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

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.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5738455 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5744224

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.

I think the Dave Winer threads are the control in an ongoing experiment in Hacker Community Sexism.

And so I do wonder how it works: http://xkcd.com/385/

Significant themes in the two Dave Winer threads were:

    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

In the past year, we've seen many similar incidents all around the Internet, and at Hacker News that work like this:

    Wow, IT is really sexist.

But when something very similar to these other incidents occurs to a man, it works like this:

    Wow, IT has a lot of jerks

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?

Substitute a woman's name for "Dave Winer"....

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.?

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.

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

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.

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.

A few ideas for HN to cut down on abuse.

http://threads2.scripting.com/2013/may/aSuggestionForHackerN...

Dave