121–130 of 215 posts
Great post, as usual. Lots of good advice for me. However it makes me sad that she blocked people for defending the author's meaning of "dig". Ignoring seems like a better path. I've often heard grope used in a non-sexual way, as in "groping in the dark" for something. This kind of over-reaction to language is a sore spot for me; like the Stanford language guidelines, telling people not to use the word "field" becaus…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I won't fault someone for taking the quick route to defend their time and sanity. Nor would I. But there has to be a better solution than blocking, which is ostracism. It concerns me how easily we ostracize, how it cheapens people. This is especially true for someone internet famous like Julia Evans - she has so many followers, what does it matter to her? But I guarantee it mattered to the ones she blocked. It proba…
> This is especially true for someone internet famous like Julia Evans - she has so many followers, what does it matter to her? She's human, just like everyone else. It matters precisely because of "internet fame": you become an incessant target. Anonymous randos love to take down people who are more famous than them. From the article: "I realize this section makes me sound like a Perfectly Logical Person who does no…
How would you know?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What you say makes a lot of sense. It would do us all well to seek to ask more questions and seek to understand before reaching for the block button. On the other hand, we all have limited time and patience for those who are likely arguing in bad faith. I won't fault someone for taking the quick route to defend their time and sanity. Even if the others may be arguing in good faith, this isn't a court of law here. We…
>I won't fault someone for taking the quick route to defend their time and sanity. Nor would I. But there has to be a better solution than blocking, which is ostracism. It concerns me how easily we ostracize, how it cheapens people. This is especially true for someone internet famous like Julia Evans - she has so many followers, what does it matter to her? But I guarantee it mattered to the ones she blocked. It proba…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the current zeitgeist of HN (usually mid-to-far-left social policy) HN has no zeitgeist, and "mid-to-far-left social policy" is not even close to my experience. A lot of commenters seem to think that HN has some kind of consensus, but it doesn't, as dang himself (the HN moderator) can testify. A number of different factions coexist (uneasily) here. My experience is that upvotes and downvotes are... pretty random, s…
I'm going to have to disagree with you, on both points. I, like the person you're responding to, have experienced the zeitgeist of HN and have come to the same conclusion of a prevailing mid-to-far-left social policy. Again I agree with GP on the points they make about voting, in fact I think we should get rid of votes altogether. The fact is, for most people a vote is a reflection of who they are, not the comment th…
I'm sure you have. And I've experienced the opposite. There's a natural tendency to pay more attention to criticism of one's own views and to come to believe that only one's own views are persecuted, based on one's anecdotal experience, but that view isn't empirically accurate in the aggregate. Again, dang, who has observed countless these kind of complaints on HN, has written about the phenomenon many times. He could probably cite a bunch of examples.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is especially true for someone internet famous like Julia Evans - she has so many followers, what does it matter to her? She's human, just like everyone else. It matters precisely because of "internet fame": you become an incessant target. Anonymous randos love to take down people who are more famous than them. From the article: "I realize this section makes me sound like a Perfectly Logical Person who does no…
>I can't recall the blocked person ever being sad or repentant. How would you know?
Technically, a block mostly just prevents an account from replying to you again — which is the primary goal when someone writes a nasty or annoying reply — but there are various ways of seeing another account's posts, such as private windows. And if it's not a mutual block, it may be even easier.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I have to wonder about the resistance to mild change That's easy to wonder when you're the one asking for the change. It's awfully convenient that "intent doesn't matter", as that puts the burden of action on the speaker/writer. If intent did matter, then the listener/reader would need to consider what the other person is trying to say and adjust their interpretation of the words accordingly. But since it doesn't, a…
Here's an example of why intent doesn't always matter: In the Star Wars universe, the kind of music that Max Rebo plays is a lot like our Earth jazz. But they don't refer to it as jazz. They call it jizz. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Jizz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_(word)
jism -> jasm -> jass -> jazz and jism -> jizz
Though none of us were there and nothing is conclusive, so I guess who knows
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When did I say that, and how is it relevant if they knew it or not?
You said 'by a different etymology'. It's not a different etymology if they knew and were referring to the other meaning.
We can suppose that if the slang for sperm didn't exist that the writer would definitely have chosen "jezz", "juzz", or "jozz" instead, but personally I don't have any evidence to make that claim.
This is really great, actionable, sensible, advice for folks who write on the internet. It agrees with my experiences, too. On the other hand, it's sad that the culture we have built on the internet forces talented people like Julia to censor themselves and narrow the scope of their writing. > So I have a weird catalog in my head of things not to mention if I don’t want to start the same discussion about that thing f…
> Somehow we've built a culture where its socially acceptable, and even rewarded, to behave online in ways that would never be acceptable in other social settings. I don't think we've "built" the culture per se. I think it's more like humans evolved over millions of years for small, in-person groups, and we're not "built" (by nature) to handle the endless sea of online strangers. On the internet, the personal familia…
There are wildly different experiences with communities online. Communities are also a thing that can be built intentionally.
We can also learn from prior works. Lessig (1999) identifies four elements that regulate behavior online: Laws, norms, markets, and technology
- *Code/architecture* – the physical or technical constraints on activities (e.g. locks on doors or firewalls on the Internet)
- *Market* – economic forces
- *Law* – explicit mandates that can be enforced by the government
- *Norms* – social conventions that one often feels compelled to follow
> Recently on Mastodon I complained about some gross terminology that I’d just noticed in the dig man page. A few dudes in the replies asked me to prove that the original author intended it to be offensive (which of course is besides [sic] the point) or tried to explain to me why it actually wasn’t a problem. > So I blocked a few people and wrote a quick post: Of course I understand no responsibility to 'prove' anyth…
"Groping for a light switch" would be a valid phrase in American English as well. But a "groper" on its own is going to have sexual connotations. E.g.: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/groper I think that would be especially true for women, who, being the common targets of sexual groping, are going to be more aware of it. So even if it weren't my first association, I would still think it a reasonable association for…
If original intent doesn’t matter, your audience shouldn’t differentiate between writing which is intentionally offensive and accidentally so. That is, they may as well assume you are malicious. That’s not the world I want to live in.
It’s also not the world we do live in. English is the most widely spoken language on the planet, and its speakers come from all sorts of cultural and educational backgrounds. They don’t have the time or the privilege of knowing about every term which can potentially be offensive.
My point isn’t that we shouldn’t change “groper” to something more inclusive. My point is that in practical terms intent does matter.
>I mostly try to head this off by trying to be self-aware about my knowledge level on a topic, and saying “I’m not sure…” when I’m not sure about something. This excellent tactic for avoiding pointless debate and inviting helpful replies is sadly beyond many people in the software field. Software folks are used to the past where you could master things completely. With the continued growth of knowledge and the growth…