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Stack Overflow Inc. Fiasco: Timeline

• wozer 7y ago
  Not directly related, but I'm a bit afraid that as someone who is not a native speaker of English, it becomes more and more difficult not to inadvertantly cause a shit storm on American websites. People seem to become incredibly sensitive to "correct speech".
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • johnchristopher 7y ago
    I recently got caught off-guard on HN. Until a few months I didn't really get that 'they' could be used to refer to a company and I believe it led to some quiproquo in a conversation. One HN commentator went into my post history and hinted I was lying about it. shrugged
    • Fellshard 7y ago
      This history-trolling is a nasty element in this new landscape. I've noticed the more zealous members of this policing regime creating automated tools for each forum that will scan through post history and divine - for example - occurrences of the n--- word, listing how many times they've said it, and whether they've tried to cover their tracks since the last search. https://www.reddit.com/user/nwordcountbot https://www.reddit.com/user/nwordcountbot
      • traderjane 7y ago
        I think it's more clear-headed to judge somebody from the perspective of history than as if you had Alzheimer's. What may be unfair is information asymmetry between the strong and the weak. As for the erroneous judgment stemming from analysis (like doing a word count for taboo words), would analysis arising from drastically less historical data be any more impressive?
        • Fellshard 7y ago
          It's intentionally ignorant of change, intentionally aiming to derail redemption and forgiveness, and intentionally crafting an isolated narrative without constructing the /actual/ context of those historical posts. It's a very narrow, distorted view.
          • traderjane 7y ago
            Compared to an Alzheimer's perspective? How does one even remotely discuss a history of unwell behavior? Obviously through a documentation of a person's history. Or does one somehow incredibly discuss a person from a single snapshot? Surely one-shot judgment is what's shallow, and zero-history judgment is called prejudice. How does one crave context and then forget the past? And when court compassionately considers events in a person's life which may have lead to a crime, how is that a "derailing" of forgiveness? What would clarity even mean here?
            • Fellshard 7y ago
              I'm not arguing to forget the past. I'm arguing that the current trend is that of merely skimming and cherry-picking, the least useful of historical analyses.
              • traderjane 7y ago
                Yes, you're saying you wish some people would stop analyzing badly. I presume you have more confidence in HN moderators who analyze personal history. There are some people you trust, and some you don't. I guess the deep distinction you are proposing is that the random HN person who cherry-picked is bad, while HN moderation is good. How do we recognize your distinction? Through a history of behavior.
                • Fellshard 7y ago
                  HN, I trust to some greater degree, yes. That doesn't mean temperature doesn't change, as it has on many platforms before, and will on many after. The tool I linked above is an example of working around the issue: it's a form of doxxing, in which the information is dumped publicly beneath the user's post in order to tag and attempt to remove the validity of the post in the public opinion, even (and especially) when used in a non-sequitur manner.
  • audessuscest 7y ago
    It's not just more difficult, it also feels weird (to not say more). In France, they want to change how to write things so you write the masculine and feminine version of each word at the same time, and even though it looks like the most stupid thing in the world, a lot of people working at university or some politician do it. Progress they say....
    • jraph 7y ago
      > they want to change how to write things Who? Far from everybody. > looks like the most stupid thing in the world At the very least… > Progress they say.... Almost nobody is for progress for the sake of progress. Rejecting a solution that tries to address a (arguably) less-than-ideal status quo as stupid is not very helpful. We could argue that the status quo is stupid too anyway. Don't you see that the solution you find stupid (which you can, of course) is an attempt to address something some people see as a problem? At least, enlighten us with reasons why you find it stupid, it's easy to find interesting things to say on this matter.
      • conradfr 7y ago
        It's unreadable and totally disconnected from the oral form and even these people can't apply their made-up rules consistently.
  • tootie 7y ago
    Ha, so true. I know a lot of people (particularly East Asians) who struggle with basic English gender pronouns. I used to have a Chinese co-worker who just always got them backwards and when she said "him or his" I always assumed she was talking about a woman and vice-versa.
  • alkonaut 7y ago
    I think there is plenty of leeway and acceptance for honest mistakes here. I don't think many people are easily offended by mistakes.
  • kamaal 7y ago
    A few months back I took the IELTS(International english language testing system) exam. There was nothing in the entire syllabus, or sample tests I took, or the exam I appeared in, about all this. In fact I did a fair bit of practice on listening, reading, writing and speaking tests. Worked my way through some 7 - 8 workbooks. Had a good score in the exam too. This entire thing is so confusing to a point it almost requires a fair degree of exposure to politics, sub culture and social narrative cutting across various issues just to be able to ask some one to serve them a cup of tea. I'm surprised a language proficiency testing system, with may be tens of thousands of people taking the exam, with books, and training material designed with may be a century worth of experience from English speaking cultures across the world doesn't have anything on this. Or doesn't train us on this. There is no right way, grammatical or cultural accepted across the English speaking world to get this right. It so confusing. At this point in time its like I have to run a rule engine inside my brain just be be able to say 'Hi $title, $name, Did $pronoun take the book from my desk' Try filling in $title and $pronoun and see how it goes, especially when $name has a gender attached to it over entire known human history.
• blondin 7y ago
  tangent but, omg livejournal is back?!
  • phyzome 7y ago
    Sort of, yeah. Dreamwidth is a fork of the codebase and has some of the original developers. Technically, Livejournal is still around too, but a lot of people migrated when LJ was bought by a Russian company and later when the servers moved to Russia as well. LJ is a total ghost town now.
• m-p-3 7y ago
  What a mess of a slippery slope..
• throws_gender 7y ago
  This was touched on briefly in the article, but maybe someone else here can shed some light on this here. Is it not super confusing for gender neutral to use the 'they' pronoun? It's already in use in the English language. Every time I've heard people try to use it in conversation it's sounded like an Abbott and Costello routine.
  • reanimus 7y ago
    It's been around for ages as a gender neutral pronoun: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002748.html http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002748.h...
    • Symbiote 7y ago
      (Native English speaker) I find it pretty easy to use "they" when the gender is unknown, which fits a lot of writing online. I find it much, much more difficult to remember to call my friend's partner, who looks in every way to me very feminine, and has an unambiguously feminine name, "they" rather than "she".
      • reanimus 7y ago
        I don't really find it any harder than picking up someone going my Mrs. rather than Ms. or someone changing last name. There's usually an adjustment period, of course, but it's not that hard to pick up personally.
    • edflsafoiewq 7y ago
      With an indefinite referent though (from you link: "a man", "a person", "every one"). Not with reference to specific definite person. "Jack got their jacket" does not usually parse as Jack getting his own jacket.
      • munmaek 7y ago
        The point is that it's not an unknown, made up word that came from nowhere. It has been used in the English language for hundreds of years. It's not confusing to use because one can infer from context.
• wolco 7y ago
  Isn't a mod a volunteer position? Why waste years working for free without any control?
  • julienreszka 7y ago
    Reputation. Power hunger. Ego trip. Many possibilities.
  • erikpukinskis 7y ago
    Building wealth is not everyone’s primary goal.
