7 ms·

StackExchange offers 'possible reinstatement' to moderator removed over pronouns

60 points by MilnerRoute 7y ago

andybak 7y ago
So all of this is because a company that believes in helping the LGBTQ+ community had a dispute with an individual that also believed in helping the LGBTQ+ community but differed about how to do so. And all the while there's still genuine real and unambiguous harm and violence being committed against the community that this is supposed to be about. Something, something choose your battles...
- arglebarnacle 7y ago
  That's not true--the moderator said she refused to acknowledge non-binary people by their pronouns if they use a singular "they" because of an ideological objection to their gender identity. I am non-binary and use they/them pronouns, and while I'm not bothered when people avoid my pronouns e.g. by using my name instead, it's another thing entirely to assert that someone who doesn't consider non-binary identity valid "believes in helping the LGBTQ+ community but differed in how to do so." Simply avoiding being rude (by deliberately using the wrong pronouns) is the baseline for respect, literally the least you can do. To "help" implies to support--if you support our community please use our correct pronouns and correct other cis people who misgender trans folks in your presence, don't merely humor us.
  - wizzwizz4 7y ago
    She said nothing of the sort. Monica has a purely grammatical objection to the use of singular they. I believe that objection to be unjustified (for etymology pedantry reasons), but it's not born out of malice or the rejection of people's identities. I don't agree with Monica on this point, but she has never used her position as a moderator to hurt people in this way. She wouldn't be the sort of person to use neopronouns if she were inclined to do this. And, to my knowledge, she has never knowingly used the wrong pronouns for a user of the site, which is more than can be said for most people. Please don't selectively apply standards. You should be equally outraged at the other >30% of the population who fail this test – if you're not, stop slandering Monica.
    - arglebarnacle 7y ago
      It would have been better to say that she has an ideological objection to using they/them pronouns (rather than non-binary identity), so I'll concede that point. But the thrust of my post is that it's wrong to describe her as someone who is helping the LGBTQ+ community, just in a different way, and I stand by that. She said in her statement that she "write[s] in a gender-neutral way specifically to avoid gender landmines". I'm sure this is a relatable sentiment to cisgender people who's main engagement with the trans community is anxiety about making mistakes. But this can't be compared to the marginalization trans people face. One way that non-binary people are denied space in our culture is by being erased. It's not a high crime to go out of your way to avoid our pronouns like this, but by doing so Monica is someone who is doing the bare minimum of avoiding offense--she is not helping or supporting non-binary people or fostering their inclusion. Despite the implication of your reply I am actually not outraged that she could continue to be a Stack Exchange moderator, that seems fine. But I am intransigently against the vision of LGBTQ+ allyship laid out in the GGP, where being a supporting helper just means not being hostile. Trans people are fighting for our lives in society right now, it would really help if people could find it in themselves to pick the right side, use our pronouns in public, and build the cultural space for us to exist in normalcy, instead of only think about this issue when twitter "activists" have "gone too far" by criticizing someone they like.
      - andybak 7y ago
        You've lumped several things that differ hugely in seriousness together into one package and asked everyone to pick sides. How about if I don't accept your packaging of related issues. Are you insisting that I'm therefore not allowed to pick the side of transgender people? From a purely strategic level - how best to achieve the worthy aim of improving the lot of transgender people - this strikes me as a mistake. I think the outcome will be worse than a more tolerant approach to forming an alliance. (How ironic that I ended up using the word "tolerance" in trying to explain that... )
  - errantspark 7y ago
    Can you cite that first sentence? I have never seen that PoV from Monica. IIRC the issue was that she preferred to use a gender-less style of writing even when someone preferred a specific pronoun. More to the point she didn't refuse to do anything, she was asking clarification questions in a private chat room.
  - allovernow 7y ago
    Why does your personal conviction supersede that of those who do not agree with the non-binary classification of gender? Is it not valid to be offended over being forced to conform to minority views which are deeply rooted in politics and justified with a potentially exaggerated narrative of victimhood? These modern ideas are far from confirmed scientific fact. Yes, there some sort of a spectrum, but just as the entire concept of "gender" is a social construct, the real argument is over the definition of the construct, and one could argue that truly "non-binary" or transgender individuals form a tiny cluster of outliers near the plane separating conventional male and female grouping. If that is the case, I personally find it offensive to afford such a tiny minority such a disproportionate amount of power by allowing it to shape thought through language policing. The idea of