Their aim was building "a more welcoming and inclusive network". The first step towards this is... excluding people, apparently.
Directly from the stackoverflow.com homepage: https://i.imgur.com/XB1ORxW.png
Very ironic.
An Update to Our Community and an Apology
341–350 of 424 posts
Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology
#342To me, the most interesting thing about the whole episode is that the post was locked and unable to be voted upon after massive downvotes from users.
Keeping the debate even moderately civil requires constant vigilance from the moderators and community managers. There is a constant stream of nasty comments - you don't see them because they are removed quickly. There were times where no one was present to moderate, so the post was temporarily locked. It has since crossed into the four digits of downvotes.
Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology
#343Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> But why is this a top-3 culture war issue? It's not. Without suggesting these are the top 3, Abortion, gun control, and immigration are, just to pick 3 obvious ones, a far more central culture war issues than pronouns. (If you aggregated “LGBT rights” as a whole, you might get into the neighborhood of a top-3 issue.) > For a bunch of combatants who are overwhelmingly not trans and shouldn't really care? Unless, of…
Mmmm. Look at the size of this subthread. It's like catnip.
And I said I'll use whatever pronouns people want, already, in one of four short grafs. Yet it didn't stop you from wondering if I'm some 'stealth enemy'.
It's funny, these culture war issues.
In the case described, it doesn't seem to have involved any actual trans people either. It was all theoretical, talking about the CoC.
I suppose my talk of 'rise above' means waiting until someone is actually a jerk before correcting them. We don't need cultural uniformity, we just need people to be nice.
Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology
#344Some 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…
If non-binary people want a world which exclusively genders them (exclusive of man/woman) they have to pick their own word and stick to it. Adopting an existing gender-neutral pronoun doesn't work for anybody since they might mean cis-gendered people. So I find it difficult referring to a non-binary person in singular or in particular. I usually just say "non-binary" or trans when it's important, typically only using…
Gender neutral does not imply cis-gendered.
Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology
#345Earlier 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.
What is 'aggressive' misgendering and aggressive refusal ?
Person 1: “He did a great job on the presentation...”
Person 2: “Thanks, that means a lot. Also, I actually prefer ’she’, but you can also use ‘they‘ if that makes you more comfortable.”
Person 1: “But you are clearly a man.”
Person 2: “...”
Person 1: “Like I was saying, he did a great job on that presentation. I want the rest of you guys to follow his lead.”
Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology
#346There was a thread on this earlier today too, but it fell off the main page really quickly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21149770
That one got both a software penalty (flamewar detector) and a moderator penalty (similar). But there have been so many submissions about this that it seems there's a community interest in discussing it that is more than just latest-routine-outrage. So we rolled back the clock on this one and put it in the second-chance pool (described at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380 ). Not sure if that was a good id…
Why the moderator penalty? I ask because this is a case of someone being punished for discussing a topic (gender identity and the limits of one’s authority over the speech of others), and then it would seem discussion of the punishment is being suppressed on a second platform (here). Looks almost like “suppress the topic, then suppress the discussion of the suppression.”
Got me thinking wow, some people really don’t want anyone discussing this topic! I wonder why.
Anyway to the main point, why did this story get a mod point?
Using a throwaway for obvious reason: it’s rational to be afraid to discuss the topic openly (see TFA), these folks will put you on a blacklist faster than you can say HUAC.
Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology
#347LOL, what a drama. fucking first world problems.
Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eh, in some instances you can define extremeness relative to alternatives, not number of believers. Execution as a punishment is more extreme than a fine regardless of how many people favor execution over fines. I would argue that generally a position being extreme results in fewer believers, not that fewer believers results in a position being extreme.
Agreed. This is how we use the term in political science anyway. Even if an "extreme" opinion becomes majoritary, it remains just as extreme on a supposed "spectrum" of possibles. "More" than "extreme" usually takes you off-spectrum, e.g. anarchy (which is often considered beyond extreme right, at least in Europe) or "hive mind" would fit beyond extreme left ideas of collectivism (a sci-fi concept of unified minds an…
> e.g. anarchy (which is often considered beyond extreme right, at least in Europe)
Anarchists are leftists, Ancaps are on the right.
Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology
#349Seems the theory I read somewhere that over time Euphemisms become dysphemisms and dysphemisms become euphemisms is getting applied here.
Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology
#350Reading some of Monica’s commentary on this, it pains me to conclude that she doesn’t know just how bad the situation is. She appears to have approached the issue in question respectfully and highlighted her concerns diplomatically, and she believes there must be a “big misunderstanding” because of the extreme response with which she was met. Surely all parties are interested in reaching an outcome everyone can live…
In terms familiar to users of the religion stack exchanges:
zealotry -> schism -> excommunication.