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Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

dearstackexchange.com

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Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#431

Post by WorkLobster »

WorldMaker wrote: post #387
WorkLobster wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd need to ask for at least three grammatical cases: nominative, accusative and possessive. We considered trying this a while back with our organisation's personnel tracker, but concluded it needed a disproportionate amount of user effort. So we abandoned it in favour of just stating the user's name and/or singular "they" everywhere (in line with UK GDS guidelines[1]). [1] https://design-system.service.gov.uk/patt…

Which is partly why I find the pronoun database at "Pronoun Island" interesting/useful because its a database of most of the common substitute pronouns and almost all of their English grammatical cases. Though, as you determined singular "they" is a simple enough implementation without needing a database lookup and keeping a pronoun database on hand. http://pronoun.is/ [ETA: It's a small shame this particular DB is A…

Great resource, thanks! It would be interesting to see more context for each of the entries, such as examples in published work—I certainly noticed they'd incorporated ones used by science fiction authors that I like. Though I understand that such examples may still be quite thin-on-the-ground.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#432

Post by wpietri »

sfink wrote: post #138
wpietri wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it kills me when they say they are "people who have invested a lot in the network". Sorry, kids, but investors get stock. Employees get paid. And only non-profits have volunteers. Stack Exchange describes themselves as a "a hyper-growth enterprise software company" [1]. I have no idea why anybody's giving them free labor. I'll happily volunteer for Wikipedia. But until somebody sets up a non-profit Q&A site, th…

> Sorry, kids, but investors get stock. Ironic phrasing, considering that we parents invest insane amounts of time and money into kids. And no, we don't get stock. Not even a percentage of future earnings. Yet we keep investing more and more anyway. Not all returns are financial.

If you really can't tell the difference between the child you chose to have and a for-profit, investor-backed corporation seeking hyper-growth, I'm not sure if I can help you.

Yes, not all returns are financial. But companies exploiting others' generosity to get rich is a cuckoo's-egg strategy.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#433

Post by wpietri »

gizmo686 wrote: post #93
wpietri wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it kills me when they say they are "people who have invested a lot in the network". Sorry, kids, but investors get stock. Employees get paid. And only non-profits have volunteers. Stack Exchange describes themselves as a "a hyper-growth enterprise software company" [1]. I have no idea why anybody's giving them free labor. I'll happily volunteer for Wikipedia. But until somebody sets up a non-profit Q&A site, th…

They invested time and effort with the goal (presumably) of building/maintaining the community. You may think that is a poor decision on their part; but it is still an investment, and they are still volunteers.

It's not investment when other people get the returns. At best, it's a gift. At worst, it's a con. I also question that there is a "the community" in a meaningful sense of that term.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#434

Post by lanstin »

Espressosaurus wrote: post #19
ronnier wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politics have crept into every aspect of life unfortunately.

Politics is part of every human endeavor: between kids on the playground, in the workplace, at the level of local, regional, national, and international governments and businesses. Politics and the negotiation of status and access between various in and out groups is a fundamental part of being human.

Politics is how our society has wars. It is vastly less destructive than hot wars but exactly the same as far as being based on what you can get away with rather than what is right or rational.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#435

Post by Gibbon1 »

beerandt wrote: post #430
Gibbon1 wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if gender is truly a fluid, to-be-perceived, non-biological construct, then why shouldn't we treat it the same way? Because no one sane can keep up outside of a small personal group of friends.

That's what I'm saying. Pronouns (of all types, not just gender) should convey the speakers perception and intent, so there's nothing to keep track of. Think of vous/tu or thou/you. If you have kids, it's the difference between saying to your spouse " our kid drew all by himself" and " your kid drew on the wall". The pronoun selection conveys meaning perceived by the speaker, and not always the literal categorical no…

I'll leave you with this. An older gay friend was involved in gay rights stuff back in the 1970's. He said there were two kinds of activists in the organizations. Those that wanted to achieve goals and those that wanted to involve themselves in internecine politics. His experience is the latter win.

I suspect that's what's going on at SO.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#436

Post by wpietri »

sytelus wrote: post #240
wpietri wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think SO is poorly designed as a system. It certainly does encourage people to ask not-so-great questions. It doesn't handle them particularly well. And then expects people to clean up the mess for free. Those people of course feel stressed and overwhelmed, so are inclined to be rude, aggressive, and hasty in their decisions. Like ldigas, I long ago gave up on SO because of bad moderation experiences. I'm grudgingl…

SO is marvelously designed and I often discuss this with friends and colleagues. First imagine this: Experts who are often paid big dollars per hour are coming over and spending time in answering your questions for no apparent reason. The quality of content is very high when you compare with any other Q&A or even general social media website. I often find 50% of my programming answers at SO. If there is an accepted h…

Honestly, this is typical of what I can't stand about Stack Overflow. Actual person reports actual problem with SO. The response? "WRONG! Actually it's marvelous! Magnificent! Magical!" I'm only surprised you didn't mark my comment as a duplicate.

