An Update to Our Community and an Apology • Hacker News Board

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#201

Post by mattigames » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 2:10 AM UTC

toofy wrote: post #174

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #161

Does anyone really think that the use of gender neutral language (using they rather than he or she) is mis-gendering in the absence of knowing someone’s preferred pronoun set?

If they honestly don’t know the persons gender then it isn’t clear to me why they would choose a pronoun to begin with. If I don’t know someone’s name I don’t just start calling them Bill, I ask them their name and when they say “Hi I’m William but I prefer Bill” and move on with my life knowing to refer to this person as Bill, not William. If it was a genuine accident I personally see no problem with it and from my…

The problem is that in many cases you can never know for sure if someone is intentionally missgendering or if it was just a mistake (e.g forgot their pronouns or if is confusing them for someone else), which is extremely easy to do in online forum because we lack a lot of social clues present in real life that help us remind who are we talking to, like their faces and their voice; more-so because internet moderators interact with hundreds of people on a daily basis and is completely reasonable to forget some details of each conversation they participate in.

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#202

Post by chiefalchemist » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 2:14 AM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #16

-542 before it was locked. That's incredible. People are really really afraid to talk about this particular topic (which they don't mention in the statement), because this type of call-out to be banned happens a lot. The book "The Coddling of the American Mind" is an amazing book that documents how this is happening in academia, and it's happening on the software world too. Most people in our industry, in the US, EU…

Three other takeaways from Coddling:

1) Context and intent matter

2) It's better not to assume the worst (of the other person's intent)

3) Just because something is uncomfortable or offensive does not categorically make it painful.

--

For those who can't be bothered with the whole book the authors did an article for The Atlantic that was so well received they did the book.

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#203

Post by wendyshu » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 2:17 AM UTC

Their aim was building "a more welcoming and inclusive network". The first step towards this is... excluding people, apparently.

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#204

Post by KC8ZKF » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 2:18 AM UTC

kristianc wrote: post #141

djsumdog wrote: post #16

-542 before it was locked. That's incredible. People are really really afraid to talk about this particular topic (which they don't mention in the statement), because this type of call-out to be banned happens a lot. The book "The Coddling of the American Mind" is an amazing book that documents how this is happening in academia, and it's happening on the software world too. Most people in our industry, in the US, EU…

> If people start talking about the hard issues, but do so respectfully and by making arguments that are sound, we should have clear, rational and reasonable debate. A decision might be made we don't agree with, but as long as the discussion happens, everyone can learn from it and we can agree to disagree and move on. Ultimately what happens is these issues don't get talked about. People in the center would rather ju…

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-comi...

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#205

Post by chiefalchemist » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 2:22 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #169

yourbandsucks wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the hell are pronouns a centerpiece of a CoC? Just be nice to people. For fuck's sake.

> Why the hell are pronouns a centerpiece of a CoC? Because aggressive misgendering including by refusal to use the subject’s preferred pronouns is currently a significant form of harassment which is actively promoted by certain groups. > Just be nice to people. The fact that people aggressively refuse to do that is exactly what pronoun policies are responding to.

Understood. But for simplicity and consistency maybe we should just use first names. No he or she, etc. Just use the first name. Wouldn't that do it?

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#206

Post by groby_b » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 2:22 AM UTC

yourbandsucks wrote: post #186

dragonwriter wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why the hell are pronouns a centerpiece of a CoC? Because aggressive misgendering including by refusal to use the subject’s preferred pronouns is currently a significant form of harassment which is actively promoted by certain groups. > Just be nice to people. The fact that people aggressively refuse to do that is exactly what pronoun policies are responding to.

