There are lots of different small subsets of users who can poison or destabilize the system, and yes, that is a huge problem with the forum. It doesn't follow that any such subset dominates the site's overall userbase. Each certainly believes that the opposite subset does, though. That's the phenomenon I'm trying to describe.
It's not true that what I'm arguing for or perceiving is based only on extreme comments. I tried to explain this in the very comment you replied to. It's based on massive numbers of comments, some extreme and most not. I probably read more of this forum than anyone, for the simple reason that it's my job. I've also spent thousands of hours working on evaluating it as objectively as I possibly can. That does not mean my perceptions are correct or that I'm immune from bias; au contraire. But it's not nothing either.
Based on feedback I've gotten and posts I see, I don't believe that women feel less comfortable posting here than they used to. I believe there has been a slow trend in a better direction, though not everyone agrees. Race is a harder issue to assess because that issue has flared up so massively in society at large lately that the macro trends simply dominate whatever is specific to HN. We can't expect this site to be immune from that.
It's not true that what I'm arguing for or perceiving is based only on extreme comments. I tried to explain this in the very comment you replied to. It's based on massive numbers of comments, some extreme and most not. I probably read more of this forum than anyone, for the simple reason that it's my job. I've also spent thousands of hours working on evaluating it as objectively as I possibly can. That does not mean my perceptions are correct or that I'm immune from bias; au contraire. But it's not nothing either.
Based on feedback I've gotten and posts I see, I don't believe that women feel less comfortable posting here than they used to. I believe there has been a slow trend in a better direction, though not everyone agrees. Race is a harder issue to assess because that issue has flared up so massively in society at large lately that the macro trends simply dominate whatever is specific to HN. We can't expect this site to be immune from that.