    • philwelch 7y ago
      True. Wealth, at the scales most of us are familiar with, gives you autonomy over your own life. The motivations described here have more to do with the desire to exercise power over others.
  • randrews 7y ago
    Precisely so you can enforce your views about wrongthink.
  • greggman2 7y ago
    do volunteers for not-tech things have control? I don't feel like I'm working for free when I contribute to stack overflow. I feel like some company is running a mostly free site (until recently just job ads you can turn off). I volunteer to help others. I assume most others do the same. It just feels good in the same way I'm assuming other volunteer activities feel good. Of course not everything feels good but over all when I've managed to answer someone's question it feels like the same feeling I get helping someone on a non-tech way.
    • wolco 7y ago
      I understand the helping feeling. Stack overflow just hired a ceo to extract as much value as possible. They should pay you or reward you for years of service. You've saved them personally over 250k if you have been doing this for 5 years or more. Volunteering so a for profit company feels helpful but who are you helping? If no one volunteered then someone paid would perform the same tasks...
• goostavos 7y ago
  "require use of preferred pronouns and avoiding them is forbidden" This line of thinking is so bizarre to me, but seems to be increasingly common (or at least loud enough in the right places to be noticed). There is a segment of the population that seems intent on being able assign and punish that assumed thought crime. Now your lack of a specific behavior is suspect!
  • trentnix 7y ago
    Exactly as was foreseen.
  • reanimus 7y ago
    I think it's just rude behavior, honestly. If I ask you to call me something and you go out of your way not to do that, how is that not a dick move?
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    • phyzome 7y ago
      I'm pretty sure cellio specifically said that they were fine with using pronouns when specified.
      • reanimus 7y ago
        Really? The post here seemed to indicate otherwise: > I said I avoid singular they for that reason, 95% of the time you can write around the problem, and (on SE) I'm offended when someone edits my posts badly to solve a gender-neutrality problem. (Editing well is fine, which usually means pluralizing or using a name or something like that instead of either generic "he" or singular "they".) Some people said not using preferred pronouns invalidates the person; I said for me it's not about the person at all but the quality of my own writing (an important part of my identity). and later: > I answered saying that we already have a negative commandment, don't call people what they don't want to be called (like wrong pronouns), which is proper, but this question calls for adding a positive requirement to use specific language and we shouldn't do that. I talked about writing in a gender-neutral way, that we rarely even need third-person-singular pronouns in our discussions, and not using a pronoun at all isn't misgendering. This, to me, sounds like "I refuse to use the pronouns you ask me to use for you and will instead rewrite whenever possible to not use pronouns for you".
• anoncareer0212 7y ago
  I'm mildly embarrassed to have written off critiques of the Great Awokening via CoCs a few years ago – after a few more years dealing with adult life, it's pretty clear that two constants are A) people, universally, can be in a dark cloud where unrelated actions by unrelated people are a personal attack on their existence B) authority _hates_ dealing with issues, especially the more distant they are from you in the hierarchy, and will always choose the option that keeps the largest crowd aware of the situation the quietest.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• paul7986 7y ago
  Give it 20 to 30 years and he or she won't be used anymore. It will become an HR issue. Things change.
  • noonespecial 7y ago
    I think the opposite. Instead of polite consideration for others, we filled the airspace with dictatorial edicts and draconian overreactions. The backlash will be such that any hint of it in the future will be vigorously put down. A shame all the way around.
  • shados 7y ago
    Getting downvoted, but there is something worth discussing here. Originally you had sex === gender. Pronouns being words to address them and describe them per their sex/gender. Then there was a split between sex and gender, and a push for pronouns to describe gender rather than sex. A bit confusing when the person in question just transitioned or does not "pass" (for lack of better terminology), but all around pretty simple. While there's been trans and non-binary folks forever, it's still a recent thing in term of large scale awareness. Then things moved forward with genders being much more complex with a ton of variations, but we still only have a few pronouns, so it no longer quite works. So things moved from pronouns matching genders to "preferred pronouns" Logical for non-binary where things aren't as simple as men/women (and thus he/she doesn't map cleanly 1:1), but it gets really confusing with things like people who identify as one of the binary genders but wants to be addressed by the opposite pronoun (eg: a woman requesting to be addressed as a he, but still identifies as a woman). At that point keeping this straight in one's head gets seriously confusing and complicated, and has a lot of parallels with Asian languages that have deep complex hierarchies of ways to address based on status. Obviously it's possible since those other cultures can do it (albeit in a different context), but foreigners have a pretty hard time with it (you need to learn LOT about the language and the people to do it correctly). So realistically, especially while we're transitioning to this new world, it's a heck of a lot easier to stick to gender neutral. Personally, I'm old and have a lot of decades behind me of habits that need changing to make people happy. If I'm in a group and it's not completely obvious what to use (or I don't know folks personally), I'll just stick to gender neutral everything until I catch on or get corrected. Never offended anyone (or at least no one told me so) that way, and it makes things a lot simpler. I mean, I can't remember people's first name until I hear it quite a few times, and its (generally) a fair bit simpler, assuming western names since thats where I'm from. Fortunately people generally don't take it too badly if I ask them to remind me a few times or I get it wrong a bunch, but first names aren't as emotionally loaded.
• anm89 7y ago
  I don't think anybody is in the wrong here. These types of forums are communal in nature, they are the sum of the people who use them. There is really no right or wrong here, if a thing bothers enough people within a community for them to speak up then rule changes should be made if that is the consensus based o. The power structure. If those rule changes push community members away then that is a natural consequence. But all of the above is why I feel that it is unwise to engage with these types of communities or at least that you need to be very selective when you do. It's either a dictatorship or mob rule and if you buy into these communities as part of your identity with out being sure your values are aligned with it's, you're bound to end up frustrated.
• mlthoughts2018 7y ago
  This is a side question, but in regards to the actual gendered pronoun discussion that seems to be at the center of the policy debate, what even is the specific set of criteria being used? It seems like someone is lobbying that moderators must refer to others with pronouns that the other person chooses. Doesn’t this obviously have unsolvable problems, in principle? - most of the time, responses on a Stack Overflow site are content-specific (“clinical”) and should not necessarily make reference to another human at all (and probably should make efforts to avoid such references as often as possible, for writing clarity). - when referencing another comment or answer or something, dry scientific writing that does so without attributable language attaching it to a person would be less controversial, more clear, and less likely to bring subjective opinions into a matter of reference. - you could always make all references revert to a chosen username and restructure language to have no concept of gender, which for clinical writing is a huge positive aspect, and is in no way connected to the preferences of those being referred to (by matter of it being clinical, not by any matter of status of gender identity) - even if you assume you did need to refer by pronoun, how could Person A know what pronoun Person B wishes to be referred by, unless explicitly stated somewhere? - how could you prove negative intent when choosing not to use certain pronouns, as opposed to a mistake, or pronoun identity that was not publicly known, etc.? I’m just curious how such a thing could ever conceivably be part of a policy that restricts or controls clinical writing style in the moderation of a forum. Regardless of all the moderator drama, it just appears to me like a type of policy that functionally cannot exist, regardless of whether a corporate entity declares it a policy or not.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • Pfhreak 7y ago
    > - how could you prove negative intent when choosing not to use certain pronouns, as opposed to a mistake, or pronoun identity that was not publicly known, etc.? Same way you prove someone is posting maliciously in any other context -- you make a judgement call based on history? If it looks like an honest mistake and they say, "Whoops, my bad!", then it's no big deal? > - even if you assume you did need to refer by pronoun, how could Person A know what pronoun Person B wishes to be referred by, unless explicitly stated somewhere? People who care about having the correct pronoun used will either gently correct you or have their pronouns in their profiles.
