harrylyme

Sorry you feel that way: It's really more about how free, reasonable, expression is being suppressed on twitter.com based on a somewhat radical slant on what is acceptable speech in the tech community.

Shanley Kane writes on tech, with an emphasis on venture capitalist like YCombinator. Actually YCombinator is often the focus of Shanley Kane's criticism of VC in Silicon Valley.

http://bit.ly/1impCn6

Hacker News, to it's credit, seems to be more open/less gameable than other sites, and being able to express your own opinions on tech culture/community -- is a very significant issue.

There is an amazingly intolerant environment on twitter: simply reposting Shanley rants (something she did routinely to others) -- will get you shut down, apparently by the back-channel of supporters who want to cover up her routinely abusive, polarizing language. It's a little bit frightening.

I think that regardless of how critical the article is (or isn't) -- her reactions already suggest that her views on tech culture are histrionic distortions of reality, where any disagreement is equated with violence: even a fellow woman journalist is castigated for contributing to 'harassment and violence' for simply writing a profile that was probably, on balance, originally leaning positive.

The key word here is histrionic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histrionic_personality_disorder

My advice to GitTip: 'if it's not broke, don't fix it'. You had a great year, so proceed cautiously with any systemic changes, and error on the side of transparency. Keep conversations as open as possible because the real solution to 'Bad' Speech -- is more speech.

The only exception to that rule is personally threatening language, which should not be tolerated at all. And only a coward would resort to that low level of action.

But with that being said lets not construe honest disagreements that are substantiated with reasons -- as a personal attack or a cause to feel 'threatened'.

And as far as funding goes: except for clear cases of fraud, let people decide for themselves where they want their money to go -- and let transparency take care of the rest :)

P.S. They are using flame throwers on twitter about this thread -- when they should be replying here :D (twitter is a better place to polarize with out of context 'headlines')

Exactly: people like @shanley and @ashedryden make money by polarizing and then profiting from the resulting flames of their gender argument, and so vigorously resist even talking to those that they accuse and condemn. It's the type of narcissistic intolerance that is rarely seen in such pure form.

The logic here is rather straightforward: to a 'stage4' narcissist, their opinions are the functional equivalent of absolute truths, and therefore it is sacrilegious to even imply that they be 'open for debate'. So if anyone persists in challenging one of their sermons,that person is either grossly ignorant (solution => RTFM) OR is intentionally 'attacking' or 'harassing' (because there is no gray area to debate for the histrionically 'self-deified' -- it's impossible to debate across parallel 'Absolutes' -"God does not play dice";)

Heck, at this stage of ferment, she is all but accusing (the almost freakishly fair minded) Chad of misogyny :D

And it's worse for those without a monetary connection: https://twitter.com/shanley/status/474265272660942848

P.S. SK: a bit of advice: don't look a gift horse in the mouth (good wine and a menagerie of stuffed animals are not cheap in SF ;)

I hear that there are preschools in Sweden where any gender specific language usage is expressedly prohibited (e.g. young children aren't told if they are boys or girls to prevent perpetuating gender stereotypes during their formative years)

Concerning gender equality: is there any lesson to be learned by the Sweden example?

NYTimes Article on Swedish Pre-schools:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/world/europe/swedish-schoo...