Still Here, Part 1: A Memoir

by panic • 12 years ago

206 196 12 years ago

song• 12 years ago

I have a seething hatred for weev, his clique and anyone who behaves similarly. I hope to think they're a small minority of people but it's amazing how many women they've tried to turn off tech with their idiocy, their defamation, their death threats and their abuse.

When I see what happens to women in tech and a lot of the abuse they have to withstand, I admire those that can stand the trolls. I don't think I would be this resilient faced with this abuse.

I wish we could be in a world where everybody would be accepted in the tech community regardless of gender, race or sexual orientation. I hoped before that due to the relatively higher education level of tech workers, people would be more tolerant but it seems that's not the case.

PS: Now, in the case of weev and his AT & T conviction, I of course support reversing it and support the work that EFF is doing defending him but that's despite weev. It's because, in this particular issue, he's innocent. That doesn't stop him from being an horrible person.

jacquesm3• 12 years ago

Horrible people are the best touchstone for principles. If you can stand up for the rights of horrible people then you're probably doing ok.

EDIT: It's weird, I'm so conflicted about 'weev'. I have serious problems with him going to jail the way he did (and I know he's been released), but at the same time I feel that I'd probably be A-ok with him serving jail time for the wanton destruction of other peoples lives (and then pretending he never did it whereas he first proudly claimed he had) that he inflicted with so much carelessness, some of which is detailed in this article.

He's right up there with the child pornographers. I recall my frustration with the way /. got overrun by weev and his buddies in their eternal quest for negative attention and griefing. Total jerks, the lot of them.

tomp5• 12 years ago

So wait, in the first paragraph you're saying that we should stand up for horrible people's rights, and in the second, you're saying he should go to jail because he's a horrible person. Which one is it?

Personally, my principles are perfectly clear: just because I disagree with someone's opinions or behaviors, that doesn't mean they should go to jail (actually, that shouldn't even be a debate!). As long as he has not physically harmed anybody, he should be a free man.

If we start jailing people for the psychological harm they cause, we would jail a lot of people (including most of the politicians). It's better if we (as the society) learn how to ignore the trolls, and give less fuck about what other people think/say/do.

Thankfully, that's mostly the problem in USA, not in Europe so much. We don't freak out every time someone curses on TV or shows her boobs. (On the other hand, we have other issues, e.g. xenophobia, gag orders, lack of free speech, ...)

knowtheory4• 12 years ago

Kathy Sierra made her feelings on the subject very clear on twitter before she left.

Weev is a horrible person, and probably he even deserves to go to jail. But he does not deserve to go to jail based on bullshit.

We should never forget that injustice done to Weev is not the same as justice for the things he done.

calibraxis3• 12 years ago

Reminds me of what Grigori Perelman (who quit math professionally) said about mathematicians: "Of course, there are many mathematicians who are more or less honest. But almost all of them are conformists. They are more or less honest, but they tolerate those who are not honest."

Sometimes you see programmers mulling over why someone would leave math over this. Unfortunately, it doesn't strike them to use their own profession's lack of ethics as an analogy: racism and sexism. Many more leave programming over this. (Or at least stop helping their fellow programmer, because they don't like them overall.)

yummyfajitas11• 12 years ago

I wonder though, has he actually turned a statistically significant number of people off?

Suppose field X had a crazy person so dedicated that he shot a US president in order to send a message to a woman working there (far more than Weev has done). Suppose that pervert letters to women in field X were completely expected and commonplace, and had been for many years. Would women flee from X?

Surprisingly, acting has no shortage of women. Pervs sending creepy letters is a topic of humor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmeh7EHpIE0

Journalism has similar issues. Still plenty of women. Seems like there must be something else at play.

[edit: replaced the word "anyone" with "a statistically significant number". This better expresses what I meant to say.]

empthought2• 12 years ago

Idle speculation: tech attracts more than its fair share of introverts relative to those career choices, and for someone who needs just a little positive social interaction from time to time, the risk of extremely negative social interaction being the norm is too great.

unimpressive2• 12 years ago

Well to be fair, there the harassment comes from industry outsiders. Here a lot of people in the mob and part of the abuse are people who could be considered in 'tech'. That hurts a lot more than if it's just weird schizophrenics sending letters to the people they see on the telly.

