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For everybody who's questioning the premise that there is some kind of special hostility to newbies, women, PoCs and others, consider this: * How would you kno
by wwweston 9y ago
For everybody who's questioning the premise that there is some kind of special hostility to newbies, women, PoCs and others, consider this:
* How would you know whether there's a difference between the experience of these groups and the baseline level of friction lots of people outside those groups experience?
* For the sake of argument, assume for a moment that there is no difference, and what those who feel singled out are experiencing is the baseline friction that they've mistakenly correlated with some aspect of their identity. Then the only way to address the issue is to address that baseline. If StackOverflow does this, it will mean the experience improves for everyone.
(If there is a difference, then the experience improves for everyone and the world is a bit fairer.)
* Is there anything in the specific list of areas SO has identified for improvement that really seems like a bad idea?
- Let’s shift from “don’t be an asshole” to “be welcoming.” ... “I wasn’t just tolerated; I was made to feel like the community was actually better because I was there.”
- let’s start by working with the community and our community managers to start flagging and deleting unkind comments now.
- Let’s make it easier for new users to succeed.
- Let’s stop judging users for not knowing things.
- Let’s reject the false dichotomy between quality and kindness.
- commandlinefan 9y agoIt just seems strange to say that a universal hostility is somehow worse on, say, women, than it is on everybody, given that they're admitting it's universal.
- wwweston 9y agoFWIW, it's possible both for hostility to be universal and for it to be harder on some subgroup if either (a) that subgroup tends to be socialized in such a way that they're less equipped to deal with/push back on hostility or (b) that subgroup tends to be more agreeable or threatened by hostility by natural temperament. But overall... it doesn't matter much to me. Reducing universal hostility seems like a positive goal no matter what. Even reducing localized hostility that I'm not subject to means that the potential pool of contributors who might be able to help me or others with problems on SO is larger.
- InclinedPlane 9y agoThat's exactly how it works. When there is a universal hostility that precisely hits those who are the most marginalized, least secure, least powerful, etc. Fundamentally we live in a world that is rife with systemic bias and oppression. Which means that things which hurt people without any intentional bias nevertheless serve as agents of increasing the underlying systemic bias. If you steal ten thousand dollars from everyone in America completely "fairly" you will end up causing only a minor inconvenience to the rich while causing grievous harm to the poor, possibly forcing many of them into homelessness. If you inject everyone in America with the flu virus then you will kill some of the elderly and many immunocompromised or immunosupressed individuals. You cannot simply pretend that a system built by humans for use by humans is some force of nature where an implicit lack of overt bias is an excuse to ignore these issues.