[adrienne]

I am also openly a woman. And I'm probably one of the lowest-ranked members on here, precisely because this community is already so fucking much a "place where racist, misogynist, fascist hackers can feel perfectly safe". So i only come over here when something is really interesting or really appalling, because it is a toxic awful cesspit of a community and Mr. Gackle doesn't seem to have done any better than any of the other mods in that regard. IDK why you have any more faith in him than in any of the rest of them.

[Mz]

I have recently noticed multiple women with longstanding accounts that were (mostly or entirely) inactive for apparently a very long time but which have recently started being active again. I also have exchanged emails with Dan Gackle on a number of occasions and he has banned accounts for making ugly personal attacks at me that were completely out of line (and gender based) and he has also engaged in more limited, but useful interventions.

There are other things that I am not willing to comment on publicly, but which inform my opinion.

I am sorry your experience has been so negative. I certainly had a pretty difficult time at one time, but I have always had a pretty good opinion of HN and I felt I had reason to work on the problem from my end, since I am good at certain things. I believe it is generally getting better and women are generally being received differently here than what happened at one time.

[adrienne]

I feel certain that after gawking in horror at the trainwreck on this thread i will just go back to quietly pretending HN doesn't exist for another few months, because i cannot even. And i'll continue to warn literally every marginalized, subaltern, or otherwise vulnerable person in tech i know to stay the fuck away from here.

[bradjohnson]

Looking through your last couple comments you seem like you're constantly looking to get into political arguments by writing inflammatory comments mostly regarding gender. I'm not surprised that when you fish for a political argument, you end up attracting the worst that the site has to offer.

[Mz]

It would be super nice if you did not do this. I assure you, women who have been here a long time have good reason to have baggage. Her approach isn't productive at the moment, but your comment will read to quite a lot of women as victim blaming and drive them away.

This undermines the progress that some people here have work incredibly hard for.