Further, we're not even really talking about pervy letters so much as dedicated campaigns to get people fired, etc.

wpietri18• 12 years ago

It turns out he has actually turned someone off. Kathy Sierra is a fine example of that.

Also, you are smart enough to know that "acting has no shortage of women" is a dumb argument. The question of whether the distribution of women in field X is affected by historical events cannot be determined only by looking at the current distribution of women in field X.

jxf• 12 years ago

That's survivor bias [0]. The point isn't whether there's still at least one woman in the field, or whether there's "plenty of women" (what does that even mean, anyway?). The point is whether anyone was stopped from entering the field at all.

The ones who are still in the field are the ones most resilient to the abuse. But you miss out on the contributions of all the people who left and did something else. How much farther along might we be in software engineering, or sculpture, or architecture, or <insert your favorite field here> -- had the toxic environment not been present in the first place?

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

dandelany3• 12 years ago

In acting and journalism, the pervy letters come from people outside the community which, ironically, can strengthen the sense of community becase women have a common external threat which unites them. In tech, the letters come from within, often from "well-respected" members of the tech world. It's no wonder this has the opposite effect.

vxNsr• 12 years ago

You're missing the point. We're not so much worried about "the industry losing brain power" but that collectively, as a society, we treat other human beings that way.

No one should have to go through any of the things the OP writes about, and if it's happening in our community we have an obligation to find a way to stop it!

I'm a guy and I'll admit, before I read that post, I thought that this whole gamergate thing was two sides over reacting and generally just being stupid. I'll also say that I'm not in the whole subculture, I have RL friends and spend most of my social life there, I occasionally drop into hackernews to catch cool articles... I'm often baffled by this whole subculture people talk about.

ZeroGravitas4• 12 years ago

Weev's own words are probably the best way to expose him:

http://weev.livejournal.com/409913.html

The fact that he goes to such lengths to sound reasonable and yet fails adds a very dark cast to the whole affair and appropriating the "politically correct" language of what he considers the enemy is a big part of Gamergate too.

He struggles to keep it up for long periods of time though, e.g. his reponse to a comment question, "do you support gamergate?":

"As much I can support a bunch of beta faggots crying about vidya.

I agree that feminist nutjobs are ruining the tech industry, of which I suppose the video game development industry is a subset. I'll agree that #GamerGate probably has moral superiority to a bunch of useless whores whining about shit that they profess to dislike yet still want to dominate and destroy anyways.

However, probably all of the /v/ and /gg/ faggots need to be more admirable and brutal in their tactics. This reasoned and polite dialogue that they are attempting with these degenerates and their histrionic shills is obviously not going to work. They need to start putting jackboots on the ground."

aw3c210• 12 years ago

To maybe save some from reading through this rambling who like to stay away from the topic: It does not seem to be about women in tech generally but seems to boil down to the work of a few socio-/psychopaths caught in a feedback loop.

nounaut• 12 years ago

You sound like you're probably part of the problem.

aw3c210• 12 years ago

Uh... Please elaborate?

lost_my_pwd• 12 years ago

Please don't do that; a hit and run labeling does nothing to improve the situation.

If you think the grandparent poster is part of the problem, at least explain your reasoning. Without that, there's no chance of them correcting their behavior or, at the very least, seeing things from a new perspective.

Not saying I do or do not agree with your assessment; just hoping for more constructive discourse and positive criticism on HN going forward.

JonnieCache2• 12 years ago

I stopped hanging around on IRC because of people always being weird to women, it's just depressing to watch. Maybe I should have stayed and made a stand...

TazeTSchnitzel7• 12 years ago

I was aware of sexism in tech but it had never caused me problems. And then one day I enter some Hackintosh IRC channel and I get mad at them calling me 'he', and then they figure out I'm trans... And I eventually leave, because now they're being really sexual and creepy.

It's really horrible. You start to rationalise it or try to ignore it. You become insensitive to it. You don't want to leave because they're helpful and talk about interesting stuff and all, but they're also nasty to you.

Svenstaro• 12 years ago

This is more or less a practical thing. I think you would agree that there are more males in IRC than females. Which personal pronoun would you choose by default to address someone without explicitly knowing their gender? Would you always ask them beforehand? That might get weird. Would you use some weird Internet pronoun like "xe"?

Statistically speaking, going "he" is not a bad first guess. I'm not saying it's helping, though.

FoeNyx• 12 years ago

I rarely see people being weird to women on IRC, but I guess it's as IRL: there are good places and bad places.

