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Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website

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Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website

#351

Post by ams6110 »

TomMarius wrote: post #233
acranox wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but do you think those 12 year olds are going to all grow up to be well behaving adults? Or maybe the problems with this kind of sexism are starting very young. If you are right then the solutions still need to be addressed, but we need to start earlier.

Do you remember how sexist were the 70's and the 80's? People who were 12 back then turned out just fine, considering that we're even discussing this, didn't they?

I was 12 in the 70s, and don't remember any boys talking to girls like this. If they did, they'd probably get a slap in the face, if not by the girl then by the teacher if overheard.

One big difference is that there was no access to the sort of degrading pornography that is just freely available today. A 12 year old boy in the 70s might be able to get his hands on a Playboy or maybe even a Hustler but it took some real effort and those magazines were tame compared to the porn today.

Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website

#352

Post by philipodonnell »

woodrowbarlow wrote: post #314
jpalomaki wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some time ago there was a write up about a very similar problem, in B2B context. It was not about chat, but about email. The experience was quite similar as described in this article. [1] [1] https://twitter.com/i/moments/839950218099576832

do you have a non-twitter link? thank you.

Wow, twitter is a really inferior way of telling a story like that.

Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website

#353

Post by jopsen »

nukeop wrote: post #285
TeMPOraL wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only for as long as nobody really cares. OPSEC is hard. Even people for whom it's a matter of life and death fail at it routinely. Angry trolls even more so. Your first message may be anonymous, but by your third message there's a good chance someone dedicated could find you if they cared enough.

And how exactly?

You buy it from one of the vendors that tracks people...

There are literally businesses out there that gives you a snippet to embed in your site, and then they employ all the tricks of tracking to give you email, name, address, etc.

It's not perfect every time, but probably more that you would like. And I wouldn't be surprised if incognito mode or VPN isn't always enough to disappear.

Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website

#354

Post by DarkWiiPlayer »

ashelmire wrote: post #274
jakobegger wrote: post #101

Amazing. The author spends a lot of time to tell us a very convincing story how sexism affects people in our industry, and the Hacker News thread is full of people rationalizing it. - it's only because people think you're a bot - it's because of your target audience - it's because chat widgets are annoying - you don't really have enough data to make any conclusions How much will it take to convince the average HN rea…

You can believe sexual harassment is everywhere and also believe chat widgets are annoying. Sadly, women getting harassed on the internet by anonymous strangers, while unfortunate, is not a novel revelation. Anyone who says it isn’t common has their head in the sand. You can’t help people like that.

A single message is not harassment though.

Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website

#355

Post by Max_Mustermann »

lokopodium wrote: post #291
fsloth wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"How much will it take to convince the average HN reader that sexism actually is everywhere?" I presume those that think this way either have no female friends or have not asked them about it. Men generally don't get catcalls or get their body fondled by strangers.

Men generally don't catcall or fondle strangers' bodies either. It's a general projection, "why would anyone do that?".

Yet another thing that explains the obliviousness that people are mentioning.

Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website

#356

Post by GVIrish »

staticelf wrote: post #307
alkonaut wrote: post #191

Kids who grew up in an environment where anonymous interaction is the norm (such as kids who have anonymous social chats at school, or do in-game chats etc) have grown so accustomed to it that I don't think they even see it as sexist, racist, bullying etc. Most would probably never say any of this to someones' face, not out of fear of consequences but simply because they know better. Yet in anonymous contact they don…

When I play online games, in this example PUBG, I think a part of the fun is to be rude and aggressive before the match starts. You're about to virtually shoot them in the head so saying something rude to random online gamers doesn't feel at all bad. Other people often respond back, just as rudely and I think it's hilarious. It can't be just me who thinks and acts like this? Context matters a lot in my opinion. Altho…

> You're about to virtually shoot them in the head so saying something rude to random online gamers doesn't feel at all bad. Other people often respond back, just as rudely and I think it's hilarious.

Examine what you're saying here. You're saying because YOU don't feel bad when you do it to others, it's okay. And because people retaliate, that makes your initial act of rudeness ok, as if that's what the other party wanted.

Just because someone returns your behavior doesn't mean they LIKE that sort of behavior, or are even okay with it.

> It's nice to vent and I don't think other players in PUBG care at all.

How would you know if they did care?

Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website

#357

Post by randomsearch »

jakobegger wrote: post #101

Amazing. The author spends a lot of time to tell us a very convincing story how sexism affects people in our industry, and the Hacker News thread is full of people rationalizing it. - it's only because people think you're a bot - it's because of your target audience - it's because chat widgets are annoying - you don't really have enough data to make any conclusions How much will it take to convince the average HN rea…

Also, HN story about general experience that isn’t about sexism: “Oh, that’s interesting, I wonder if that’s because of X or Y?”, “gee that most have been awful”, “hey that makes me re-examine a way I behaved once”, “I’ve seen similar behaviour here at Q and Z”

When about sexism: “unless this is a triple-blind study that has been repeated across every continent, let’s not jump to the conclusion that there is a lot of online sexism”.

We should all up our game here. It’s depressing how oblivious a lot of the posts are on these comments.

Clearly, the female avatars received the worst abuse. And the effect was so strong, so immediate, and based on a solid hypothesis. Something has gone very badly wrong with the internet and we should be working out what we can do about it, rather than sticking our fingers in our ears saying “boys will be boys” or “this isn’t scientific!”. Are we all too defensive to admit there is a problem?

Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website

#358

Post by DarkWiiPlayer »

madez wrote: post #211
vegardx wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotal and not really a big problem, but it took me having to put my coke in a coffee cup to be taken seriously in meetings to really "get it".

Thanks for the tip about the cup in meetings. Often these implicit rules are not obvious, so making them explicit is very helpful to work around and maybe even fix them. Humans are guided by stereotypes and superstition and not scepticism and scientific reason. And if there is an individual that is sceptical and demands scientific reason, they are punished socially for it. This makes homo sapiens look a bit bad in my…

^ nailed it

Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website

#359

Post by 7952 »

AlexTTT wrote: post #244
7952 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most things in life cannot be terated like a scientific experiment. It would be interesting to conduct high quality research to find out if my company is sexist, but there is no time, money or desire to do that. So we have to rely on less formal information. Also the whole "strong statement requires an extraordinary amount of work" thing is entirely dependant on your outlook. I could just as easily say the opposite s…

Both statements - "sexism does not exist" and "sexism is everywhere" are equally extreme. By saying the former you deny the obvious. By saying the latter you effectively claim that every single person is sexist, which is a bit unfair.

Except that the extremeness of the statement is subjectively based on your own outlook. And there is an implicit value judgement in making that decision about what you consider "extreme". Arguably all people are sexist, but not in a particularly problamatic or socially unacceptable way. It is human nature to notice gender after all. And applying such logical rules to something so nuanced and subjective is flawed, and will unavoidably lead to an argument over semantics.

Re: Why I don't use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website

#360

Post by notriddle »

sergiotapia wrote: post #303

I don’t think it’s sexism. It’s just meme spewing permavirgins doing what they do online all the time. Think of your target audience. “How to make a video meme?” - of course they’re one of those show u de wae types.

How does that not count as sexism? They're literally treating the support tech differently based on which photo is shown!
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