
Harassment of Our Authors Is Not Ok: A Conversation - DinahDavis
https://medium.com/code-like-a-girl/harassment-of-our-authors-is-not-ok-a-conversation-d22bbccc63e5#.y5v4xm4t3
======
tptacek
To everyone suggesting that women likely to be harassed should "learn to write
under pen names":

Men who write articles of any quality about helping elderly people learn to
code might take some shit on message board comments, but _none of them become
the target of organized harassment campaigns_.

The notion that women should write under pen names while men freely and safely
claim credit for any random achievement is a perfect example of how this
industry allows itself to be rigged against women. Women aren't even supposed
to identify themselves --- when they do, they're just allowing themselves to
be victimized by the forces of nature, which apparently include mobs of
misogynist trolls.

~~~
roughly27
>none of them become the target of organized harassment campaigns.

That's quite dismissive of men who have become the target of harassment
campaigns.

>The notion that women should write under pen names while men freely and
safely claim credit for any random achievement is a perfect example of how
this industry allows itself to be rigged against women. Women aren't even
supposed to identify themselves --- when they do, they're just allowing
themselves to be victimized by the forces of nature, which apparently include
mobs of misogynist trolls.

There are plenty of men who cannot safely claim credit for their writings,
though the reason is usually ideological rather than rooted in their identity.
If you, as a man or a woman, post something which is found disagreeable by a
large majority of your peers in 2016, someone will come after your job.
Someone will try to find out where you live. To ignore this problem and solely
focus on the fact that women receive snide, misogynist comments sometimes when
they write innocuous articles seems intellectually dishonest.

~~~
tptacek
I am dismissive of the idea that men become the targets of similar harassment
campaigns, yes. If there is a way for me to articulate more dismissiveness,
let me know, I'll do that too.

~~~
DanBC
You're clearly wrong here. Men do become the targets of massive campaigns of
hate.

Not as often as women, but that wasn't the claim being made.

~~~
tedunangst
The claim being made is that men are not targets of SIMILAR campaigns, as in
selected for the sin of being a man.

~~~
Nadya
Which is also complete bullshit - they are and by certain and predictable
demographics. There's even a new term thrown at them: mansplaining.

And yes, some authors have been "selected for the sin of being a man".

~~~
tptacek
The idea that men being accused of "mansplaining"† is meant to equate to
organized harassment campaigns against women pretty much sums this whole issue
up.

Thank you. If I had myself suggested people believed that, I'd be accused of
caricaturing. But we'd both know: I wouldn't have been.

† _(or "patronizing", a word that means_ literally the exact same thing _and
has somehow been used for centuries without mortally injuring our manly
feels)_

~~~
Nadya
_> The idea that men being accused of "mansplaining"† is meant to equate to
organized harassment campaigns against women pretty much sums this whole issue
up._

No and that isn't what I said. That was in reference to a certain demographic
of people that _do_ target men specifically because they are men and men are
equivalent to being the devil, since their beliefs are borderline a religion
to begin with I feel fine in making that equivalence.

------
Kurimo
I support this discourse and hope the author of the original article will feel
confident to write again.

I have no idea how to solve the monstrous problems related to internet
harassment. It is well out of hand, especially as regards women on the
internet (see: Anita Sarkeesian).

I think a discourse definitely needs to happen. But maybe the only solution
lies in the education and mental health systems. But again, I don't know. Wish
I knew, wish I could do more to help. Wish my gender weren't responsible for
the vast majority of the harassment, violence, and threats of violence.

Best of luck. Please keep posting about this topic and looking for and
experimenting with solutions. Progress can only be made by people like you
taking the time to try to do something about an urgent problem like this.

~~~
dominotw
>Wish my gender weren't responsible for the vast majority of the harassment,
violence, and threats of violence.

You are an individual not nameless member of a gang called 'men'. Its strange
to hold yourself accountable for some random person on the internet.

~~~
roughly27
Unfortunately, collectivism is in vogue at the moment.

