A Natural A/B Test of Harassment • Hacker News Board

Re: A Natural A/B Test of Harassment

#111

Post by chiaro » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 6:23 AM UTC

Pxtl wrote: post #78

chiaro wrote: post #2

A shame the point needs to be repeatedly made. A five minute foray into the wasteland that is twitch chat will show some pretty stark differences between how men and women become targets for trolling and vitriol. While some of the concerns of the whole gamergate mess were perhaps reasonable at some point in time, the whole thing has disappeared under a huge number of people who see their any supposed righteousness as…

I tend to think Gamergate was a brewing culture war that was just looking for a spark to start the fire. Gamer culture has had a persecution complex for well over a generation, particularly with respect to the press - even the gaming press. Being repeatedly insulted and attacked by the media has made them circle their wagons instinctively. Combined with a substantial fraction of gamers that are intensely misogynistic…

Very well put. The phrase "perfect storm" crossed my mind when I first heard of this.

Re: A Natural A/B Test of Harassment

#112

Post by rtpg » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 6:29 AM UTC

ObviousScience wrote: post #91

rtpg wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the question here is "will gamers harass men or women more". In this case you want your community to be representative of the community at large, so this gender imbalance makes sense. Your point makes sense, but seems irrelevant to the discussion here.

I think it's exactly to the point: the question is if we have a fundamentally more sexist male population online than female population, or if we're seeing confounding variables introducing an apparently difference. I mean, there's clearly a problem with the experience women have with many online communities - just ask them, they're not shy about admitting it. The hard questions are why is their experience like that…

There is no discussion about the difference between male aggressors and female aggressors (though the examples were all male I imagine). The question is about aggressors in the gaming community as a whole,e ven if this is "just" a consequence of there being more men than women in the community, it's still an issue .

The question in the test was "is it easier to be a man or a women in the gaming community?", not "why". I agree that this doesn't answer the why, but I think it answer the initial question.

Re: A Natural A/B Test of Harassment

#113

Post by silencio » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 6:31 AM UTC

ncallaway wrote: post #101

silencio wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Identities don't change anything. I don't know what the solution is, but that's not it. My current, occasional stalker - someone in the tech industry, a fellow dev, someone probably reading HN, even - gave away his name, phone, address... and it checks out. Police won't take him as a serious threat though, so neither will anyone else (like Twitter). Police also won't just check on him because I think he's schizophren…

I'm really sorry you had to (and still have to) deal with that kind of harassment and threatening behavior. The only question I'm left with is what can I do as an individual to help curtail it? I almost never see this behavior myself (presumably because bad actors intentionally hide their behavior) in real life so it's hard for me to call it out directly. How can I help out people that are being harassed in this way?…

My husband spends practically 24/7 around me as he works next to me, but he still rarely sees that behavior directly or aimed at me until I copypaste/screenshot/link it to him. And I get a lot of direct and indirect bs in general that some people would have mental breakdowns over, mainly cause I help moderate /r/twoxchromosomes and I help with a yearly event or two for women in tech. All he hears until I bring it up is me muttering to myself about misogyny/misandry, me going 'for fucks sake' at yet another doxxing, or me rage-typing on irc (thankfully for him I don't have a clicky keyboard). One of my closer friends too, works at Big Name Dating Co., didn't understand it too much until he created a female test account for development. Ha. So don't worry about not seeing it.

Moral support is a lot more than many are offering, so don't feel bad in the slightest. Do exactly what you pointed out. Ask around and help people around you. They may not just be women, they may come from all kinds of backgrounds. Don't be silent, because some of the worst people are assuming that silence means support.

After you feel comfortable doing that, there's a lot of other hard questions to ask. How do you know that your workplace or community or product/service isn't complicit in similar problems? How do you do what you can to help others before a problem occurs? What if you make a mistake? What if you do see something awful but there's no good way to call it out? They're questions I struggle with all the time, and I think the biggest misconception with tech folks is that they're one-off problems easily/already solved when they're not. People going "why don't you report it to Twitter" that have never actually used Twitter's abuse/harassment reporting form. People going "ignore that" like it's not a problem that rears its ugly head for me daily given how many other women I know. People going "you could just not say anything" but then I wouldn't be moral support for even a single other person out there.

