On skin thickness

On skin thickness

Indeed.

Some western, white, male, professional, etc. people have to subscribe to LKML and interact with developers there in order to be verbally abused. Other people get their quota of abuse from non-LKML sources without making any special effort to receive it.

Abuse is not discriminatorily directed at these various groups, but is discriminatorily received by them.

There also seems to be some warped social status exchange going on. In a group it's usually a privilege to have an elite's attention at all, and if that attention leads to a response in public so much the better. Getting an emotional and memorable response (i.e. an abusive one) from an elite elevates the recipient's status among members of the group--but only members of the group that understand the structure of this interaction will see it this way. Outsiders see only one stranger hurling public abuse at another for no apparent reason.