I'm gonna wade in hip-deep here and suggest that, given the size of the transgender community, the heat and hype of these issues are completely unwarranted. No hate towards anyone and I'll call anyone whatever they want as far as pronouns. But why is this a top-3 culture war issue? For a bunch of combatants who are overwhelmingly not trans and shouldn't really care? We need to think of a way to rise above without thr…

This is a top-3 culture war issue because it gives a perfect wedge. Gay marriage is lost as that issue, that was the next one theofascists latched on. (It's the same reason state legislatures are so very much concerned with gendered bathrooms these days)

It is deliberately stoked time and again because it specifically fires up a large conservative base, and is life-threatening to a small group. As a bonus point for the wedge issue status, the vast majority in the middle doesn't understand how difficult and dangerous it is to be misgendered as a transgender person, and so it's easy to paint the LGBT community as "rabid" for defending people's right to not be misgendered.

And that's why we're here. One large group deliberately fanning hate flames, and one small group desperately trying to not get killed even more often.

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#207

Post by SeanBoocock » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 2:24 AM UTC

AgentME wrote: post #197

McGlockenshire wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do fascists not realize they are being such? What an outrageous level of hyperbole. It is not fascism to ask others to not intentionally misgender people.

Agreed. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills reading most of the commentary here on HN or elsewhere about this. I get that there's some details about this case that are a bit ambiguous, but it doesn't seem obviously worth a witchhunt of SO. If it seemed to SO like a moderator was looking for loopholes for not enforcing a CoC, then I don't think it's wrong for them to consider the moderator as working in bad faith and n…

Likewise. I am shocked by the lack of empathy expressed by many here and on SO. Pronouns may be a small thing for a cis person, but for others they are a way to reclaim an identity denied to them. To deny anyone that basic level of respect is unconscionable, regardless of whether a code of conduct enforces it or not. A person tasked with enforcing community norms who is unwilling to do that and more, who subverts drafting a policy in bad faith, has no business being a moderator.

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#208

Post by vunie » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 2:27 AM UTC

McGlockenshire wrote: post #127

effingwewt wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, the solution you proposed is exactly what the moderators asked to do. Seems fair enough to me. They were told that not playing the pronoun game is the same as harassing whomever they are speaking to. The whole situation is ridiculous to me. How have we come to a point where not only do people think I care in the slightest who or what they have sex with (or don't, whatever), but they demand I call them by some wor…

> How do fascists not realize they are being such? What an outrageous level of hyperbole. It is not fascism to ask others to not intentionally misgender people.

The problem here is that people aren't being asked; they're being forced and, in this case, punished.

You don't get to dictate others actions just as they don't dictate yours. When you do, don't be surprised when people start fighting back.

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#209

Post by reccanti » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 2:27 AM UTC

Some of the responses to this article showcase opinions that I see a lot on Hacker News and which make it really hard to be on this site as a trans person sometimes. There’s a lot of attention being paid to the people who resigned, or whose moderator status was revoked—and how accommodating they may or may not have been—but it seems like very little of them are focusing on the people who this preferred pronoun policy was designed to help in the first place.

I know lots of people in my life who are genderfluid, or who use nonstandard pronouns. They aren’t the caricatures that some of the people in this thread are making them out to be, they’re real people who are out there doing their best and live as themselves, and it’s really difficult seeing this thing they struggle with every day be labeled a “political” issue.

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#210

Post by MauranKilom » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 2:29 AM UTC

tmp20191006cars wrote: post #200

dragonwriter wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why the hell are pronouns a centerpiece of a CoC? Because aggressive misgendering including by refusal to use the subject’s preferred pronouns is currently a significant form of harassment which is actively promoted by certain groups. > Just be nice to people. The fact that people aggressively refuse to do that is exactly what pronoun policies are responding to.

Might I suggest that most people who insist on using pronouns derived from one's biological sex (rather than gender) are not attempting to engage in harassment, but are simply refusing to concede a currently unsettled political and societal question?

Whether one think it's valid or not, people are hurt and suffer from the actions you suggest. Even if no harm is intended, harm is actively being done. At the same time, there is a limit to the linguistic, religious and/or philosophical concessions that pronoun users can reasonably make. It appears to me that that there is not always a middle ground that satisfies both sides.

I (as someone who has no horse in this race) would suggest to put basic empathy and courtesy above "refusing to concede" on some more or less immaterial question, at least where there is no other reason not to. The ideological high horse isn't very high if one knowingly goes about hurting people to stay on it.