Even if I were 100% wrong, this would be offputting. But I don't think I am. I'm in the top 100 users here; I was a Quora Top Writer; I was a Wikipedia admin; I've worked on community sites, including a Webby winner. I know something about online contribution. Yes, SO's design got them where they are. But that doesn't mean it's perfect. And until SO's fans can start seeing those issues, they stand no chance of getting fixed.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#437

Post by Ixio »

koheripbal wrote: post #345
Ixio wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see firing in such a case as a cop-out, a cowardly way to appease mob-mentality. In this case if the employee responsible for firing the moderator did such acts repeatedly despite management warnings than perhaps it's a good idea to fire that person. However this doesn't seem to be the case, the CTO correctly assumed responsibility in his apology of green-lighting the moderator's firing. He does the right thing, in…

In some cases, that is true. In other cases, it is an important part of removing a toxic element from your organization. There are some people who refuse to behave in the best interests of the group, no matter how much direction you give them. ...but you are correct that they are often only one part of the problem. Then again, often firing them will motivate some of their supporters to quit. I imagine that was the im…

> if the employee responsible for firing the moderator did such acts repeatedly despite management warnings than perhaps it's a good idea to fire that person

> There are some people who refuse to behave in the best interests of the group, no matter how much direction you give them

I think we agree on this.

If an employee refuses to change behaviour despite multiple warnings he/her is fair game for dismissal. However I think firing someone without prior warnings is abusive unless it's for something criminal or malicious. You can probably guess that I don't care much for at-will employment...

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#438

Post by anon12345690 »

damnyou wrote: post #420
anon12345690 wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no youre looking at it backwards. if the only black person on the team kept saying I want you to call me "your majesty" and i ignored them then its not cause theyre black but because theyre unreasonable and demanding from everyone else guess what, easier to dump the unreasonable person. but of course if you cant see people for more than their skin color then youll think its discrimination. i cant help you with that.…

Just standard anti-trans fear mongering then. If you cannot tell the difference between they/them and your majesty then it's hard to take you seriously. I hope I never have to work in the same team as someone with such poor judgement.

so you ignored the unreasonable part? or the linked story showing how this is all hurting kids?

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#439

Post by beerandt »

mcv wrote: post #429
beerandt wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that, and sort of sympathized at one point. But for one thing, if you're not allowed to avoid the controversy except by not speaking at all, then the hands been overplayed. Personally, I always try to draw the line from a natural rights approach. If one "right" requires the infringement of the rights of someone else, then it's not really a natural right. If your personal belief requires me to have a certain per…

I mostly agree with you. There's two extremes in this: restricting speech because it's impossible not to offend someone, and intentionally offending someone. I think both are bad. I think the best way forward is a good faith best effort. Try not to misgender someone, but if that means you avoid gendered pronouns in general, and not just to single out transgender people, then that should certainly be fine. And when yo…

This gave me an aha moment. It's really just an attempt at legislating mortality. But I need to ponder that.

>And when you get it wrong, correct yourself.

This is where I strongly disagree. At most, the compromise is to keep it ambiguous. Otherwise you're putting your personal belief system over mine, and expecting me to modify my outward behavior to accommodate your beliefs (and by defying my own).

Whereas my beliefs would require no outward change in behavior on your part, let alone one that you might find internally immoral. You would just have to be tolerant.

Re: the racist thing. The technical definition doesn't fit the applied use of the term. Most people the left labels racist are at most apathetic, if you leave them out of it. And I don't mean forcing them to treat everyone equally. I mean being accused of racism if you don't actively support whatever political agenda is the flavor of the week.

It's the same forced participation that draws the comparison. And it's counter productive because it fosters resentment.

>they oppose the normalisation of others

This has become some sort of fetishisation, 99% of people being called racist want normalisation through assimilation. There's no personal grudge because a person is different. It's the special treatment being demanded that people have a problem with.

>But transgender people just want to be themselves, not hurt anyone, and not get hurt by anyone.

By demanding that others go against these same principles.

Re: Dear Stack Exchange, Inc.

#440

Post by khazhou »

Pfhreak wrote: post #156
khazhou wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1-3% does not pass the sniff test. Way too high. A quick search gives the number 0.6% according to a 2016 study.

That number is likely under-reported, and there has been a significant rise in the number of people who feel comfortable identifying in the past few years. A study performed in 2017 found that 2.7% (of roughly 80,000 surveyed) identified as trans or gender non-conforming: https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/pediatrics/14... I've seen the numbers that range from ~1% (or a little under) to as much as 3%, lik…

Gender non-conforming is a much wider net. This study you link of 9th and 11th graders, it is not surprising that a large percent (2.7% as you said) reported as trans or GNC.

The original comment above stated "trans", though, not T+GNC.

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