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Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

dearstackexchange.com

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Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#201

Post by mathemagics »

anon12345690 wrote: post #177
zimpenfish wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> apparently "singular they" is offensive I think the point was that 'singular they is offensive' only when people have specifically asked for certain pronouns (ie you're blatantly disregarding people's requests)?

except this is a code example on the site im not going to write bob and alice and then worry about "well what if these fake people in this example i made up are actually trans" lol give me a break.

Agreed. If you're the author and Alice and Bob are the imaginary characters in your example, then you get to decide their gender.

Same as an author who is writing a novel, is free to invent characters and assign gender, sexual orientation, and any other character traits they want.

It's your story, they are your characters. You decide if it's a he, she, xe, or whatever.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#202

Post by sytelus »

alkonaut wrote: post #197
sytelus wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this cry against moderators. These people are volunteerily giving their time to keep quality bar high without any payment. If these people weren't there then SO will be full of duplicates, off-topic and opinion based Q&A just like Quora. A general tendency I have seen is just to ask (often poorly stated) questions without doing simple search to see if it is already answered. Someone needs to respec…

But my experience of the site (as an experienced long time user) is much more negatively affected by the “active moderation” than it is positively affected by it. I’d rather have ten duplicate questions for every question, than a race to ninja-downvote or close anything that is tangentially related to an existing question. The struggle to maintain quality in the content of the site appears to be destroying the qualit…

> I’d rather have ten duplicate questions for every question

Sure, unless it really happens. I'd been burned by over-moderation as well but when I look at the process I think it's not arbitrary. There are controls and voting by more than one person. Remember, there is nothing a moderator gains by doing any of this.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#203

Post by chillfox »

jurassic wrote: post #80
parsimo2010 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're not aware of the drama, then it really isn't meant for you. The following threads have some background (and dang has linked a few more threads leading up to these): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21175225 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21176712 The tl;dr (but still pretty long) is that Stack Overflow instituted a new Code of Conduct that required the use of a person's [preferred] pronouns. This…

I've been trying to sort out all these recent posts today and I think your summary is a pretty good one. At the risk of being downvoted, as a cisgender same-sex attracted member of the "LGBTQ+ community", I suspect only a relatively small number of outspoken transgender activists would have a problem with revisiting this policy change with the aim of restoring goodwill in the community. We are so often lumped togethe…

It seems pretty simple to me.

If you don't know what pronoun to use then the correct one is "they", and if you do know then using the wrong one or deliberately going out of your way to avoid one is just rude.

Obviously, lots of answers will flow perfectly naturally without using pronouns and those should be fine like that.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#204

Post by cameronbrown »

whatshisface wrote: post #95
ALittleLight wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why people would volunteer to do work for a for profit entity. Especially one that will, apparently, fire you on a whim.

You work as an unpaid content author for ycombinator.

That's such twisted logic. Are you saying I'm doing unpaid work for my social group when we have a conversation? Jesus Christ not everything needs a dollar symbol attached even if it benefits a company.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#205

Post by PhasmaFelis »

beerandt wrote: post #184
sesuximo wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Based on Monica Cellio's blogpost (https://cellio.dreamwidth.org/2064709.html), I think what happened is that, last year, she posted saying that she prefers, when possible, to refer to people in ways that don't require using pronouns at all. Later, this was misinterpreted to mean that she refused to use people's requested pronouns, and she was fired from her position. That might have been reasonable if she had actually said that, but it sounds like she didn't say anything of the sort.

That makes me think that it's not really about pronouns, it's about people using bad-faith misinterpretation and unjustified accusations to hold a witch-hunt. Pronouns are just the purported subject.

But I'm new to the whole kerfuffle, so I may be missing something.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#206

Post by yitchelle »

onetime0001 wrote: post #32

I don’t understand why gender/pronouns is even being discussed. Someone’s personal feelings don’t really have any place in a question/answers site. It’s fine to respect a persons feelings and such when talking to a person but when answering a question or asking the question. The gender/pronoun is irrelevant.

The folks moderating SE are very pedantic about the wording of passages. Once I called SE a "forum", and I was politely told not to call SE a "forum". I would really hate to be a person that is not very fluent in English and trying to interact with SE.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#207

Post by roenxi »

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…

> What? Sure they do. They were clothing that puts them in a particular group. (Or do you feel you'd have a hard time identifying punks or businessmen?) Or they'll wear religious symbols. Or speak with an accent. Or carry a firearm. Or any number of other external identity markers beyond gender.

None of that is control, and it would be equivalent of a transsexual choosing their dress and appearance - which they already do.

It isn't that these requests are unreasonable, it is simply that this is a situation that goes well beyond basic politeness. This is asking society to change how it uses language.

And this change being achieved by bureaucratic fiat rather than because everyone thinks it is a good idea. It may or may not work out, but it just isn't basic politeness - there is real change being pushed here.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#208

Post by anon12345690 »

Buge wrote: post #194
anon12345690 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> theyre editing posts for perceived or pretend offense Who are "they"? Monica in that part is upset about people coming along and adding weird grammar into her posts. Those people could be other mods, or could be even regular Stack Exchange users. At no point does she say Stack Exchange staff are editing her posts, or that the editors were following a Stack Exchange rule. > then you would just use the pronouns and t…

exactly "they" are people who create problems where they dont exist.

if YOU specifically dont have a specific preferred pronoun then theres no problem to be concerned over. editing posts to be gender neutral is the most privileged form of outrage ever

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#209

Post by pfortuny »

fenomas wrote: post #185
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 p…

But that diminishes their Power. That’s it.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#210

Post by _pmf_ »

I see the moderators as (major) part of the problem.

> There was a time when the most valuable asset of the Stack Exchange network was the people who freely contributed their time and energy to build communities in support of its mission.

Deleting valid or interesting questions is not something I consider to be a valuable contribution.

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