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Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

dearstackexchange.com

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Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#181

Post by greggman2 »

u-dissolve wrote: post #42

This reminds me of the time when stack exchange updated their terms of service to include an arbitration clause. The community was in uproar over this decision, yet the clause stands to this day. https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/309746/a-new-2018-u... Stack overflow's terms of service is pretty terrible, receiving the worst rank in terms of user hostility on TOS;DR. https://tosdr.org/#stackoverflow

That hardly seems fair. For 99.99% of users everything they do on the site is publically available. There is no private messaging, no private anything. The entire history of everything on all sites being public is one of the explicit goals of the site. So "sharing with 3rd parties" means absolutely nothing. Those 3rd parties could scrape the site or they could download the archive.

https://archive.org/details/stackexchange

It doesn't seem like they should be marked as having a poor TOS for at least half the things listed as those things are basically the known purpose of the site.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#182

Post by anon12345690 »

1shooner wrote: post #102
anon12345690 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

apparently anything on the site like a code example that talks about people like Bob and Alice cant use He and She - because it might offend the 0.01% of people who think that everyone needs to state their pronouns. apparently even saying They isnt enough. its what happens when you give in to the tiny minority that will always complain about something

When would a mod use pronouns anyway? It seems like an edge case of an edge case, in terms of gross count of incidents.

because using people in examples is really common to explain things? like saying "bob wants to save this to the database but he got an error" is pretty common and nobody has a problem because they know bob is a he

the edge case is the people who get outraged that a fake example isnt gender neutral

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#183

Post by anon12345690 »

decebalus1 wrote: post #12
fenwick67 wrote: post #7

I would love a nice couple paragraphs that said "here's what happened", otherwise taking any side in this is just taking shots in the dark, I'm basically reading "certain events happened with a certain individual and that's not okay"

+1 I feel I should care about this but I don't believe it's worth investing the time to go through walls of text of 'he said' 'she said' biased explanations. I'm probably better off..

how ironic lol, if you only knew that "he said" and "she said" is the whole problem because apparently you cant use pronouns anymore

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#184

Post by beerandt »

sesuximo wrote: post #52
ben174 wrote: post #15

It's incredible that pronouns can bring down an entire community. Pick you battles please, we're losing good things because of this silly conflict.

IMO the real issue here is not pronouns per se but rather it is SO's behavior in response (firing, ghosting, inconsistency).

No, it's pronouns. More generally, it's "I expect you to conform with the way I perceive the world, even if it's not the way you perceive it."

The entire point of a pronoun is to convey my perceived relation to the noun. We do it all the time with possessives and formalities; if gender is truly a fluid, to-be-perceived, non-biological construct, then why shouldn't we treat it the same way?

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#185

Post by fenomas »

ldigas wrote: post #22

While, in the beginning, a very active user, I've long now given up on that network. I can't remember when was the last time I asked a question without being forced to defend it for a period of at least a few hours, why it shouldn't be closed as a duplicate, offtopic or ... It used to be an excellent network, but nowadays it's just script-kiddies-playing-admins/editors playground. It is no longer a productive technic…

I think much of what feels bad about StackOverflow now stems from the surprisingly braindead way it treats duplicate questions.

Currently, moderators close the question with a link to the question they think it's a dupe of. Why not instead let people answer the question with a link to the answer that they think solves the poster's problem? If they're right then the asker can just accept that answer, and if not then people can add comments, post alternate answers, etc.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#186

Post by anon12345690 »

patmcc wrote: post #155
ShamelessC wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the implication that the LGBTQ+ community found it _more_ offensive to use e.g. "they" than "he" or "she"? I'm so confused. Wouldn't "they" (the gender neutral version) be _more_ inclusive? Is there some other alternative that's even better that I haven't considered? I hope I'm not offending anyone by asking this. Just trying to make sure I understand.