It's tough, welcome to the club ;) Making an effort to do anything is a good thing.

Re: A Natural A/B Test of Harassment

#114

Post by ANTSANTS » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 6:34 AM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #88

gohrt wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that confuses me (as a non-"Gamer" netizen) is that I am constantly bombarded with the "meta' arguing and hand-wringing about "GamerGate" on HN etc, but have yet to see anything actually from the core activity of the "movement" or whatever.

Intel pulled advertising from Gamasutra under pressure from these people, some women independent game developers have "ragequit"(read: harassed beyond belief so did the only logical thing) from twitter and the like. It's violent if you follow the independent games scene These are also the same group of people who forced Phil Fish off the internet, basically.

Intel pulled advertising from Gamasutra because they directly insulted a customer group that is very important to their brand. Intel didn't cave under pressure, they simply acted rationally to a media outlet committing brand suicide.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224400/Gamers_dont_have_t...

Phil Fish forced himself off the internet by being a contemptible jackass with an ego to rival that of Kanye West who fights with his coworkers, publicly shat on an aspiring Japanese game dev during a Q&A panel that asked him a polite question regarding his thoughts on their country's games, says that gamers are "the worst fucking people," tells people to "suck his dick, choke on it" then claims to be a feminist without a hint of irony, completely and utterly lacks self awareness, and just generally can't go a fucking day without throwing a tantrum on twitter.

EDIT: Oh neat, my other post in this thread, a collection of links from an opposing perspective, was flagkilled. Way to flag/downvote for disagreement, redd-I mean Hacker News.

Re: A Natural A/B Test of Harassment

#115

Post by dang » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 6:40 AM UTC

Natsu wrote: post #107

aptwebapps wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"its all in the mind of the receiver (aka psychological)" Two points: 1) Except when it isn't. 2) Isn't that enough? What are we, robots? It's true that some people might be able to treat the two things the same and not be affected, but they're a tiny minority. Harm is harm, even if you think that everyone should have thicker skin.

@yummyfajitas - it appears that all of your posts are dead right now. I'm not clear if you've been banned after many downvotes or what, but the last several posts are all dead now.

Yummyfajitas isn't banned. Some of his comments are being flagged by users.

Re: A Natural A/B Test of Harassment

#116

Post by silencio » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 6:41 AM UTC

Natsu wrote: post #105

silencio wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Identities don't change anything. I don't know what the solution is, but that's not it. My current, occasional stalker - someone in the tech industry, a fellow dev, someone probably reading HN, even - gave away his name, phone, address... and it checks out. Police won't take him as a serious threat though, so neither will anyone else (like Twitter). Police also won't just check on him because I think he's schizophren…

I'm really sorry to hear that. As someone who has faced sexual harassment at work, I feel for you. Good luck shaking off the crazies.

I'm sorry to hear that :( I'm lucky in that I've never really had to deal with that yet. The few times that could have happened it didn't, and I mainly work for myself now so it's easy to take myself out of a problem when it arises.

Thanks though. I have a reasonably thick skin and I'm used to it so I'm not too worried. I'm mostly worried about what this means for others. Hopefully more awareness means a better solution for this problem so others don't face it. I don't have enough relevant expertise or passion though, so I'm hoping until there's a YC funded company that focuses on fixing that ;)

Re: A Natural A/B Test of Harassment

#117

Post by Natsu » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 6:45 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #115

Natsu wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@yummyfajitas - it appears that all of your posts are dead right now. I'm not clear if you've been banned after many downvotes or what, but the last several posts are all dead now.

Yummyfajitas isn't banned. Some of his comments are being flagged by users.

Thanks for clarifying. I was wondering if he'd tripped something automatic.

