Dear Hacker Community – We Need To Talk

From what I read she is dealing with trolls on the Internet and in real life. They don't just target women, they target anyone to get a reaction out of them for the "LULZ".

Part of the reason why she is targeted by trolls is she has a position of authority and organizes events but doesn't have a detailed background experience or knowledge in them (she says so herself) which the trolls see her as just another "stuffed shirt" (or suit, a stuffed shirt implys that the person stuffs a shirt to make it look like muscle or something they are not to fool people, no sexist remark meant there, consider the alternative of a 'phoney' or 'scammer') pretending to be a hacker. (Their view not mine.) They would have done the very same things if she was a man. (Maybe call him gay or racist names instead of sexist remarks)

I see that she is into 'disruptive journalism' from my experience it is a different form of advertising and marketing. For example, Marvel Comics kills off Peter Parker in Doctor Octopus' body after a body-swap. They did it as 'disruptive journalism' or 'disruptive media' to get reactions from people who loved Spider-Man and Peter Parker to Tweet and Blog about it over outrage to make Marvel Entertainment and The Superior Spider-Man comic get more attention and free publicity. In the same way she is using 'disruptive journalism' to draw attention to her blog and herself by making people react to it. So now she makes front page at Hacker News (Edit people are voting this article down, good for you, no more front page) and it is blogged and Tweeted everywhere. 'Disruptive journalism' is really just another form of trolling, it is designed to get reaction for the "LULZ" for free publicity and free advertising and to get people to talk about her and her blog. While I feel sad that she is targeted by trolls, not much can be done to stop it. What she is doing is no different than what the trolls do, morally and ethically, as she exaggerates the situation into being worse than it actually is (trolls are a minority of HN not the majority) so she gets more reactions for promoting her blog and name.

P.S. don't feed the trolls.

I'd like to see it happen but I can't imagine it would be an easy thing to do. I've seen a small number of people lash out at being "roped into" a group that was women this or women that. They did not want to be a part of it.

You might think those people who reacted badly would be guys. They were not. They were women.

I got the impression from one of them that her thought process went something like this: "I'm currently accepted as 'one of the guys' and as a result I am successful in this lopsided environment, so how dare you loop me in and remind them that I'm different?"...

I was surprised by this, but it's real. I saw it happen when someone created a new group for women engineers of some sort at Google and auto-subscribed a bunch of people. There was a small but distinct amount of pushback from a few new members.

So, really, I guess you'd have to find people who don't care if they come off differently (relative to the overwhelming majority) because they are in fact different. Then find the members of that set who are willing to take such a risk, and then the members of that set who have the resources to attempt it.

Unfortunately, this kind of filtering effect doesn't yield a lot of people in my experience.

I'm saying these arguments may sound reasonable, but they can also be viewed as a tactic to derail conversations about oppression and marginalized groups. The fact that "it looks like a list of reasonable things to say," as part of our dominant discourse about topics such as gender, is exactly why they're such a powerful and effective tactic. Until a discussion can move past using derailing tactics in these conversations, marginalization and oppression won't really be challenged.

It is all trolls doing these things. If a troll notices someone is female, they posy sexist things to troll her and make her react for the "LULZ". If she was a man, they'd troll him by calling him gay or saying racist things to him for the "LULZ".

There is an Internet MEME that "There are no women on the Internet" that trolls use. I think it originated on 4Chan, IIRC. It has multiple meanings. One in that it claims women in real life use the fact that they are women to get free things and benefits, and that does not work over the Internet unless she shows some nudity in a picture. Another meaning is that women on the Internet use feminist tactics for attention on how sexist men are towards them and then act unlady-like (arsehole?) towards people and then cry 'foul' when they react and reply back. Not my definition, but ones the trolls use to justify their behavior and actions towards women.

I was once on Kuro5hin, it was another Slashdot clone, and was striven to be like Hacker News before there was a Hacker News. The trolls got on it and scared people off of it. Yes they targeted women using sexist remarks and harassment and bullying, even called some of the women as men pretending to be women. One by one the trolls picked on and bullied the users and ganged up on users by downrating their comments and stories until they quit. The editors refused to act and the owner thought it was funny that they did that to "people who deserved it" and so many users left Kuro5hin and it turned into a troll site. The trolls had scripts and web robots to control the comment ratings and story voting with sock puppet accounts and directed things on IRC. I was asked to join them one time and I refused, so I was made a target. Eventually I was no longer at that web site either. Yes I spoke out against the trolls and protested only to have my account deleted/anonymized so my account no longer worked. They put up a $5 paywall to keep the trolls away, but it seems the trolls don't mind paying for new accounts after they burn their old ones. I've never seen a technology or policy that effectively deals with trolls yet.

Thank you for being dismissive of a concern that is personal and emotional. You are the problem.