Interesting how having intellectual curiosity as the goal, rather than the ubiquitous 'an inclusive space where everyone can feel safe', has ended up in a forum that's much 'safer' and less toxic than most places on the Internet.
replies(5):
Unlike more turgid efforts: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/part...
> Be kind.
It also lists specific hurtful or harmful behaviors that the community tends to use, which is often just as effective. Certainly I have had no trouble reporting harmful conduct, because it’s covered by the collection of guidelines addressing it — and when a new kind of harm becomes prevalent, they’re updated to reflect that.
Gender is an interesting problem for HN, because with explicit misbehavior prohibited by the guidelines, the tech-male gender biases in the community are primarily expressed through voting, flagging, and starting “plausible” flamewars. I don’t think altering the guidelines would have any effect on those behaviors, and would probably encourage them. It’s definitely possible to witness ‘probable’ bias effects and report your perceptions of them as such; the mods have a lot of flexibility to evaluate a concern in context of a potential bias. I really encourage speaking up to them when concerned.
I wish more community guidelines were just this block:
> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Edit out swipes.
> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names.
> Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says
> Avoid generic tangents.
> Please don't post shallow dismissals
> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle.
And one modification of my own:
> Avoid generic tangents. Generic negative comments that can be copy-pasted into other posts are noisy and uninteresting. Be substantive and relevant when sharing your concerns.
I prefer to think instead that HN has crystallised down the lofty goals of civilised dialogue into a handful of wonderfully tangible rules - but unfortunately, rules that can only be followed by somewhat thoughtful people.
This works on HN because HN content (stuff that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity) naturally drives away non-thoughtful people.
For example:
> Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
At this risk of sounding elitist, if you don't know what fulminating means, or you actively seek out conflict online where you can sneer at others, then you are not the kind of person who will be able to follow the guidelines, and you will quickly be downvoted, which on HN carries a very visible stigma as your comments literally fade into obscurity.
Instead, you will be quickjly driven back to the safe echo chambers of Facebook or wherever, where you can find like minded-people who will sneer alongside you.