Specifically, 90%+ of all comments are of the "you're wrong, because..." variety. Note that there's nothing wrong with such comments: they make up a large part of any group's pub conversations as well, for example.
Yet there are other sentiments that are possibly underrepresented on HN: self-doubt, questions, or comments expanding on others' ideas come to mind.
None of these can obviously be categorised as singularity "male" or "female". And there isn't much shouting going on, even metaphorically. Yet it may, from time to time, be a good idea to step back and examine common assumptions,
I puzzled for years over why people would say things like "90%+ of all comments" that are so obviously (to me) untrue. But now I think I know why: those kinds of comments stand out more. It is as if they burn a deeper impression into the brain of the reader, usually a more painful one, so one comes to feel like they're "90%+" even when they are not. This perceptual loop is hard to break out of, so I've begun to see it as part of the moderator's job to inject new information when people post like this, in the hope of opening the loop back up. It's important for the community to see the good in itself and not just the bad. Otherwise why bother to take care of it?
HN has problems with disrespect, incivility, aggression, but one must evaluate this from multiple sides. Every large, public, anonymous place on the internet has this problem, usually worse than HN does. The problem is systemic, but that doesn't make it hopeless, it just makes improvement slow.
Every HN reader I've met has a love-hate relationship with the site. There's something deep in that, and a lot to say about it, but here's one that gets back to the topic of this thread. In my opinion, the aggressive dynamics of open internet argumentation relate to the gender dynamics of what tends to make women feel more or less welcome in a place. An atmosphere of hostility—or anything above a certain toxic baseline—causes many people to want nothing to do with a place or to feel deep ambivalence about it. I have that reaction myself, and my sense is that women tend to have it more than men do. This is what came to my mind when Cadran wrote that she started Leap because she doesn't feel welcome in "shouting matches".
It happens that the two styles are often categorized as female (agreeableness and pleasing others) and male (bluntly challenging). And indeed, in American society, men and women are in the broadest of terms socialized in those ways.
Personally, I wouldn't trade this norm for the world. I'm much too familiar with the Dale Carnegie crap of wrapping every point in senseless complements and false uncertainty to want to waste more energy on it than required. My own or anyone else's. I recognize that this preference leaves some people feeling uncomfortable. But that's my preference, and I am keenly aware that others may prefer differently approaches.
(EDIT: But read dang's comments instead. They're better than this.)
On a more serious note, I wonder whether it has something to do with the fact that on HN it is frowned upon to express agreement in comment form (that's what upvotes are for), however when disagreeing/expressing disapproval, it is accepted practice to explain why one disagrees (and rightly so in my opinion).
This could give the casual reader the impression that most of the interaction on HN is adversarial, simply because comments are more prominent than upvotes.
Interested to hear your thoughts on this dang.
Which is not to say that many women wouldn't enjoy that kind of high-octane environment! Hey, different strokes etc. All I know is that for me personally — someone who goes online to have fun, not to be right — it's a lot more pleasant to hang out in mixed-gender communities than in male-dominated ones.
(Then again, here I am on HN, slingin' ideas again, sooo...)
(Also, I have to apologize for responding to a question directed towards women in the most stereotypical "as a dude" kind of way. To be honest, I should have probably held off...)
Empty comments can be ok if they're positive. There's nothing wrong with submitting a comment saying just "Thanks." What we especially discourage are comments that are empty and negative—comments that are mere name-calling.
>“I’ve found that some conversations online escalate to shouting matches quickly”
How many people can find a group of people IN GENERAL (online/offline/anywhere) that doesn't rapidly devolve into power/politics/passive & active aggressive behavior? Go spend some time on a forum like metafilter where you have to pay $5 to comment and the moderators aggressively prune any opinion that doesn't tow a nominal progressive line. Even with all of that you end up with some of the most breathtakingly toxic behavior I've seen on any forum.
In my opinion Leap is a wonderful innovation. It will help lots of people realize being an asshole does not know gender.
I joined HN fairly late (just a few years ago) and my subjective experience of the rules (as they are lived) is that a 'thanks' comment is almost invariably countered with a snarky 'that is what the upvote button is for' response.
For what it's worth, the vast majority of my experiences here on HN have been positive, and I greatly appreciate how often someone with significant domain knowledge turns up and replies to me in a way that seriously challenges beliefs which I had previously taken to be fact.
