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PG: The biggest source of stress for me at YC was running HN

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482 points ilamont | 1 comments | 11 Jul 20 21:53 UTC | HN request time: 0.522s | source
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sgustard ◴[12 Jul 20 04:01 UTC] No.23808698[source]▶
I started an internet forum in 2006 whose audience was almost entirely female. It grew to a reasonable size, not huge, but what was remarkable was a nearly complete lack of trolls, arguments, and bad behavior. We saw that women just engage differently online, with a premium on expressing positive sentiments and encouraging each other to contribute constructively. Of course I don't want to generalize, but the removal of young men at their testosterone peak age from anonymous forums is remarkable.
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1. ufmace ◴[12 Jul 20 05:16 UTC] No.23809024[source]▶
Mmm yeah I dunno about that, based on experience. I'm not looking to enumerate all of my experiences, but I feel pretty comfortable saying that women can do just as much bad behavior as men. I would wonder if it's really due to the size being kept small, whatever vetting mechanism was used to admit users, or moderator tactics.

I have seen that small forums, especially for a specific purpose, tend to be mostly civil and positive. It is pretty easy for a handful of bad actors, maybe even just one, to be disruptive enough to pretty much singlehandedly destroy such forums. It seems almost inevitable once a forum grows to a certain size, but swift and effective moderator action can often nip it in the bud. Experience or good instincts may help a lot in identifying users who are just inherently destructive and booting them out entirely before they have a chance to really get going.