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

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#151

Post by detaro » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 12:21 AM UTC

jodrellblank wrote: post #149

forgotmypwd123 wrote: post #30

>Last week we made an important decision for our community. We removed a moderator for repeatedly violating our existing Code of Conduct and being unwilling to accept our CM’s repeated requests to change their behavior. Hang on a sec... >their behaviour. Wasn't monica fired for suggesting she used gender neutral pronouns generally? Because they said she should use the preferred gender specific pronoun when known? And…

> Wasn't monica fired for suggesting she used gender neutral pronouns generally? In the comments to the linked question, Monica Cellio says StackOverflow have not told her what parts of the CoC she was violating. I don't think it's public knowledge why she was demodded. (Is 'fired' an appropriate word to use, when Monica wasn't an employee?)

The most direct statement seems to be from https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/01/stack_exchange_cont...

> Asked to confirm that Cellio was the moderator in question, a company spokesperson said, "Cellio (she/her) would not use stated pronouns, which violates our current CoC …

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#152

Post by MauranKilom » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 12:25 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,…

Can you briefly describe what you believe moderator duties on SE currently entail? I have reason to believe that there is a misunderstanding.

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#153

Post by NeedMoreTea » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 12:26 AM UTC

dwaltrip wrote: post #77

nabdab wrote: post #20

When did the US start weaponizing pronouns? From a European standpoint this all seems extreme to the point of absurdity.

I don't know the details of the stackexchange case linked above. But, in general, it doesn't seem that complicated to me. The language you are using -- "weaponized pronouns" -- is pretty distorted. If one is aware of how someone prefers to be called and the preference is completely reasonable (such as a trans individual preferring their transitioned pronoun), then one is simply being an asshole by refusing. Not only…

It's a Q&A site, is it stubborn refusal to be decent? It doesn't seem so to me.

I don't see how neutrality could possibly be offensive on a gaming or programming sub-site, or dozens of others. Neutral writing is both common and should be inoffensive to all readers, whatever their preferred terms. That's rather the point. That shouldn't affect being able to helpfully answer their esoteric question. I don't expect to form a friendship, or even converse again, just to answer the question asked. Adding @dwaltrip or he/she/they as you prefer, doesn't affect that answer, or my intended, and hopefully perceived courtesy. So by principle of least harm and for avoidance of mistakes I'd aim to keep my replies neutral.

If there are SE sites where it really does matter, perhaps trans or gender related, yes I can easily see that it might be important to choose more carefully, and for different and more precise terms to apply to those boards.

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#154

Post by MauranKilom » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 12:28 AM UTC

cc81 wrote: post #137

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a corporation ever admits doing something wrong, it's admissible evidence in a lawsuit against them. That's why corporations never admit any wrongdoing regardless of how obvious it is that they did. (And before anyone post the usual " corporations suck " rant, the exact same principle applies to individuals. Anybody who ever watched James Duane's "Never talk to the police" video knows why. Why would it be any diff…

That is an odd statement. Corporations admit wrongdoing or mistakes all the time and not to mention there could never be any lawsuit from something like this. It is just that they introduced a rule and still feel it is a correct one.

Them introducing (in the future) a rule (which we don't know the details of as of yet) is more or less orthogonal to claiming that Monica violated the current CoC.

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#155

Post by Mathnerd314 » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 12:34 AM UTC

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #36

The title is misleading, this is not an apology. As a former operator of a (much smaller) community website, I understand the motives behind SE actions. They want to avoid discussions about gender-neutral pronouns and other contentious topics completely. There are only risks and no benefits for SE business in such discussions.They actually do not want discussions, just questions and answers. Jeff Atwood once wrote a…

For anyone interested, I think this is the section about stifling discussion, in his introduction to Discourse: https://blog.codinghorror.com/civilized-discourse-constructi...

At Stack Exchange, one of the tricky things we learned about Q&A is that if your goal is to have an excellent signal to noise ratio, you must suppress discussion. Stack Exchange only supports the absolute minimum amount of discussion necessary to produce great questions and great answers. That's why answers get constantly re-ordered by votes, that's why comments have limited formatting and length and only a few display, and so forth. Almost every design decision we made was informed by our desire to push discussion down, to inhibit it in every way we could. Spare us the long-winded diatribe, just answer the damn question already.

IDK, seems like Jeff Atwood no longer has much interest in SE and presumably the site is slowly imploding.

