11 ms·

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.

• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• thanatropism 7y ago
  “Keeping your identity small” has certainly gone out of fashion.
  • schappim 7y ago
    PG Essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    • dclusin 7y ago
      This essay would be harshly criticized if it was written today. It still might be someday.
      • pcl 7y ago
        Why do you say that?
        • dclusin 7y ago
          Because given the prominence of identity as a central cultural debate, this essay comes across as tone deaf. I said it still might be because there's a tendency to judge past works by todays moral standards. For for instance, look at the twitter kerfuffle that ensued when Netflix decided to carry the old television show Friends.
          • LandR 7y ago
            Got a link to the friends issues? Google isn't turning up anything. What was the issue with Friends?
            • LandR 7y ago
              Oh, I see. Apparently friends is problematic. Racist, homophobic, transphobic, sexist and fat'ist (Is that an 'ist?).
              • dclusin 7y ago
                Yeah there was some language and jokes in there that wouldn't be acceptable today. That was the gist.
        • Traster 7y ago
          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.
          • pcl 7y ago
            I see what you mean. I guess perhaps another way of characterizing PG's advice would be to keep your identity as small as possible, but no smaller. I think it's a pretty good idea to think about how to not be a "Java programmer" or a "kitesurfer" (to pick two things that I could be identified as), since the former sets my brain up to be implicitly against, say, Kotlin or Haskell, and the latter sets my brain up to be against windsurfing. And I like all of those things too! But certainly, there are things that are core to someone's identity, and I guess that's where each of us needs to find our own boundaries.
            • thanatropism 7y ago
              Not that I expect this to become universal mores, but wisdom traditions from Buddhism to Deleuze advise us (generally speaking, blurring important distinctions) to have no core identity. Identity can be a tool and a crutch. My feeling (as someone who identifies as human and has been hanging out/coping with the world for 3-4 decades -- a feeling, informed by a lifetime of good and bad situations) is that identity politics hurts more the identity-assertion people; the opposite faction is merely annoyed.
          • cookiecaper 7y ago
            PG's essays contain a good amount of quote-unquote "real talk". His SJW-isms espoused on Twitter and the like are obviously only superficial, a defense mechanism widely recognized as a necessity among semi-known, substantially-wealthy persons. This is pretty common amongst business leaders; comparing their statements against their serious work quickly shows that it's not all so warm-and-fuzzy. Virtue signaling may be its own reward to the masses, but it serves a real function for the well-to-do in preventing or at least confusing a Marie Antoinette effect. If there's any "let them eat cake" to be found, they can point to an abundance of more recent "truth to power" statements that will create enough ambiguity to tamp down the fervor of the mob, if and/or when it comes to that.
        • michaelt 7y ago
          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!
          • thanatropism 7y ago
            I'm not gay, but I'm chronically mentally ill. I get (a version of, at least) the whole closet thing. But here's the nub: the mental illness belongs to some contexts (therapist, friends, intimate relationship) and not others (trying to sell a project to a client). The part about preferred pronouns feels a little too abstract and counterproductive. This is a personal feeling, coming from a personal interpretation of sources of wisdom. And it's not because it makes other people react in this or that way -- the point is not conquering the Other, you can't do this anyway. It's about how you set about to cope with the world and grow with it; how you deal with your own subjectivity. Maybe I'm wrong. It's a very different minoritarian perspective.
  • dwaltrip 7y ago
    This reads as a blasé swipe at LGBTQ+ attempts to achieve equal rights, societal acceptance, and common decency from others. I'm guessing that's not what you intended? Disclaimer: I don't have a strong opinion about the specifics of the stackexchange case. Without knowing all of the details, it seems the actions and new policy was a bit extreme and will do more harm than good.
    • odkamkfn 7y ago
      Really? You got all that from "Keeping your identity small has certainly gone out of fashion"? How? This is a serious question, I absolutely have no idea how you're getting from point A to B here.
