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In case you're genuinely curious, I suspect you're being downvoted because your parent comment comes off as incredibly gatekeepery[0]. It's also illustrative o

In case you're genuinely curious, I suspect you're being downvoted because your parent comment comes off as incredibly gatekeepery[0]. It's also illustrative of a very common occurrence in tech circles where the moment a woman mentions competence in a certain technology the first response of men around her is to throw technical questions at her in a way they simply don't in instances where a man mentions the same thing. [0]https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Gatekeeping https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Gatekeeping

RangerScience 7y ago
I was worried that was the case :/ Thanks for expressing this! I'd done the same regardless of gender (or experience level); it's really been that much of a game changer. Edit: Do you know of any ways to share this sort of enthusiasm that won't come off that way? Or is just something that's not possible?
- steerpike 7y ago
  That's a really excellent question and I've sat here way longer than I probably should have over-analysing it to try and think of an answer for you. I do think it's possible, but it's difficult to provide you with exact steps to follow that I'd class as a catch all. Enthusiasm is great, but try to make sure that your enthusiasm isn't riding roughshod over the context - in your example it was easy to read your enthusiasm the wrong way because it was so tangentially related to what the OP was discussing. You kind of latched on to a throw away part of the primary topic and rushed into wanting to discuss that small part of. In that context it's easy to assume you're a type of bad actor[0] rather than just enthusiastic. Make it harder for people to assume the worst by taking their conversation seriously before jumping in with your off-topic excitement. [0]https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/bad+actor https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/bad+actor
  - jraph 7y ago
    A solution in that case might have been to turn your question into an affirmation, something like: A bit off topic, but I recently discovered [...]
- cweagans 7y ago
  IMO: pick a different setting for expressing the enthusiasm. It's kind of weird to respond to "Hey I did this cool thing that I'm really proud of" with "[nothing about that specific thing] have you ever done this very specific thing in the programming language that you happened to be using". It'd be like going to somebody's university graduation and instead of congratulating them, you ask if they have a detailed opinion on some obscure philosophy text. It's potentially a fun thing to discuss, but it's a weird time to bring it up.

RangerScience 7y ago

I was worried that was the case :/ Thanks for expressing this! I'd done the same regardless of gender (or experience level); it's really been that much of a game changer. Edit: Do you know of any ways to share this sort of enthusiasm that won't come off that way? Or is just something that's not possible?

steerpike 7y ago
That's a really excellent question and I've sat here way longer than I probably should have over-analysing it to try and think of an answer for you. I do think it's possible, but it's difficult to provide you with exact steps to follow that I'd class as a catch all. Enthusiasm is great, but try to make sure that your enthusiasm isn't riding roughshod over the context - in your example it was easy to read your enthusiasm the wrong way because it was so tangentially related to what the OP was discussing. You kind of latched on to a throw away part of the primary topic and rushed into wanting to discuss that small part of. In that context it's easy to assume you're a type of bad actor[0] rather than just enthusiastic. Make it harder for people to assume the worst by taking their conversation seriously before jumping in with your off-topic excitement. [0]https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/bad+actor https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/bad+actor
- jraph 7y ago
  A solution in that case might have been to turn your question into an affirmation, something like: A bit off topic, but I recently discovered [...]
cweagans 7y ago
IMO: pick a different setting for expressing the enthusiasm. It's kind of weird to respond to "Hey I did this cool thing that I'm really proud of" with "[nothing about that specific thing] have you ever done this very specific thing in the programming language that you happened to be using". It'd be like going to somebody's university graduation and instead of congratulating them, you ask if they have a detailed opinion on some obscure philosophy text. It's potentially a fun thing to discuss, but it's a weird time to bring it up.