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How is this HN appropriate content? If I could flag this, I would. This is an anonymous post on a completely irrelevant blog that has nothing to do with the wo

by ripb 12y ago

How is this HN appropriate content? If I could flag this, I would. This is an anonymous post on a completely irrelevant blog that has nothing to do with the world HN surrounds. Is it too much to ask that Reddit/Tumblr-esque gender wars not be dragged into every online discussion forum available? From the guidelines: "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." Just look at the quality of the discussion this has spawned - pure and utter trash.

SolarNet 12y ago
I'm on the fence, but to play devil's advocate: This is about start ups, it's about hiring and managing different genders, I've seen many great links posted which may help managers in start ups deal with gender issues. I've seen great anecdotal stories about managing different genders. Honestly I've seen very little gender flame war, perhaps because the original article was written by a woman.
- ripb 12y ago
  Well, how do we know it was written by a woman? The post has about as much credibility as an anonymous rant written on a Tumblr blog. It is an anonymous, anecdotal, generalised rant and little more and this type of content, as can be witnessed on a plethora of other popular online fora, tend to lead to the same things repeatedly: - People charging in to furiously counter the generalisation with other shallow personal anecdotes - "Well I have seen men/women do x,y,z!", "In my experience men/women are even worse than men/women at x,y,z!" - People charging in with the "not all men/women" argument - People charging in to back the generalisation up and commit a rant of their own on men/women - etc. But the resounding repeated behaviour is people charging in, emotions on high, to exclaim shallow, generalised and anecdotal stories of their own. Mainly not to discuss the matter, but to push their agenda in the matter. This drives the signal:noise ratio in the wrong direction and, if tolerated, degrades the forum as a whole. I'm not saying that there isn't space for such discussions, but this is not the format for such discussion and only bad can come of it. If anything, mainstream fora have proven to be completely incapable of having rational discussions on gender issues - the more mainstream the less capable (see Reddit.com for example) - and HN is becoming more mainstream as people flood from such sites due to said degradation of the content there.
Pxtl 12y ago
To be fair, it is relevant to the software industry since hiring discrimination in our industry is an important topic. But yeah, this article in particular (and the subject in general) is generating a lot more heat than light.
dang 12y ago
Please don't cite the HN guidelines while breaking them. The problem is not that a Lone Ranger has been lacking to gallop up and tell us not to be Reddit or Tumblr. The problem is that the community is divided. Is it too much to ask that we suppress all discussion of gender issues on HN? Yes, that's too much to ask. Many are on-topic and obviously have to do with "the world HN surrounds". To deny it would be stupid and artificial, would alienate a large number of users with legitimate concerns, and wouldn't work anyway. The problem is that most of the discussions have been deplorable. Given that, you pick an odd hill to rant on. This thread has some bad comments, but overall is better than median. There have been several thoughtful posts from people with relevant experience, including some women. Commenters have mostly been respectful to one another. There has been little juvenile trolling or angry defensiveness. Calling this "pure and utter trash" discredits you as an observer of HN. The OP was trollish, its title outrageous, and its subject inflammatory. The fact that a thread here managed to hold up sort-of ok under so perturbing a signal, rather than immediately being thrown off, is if not a sign of improvement then at least a data point in a better neighborhood.

by ripb 12y ago

SolarNet 12y ago

I'm on the fence, but to play devil's advocate: This is about start ups, it's about hiring and managing different genders, I've seen many great links posted which may help managers in start ups deal with gender issues. I've seen great anecdotal stories about managing different genders. Honestly I've seen very little gender flame war, perhaps because the original article was written by a woman.

ripb 12y ago
Well, how do we know it was written by a woman? The post has about as much credibility as an anonymous rant written on a Tumblr blog. It is an anonymous, anecdotal, generalised rant and little more and this type of content, as can be witnessed on a plethora of other popular online fora, tend to lead to the same things repeatedly: - People charging in to furiously counter the generalisation with other shallow personal anecdotes - "Well I have seen men/women do x,y,z!", "In my experience men/women are even worse than men/women at x,y,z!" - People charging in with the "not all men/women" argument - People charging in to back the generalisation up and commit a rant of their own on men/women - etc. But the resounding repeated behaviour is people charging in, emotions on high, to exclaim shallow, generalised and anecdotal stories of their own. Mainly not to discuss the matter, but to push their agenda in the matter. This drives the signal:noise ratio in the wrong direction and, if tolerated, degrades the forum as a whole. I'm not saying that there isn't space for such discussions, but this is not the format for such discussion and only bad can come of it. If anything, mainstream fora have proven to be completely incapable of having rational discussions on gender issues - the more mainstream the less capable (see Reddit.com for example) - and HN is becoming more mainstream as people flood from such sites due to said degradation of the content there.

Pxtl 12y ago

To be fair, it is relevant to the software industry since hiring discrimination in our industry is an important topic. But yeah, this article in particular (and the subject in general) is generating a lot more heat than light.

dang 12y ago

Please don't cite the HN guidelines while breaking them. The problem is not that a Lone Ranger has been lacking to gallop up and tell us not to be Reddit or Tumblr. The problem is that the community is divided. Is it too much to ask that we suppress all discussion of gender issues on HN? Yes, that's too much to ask. Many are on-topic and obviously have to do with "the world HN surrounds". To deny it would be stupid and artificial, would alienate a large number of users with legitimate concerns, and wouldn't work anyway. The problem is that most of the discussions have been deplorable. Given that, you pick an odd hill to rant on. This thread has some bad comments, but overall is better than median. There have been several thoughtful posts from people with relevant experience, including some women. Commenters have mostly been respectful to one another. There has been little juvenile trolling or angry defensiveness. Calling this "pure and utter trash" discredits you as an observer of HN. The OP was trollish, its title outrageous, and its subject inflammatory. The fact that a thread here managed to hold up sort-of ok under so perturbing a signal, rather than immediately being thrown off, is if not a sign of improvement then at least a data point in a better neighborhood.