3 ms·

You are making a quantifiable assertion. If you'd really like to back up the claim, go grab some of the threads on this subject, and spider the account pages o

You are making a quantifiable assertion. If you'd really like to back up the claim, go grab some of the threads on this subject, and spider the account pages of the people posting to the threads. Plot them by amount of karma and # of days since the account was opened. As much as i do think /r/mensrights are assholes who are making this situation worse, i would assert that there is a preexisting strain of this behavior on Hacker News, and this behavior is not an incident isolated just to this debacle.

DanBC 14y ago
Anyone doing this needs to have showdead turned on - there was a bunch of stuff posted by new accounts that got downvoted.
zevyoura 14y ago
I don't really want to devote more mental energy to this topic than it's already consumed. I do agree that there are problematic elements within the tech community, and HN. I acknowledged this in my post: "Of course, there is some overlap between [extremists] and the tech community..."
- niggler 14y ago
  "I don't really want to devote more mental energy to this topic than it's already consumed." The problem is, unless more mental energy is expended on this topic, it will be repeated. Better to have the full conversation now than to continually punt the issue.
  - mercurial 14y ago
    The problem is that people talking about it on a geeky news aggregator won't change the tech culture, and that similar incidents are to be expected in the future.
    - niggler 14y ago
      I have it on good authority that many tech news sources draw material from comments on this and other sites like reddit.
  - illuminate 14y ago
    "The problem is, unless more mental energy is expended on this topic, it will be repeated. Better to have the full conversation now than to continually punt the issue." As much as I support discussion on these topics, it's the internet. Any message board will continue to bring up these issues in waves, as new events occur, as new posters join up, there is not going to be one article where everyone achieves some sort of understanding, now or ever. Set your expectations realistically :)
doktrin 14y ago
>You are making a quantifiable assertion. If you'd really like to back up the claim, go grab some of the threads on this subject, and spider the account pages of the people posting to the threads. I don't see how plotting thread discussions on HN would even vaguely correlate to the Twitter abuse the GP was referring to.
- knowtheory 14y ago
  zevyoura was asserting that the behavior seen on twitter is not representative of our community, and that those sentiments are isolated to a set of bad actors. My assertion is that there is a substantial number of people who share that same ill will here on hacker news. Most of the threads that have been posted to HN have been dog piles of hating on Adria Richards. So the question is are those people new and in fact not representative of HN? Or are they people who have been around for a while, and have made substantive contributions to the community (using karma as a proxy measure)?
  - doktrin 14y ago
    I understand what you are trying to quantify, but I think you may be conflating sentiment. zevyoura was responding directly to the GP's comment which made reference to use of the word "cunt" as well as threats / wishes of rape (and worse). The assertion being that the tech community was not responsible for some of the most hateful vitriol, none of which (AFAIK) was mirrored on HN. Assuming that in fact all thread contributions were in opposition, it seems uncharitable to infer that simply because a HN contributor disagrees with Adria's actions that they are also somehow equivalent to the worst offenders on Twitter, FB and the like. As zevyoura mentioned, there may be overlap - but IMHO this isn't as quantifiable an assertion as you make it out to be.
  - katbyte 14y ago
    Aren't the names of new users shown in green? So unless they already had accounts waiting around then people new to hackers news would stand out pretty easily.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
Phlarp 14y ago
>As much as i do think /r/mensrights are assholes who are making this situation worse, i would assert that there is a preexisting strain of this behavior on Hacker News, and this behavior is not an incident isolated just to this debacle. Having recently discovered the /r/shitredditsays brigades, I'm not sure I'm comfortable seeing /r/mensrights called out without a mention of /r/srs, they are both equally egregious and antagonistic toward each other. And the pre-existing ideological warriors from either side have attached themselves to these communities just as swiftly as they rushed to the respective defense of each side of this story.
- illuminate 14y ago
  From what I've gleaned, /srs is pretty brutal, but towards the behavior of the MRAs. They are most likely a good mix of men and not attacking MRAs for being men who dare talk out about... the "gynocracy" or something. Your false equivalency is unnecessary and misplaced.
ryguytilidie 14y ago
To be fair, she claimed that these people represented the tech community, the responder said that they didn't represent the tech community and you instantly jump in to put the burden of proof on statement 2? Why not statement 1? If we're really calling the tech community sexist because someone got twitter hate after an article was posted on Reddit I'm just blown away at the logic gymnastics one would have to do to arrive at the point you've seemingly just arrived at...