intersectionality is mathematically equivalent to reducing an extremely high dimensional space, that of human physiology and behavior, to a simplified subset with fuzzy clusters separated by an arbitrary number of hyperplanes (gay, black, trans, etc). The particular modern formulation is one of an infinite number of possibilities, and it isn't fair to pick a handful of tiny minority clusters from this particular basis by those with vested interests, claim that those in particular are oppressed, and then afford them what are actually special priveledges under the guise of equality. Particularly when this mindset bleeds into politics and industry, it just comes off as a blatant powergrab for people who have defined their own social construct in a manner that benefits themselves. This is why identity politics drives populations apart. The space of human nature is sufficiently high dimensional that it is impossible to divide it into priveledged clusters without picking what amount to arbitrary favorites.
    - damnyou 7y ago
      To be clear, we are talking about professional settings here. No one is taking away your right to misgender someone at a bar (even though you'd be a giant asshole for doing so). A professional setting like Stack Exchange or a workplace is very different from a bar, though.
  - andybak 7y ago
    > the moderator said she refused to acknowledge non-binary people by their pronouns if they use a singular "they" because of an ideological objection to their gender identity. Where does it say this?
- throwGuardian 7y ago
  > And all the while there's still genuine real and unambiguous harm and violence ... On S.O? That's hard to believe. People come to S.O to have their coding questions answered, and in my experience, their identity plays no part in exchanges on the site.
  - wizzwizz4 7y ago
    When moderators weren't just deleting it as soon as it was flagged (because they were on strike or had resigned), a lot of the threats, shunning and general cruelty were publicly visible on mSE. And that was with normal users still successfully instructing the system to remove them (I won't go into technical details). A person is normal, but people are horrible. There's a reason SO felt the need to amend their Code of Conduct, and it wasn't just to score “wokeness points”.
  - andybak 7y ago
    I didn't mean on SO. I think these fights harm the cause in the broadest sense and act as recruiting tools for those opposed to the goals of inclusiveness.
- minimaxir 7y ago
  The confusing part of the saga is SE doubling/tripling/quadrupling down after they were being shown in the wrong and caused a community revolt.
- errantspark 7y ago
  It wasn't the company, it was an individual of high visibility employed at the company. SO chose to circle the wagons and stick to their guns. The actions of the SO representative were hasty, frankly in my view pattern match much more closely to knee jerk emotional defense of a protected class than anything else. I'm all for LGBTQ+ rights and I get that in the real world this sometimes means being uncompromising. Fighting for equality is complex. Here's what went down. The mod made statements that vaguely pattern match as onerous hair splitting in order to undermine LGBTQ+ rights. They did this in a private setting and there was absolutely no history that would imply they were trying to push an ulterior motive. The SO representative identifies strongly as a defender of LGBTQ+ rights and viewed this as "definitely this person doesn't think LGPTQ+ people should have rights" and de-modded them. SO made the initial choice to circle the wagons and back up one of their own and then got stuck hard on that path for months even when it became clear they'd made a mistake. It's a problem with management and it's not going to be solved without changes in management. A sorry would have sufficed if it had come many months ago. The SO rep just needed to admit to being human and making a bad call. (P.S. this whole row was over the style in which I've written this post, the new code of conduct would have me use gender specific pronouns if the preferred pronouns of the subjects are known and using a genderless style of writing would be against it)
  - finnthehuman 7y ago
    >sometimes means being uncompromising. Fighting for equality is complex. Fighting for anything is complex. If it wasn't complex it wouldn't take a fight. But people get blinded by their righteousness and fight in ways that waste time at best, can make people disengage or set their goals back at worst. If anyone thinks they're fighting the good fight, they owe it to their cause to understand their actions. I often find myself getting ignored or on the wrong side of an accusation for thinking about the "ends vs means" of goals I agree with. I'm running low on patience for getting asked to diminish or overlook hamfisted actions after the fact because the motivation was proper.
  - wizzwizz4 7y ago
    Monica prefers "she/her" pronouns; given the context, I think it's best not to use others to refer to her.
- bartread 7y ago
  > real and unambiguous harm Agree. > real and unambiguous ... violence Disagree. I'm sure your intentions are good but this is concept creep, pure and simple.
  - andybak 7y ago
    See comment above. Your might have misunderstood me.
Macha 7y ago
Honestly, I hope Monica got a good payout from the settlement, as this barely retracts the comments made to the media portraying her as some kind of transphobic repeat offender of harassment.
Zealotux 7y ago