~~~
snowwrestler
Fighting harassment is the _opposite_ of collectivism. It seeks to allow each
individual the greatest opportunity to express themselves freely, as
themselves.

It is harassment--and the apologists for harassment--who advocate for a
collectivist approach to society, in which individuals must cloak their true
identities if they dare to challenge the herd, or be punished.

~~~
roughly27
>Fighting harassment is the opposite of collectivism. It seeks to allow each
individual the greatest opportunity to express themselves freely, as
themselves.

... by curtailing the freedoms of other individuals, in the name of group
wellbeing.

Regardless of whether harassment is collectivist or not, I was simply pointing
out that feeling guilty for actions of people in a similar demographic group
to you (an overtly collectivist action) is currently wildly popular.

~~~
snowwrestler
The opposite of collectivism is not unconstrained individual freedom. Strong
private property rights can hardly be considered collectivist, yet they
constrain your freedom: you can only make decisions about the property you
own. My property rights constrain your freedom to (for example) walk across my
land, harvest my crops, or use my computer.

When a woman expresses herself in a substantive way, and gets 100 responses
telling her to get back in the kitchen, get raped, etc., it is the harassers
who are employing group-first thinking: something like, "she's a woman, so she
should shut up and just do what I want all women do."

Gender-based harassment is essentially homogenous. Suppressing such harassment
prioritizes the unique expression of an individual over the horde. This is
analogous to how laws against assault and battery improve individual freedom
of movement, despite constraining your freedom to punch people in the face
whenever you want.

Anyway, the poster at the top of this subthread didn't even say he felt
guilty. He just said, "Wish my gender weren't responsible for the vast
majority of the harassment, violence, and threats of violence." That's just
stating a personal opinion about a fact.

------
roughly27
If you post content on the internet, it's not reasonable to expect that no one
will find issues, disagree, or even directly confront you over the content you
post. While outright, persistent harassment is undeniably a problem, the
'solutions' proposed to solve it invariably impose onerous restrictions on
freedom.

If 'harassment' is to be filtered content, then you must appoint someone to
decide what is harassment and what is not. This person (or algorithm) will
select what they view as harassment based on their ideological position. It's
a far simpler and less dangerous task to block or ignore unwanted information
than it is to filter every tweet, email, and status update and decide if it
qualifies as 'harassment' or not.

This is a problem that transcends identity. There is an urge to control the
discourse. It shows up when basement-dwellers harass a medium author for
posting an article they find goes against their ideals, and it shows up when
people like Curtis Yarvin are denied entry to conferences because they post
political opinions that others disagree with. Some indie game devs get
harassed to the point where they feel too unsafe to stay in their homes, and
some indie devs have people persistently trying to make them unemployed and
unemployable.

------
EliRivers
"A lot of the comments were about the post’s grammar and structure; far fewer
were about the actual content."

Of course they were. There is a despicable passive-aggressive smugness that is
far too common, involving demonstrating one's superiority by sniping at the
medium (no pun intended) instead of addressing the message; it allows one to
show off without having to take any risks. I've found it very common in
circles in which many participants spent their formative years being clever
and being told how clever they are.

~~~
xemdetia
Aside from the other bits mentioned in the article isn't 'comments about the
post's grammar and structure' one of the most valuable pieces of feedback? I
am not sure why they would call it out as a bad thing. If you are trying to
send ideas and the person trying to receive the ideas is having more trouble
trying to decode how you sent it rather than work with the idea being sent you
have a problem. When you get earnest critical critique that is more rewarding
any day than a +1 or like on facebook, since you know exactly what needs to be
done for next time.

~~~
seanyo
Co-Editor of the Medium publication here.

You're definitely right that we can't share our ideas if we don't effectively
communicate them. I know I deeply appreciate when people take the time to
respond with comments to help make what I've shared better. +1 are always
great, but comments are better :)

For me, how we write is as important as what we right - both need to be good
enough to successfully communicate our ideas.

