Should feminists write to Quora's Marc Bodnick, who is reviewing a possibly sexist answer, to express their views about whether it should be collapsed? Should the answer have been collapsed?

I was asked to answer this question, which I consider quite flattering. I'm not clear on how Quora's review process works, so my response will also address my thoughts on how a community might manage this question in general. First off, a community manager is probably interested in hearing the input of the community as indicated. So from that perspective a feminists (or probably anyones) feedback is welcome. So the next question is would your feedback be useful? It seems that the Quora guidelines are clearly violated by the post. So what more needs to be said? Presumably Marc is qualified to do the review-- I think it is fair to assume that he already knows about sexism, and various other relevant subjects. Hopefully he would read up on subjects that he isn't. What does Feminism (as a perspective) have to offer that might aid Marc in his review? Feminism is an excellent way to identify, frame, and describe the consequences of anti-female material. As such, I'd suggest that finding feminist resources that might help Marc understand the feminist perspective and way of analysis would be particularly useful (and help him with future reviews). One thing that I don't think would be particularly useful would be flooding Marc with messages. This issue isn't really a matter of public opinion-- unpopular answers aren't against the rules. A flood might express that this comment is unpopular, but shouldn't effect the Quora's response (see below). If you felt really compelled, you could message him and say 'sexism is harmful'. But of course Quora has already acknowledged this with their policy. This is why I'd advocate for either a substantive message or none at all. If you still need to 'raise your hand' I'd suggest finding an appropriate 'up arrow' and click it. Perhaps up-vote an appropriate comment on the answer in question. Footnote: If you feel that the Quora policies need change, then this may actually be a matter of public opinion. If for example, you think that Quora should be more harsh in response to posts like this (I don't feel that way), then perhaps such a message would be useful. So while public opinion shouldn't really govern this kind of review, it probably is relevant with regards to the evolution of Quora policies.

Absolutely. The post should be collapsed and locked for all of the reasons stated. If it were the first thing I read on Quora, it would very likely be my last.

Honestly, I don't believe the post to be intentionally mean spirited at all, however I do believe it creates an environment that perpetrates that women are not equal players, that we're not technical, that there's a big boys club that we're not part of. If it's not representational of what Quora is about, then it shouldn't be there at all. If you're fine with all of Quora becoming a site where women are marginalized, then sure, leave it up. It will just be one of the countless sites that I no longer visit.

As has said: "Sure. I'm always interested in hearing perspectives about this type of issue." That answer is extremely sexist. 1) It uses sexist female tropes. 2) It's popularity comes from use of said tropes, attracting people who subscribe to them and driving women away. 3) Bonus: It doesn't actually answer the question! Come to think of it, I'm glad that answer was posted. I know exactly whom to avoid on Quora now (going by the comments and upvotes). Edit: I originally said: "However, I do not think that answer warrants change or deletion. It doesn't violate any Quora policies in my opinion." Someone pointed out that the sexist answer doesn't answer the question so it should be deleted. I think that warrants collapsing pending improvement, not deletion. But the answer does violate certain Quora content quality guidelines, so I take that back.

First, you also called out someone by name (an admin) in a negative fashion. I hope you appreciate the irony of violating BNBR while accusing someone else of BNBR.. Also, you may have a point, but appealing to what other people have said in the comments section (and how many votes those comments received) is a very poor way of doing it. You left out tons of positive comments that the answer received and by getting 6k+ votes, clearly most people think it was a good answer. So don't try appealing to popular opinion here, because you'll lose. Finally, are you really asking a question here or are you just making a statement? If you're being honest with the community, then this should be a blog post because you really seem to already have your answer in mind. Creating a question just to advance your point because it'll get more views than a blog post may or may not violate explicit policies, but it certainly comes across as very small-minded.

No. He says this: (Note: I'm a straight guy. If you're not, feel free to do a mental find/replace with whatever you're into.) So. That is not sexist. He is writing from his own perspective and asks you to suit it to your needs.

Let Marc do his job. I trust that he will do the right thing. Personally, I find that the objections to the answer take Quora policy to the level of extremism. It is a manufactured fight with no winners, only losers. This is what happens when "politically correct" takes a turn towards fundamentalist witch hunt. Even if I do find the answer a bit on the immature side, the notion that it is damaging to society is overreaching quite a bit. I think politically correct extremism is far more dangerous.

