[hbags]

No. what Merritt said that if you don't say something right there and then you should never be allowed to say anything.

He's an asshole and a bully. If a victim doesn't protest withim his designated free-speech zone he doesn't want them to protest at all.

[dragonwriter]

> No. what Merritt said that if you don't say something right there and then you should never be allowed to say anything.

No, he says, explicitly, that not saying anything there and then but blogging about it later won't be as effective in producing the desired change.

He does not say that people shouldn't be allowed to talk about it after the fact without addressing it immediately, he says that doing so is not the ideal choice if the goal is to actually deal with the problem.

There's a universe of difference between what he said and your characterization.

[vacri]

No, he never said or even intimated "don't write about it". He said that writing this article this way would only be read by people who already agree. He said it would be more effective to be proactive at the time. I disagree with him about such a thing spreading like wildfire, but there is nothing in what he said that meant "don't write at all". That's your projection. He said "if you do A, it won't be as effective as B".

The person who is being an arsehole and a bully is you, naming, shaming, strawmanning, abusing, and being generally vituperative.

[dragonwriter]

> He said it would be more effective to be proactive at the time. I disagree with him about such a thing spreading like wildfire

He didn't say that being proactive at the time would spread like wildfire, he said that being proactive at the time and writing about that experience afterward would.

[vacri]

Yep, that's what I meant. And to be specific, I don't think if the article was "I asserted myself with the groper and he withdrew" would spread like wildfire. It wouldn't reach a particularly different audience to this one, methinks.

[dragonwriter]

Well, I'd say the group interested in and reposting/linking a story of "Addressing the problem directly works" would be very different in composition to the group that tends to repost/link a story of "Bad things happen" alone.

But I wouldn't be surprised if the size/scope/impact of the two groups was about the same.

[DorintheFlora]

Would it? I personally doubt that. Do you have an example of something like that working? Or is that just speculation?

[dragonwriter]

> Would it?

I think it would draw more attention and useful discussion from people interested in doing more than emoting sympathy, complaining about discussions of women's negative experiences, or discussing abstractly whether addressing the situation in the moment would be more productive.

Whether it would actually spread any more is another question, and one on which I don't have a strong feeling about.

[DorintheFlora]

In other words: It is just speculation. You (apparently) do not have a real world example to cite.

I am female. I have blogged before about some of my struggles with the glass ceiling, etc. It got no attention. Perhaps I was doing something wrong. But, as someone who has firsthand experience which contradicts your suggestion, I would be genuinely interested in seeing actual evidence. If I can find an example that works, I would love to follow that. I can't find it.

Thanks.

[dragonwriter]

> In other words: It is just speculation.

No, in other words, I'm not the person that made the "wildfire" claim, just someone who clarified someone else's presentation of it, and I'm not even trying to support it, though I do think the recommendation made in the post in which it is presented is good for other reasons besides how the recommended action would (or would not) accelerate the spread of the story.

[Crito]

I don't think 'dragonwriter is suggesting what you think he is suggesting.

[pstack]

Hbags, you are full of shit.

Merritt said the behavior was unacceptable and the way to fix it is to address it when it occurs. Followed by the comment:

--- "Running off to write yet another gender-division-in-the-tech-world blog which will be read, primarily, by the sort of folk who already agree with you isn't going to make nearly as much of a difference as taking care of issues promptly". ---

Then said that a story about a bad situation where the person spoke up about it would be a great story that would spread "like wildfire".

At absolutely NO point in Merritt's short post was it said that if you don't speak up when you are uncomfortable or accosted, you should never be allowed to say anything about it.

You owe Merritt an apology for straight out lying about the content and intent of their comment and repeatedly attacking their character based solely on the things you invented (then repeated) in this thread.

[hbags]

You owe Merritt an apology

No way. Meritt clearly attempted to shame her for writing about something that, for whatever reason, she didn't confront immediately.

He's a censor. He's shaming her for protesting outside his designated free-speech zone. Fuck him.

[pstack]

Repeating your accusations doesn't make them true.

Knock your vile rhetoric and bullying off for five seconds and quote, for all of us, the specific sentence or more from Merritt's comment where he shamed the author, implied or supported censoring her, or said that she should not be able to post about her experience.

It is a simple request. I'm not asking you to irrefutably prove your ability to bend spoons with your mind. Merritt's comment was quite short. Just copy and paste the precise part of his or her message where what you keep attacking them for is actually stated or even implied.

Don't worry, we'll all wait. Go ahead.

[pstack]

So. Nothing. Exactly as I thought.

[Crito]

[OT]

> about: hell-banned by bigoted assholes

I don't see any evidence of you being hellbanned^. Furthermore, hellbanning is (typically, at least) an automated process. It is done by an algorithm that evaluates the quality of your posts using their score as the metric of quality. At the time that I am writing this, this seems to be your only post in this thread that has been voted into the negatives.

^ I have showdead turned on, so unless you deleted the comments that you have made since being hellbanned, I would see them in your comment history.