Blocked by JSConf.eu Twitter account • Hacker News Board

Re: Blocked by JSConf.eu Twitter account

#151

Post by Xylakant » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 2:48 PM UTC

saintPirelli wrote: post #75

After reading the "code of conduct" on their homepage I would assume that you have unknowligly broken something like > "Using gendered terms like “dude” or “guys” to address a mixed-gendered group of people contributes to furthering exclusion of underrepresented individuals." The fact that they included an option to "make an anonymous" report furthers the assumption that you just got under the political wheels of the…

Your quote is disingenious since it cuts the following, quite crucial sentence. The full paragraph reads:

  Sexism
  
  Using gendered terms like “dude” or “guys” to address a
  mixed-gendered group of people contributes to furthering 
  exclusion of underrepresented individuals. We strongly
  advise avoiding gendered pronouns as well as gendered
  terms.

The whole short paragraph is listed in the "please pay a little attention to this" section of the CoC under the following introduction:

  Inclusive language
  
  In our commitment to a harassment-free and inclusive
  environment we strongly believe it’s important to pay
  attention to harmful language patterns.

It's a fair assessment. It's certainly not obvious to foreign speakers - it certainly wasn't for me - but isn't it fair to ask people to think about the words they're using? To point out common speech patterns that may make other people unwelcome and ask them to avoid them? Why not use "folks" or "people" instead of "dudes" and "guys" to refer to groups of people of all genders? Would you as a presumably male person feel included if someone refers to your group as "girls" or "ladies"? Would you prefer if people used that in their talks?

Now, that this pattern has been pointed out to you, you can still feign ignorance and deliberately still use "guys" and "dudes" to refer to people that do not identify as guys and dudes but that would just make me refer to you as "boneheaded impolite dick" even though you might not identify as such.

Re: Blocked by JSConf.eu Twitter account

#152

Post by Xylakant » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 2:50 PM UTC

c12 wrote: post #148

rplnt wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fairly certain I saw "guys" used to address even women-only groups in American movies and TV. Conference that wants to be internationally inclusive, which I assume a conference in English held in Germany wants to be, should not ostracize people based on grammar technicalities. That's just one word, but pronouns in particular differ greatly across languages. Objects can have genders, occupations can have genders,…

I've never assumed "guys" to be gendered, here it just refers to a group of people.

That's why it's pointed out in the CoC - to make people aware that not all people feel included by "guys". I know quite a few that don't.

Re: Blocked by JSConf.eu Twitter account

#153

Post by alanfranzoni » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 3:01 PM UTC

Sean1708 wrote: post #144

TangoTrotFox wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also wondered about this, and the only conclusion I could come to is quite cynical. Think about the practical effects. It encourages people to create multiple accounts and also encourages warring of various sorts. These behaviors send Twitter's usage and user numbers up without bots while enabling complete plausible deniability about any complicity. It's a problem with ad-driven networks. Their goal is to increa…

They tried to change the behaviour to the one that makes sense (to us) but there was backlash from users and so they reverted the change.[0] [0]: https://www.imore.com/twitter-changes-how-block-works-heres-...

I didn't know that. Well, ok.

Re: Blocked by JSConf.eu Twitter account

#154

Post by alanfranzoni » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 3:02 PM UTC

zem wrote: post #93

alanfranzoni wrote: post #57

Slightly off topic: I've always found twitter-style blocking totally nonsensical. I mean: you've got a public account. Blocking should prevent people from replying or tweeting at you, and from sending you DMs, maybe even retweeting what you said (even though I'm not sure about the usefulness of this last thing)... but why should ANYONE be prevented at just READING PUBLIC CONTENT when LOGGED IN? (I think the same appl…

it raises the friction for people quoting your tweets and encouraging their followers to harass you.

Well... raises by how much? Is that really significant? By the way... that's it.

Re: Blocked by JSConf.eu Twitter account

#155

Post by pseudalopex » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 3:22 PM UTC

EGreg wrote: post #111

topynate wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but that was seven years ago, and Things Are Different Now. (Just leafed through their twitter. I'm seeing a lot of the same clique as were involved in the node.js brouhaha last year. Is this conference really worth the fuss?)