I will also happily admit to be part of that dynamic, and I don't think it should reflect negatively on any comment, or commenter, or even any single online community.
It just seems valid to believe that there are other modes of communication, and that it could be worthwhile to explore if there are mechanisms to bring those to the front more often.
(in the past this would be sarcasm but these days who knows)
On HN the goal is to gratify intellectual curiosity, so we're looking for a sweet spot of, let's call it, playful substantiveness. Under the constraints of internet discussion, it's difficult to get there. Environments become boring when they're predictable, for example predictably negative or predictably positive. At the same time it's obvious that intellectual curiosity will fare best in a culture that is welcoming to all, since if we exclude some—whether actively or passively—we deprive ourselves of the intellectual curiosity they would otherwise bring.
I do think HN's culture falls short in this way. We can't fix that by imposing any formulas, e.g. a positivity rule, because that would make the site more predictable and thus more boring again. The fixes need to be more subtle.
As there are things you won’t probably speak out at work, so there’re things and emotional responses you keep to yourself in a professional community. Is it good? Is it bad? Haven’t figured it out yet.
I got really sick from reading the neverending, overblown feminist headlines in YC Female Founders group on FB. Leap has been growing into something else, luckily, which I suppose is provided by the fact that it was built and nurtured by female engineers (thus partially sharing a certain mindset and culture).
Also, with a decent amount of supportive culture present, I still woudn’t call Leap an emotional support group. The responses so far have been consistently useful and constructive.
Conflict is ultimately what drives all innovation.
(note: I don't mean physical conflict.)
I've posted on lots of non-anonymous internet forums/communities since the mid 90s, when I first started reading and posting on usenet while still in grade school. Something Awful in particular stands out, because moderation there (bans and suspensions) were primarily handled by women in the mid-2000s (Ozma, Icequeen, Fistgrrl), and they were just as abusive and toxic as the male admins and mods that came before them, if not more so.
I think internet communities in general just attract certain kinds of people who seek out drama and conflict, and you'll never be able to avoid them completely despite exclusive membership. Even if you turn the majority of them away at the gate, or ban most of the ones that manage to slip by, some will be able to blend in and inevitably end up rising to positions of power, because seeking out and then abusing that power is simply their nature.
Even more so for exclusive communities, which, in my opinion, always end up with its members developing a feeling of superiority to those who are not a part of the group. The community itself will splinter into its own subgroups as well.
I think it's a mistake to assume that the current quality of discourse on Leap (and its utility as an app/service) is primarily due to the fact that men are not allowed to read or post. I would theorize that Leap's current success as a platform primarily comes from the fact that most (all?) of it's current users are closely networked to each other, since it's grown through direct invites and word-of-mouth between people who have direct relationships with each other. They are mentally and emotionally healthy working professionals who have vetted each other through their relationships, whether professional or otherwise. I have no doubt that the quality of content and contributions would not be negatively impacted if the same level of selectiveness and scrutiny was applied to vetting male members.
Now that invites are being opened, people who aren't part of this pre-existing network will be allowed in, and potentially outnumber the current/original community members. There will be conflict, not just for things like moderation power and the ability to control and influence discussions, but also because some people just like conflict for its own sake.
Based on what I've seen in private Facebook groups and on Twitter, I don't think that tying a personal identity to a forums account is adequate once you have lots of people who don't actually know each other.
The most successful community I've been a part of has extremely lax moderation on its main forums, an anonymous forum that is completely unmoderated (with the exceptions of guessing the identities of others and posting illegal stuff) where users can go blow off steam so they don't shit up the main boards, and then a "Serious" forum where trolling and shitposting are absolutely not allowed, and moderation is very strict.
If I were going to make an internet community, I would follow a similar approach, because when you need to enforce strict moderation at all times, you will eventually reach a point where you need to delegate that responsibility to people who enjoy moderating a community for the sake of power (if you don't want to pay them).
If you enjoy moderation to the point of pleasure and don't think that you'll ever get sick of it, then you can actively shape policy and staff throughout the community's lifecycle, but if not, you'll ultimately just want to throw your hands up in the air and walk away in disgust, and that's the point where you potentially lose control over your community and its direction.