I wouldn't call MetaFilter a particularly high quality community. Discussions there can have just as many trite and trollish comments as your average subreddit.
How MetaFilter differs is in that it features a rigid, hierarchical moderation structure, with gatekeepers who ensure posted content meets the stringent politically-correct tastes of its leadership. As a result I have seen legitimately interesting, good-faith discussion censored there, for no other reason than that it offended the sensibilities of some moderator. (This article was removed by a moderator, for example: http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/girls-and-software)
It is a huge mistake to confuse enforced, intellectually sterile homogeneity for quality.
Respectful and polite debate can be truly amazing but it doesn't happen often enough and, when it does, it's really easy for bystanders to shout down one of the debaters. Political correctness in only one tool people use to make sure their side wins ... let's hear the debate instead and decide rationally.
Can we please keep this us vs them bullshit off HN?
The linked blog, whether you agree with it or not, keeps a reasonably neutral tone throughout (even if the author's frustration is obvious).
Agreeing with it does not automatically make someone a misogynist, and criticizing a moderator does not automatically make someone an awful person.
Are you joking? The article is classic "fuck-you-I-got-mine" woman-to-woman sexism that completely ignores, as a trivial example, the comparable ratios of women to men in education and training that falls off in the workplace.
This is literally tech sexism 101, and the fact that you're willing to wade into the discussion blathering about logical fallacies and neutral tone without bothering to educate yourself in the basics is the actual problem.
It's not no much about tone as it is about making a genuine, intellectually honest argument without resorting to ad hominem insults.
Hell, one of the reasons I like coming to HN is precisely because the general consensus here is in many ways contrary to my political worldview.
But I digress. You've made it clear that you regard homogeneity of opinions (and possibly outright censorship) as a good thing, and I doubt I can change your mind. There is little reason for me to continue this conversation (besides maybe grinding for karma).
Yeah, creating a safe environment for discourse is super-awesome. Those environments are the best thing ever, compared to the oppressive atmosphere of places like HN and reddit.
The thing is, arguments on HN about this topic are not intellectually honest. Far from it. They are awful, excruciating, painful, blood-pressure spiking. Filled with dishonesty, zero empathy and zero good faith. It’s an awful, awful place.
> Yeah, creating a safe environment for discourse is super-awesome.
You have a strange definition of discourse if all that's required to create a non-"safe environment" is to present a dissenting opinion. (Did you mean: echo chamber?)
> Filled with dishonesty, zero empathy and zero good faith.
That's a rich complaint coming from someone who called me a misogynist and awful person for the crime of mentioning an article by an actual woman in technology, with her own unconventional opinion on how to ultimately make things better for other women in technology. (Maybe she's right, maybe she's wrong, I sure as hell don't know and that's not the point—the article was censored by a mod just after I and a few other people started discussing it, so that conversation never even got to happen.)
I have every reason to believe that Susan Sons wrote her article in good faith. I sure as heck wanted to discuss it in good faith. So seriously, you should be ashamed of yourself for calling me a misogynist for caring about women in technology. People who derail respectful dialogue by going nonlinear with appeals to emotion and unfounded name-calling, like you have here, are the reason important topics like this one rarely see the light of open civil discourse.
Please carefully examine your reaction on this thread and reconsider how you have chosen to conduct yourself.
How MetaFilter differs is in that it features a rigid, hierarchical moderation structure, with gatekeepers who ensure posted content meets the stringent politically-correct tastes of its leadership. As a result I have seen legitimately interesting, good-faith discussion censored there, for no other reason than that it offended the sensibilities of some moderator. (This article was removed by a moderator, for example: http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/girls-and-software)
It is a huge mistake to confuse enforced, intellectually sterile homogeneity for quality.