6 ms·

Already heavily downvoted and soon dead.

krapp 5y ago
The fact that it's there to begin with is still a problem. The fact that you have to keep stomping cockroaches doesn't mean your house isn't infested.
- spacechild1 5y ago
  Homophobia exists and we have to fight it. That's the sad reality. Yes, homophobic comments are harmful and reading can already do damage. But what can we do apart from downvoting/flagging?
  - DoktorDelta 5y ago
    banning?
    - spacechild1 5y ago
      Even better: shadow banning. This already happens. I think the problem is that HN needs more moderators. It relies too much on self-moderation.
- iamdamian 5y ago
  > The fact that it's there to begin with is still a problem. I disagree, I think it's really just how it's dealt with that matters. And again, this is literally the first time I've seen a comment like that on HN.
  - throwawayrev3 5y ago
    A big part of the pull of HN is the opportunity to participate in live discussions happening around things that are on the front pages. The problem with 'how it's dealt with is that matters' is that it's essentially telling the LGBTQ person to come participate only after things have settled down or dealt with. By then the heat of the discussion is over, or the post has been shot down to the 3rd or 4th page. In some places, there is a practice of women cooking food and first all the males eat it while the women wait. Then after they finished, the women start eating. They are treated like second class citizens. Sensible places ban people who say being gay or LGBTQ is mental health issue. It's 2022.
    - spacechild1 5y ago
      I think you have a point. I do think that people get (shadow) banned for writing stuff like this, but we need more mods. Ideally, they should live in different time zones. One the other hand, I personally don't remember seeing such comments before. Does this really happen regularly?
      - throwawayvibes 5y ago
        spacechild1 5y ago
        What do you mean with “your circles“?
    - throwawayvibes 5y ago
      Maybe if people did not open the discussion with virtue signaling their sexuality, things wouldn't be so bad. I'm not straight, yet I hate on the rainbow crowd, and I never mention it because it's fucking cringe to bring these things up outside of personal discussions in person. You give everyone a bad name because of this. Just like how most women I know shun and find feminists cringe.
    - a_throwaway_5 5y ago
      => Sensible places ban people who say being gay or LGBTQ is mental health issue. I don't agree. Perhaps the person who says being gay is a mental health issue has a deep knowledge of a technical subject that is of interest to the community, and 80% of their posts are about that subject, and very informative, while only 5% of their comments are about being gay as a mental health issue. Banning such an account outright would deprive the community of the 80% of comments from that account that are informative and useful. If they're not banned, the 5% of the comments that the community finds problematic will be downvoted most of the time. This is a more measured and better targeted reaction than an outright ban. If someone is on a crusade to convince everyone that gay people are sick, on the other hand, and all their posts are about that, then that's a different matter. Such an account is not really contributing anything useful to a community like HN. So ban away, I guess. There's another reason. As an LGBT person myself, I want to hear opinions that are hostile towards me, even against my very existence. I want to hear them because if I don't, I won't be aware of all the awful things that people make up in their minds about people like me and I won't know how to protect myself against them. Of course I already know many of the awful things that people think and say and do, but having those opinions out in the open where everybody can see them also acts as a barometer for popular opinion. If everybody starts agreeing with the person who says gay people are mentally ill, then I know things are turning bad. If everyone challenges such opinions, and I can see that they are downvoted to [dead], then I know that at least this community is not uniformly hostile. Last, if someone really thinks that people like me are sick or shouldn't exist, what's the point of banning them? That won't change their opinion. We can't change peoples' minds forcefully, and even if we could, we shouldn't. Freedom of thought means that some people will think thoughts everyone else finds despiceable. So be it. If we only accept some views in public discussions and ban all the rest what happens when the political winds change and it's my thoughts and opinions that are not kosher anymore?
- scotty79 5y ago
  Would you like the people to stop thinking their thoughts or do you like someone else to read those thoughts (if they are published) so that they can 100% shield you from them for free?
- dang 5y ago
  If you know of a way to write software to classify such comments correctly when they first appear on a public internet forum, I'm all ears. Otherwise, it takes time for countervailing mechanisms, like user flags and moderation, to kick in and deal with such comments. To act like those comments are somehow representative of the community is 100% untrue and I'm ashamed to see you stoop to that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - krapp 5y ago
    >To act like those comments are somehow representative of the community is 100% untrue and I'm ashamed to see you stoop to that. They do represent an aspect of the community. Not the community as a whole - you seem to assume that every criticism of a part of the community is an attack on the whole - rather a toxicity within it that seems to be growing, albeit slowly and not without resistance. That it is growing isn't a reflection on the users and moderators as much as the society that feeds into the community. We can only do what we can, but no one can command the tides. To pretend this toxicity and bad behavior is something alien and wholly detached from the community, or that because comments are flagged and killed they don't represent the community, is specious and counterproductive. All of it is the community, good and bad. This rising toxicity and anger and cynicism is a real problem, and if you didn't take every criticism of the community so defensively as you seem to, I think you'd agree. No, I don't know what can be done about it, but I'm certain it's not a problem that can be solve with software classifiers. I'm not going to be ashamed for pointing it out and complaining about it, either. If we simply quietly downvote and flag but otherwise stay silent, then there's no social pressure against that kind of behavior. But I know you don't like repetition so I'll try not to do it that often.
    - spacechild1 5y ago
      > If we simply quietly downvote and flag but otherwise stay silent People already do speak up. I just don't think that HN has a general homophobia problem. Such comments are definitively outliers and are dealt with by the mods and the community. The only thing I would complain about is that it doesn't happen fast enough for a site like this where posts come and go quickly.

