[Mz]

I’ll thank them ... by promising never to bring this up in their Slack channel again.

That reads to me like "It was a shit show, I got the crap kicked out of me. I am trying to be PC." The patience part comes in where they attempted to answer his questions at all instead of merely dogpiling him with a mountain of hatred.

If they were genuinely that patient and kind, why is it described as "touching the third rail"? Genuinely patient and kind people don't make you feel like you are going to be electrocuted for broaching a topic.

[gr3yh47]

It reads to me like he knew it was an awkward conversation and out of gratitude would rather not subject them to that again.

[Mz]

Funny, when I have productive conversations with men actually willing to listen to my side, it is such a rare and wonderful privilege that I am eager to repeat the experience. (This may explain my position on HN as the highest ranked woman here. Enough men genuinely engage me on difficult subjects, it is worth putting up with whatever crap goes along with it.)

Your interpretation in no way succeeds in changing mine.

[HelloMcFly]

> Your interpretation in no way succeeds in changing mine.

It doesn't have to, as there is sufficient ambiguity in the writing to make either interpretation iron-clad. Yet I shared the same interpretation as the commenter you responded to, and was surprised by yours. I now see your perspective, though it rings less true to me.

Although, I do think it's borderline inarguable that you are reading too much into the personality traits of the Slack channel members (e.g., "hateful") with far too little information to justify the strength of the words. If those descriptions weren't intended for the Slack channel participants but more of a general comment, then that makes more sense.

[Mz]

Although, I do think it's borderline inarguable that you are reading too much into the personality traits of the Slack channel members (e.g., "hateful") with far too little information to justify the strength of the words.

That is a misinterpretation of my remark. I have personally seen this firsthand over and over. My general remark that I am sick of seeing it does not attribute hatefulness per se to the discussion members. I still seriously doubt that it was a very warm fuzzy conversation. I think the author of the piece is being incredibly charitable.

Just look at how I am being attacked here to give you some inkling of how such conversations typically go. It is hard enough to get privileged white males to be genuinely respectful to each other in an internet conversation. That used to be kind of a given on HN, which deteriorated over time. I hope to see that sort of atmosphere return here -- it does seem to be improving -- but I hope it also includes the women in a way they never were before.

[Paul-ish]

Talking about what was said in the slack channel would distract readers from the main point he was trying to make in the post. If anything he should have said less, as it is clear some still want to discuss the slack channel more than his main point.

[Mz]

I do a lot of blogging. I also get paid to do freelance work, often for business sites, where I get explicit instruction to say nothing negative. This is sometimes an incredibly challenging thing to do.

There was no gun to his head to comment on this discussion at all. He was under zero obligation to describe it as a slack channel or even an online discussion. He was under zero obligation to give what description of it he did. He could have easily said something incredibly generic about "Discussions I have been fortunate to be privy to suggest...."

The fact that he had to spend an entire paragraph not talking about the contents of the discussion and trying ever so hard to be PC while the pain of that discussion clearly bled through in his framing of his comments speaks to how not well it actually went. It is entirely possible to just say nothing about things you wish to say nothing about. I do that pretty often.