TazeTSchnitzel7• 12 years ago

It may depend a lot on the IRC network and channel. IRC these days seems to be confined to open-source software discussion, so the communities are more helpful.

radicalbyte• 12 years ago

Just go on there with a female name. It's horrible. A significant minority are manchildren, they turn into apes at the slightest hint of femaleness.

cousin_it4• 12 years ago

When a woman publicly tells her story and a man tells her that her experiences are invalid

That's what happened with Zoe Quinn, except gender reversed. Her ex told the story of how she abused him, and it got censored and slammed everywhere.

Edit: I'm a bit freaked out by the downvotes. What's wrong with my comment?

spindritf• 12 years ago

It goes against the preferred political outlook of downmodders. It could have been something as boring as a government statistic and it would have been downvoted just the same.

Infinitesimus• 12 years ago

I haven't heard of this side of the story, mind sharing some references to it? That would be really awful

cousin_it4• 12 years ago

It's all over the internet at this point, any references would be biased one way or another. You can look at http://thezoepost.wordpress.com/ for the original account that started that whole mess, but for the rest you're pretty much on your own. For example here's a Reddit thread where an admin gives a non-apology for censorship and says it was by mistake: http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/2e7y4h/this_is_a_thi...

medecau• 12 years ago

I'm not entyrelly sure but I believe that the event mentioned was the genesis for the GamerGate thing.

Just search gamergate to get an idea of the mess.

anu_gupta• 12 years ago

She didn't abuse him, unless you think every man who's cheated on a woman is also abusive.

cousin_it4• 12 years ago

That's not all she did, IMO thezoepost is an account of textbook emotional abuse.

paddyoloughlin4• 12 years ago

I have not downvoted you, but the zoe post wasn't slammed because its author's experiences were considered invalid but because it is a textbook example of slut-shaming. And now you are saying that the target of this was an abuser.

And it's a stretch to say thezoepost was censored. It's still available at its original location.

tomp5• 12 years ago

a textbook example of slut-shaming

Accusing someone of cheating on you is slut-shaming?

inglor2• 12 years ago

It's very hard not to sympathize with this as most of our generation who went to tech are "misfits". As a minoroty that's even harder.

I don't understand why randy would focus on making tools for blocking people on Twitter though - writing about it is more effective and less 'ragey'.

It would also be nice if she adds how to help.

edmccard• 12 years ago

I don't understand why randy would focus on making tools for blocking people on Twitter though...

Usenet had killfiles, email has spam filters, Facebook has unfollow...no reason not to focus on something similar for Twitter.

It would also be nice if she adds how to help

There is a second part to the post: Still Here, Part 2: Call to Arms[1]

[1] http://randi.io/wp/archives/91

calibraxis3• 12 years ago

There's lots of lit on how to help: http://juliepagano.com/blog/2014/05/10/so-you-want-to-be-an-...

Also just look up Model View Culture's writers: https://modelviewculture.com/ (Also, they recently published a handy guide on startups: https://model-view-culture.myshopify.com/products/your-start...)

freebsdgirl4• 12 years ago

I told myself that I wouldn't comment on any of this, but goddamnit. MY NAME IS RANDI. IT IS LITERALLY PART OF THE URL.

inglor2• 12 years ago

Sorry :) An honest DYAC mistake.

glass-2• 12 years ago

I don't understand why randy would focus on making tools for blocking people on Twitter though

She received over 20k mentions in one month, mostly insults and attacks. Trying to actually talk to people while having to filter through all that noise is impossible.

MartinCron• 12 years ago

Outrage is a perfectly appropriate response to an outrageous situation. I find her rage to be remarkably measured, considering all the bullshit she has been put through.

ivanca9• 12 years ago

You had been target of completely sexist discrimination and many of the perpetrators should be on Jail, but Annita Sarkeesian and a few like her are a completely different subject: http://youtu.be/WuRSaLZidWI

We always look for people with the same motivations and the same struggle than us so I blame no one who relates to her.

geographomics9• 12 years ago

Could you elaborate on what you mean by a completely different subject?

One possible reading of what you are saying is that the harassment of Anita and others with feminist perspectives is justified, but perhaps that is not quite what you intended.

srslack6• 12 years ago

The 'harassment' of Anita is the result of a few trolls. Gamergate even identified one troll, a Brazilian videogame 'journalist.' Death threats were sent to Brianna Wu and Zoe Quinn by the GNAA.

http://theralphretort.com/gnaa-trolls-admit-gamergate-sabota...

https://archive.today/gTA9s

https://web.archive.org/web/20140913162412/https://twitter.c...

