Online trolls are harassing a scientist who helped take pictures of a black hole
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Re: Online trolls are harassing a scientist who helped take pictures of a black hole
#2I wonder sometimes if writing articles “Trolls did thing trolls are known for doing” is incidentally giving the trolls exactly what they want.
Re: Online trolls are harassing a scientist who helped take pictures of a black hole
#3"Highlighting the achievements of a brilliant, enthusiastic scientist does not diminish the contributions of the other 214 people who worked on the project, either. "
That is, in my experience, untrue, if it is highlighted in a way that unjustly lifts one contribution above all others.
Does not tend to make collaborators happy. Since there is no money involved (as in, no big salary increases), academics (being one myself) are incredibly petty about these things, and bitter feuds are fought about small points of recognition.
For example, another female collaborator of hers was actually the one to point out that Katie Bouman's algorithm was not the one used for the image, as pointed out by the NYT:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/science/katie-bouman-blac...
Re: Online trolls are harassing a scientist who helped take pictures of a black hole
#4I wonder sometimes if writing articles “Trolls did thing trolls are known for doing” is incidentally giving the trolls exactly what they want.
No, it’s letting them know they stand outside what’s considered polite company.
Rereading the discussion about her, this community is among those standing to learn something by considering how she is being treated differently than any man ever featured in such stories.
Re: Online trolls are harassing a scientist who helped take pictures of a black hole
#5I knew exactly which one it was in particular before clicking. There's a deep rot in the online culture.
Re: Online trolls are harassing a scientist who helped take pictures of a black hole
#6Reposting my comment from another story that didn’t get traction (edit: thar was quickly flagged off the front page, as this one is now as well):
It should be noted that this community here was among the worst in this regard.
This isn’t about measuring the exact contribution she may or may not have made to the project. It’s that there are limitless stories of „meet the man behind “ where that question just never crosses anyone’s mind. See "The Man Behind Windows PowerShell" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15250349
Yet for her (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19632086), the discussion was easily dominated by attempts to tear her down, a few defenders, and entirely transparent attempts to differentiate her case from all the others that avoid the obvious reason.
Re: Online trolls are harassing a scientist who helped take pictures of a black hole
#7Media invents a fact, that she is responsible for everything, and make her the face of the discovery, when it was a team effort. They get tons of clicks for saying something that is clearly preposterous.
Some people get upset, some even start trolling about it, and badmouth the poor woman, who's not responsible for what the media said in their quest for clicks. A loss of time for everybody involved.
Media reports the backlash. They get tons of clicks for that too.
Summary: media wins. Everybody else loses.
Re: Online trolls are harassing a scientist who helped take pictures of a black hole
#8I wonder sometimes if writing articles “Trolls did thing trolls are known for doing” is incidentally giving the trolls exactly what they want.
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Re: Online trolls are harassing a scientist who helped take pictures of a black hole
#9I wonder sometimes if writing articles “Trolls did thing trolls are known for doing” is incidentally giving the trolls exactly what they want.
Trolling is a thing. So is misogyny. They are not the same thing.
Re: Online trolls are harassing a scientist who helped take pictures of a black hole
#10Reposting my comment from another story that didn’t get traction (edit: thar was quickly flagged off the front page, as this one is now as well): It should be noted that this community here was among the worst in this regard. This isn’t about measuring the exact contribution she may or may not have made to the project. It’s that there are limitless stories of „meet the man behind “ where that question just never cros…
Giving one person the credit for a team effort is wrong. In this case some people are pretending it's right because it's a female, but two wrongs don't make one right.