Non-exhaustive reminders of the story so far: - Full timeline from Monica Cellio herself: https://cellio.dreamwidth.org/2019/10/05/stack-overflow-fiasco-timeline.html https://cellio.dreamwidth.org/2019/10/05/stack-overflow-fias... - Her account: https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5193/stack-overflow-inc-sinat-chinam-and-the-goat-for-azazel https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5193/stack-... - Discussion on HN back then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21153224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21153224
- funmi 7y ago
  Also just came across this audio interview with Monica (~ 1 hr long): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFiQPkdb5Qs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFiQPkdb5Qs
ratsmack 7y ago
I think the well has been poisoned at this point and people will forever be wary of SE.
- ailideex 7y ago
  eh, ..., I mean all of this ... stuff ... is one massive landmine that is best navigated by not saying anything ... so I don't blame SE - they are probably defecating bricks just thinking what may happen if they make the wrong move and then getting into situations where there is legitimately no clear right move because the whole world has basically lost it's marbles and there is no clear standard left for what is acceptable or not.
  - hirundo 7y ago
    "Then they came for the %OUTGROUP%, and I did not speak out—" Resistance to this kind of minor injustice does help. It spreads fastest when the vast center is intimidated into silence.
raverbashing 7y ago
> Ms. Cellio expressed concerns about the new process and has not applied." Not surprising in the least. I think the ship has sailed on this case. (Though the offer is probably as a token of good will and "no hard feelings")
krisoft 7y ago
How can a company sound this tone deaf again and again about the same topic?
rkljlkjerwer 7y ago
Until very recently, using "he" in an article was considered sexist because it assumed the subject was a men. So the recommendation was to use "he/she". Today, using "he/she" is considered transphobic, as in this SE case, since it assumes the subject is binary. So the present recommendation is to use "they". Is this an accurate representation of the current state of affairs? What's the proper pronoun to use today, if you don't know the actual gender of the subject, for example because you talk about a hypothetical situation? Aren't people who identify as other pronouns (xe, zer, ve, aer...) upset by the use of "they"? Is "they" truly generic and can be used in all situations?
- sitharus 7y ago
  Not entirely. For many centuries singular ‘they’ had been used when gender is uncertain or unknown. In the last hundred years or so some (primarily American) language teachers decided that singular ‘they’ was wrong and adopted ‘he/she’. See https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they/ https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they... for a history.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- rdtsc 7y ago
  > Aren't people who identify as other pronouns (xe, zer, ve, aer...) upset by the use of "they"? Is "they" truly generic and can be used in all situations? I think that’s the case here. They are upset because they would like to be called by the specific pronoun they pick. Using ”they” erases their identity and contributes to discrimination. Now in hypothetical situation I don’t see how “they“ could be problematic. I have seen authors default to “she” but mostly in positive and neutral contexts. Then to “he“ for negative contexts. What I mean is if the hypothetical context is a about an astronaut flying to Mars it might be a “she” but if it is a criminal robbing a bank it would be a “he”.
  - Izkata 7y ago
    > Now in hypothetical situation I don’t see how “they“ could be problematic. "They" has gotten an additional meaning, it's one of the picked pronouns alongside xe/etc, which is why some people consider using it to still be using the wrong pronoun.
josteink 7y ago
Too late, damage done. This poison is what you get when you let activists force the introduction of a CoC. The first revision of the CoC may not be utterly reprehensible, but once its power is established, minority activists who would like to force their views on others will just suggest “updates” to the CoC. And suddenly there you are with entire SE being toxic drivel, because nobody dared to say “no” to a vocal minority. I wonder who will be next.
- wizzwizz4 7y ago
  The CoC is not what caused this issue. Sure, it was badly worded, but it's responsible for a different set of problems. And any pushing of it came from within the company and – given how bad it was – probably without much consulting of knowledgeable representatives of the affected groups.
zzleeper 7y ago
I'm surprised that Monica Cellio was initially crucified by name all over the place (by SO), but the employee that did this is still listed everywhere as "an employee".
pascal_cuoq 7y ago
The only new information I got out of this is what passes for “Score:5, Insightful” nowadays at Slashdot. It's not pretty. What is supposed to make this interesting, the three links to actual sources of information, or the comments by Slashdot users?
rahuldottech 7y ago
The community is not happy: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/340906/update-an-agreement-with-monica-cellio https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/340906/update-an-ag...
OldGuyInTheClub 7y ago
I'm puzzled. I haven't read all of the history referenced in the comments but did visit the MetaStack post and a lot of the comments therein. Why would this moderator have to apply for readmission since it seems she was dismissed unjustly?

