[troad]

I can honestly say I've never, ever, heard anyone call anyone else these terms on Hacker News. I don't think I've ever even heard those terms before. It sounds like you might be very online, in a way that seems to be making you unhappy.

Some of my most upvoted comments on here have been from a 'queer' perspective. It helps to assume good intentions and engage with others constructively and in good faith.

I must admit, I feel saddened by your dismissiveness of certain 'queer people'. You have no idea who I am, what my identity is, and yet you so casually dismiss members of the marginalised group you purport to be defending. How callous of you.

Perhaps the reason I can so easily dismiss your hysterical claim that HN is unsafe is that - in my day - 'unsafe for queer people' meant 'reasonable likelihood of getting a brick to the face', and not 'seeing words online you don't agree with'.

[_cenw]

this is very dismissive for how much you're projecting i'm dismissing you. it's okay if you can't relate to me, just don't assume you understand.

hn is unsafe in the way that it provides zero control over what you have submitted and a perfect history of your posts, mostly set in stone unless you email an administrator. at least reddit lets you self-service delete posts.

those are perfect conditions for a certain kind of group that spend way too much time digging up and correlating info to then start harassment campaigns that exceed 'seeing words online you don't agree with' quite often.

you can of course now go on to scold me and others with this problem about how we need to up our opsec or shouldn't post in the first place. i find such arguments, if you were to make them, entirely unconvincing. being aware of your risk profile is one thing, shifting all the blame for making it harder to retroactively rectify little pieces of information (these people found a place from a blurry 500x500 picture of a parking lot out a window) on the user is just a bad excuse for shitty UX.

[troad]

> you can of course now go on to scold me and others with this problem about how we need to up our opsec or shouldn't post in the first place

Not at all. I neither think you should up your opsec nor avoid posting. I think you should be unabashed of what you have to say. I also think you should hear out others doing the same, generously and in good faith.

That tiny minority who harass and abuse queer people today? That used to be virtually everybody, all the time, everywhere you'd go.

The only reason queer rights are where they are today is because people weren't afraid to speak up, even when they had every right to be. When coming out meant admitting to criminal acts - proclaiming them in public, no less. Had they not put themselves out there - had they refused to speak to those that didn't already agree with them - this would be a much darker world, and your definition of 'unsafe' would be a lot more visceral.

People used to march, faces out in the open, in their small towns, for their rights, past neighbours who hated them. That's what 'unsafe for queer people' means. I'm just never going to be able to see 'people disagree with me online sometimes' as being in any way comparable.