The problem lies in equating a twitter hashtag with several trolls. GNAA gets off on infuriating all parties.

Where is the proof that these trolls are GamerGate supporters? Randi links to none.

ivanca9• 12 years ago

Unlike the article writer who is suffering by this harassment, Anita actually feeds herself from it. Such notoriety helped her get some of his goals, including being invited to the Colbert report and other high-profile shows.

This is not a FreeBSD contributor we are talking about here, this is someone who actually makes a living out of being a professional victim, this is the only thing she does for a living.

TazeTSchnitzel7• 12 years ago

Anita Sarkeesian isn't a completely different. She is a woman in tech (more specifically, video games) who is harassed for speaking out about sexism in video games. Perhaps some of her essays have inaccuracies, but none of this justifies the horrible abuse she gets on a constant basis.

Also, Thunderf00t's videos on her seem to focus on single details as if her entire argument would fall down, when it wouldn't, and by repeating something enough times until it seems to be true. I'm hardly the best person to talk about these, though.

geographomics9• 12 years ago

Totally agree. Personally I think Anita provides quite a fresh look at the portrayal of women in video games and other pop culture, and it's interesting to hear her perspective even if one disagrees with it.

It just seems thoroughly unhinged to mount a campaign of sexual harassment and death threats in response, rather than countering with a reasoned line of argument, or simply just shrugging it off.

rmc5• 12 years ago

Gamers for a long time wanted people to treat games as art, as high class, as legitimate forms of media and entertainment, like how they treat books, tv shows and films. But people deconstruct and criticise films and books, and when people started doing that with games, the gamers got aggressive and violent.

ivanca9• 12 years ago

No, this is not about some inaccuracies, she many times has declared to have some very extreme perceptions:

"Not a coincidence it’s always men and boys committing mass shootings. The pattern is connected to ideas of toxic masculinity in our culture."

Source: http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/10/26/on-friday-anita-sar...

freshflowers• 12 years ago

I'm tired of the fact that this debate has deteriorated into sides lead by extremists.

On the one side there is the gamergate crowd, who despite their constant denial are fundamentally sexist and misogynistic in pretty much every second sentence they utter. And the existence of these pricks serves as a cover for the ubiquitous but much more subtle sexism in the tech industry. Which in turn is being denied by the people smack dead in the middle of it (this thread to will see a lot that kind of denial).

On the other side however are the consummate activist, the ones the bigots refer to as "Social Justice Warriors" who see sexism in everything, stifle any debate with finger pointing, bullying and witch hunts (as recently demonstrated with "shirtgate"). These people are no better than the pricks they claim to be fighting. They don't just fight sexism and inequality, they want to bury anything they are uncomfortable with, including basic human desires and freedom of any kind of non-politically correct form of expression.

And from the tactics used and the collateral damage caused, I find it increasingly difficult to tell the two sides apart except for the the symbolism and rhetoric.

rmc5• 12 years ago

Here's a hint. One side is threatening "the greatest school shooting in American history"

Frozenlock3• 12 years ago

Yeah, too bad we don't know which one.

Igglyboo• 12 years ago

By one side you mean one person who affiliates with that chosen side, trying to say that all the SJW's or GamerGate people support murdering children is ridiculous.

facepalm10• 12 years ago

??? Certainly not

facepalm10• 12 years ago

I'll try again: apparently there were millions of tweets with the hashtag #gamergate and also millions with #notyourshield (according to this anylsis which came up via Google - https://medium.com/@cainejw/an-actual-statistical-analysis-o... )

So I think we can safely assume that there are thousands of people actively identifying with the #gamergate side.

Do you seriously believe that thousands of people endorse the notion of school shootings?

Sorry, that is just ridiculous and you should get your head checked.

graeme• 12 years ago

This is a false dilemma. Do you know people in real life who are "social justice warriors"? I know one, and only one. But I know many feminists. They tend to be very reasonable.

The "shirtgate" story got spread precisely because it created outrage. Outrage goes viral. But most feminists are not bullies.

Whereas the problem described above appears to be pervasive in tech. I've seen enough stories here on Hacker News that fit into the same trend. I have no reason to doubt these women.