60 points by MilnerRoute 7y ago

So all of this is because a company that believes in helping the LGBTQ+ community had a dispute with an individual that also believed in helping the LGBTQ+ community but differed about how to do so. And all the while there's still genuine real and unambiguous harm and violence being committed against the community that this is supposed to be about. Something, something choose your battles...

arglebarnacle 7y ago
That's not true--the moderator said she refused to acknowledge non-binary people by their pronouns if they use a singular "they" because of an ideological objection to their gender identity. I am non-binary and use they/them pronouns, and while I'm not bothered when people avoid my pronouns e.g. by using my name instead, it's another thing entirely to assert that someone who doesn't consider non-binary identity valid "believes in helping the LGBTQ+ community but differed in how to do so." Simply avoiding being rude (by deliberately using the wrong pronouns) is the baseline for respect, literally the least you can do. To "help" implies to support--if you support our community please use our correct pronouns and correct other cis people who misgender trans folks in your presence, don't merely humor us.
- wizzwizz4 7y ago
  She said nothing of the sort. Monica has a purely grammatical objection to the use of singular they. I believe that objection to be unjustified (for etymology pedantry reasons), but it's not born out of malice or the rejection of people's identities. I don't agree with Monica on this point, but she has never used her position as a moderator to hurt people in this way. She wouldn't be the sort of person to use neopronouns if she were inclined to do this. And, to my knowledge, she has never knowingly used the wrong pronouns for a user of the site, which is more than can be said for most people. Please don't selectively apply standards. You should be equally outraged at the other >30% of the population who fail this test – if you're not, stop slandering Monica.
  - arglebarnacle 7y ago
    It would have been better to say that she has an ideological objection to using they/them pronouns (rather than non-binary identity), so I'll concede that point. But the thrust of my post is that it's wrong to describe her as someone who is helping the LGBTQ+ community, just in a different way, and I stand by that. She said in her statement that she "write[s] in a gender-neutral way specifically to avoid gender landmines". I'm sure this is a relatable sentiment to cisgender people who's main engagement with the trans community is anxiety about making mistakes. But this can't be compared to the marginalization trans people face. One way that non-binary people are denied space in our culture is by being erased. It's not a high crime to go out of your way to avoid our pronouns like this, but by doing so Monica is someone who is doing the bare minimum of avoiding offense--she is not helping or supporting non-binary people or fostering their inclusion. Despite the implication of your reply I am actually not outraged that she could continue to be a Stack Exchange moderator, that seems fine. But I am intransigently against the vision of LGBTQ+ allyship laid out in the GGP, where being a supporting helper just means not being hostile. Trans people are fighting for our lives in society right now, it would really help if people could find it in themselves to pick the right side, use our pronouns in public, and build the cultural space for us to exist in normalcy, instead of only think about this issue when twitter "activists" have "gone too far" by criticizing someone they like.
    - andybak 7y ago
      You've lumped several things that differ hugely in seriousness together into one package and asked everyone to pick sides. How about if I don't accept your packaging of related issues. Are you insisting that I'm therefore not allowed to pick the side of transgender people? From a purely strategic level - how best to achieve the worthy aim of improving the lot of transgender people - this strikes me as a mistake. I think the outcome will be worse than a more tolerant approach to forming an alliance. (How ironic that I ended up using the word "tolerance" in trying to explain that... )
- errantspark 7y ago
  Can you cite that first sentence? I have never seen that PoV from Monica. IIRC the issue was that she preferred to use a gender-less style of writing even when someone preferred a specific pronoun. More to the point she didn't refuse to do anything, she was asking clarification questions in a private chat room.
- allovernow 7y ago