DanBC 14y ago

Anyone doing this needs to have showdead turned on - there was a bunch of stuff posted by new accounts that got downvoted.

zevyoura 14y ago

I don't really want to devote more mental energy to this topic than it's already consumed. I do agree that there are problematic elements within the tech community, and HN. I acknowledged this in my post: "Of course, there is some overlap between [extremists] and the tech community..."

niggler 14y ago
"I don't really want to devote more mental energy to this topic than it's already consumed." The problem is, unless more mental energy is expended on this topic, it will be repeated. Better to have the full conversation now than to continually punt the issue.
- mercurial 14y ago
  The problem is that people talking about it on a geeky news aggregator won't change the tech culture, and that similar incidents are to be expected in the future.
  - niggler 14y ago
    I have it on good authority that many tech news sources draw material from comments on this and other sites like reddit.
- illuminate 14y ago
  "The problem is, unless more mental energy is expended on this topic, it will be repeated. Better to have the full conversation now than to continually punt the issue." As much as I support discussion on these topics, it's the internet. Any message board will continue to bring up these issues in waves, as new events occur, as new posters join up, there is not going to be one article where everyone achieves some sort of understanding, now or ever. Set your expectations realistically :)

doktrin 14y ago

>You are making a quantifiable assertion. If you'd really like to back up the claim, go grab some of the threads on this subject, and spider the account pages of the people posting to the threads. I don't see how plotting thread discussions on HN would even vaguely correlate to the Twitter abuse the GP was referring to.

knowtheory 14y ago
zevyoura was asserting that the behavior seen on twitter is not representative of our community, and that those sentiments are isolated to a set of bad actors. My assertion is that there is a substantial number of people who share that same ill will here on hacker news. Most of the threads that have been posted to HN have been dog piles of hating on Adria Richards. So the question is are those people new and in fact not representative of HN? Or are they people who have been around for a while, and have made substantive contributions to the community (using karma as a proxy measure)?
- doktrin 14y ago
  I understand what you are trying to quantify, but I think you may be conflating sentiment. zevyoura was responding directly to the GP's comment which made reference to use of the word "cunt" as well as threats / wishes of rape (and worse). The assertion being that the tech community was not responsible for some of the most hateful vitriol, none of which (AFAIK) was mirrored on HN. Assuming that in fact all thread contributions were in opposition, it seems uncharitable to infer that simply because a HN contributor disagrees with Adria's actions that they are also somehow equivalent to the worst offenders on Twitter, FB and the like. As zevyoura mentioned, there may be overlap - but IMHO this isn't as quantifiable an assertion as you make it out to be.
- katbyte 14y ago
  Aren't the names of new users shown in green? So unless they already had accounts waiting around then people new to hackers news would stand out pretty easily.
- jiggy2011 14y ago

Phlarp 14y ago

>As much as i do think /r/mensrights are assholes who are making this situation worse, i would assert that there is a preexisting strain of this behavior on Hacker News, and this behavior is not an incident isolated just to this debacle. Having recently discovered the /r/shitredditsays brigades, I'm not sure I'm comfortable seeing /r/mensrights called out without a mention of /r/srs, they are both equally egregious and antagonistic toward each other. And the pre-existing ideological warriors from either side have attached themselves to these communities just as swiftly as they rushed to the respective defense of each side of this story.

illuminate 14y ago
From what I've gleaned, /srs is pretty brutal, but towards the behavior of the MRAs. They are most likely a good mix of men and not attacking MRAs for being men who dare talk out about... the "gynocracy" or something. Your false equivalency is unnecessary and misplaced.

ryguytilidie 14y ago

To be fair, she claimed that these people represented the tech community, the responder said that they didn't represent the tech community and you instantly jump in to put the burden of proof on statement 2? Why not statement 1? If we're really calling the tech community sexist because someone got twitter hate after an article was posted on Reddit I'm just blown away at the logic gymnastics one would have to do to arrive at the point you've seemingly just arrived at...