• michannne 7y ago
  > An employee with a "director" title posted and pinned a message saying the company is changing the CoC to require use of preferred pronouns and avoiding them is forbidden. I asked questions, most importantly: would it now be a violation of this new policy to write in the gender-neutral way that I already use? And how are you judging "avoiding", which requires knowledge of intent? Other people had questions and issues too. One moderator pointed out a problem with something I was proposing to do and I agreed after it was explained and said I wouldn't do that. The employee did not stay to field questions, but came back a couple hours later to tell me "we've been as clear as we can and your values are out of alignment". In what world is this type of action supposed to be praised?
  • Pfhreak 7y ago
    Which action? The directors or the moderators?
• krasicki 7y ago
  What happened to, "Just don't call me late for dinner?"
• eej2ya1K 7y ago
  This is what happens when corporate codes meet kindergarten mindsets. The longer this continues, the worse the blowback is going to get - I'm just happy to be far enough away to not have to care (protip: get the fuck out of the anglosphere as soon as possible)
  • michannne 7y ago
    > get the fuck out of the anglosphere as soon as possible Can you expand on this?
    • munmaek 7y ago
      Contextual languages like Korean and Japanese omit pronouns/the subject entirely, unless it's ambiguous. It's common to use their name instead of "you", etc. It's not like English where the subject cannot be omitted.
      • yakshaving_jgt 7y ago
        It's also a cultural thing. You're not going to see any of this craziness in any Slavic country, or in most of Asia. Ideological extremism is everywhere, but this particular strain of it is mostly concentrated in the Western world, particularly America, Canada, Sweden, and Germany.
        • alkonaut 7y ago
          > You're not going to see any of this craziness in any Slavic country I think you might have misunderstood why that is.
          • yakshaving_jgt 7y ago
            I welcome you to enlighten me. Unless you're going to suggest that all Slavic people are homophobic (as many Westerners seem to believe), in which case you'd be dead wrong.
• jumpingmice 7y ago
  I've seen first-hand people whining online that someone used the initialism "LGBT" which apparently can be considered exclusionary by some people. It seems that "LGBTQIAGNC" exists and may be more expansive, however I can't rule out the existence of some person who objects to even this.
  • scoot 7y ago
    How about "[A-Z]" ?
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    • swasheck 7y ago
      won’t someone think of the lower cases?
      • goatinaboat 7y ago
        [\w]+ should cover it
        • xxs 7y ago
          \w covers non-characters, though
          • joombaga 7y ago
            Unpeople are people too.
      • lytedev 7y ago
        .*/g
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    • jumpingmice 7y ago
• ben_jones 7y ago
  > The tone of the answer was pretty combative and people downvoted for that reason (as noted in comments). OP interpreted downvotes as transphobia. There was another answer that said something like "cultural awareness / different cultures, as part of D&I" that was presented positively and got a lot of support. (I know gender != culture; I'm pointing out that another D&I answer, presented constructively, was well-received.) Seems like an age old tale of management assessing a situations potential liability as high, and promptly responding with a zero tolerance policy and throwing someone under the bus to protect themselves.
• gcb0 7y ago
  Is this the new hollywood black list/red scare? Tech behemoths, full of privileged people on top, use the false pretense of respecting pronouns or other minority demands, to actually oust people that care about such issues in the first place?
• Marazan 7y ago
  This person seems to think using 'they' as a singular is somehow wrong in English. That's not correct. It's been used since the 1500s and it was only when the wave of idiot Victoria grammar prescriptivists started throwing weight around that there was any dispute at all.
  • shrimp_emoji 7y ago
    And, if you're coming from a Romance language, it feels natural to use "plural" pronouns (like "they") for singular subjects because that's the formal way to address people in those languages (when you're being more respectful). It seems like such an efficient solution. (Ironic, too, that it comes from languages where inanimate objects have genders!)
    • vsl 7y ago
      I’m a native speaker of one such language, where plural is the respectful form (though lately cultural Americanization imports singular/familiar tone into even business contexts). It has gendered plural pronouns and no natural way to be gender-less except “it”.
  • Freak_NL 7y ago
    I really like how simple it is in English to use the singular pronoun they when the gender of the person you are referring to is not known. I find that it reads a lot better than the compound he/she. I wish we had something similar in Dutch that didn't sound like a kludge. If we do, I haven't found it yet. Interestingly, in Japanese it's rather easy to refer to people in a gender-neutral way if you know either the profession or the name of that person; the honorific suffixes for names (e.g., さん or 様) where we would use Mr/Mrs/Ms don't differentiate by gender in Japanese and professions are often gender-neutral in name. It gets trickier if you don't have that information, because you tend to need he or she (彼 and 彼女 respectively) or one of the very common age bracket and gender specific classifiers like (you who could be someone's) sister (お姉さん) for any adult woman under the age of 35 (or older if you want to flirt a bit). Of course there is always the generic that person (あの方 or あの人). Luckily, Japanese allows you to complete leave out the subject of a sentence and still make sense if the context makes it clear, so there is that.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• conradfr 7y ago
  I'm appalled that moderators edit posts over pronouns. And not sure why the gender or sexual orientation of people matters on a site where you can basically be anonymous. I guess because I only read Stack Overflow questions from Google searches there's a whole dimension of Stack Exchange that eludes me. On Twitter I know not to engage with people that specify their pronouns on their bio, it's just a waste of time even for trolling. I guess it's something that I can extend to SE and elsewhere. And to be clear I've no problem with trans people and calling them what they want, but sometimes it's just difficult to remind it all (and confusing over different languages). About CoCs: who would have thought? Well ...
  • martin_a 7y ago
    > And to be clear I've no problem with trans people and calling them what they want, but sometimes it's just difficult to remind it all (and confusing over different languages). But wouldn't you have to look in every profile on SE before posting an answer or comment to make sure you're up to date about the pronoun that person wants to have used? At least that's what I understood is how it's supposed to be.
    • Fellshard 7y ago
      And you can be found retroactively in violation. Time is an element that is continually rebuffed in consideration of these things.
      • martin_a 7y ago
        That was the next thing I was wondering about. Will there be some "visited your profile"-marker or whatever so that somebody could be "innocent" because he did actually not visit the profile or will that visit just be mandatory before commenting on a post?
        • Fellshard 7y ago
          Not even that, but what if a post from some years back is now no longer using matching pronouns?
