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Stack Overflow has handled the communication and PR side of this about as badly as a company can, and I started - and still want to be - on the side of the mode
by Lazare 7y ago
Stack Overflow has handled the communication and PR side of this about as badly as a company can, and I started - and still want to be - on the side of the moderators.
However, as near as I can tell from piecing together the different leaks, it turns out a core issue was that Monica Cellio refused to use the singular "they" construction, including when she knew that was someone's preferred pronoun.
In my view she is 1) objectively grammatically wrong and 2) just being needlessly rude. And ultimately, I can't bring myself to support this position at all. If you lost your moderator role because of a refusal to use a widely used and accepted English construction, even though you knew this refusal would hurt people, then uh, I hope you're happy with your life choices, but I have no sympathy for you.
- nullc 7y agoWhen you say 'refused to use' it sounds like you're saying Monica insisted on the wrong pronoun. But my understanding is that the argument was around drafting to simply avoid the use of pronouns entirely. I've never previously seen it described as rude to write text that simply didn't use pronouns, in and of itself.