Re: A Natural A/B Test of Harassment

#118

Post by ddingus » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 6:55 AM UTC

andrewvc wrote: post #28

What I urge people in this thread to do is not to pick up a google search, or read a book, but to just go out and ask a few female friends what their thoughts are about being online, being safe, and being respected, and to listen with an open mind. I see a lot of denial in here, people rooting around for reasons to think that there isn't a serious fucking problem with intimidation and psychological violence taking pl…

Well said.

We have a similar dialog going on among the power users at Quora. The trouble women were having really escalated when the first influx of general users showed up.

It got to the point where many of them were going to leave.

All of us had a discussion, and Quora had a discussion in private with the women.

The ban hammer came down on a surprisingly large number of users. And it still comes down.

Most of us men, who participated in this, got to understand a lot. Due to the nature of that site, and that we have real life meetup events, many women felt it OK to just share with us, no filters.

And I was stunned. Thought I had some idea, and just didn't. Of course, now I do.

Honestly, that these stronger women were able to experience that, share it with others including men and continue on in seemingly normal ways is kind of amazing to me.

If more people were able to have these kinds of conversations, I suspect social norms would start to shift quickly, as would actions to remedy the problem.

Not that we don't have actions now. We do. People are supporting others who need it and we are beginning to speak out more and discuss it more.

But that ban hammer session was notable. A lot of the community got the message right away.

Re: A Natural A/B Test of Harassment

#119

Post by Natsu » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 6:57 AM UTC

silencio wrote: post #116

Natsu wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really sorry to hear that. As someone who has faced sexual harassment at work, I feel for you. Good luck shaking off the crazies.

I'm sorry to hear that :( I'm lucky in that I've never really had to deal with that yet. The few times that could have happened it didn't, and I mainly work for myself now so it's easy to take myself out of a problem when it arises. Thanks though. I have a reasonably thick skin and I'm used to it so I'm not too worried. I'm mostly worried about what this means for others. Hopefully more awareness means a better solut…

It was stupidly blatant and my employer dealt with it once it was brought to their attention. Not fun by any means.

Oh, I've also faced internet crazies, but I've always practiced a reasonable level of anonymity as self-defense, so they've never been real threats. Actually it was amusing when one person sent all these harassing emails because they screwed up the Sendmail exploit and highlighted the real IP with something like SHADOW_SHADOW_SHADOW. Their ISP dropped them quickly once I explained all the interesting things I knew about that particular customer.

EDIT: It's a bit disheartening to see the two posts in this thread as my only posts that have not yet been downvoted on this story as these are honestly the least relevant to the topic at hand.

Re: A Natural A/B Test of Harassment

#120

Post by crassus2 » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 7:01 AM UTC

JulianMorrison wrote: post #40

yummyfajitas wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the article, the author received one unwanted message every 50 days. How is it "cognitive dissonance" or "denial" to describe pressing delete every 50 days as a minor problem? Note that in a typical 2 week period, I probably get more than 36 recruiter spams. Could you concretely explain what you feel is being denied?

One every 50 days is 1) The absolute, lowest, background radiation level, of men hassling women. 2) Even despite that, demonstrably worse that what men get. This is not the norm. This is what's still left when the volume of a woman's public presence is dialled down to infinitesimal above zero. Normal is way worse.

I just want to say that I'm deeply uncomfortable with how quickly hacker news mods have moved to kill comments they disagree with since the new "professional" management came in. Is yummyfajitas hell-banned now? He had nearly 7 years of history. All his comments here are dead-ed.

For the record, this is what the grandparent said that got him hell-banned:

"According to the article, the author received one unwanted message every 50 days. How is it "cognitive dissonance" or "denial" to describe pressing delete every 50 days as a minor problem?

Note that in a typical 2 week period, I probably get more than 36 recruiter spams. Could you concretely explain what you feel is being denied?"

You might disagree with it, but it's hard to see how it is beyond the pale of polite discourse.