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Comment by dkulchenko | Hacker News Reader

Previous discussion (all dead posts, all posted within past hour):

Why are all the posts related to Aria Richards getting deleted? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416578

Effective immediately, SendGrid has terminated the employment of Adria Richards - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416514

Effective immediately, SendGrid has terminated the employment of Adria Richards - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416422

SendGrid has terminated the employment of Adria Richards - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416312

SendGrid has terminated the employment of Adria Richards? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416021

View on HN

Because people are flagging it. This happens every single time a story about sexism appears on HN.

The best explanation I've ever got from a flagger is that the topic "isn't relevant". Funny how it's only topics that require self-examination of the industry's perception of gender that aren't relevant.

Don't jump to conclusions. I'm flagging these threads too, and I'm extremely jumpy about gender/privilege issues. The reason I'm flagging the threads is that they're a message board version of a TLC reality show; they're unproductive and horrible. They aren't animated by a drive to hash out an important issue; they're animated by our love for drama.

To what extent is that counter-productive, though? The OP lists 5 other submissions on the topic. At a certain point isn't it just simpler to contain it all in one thread? If you don't want to read it (and I certainly don't blame you) you can just skip that thread and move on.

Because the threads are, in the parlance of our times, embarrassing shitshows. It was clear to me that they needed to be torched off the site as soon as we got to the comment about the hetero guy in the gay bar.

That is what the flag button is for. To scorch the shit off the site. More people need to use it. These threads are horrible and they need to go.

I both agree and disagree. The threads are utter shitshows (and yes, the hetero guy in a gay bar comment was the lowest point in a very low thread) but at the same time I think that flagging the content off the site means that a lot of people are never aware of the (excuse me if this sounds dramatic) true nature of many in Hacker News. I suppose I think of it as painting over the cracks in the community here. I'd prefer everyone sees the shitshow for what it is, and then maybe has a think about what HN is, or should be.

This site would be better if we could get over the idea that all issues related to technology demand comprehensive litigation in comment threads. Sometimes issues that are relevant to us can't be resolved in comment threads. And then all those comment threads do is degrade the community.

I'm planning to link to this at a later date. :-)

I flag the CISPA threads too. I can write a 500 word comment on a topic and still hope the thread ends up dead.

What if leaving the embarassing shit shows hanging around is necessary to show people the extent of the problem?

In much the same way that sometimes in a parent's life they need to stop doing the laundry and let their teenager head out to town with smelly, mouldy, crusty garments until the teenager learns that dirty clothes are horrible and that perhaps it might be worth helping parents with housework without the need for bribes.

@untog: Your last comment is marked as [dead]. I really hope it's not because you've been hellbanned.

I accidentally double-posted. Deleted one, but evidently the wrong one. Re-posted now, hopefully it shows up.

I normally agree with you, but in this case I find it quite relevant. All Hackers should be all notice now that the things they say in public or put on Twitter could cost them their jobs.

>Funny how it's only topics that require self-examination of the industry's perception of gender that aren't relevant.

I don't see any "self-examinination" happening on the other side: that this is taken too far, that women maybe don't chose CompSci careers for other reasons besides "sexism" (the least of which are bloody crazy expectations of overtime and having to do rather mundane programming chores 90% of the time), and that not every field has to have a 50-50 men/women representation (nobody fights for more women coal miners. Why is that?).

Looks like "rampant sexism in tech" is the gospel, and only everybody disagreeing must "self-examine his perception".

You know where would be a good place to have a debate like that? The threads everyone is flagging.

Are you sure you're not mistaking the reason behind the flagging?

This story deserves to be flagged for the same reason the half dozen other posts related to this dramatic internet drama need to be flagged. Because it's drama.

Were there actionable advice in the linked article that one could use to improve one's business, it would be a reasonable thing to submit to this site. Were there anything whatsoever to do with technology or computer programming in the linked article, it might deserve to be submitted here.

But there's none of that. So it goes someplace else.

> Because it's drama.

Ye guys, go back to reading about that one guy who wrote a less popular web framework bitching about every other web framework.

I dunno, did they use semicolons or not?

Are you suggesting that every non-flagged article on Hacker News contains actionable advice one could use to improve their business? Because I think we all know that is not true.

Articles of all kinds are popular on HN- some tech, some business, some lifestyle, some that have absolutely nothing to do with tech. But mysteriously, gender seems to be about the only topic not permitted.

On the homepage right now, I see 27 tech-related articles, and 3 pieces related to this drama, all of which have been flagged by several people.

So yes, that's what I'm suggesting. It's also what the guidelines state explicitly.

It's 100% definitely not what the guidelines state. In what to submit, it clearly states:

"anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity"

Discussions about gender would fulfill that criteria, no? There's a post on the front page right now entitled "Dating with Graph Search". Another called "Love for Makers".

By your criteria we should have all flagged the posts about Steve Jobs' death, right?

This is an official repsonse from PG:

" We're assuming these are fake, and that someone just got hold of their Facebook and Twitter passwords. On the other hand, I notice the same statement has appeared on their blog. So maybe it's real. "

Official comment from HN on dead threads - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5416908

The assumption that this is fake is reasonable in my opinion, especially that the site is being DDOSed and inaccessible.

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