[tptacek]

Readers: you'll find a variant of this exact comment in a lot of threads about harassment on HN, for what it's worth. Someone says "I'm glad I wasn't there to witness <loved one> being harassed" and, like clockwork, this response.

I'm pretty sure it's in some MRA troll playbook somewhere.

[coldtea]

Or, you know, people genuiunly believing that just because stress or harm was caused to your <loved one >, it still doesn't justify violence.

I'm not sure by what logic the "if I was there to witness my <loved one > being harassed I've have beaten them up" is supposed to be beyond critique...

[tptacek]

Readers: look at this train wreck of a thread and notice how effective the tactic was.

Notice how little the subthread has to do not only with the original story --- it's disconnection to the story is bad enough --- but to the actual comment it responds to, which doesn't even mention violence.

Like I said: I'm sincerely suspect this is in an actual playbook of MRA trolling techniques.

[coldtea]

>Readers: look at this train wreck of a thread and notice how effective the tactic was. Notice how little the subthread has to do not only with the original story --- it's disconnection to the story is bad enough --- but to the actual comment it responds to, which doesn't even mention violence.

Are you kidding me? First of all ""I'm glad I wasn't there to witness <loved one> being harassed" implies violence clearly ("or who knows what I've done" etc). I

Second, this very subtread began with the suggestion of punching the "the guy in the face", followed by the question whether "jokes justify violence".

Then there's the appalling call to the "Readers" -- as if to say: hey, fellow HNs, come see these wild specimens of unpopular opinion. Let's bully them/downvote them all together. That, along with name-calling ("trolls", "MRA", etc).

Because of course, somebody can't call against violence to a person who did such a thing unless he's an MRA, right? I mean, it's logically impossible that someone can be against such kind of violent responses in general, even if the offender had insulted another male or a gay, or even if the offender was a woman, right?

>Like I said: I'm sincerely suspect this is in an actual playbook of MRA trolling techniques.

And like I often say: people who see trolling in candid opinions they don't like are either using the accusation dishonestly to shut people up, or live in an echo chamber.

[tptacek]

"Clearly implies". See how easy it is to keep this thread going? Once again: note that the story we're commenting on has nothing to do with violence, nor does the comment that sparked off this subthread about violence.

Stop to think for a second, readers, how carefully you'd have to write a comment to inoculate it from this kind of trolling. That too is part of the point.

[coldtea]

>Once again: note that the story we're commenting on has nothing to do with violence, nor does the comment that sparked off this subthread about violence.

Sure. Probably I imagined the "Maybe the guy just wanted to be punched in the face?" quote, and the response to that discussing violence, all present before I added my comment on the subject lower in the thread.

Readers, see how you can use your high status on HN, and the fact that people won't particularly check the whole thread, to marginalize and accuse people you don't like of trolling. All the while speaking from a pedestal, with call-outs to "readers" and such shenanigans.

And if they dare respond to set things straight (at least from their perspective), that's more proof that they are indeed trolls.

I stop here, can't win this game, and am 40-something, so I'm not interested in games in the first place.

[chiaro]

You're fixating on something which wasn't the core thrust of the thread, and using it as a point to derail the conversation. The original post was essentially about his daughter having a shitty experience. I don't think there's a playbook, but it is odd that people get so kneejerk defensive about these kind of things they have to lash out with whatever tiny criticism they can muster, regardless of it actually being relevant to the topic being discussed.

[coldtea]

>You're fixating on something which wasn't the core thrust of the thread

Why call it "fixating", as opposed to merely opting to comment on a raised issue that I find more interesting than the "idiot insults girl at convention"?

Doesn't commenting on only part of the starting thread (or even bringing up a new point, related to the discussion but not explicitly present) happen naturally like all the time on HN? Because that's how conversations go? E.g. "Go 1.5 released -> Still no Generics -> Generics are not needed ->", that can go all the way to subthreads discussing Oberon, Java, the blub paradox, etc.

Besides, the main reason I added a few more comments was because I was called out for commenting on the violence part -- the rest of my comments were meta, belaboring the obvious, that the issue had already been raised.

[sarciszewski]

If they really need a playbook... an allegation I don't doubt for an instant... that's really kind of pathetic don't you think? :P

[tptacek]

Pathetic is not the word I would use.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: as the parent of two very nerdy teenagers, one girl and one boy, I have a lot of worries here. But I'm far less worried that the girl is going to experience bullshit like the woman in this story, and way, way, way, way, way, way, way more worried that somehow I'm going to lose track of the boy when he goes off to college and he's going to somehow turn into one of these MRA trolls. That's the terrifying thought.

(He's awesome, though, so the fear is mostly irrational.)