
Ask HN: Am I welcome here? - charlesn
Hi HN,<p>I finally got around to reading some of ESR&#x27;s writing and I feel sad and disappointed. I know that there are many people in the world with strong, negative feelings about people like me, but I didn&#x27;t realize how interwoven those ideas are with the other communities that I interact with.<p>So, my question: am I welcome here?<p>It&#x27;s tempting to write off these sorts of questions as being irrational or over-emotional; to say that facts don&#x27;t care about your feelings. But of course, they do[0]. These issues are deeply cyclic, the way that we talk about them and the conclusions we draw feed back into the issues themselves.<p>I&#x27;m not trying to make any sort of moral judgement here - to say that anyone should change their opinions or the way in which they express them. But I&#x27;m coming, painfully, to understand why tech communities can feel so intimidating. And I know that, if I set my talent and passion aside and leave tech, I&#x27;ll be seen by some as another example of how [X people] can&#x27;t hack-it in the tech world.<p>Maybe you think you know better than I do what it&#x27;s like to be me. You don&#x27;t. You don&#x27;t know me. But I wish you did. I&#x27;d love to get a drink with you and geek-out about dependent types and AI policy and the semantic web.<p>I know that HN isn&#x27;t the place for political posts, but I hope that I can share my feelings about something that is both personal and relevant to this community without making a political statement. If there are others who have asked this same question, or have found an answer, I&#x27;d love to hear your thoughts. Cheers&#x2F;<p>[0] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Bias
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mindcrime
If you're into Semantic Web, you're welcome here in my eyes!

More seriously, esr doesn't speak for everybody in the "hacker community" even
to the extent that there is one, cohesive "hacker community" to talk about.
And he definitely doesn't speak for HN or everybody here. And I say this as
somebody who does respect a portion (but not all) of what esr has to say.

Beyond that... you don't say what you mean by "people like me", but by and
large, the answer is "yes, you are welcome here". Most HN posters are most
interested in someone's intellectual contribution than any other features
about that person that are the kinds of things that people often show bias
around (eg, sexual orientation, religion, gender, skin color, ethnicity, etc).

OTOH, realize that HN culture is not big on coddling people, or showing people
special attention or deference either. And some people here can be blunt,
arguably even rude at times. So if you're very thin-skinned and take offense
easily, then you may well find yourself feeling uncomfortable at times. But to
a first approximation, we can say that it won't be because of your (sexual
orientation, religion, gender, skin color, ethnicity, ...).

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slater
> strong, negative feelings about people like me

You haven't said anything about yourself. What is it about you that some
people have strong negative feelings about?

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krapp
It's just an internet forum. Some people will welcome you, some people will
hate you, many people will disagree with you for sport, many others won't
care. Hacker News isn't a monoculture, even if it seems that way depending on
which threads you visit and who shows up for them. Just don't take karma or
downvotes seriously and you'll be fine.

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nhkssol
HN isn't the place for self-reflection but if someone else or an article
raises a topic that you have a discussion provoking opinion of, feel free to
comment.