The fact that it's there to begin with is still a problem. The fact that you have to keep stomping cockroaches doesn't mean your house isn't infested.

spacechild1 5y ago
Homophobia exists and we have to fight it. That's the sad reality. Yes, homophobic comments are harmful and reading can already do damage. But what can we do apart from downvoting/flagging?
- DoktorDelta 5y ago
  banning?
  - spacechild1 5y ago
    Even better: shadow banning. This already happens. I think the problem is that HN needs more moderators. It relies too much on self-moderation.
iamdamian 5y ago
> The fact that it's there to begin with is still a problem. I disagree, I think it's really just how it's dealt with that matters. And again, this is literally the first time I've seen a comment like that on HN.
- throwawayrev3 5y ago
  A big part of the pull of HN is the opportunity to participate in live discussions happening around things that are on the front pages. The problem with 'how it's dealt with is that matters' is that it's essentially telling the LGBTQ person to come participate only after things have settled down or dealt with. By then the heat of the discussion is over, or the post has been shot down to the 3rd or 4th page. In some places, there is a practice of women cooking food and first all the males eat it while the women wait. Then after they finished, the women start eating. They are treated like second class citizens. Sensible places ban people who say being gay or LGBTQ is mental health issue. It's 2022.
  - spacechild1 5y ago
    I think you have a point. I do think that people get (shadow) banned for writing stuff like this, but we need more mods. Ideally, they should live in different time zones. One the other hand, I personally don't remember seeing such comments before. Does this really happen regularly?
    - throwawayvibes 5y ago
      - spacechild1 5y ago
        What do you mean with “your circles“?
  - throwawayvibes 5y ago
    Maybe if people did not open the discussion with virtue signaling their sexuality, things wouldn't be so bad. I'm not straight, yet I hate on the rainbow crowd, and I never mention it because it's fucking cringe to bring these things up outside of personal discussions in person. You give everyone a bad name because of this. Just like how most women I know shun and find feminists cringe.
  - a_throwaway_5 5y ago
    => Sensible places ban people who say being gay or LGBTQ is mental health issue. I don't agree. Perhaps the person who says being gay is a mental health issue has a deep knowledge of a technical subject that is of interest to the community, and 80% of their posts are about that subject, and very informative, while only 5% of their comments are about being gay as a mental health issue. Banning such an account outright would deprive the community of the 80% of comments from that account that are informative and useful. If they're not banned, the 5% of the comments that the community finds problematic will be downvoted most of the time. This is a more measured and better targeted reaction than an outright ban. If someone is on a crusade to convince everyone that gay people are sick, on the other hand, and all their posts are about that, then that's a different matter. Such an account is not really contributing anything useful to a community like HN. So ban away, I guess. There's another reason. As an LGBT person myself, I want to hear opinions that are hostile towards me, even against my very existence. I want to hear them because if I don't, I won't be aware of all the awful things that people make up in their minds about people like me and I won't know how to protect myself against them. Of course I already know many of the awful things that people think and say and do, but having those opinions out in the open where everybody can see them also acts as a barometer for popular opinion. If everybody starts agreeing with the person who says gay people are mentally ill, then I know things are turning bad. If everyone challenges such opinions, and I can see that they are downvoted to [dead], then I know that at least this community is not uniformly hostile. Last, if someone really thinks that people like me are sick or shouldn't exist, what's the point of banning them? That won't change their opinion. We can't change peoples' minds forcefully, and even if we could, we shouldn't. Freedom of thought means that some people will think thoughts everyone else finds despiceable. So be it. If we only accept some views in public discussions and ban all the rest what happens when the political winds change and it's my thoughts and opinions that are not kosher anymore?
scotty79 5y ago
Would you like the people to stop thinking their thoughts or do you like someone else to read those thoughts (if they are published) so that they can 100% shield you from them for free?
dang 5y ago
If you know of a way to write software to classify such comments correctly when they first appear on a public internet forum, I'm all ears. Otherwise, it takes time for countervailing mechanisms, like user flags and moderation, to kick in and deal with such comments. To act like those comments are somehow representative of the community is 100% untrue and I'm ashamed to see you stoop to that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- krapp 5y ago
  >To act like those comments are somehow representative of the community is 100% untrue and I'm ashamed to see you stoop to that. They do represent an aspect of the community. Not the community as a whole - you seem to assume that every criticism of a part of the community is an attack on the whole - rather a toxicity within it that seems to be growing, albeit slowly and not without resistance. That it is growing isn't a reflection on the users and moderators as much as the society that feeds into the community. We can only do what we can, but no one can command the tides. To pretend this toxicity and bad behavior is something alien and wholly detached from the community, or that because comments are flagged and killed they don't represent the community, is specious and counterproductive. All of it is the community, good and bad. This rising toxicity and anger and cynicism is a real problem, and if you didn't take every criticism of the community so defensively as you seem to, I think you'd agree. No, I don't know what can be done about it, but I'm certain it's not a problem that can be solve with software classifiers. I'm not going to be ashamed for pointing it out and complaining about it, either. If we simply quietly downvote and flag but otherwise stay silent, then there's no social pressure against that kind of behavior. But I know you don't like repetition so I'll try not to do it that often.
  - spacechild1 5y ago
    > If we simply quietly downvote and flag but otherwise stay silent People already do speak up. I just don't think that HN has a general homophobia problem. Such comments are definitively outliers and are dealt with by the mods and the community. The only thing I would complain about is that it doesn't happen fast enough for a site like this where posts come and go quickly.