I appear to be the only woman to have ever made the leaderboard (under a different handle). I absolutely get downvotes that I suspect boil down to "shut up, bitch." I have handled it by doing some of the following things:
1. Make sure I am actually being respectful and not an asshole.
2. Walk the fuck away and shut up sometimes.
3. I left for 18 months, to work on my issues and to give someone breathing room that I had friction with whom I felt saw me as personally threatening. I didn't have specific plans to return. I did return in part because posting something one day went better than I expected.
4. Drop it from my end when there is personal friction. This gets vastly better results when I point out someone is behaving poorly towards me. Sometimes they listen. If they don't, the mods (and community as a whole) are much more likely to be sympathetic if I am not putting out the fire with gasoline.
I routinely comment on hot button topics. I have extremely controversial views on some things. But I go out of my way to not piss on people to the best of my ability.
This has included changing my handle after hitting the leaderboard because I concluded that it didn't matter that it wasn't chosen as a feminist handle. What matters is that it is an overwhelmingly male forum and I want no appearance of impropriety as the first woman on the leaderboard. The perception of disrespect became apparent to me and was not something I wanted. So I started over.
I am vastly more satisfied with posting under this handle. Lots of people recognize me as also being Mz. So the difference is not due to being anonymous.
(This comment is not comprehensive. Just a nutshell version of 8.5 years of navigating an overwhelmingly male forum while posting as openly female.)
I'd normally leave something that is already this meta alone with just an upvote, but even though I've often clashed with you on this board, I had to comment to say this is the best advice on handling downvotes I have ever seen posted on HN and I kind of wish it (well, at least the #1, #2, and #4; #3 is probably to specific to the specific circumstances to work as any kind of general guideine) would be attached to the commenting guidelines.
#3 is probably to specific to the specific circumstances to work as any kind of general guideine)
I can think of some folks who would be better off taking a break and sorting their personal problems rather than continuing to piss and moan about what meanies the mods are or whatever. I am far from the only person here whose personal issues are sometimes a significant part of the problem.
> I can think of some folks who would be better off taking a break and sorting their personal problems rather than continuing to piss and moan about what meanies the mods are or whatever. I am far from the only person here whose personal issues are sometimes a significant part of the problem.
Oh, I certainly agree; what I meant would perhaps be more clearly expressed as "#3 probably has more need of rewriting into a more general form before being included as a general guideline"; recognizing and, where appropriate, taking an extended break to address personal issues is something that makes a good bit of general advice, the other three were just more in a form that worked as general advice without rewriting from the account of what had worked for you than that one was, IMO.
Yeah, I agree that I would not want official guidelines to sound like "The problem is you and we wish you would go the fuck away and stop bothering us." Which number 3 could easily sound like if not stated very carefully.
I struggle with that one. It's very useful sometimes though, agreed. It can be easy to fall into a discussion spiral that just goes negative all the way down, ending in frustration all around.
> 3. I left for 18 months
It's probably a good idea, broadly speaking, to take breaks from communities. If nothing else to just reassess time allocation to sites (whether HN or Reddit or whatever it may be). It surely helps with commenting perspective as well to step away. I too frequently find myself getting into low value political discussions on here, and that's my fault; I suspect it considerably lowers my enjoyment of HN.
1. Make sure I am actually being respectful and not an asshole.
2. Walk the fuck away and shut up sometimes.
3. I left for 18 months, to work on my issues and to give someone breathing room that I had friction with whom I felt saw me as personally threatening. I didn't have specific plans to return. I did return in part because posting something one day went better than I expected.
4. Drop it from my end when there is personal friction. This gets vastly better results when I point out someone is behaving poorly towards me. Sometimes they listen. If they don't, the mods (and community as a whole) are much more likely to be sympathetic if I am not putting out the fire with gasoline.
I routinely comment on hot button topics. I have extremely controversial views on some things. But I go out of my way to not piss on people to the best of my ability.
This has included changing my handle after hitting the leaderboard because I concluded that it didn't matter that it wasn't chosen as a feminist handle. What matters is that it is an overwhelmingly male forum and I want no appearance of impropriety as the first woman on the leaderboard. The perception of disrespect became apparent to me and was not something I wanted. So I started over.
I am vastly more satisfied with posting under this handle. Lots of people recognize me as also being Mz. So the difference is not due to being anonymous.
(This comment is not comprehensive. Just a nutshell version of 8.5 years of navigating an overwhelmingly male forum while posting as openly female.)