I also want to share that I often encounter copy-editing responses that I see
as cover for bias. Not all copy-editing feedback is a cover for bias, but much
of what I see is - I think this happens because it is easier and less risky to
comment, critique or outright attack the form of a position rather than
engaging with the with substance of the position.

The kind of bias I'm referring to, and the sort of responses it can lead to is
described in this article:

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fact-checking-is-
largely...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fact-checking-is-largely-
irrelevant-because-
deceit_us_57ea8cd3e4b07f20daa0fbd2?ncid=engmodushpmg00000003)

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts on this. I really appreciate
it.

Sean Yo

~~~
EliRivers
_For me, how we write is as important as what we right_

I see what you did there, and it suggests a playfulness that means a question
I was crafting about the literalness of that statement can be dumped. If
anything, you've demonstrated that the wrong word in the right place can carry
an enormous subtext. This, though, is a layer beyond merely correct spelling.

------
sosuke
Are they drawing a conclusion that, because the majority of the visitors came
through the Hacker News link, that Hacker News users are the source of the
negative commentary? Seems like conjecture at best.

It is a dangerous thing to put yourself out there to the public. It takes a
lot of courage to do it and often you get no response at all. I agree we
should strive for a better community I'm merely thinking out loud. I've seen
more and more outlets removing or minimizing comment sections because of what
kind of content they fill up with.

~~~
anexprogrammer
I vaguely remember the discussion on their first response.

The HN commentary was very negative, and very much not what I usually expect
to see on HN. I was rather surprised at the tone.

That HN post was flagged and removed fairly quickly if I remember right -
perhaps from the tone of dicussion.

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
The only reason I can think of that would not be exactly what I expect from HN
is because it got flagged and hidden before too many of the usual kind of
commentators showed up.
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12115921](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12115921))

------
tombert
While I don't support harassment in any way, isn't it an inevitability when
posting something on a public forum?

I've gotten plenty of comments telling me to "kill myself", despite being a
male and despite being an adult. I'm not saying that my level of harassment is
comparable to that of a young lady coder, but I am saying that it's not
_exclusive_ to any one demographic.

~~~
some-guy
> despite being a male and despite being an adult

I think there's your answer. I'm also male and adult, but I've been online
long enough to know what the dark side of the internet is like. Like you, I
also don't take these things as personally.

But why should be only accept the lowest common denominator of
"inevitability"? Why should me being okay with something mean that everyone
should be okay with it?

~~~
tombert
I'm not entirely sure why I'm getting downvotes for this, but I guess I've had
a knack for that in the last couple days. With any luck I'll lose my
downvoting privileges soon.

I didn't say we should "accept" anything, and I don't endorse harassment of
anyone, and I'd greatly prefer people didn't tell to go "kill themselves" (a
commonly cited case of harassment).

That said, it's not like it's a big secret that jerks exist on the internet.
Anyone who posts something publicly should expect some hate. I'm not saying
it's right, I'm not saying it's fair, and I'm not saying I agree with it, but
you'd have to be insane to deny it happens.

~~~
oldmanjay
It is politically convenient to pretend that anyone who has a realistic view
of the internet re: the deep shittiness of some denizens must also be
complicit in such shittiness. This facilitates emotional resonance when
discussing said shittiness which allows those in positions of leadership to
gain some form of power over people who are vulnerable to the emotional
manipulation

It's not a good idea to talk about this sort of thing. Those who use it tend
to have no compunction using the accrued power for vigilantism

------
abcdthrowEw
As I have conservative political views I am forced to use a pen name and the
drawbacks are real.

