Oh, well, in that case, let's pack up and go home, guys. There can't possibly be anything to learn here.

The only thing that really troubles me about the otherwise excellent Hacker News community is this defensive/dismissive streak that shows up every time the subject of "women in tech" is raised. It's especially mystifying to me given how obvious the problem is: (gross generalizations follow)

- Many nerds have a shocking talent for being insular, insecure dicks

- Most nerds aren't women

- Nerds dominate tech

No chance at all this ends poorly for the outsiders, right?

I feel like you could make your point in a more constructive way. Let's keep things civil on here.

I respectfully disagree and, if I may be frank, resent the parental tone. Except in egregious circumstances, I'd counter that the vote arrows beside each comment are a sufficient mechanism for expressing this view, just as it's frowned upon to post a comment that says nothing more than "I agree."

Sometimes irony is the only appropriate way to respond to the absurd. By carrying a remark like this to its logical conclusion, you can expose its absurdity with substantial economy. While I trust my fellow HNers to avoid outright name-calling and ad hominem, I also trust them (occasionally in error) to not have a stick-up-the-ass as we exchange ideas.

You aren't really exchanging ideas, but rather making repeated, sweeping generalizations.

was not meant to be a 'parental' tone. This is a very emotionally charged issue, and making statements such as 'Many nerds have a shocking talent for being insular, insecure dicks' simply adds to the anger in the room, without contributing to the underlying discussion.

The vote arrows are for meritous ideas, not to police tone. I only intended to defuse the situation, not to cast aspersions on your point of view.

I found the article to be interesting and relevant--ad hominem attacks don't contribute to the discussion and I hope HN will eventually get over its self serving bias and discuss self critical issues at the same level as any other conversation.

Are you trying to make a point apart from refute-by-vague-association? What does a cherry-picked list of headlines have to do with the content of the linked article?

And it's another broken hashbang site. It took three page reloads to finally see the content.

For those who no longer trust Gawker even as far as to run their Javascript:

http://m.jezebel.com/5781523/horror-stories-from-women-in-te...

(This is generalizable across their sites -- at least, for the moment.)