• ph33t 7y ago
  In short ... too many people take themselves too seriously. too many people reading the intent to malign from internet postings made by people intending to help.
• ng12 7y ago
  I don't understand why this has become such a common theme in the tech world. A small clique of non-binary/LGBTQ+ people who wield undue amounts of soft power and use that soft power to fight pseudo-political internet battles. I've yet to experience this with any other subculture I'm involved in.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • harryf 7y ago
    > There was a TL discussion about gender-neutral pronouns and then "preferred pronouns". Reading the post right here at the beginning I'm like "Oh here we go..." And reading the rest went just as predictably as I expected. A tiny minority wielding their power. Sane people attempting to stay sane and reasonable, but failing. A terrified company acting in panic. Future alien archeologists will wonder "So they were facing imminent extinction, how did they respond to this threat?" ... "Well they seemed to spend a lot of time arguing over what they should call each other" PS: before anyone likes to shame me, I _might_ actually be a woman...
  • oefrha 7y ago
    A few years ago when I was a member of a relatively high profile open source project, I myself was once (informally) accused of non-inclusive behavior towards a trans person. It was a very confusing experience because I didn’t even know that person’s gender up until that point, much less whether they were trans or not; I only found out after the accusation. Nor did I ever care about their gender before or after the incident — the only thing I gave a damn about was the code they produced. Turns out my complaint against a poorly thought-out feature of theirs (which was greenlighted by the project lead, landed despite much opposition, and subsequently caused quite severe breakage) was distorted as an attack against their gender. That experience and experience from other clashes against the broader CoC-wielding crowd, either firsthand or secondhand, tells me that people who are determined to inject identity politics into software are either (a) honestly over-sensitive, can’t imagine other people not giving a shit; or (b) using CoC as a convenient tool to end technical debates (when they’re out of arguments or don’t want to argue further) with folks who prefer a more blunt communication style.
• alexwennerberg 7y ago
  I don't find it to be unreasonable. If a trans person clearly states that her pronouns are "she/her" and you twist your sentences around to avoid using pronouns at all, that could certainly give the impression that you don't recognize her identity as valid. I am not saying OP did this or did this intentionally but it's not an unreasonable policy. It sounds to me (without being intimately familiar with the situation) that OP has esoteric stylistic preferences that are not transphobic but happen to be consistent with the language that transphobic people will use. Pronoun use is pretty straightforward. If someone says their pronouns, you use their pronouns to refer to them, just like you would anyone else. It may feel a little disorienting if you don't talk to many trans people and, for example, they use singular "they" or have a pronoun that seems different than the one that you would naturally assign to them based on their appearance, but it's not difficult and you can get used to it pretty quickly. The reason that people are so sensitive and strict about this is because the stakes for trans people are very high -- some people don't believe trans people exist, should exist, or should have the same rights as cis people. Refusing to use the right pronouns reveals either a benign misunderstanding about trans people or a willful hostility towards their existence. The latter is extremely common and can be both hurtful and often scary, as trans people, especially trans people of color, are often subject to violence because of their identities.
  • pfortuny 7y ago
    And... how is it that you know when someone is twisting his or her sentences?
    • alexwennerberg 7y ago
      I don't know the situation at hand well enough to say whether the policy was fairly enforced, but the policy itself is not unreasonable. If, for example, someone had the same stylistic practices as the OP and also wrote hateful things about trans people on Twitter, it may be more likely. Or if they use a certain style when referring to cis people but use a different one when referring to people with they/them pronouns or trans people.
    • geofft 7y ago
• djsumdog 7y ago
  This is a topic no one can talk about today. Previous discussions on this on HN quickly dropped off the page. I've always found the concept of preferred gender pronouns to be problematic from a pure technical perspective. But I was so afraid of the stigma I haven't really written about it. Recent events made me finally publish this last night: https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/perspective/preferred-gender-pronouns/ https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/perspective/preferred-g... The summary: pronouns reduce cognitive load, because you can refer to someone by a broad category. With custom pronouns, you now create a way to offend someone in the base language.
  • drdaeman 7y ago
    Moreover, those personal pronouns are untranslatable. If someone’s wants to be referred as “xir” in English and use of “they” is considered offensive, there is no “politically correct” way to refer to such person in at least some non-English languages unless xir defines the pronouns for other languages too.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    • rasengan0 7y ago
      Makes total sense https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/xir https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/xir
    • Traster 7y ago
      I'm sorry I don't understand this argument. Let's say we're talking about something on a website, I say I want to be referred to by the pronoun "xir". "No,because I can't translate that into Swahili" seems like an odd response to me. It seems irrelevant to an average conversation I'm going to have. And even if you are planning to translate the conversation into another language you could just.... ask what would be reasonable in the other language?
      • drdaeman 7y ago
• vagab0nd 7y ago
  https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/08/stick-figure-guide.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/08/stick-figure-guide.html
  • cryptozeus 7y ago
    Exactly “3) Use “they” “them” and “their” as gender-neutral pronouns. Almost a good plan, but it doesn’t work. Too often I’ll be talking about two WBW characters, and when I say “they,” readers can’t tell if I’m referring to the one I was just talking about or to both of them.”
    • jraph 7y ago
      Do you have a hard time to understand from the context whether "you" is plural or singular? It seems like it is the same problem but nobody is out there arguing that we should find a way to disambiguate this.
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      • MauranKilom 7y ago
        Unlike singular "you", singular "they" can refer to different people.
• sawmurai 7y ago
  And that’s why I am not twitter anymore ^^ just one giant minefield
• marcinzm 7y ago
  >The employee did not stay to field questions, but came back a couple hours later to tell me "we've been as clear as we can and your values are out of alignment". The core issue as I see it isn't CoC or gender pronouns. Stack Overflow is punishing people if their perceived internal views (ie: "values") are not the same as a set of unwritten allowed views. So basically thought crime mixed with McCarthyism. Except without any specific clarify on what the allowed thoughts are.
  • pfortuny 7y ago
    OUT OF ALIGNMENT. Unbelievable. OUT OF ALIGNMENT. like Geometric values or what?
  • harryh 7y ago
    StackOverflow is a community and communities are sustained by shared values. It makes perfect sense to oust leaders from a community who are out of alignment with the values the community wants to support.
    • LargeWu 7y ago
      I think the problem here is that those values are not in fact being defined by the community, in toto. They are being defined by a very vocal and relatively small subgroup. Furthermore, the author doesn't even seem to be opposed to those values, just highly ambivalent about them.
    • blub 7y ago
      StackOverflow used to be a community of people wanting to share technical knowledge. Now I don't know what the F it is, but "pronouns" is about as far from technical knowledge you can get...
      • harryh 7y ago
        StackOverflow is made of of people, not technical knowledge seeking robots. Those people are messy and will inevitably come with a hole bundle of values in addition to their desire to ask and answer technical questions.
