Yea, there is one difference between here and 4chan. 4Chan is less likely to curb your freedom of speech. Sad that a site now owned by the Japanese promotes American Constitutional Freedoms more than an actual American-owned site.

Agree, this place isn’t remotely like 4chan in any way.

If 4chan is heavily moderated and work-safe now, then I stand corrected in that regard. It's been a long time since I've been there. My reference to racism, violence and child pornography was to indicate the vast difference between the two sites' moderation and the sorts of 'toxic' things that were deemed acceptable at 4chan and unacceptable here. Although as you say, things must have improved greatly since I was last there.

Any downvotes you've received were not from me.

Ah - yea that's just plain silly right there. And frustrating bc it throws the meta discussion out the window

Read the comments. They highlight HN's underhanded censorship of people. HN is more than toxic, it is an American site run by un-American people with un-American ideals.

Hacker News is a toxic place, but not because of all the people who make it hard for under-represented folks. But because of all the "good dudes" who act like it's not a toxic place.

Wow, the bad people are bad AND the good people are bad!

It’s not binary. People and forums can be fine sometimes, toxic sometimes. The question is what happens when things go wrong. Is there a way to recover? Is there enough concern and empathy to actually move forward from a possible hurtful incident? Or do we burn it all down and stop talking. We need more nuance in our lives, more willingness to actually engage, listen and change.

Can HN be toxic? Absolutely.

Was it toxic in the situation the author was describing? I think reasonable people can have a discussion about this, but for arguments sake let’s say yes.

Is HN generally a positive non toxic environment? Yep! Hugely so.

HN is a remarkably diverse community. Perhaps not always from a gender perspective, but definitely in terms of background and means. I can personally attest to this as I run a mentoring program, and I tend to mostly get sign ups from HN, and they have been from all over the world.

I get that we as a community aren’t always perfect. Sometimes that’s rooted in our own biases and backgrounds. However, those comments lead to discussion, which may shape or alter the perspective of someone who had a different set of experiences, thus leading to a better future. Growth comes from points of discomfort, not from sitting on the side lines.

If I could ask one thing to every HN lurker and commenter is to continue to be open minded. Ask questions. Be thoughtful. Be respectful. Continually seek to grow.

We’re always going to be imperfect as a community, and that’s by design. All we can hope to do is be better today than we were yesterday. And better tomorrow than we were today.

Every place is a toxic place.

More specifically, every place has toxic people.

It is your responsibility as a citizen of that community to speak up (either in the form of a flag or hiding that person) if you see content that is objectionable, off-topic, or offensive.

We will never rid the world of bad people. But we can choose to prevent their voices from echoing any louder.

the comments on this post -- the apologia, the denials, the profusion of fine distinctions -- is a damning and powerful body of evidence for the claim presented.

Congrats, HN. You played yourself.

Hey Dang, prove otherwise. You have to reach for the hardest things to justify your actions. Are you too much of a coward to face your criticism?

Because HN is so utterly WEAK that any criticism of them must be extinguished lest it make their venture capital business look bad.

And dang is just a coward. Real mods can handle criticism of any sort. Dang is just a ten year old with power.

This thread is flagged because Dang is a COWARD like the rest of the YCombinator crew.

(Hacker news toxic... have you seen twitter...? ;)

me, down voted <

HN is a toxic place.

me, up voted <

What a fine symposium of scholars.