This whole thing is a bit amusing. So Brendan Eich invented JS, and then led Mozilla. And being in the Brendan Eich Fan Club in 2011 probably was a positive thing and a cool thing for JS people. Then much later, Brendan Eich donates $1000 to some political thing people strongly disagree with So retroactively, being a fan of Brendan Eich means you are a homophobic hater and must be blocked? I am quite sure this ain’t…

Eich made the donation in 2008. It became widely known in 2012, when he was still CTO. Nothing came of it until 2014, when he was promoted to CEO.

Re: Blocked by JSConf.eu Twitter account

#156

Post by michaelmrose » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 3:51 PM UTC

jakobegger wrote: post #45

Why do you keep bugging someone when they obviously do not want you to contact them? Blocking you is a way of saying "Leave me alone!" Not replying to direct messages or emails is a way of saying "Leave me alone!" Nobody needs to explain why they want to be left alone. Maybe stop thinking about yourself, and just accept that the people behind the twitter handles just don't want you to contact them anymore for whateve…

Adults can verbalize or type the words leave me alone

Re: Blocked by JSConf.eu Twitter account

#157

Post by nicky0 » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 3:53 PM UTC

mijamo wrote: post #131

nicky0 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think they are keeping a permanent database of twitter block reasons?

Doesn't need to be a database, a simple spreadsheet or text file would do as well. And you would be surprised to know how frequent those are (not necessarily about Twitter but in general about customers/employees/visitors in shops etc.)

What about a hand written note. Does GDPR cover that?

Re: Blocked by JSConf.eu Twitter account

#158

Post by pdimitar » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 5:23 PM UTC

beaconstudios wrote: post #104

matt4077 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I deliberately chose not to work in the "enterprise" market with 6-digit contracts anymore and instead sell a consumer product to many more people so that I could fire any customer that annoyed me without thinking twice about it. They get their money back and can find someone else to annoy. I really don't see what's so outrageous about the practice. There is no moral law that being paid by someone somehow creates a h…

the key factor is whether they ever _told_ him "hey, you're spamming the conference at this point, please tone it down." - otherwise it's just passive-aggressive. Would you simply close a client's account and refund them without ever telling them that you were considering such actions? Because that would be extremely unprofessional.

Sounds suspiciously like what Google is doing every now and then. Oh, but they don't refund.

Re: Blocked by JSConf.eu Twitter account

#159

Post by pdimitar » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 5:24 PM UTC

matt4077 wrote: post #56

michaelmrose wrote: post #11

What kind of people tell paying customers they are not worth the time required to answer a question?

I deliberately chose not to work in the "enterprise" market with 6-digit contracts anymore and instead sell a consumer product to many more people so that I could fire any customer that annoyed me without thinking twice about it. They get their money back and can find someone else to annoy. I really don't see what's so outrageous about the practice. There is no moral law that being paid by someone somehow creates a h…

> At some point someone /probably/ got annoyed. I'd even wager money he's a running joke among the organizers.

That's fine, these things can happen. But being an a-hole about it is not. Just say it in clear text: "You came off as needy and annoying, please stop". Would probably be more than enough.

But the organizers probably didn't want their decision to be questioned or brought into a public light so they went silent and ignoring.

Re: Blocked by JSConf.eu Twitter account

#160

Post by DoubleGlazing » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 5:28 PM UTC

mijamo wrote: post #131

nicky0 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think they are keeping a permanent database of twitter block reasons?

Doesn't need to be a database, a simple spreadsheet or text file would do as well. And you would be surprised to know how frequent those are (not necessarily about Twitter but in general about customers/employees/visitors in shops etc.)

Or just an email message mentioning the person. That's why I brought up the GDPR in the first place. My wife knew someone who was complaining against his insurance company, they were blanking him. So he put in a subject access request and in all the stuff he got back was an instruction sent to all customer service staff via email telling them to block him if he ever tried to contact them via social media.

The above happened under the 1995 DPD regime, the GDPR would probably be even more useful.