Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only • Hacker News Board

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#481

Post by geetee » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 11:06 PM UTC

overgard wrote: post #471

antics wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should remember that there are actual people behind the words on your screen before you say something awful like this. This is not very nice. Another thing I'd point out is that there is a huge number of women who feel the same way. Rather than simply asserting they are all emotionally incontinent, you should ask yourself whether there is something about the experience of being a female programmer who feels like…

> You should remember that there are actual people behind the words on your screen before you say something awful like this. This is not very nice. I take it all back. I'm sure he's the life of every party.

You monster.

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#482

Post by overgard » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 11:10 PM UTC

geetee wrote: post #481

overgard wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You should remember that there are actual people behind the words on your screen before you say something awful like this. This is not very nice. I take it all back. I'm sure he's the life of every party.

You monster .

It's true. When I'm not poking fun at people on the internet, I spend my time kicking puppies.

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#483

Post by Sami_Lehtinen » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 11:11 PM UTC

Afaik, this link wasn't visible well enough. http://bropages.org/browse it should be made easier to find at top of the page.

Btw. Nice derailing with most of comments.

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#484

Post by antics » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 11:11 PM UTC

overgard wrote: post #471

antics wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should remember that there are actual people behind the words on your screen before you say something awful like this. This is not very nice. Another thing I'd point out is that there is a huge number of women who feel the same way. Rather than simply asserting they are all emotionally incontinent, you should ask yourself whether there is something about the experience of being a female programmer who feels like…

> You should remember that there are actual people behind the words on your screen before you say something awful like this. This is not very nice. I take it all back. I'm sure he's the life of every party.

:( Come on. This is, like, a completely reasonable request.

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#485

Post by rosser » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 11:13 PM UTC

reallyseriously wrote: post #434

glesica wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't arguing about whether "bro" was offensive. I was arguing over whether it is legitimate for a man to be offended by sexism, please read the GP before responding next time.

Is the word "bro" sexist? If a woman says, "Hey guurl" is that sexist? They're both exclusionary, right? But aren't they just friendly greetings and anything more you put into it is your own personal baggage? Let's be adults and retain some perspective.

You're conflating contexts.

When a woman says, "Hey, girl", to one of her girlfriends, she's not being sexist or exclusionary; she's greeting one of her friends. Or do you somehow also think that when a guy says, "Hey, dude!" to one of his friends, who also happens to have a penis, he's somehow being sexist?

That's not remotely like the exclusionary nature, whether perceived or actual, of the specific use of the word "bro" under discussion here.

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#486

Post by tga_d » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 11:17 PM UTC

overgard wrote: post #440

Steuard wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brogrammer culture is hostile to women (at least in the sense that most women would feel less comfortable in a workplace dominated by that culture). It doesn't sound like you're arguing against that point. So to the extent that the name of the "bro" command invokes that culture (and that's the point of the joke, right?), it reinforces the association between brogrammer attitudes and tech in general. Embedding that as…

> Brogrammer culture is hostile to women (at least in the sense that most women would feel less comfortable in a workplace dominated by that culture). It doesn't sound like you're arguing against that point. I don't even know what that is. Outside the bubble of HN I doubt most people have even heard the phrase. "Bro" for most people references dumb fratboys. Maybe it's a word that's offensive to fratboys, but I can't…

I don't know that the problem is so much "offence" as it is reinforcing what has historically been an exclusive culture. As has been pointed out, regardless of the intent of the name, it is going to put off some people. Imagine sitting next to a friend, perhaps just getting introduced to the command line, and telling them, "Hmm... let's check what Bro says!" It just gives a certain connotation.

As a bit more extreme example, imagine a command line tool called "aryan". Sure, the name in and of itself might not be offensive, strictly speaking, but it's definitely something that would, and should, be frowned upon. The word has some important connotations.

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#487

Post by overgard » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 11:24 PM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #309

overgard wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely, lets throw away our sense of humor and wordplay because there are theoretically people that might be offended (maybe, kindof. You know. In theory.). (N.B. the people that seem to be offended so far are offended on other peoples behalf..) Isn't it way more offensive to assume that women are such dainty delicate creatures that like, they won't get the joke?

Sure. It's just one drop of water out of a clear blue sky. The sort of thing that is easily tolerable, hardly even a nuisance really. Maybe you don't have many female friends, maybe none of your female friends work in tech, and maybe you've never had any female coworkers. The fact is, for women in tech it's been raining, it's been raining every single day for decades. One drop is tolerable, but it's the unrelenting d…

This argument would almost make sense if the joke was at all about women. Except it's not. The only mention of women on that page is a message that they're included too. The word "bro" is making fun of college age american males, it literally has nothing to do with women at all.

I mean, I'd think this level white knighting would be excessive if it even had something to do with women, but I'm fantastically amused by the reaction here considering that this joke has NOTHING TO DO WITH WOMEN AT ALL. The "offensiveness" of this is pure extrapolation. Seriously, you're all just /assuming/ that women are going to be offended by this. But somehow, those of us that are saying that maybe you should let women speak for themselves if it really bothers them, we're the sexists.

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#488

Post by Trindaz » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 11:26 PM UTC

blahedo wrote: post #99

Great idea; shame about the name. Here's the problem with using words like "bro" (however jokingly): the problem is not with what you [0] are thinking when you read the word "bro", but with what other people , especially newcomers, are thinking. The locker-room atmosphere that stuff like this creates is a huge barrier to entry for a lot of people, women especially, who infer that on top of all the technically difficu…

So if we name them girlpages will that have the affect of attracting more women into tech?

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#489

Post by kristopolous » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 11:31 PM UTC

Guillaume86 wrote: post #450

kristopolous wrote: post #407

I wrote an identical thing 10 years ago. went nowhere. boohoo for me.

Should have named it bro ;)

I called it wtf - it was keyword driven. Things like

wtf deep copy array in php

or

wtf add disk to a raid array

people would add recipes with keyword laden titles and there was votes on them.

You could also download the entire db and use it locally for quicker response time. Also, this was because we weren't living in an "internet is everywhere" age back then.

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#490

Post by jtheory » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 11:33 PM UTC

Why do so many of the arguments on this page seem to think that "bro" is part of male culture?

I'm male. I'm even American. I don't think anyone including my biological brother has ever called me "bro" in my entire life. Maybe because I'm 38 and not 22?

When I see something being pitched/marketed/whatever using the word "bro", I have never imagined it could be targeted at me.

Just now I figured I'd visit the site before commenting, and I mistyped the domain (the .com is the FB profile for some frat-related group). Oops; so I googled "bro pages".

The FIRST HIT is something about the playboy mansion. Nice.

I'd be vaguely annoyed if someone standing near me noticed that tab ("bro: just get to the point!") open on my browser, so unless there's a roaring wave of approval and it's suddenly better than regular man pages (which aren't bad; I skim fast) plus StackOverflow, I'm not using it.

Eh, with a little luck they'll change it and try again. The idea seems solid.