daf bit: Yevamot 109

(Today's daf is 110.)

The g'mara is discussing learning torah and observing it. R. Papa says: torah says "that you may learn them (mitzvot) and observe them", so he who is engaged in observance is also regarded as engaged in study (he had to learn them), but he who is not engaged in observance is not regarded as engaged in study. (Yes there is a logical fallacy there. No it is not addressed here.)

Another teaching: Who rivets himself to the word of the halacha brings evil upon himself -- this refers to a judge who, when a lawsuit is brought before him and he knows the halacha of a related (but not identical) case, even though he has a teacher, does not go to that teacher to inquire but simply judges the case based on the other halacha. Such a judge brings evil upon himself according to R. Shmuel b. Nachmani in the name of R. Yonatan, who said a judge should always regard himself as if he had a sword lying between his thighs and Gehenna was open beneath him. (109b)

The logical fallacy in that first one could be resolved thus: if one has truly studied torah, he will come to an inevitable conclusion and come to follow it. I don't know if that was considered obvious enough to R. Papa that it need not be stated.

women online: it's 2015; how broken is this still and what can a community do about it?

I asked a question over on the Community Building site on Stack Exchange and I suspect some of my readers might be interested or even have relevant knowledge: Detecting and preventing hostility to women? Excerpt:

I recently had a conversation with one of the users who stood by during [personal attacks directed at me], in which he said approximately: "Well what did you expect? That's how guys work -- if a woman pushes back against a guy all the other guys are going to rally to his side".

It's true that I was one of the only identifiable women -- perhaps the only identifiable woman (don't remember now) -- on the site at the time. In the 21st century and in an online community not prone to attract teenagers (the average age was probably over 30), it never occurred to me that this could be an issue. Some of the ad-hominem attacks I received take on whole new meanings in light of this.

How much does this still happen? (Any recent research?) And if I'm in a community where I don't think this is happening to people (but who knows, maybe I'm just blind), how do we keep it from happening?

Most of my online communities are well-behaved, polite, and AFAIK gender-, race-, and religion-blind. But not all communities are, obviously.