• rjf72 7y ago
  It seems all sites that rely on free labor for moderation end up with similar sorts of problems. Moderation is time consuming, tedious, and thankless work when done well. Who wants to spend hours doing this each day without any financial incentive? You end up getting folks attracted to having some degree of power over people, or ability to enforce or espouse their own views/values/ideologies, and so on. But all of these motivations are completely antithetical to what the position 'ought' be about - which is essentially a digital janitor. Pay moderators and the problem goes away since you now attract a pretty normal pool of people whose motivations might be earning a buck, or career advancement. I think we can see that clearly enough here where it's self evident that the moderators are paid. The problem of course is imagine a larger site wants 100 moderators. OK, you can get 100 people who are going to do a mixed job at best, but for free. Or you can pay $3,000,000 a year for the same team. Most companies? Easy decision. That's a $3 million executive bonus right there!
  • MauranKilom 7y ago
    I see no reason to believe that the involved mods are power-hungry. You generally need to have invested tons of tedious unpaid volunteer work (raising flags, reviewing questions/answers etc.) to become elected in the first place, and the subsequent duties are more of that nature. I mean, there surely is some merit to your thesis, but I have no idea how you think this is relevant to the situation in question. The people gravely mishandling things are exactly the paid employees, not the volunteer moderators.
    • rjf72 7y ago
      You have to try to see things from their perspective. Any option they could choose is going to be bad, so they're incentivized to choose what they perceive to be the least negative one. Sexual/gender groups tend to be hyper active on social media and organization - they are also extremely vigilant in trying to socially damage any perceived enemies. Had Stack Exchange chosen to not act they would likely be facing an angry mob of people who are hyper active on social media hounding them about not being inclusive, engaging in [--]phobia, bigotry, etc. They probably simply felt that firing one moderator was easier than dealing with what was likely to become a deluge of public relations damage if they did nothing. Depending upon the laws in New York, there would even be the potential of them facing discrimination or other lawsuits. Regardless of the merit of the claims, it would be enough to severely hurt the company. For instance see Ellen Pao vs Kleiner Perkins. Even though she decisively lost every single claim, their company's name and image was dragged through the mud for months in many major media outlets that draw tech oriented readership. And that's a company that doesn't, in the same way, rely on general populace brand value. The solution, like many things, is to never put yourself in this position to begin with. And that starts with paying for your labor. -- As for the mod selection process itself, it's the same thing everywhere. In general moderators are hired from the community. The problem is the people you don't want to be mods are the ones that'd be most interested in such a position, whereas the people you do want are generally not going to be willing to do it without compensation. There are some exceptions of course, but I think it's becoming increasingly clear that they are indeed the exception.
• jandeboevrie 7y ago
  There are two genders, your dna decides which you are. Nothing can change that and people should grow up and don't whine so much. I don't care if what you want to be called but if you're genetically male then I'll call you that. Even if you pretend to be female. Only kids are allowed to play pretend imagine games. If you're able to whine about these subjects then you got too much free time on your hands. Find a job or just stop bothering other people with your mental issues.
• cryptozeus 7y ago
  Disagreement between mod and policy makers is hardly a stack Overflow fiasco.
  • luckylion 7y ago
    What would you call ~15% of the moderators quitting, the community largely unified and heavily confronting the company?
    • scarejunba 7y ago
      A storm in a teacup. It's the usual internal politics in these communities. Because the stakes are so low, people's reactions are more violent.
• terfwars 7y ago
  I am left leaning and have actively supported the LGBT community, campaigned for marriage equality and helped raise someone who is LGBT and who suffered from brutal bullying in school. I have moved away from actively supporting the LGBT community but I still support my friends and family. I did this because the toxicity and witch hunting has gotten out of hand. We all used to fight the good fight. But the community has transitioned into a culture that is creating an increasing number of rules and tribes in order to differentiate themselves from the rest of society and in order to 'trap' outsiders into making a faux pas and then elevate themselves by pointing out the mistake. My sense is that this is a vocal minority in the LGBT community, but also highly influential, and that influence comes through fear of being called out. If you'd like to see examples of some of the toxicity inside the LGBT community itself, just do a search on TERF (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist) on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/search/?q=TERF https://www.reddit.com/search/?q=TERF The LGBT community is managing to alienate those who used to vocally support them. I think all of us hoped that we would some day be one people. Instead there is a persecution underway of anyone who is not LGBT - and merely pointing this out will see me accused of engaging in hate speech. As a side note: The comment thread here is a bloodbath, in case you hadn't noticed. Massive swings up upvoted and downvoted posts. The LGBT community will no doubt explain this away as haters and extremists who waded in and downvoted anything supportive. In fact many of us are supporters of human equality. We just don't support persecution, witch hunts and people who need to bring others down to elevate themselves.
  • deleted 7y ago
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  • michannne 7y ago
    The thing with HN and other forums which utilize an upvote/downvote feature, is that it will always devolve into using downvote as a way to disagree with a post, or to discourage certain opinions, then coming up with justification for the downvote only after being called out on it. I've accepted this inevitability, but that doesn't mean my opinion on issues will change, the best you can do is to ignore your karma when it comes to controversial topics or don't bother posting on them at all.
• dmix 7y ago
  One of the many reasons I'd never work at a big company. I just want to build software. I don't go to work to talk politics or have to keep track of every person's political radicalism for fear of being fired. I'd also prefer not to add even more social anxiety because I don't keep up with the latest stuff on Twitter.
  • slig 7y ago
    Working from home used to make me feel anxious about being lonely and the lack of networking. Now I know I made the right decision and plan to stick to it as long as possible.
    • dmix 7y ago
      Coworking spaces help solve this. At least 2-3 times a week. Or find other remote devs to work with at a space. Nothing beats being around other smart and motivated people sometimes.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • jerriep 7y ago
    Yeah, I share your feelings on this and this is one of the reasons I work alone for clients of my choosing
• pkaye 7y ago
  People are worried about pronouns meanwhile the supreme court is revisiting the LGBTQ workplace protections laws... https://www.vox.com/2019/10/2/20883827/supreme-court-lgbtq-discrimination-title-vii-civil-rights-gay-trans-queer https://www.vox.com/2019/10/2/20883827/supreme-court-lgbtq-d...
• throwaway8291 7y ago
  Language is a sensible thing, and draws all kinds of demarcations. A single word can shift the perception of a person. A circle might identify an outlier by just a slip of tongue. If you are from another socioeconomic stratum (or somewhere else in the capital quadrant), you might never learn a certain language, that provides a common ground. There are unspeakable things, I can think of, that I would never ever bring up in a conversation with a random person. These exclusions and inclusion have already been there, it seems like some fights are more naked now, uncovered, harsh and sometimes meaningless to someone not involved. I was a top SO contributor and very much enjoyed the site - and still enjoy finding answers. I fear, I will be policed at some point for something - but maybe not, because I am usually agreeable - but who knows: only time will tell. Edit: I am usually not that impartial, but there is a discourse (where this particular thread might belong to), where I am not able to take sides - because my gut feeling says: you cannot shift the responsibility you have, when you interact with another person, to some abstract law, entity, or something else - it has to be you, to show respect and to allow for a common room for everyone - which does not mean, that the room is just there of one.
• Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  Edit: Never mind
  • andreareina 7y ago
    Why shouldn't it apply? The participants of the chat are entitled to their privacy. If there were some harm to the public at large I'd recognize that as being an extenuating circumstance but in this case even the party claiming to be wronged sees the issue of privacy as taking precedence[1]. [1] https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/334248/an-update-to-our-community-and-an-apology/334427#comment1095551_334427 https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/334248/an-update-to...
• laurex 7y ago
  At the risk of making mistakes here, where I've come to personally, in a journey to understand myself, is that the idea of gender seems artificial in general, for the most part. I've been in a relationship with someone who felt strongly about being identified "correctly" when they had transitioned, and also with people who absolutely assume they'll be identified "correctly," when they had never particularly explored an alternative to how they were designated at birth. For me, I'm not upset when gender pronouns are applied to me, but I'd prefer to not be identified this way, even though I often feel since identification with the cultural experience of being identified as gendered. I've had some frustration that "they" has become the "neutral" pronoun, when earlier I felt more personally identified with pronouns that still disambiguated plural and singular more clearly, but a friend pointed out that if referring to an unidentified singular person, "they" is perfectly grammatical (i.e. "did someone deliver the mail?" "Yes, they did."). I am concerned that so much of the focus is placed on the problem of the word, without acknowledging the more fundamental question of willingness to consider if gendered pronouns are necessary. What seems problematic for me is trying to strike a balance between personal identity and "correct" speech. Most of the time, "making sure" that a gender is assigned in speech doesn't feel relevant to actually understanding general meaning. I appreciate language that better avoids pronouns rather than uses them as a means to add clarity. It feels to me that is possible to respect gender identity without requiring language to be gendered in a general way. At the same time, I've myself tried to take gender out of my speech and I fall constantly. Fundamentally, it feels like a cultural moment where it feels like we're focusing on very black and white ideas and feeling that others are "not listening," or on the other hand, "forcing me to do something I feel uncomfortable about and lying in wait for me to make a mistake." When there's a possiblity for openness, there's also the possibility of vulnerability, whereas in a cultural context, it seems like we're moving towards walls and fortification, which makes me pretty sad and concerned that there's not space for nuance.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
• archie2 7y ago
  This entire "debate" around gendered language just reaks of western liberal privilege. Nobody outside of this miniscule bubble of academics, political elites and their social justice warrior pawns actually give a damn. I just sit back and laugh and watch all of these institutions implode in their own incomprehensible ideology and laugh. How sad that we've come from the civilization that abolished slavery, instituted women's suffrage, civil rights for all, and defeating the Nazi war machine....to bickering over gender pronouns.
• scarejunba 7y ago
  What happens to a sentence like " Elle est intelligente". Do the conjugations change to be neuter?
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
• sword_smith 7y ago
  Seeing that the instigator's post is the most downvoted I have ever come across on Stack Exchange, I thought of the saying "the Revolution devours its children".
• wendyshu 7y ago
  Stack Overflow hired a highly political, sanctimonious Community Manager and this is the result. E.g. he suggested users who didn't like the rules require therapy https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/389935/why-was-the-meta-room-frozen https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/389935/why-was-the-... http://archive.li/UGUNK http://archive.li/UGUNK
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • zschuessler 7y ago
    Both links 404 for me. Did they take down the link?
    • djsumdog 7y ago
      Yep. Archive.is has a version: http://archive.is/UGUNK http://archive.is/UGUNK
      • vunie 7y ago
        Also down unfortunately.
        • wendyshu 7y ago
          The quote: https://i.imgur.com/OA5K2Ty.png https://i.imgur.com/OA5K2Ty.png
        • vsl 7y ago
          Are you using 1.1.1.1 for DNS? Archive.is actively blocks it to be inaccessible.
          • vunie 7y ago
            That explains it. I just added 8.8.8.8 as a backup DNS and archive.is works now. Thank you.
• wwarner 7y ago
  This is a case in which a Code of Conduct actually creates confusion instead of dispelling it. The more I think about it the sadder it is. It's tragic when there should be a rule but when you reach for it you find instead there is an empty space surrounded by razor wire where a rule should be.
  • einpoklum 7y ago
    The SO Code of Conduct was - I believe - not intended to create nor dispel confusion. It was created to legitimize/bless authoritarian site management/moderation practices with no due process. Before that code, there was a general "be nice" principle, and informal customs regarding what happens when you don't act nice. After the code, it became the accepted, hallowed norm that you can be kicked off or otherwise harshly penalzied on almost a whim, no input from by your peers, no public record of what had happened, no opportunity to argue in your defense etc.
• throwaway8451 7y ago
  Might be a bit meta but could it be that there's a pretty widespread attitude of 'wanting to be offended' and black and white 'with me or against me' thinking in America (sorry if over-generalizing here), judging from what I get to see on Twitter? How's a society supposed to work like this? Could it be that assuming good faith more often might be a starting point for a solution to a lot of problems, this one included?
  • Aperocky 7y ago
    You find a common enemy to hate in unison, for example China. And then you remind other black and white groups that hay we have greater things to hate.
    • nojvek 7y ago
      Come on. We’re all children of the Earth. Half of the shit we consume is made in China. Let’s not spread xenophobia about an entire nation that makes 30% of the world’s population
      • luckylion 7y ago
        It does work though. The left and the right in the West are mostly together on hating China. There are small minorities in both that are not on board, but in general, it works. Of course, you'd only level up the problem, from being a domestic issue to being a global issue. Next up: those damn bugs from Klendathu are threatening earth, we need to stand together against them. A planetary threat (with a face, climate change won't work) will bring together pretty much everybody.
      • Aperocky 7y ago
        It's not xenophobia, just the sad reality. I've seen rhetoric against China amp up from almost 0 to 100 real quick in the political discourse, to the point where any accusation are generally held as verdict, and in turn generates more hate. But we've seen it before and I'm kind of glad that even though the hate is universal majority does not intend to invoke MAD, so there's not much chance of an armed conflict (In comparison to Iraq/Libya)
• busterarm 7y ago
  SO seemed all crazypants to me years ago when all of the moderators started zealously closing down topics as off-topic or duplicate that the moderator had clearly misunderstood. That desire to maintain some precious perfect garden of facts drove me to leave and never look back. Glad I did.
• twats 7y ago
  I thought you folks were meant to be smart not a cess pit of trans hate. Trans rights are human rights you fucking TERFS.
• hendersoon 7y ago
  The argument came down to "call people what they want to be called" vs. "don't call people what they don't want to be called". The banned moderator preferred the latter. Either seems perfectly fine to me but I don't belong to any of the impacted minorities myself. Firing someone, even from a volunteer position, over that specific argument seems like a severe overreaction. Assuming we got the whole story, of course. Internet drama. Tempest in a teapot.
• miopa 7y ago
  This is getting quite ridiculous. I don't want to know your gender. I don't care. It's your thing. It's non of my business, and it makes no difference to me whatsoever. If I do want to know your gender, then things between us are starting to become intimate. To sum things up: I would say it's rude if someone shares his gender identity with me without being asked. On the same level as if someone shares his/her dick size without being asked.