      • dwaltrip 7y ago
        The comment I replied to was responding to a comment that said: > It's incredible that pronouns can bring down an entire community. This is obviously talking about the pronouns that transgender folks identify as. Where is the disconnect?
        • deleted 7y ago
          [deleted]
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      • AgentME 7y ago
        On a topic about pronouns, is "trans identity" not the obvious meaning/aspect of "identity" here? Yes, I know the PG essay. The PG essay is great when applied to not thinking of yourself as a "X programming language developer" so you don't get too caught up in language wars that really don't matter as much as they feel like, but it's pretty offensive to use it to argue against identifying as LGBT.
        • odkamkfn 7y ago
          As far as I can tell, no one is arguing against identifying as LGBT in any of the comments here. Try to be more charitable when reading what other people have to say.
• Pfhreak 7y ago
  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?
  • anon12345690 7y ago
    literally not the problem here more like people cant use Bob in an example and say He because "what if Bob is trans" comes up. cant even say "they" to be neutral because apparently "singular they" is offensive. this is dumb. its not a real problem for the site. the rest of us dont need to deal with all that because some people have nothing better to do.
    • ShamelessC 7y ago
      I keep seeing this notion that the singular they is offensive. I thought its whole purpose was to be more inclusive. At what point did it become offensive and why is it considered to be offensive?
      • Pfhreak 7y ago
        It's not. People are having a hard time adjusting and overreacting. It's only a problem if you using singular they specifically and only for trans folk, ie singling them out.
        • anon12345690 7y ago
          thats not a problem either. you cant force people to say anything.
          • PhasmaFelis 7y ago
            You can't "force" people to say things, but it's still a problem when people are deliberately insulting, obviously.
• sesuximo 7y ago
  IMO the real issue here is not pronouns per se but rather it is SO's behavior in response (firing, ghosting, inconsistency).
  • beerandt 7y ago
    No, it's pronouns. More generally, it's "I expect you to conform with the way I perceive the world, even if it's not the way you perceive it." The entire point of a pronoun is to convey my perceived relation to the noun. We do it all the time with possessives and formalities; if gender is truly a fluid, to-be-perceived, non-biological construct, then why shouldn't we treat it the same way?
    • PhasmaFelis 7y ago
      Based on Monica Cellio's blogpost (https://cellio.dreamwidth.org/2064709.html https://cellio.dreamwidth.org/2064709.html), I think what happened is that, last year, she posted saying that she prefers, when possible, to refer to people in ways that don't require using pronouns at all. Later, this was misinterpreted to mean that she refused to use people's requested pronouns, and she was fired from her position. That might have been reasonable if she had actually said that, but it sounds like she didn't say anything of the sort. That makes me think that it's not really about pronouns, it's about people using bad-faith misinterpretation and unjustified accusations to hold a witch-hunt. Pronouns are just the purported subject. But I'm new to the whole kerfuffle, so I may be missing something.
      • beerandt 7y ago
        You're giving them too much credit. She said she'd prefer not using pronouns at all. They said if she avoids using pronouns, she's just as guilty as using the wrong one. Then they fired/de-moded her based on her stated preference, assuming she would not follow the future rules. They also did this at 6 pm on a Friday. She's Jewish.
        • brandmeyer 7y ago
• sysbin 7y ago
  The other side can view it similar to past bigotry in history. It's unfortunate when people in society don't blend in for the correct pronouns to be used automatically and even more distasteful when other people dismiss the effort of an unfortunate person in trying to liv life without being reminded by others showing no care in the world for the person. In any case I doubt stack exchange will be hurt by this conflict.
• fenomas 7y ago
  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.