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#156

Post by P_I_Staker » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 12:36 AM UTC

fencepost wrote: post #128

This really seems like a "respect mah authoritah!" situation followed by "oh crap it's blowing up, apply more power! This will not be re-litigated." Looking from the outside as someone who's mostly ignored SE for the last few years, this feels to me like something personal combined with making an opportunity. I can't help but feel that the current "Director of Community" at the core of this will be moving to a differ…

This is what really irritates me about moderating in general. The whole thing is an exercise in power tripping. Considering whether a decision was misguided is forbidden. You must always be dictator. Mistakes are never made.

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#157

Post by MauranKilom » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 12:36 AM UTC

markmark wrote: post #138

personjerry wrote: post #10

Out of 5 paragraphs of text, the only "apology" was "We’re sorry for the confusion and uneasiness that caused." which is the equivalent of spitting on someone's face and apologizing with "I'm sorry you felt spit on." I feel like we're watching one of the pillars of modern software development crumble.

Why would they apologise? They aren't sorry they sacked this moderator. They fully stand by their decision.

Well, for starters:

- The moderator in question still wasn't told what they were sacked for.

- There was no warning, no attempt at allowing betterment, nothing. Established procedure was not followed.

- The moderator in question was not even informed of being let go - they noticed it incidentally while performing their duties.

- They were "terminated" on a Friday, right before a major religious holiday requiring their absence online. The "apology" partially acknowledges this in an incredibly dehumanizing way ("ship on a Friday").

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#158

Post by MauranKilom » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 12:43 AM UTC

steve_taylor wrote: post #39

DanBC wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit confusing because a mod was removed, and a bunch of other mods resigned in support, and then it came out that she'd been removed for refusing to use people's preferred pronouns. Stack Exchange is perceived by many people to be unwelcoming. There has been persistent concern that SE is even more unwelcoming to people with protected characteristics. SE have made considerable effort to fix this. Recently they'…

You conveniently omitted that the definition of misgendering had been reinterpreted to include using “their” as a gender-neutral pronoun, which (until now) is a common practice intended specifically to avoid misgendering.

I have followed the discussions on SE closely and your assessment is not one I have seen anywhere. Can you support your statement with a source?

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#159

Post by Nextgrid » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 12:43 AM UTC

ictebres wrote: post #120

thelazydogsback wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, mywittyname & effingwewt -- I obviously sympathize. It's hard to believe that we are destroying the planet, we are still killing each other over tribal-like issues, people don't have access to clean water and sanitation, various groups are disadvantaged based on where they are born, etc. -- and what pronoun to use for a third party on a technical forum is what we're spending our energy on. We need a new gender-n…

There are people committing suicide, being harassed and not being accepted as they are so using wrong gender is pretty fucked up thing to do especially because it is so easy to do right.

> being harassed and not being accepted as they are

Could you elaborate?

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. If it looks like a male, dresses like a male, then it's most likely a male and I'm gonna call him "he" because that's the logical thing to do. I don't think it's wrong nor there is any malicious intent for people to use these basic heuristics when determining gender considering they are going to be right 99% of the time, and it would be a big downgrade in productivity if we start wasting time debating whether someone is a he or a she while these heuristics worked for centuries and still work 99% of the time.

Otherwise, where do we draw the line? It's male and female today, how long is it going to be before someone shows up and decides that none of those apply to him and he wants to be accepted as a solar panel - should everyone accept, embrace & encourage his twisted view of reality?

Re: An Update to Our Community and an Apology

#160

Post by K0SM0S » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 12:45 AM UTC

pariahHN wrote: post #89

xenocyon wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying that most people don't agree with extreme positions is a bit of a tautology, since positions are defined as "extreme" if few people agree with them. There is therefore nothing universal or fundamentally meaningful about this label, and the same position (e.g. support of interracial marriage) may be considered a perfectly normal or a radically extremist position depending on the time and place.

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 and thinking, like colonies of ants but next level. lol.) Both are off the political spectrum though, can't describe them using the same elements.

Reality is obviously much more "blurry". Most political experts would argue (rightfully so, imho) that most "extreme" views are in fact not "left" or "right" of moderate ones; they sit in a different "plane" so to speak, a third space distinct from left/right (you'd indeed find a lot of right-ish and left-ish ideas mixed in with most "extreme" ideologies; you also find lots of moderate and extreme views in otherwise 'normal' (statistically) parties).

Left/right itself, or moderate/extreme, are also pretty poor and unsubstantial ways to define any idea or anyone, it's a poor man's shortcut to summarize a context, not ideas themselves. Most people today would sit far left of anyone in past history, for instance, while being much more individualistic at the same time.

Reality is complex. The media don't like complex (is media plural? shall I call it something else in pronoun?). Hence, theatric storytelling of the left versus the right, and/or moderates vs. extremes, iced with a general misunderstanding of statistics. I will now refrain from making any conclusion.