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

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#281

Post by damnyou » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 4:23 AM UTC

tmp20191006cars wrote: post #278

damnyou wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is completely appropriate to enforce a trans-affirming policy. A view that considers a group of people -- other people that participate on the site -- mentally ill, has no place in workplaces, large-scale online forums and polite society in general.

I'm not among this group we speak of, but I will never accept that view of them. They are not malicious, they are just different, and we should be tolerant of them even if they are not tolerant of transgenders.... in the same way that we are tolerant of Islam even though Islam is not tolerant of women's rights. I consider them (Christians) to be mentally ill what with all that christian god stuff they preach. Do you…

The goal should be to shift the overton window towards greater justice, not simply broaden it.

Yes, a view that all Christians are mentally ill has no place in workplaces either. This does not mean that you cannot privately hold such views, but that you should not act in the workplace in ways that show you hold those views (so you should not misgender a trans person, for example).

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#282

Post by shadowgovt » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 4:24 AM UTC

xienze wrote: post #194

shadowgovt wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may have been making an interesting point, but the "preferred pronoun of the week" bit at the end kind of kills it. Have you ever met someone who changes their gender identity weekly, or asks people to use a derivation-free nonsense word to refer to them?

> Have you ever met someone who changes their gender identity weekly Isn't that what "gender-fluid" is? > or asks people to use a derivation-free nonsense word to refer to them? Isn't that what pronouns like "xir" are all about? You seem more hung up on "have you personally met someone like that?" than "do these people really exist?" The answer to the latter question is yes, they do.

I felt that the last sentence tag indicated the author was thinking of gender-fluid people as abstractions rather than actual human beings; hence the verify whether they were snarking from experience or just spreading negative stereotypes they have no experience with.

I can understand the former; the latter corrodes discourse.

And for what it's worth: we're smart people with the ability to attend to the rules of string coercion in JavaScript; we can treat humans as humans and use the words they prefer to use to describe themselves. It's not actually that hard; certainly not as hard as all this cognitive load for JavaScript quirks. ;)

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#283

Post by tmp20191006cars » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 4:25 AM UTC

damnyou wrote: post #232

Invictus0 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truth and falsehood and opinion are all points on the same spectrum. Typically, facts and falsehoods are mutually agreed upon by both sides, and opinion is what falls in between as cannot-yet-be-determined stuff. But we live in a world where opinion has exceeded its bounds and encompassed fact. Evolution and climate change are still hotly contested. And it is the same with transgenderism: both sides hold different "f…

This is not a both sides issue. The medical fields moved to complete affirmation of trans identities a while ago because the scientific evidence for trans affirmation is overwhelming -- literally everything from mental health outcomes to surgery regret rates indicates that. The other side is both bigoted and factually wrong .

This is because the sex reseachers with a different view were forced out of their jobs by intense activism.

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#284

Post by DanBC » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 4:29 AM UTC

automatoney wrote: post #241

asdjlkadsjklads wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes i consider myself lucky that i don't know anyone seeking special pronouns - because i imagine i would repeatedly use what i visually see, not what they request. These days i seek to find a gender neutral word i can get into the habit of using (it, or they, or something similar) , for fear of mis-nouning someone. Though, i also have the fear that if i use something neutral, when someone requested a specific…

I've never thought about how changing social norms affect people on the spectrum, but it definitely seems like it would be a lot harder to get pronouns right. In my experience with trans friends, pronoun misuse would just come with a gentle reminder, and if you want, mentioning you have trouble with social norms should give you more leeway. In many left-leaning circles awareness of gender, disability and other things…

> changing social norms affect people on the spectrum,

Gender fluidity is much more common among autistic people, so most autistic people handle it just fine.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26753812

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#285

Post by strken » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 4:56 AM UTC

seandougall wrote: post #259

tmp20191006cars wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Ah, yes, the fabled "biological pronoun". Pronouns are not biological constructs. They don't have chromosomes, genitals, or secondary sex characteristics. They are, by definition, tied to gender. How would life work if pronouns were determined biologically? For example, how would you figure out what pronouns to use to describe me, if we met in person? You'd have to ask me to drop trou immediately after we met, which…

It would be easiest to call anyone who looks like a woman (or has put effort into trying to look like a woman) a woman, anyone who looks like a man (or has put effort into trying to look like a man) a man, and avoid using any pronouns at all if you're not sure. I'm convinced this is what most people naturally do anyway.

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#286

Post by overgard » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 5:02 AM UTC

reccanti wrote: post #209

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…

The “focus” is on the moderator because thats an actual person thats been directly impacted, right now, in the present tense.

Someone has just been fired for a hypothetical future thought crime, which is insane, and you’re saying “why are we not focussed on the hypothetical people she might have microaggressed against in the future”.

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#287

Post by wincy » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 5:07 AM UTC

otterley wrote: post #275

MauranKilom wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's far away from being that simple, and probably too complicated to summarize in a single sentence. For starters, the discussion was about a future CoC change and its theoretical enforcement. The actual allegation is repeated violation of the current CoC, but no warning regarding that was ever handed out. Nobody (not even the mod in question) has been told the exact violation, despite repeated queries.

You don’t need a reason to kick someone out of your house.

Absolutely, but then everyone can leave and call you a jerk for doing it. Actions have consequences and taking them unilaterally in a community might not go how you want it to.

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#288

Post by adrianN » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 5:07 AM UTC

baggy_trough wrote: post #273

humanrebar wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...if someone has an onerous or complicated preferred pronoun, that person is rude and can't expect others to comply or remember. To the extent that there is any controversy here, it's in this guideline. I'd just soften 'rude' to unreasonable. 1. I have not seen any code of conduct make room for this scenario. It's taken as a given that pronoun preferences are reasonable. 2. Some people think singular 'they' and 't…

You cannot compel people to talk in a certain way. To do so is totalitarian and evil.

This is clearly wrong as we already compel people to be reasonably respectful to each other even in lawful neutral countries.

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#289

Post by overgard » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 5:10 AM UTC

henrikschroder wrote: post #249

asdjlkadsjklads wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes i consider myself lucky that i don't know anyone seeking special pronouns - because i imagine i would repeatedly use what i visually see, not what they request. These days i seek to find a gender neutral word i can get into the habit of using (it, or they, or something similar) , for fear of mis-nouning someone. Though, i also have the fear that if i use something neutral, when someone requested a specific…

Think of special pronouns as names. All the etiquette we have surrounding names apply equally to pronouns. It's not expected to remember someone's name if you've only met them briefly, but the more you've interacted with the person, the more embarrassing not remembering their name becomes. Mis-naming someone intentionally, repeatedly, is rude and quickly moves into harassment territory. But the flipside is also true,…

“Harassment” is a really overly dramatic way of phrasing this considering the definition of the word. Not every slight is “harassment”, calling mild insults by that word comes across as shrill.

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#290

Post by wincy » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 5:10 AM UTC

stefan_ wrote: post #119

kjaftaedi wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious why you would remove moderator status from Monica? From my understanding it appears that she was demoted for merely posing relevant questions. As I don't believe SE has even made any specific claims backing up their decision, I'm curious as to why you suggest this is the correct decision to make.

I think they should remove many many more moderators, for no reason other than not doing so risks turning their site and resource into a Wikipedia 2.0, a place where cliquey moderators hang out to discuss their favorite flame bait topics all day, populate gigabytes of meta pages and lash out at unwitting, novel contributors. Wikipedia think a lack of a fancy SPA editor is the reason behind their editor demographics,…

The Thanos plan for fixing StackExchange, really?