

Ask HN: How it Works: what do the Dave Winer threads tell us about sexism in IT? - flootch

In the past 48 hours there have been two threads "about" Dave Winer, and I think they have given us food for thought about the Hacker News Community.<p>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5738455
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5744224<p>First, I recognize that in many ways, Hacker News was abusive of Dave Winer, and for that, I am sorry that we were abusive to any person. And I hope we can conduct this thread without any more such abuse to anyone.<p>I think the Dave Winer threads are the control in an ongoing experiment in Hacker Community Sexism.<p>And so I do wonder how it works: http://xkcd.com/385/<p>Significant themes in the two Dave Winer threads were:<p><pre><code>    Dave Winer is a *blankety blank*
    I'm sick of hearing about Dave Winer
    Dave Winer is expected to suck it up when we tell him off
    Our behavior in telling Dave Winer off is just SOP for IT
    If Dave Winer complains, it just proves our point
</code></pre>
In the past year, we've seen many similar incidents all around the Internet, and at Hacker News that work like this:<p><pre><code>    Wow, IT is really sexist.
</code></pre>
But when something very similar to these other incidents occurs to a man, it works like this:<p><pre><code>    Wow, IT has a lot of jerks
</code></pre>
So I wonder, if Dave was a woman, would either thread have gone down the rabbit holes? Would the same participants in each thread have behaved in the same way?<p>Substitute a woman's name for "Dave Winer"....<p>And would we be reading about Hacker News sexism today at Salon, Slate, The Washington Post, Reddit, Huffington Post, the Guardian, The New York Times, Jezebel, etc.?<p>Maybe we ignore our real problems by lumping individual misanthropic jerk behavior into a claim  of collective misogyny. Perhaps people should stop projecting onto all of IT, the behaviors of a few.
======
brudgers
A blog would be a more suitable format for these opinions and speculations.

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redmarx
It doesn't matter. Seriously, this is a ridiculous thread. Dave Winer is
always a controversial topic. Know why? Because he's been severely caustic in
the past, to many, many people.

Some people go to far, of course, and they only make Winer look like a victim.
But Winer is only getting a backlash from the way he's acted the past 20
years.

So saying "would a woman receive the same abuse" is a useless question. It
should be "would a woman that has attacked and abused and been generally a
dick towards many people over the past 20 years" receive the same treatment.

Dave Winer has done some cool things in the past. He's also been an asshole
for many years to many people. That's the truth, and saying that doesn't make
me a hater, or a troll. Lastly, you're playing right into his hands. The more
threads the more Winer loves it, and the more he can claim to be a victim.

~~~
rcade
"Many, many people" is an understatement.

~~~
davewiner
I'm not even remotely in your league when it comes to pissing people off.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh8Wl37HYgQ>

You're the popesquatter. ;-)

~~~
rcade
True enough. I'm glad the world's 1.1 billion Catholics didn't hold a grudge.

~~~
davewiner
Yeah that can get kind of unpleasant. ;-)

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition>

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davewiner
A few ideas for HN to cut down on abuse.

[http://threads2.scripting.com/2013/may/aSuggestionForHackerN...](http://threads2.scripting.com/2013/may/aSuggestionForHackerNews)

Dave

~~~
jessaustin
I have a strong suspicion as to how you'll take this comment, but please note
that "Jess Austin" is my actual name and this is not my first comment.

The problems you perceive with HN are not perceived as problems by many of its
users. Since the solutions you suggest have been considered and rejected in
the past, one may assume that the operators of the site have a similar
opinion. As a user, your response to that reality can take a number of forms.
You can simply stop paying attention to HN, and probably cut down on the
stress in your life. You can escalate your posting of this sort of opinion,
which will probably have a different result.

I suggest that you pause to reconsider your opinions. The "one-off flame" you
cite reads like something else to me. It is simply a request for everybody to
stop encouraging the submission of uninteresting material to HN. As evidence
to back up the request, the poster offers the proposition that your behavior
and communications have annoyed many people for many years. I'm sure there are
people on Earth who would disagree with that proposition, but they don't post
much on HN. I don't mean that to be a judgment of you or of your life, and I
doubt that redmarx meant it as such either. HN still isn't a place you'll find
much sugar-coating. redmarx's post is just the truth, stripped of all the
bullshit that accompanies it in less Aspergian environments, with a bit of
vulgarity thrown in for color.

There is probably a response to all of that which wittily acknowledges the
inherent criticism while subtly undercutting it. Suffice it to say that you
haven't found that response yet.

If you prefer fora in which anonymity is discouraged, please try Facebook or
Google Plus.

Thanks for your work on RSS!

~~~
davewiner
If someone doesn't like the submission, why don't they just say that? Why bash
me personally? I didn't submit the piece to HN. I wrote it on my blog. I
didn't force anyone to read it.

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Mz
And this matters why? Wrong is wrong. Does it matter why people were cretins?
Does this do anything to help people behave better?

~~~
Millennium
It matters to the people they're cretins to.

People crave sense in the world around them, especially when it comes to the
bad things that happen to them. When no sense is forthcoming, they will make
their own sense of it, and the natural impulse is to assume that one was
singled out for some reason, good or bad.

Does this help people behave better? Usually not. We aren't in one another's
heads, which makes trying to reconstruct another person's thought processes a
process only slightly more reliable than a shot in the dark. The usual outcome
is a poor match between the victim's hypothesis and the perpetrator's actual
thoughts, and when that happens, it's all too easily dismissed. End result:
nothing changes.

~~~
Mz
You have completely misunderstood my question. I think there is no value in
this thought experiment that ponders "What if Dave Winer had been named
Delores instead?" HN is not the genuine community I originally joined where
respectful discussion occurred.

I am female. I think the community is less assholish than it used to be to
women, though there is room for improvement. However, it is overall a lot more
assholish. I participate less than I used to, in part because of things
unrelated to HN but in part because of the degradation. This thought
experiment does nothing constructive.

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bowerbird
please stop talking about dave winer. at all. _please._

-bowerbird

