That's not a helpful ingredient to pour into the well. You're basically just repeating a mental mock-up you have, not backed by data, only snark. Anyone who looks sincerely and closely will see how much more complex the situation is.
Moreover, there's evidence that repeating such generalizations—even though you intend them critically—makes the environment less welcoming and poisons it further for the equality you'd presumably like to see.
When you do this, you (i.e. we—we nearly all do it) are valuing the rush of morally posturing above our peers more than the cause we care about. If we're going to actually make HN be the welcoming place we want it to be, we'll have to do something about this.
How many women do you have on the mod team, for perspective?
I have my doubts about how welcoming HN is for different demographics, and while the grandparent poster is handwaving things with a mental mockup as you say, absent transparency on moderation policies many people inevitably feel the same way about the moderation.
I mean, at present you have a bunch of secret rules to make everything run better. That works OK as a practical strategy, but it also reduces buy-in - which is why I get heavily downvoted any time I suggest that government intelligence services are inevitably going to adopt utility-maximizing strategies at the expense of liberty, no matter how many times I qualify this by saying I'm trying to be descriptive rather than prescriptive.
> How many women do you have on the mod team, for perspective?
This makes an excellent point, and the same could be said of the junior moderation team - the HN readers who up/downvote comments.
A practical solution: The mods might ask people in underrepresented minorities for some honest, frank perceptive and feedback. Stop guessing and trying, and get some real knowledge. Look at particular threads (on sexism, etc.) and talk about how welcoming HN is to them and why. IME, there is no substitute for a lifetime of personal experience with these issues; most people without that experience - including myself - are surprised when they hear the realities and details.
You can identify who is underrepresented and who might feel unwelcome by what groups are referred to as "they". For example, in discussions of sexism women are often discussed in the third person - a good sign of who is the excluded group. If you think about it, those discussions should be led by the people who have experience with the issue, just like Java devs (hopefully) lead the Java discussion. This discussion, right here and right now, should have those voices - it's right in front of our eyes.
I'll add that religious prejudice against Muslims is particularly overlooked. If I were Muslim, I would not feel welcome here at all. As a practical test, substitute in 'Jews/Jewish/Judiasm' for 'Muslims/Islamic/Islam' (to pick a religious minority against which prejudice is rejected, as it should be for all) and evaluate the statement. I've seen many that unambiguously fail.
Oops! A very fair point and I actually meant to include that myself, because I don't know and didn't want to presume.
Gimme a break; I'm writing Internet comments not dissertations. Some things slip through the cracks. :)
EDIT: Also, re-reading my comment, I see it's all pretty critical. HN is the best forum on the Internet, IMHO, in large part thanks to the guidelines and moderation; but at the same time the competition is pretty bad and I think HN can be even better. My hope is that by developing and demonstrating effective practices, and then by sharing them, HN could improve discourse throughout the web. It sounds fantastical, but why not - the practices cost nothing, websites and online services everywhere are starving for a solution, and HN is in a very visible position and has a technically sophisticated team, a backing organization that loves innovation (YC), and an audience that can appreciate it.
For what it's worth, I largely cosign this critique of how HN is moderated.
I think there's merit to the suggestion that snarking about how unwelcoming HN is to industry minorities is counterproductive. But I don't think HN's institutional commitment to being more welcoming to industry minorities is exactly pellucid.
Personally, I don't feel any need to know how many women are on the moderating staff. That question has not ever crossed my mind as an issue for me, personally, as a woman posting here.
Like 'anigbrowl, I simply think it's worth considering the extent to which the moderating staff do or do not personally experience the hostility this place can exhibit to industry minorities.
Paul Graham is originally from the UK. I believe Dan Gackle is Canadian in origin. Patio11 is a white American male living in Japan. Jacquesm is Dutch. Tokenadult has an Asian wife and has lived in Asia.
My impression is that the forum is fairly multicultural. It is not a monolith of white American males/white American male culture.
I am much more concerned with feeling heard than with whether or not they have firsthand experiences like mine. I once wrote the mods and made my case for why something should be deleted as I felt it was actively putting a young woman in real danger. They didn't initially see it, but they did listen and ultimately redacted the information that concerned me.
I think if I have a real problem, they will listen. This is better in my mind than having been born with the same bits between their legs that I happen to have been born with.
I don't pretend to speak for all minorities. But my understanding is that both you and anigbrowl are white males. So I thought I would chime in just so the topic isn't being addressed solely by the demographic that you two express concerns about dominating the mod staff.
I don't think this is a super productive debate to have here, but I do want to clarify that I'm not calling for more diversity on the mod staff, as much as just an awareness of what the mod staff is.
I wasn't seeking debate. But I do find it ironic that you and angibrowl, both white men, expect to be listened to when you critique the moderating staff wrt to diversity, but you (in specific, because anigbrowl has not weighed in here) are quick to essentially dismiss my statement that as a prominent woman here, I do not have those concerns.
This is an insidious pattern that I see a lot. White men virtue signal about their concerns about sexism, racism, etc, then fail to give real weight to the voices of the very people they claim to be concerned about. The concerns of white males matter and should be heard. The voices of oppressed minorities still are irrelevant, even when the topic is the concern of fair treatment for them.
>>Anyone who looks sincerely and closely will see how much more complex the situation is.
The situation is definitely complex, which is why it must be discussed at every opportunity and in every venue, especially by intelligent people who deal with complexity as a living (HN's core demographic). Downvoting and flagging stuff just because you personally don't want to talk about it is selfish. It is in fact the very definition of selfishness.
If someone does not want to discuss a particular topic, they can refrain from upvoting it and posting comments on its discussion thread. FLAGGING however prevents others from being exposed to it as well because it pushes the submission off the front page (where it rightfully belongs, based on votes) and sometimes even kills it if enough selfish people pile on. That only makes the issue worse because it is akin to mopping it under the carpet.
You may feel that discussions on certain topics don't add anything original. Did it ever occur to you that that's simply your perspective, shared perhaps only (or mostly) by other old-timers? Many people, especially those new to the industry, are unaware of these issues and they should be exposed to them within the relatively civil and intelligent medium of HN.
Moreover, there's evidence that repeating such generalizations—even though you intend them critically—makes the environment less welcoming and poisons it further for the equality you'd presumably like to see.
When you do this, you (i.e. we—we nearly all do it) are valuing the rush of morally posturing above our peers more than the cause we care about. If we're going to actually make HN be the welcoming place we want it to be, we'll have to do something about this.