~~~
sosuke
Anonymous users, handles, they are much harder to cultivate a solid reputation
around.

~~~
CaptSpify
You are correct, but so what?

I personally like the anonymization that the internet provides via handles,
because it allows ideas to stand stronger in seclusion than be propped up by
reputation.

------
bargl
My suggestions to mitigate this issue are as follows:

1) Educate readers that it is not ok to harass your Authors (or anyone really)
but I get that your job is to protect your people.

2) Protect your authors through anonymity and teaching them good online
habits. Pen names for younger authors is a great idea. Especially for first
time authors who don't like the limelight and don't want to deal with the
direct messages they will inevitably receive. And if you have a first time
author coach them on the kinds of responses they can expect. Some negative
reviews will get through unless you go to anonymous so education has to be
part of that.

3) Join in the fight against online harassment. I don't have any links but
this is a problem and people need to know that bullying (online) isn't OK.

4) Edit your posts. Grammar is much harder to make fun of if the mistakes
aren't there. This is not a justification of others actions but a suggestion
on how to avoid this specific type of bullying.

5) Be active in the HN comments and point out that specific comments aren't
addressing content but instead just being nit picky. This could fall into the
gratuitous negativity section of the HN guidelines but that's kind of a
stretch.

EDIT: The following are options but things you should not do. I tried to make
that clear with the comments associated with these two options but I didn't
make it clear enough. Don't do the following two unless you want to completely
change your community.

6) This is optional but you can implement a login feature that requires people
to link to facebook and then you can monitor your readers activity. It will
loose you a ton of traffic but if it's really that important to you this is a
way you can limit who can read your articles and thereby protect your authors.
I don't think this is a good idea personally but it is an idea, only you can
decide to lock down your content like that.

7) Public shaming, which IMO should be avoided at all costs, but if someone is
harassing someone else this can turn the tables. It also leads to witch
hunting and perpetuates a whole different problem that should be avoided at
all costs.

Online communities have jerks. No matter where you go you'll find them. HN is
no exception. This community does not ban people from reading articles or
monitor it's users outside of this site, so HN as an organization can't
enforce this other than to spread the message and show people it's not OK.

My suggestion is try 1-5 for now and see how it goes.

~~~
FrancoDiaz
_6) This is optional but you can implement a login feature that requires
people to link to facebook and then you can monitor your readers activity._

You really stand by "monitor your readers activity"?

~~~
bargl
I didn't mean to imply monitor. I meant to say keep a history and mediate.
AKA, if you have a message board and someone says something offensive you can
get rid of that user. Monitor to me implies mitigating users based on ML,
history/mediate requires human intervention.

 _I don 't think this is a good idea personally but it is an idea, only you
can decide to lock down your content like that._

No I don't stand by it. It's an option, they asked for options. This is a bad
one, but it depends on how serious they are about protecting their authors.

------
rndmind
If you cannot deal with controversy and criticism, regardless of its merits,
do the yourself a favor and stay at home away from danger and critics.

~~~
etjossem
How about you "do the yourself a favor" and proofread your comments?

I'm sorry, I just meritoriously criticized you in a way that was still rude as
hell. That was completely my fault. Just like the young woman mentioned in the
blog post: no matter how thick your skin, you don't deserve unkind jabs at
your grasp of the English language.

------
seibelj
Anytime you put yourself out there, a not-insignificant portion of the
commenters will have negative things to say. I think there is a lesson about
getting thicker skin. And yes, there is no doubt that being a woman in the
internet, especially a young woman, gets worse criticism and creepiness. It's
a tough world

~~~
etjossem
Have you considered that this might instead be a lesson in not contributing to
the problem of harassment? Hacker News prides itself on an atmosphere of civil
discourse - and that's reflected in our guidelines. We're not Reddit and we
certainly aren't 4chan.

We as a community dropped the ball by allowing this to happen.

~~~
seibelj
I'm not approving what happened. I don't think we are going to solve this
issue, as it's a problem on every website everywhere and no one has been able
to keep a forum anonymous and civil at the same time without heavy handed
moderators policing all speech and manually approving every comment. The
easier solution is to say to yourself, "by posting this on the internet some
people may be mad at me and voice their displeasure, but it's a risk I'm
willing to take".

~~~
etjossem
It is _very_ easy for you and I to throw up our hands and say the online
trolling problem will never be solved, because we don't generally experience
it in full force. We have the ability to shrug off comments that are
unconstructively critical of us, because they only come very occasionally and
are drowned out by positive comments.

Meanwhile, there are new voices that want in on the conversation - maybe
they're young, or female, or minorities. They are routinely getting shouted
down by our community, and here we are, admitting that they wouldn't face the
same ire if they obscured their experience/gender/race by writing under
psuedonyms.

I will do my part. I will downvote trolls, and I'd encourage others to do the
same.

