community overall is unwelcoming. I can see why one dislikes the style of discussions on HN and that's fair, but "allowing" D&I topics without changing anything else would probably not fix it IMO. Or am I missing something?
- runarberg 6y agoI don’t think anyone here is accusing the community as a whole of being unwelcoming. Rather the problem seems to be that it is disinterested. And when some toxicity arises the lack of interest to address this toxicity comes across as unwelcoming. I am not a member of a minority group so I’m only guessing here, but I can imagine the frustration of seeing something you perceive as hostile against you, and then see some backlash, but then witness the backlash being deemed uninteresting. If it happens once, okay whatever! But then you see it again, and again, and after a while the frustration is not worth it and you leave the platform. You only need a few unwelcoming individuals and a community that doesn’t care about correcting it, then the community as a whole can come across as unwelcoming. I think that is the problem here.