  Why does your personal conviction supersede that of those who do not agree with the non-binary classification of gender? Is it not valid to be offended over being forced to conform to minority views which are deeply rooted in politics and justified with a potentially exaggerated narrative of victimhood? These modern ideas are far from confirmed scientific fact. Yes, there some sort of a spectrum, but just as the entire concept of "gender" is a social construct, the real argument is over the definition of the construct, and one could argue that truly "non-binary" or transgender individuals form a tiny cluster of outliers near the plane separating conventional male and female grouping. If that is the case, I personally find it offensive to afford such a tiny minority such a disproportionate amount of power by allowing it to shape thought through language policing. The idea of intersectionality is mathematically equivalent to reducing an extremely high dimensional space, that of human physiology and behavior, to a simplified subset with fuzzy clusters separated by an arbitrary number of hyperplanes (gay, black, trans, etc). The particular modern formulation is one of an infinite number of possibilities, and it isn't fair to pick a handful of tiny minority clusters from this particular basis by those with vested interests, claim that those in particular are oppressed, and then afford them what are actually special priveledges under the guise of equality. Particularly when this mindset bleeds into politics and industry, it just comes off as a blatant powergrab for people who have defined their own social construct in a manner that benefits themselves. This is why identity politics drives populations apart. The space of human nature is sufficiently high dimensional that it is impossible to divide it into priveledged clusters without picking what amount to arbitrary favorites.
  - damnyou 7y ago
    To be clear, we are talking about professional settings here. No one is taking away your right to misgender someone at a bar (even though you'd be a giant asshole for doing so). A professional setting like Stack Exchange or a workplace is very different from a bar, though.
- andybak 7y ago
  > the moderator said she refused to acknowledge non-binary people by their pronouns if they use a singular "they" because of an ideological objection to their gender identity. Where does it say this?
throwGuardian 7y ago
> And all the while there's still genuine real and unambiguous harm and violence ... On S.O? That's hard to believe. People come to S.O to have their coding questions answered, and in my experience, their identity plays no part in exchanges on the site.
- wizzwizz4 7y ago
  When moderators weren't just deleting it as soon as it was flagged (because they were on strike or had resigned), a lot of the threats, shunning and general cruelty were publicly visible on mSE. And that was with normal users still successfully instructing the system to remove them (I won't go into technical details). A person is normal, but people are horrible. There's a reason SO felt the need to amend their Code of Conduct, and it wasn't just to score “wokeness points”.
- andybak 7y ago
  I didn't mean on SO. I think these fights harm the cause in the broadest sense and act as recruiting tools for those opposed to the goals of inclusiveness.
minimaxir 7y ago
The confusing part of the saga is SE doubling/tripling/quadrupling down after they were being shown in the wrong and caused a community revolt.
errantspark 7y ago
It wasn't the company, it was an individual of high visibility employed at the company. SO chose to circle the wagons and stick to their guns. The actions of the SO representative were hasty, frankly in my view pattern match much more closely to knee jerk emotional defense of a protected class than anything else. I'm all for LGBTQ+ rights and I get that in the real world this sometimes means being uncompromising. Fighting for equality is complex. Here's what went down. The mod made statements that vaguely pattern match as onerous hair splitting in order to undermine LGBTQ+ rights. They did this in a private setting and there was absolutely no history that would imply they were trying to push an ulterior motive. The SO representative identifies strongly as a defender of LGBTQ+ rights and viewed this as "definitely this person doesn't think LGPTQ+ people should have rights" and de-modded them. SO made the initial choice to circle the wagons and back up one of their own and then got stuck hard on that path for months even when it became clear they'd made a mistake. It's a problem with management and it's not going to be solved without changes in management. A sorry would have sufficed if it had come many months ago. The SO rep just needed to admit to being human and making a bad call. (P.S. this whole row was over the style in which I've written this post, the new code of conduct would have me use gender specific pronouns if the preferred pronouns of the subjects are known and using a genderless style of writing would be against it)
- finnthehuman 7y ago
  >sometimes means being uncompromising. Fighting for equality is complex. Fighting for anything is complex. If it wasn't complex it wouldn't take a fight. But people get blinded by their righteousness and fight in ways that waste time at best, can make people disengage or set their goals back at worst. If anyone thinks they're fighting the good fight, they owe it to their cause to understand their actions. I often find myself getting ignored or on the wrong side of an accusation for thinking about the "ends vs means" of goals I agree with. I'm running low on patience for getting asked to diminish or overlook hamfisted actions after the fact because the motivation was proper.
- wizzwizz4 7y ago
  Monica prefers "she/her" pronouns; given the context, I think it's best not to use others to refer to her.
bartread 7y ago
> real and unambiguous harm Agree. > real and unambiguous ... violence Disagree. I'm sure your intentions are good but this is concept creep, pure and simple.
- andybak 7y ago
  See comment above. Your might have misunderstood me.