I had to pull out the https://robertsrantsobservationsandramblings.quora.com/The-Most-Misused-Words-on-Quora for this one. From what I understand after reading that, sexism means Prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex PHP - (Pros) Fumbled around with (Cons) Has serious issues Perl - (Pros) Popular in the 90s (Cons) Is ugly now Ruby - (Pros) Cool, beautiful fun and matured (Cons) Slow and ditsy Java - (Pros) Serious and sensible (Cons) Nagging C++ - (Pros) Innocent, and doesn't believe in protection. (Cons) Ditto C - (Pros) None (Cons) Old and grey Objective C (Pros) Joined a weird church (Cons) Won't date anyone out of it. Haskell, Closure, Scheme - (Pros) Hipster, arty, intellectual (Cons) Challenging JavaScript - (Pros) Career has taken off, first kiss, blossomed into a swan Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but is there ANY prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination after I've broken down the pros and cons to the programming languages anthropomorphised into women? Some of the women mentioned get uglier as they get older so they're only useful when young. You could argue that the sexism comes from the Rape Culture of the idea and value that a woman's worth is solely what she looks like, but in the dating marketplace, isn't a man's? Would a woman choose to go out with anyone she doesn't find attractive? No she wouldn't. So why not a man? The idea that it's unacceptable for men to judge women in the dating marketplace by what they look like, is an idiotic double standard at best. So I've covered sexism, now for misogyny. The hatred of women As I'm apparently blessed by male privilege which I don't notice, so I've been told on Quora, I was given an article to read from a feminist about women who got murder and rape threats online, who have been photoshopped into sexualised imagery - such things that don't happen to men. Now that is misogyny. Let's imagine hypothetically that there was a handsome millionaire who had loads of women flocking towards him like Justin Bieber, and he was describing his ex-girlfriends in an interview, in the same way as Issac's answer does. Would anyone think he is sexist? No they would not. Just because someone says negative things about women, doesn't mean that they are sexist. They're people too who deserve to be critiqued. There was an answer on Quora of a woman who describes being sectioned 11 times in an answer about what it's like to be raped, and she says that she cannot work due to PTSD, social anxiety, and Asperger-esque symptoms. I really wanted to comment "You're a big softie because you got sectioned 11 times, because if you wasn't raped, you would have been sectioned anyway because your brain is not designed to cope with everyday life. People get raped all the time. Get over it. Not that it's a good thing, but get over it. 11 times? My gosh! The problem is you." But then I remembered the rule, and decided to instead write "Do you think you would have been sectioned 11 times if you wasn't raped?" I said the exact same sentiment, but I phrased and meant it in a different way. I call people stupid all the time in real life but only over the internet on Quora do people find offence to it. Over the internet it's much harder to know the intent someone has over their words, so we introduce rules that encourage niceness to avert the disputes over intent. At least in real life when I call people stupid I'm smiling at them saying it. The point being, Issac could have phrased his answer in a misogynistic way describing how women were "being sluts" "liking the attention" "asking it for it" and "putting it out there", but he decided not to. He was courteous in how he wrote his answer and described the women. I find that the only reason why feminists are complaining about it, is because they receive so many sexist micro-aggressions in their life, that they perceive everything negative said about women to be sexist because they have internalised sexist views. Now to refute the comments copied into the description of the question. "...does not address the question." The question provides a perspective of how the programming community perceive the programming languages, to get away from the normal answer of comparing the syntax. "Someone explain to me how awful brogrammer culture isn't hostile and exclusionary to women. I'll wait. How is the answer excluding women from programming, exactly? "This kind of misogynist bullshit is part of the reason many women stay out of careers in STEM." Does that mean that when women talk about the pros and cons of their ex-boyfriends, that they are misandrous, because nothing said encourages Rape Culture? Have you ever had someone say to you "I'm not shouting. THIS IS SHOUTING!" when you've told them to stop shouting? That's what I'm going to do right now. I'm going to say something sexist, so you feminists can know what real sexism actually looks like, rather than to focus on an answer that would not advance women's rights if it was collapsed and locked. The only reason why feminists find it sexist, is because men think logically, and women think emotionally. And that's my viewpoint on the matter. As insinuated before, it's good to get different viewpoints on the matter.

Sure, he seems willing to hear everyones opinions on the subject. Considering how thoroughly you documented your complaints in the comments I don't know what you would expect me to add other than I agree on all of your points except the first one that says it doesn't answer the question. The reason I say this is when someone asks me to explain something in layman's terms it's not at all unusual for me to use a metaphor. I wouldn't use this metaphor because as you point out quite clearly it's offensive. Personally I'm a person who prefers a soft touch in regards to  moderating content because people are offended by the content if it is not directed at individuals. I would rather people's make their distaste known through comments and votes than to have heavy handed moderators induce a chilling effect on speech on Quora. Ultimately the Joke Answer policy should be enough to make the decision about this answer clear on it's own. There is also a question of whether it's original content or not. It looks like the kind of thing you see passed around on Facebook that has been cut and pasted into Quora which is also undesirable.