  • spectramax 7y ago
    I agree, "They" is perfect. If you're offended then so be it. I don't really care if you're a man, woman, transgender, gay, lesbian, whatever. We are in a society that demands special treatment and we've become so afraid of offending people. To the offended - Don't be, assume the best of everyone and things will be fine. The problem starts when people are offended and they require special treatment. Malice, racism, segregation and other forms of abuse is not part of this clause. Those are universally inexcusable.
    • mintplant 7y ago
      You, and most of the commenters in this thread, seem to have somehow missed that the author specifically objects to using the singular "they". Perhaps people are skipping to the comments and/or jumping to stock reactions to the topic of gendered pronouns instead of reading and responding to the content of the linked post. Otherwise, I've no idea why so much debate is ragimg around, for example, "custom pronouns" (ze/xir/etc), when the original author doesn't mention them at all.
      • spectramax 7y ago
        I read the entire article and just because people are in accord with the author does not prevent them to comment further about the author's stance.
      • TeMPOraL 7y ago
        There are two ways of avoiding dealing with gender in written communication in English. You can use singular "they", or you can write in such a way gendered pronouns or singular they are not necessary. The author seems to prefer the second one as a stylistic choice, expressed that preference, and apparently this was what got said author fired. The way this decision and surrounding information about the new CoC can be read, is that it's no longer about avoiding misgendering people. It's about having to pay fealty. Writing around gendered pronouns means weaseling out of having to make a stand on the issue, which labels you as the enemy.
• Simulacra 7y ago
  Shouldn't the point be to reduce conflict and increase communication? I don't see that here...
• burneraccount12 7y ago
  60 million starving children in Africa. Something like 25,000 people die every year to war. The US president, leader of the free world, is facing possible impeachment. And what are we worried about? Pronoun use and codes of conduct on software Q&A websites. Give. Me. A. Break. Almost 2,000 words on it, no less. Talk about 15 minutes of my life I'll never have back. I'm trying to think if there's something dumber to argue about than this, but right now I can't. Not sure how the world will continue to spin on its axis what with the bloodbath of moderators on StackExchange but somehow the universe will find a way to carry on.
  • thereare5lights 7y ago
    This line of argument is specious. There are always bigger problems. That doesn't mean that smaller issues don't matter.
    • burneraccount12 7y ago
      Oh really? So if you had an open chest wound you'd say, "Worrying about bleeding to death is specious. There are always mortal wounds to worry about. That doesn't mean I can't worry about what color my fingernails are"?
      • thereare5lights 7y ago
        Thank you for proving my point. Your example relies on degrees of severity, urgency, and closeness to the problem to make sense. If we apply that to the original problems you brought up, we see that your argument is indeed specious.
        • burneraccount12 7y ago
          I don't follow. If we apply degrees of severity, urgency and closeness to the two problems the use of pronouns on programming websites does not rank as severe or urgent relative to...almost anything else in the universe. But please, spend more energy arguing this point -- definitely a productive use of everyone's time, complaining about pronoun implementation.
• 0x262d 7y ago
  these comments are a cesspool
• RobertRoberts 7y ago
  Compelled speech should be illegal. What if my preferred pronoun is "lordmasterofall"? Can I call on the full force of the law to demand its use?
  • qzxzxzxq 7y ago
    You have a holy duty to demand full reparations in court. And please do not stop there. You are facing discrimination and oppression in the wake of your transition to feline. There may be bigots that may refer a group of sentient entities, that may or may not include you, as 'people'. 'People' is human centric and feline exclusionary. Using the correct common noun is common courtesy, just as using the correct name and pronoun is, anything else is an obvious dick move. We need to smoke 'em bigots wherever we can find them!
• Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  I was ready to be on Monica's side until I found and read the leaked Teacher's Lounge transcript. I'm now significantly more conflicted. In the chat, Monica was asked many times, by many other moderators, to please use "singular they" for people who she actively knew preferred that pronoun. Monica flat out refused, saying it was confusing and grammatically incorrect. She said she'd be happy to use literally any other word, including "new" pronouns like "Xe". She also suggested that she could avoid using pronouns altogether, either just for people who preferred singular they, or universally for everyone. (Other moderators said this last option likely would have been fine had Monica not made known her reason for doing so.) Now, on a purely personal level, I also find singular they to be super confusing in conversation, at least when the subject is unambiguous. But the extent to which Monica refused to budge, even after being told that she was making colleagues uncomfortable, struck me as behavior that would need to be disciplined in any formal workplace.
  • blub 7y ago
    There's no formal workplace where anyone would be disciplined because they don't want to use "they". This is simply not a concern in the real world, it's another storm in the internet outrage tea cup.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    • Wowfunhappy 7y ago
      Well, speaking personally, if I acted the way she did at my workplace, I expect I'd get a talking to.
    • einpoklum 7y ago
      Plus - Monica doesn't even f'ing _work_ for them! She's a volunteer moderator, through elections. Well, she had been anyway.
      • Wowfunhappy 7y ago
        Volunteer positions are still positions with responsibilities. If you're doing more harm than good, any good organization will ask you to leave.
• itsthecourier 7y ago
  Man, I hope you get Justice for this. People fear so much PC, that sometimes operate in unreasonable ways, I think your position was great all the time.
• narrator 7y ago
  I'd like to learn how to force cultural change on people who don't want it and don't care about it. It's just a really cool society hacking technique. So how does a bill become a law with regards to this pronoun stuff? Who were the people who initiated this policy? What motivated them to do it? Who influenced them? Who influenced them? Who funded the whole movement? 4chan has been doing research into this by doing enough trolling that they got the ok hand sign classified as a hate symbol. It seems, based on following the timeline on that phenomenon that a lot of what is considered forbidden in our culture is generated by certain 3 and 4 letter non-profits who feed that information to Google, Facebook, and others. That's just the negative part of it all though: how behavior becomes forbidden. I want to know how behavior, like the pronoun stuff, becomes prescribed. I want to use that machinery to get society to do strange stuff as civilization level performance art.
  • TeMPOraL 7y ago
    If you ever discover the technique, please also make the civilization finally do something about climate change and getting us gently off the exponent in our economies. Sincerely, a time traveller from the 2080s.
    • narrator 7y ago
      Climate change has been screamed at you from every single information stream in your entire universe. To act like you're the smart one who has to deliver this to the people is the height of grandiosity. What I am asking here is how do we regain control of The Spectacle of Guy Debord for our own performance art projects that originate nowhere except our very own minds.
      • TeMPOraL 7y ago
        > The Spectacle of Guy Debord Is this a reference to something? I've seen wording similar to this somewhere recently.
        • narrator 7y ago
• rdiddly 7y ago
  If referring to someone by the correct pronoun is respectful, referring to them by their name is even more respectful in my book. Or avoid talking about them in the third person where possible and only talk to them, for example. These are among the ways of "writing around" the pronoun, and they're both more respectful than using the pronoun. I suspect they're more constructive and efficient in other ways too, but would have to pay attention to see whether that's true. Anyway, if English is like code, all the pronoun solutions are currently hacks, so I'm all in favor of refactoring to avoid them.
