Gender-related Lesswrong threads have almost always been problematic, historically. However, in all honesty, the signal/noise ratio in this thread seems low, even when compared to others of its kind.
Can anyone here honestly state that they learned something from this thread?
Note: The question was not rhetorical. If anyone was helped, I would actually like to learn that they were helped. Other note: I apologize for making the signal/noise ratio of this thread even worse by going meta.
If anyone was helped, I would actually like to learn that they were helped.
It would have been nice if, instead of just picking holes in my attempt at a TLDR summary, more people had instead proposed alternative one paragraph summaries of the advice within the links.
I think it would also have been helpful if there had been a bit more direct advice for someone in a LW meeting who is feeling creeped out, advice for someone in a LW meeting who notices someone else giving signs of feeling creeped out, and a show of visible support for the best such advice.
However this thread, so far, has not gone in that direction.
One of the lessons highlighted in the thread "Less Wrong NYC: Case Study of a Successful Rationalist Chapter" is Gender ratio matters.
There have recently been a number of articles addressing one social skills issue that might be affecting this, from the perspective of a geeky/sciencefiction community with similar attributes to LessWrong, and I want to link to these, not just so the people potentially causing problems get to read them, but also so everyone else knows the resource is there and has a name for the problem, which may facilitate wider discussion and make it easier for others to know when to point towards the resources those who would benefit by them.
However before I do, in the light of RedRobot's comment in the "Of Gender and Rationality" thread, I'd like to echo a sentiment from one of the articles, that people exhibiting this behaviour may be of any gender and may victimise upon any gender. And so, while it may be correlated with a particular gender, it is the behaviour that should be focused upon, and turning this thread into bashing of one gender (or defensiveness against perceived bashing) would be unhelpful.
Ok, disclaimers out of the way, here are the links:
Some of those raise deeper issues about rape culture and audience as enabler, but the TLDR summary is:
EDITED TO ADD:
Despite the way some of the links are framed as being addressed to creepers, this post is aimed at least as much at the community as a whole, intended to trigger a discussion on how the community should best go about handling such a problem once identified, with the TLDR being "set of restraints to place on someone who is burning the commons", rather that a complete description that guarantees that anyone who doesn't meet it isn't creepy. (Thank you to jsteinhardt for clearly verbalising the misinterpretation - for discussion see his reply to this post)