Yes, people will often find it offensive if you use "they" after asked to use "he" or "she". If someone says "I am a man, please use he/him for my pronouns" and you use 'they' - that would generally be considered at least odd, if not inappropriate. I don't think that means it's inappropriate to use "they" as the default if no other information exists though.

uh but using "they" as a neutral way to talk about anyone is just fine. people have been doing that for literally centuries, its called "singular they"

this is all about people wanting to be outraged for no reason

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#187

Post by anon12345690 »

je42 wrote: post #86
anon12345690 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

apparently anything on the site like a code example that talks about people like Bob and Alice cant use He and She - because it might offend the 0.01% of people who think that everyone needs to state their pronouns. apparently even saying They isnt enough. its what happens when you give in to the tiny minority that will always complain about something

i think the disagreement is the trigger. It looks like the deeper issue is that the way how some SE people dealt with the disagreement has been causing a lot of pain and distrust.

when 99.99% people agree then we dont really need new rules

like its pretty simple, use it if someone asks but otherwise just stick with the defaults that everyone understands

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#188

Post by Buge »

anon12345690 wrote: post #178
Buge wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source for your claim that code examples with Alice and Bob with she/he pronouns are not accepted on Stack Exchange? I haven't seen any claim like that before.

see the linked article the other comment posted. its point number 1

You mean this quote:

>June 2018: There was a TL discussion about gender-neutral pronouns and then "preferred pronouns". (I know they're not "preferred", but this was the phrasing used by the people bringing it up.) Some moderators who are not native English speakers expressed confusion. I said I avoid singular they for that reason, 95% of the time you can write around the problem, and (on SE) I'm offended when someone edits my posts badly to solve a gender-neutrality problem. (Editing well is fine, which usually means pluralizing or using a name or something like that instead of either generic "he" or singular "they".) Some people said not using preferred pronouns invalidates the person; I said for me it's not about the person at all but the quality of my own writing (an important part of my identity). Tension rose, other people said some things I saw as bullying, and I stepped out. For a long time after, I didn't enter the room unless strictly necessary. Note: no employee said anything to me about my role in this conversation, and while some other mods disagreed with my position, none said anything like "this is a Code of Conduct (CoC) violation". Employees witnessed this discussion.

I don't see anything in there that would apply to fictional characters (Alice and Bob). It all seems to be only about real people. Also I don't see anything in there that indicates Stack Exchange says you can't refer to Alice as "she", unless Alice specifically wants to be called by some other pronoun.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#189

Post by anon12345690 »

Pfhreak wrote: post #153
roenxi wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All they are asking for is the same basic level of respect and politeness that anyone else gets. Well no, that is the entire reason the situation isn't an open-and-shut-nothing-to-see-here non-controversy. The other 97-99% of people go through life without ever particularly asserting that a specific personal pronoun needs to be used for them. They'll get antsy if someone is trying to insult them, but it looks a lot…

> That 99-97% of people don't really control their public identity; have you ever seen someone trying to shake a nickname they don't particularly like? Yes? "Hey, I don't really like being called that." "Oh shit, sorry, didn't know." > That 99-97% of people don't really control their public identity What? Sure they do. They were clothing that puts them in a particular group. (Or do you feel you'd have a hard time ide…

ah no, when you get fired for these social justice rules then its a problem. sorry you think its so simple because if it was then there would never be any issues would there?

you cant force people to say things even though they'll probably use what you tell them because most people are nice. but were not going to change the rules for 99.9% of people and worry about preferred pronouns all the time in every little occasion just because someone exists who doesnt follow the normal pronouns

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#190

Post by anon12345690 »

Buge wrote: post #188
anon12345690 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

see the linked article the other comment posted. its point number 1

You mean this quote: >June 2018: There was a TL discussion about gender-neutral pronouns and then "preferred pronouns". (I know they're not "preferred", but this was the phrasing used by the people bringing it up.) Some moderators who are not native English speakers expressed confusion. I said I avoid singular they for that reason, 95% of the time you can write around the problem, and (on SE) I'm offended when someon…

theyre editing posts for perceived or pretend offense

if it was a specific person then theres nothing to edit because you would just use the pronouns and there wouldnt be any issue. they dont talk about anyone who specifically wanted different pronouns in that story

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