You're contrasting a broad system of oppression against a (vocal) minority within the community that criticizes this system. It's not apples to apples.

archagon3• 12 years ago

Also, out of all the "leaders" on the anti-GG side, I can't think of a single one that could be described as a "social justice warrior". Neither Wu, Sarkeesian, nor anyone else has ever said that all men are bad, called people "shitlords", advocated censorship, or done anything else attributed to "SJWs". From my perspective, they have tried very hard to maintain civil and reasonable discourse, even in the face of this GG onslaught.

fphhotchips3• 12 years ago

The nature of the internet leads to this kind of shitfight. You get the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory [1], mixed with the potential for false flags, and no real way to verify that anyone is who they say they are (in the vast majority of cases/without a lot of work), or believe what they say they believe.

Actually, if you combine it with [1], Gabriel Morton's "Man Covered in Shit" [2] theory covers it pretty well.

[1] http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O57lehnWUFI

wpietri18• 12 years ago

who see sexism in everything

So recently I've been listening to Derek Jacobi read a newer translation of The Iliad, set 3000 years ago. (My secret motivation: to get ready to hear Ian McKellan's reading of The Odessy. Gandalf reading The Odessy!) The basic story is that in among a who-stole-my-woman war, one dude (Agamemnon) steals another dude's war-prize slave woman. A foundational story of western civilization, and it all turns on women being property.

That was basically the story up into modern times. In the US, women gradually became able to own property in the 19th century; previously, upon marriage it all became the husband's property. In the 20th century, women finally got the vote [1] and started being allowed into traditionally male professions. It wasn't until 1993 that all 50 US states passed laws against men raping their wives. [2] Within living memory, it was considered reasonable to discuss when it was ok to beat women to control them. [3]

From the history, I think we can agree that sexism was in everything, and so endemic that everybody at the time would deny that it was even a problem. We have slowly been trying to fix that over the last 150 years or so. And we still have the problem that since I started programming, women have been both discouraged from entering tech and driven out of it. [4] There is still substantial gender bias hiring all over the place, even in the sciences. [5]

So the only question for a given thing today is whether we have finally managed to 100% rid it of sexism. I think it is always a legitimate question. Even if the answer turns out to be "Yay, X is entirely free of sexism," I think it is entirely reasonable for people traumatized by sexism to be initially suspicious that particular rare islands of non-sexism really are perfect.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women%27s_suffrage

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape

[3] http://www.blameitonthevoices.com/2012/07/from-archives-shou...

[3] http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-wom...

[4] http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.full

facepalm10• 12 years ago

If by "sexism" you mean women and men being treated differently, of course it exists - because women and men are different. Women have intrinsic value, so wars are being fought over them (not only in the Iliad, but also in "primitive societies").

Talking about the past is also not so straightforward. The world was very different, for example I wouldn't be surprised if many jobs simply didn't make sense for women. Like if they required a lot of physical labor (which presumably was most jobs). So women being excluded from such jobs might not have been active discrimination but simply common sense (as in "not worth considering"). For the other subjects there also were or might have been reasons that simply don't exist anymore today. For example it seems likely that marriage and women taking care of the household was about the only way to survive. Today our survival is much easier than it used to be, because there are many more amenities and things provided for.

Tryingtofeel2• 12 years ago

As an outsider reading this, I feel like there is a missing side of the story. Did those people really do all those things for no reason? What prompted them to harass her? Edit: I'm not saying there are ever circumstances where what they did is warranted. The story just seems to be so one dimensionally against her, couldn't help but feel something was missing.

matt_morgan2• 12 years ago

It would be better to ask if there are any circumstances under which those things were reasonable.

aw3c210• 12 years ago

How does that actually help? Who would even think that those things are reasonable? It makes much more sense to try to understand why it happened and how it can be prevented.

aw3c210• 12 years ago

Careful, that question is forbidden. You will probably be accused of "victim shaming" in a minute.

Sadly most people seem not interested in the psychological or sociological motivation of those abusers. There is always something that triggers abuse (no, I am not saying that it must be something the victim did). I wish we would investigate into that and help people stay clear of the psychopaths that way.