~~~
seibelj
It's great that you will downvote comments and encourage other to do the same.
This is what non-trolls have been doing forever and that will not solve the
problem on its own. The best solution is to either accept reality and ignore
the haters, or even better, think up some novel, innovative solution to crack
the nut of online trolls. But that is very, very hard and no one has yet
succeeded. Facebook does well because no one is anonymous. Reddit is a
cesspool for the opposite reason, where each subreddit is only as strong as
the moderation team and the users regularly flagging content.

~~~
etjossem
It's not a technical problem - it's a community problem. Some of us are happy
to admit defeat and ignore bad behavior against marginalized groups, rather
than actively responding to it, because it doesn't affect _us_ nearly as
deeply.

This is the story of Reddit's 4chanization and it could be the story of HN
too, if we don't make a point of caring about our guidelines.

------
sickbeard
It feels like the entire community is being blamed because she received
unwarranted attention from one reader? isn't this a common problem for people
who put themselves out in public? Why wouldn't using a pen name suffice?

~~~
peterbonney
Why should a woman be forced to forego the kind of writing credit that helps
build her CV, while her male peers aren't forced to do the same? It's patently
unfair to say "if you don't like it, write anonymously" when men are far less
likely to receive this treatment than women.

~~~
rubidium
I'm not disagreeing with your statement, and the harassment of authors is
definitely not ok.

But it's worth saying that pen-name !=anonymous. For most publications, you
can put articles you write under a pen-name and have the publication verify
your pen-name for CV purposes.

------
otempomores
Harrasment of individuals with diffrent opinions and avoiding of discussions
with real arguments by our authors ..very okay.

------
falcolas
I think it's a truism that if you put yourself out there on the internet,
you're going to be harassed. Full stop.

It won't matter if you're male, female or other. If you're tall, short,
skinny, young, old, fat, white, black, green. If English is your first or your
10th language. If you confuse their and they're. There's always going to be a
subset of people out there who are going to attack you no matter what.

Are some subsets of characteristics more susceptable to abuse than others?
Yes. Try being overweight and admitting to that on any message board.

It sucks, but it's reality. I firmly approve of the use of pseudonyms (or even
better "anonymous"); it's the only thing that will make people focus on the
content, not your physical characteristics.

I'm truly sorry this young woman had to learn this fact in this way. I hope
she continues her work with the elderly, and continues to write under a
pseudonym. I wish she didn't have to, but the reality is people will respect
what she has to write more if she does.

~~~
peterbonney
> It won't matter if you're male, female or other.

Unfortunately some are more likely to be harassed than others. I don't know a
male writer who has been consistently, systematically harassed. I don't know a
female writer who hasn't been.

(For avoidance of doubt I know several writers of both genders.)

~~~
falcolas
How about a white male youtube personality? Boogie is harassed with every
video he puts up. How about Total Biscuit, who receives death threats pretty
regularly from anti-gg folks.

~~~
peterbonney
Of course there are male media personalities who are harassed, and (maybe?)
female media personalities who aren't. The point is that no rational person
could possibly claim that the frequency and severity is the same for
writers/hosts/etc. of both genders.

~~~
falcolas
I never claimed that the ratios are the same. I even pointed out in my op that
they will be different for different groups.

I'm claiming it doesn't matter - if you put yourself out there, you're opening
yourself up to be attacked. And the only way to avoid that is to be anonymous,
and let your opinions and arguments stand on their own merits.

Anything else has been historically shown to fail. Blizzard's real name
policy? Failed to stop the trolls. Community Guidelines? Trolls don't care. A
sternly worded letter? Just lets the trolls revel in their success.

