What It's Like to Be a Black Mathematician • Hacker News Board

Re: What It's Like to Be a Black Mathematician

#161

Post by dang » Wed, Feb 20, 2019, 4:07 AM UTC

porphyrogene wrote: post #160

dang wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forgive me for sharing a sample of my collection: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15032682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15585780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15546533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16134205 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17197581 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18664482 https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=slamdance https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13110004 I…

Your handling of this comment section was irresponsible. If you cannot handle this responsibility you should ban submissions and comments dealing with any and all social issues and allow only technical discussion. You have allowed a hateful element to silence a voice that spoke truth to power by making simple observations about how mathematicians handle race over a course of decades. The moderation of this submission…

To be honest I'm having a hard time orienting to your complaint here. The only thing I remember about the thread is banning someone who commented from (I think?) the opposite side to yours, so if anything I'd expect the bias accusation to run the other way.

If you think we made a mistake in the thread, it'd be more helpful to post (or email us) a link and point out the specific mistake. Rote denunciations don't help us correct anything, and general accusations like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19195885 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19194629 don't add information, because you're simply not working with an accurate picture of what we do. I understand how that happens, but there isn't much in it I can learn from.

Re: What It's Like to Be a Black Mathematician

#162

Post by porphyrogene » Wed, Feb 20, 2019, 1:03 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #161

porphyrogene wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your handling of this comment section was irresponsible. If you cannot handle this responsibility you should ban submissions and comments dealing with any and all social issues and allow only technical discussion. You have allowed a hateful element to silence a voice that spoke truth to power by making simple observations about how mathematicians handle race over a course of decades. The moderation of this submission…

To be honest I'm having a hard time orienting to your complaint here. The only thing I remember about the thread is banning someone who commented from (I think?) the opposite side to yours, so if anything I'd expect the bias accusation to run the other way. If you think we made a mistake in the thread, it'd be more helpful to post (or email us) a link and point out the specific mistake. Rote denunciations don't help…

My complaint from the beginning was that you stifled conversation by detaching this thread and because every comment is flagged and downvoted automatically you have allowed those who are afraid of this type of discussion to sabotage any submission they dislike. You caved to the brigade instead of acting as a responsible moderator. The ranking algorithm and the moderation policies are too crude for this type of submission. It would be more responsible to disallow them entirely.

Re: What It's Like to Be a Black Mathematician

#163

Post by afiori » Wed, Feb 20, 2019, 1:41 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #100

afiori wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sure that the fact that someone believes he is a "black token" is a problem, I am also sure that this could (almost) only happen in a place were there is quite some racism. What I pointed out is that not all racism is the same; all of it is bad and all of it should stop, we agree on that, but as most human endeavour it is complex with complex motivation. If you and I want to stop it we should better think about…

I have no idea where you're trying to take this. I'm saying that it's not productive to argue over the subtext of a hypothetical conversation neither of us are a party to. At some point your argument is going to have to boil down to "no, that person relating that story is not being fully truthful". Ok, that's a coherent argument, but not one I'm interested in having with you.

I need to say I am a bit confused, I maybe replied in the wrong place.

I meant to reply to a comment that only provided as an information that somebody believed to be a token black hire. To this my point was that multiple non trivial interpretation were possible.

Now I realize I commented directly on the article so that I was in practice casting doubt on the content. This was a mistake, to be clear I trust the Edray Goins version of his own story.

A bit late to reply, but I feel it is an important distinction.

Re: What It's Like to Be a Black Mathematician

#164

Post by dang » Wed, Feb 20, 2019, 5:49 PM UTC

crimsonalucard wrote: post #152

crimsonalucard wrote: post #3

As an Asian in math I suffer from racism as well.

See I was voted down. Racism.

Please don't break the site guidelines by going on about downvoting.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The problem with your earlier comment is that it was unsubstantive. Grand claims in unsubstantive comments on inflammatory topics are particularly problematic.

Re: What It's Like to Be a Black Mathematician

#165

Post by dang » Wed, Feb 20, 2019, 5:51 PM UTC

porphyrogene wrote: post #162

dang wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest I'm having a hard time orienting to your complaint here. The only thing I remember about the thread is banning someone who commented from (I think?) the opposite side to yours, so if anything I'd expect the bias accusation to run the other way. If you think we made a mistake in the thread, it'd be more helpful to post (or email us) a link and point out the specific mistake. Rote denunciations don't help…

My complaint from the beginning was that you stifled conversation by detaching this thread and because every comment is flagged and downvoted automatically you have allowed those who are afraid of this type of discussion to sabotage any submission they dislike. You caved to the brigade instead of acting as a responsible moderator. The ranking algorithm and the moderation policies are too crude for this type of submis…

What you say about the comments is clearly not the case, as anyone can see by looking at the thread.

I'm not sure what you mean by detaching the thread.