Frozenlock3• 12 years ago

Bill Burr made a sketch about this kind of reasoning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlvvCYUDHrQ

ZeroGravitas4• 12 years ago

Kathy Sierra suggests that the fact that she was listened to by many people was what triggered the hatred for her:

http://seriouspony.com/trouble-at-the-koolaid-point/

"I now believe the most dangerous time for a woman with online visibility is the point at which others are seen to be listening, “following”, “liking”, “favoriting”, retweeting. In other words, the point at which her readers have (in the troll’s mind) “drunk the Koolaid”. Apparently, that just can’t be allowed."

Read the whole thing, it's heartbreaking and eyeopening. It also involves some of the same people that attacked the author of the current post.

So whatever these two woman did to "incite" this harassment was shared by at least two kinda-succesful woman in tech.

glass-2• 12 years ago

What prompted them to harass her?

She was a woman on the internet. That's all the reason they need.

Tryingtofeel2• 12 years ago

I guess I'll have to take your word for it. Still seems odd that they doxx you and try to get you fired if you're a woman. Maybe you're right and people are that crazy on the Internet.

archagon3• 12 years ago

Well, what's missing is that if you're a dude, it might be hard to believe that men can behave this way towards women in everyday life, even in the 21st century. Problem is, this stuff is mostly hidden from us. Remember that 10-minute street harassment video from a few weeks ago? Turns out, it's fairly representative.

Do some reading in this thread and see if it puts things into perspective: http://www.metafilter.com/85667/Hi-Whatcha-reading#2777344

After realizing that, yes, this stuff happens to women all the time, it's not hard to extrapolate this behavior to the internet, where people are bigger targets and harassers are even more anonymous.

unimpressive2• 12 years ago

This is a good post, I want to make that clear because that's about all I'll say about the rest of it beyond the second part being marred by a flaw that deeply bugged me:

Idle speculation about 4chan causing the Pilchuck shooting was uncalled for, and as somebody who lives fairly close to the events very insensitive. It's one thing to talk about Elliot Rogers where it was made very clear that his motivations were pertinent, but turning whatever shooting tragedy into a political billiard ball is one of those things that we should stop doing because it's not improving discourse.

Bahamut2• 12 years ago

I will say this, from the perspective of someone who has been around online communities for approaching 20 years and moderating in various online mediums for 10+ years - women get harassed online far too much in most communities. The extent some of the harassment goes is mind boggling.

One of my good friends had a beastiality erotica written about her as part of a campaign to defame her, where the people involved went as far as taking the ip addresses of the moderators and redirecting them to a harmless image whenever they attempted to load the actual image. The primary reason is because a group of people didn't like how she acted, including dating the founder for a short while of the site the community was based on.

Another member of the community was naively coaxed into sending someone else some pictures of her naked, which was then gathered up and used to slut shame her - she was not even 18, which made it distribution of child pornography.

I have had to ban countless harassers who would go on a public TF2 server I run and immediately try to harass the women who had the gall to use a microphone - I take a zero tolerance attitude towards this behavior, harassment of any kind is unacceptable. Whatever positive contributions some of these people might have, it certainly isn't worth accepting that sort of behavior as the norm, driving away good people who did nothing wrong.

thyrsus• 12 years ago

Your individual actions are laudable. Is responsible moderation the only way to create welcoming communities, or are there ways to scale that?

Bahamut2• 12 years ago

I'm of the opinion that it always starts at the top - even silence can be the wrong action, especially with behavior that normally gets decried as unacceptable at large.

Moderators have such large power to influence the directions communities go - in a way, moderators are like unofficial judges. Bad decision making ruins everyone's quality of life who participates. This is in large part what makes places like 4chan and Reddit not great in my eyes. Some of the moderation policies here on HN are also highly suspect as well, and it is reflected in some of the comments you see here and in some other posts.

Communities have often proven bad stalwarts of proper decorum and respectfulness - you can see it quite often in forums or boards of various types and various subjects. 4chan, Reddit, HN, sports forums, video game forums, etc. More community run forums tend to devolve into chaos, where many otherwise good people who would normally stand up to abusive behavior end up leaving since they get drowned in a sea of mob rule. The only way I have been able to see this situation get stopped is by strong moderation, since they have special authority to make or break situations. However, moderation also has to be mindful of the community as well - some actions, even if right, can drive away people. Communities can mold around how a moderator behaves, so one has to be careful not to be too strong armed.

It's a delicate tightrope one has to walk as a moderator, and one managing moderators.

Still Here, Part 1: A Memoir

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