  • dr_dshiv 7y ago
    It was for SE, apparently
• brigandish 7y ago
  It'll be here soon enough and it'll be interesting to see how it's handled, especially as the parties pushing for change tend to apply pressure as a group to those in authority (in our tech world, project leaders and moderators, but beyond it's appeals to universities or the media…) and flag/downvote (or worse) against those who show any dissent. The Opal project's little kerfuffle[0] a while back comes to mind, and the subsequent adoption by several Ruby projects of the Contributor Covenant[1] (of which, it never seems to be applied to its supporters - maybe that's just me being cynical). It convinced me that the best way to go is no code of conduct (I favour the delightfully named NCoC[2]) for most projects. [0] https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941 https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941 [1] https://github.com/bundler/bundler/issues/3444 https://github.com/bundler/bundler/issues/3444 [2] https://github.com/domgetter/NCoC https://github.com/domgetter/NCoC
  • Traster 7y ago
    I can't help but feel that NCoC isn't scaleable. "Let's all be reasonable" is a great strategy when a handful of people are working on something and they are all more interested in getting the job done than talking about it. But it runs straight into the fact that there actually are people - particularly in the open source community that are perfectly willing to shout abuse at other contributors until they quit: https://adtmag.com/blogs/dev-watch/2014/04/linus-torvalds-rants.aspx https://adtmag.com/blogs/dev-watch/2014/04/linus-torvalds-ra...
    • brigandish 7y ago
      I agree. I've had other devs call me all sorts, in public, and it's not nice. One Ruby committer called me an "asshat" on his Twitter feed, simply because he failed to read my pull request properly and then seemed unable to admit it. Weird. One maintainer on another project called me a troll for opening an issue. Recently, I had one of the Rubygems maintainers be rude to me for the heinous crime of… suggesting client side validation in an issue thread! I think they have the Contributor Covenant but it doesn't seem to apply to maintainers. I get this stuff so often now I'm never surprised. Still, like many things, it's a choice between one bad thing and one worse thing, and these "covenants" and other well-meaning straitjackets have the same old free speech arguments applicable to them - it's not nice to hear people be nasty but it's worse to have some jumped up little authoritarians choose how us plebs should be "nice" while they get free reign to be horrible. I wonder, has Torvalds ever acted like that to people's faces?
• blanche_ 7y ago
  Ben would you mind then being called she/her then if that is so silly? I'm a hetero woman and I've been called a male few times when gaming and this is not silly, people are rejecting your identity and I can't even imagine how bad this is for trans/NB people.
  • koheripbal 7y ago
    People are not "rejecting your identity" if they use the wrong pronoun. That is an emotional interpretation of an error.
    • blanche_ 7y ago
      You assume that was an error, based on what?
    • mcv 7y ago
      Some people are. There are people who intentionally use the wrong pronoun, exactly because they reject someone's transgender identity. We cis-gendered people may not notice this, but to transgender people, it is every-day reality to be confronted with someone who insists on denying their identity. Consider the stupid bathroom bills in a couple of US states for example. So against that background, it's entirely understandable that they react more emotionally also to accidental mistakes. That doesn't mean overreaction is a good idea, but it's a backlash against a long history of having their identity denied. If we don't like the backlash, maybe we should work harder to address the original hatred that it's reacting to.
  • koonsolo 7y ago
    I run a product/community of teenage game developers. The girls in my community do not want to reveal that they are girls, probably because they do not want to stand out. So basically everyone thinks it's full of boys (especially the boys), but in reality 50% are girls. So it definitely depends on the person and circumstances how they want to be perceived. With European names, I also saw plenty of times when wrong genders were assumed, but those things shouldn't be taken as malice. It would be weird for an adult to use that a a means for insult, so why not assume it's an honest mistake?
• cbm-vic-20 7y ago
  Could all of this been avoided if SE had a field in user profiles that is basically "Please use the following pronoun when referring to me: _______"? The user could fill this in with She, He, They, Qwotzl, whatever.
  • WorkLobster 7y ago
    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/patterns/gender-or-sex/ https://design-system.service.gov.uk/patterns/gender-or-sex/
    • WorldMaker 7y ago
      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/ http://pronoun.is/ [ETA: It's a small shame this particular DB is AGPL, keeping it from being maximally reuseful as a shareable standard library. Though data is not code and AGPL may not technically apply, but there's no separate data license such as a CC license mentioned in the repo, so one must assume AGPL-like conditions.]
      • WorkLobster 7y ago
        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.