@tptacek and I discussed this a bit downthread. I’m not an expert in community moderation and I’ve seen a lot of them go from decent to terrible very quick, so I know roughly how much effort it takes to prevent that. I do think it’s improving, and I think slow is the only way it ever improves.

I think a lot of women see terrible stuff come up here either in comments or on the front page and assume (wrongly) that the community as a whole is ok with it, before it ends up flagkilled by everyone else and often you will come into the thread and warn them if it’s particularly bad. I know I’ve had a good few “why the FUCK is this garbage on the front page” reactions over the years, but those submissions inevitably end up flagged too.

I do recall being warned by you for responding in kind to somebody writing inflammatory stuff or acting in bad faith, and this is a reaction I have had to learn to control as a result. That doesn’t feel great, because in the moment it feels like being scolded for hitting back from a position of less power, and this happens a lot to minorities in tech. However, over time I’ve learned that there’s a discursive norm against flamey stuff in general, and that this norm prevents the conversation from being drowned in pile-ons about one person’s bad behavior, which of course ends up Streisanding bad comments too. HN seems like one of the few places where “don’t feed the troll” is actually sensible advice, because there is sufficient enforcement against trolls (community based and explicit moderation) that they aren’t allowed to fester and multiply.

I think a lot of women are jaded and burnt out from having to deal with ugly comments and bad actors in less-well-moderated areas of the web where the community sentiment is actually against us participating. I know it was really difficult for me to learn to set aside my gut reaction and ignore the ugly bits, but I did it because I believed it would be ultimately worth it. It’s a question of trust, right? People have to trust that this space is actually different, that misogynistic pot-stirring and verbal abuse aren’t actually welcome, and that they will be treated as equals. These are depressingly common and even quotidian almost everywhere else, which is I think what builds the reputation.

Yes to all this. I am a woman who has been online since 1989. For me, what has to happen is not so much moderation difference but about the inner work. Understanding that categories gender and race are always at play, and putting things in that context. That is what we as women or bipoc _have_ to do. My bad experiences are not rages and threats to rape me (that I can place in the category of ridiculous) but these get all the focus. For me it is the 1000s of times I have something to add but when I do, because it is from my gendered perspective, it is considered outside the field of the conversation. The technical term for this is the differend.