  • abhorrence 7y ago
    I think what you’re saying is true in the case where you apply it consistently to all people you talk about. When someone knows many people’s preference of pronouns but singles one out with “they”, name or avoidance of pronoun, that’s where the disrespect starts creeping back in.
• einpoklum 7y ago
  This storm is really _not_ about gender pronouns, nor about the use of singular "they", nor about inclusivity. It is all about how StackExchange Inc. is managing the StackExchange network; and the liberties it allows itself vis-a-vis individual moderators and the community at large. The fiasco is that the answers to these two questions are really bad.
• Lazare 7y ago
  Stack Overflow has handled the communication and PR side of this about as badly as a company can, and I started - and still want to be - on the side of the moderators. However, as near as I can tell from piecing together the different leaks, it turns out a core issue was that Monica Cellio refused to use the singular "they" construction, including when she knew that was someone's preferred pronoun. In my view she is 1) objectively grammatically wrong and 2) just being needlessly rude. And ultimately, I can't bring myself to support this position at all. If you lost your moderator role because of a refusal to use a widely used and accepted English construction, even though you knew this refusal would hurt people, then uh, I hope you're happy with your life choices, but I have no sympathy for you.
  • nullc 7y ago
    When you say 'refused to use' it sounds like you're saying Monica insisted on the wrong pronoun. But my understanding is that the argument was around drafting to simply avoid the use of pronouns entirely. I've never previously seen it described as rude to write text that simply didn't use pronouns, in and of itself.
• reilly3000 7y ago
  I know this isn't what is at issue here, but I can't help but feel it's connected: Gendered language runs deep, especially in languages like Spanish. Essentially anything ending in 'a' is considered feminine, and anything ending in 'o' is considered masculine. How could one hope to bring equality or neutrality to such language? It almost seems like a new language altogether would be easier than fighting to modify thousand-year histories and trillions of written words. I'm all for healthy dialog that leads to ending oppressive norms, building compassion and inclusion. This situation feels like its own form of oppression, and as such ought to be questioned, if not resisted. I honestly think everybody at the table here is trying to do the right thing as they see it, yet almost everyone is going to walk away hurt; there are no winners.
• XPKBandMaidCzun 7y ago
  I have a WIP theory about this type of person on social media. This isn't about validation or inclusion, if it was, it'd have been over years ago. We're deep in malingering territory now. 1. Creating a divisive persona / Integration Their bio may mention their membership in an off topic, but sensitive, divisive and prickly issue. The goal is to draw attention to the sensitive issue in the next phases. They join the group, sometimes not even in the actual working parts of it, but after party social/meta scenes. 2. Exposure and Hijacking They will tend to put themselves into conversation, conferences, etc. in preparation and in compulsion recreate the issue. The goal is to shift people focused diligently to shift their attention to being a caregiver not for their project or teammates, but to them. 3. Special VIP treatment Then they get a big smirk when people when management get tongue tied trying to navigate it gracefully. We've seen many surprising public concessions to these types, sometimes based off very flimsy reasons. Which tends to really annoy people who just want to work. Passerbys also unwittingly aid their endeavors, mistakenly believing they're helping someone disenfranchised and in need. 4. Consolidating (destruction) When they get the thumbs up on being VIP, they can now consolidate their gains and show what the world is like when only their feelings are cared for. Cancel culture, trying to ruin people's careers, get them banned, getting in fights with their bosses and chain of command etc. This way they can solidify their need for special treatment. It's a continual loop of positive reinforcement for them. Since people in power and passerby always cave to them, unwittingly creating more division in an already annoyed community. 5. Preservation / Preemption To draw the sting of critics, they beat them to the punch by calling them entitled and privileged. Further accuse critics can't grasp and judge their unique plight and never can. Demonstrating evidence of hypocrisy simply validates their presupposition they're underdogs being hounded. So they can repeat and get more concessions and attention. Other facets: My original theory is it was validation based. It maybe play a role, it's a multi-faceted thing, such as feeling ashamed of their activity some how and want to "come out" in public. But if it was just that, wouldn't they get it off their chest and just over it?
• hirundo 7y ago
  It's hard to know what people want to be called, but there's a technical fix for that: add keywords to comments, etc., so that Stack Overflow can know it for you. E.g. "%pronoun% was a legend in %possessive-pronoun%'s own mind." Just another markup feature. Let people enter their pronouns in their profiles, and simply substitute them as needed. This at least relieves the burden of knowing the intimate preferences of strangers. Use something neutral, like xe, and xer, for the default, and let users choose their own defaults. But if this is about something other than sparing people's feelings then this wouldn't help.
  • johnday 7y ago
    One immediate problem that springs to mind would be for the "they" pronoun which conjugates differently.
• recycler02 7y ago
  I've been watching Ken Burns' "The Civil War". There was a bit that got me thinking about something which I've had trouble fully defining. In one of the episodes, a historian talks about the simplicity of the values of the soldiers in that war. He marvels at how they were willing to march a mile and a half across an open field against a fortified enemy position. Think of the Union soldiers at Fredericksburg or the Confederate soldiers under Hood at Franklin. The historian also talks about how, were he in that situation, he feels like his response might have been "Sir, I don't believe that's a good idea sir" but how they bore it year after year and slaughter after slaughter. Someone misgendering another person is a cruelty, just like any bully teasing a vulnerable person. There have always been cruel people though. Juxtaposing that example of historical resilience against the increasingly baroque etiquette we require to insulate ourselves from experiencing garden variety cruelty, there's an incongruency that bothers me. Why could they bear that but we cannot bear this?
• King-Aaron 7y ago
  Personally, I go to stack overflow to find out about problems with my code, not about what set of genitals a person has.
• Waterluvian 7y ago
  I identify as a gender akin to a math wizard. The correct pronoun is a newly discovered prime number, unique each time. You know my preferred pronoun so please don't use "they." Now this seems absurd but dare you call me out on it and tell me I'm not actually who I am? Are we all entitled to commanding everyone's use of the language by constructing and dictating pronoun usage? I've had an easy time with gender issues in my life because I'm pretty carefree and accommodating. But I'm trying to understand where it goes from here. I don't see how we can go past he/she/they because it opens the floodgates to an infinite number of more pronouns, does it not? How does any group get to decide which new pronouns have enough subscribers to be added to the official list? It feels like in a gender fluid model, pronouns just don't work. "He" and "she" are legacy and "they" is the catch all. So I kind of get this idea of just not using them anymore. But does that feel manifestly absurd to anyone else? This is also why I enjoy the internet so much. Gender doesn't matter and I have mastered picturing everyone as a cat on a keyboard.
• nabdab 7y ago
  There is an awefull lot of gender neutral references in the CTO’s apology, even though it obviously knows that the fired moderators preferred pronouns are the female gendered ones. Someone should edit to remove all the gender neutral references to make a point how silly such a policy is.