Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

dearstackexchange.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 444 posts

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#261

Post by NeedMoreTea »

patmcc wrote: post #260
anon12345690 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

"Singular they" is indeed well used, but it's not normally used when the gender of the person in question is explicitly known. If you use "they" for someone who has specifically said to you "please use the pronouns 'she/her' when referring to me", you are being rude, not neutral.

"Where's Dave?"

"They're in the garage, I think"

is common to hear, just as

"He's in the garage, I think"

Many will mix between the "he/she" and "they" in the same conversation. Quite often referring to their closest friends and family rather than pointed attempt to misuse a pronoun.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#262

Post by tinus_hn »

chimi wrote: post #13

Honest Question: Why continue to support stack exchange through this? They have shown themselves to be disingenuous at best. They are now profiting off free labor. They started it because ExpertsExchange was hiding answers. They rode the high horse to hypocrisy. Why continue helping people like that succeed? Why not just start a new one? Leave en masse to a new playground. Speak with your answers. Show the powers tha…

Unfortunately StackExchange fell into the trap of trying to support social justice warriorisms.

Either they will fold or they will come to realize that the only ways to deal with users that are preoccupied with genders, religion, sexual orientations and whatever protected class they can come up with are to lose them or ignore them. You can’t go along with their demands because there will always be a new demand, each one crazier and more irrelevant than the last one.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#263

Post by Traster »

pcl wrote: post #192
dclusin wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This essay would be harshly criticized if it was written today. It still might be someday.

Why do you say that?

There's two ways of reading this. You can read it from a technical perspective and take the message of something along the lines of "Don't invest your ego into unnecessary technical questions because it'll stop you having logical and productive discussions". But if this were written today in the context of something like this SE issue you could read it as tone deaf - a trans-man/women doesn't choose to face discrimination, they don't have a choice over their identity, they merely express their identity, so telling them to "Keep your identity" small is basically akin to saying that they shouldn't express their identity - something that PG as a straight white male doesn't have to worry about.

Disclaimer: It was written in 2009, read in context it's very clear the first interpretation is the correct one, there's an entire concept of identity that didn't exist in the public discussion when this was written.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#264

Post by michaelt »

pcl wrote: post #192
dclusin wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This essay would be harshly criticized if it was written today. It still might be someday.

Why do you say that?

Some people would say that "keep your identity small" is functionally (although not in tone or spirit) the same as saying "gay men, stay in the closet" because in the absence of anything saying otherwise, people will assume you're part of the majority.

Furthermore, some people would say that everyone staying in the closet is bad advice for the gay community overall, as it means the average person will only hear about the 1% of gay people who are arrested for sex crimes, not the 99% of gay people who are perfectly nice people living normal lives and minding their own business, or the great scientists and inventors and authors who happened to be gay.

This is, as I understand it, an area of substantial strength of feeling in the gay community - it's part of what underlies concepts like 'gay pride' and the famous chant "we're here, we're queer, we're not going to disappear".

And although I've used gay men in the example above, it applies to any minority group - although with different details, I've never seen a female programmers' pride march!

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#265

Post by drusepth »

xibalba wrote: post #5

I suspect that the average user of SE will not care one bit about this whole drama. I do find it frustrating, puzzling, and sad how SE appears to have treated Monica Cellio. She provides an excellent summary (from her perspective) here: https://cellio.dreamwidth.org/2064709.html

As a self-described "average user of SE", I find this drama pretty similar to drama I've seen circling around the Quora "community" for the last 6 months or so: confusing.

I use both SE and Quora to get answers, especially to extremely-niche questions. I understand that some people do use them for community and that people do interact and know each other on both platforms, but it's hard to understand complaints about a subpar community when the goal of the site doesn't seem to revolve around a community at all.

To me, SE is a Q&A site. It exists to let people ask questions and get those questions answered. If you took away the community entirely, would it be any less useful?

This probably comes off a bit flippant to the situation, but it's meant to illustrate that you're right: I'd say I'm a pretty average user of SE (in that I just use it to get answers, and occasionally write my own answers when I can, and so far it's worked perfectly well for me) and I don't care one bit about community-based drama.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#266

Post by dr_dshiv »

fenomas wrote: post #119
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.

Apparently, the issue here is that SE removed a respected moderator but isn't telling the community what happened, why, what the removal process was or will be in the future, etc. Pronouns is what was being discussed at the time, but it doesn't seem to be the high-order bit.

It was for SE, apparently

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#267

Post by BurnGpuBurn »

mafuy wrote: post #247
fortran77 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect you're right. I stopped participating in SE years ago not for "political" reasons like this, but because it seemed to be dominated by power-happy mods and people whose main goal was to collect points and not to help others. This kerfuffle, and I only got a little summary of it, makes my eyes glaze over. I'm certainly not against treating people with respect, but I'm not willing to stick my neck out for some…

What they did to her was wrong from my point of view, but it certainly was not 'based on pure hate'. Don't speak this exaggeration and nonsense. The person who fired her simply had no intention to spend time dealing with Monica's questions and chose the easy route of getting rid of what she perceived as a troublemaker.

Well, it is a pretty hateful way of doing things. I mean, that's how I treat people I hate; shun them, ignore them, not reply to them. So there's an argument there.

I agree though. It seems to me to have more to do with aggrandizing power and influence than with hate. What better way to get rid of competitors than to bait them into behaving "bigoted"? Look at the Monica case. She never refused to use someones chosen pronoun. She was baited into admitting that she already avoids certain ways of addressing people out of kindness and politeness and a desire not to rub people the wrong way. Now she's out. This has nothing to do with bigotry, and everything to do with a group of people that want to kick everybody else off every position of power or influence.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#268

Post by iliketocomplain »

Pfhreak wrote: post #49
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.

Right? Like, just accept people and call them what they ask to be called? Why make a big deal out of someone who prefers they or xe or he or she or whatever?

Because that is Newspeak and is extremely evil.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#269

Post by anon12345690 »

patmcc wrote: post #260
anon12345690 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

"Singular they" is indeed well used, but it's not normally used when the gender of the person in question is explicitly known. If you use "they" for someone who has specifically said to you "please use the pronouns 'she/her' when referring to me", you are being rude, not neutral.

what are you even talking about? lol its used ALL THE TIME. also i can use normal pronouns and get along fine with 99.99% of people who dont demand that everyone else change for them

if someone says call me "your majesty" are you gonna do it? cause thats what this is. a bunch of privileged and entitled people controlling everyone else.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#270

Post by solidasparagus »

drusepth wrote: post #265
xibalba wrote: post #5

I suspect that the average user of SE will not care one bit about this whole drama. I do find it frustrating, puzzling, and sad how SE appears to have treated Monica Cellio. She provides an excellent summary (from her perspective) here: https://cellio.dreamwidth.org/2064709.html

As a self-described "average user of SE", I find this drama pretty similar to drama I've seen circling around the Quora "community" for the last 6 months or so: confusing. I use both SE and Quora to get answers, especially to extremely-niche questions. I understand that some people do use them for community and that people do interact and know each other on both platforms, but it's hard to understand complaints about…

> If you took away the community entirely, would it be any less useful?

My suspicion is that the answer is yes. You'd have to have actual data to be sure, but based on my experience with internet communities, there are probably a small number of people who bring in the vast majority of the value (i.e. answer the most questions, clean up/flag/categorize questions and answers). Those people spend a lot of time on the site and the community aspect (relationships, reputation, etc) is a big part of what motivates them to consistently return and add value.

Post reply on HN