Macha 7y ago

Honestly, I hope Monica got a good payout from the settlement, as this barely retracts the comments made to the media portraying her as some kind of transphobic repeat offender of harassment.

Zealotux 7y ago

Non-exhaustive reminders of the story so far: - Full timeline from Monica Cellio herself: https://cellio.dreamwidth.org/2019/10/05/stack-overflow-fiasco-timeline.html https://cellio.dreamwidth.org/2019/10/05/stack-overflow-fias... - Her account: https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5193/stack-overflow-inc-sinat-chinam-and-the-goat-for-azazel https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5193/stack-... - Discussion on HN back then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21153224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21153224

funmi 7y ago
Also just came across this audio interview with Monica (~ 1 hr long): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFiQPkdb5Qs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFiQPkdb5Qs

ratsmack 7y ago

I think the well has been poisoned at this point and people will forever be wary of SE.

ailideex 7y ago
eh, ..., I mean all of this ... stuff ... is one massive landmine that is best navigated by not saying anything ... so I don't blame SE - they are probably defecating bricks just thinking what may happen if they make the wrong move and then getting into situations where there is legitimately no clear right move because the whole world has basically lost it's marbles and there is no clear standard left for what is acceptable or not.
- hirundo 7y ago
  "Then they came for the %OUTGROUP%, and I did not speak out—" Resistance to this kind of minor injustice does help. It spreads fastest when the vast center is intimidated into silence.

raverbashing 7y ago

> Ms. Cellio expressed concerns about the new process and has not applied." Not surprising in the least. I think the ship has sailed on this case. (Though the offer is probably as a token of good will and "no hard feelings")

krisoft 7y ago

How can a company sound this tone deaf again and again about the same topic?

rkljlkjerwer 7y ago

Until very recently, using "he" in an article was considered sexist because it assumed the subject was a men. So the recommendation was to use "he/she". Today, using "he/she" is considered transphobic, as in this SE case, since it assumes the subject is binary. So the present recommendation is to use "they". Is this an accurate representation of the current state of affairs? What's the proper pronoun to use today, if you don't know the actual gender of the subject, for example because you talk about a hypothetical situation? Aren't people who identify as other pronouns (xe, zer, ve, aer...) upset by the use of "they"? Is "they" truly generic and can be used in all situations?

sitharus 7y ago
Not entirely. For many centuries singular ‘they’ had been used when gender is uncertain or unknown. In the last hundred years or so some (primarily American) language teachers decided that singular ‘they’ was wrong and adopted ‘he/she’. See https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they/ https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they... for a history.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
rdtsc 7y ago
> Aren't people who identify as other pronouns (xe, zer, ve, aer...) upset by the use of "they"? Is "they" truly generic and can be used in all situations? I think that’s the case here. They are upset because they would like to be called by the specific pronoun they pick. Using ”they” erases their identity and contributes to discrimination. Now in hypothetical situation I don’t see how “they“ could be problematic. I have seen authors default to “she” but mostly in positive and neutral contexts. Then to “he“ for negative contexts. What I mean is if the hypothetical context is a about an astronaut flying to Mars it might be a “she” but if it is a criminal robbing a bank it would be a “he”.
- Izkata 7y ago
  > Now in hypothetical situation I don’t see how “they“ could be problematic. "They" has gotten an additional meaning, it's one of the picked pronouns alongside xe/etc, which is why some people consider using it to still be using the wrong pronoun.

josteink 7y ago

Too late, damage done. This poison is what you get when you let activists force the introduction of a CoC. The first revision of the CoC may not be utterly reprehensible, but once its power is established, minority activists who would like to force their views on others will just suggest “updates” to the CoC. And suddenly there you are with entire SE being toxic drivel, because nobody dared to say “no” to a vocal minority. I wonder who will be next.

wizzwizz4 7y ago
The CoC is not what caused this issue. Sure, it was badly worded, but it's responsible for a different set of problems. And any pushing of it came from within the company and – given how bad it was – probably without much consulting of knowledgeable representatives of the affected groups.

zzleeper 7y ago

I'm surprised that Monica Cellio was initially crucified by name all over the place (by SO), but the employee that did this is still listed everywhere as "an employee".

pascal_cuoq 7y ago

The only new information I got out of this is what passes for “Score:5, Insightful” nowadays at Slashdot. It's not pretty. What is supposed to make this interesting, the three links to actual sources of information, or the comments by Slashdot users?

rahuldottech 7y ago

The community is not happy: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/340906/update-an-agreement-with-monica-cellio https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/340906/update-an-ag...

OldGuyInTheClub 7y ago

I'm puzzled. I haven't read all of the history referenced in the comments but did visit the MetaStack post and a lot of the comments therein. Why would this moderator have to apply for readmission since it seems she was dismissed unjustly?