up vote 42 down vote favorite
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The latest blog post has comments disabled/closed.

Just curious as to if this is on purpose or an accident.

blog

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As a moderator, looking at this question title, my first thought was "need you even ask?" Which just makes it all the more sad. – BoltClock♦ 12 hours ago
up vote 59 down vote accepted

This was on purpose (I personally closed them).

We were already receiving abusive comments on Twitter about this post, and I didn't want to deal with that on our own platform.

This follows a familiar pattern for us: When we've written about women in tech before, however benign, we get flooded with abusive comments. Not only is that unfortunate in and of itself, it also means that otherwise constructive, thoughtful comments get lumped in and thrown out with the abuse.

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oh wow, okay :( – Ashley Medway yesterday
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I understand the trouble of having to deal with abusive comments, but I find it rather useless to post a blog and disallow discussion by the readers. – Stijn yesterday
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@Stijn You're more than welcome to start a discussion on Meta as a new question thread. – kcpike♦ yesterday
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This is why we can't have nice things :-( – Martijn Pieters♦ yesterday
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@Stijn: "I find it rather useless to post a blog and disallow discussion by the readers." Do you really go to blogs for the comments section? – Nicol Bolas yesterday
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@NicolBolas The blog post itself is the main reason of course, but sometimes the comment section has quite useful/interesting content, so I tend to read it. – Stijn yesterday
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Stackoverflow's unwillingness to allow open dialogue is not good – James Wierzba yesterday
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@JamesWierzba - You're posting on the site where Stack Overflow hosts more open dialogue about themselves and their policies than most sites out there. You have plenty of places to make your voice heard. – Brad Larson♦ yesterday
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I assumed this was the reason. I'm sad to hear that confirmed. I'm upvoting this because I support your decision to close them. – Don't Panic yesterday
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I'm all for open dialogue, but I don't blame you. I read the replies on Twitter, and some of them are just bizarre. – Bill the Lizard yesterday
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Abusive or just argumentative? – m69 yesterday
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I take issue with the implicit assumption in the article that a disparity of outcome is the problem for which "it’s clear that there’s work to be done." Is there also work to be done to "handle" the gender disparity in the construction industry? Or the teaching profession? Or the race disparity in professional basketball? I agree there IS work to be done, but the work to be done is to handle prejudice and bigotry in its many forms—NOT just to get women a lot of jobs in STEM fields. I'm not talking about under-representation, I'm talking about bigotry. I've seen it. It's ugly. – Wildcard 22 hours ago
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In my opinion, this is why the blog should allow only SO user comments, as opposed to allowing trollish content there. It is unfortunate that we as a community cannot voice support on the blog while anyone who wants to open an oauth account can post vitriol. – Travis J 21 hours ago
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What on earth does basketball have to do with women in tech? That's whataboutism in practice. It's perfectly possible to write about one problem without having to simultaneously mention every other perceived problem. – ivarni 19 hours ago
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The blog post is not about lack of women in tech. It's about "3 ways you can be an ally to women in tech", and there's no point in allowing comments on it just so a bunch of dudes can complain because they think people shouldn't be allies to women in tech. – Don't Panic 5 hours ago
up vote -1 down vote

In my very humble opinion, I don't think that blogs of that nature (which aren't directly related to programming) should be linked to Stackoverflow.

People should be able to post blogs about whatever they wish, but I don't think that socially or politically charged blogs, should be linked to the Blog section of stackoverflow page. I would definitely expect it to be linked to in workspace

And my reasoning for that is simply because this site should stay focussed on programming. SO doesn't even allow people to post question asking for How can I optimize my func because there's a separate site code review for that. And we routinely close questions that are not strictly about programming.

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Your answer demonstrates 2 problems: 1. This is StackOverflow the company blog it actually has nothing to do with SO the website or this community, it's not linked to it just (ab)uses the good reputation of SO the website. 2. For some reason this blog is on-topic on meta and now because of posts like the one this questions asked about SO the website is tainted by arguments about ideology instead of being strictly about programming. – Oleg 49 mins ago
    
I'm confused. In what way is this not related to programming as an industry or profession? Professionals use this site, which is why when someone asks "How can I optimize my func", we expect them to have at least done their part. – Makoto 34 mins ago
up vote -15 down vote

It's common for main stream media and large websites to shutdown comments when a political agenda is being pushed.

Stackoverflow wants to encourage the narrative that the ideas of third wave feminism and radical opposition to the current USA president are generally accepted in the development community.

Allowing comments on this article and others like it may go against the narrative they are trying to cultivate with blog posts.

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Minority groups in general need help integrating. The attitude displayed here is a great example of how women in tech feel dismayed when trying to integrate. There is absolutely no crazy agenda associated with attempting to be more civil to women in the workplace, or in tech specifically; nor is there one associated with being a mentor or attempting to be more inclusive during discussion. – Travis J 6 hours ago
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Is this supposed to be a demonstration of why comments are closed on the blog? – Bill the Lizard 5 hours ago
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@BilltheLizard If it is and it was closed because of comments with similar content to this answer it proves the content of this answer. There is nothing abusive about it. – Oleg 5 hours ago

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