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I understand that English may be your second language, but note that you are using a male pronoun (“him”), whereas presumably you would consider female technica

I understand that English may be your second language, but note that you are using a male pronoun (“him”), whereas presumably you would consider female technical cofounders. You could write that as “ask them to code”. If it’s a web site you could make a start creating wireframes with balsamiq or mockups with figma.

da39a3ee 5y ago
Could I please ask for some explanation of the multiple downvotes I've received here? I note the following: 1. I made my point politely, and constructively. 2. I did also offer an answer. 3. My point was not related to "preferred pronouns" or even "political correctness". It's simply a violation of basic avoidance-of-sexism principles to use a male pronoun in this situation, when a technical cofounder may be any gender. (It hasn't been acceptable to do that for several decades.)
- Zababa 5y ago
  > (It hasn't been acceptable to do that for several decades.) Really? Gender neutral text is something recent for me, I'd say in the last 10 years. And most of what you can find around still use most of the time males as examples, as a default, etc. I'll add that "avoidance-of-sexism" could be seen as political correctness depending on who you're talking about. I agree with the idea of gender-neutral text in general though.
  - da39a3ee 5y ago
    In the culture's that I'm familiar (western anglophone) it's entirely unacceptable to use the word "him" for a putative technical cofounder that does not exist. I've flagged this thread to give the moderators an opportunity to consider this data point; HN is a great community but I think that it is numerically male-dominated. That of course needn't necessarily translate into cultural problems but I am disappointed by the behavior of thread participants here.
    - Zababa 5y ago
      "entirely unacceptable" sounds very strong to me. The Wikipedia page on gender-neutral language has a point on avoiding "him" and the reference dates back from 2015 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_language. But nothing on that page suggests something as strong as what you say. Same thing with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_English#Pronouns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_English#P.... The page suggests that there is an ongoing debate, but no answer is accepted by everyone. Perhaps your social circles don't reflect the whole western anglophone sphere? Considering all of that, you unnecessarily said that English may not be the author's primary language, implying that their usage of "him" was only rooted in ignorance and couldn't be a deliberate choice. You said that you made your point "politely", but that isn't the case. I don't know if you acted in bad faith or in ignorance, but in both cases, you should try to be a bit more nice and open about how you approach people here. I don't really get what you're trying to say with "I've flagged this thread to give the moderators an opportunity to consider this data point; HN is a great community but I think that it is numerically male-dominated. That of course needn't necessarily translate into cultural problems but I am disappointed by the behavior of thread participants here.". Are you disappointed because you got downvoted without any explanation? Or that people don't react as much as they should to the "him"? Or something else?
      - da39a3ee 5y ago
        > you unnecessarily said that English may not be the author's primary language They wrote "Which one is easy?" when they meant to write "Which one is easiest?" or perhaps "easier". Given that, I certainly assumed English wasn't their first language. I honestly thought I was improving matters by leading with the possibility that English wasn't their first language, in order to avoid it seeming that non-English speakers were being battered for a mistake. I'm interested you perceived that as impolite or disingenuous; it wasn't the latter, although in retrospect, and given my priors, a semi-literate native English speaker is a distinct possibility. > Are you disappointed because ...people don't react as much as they should to the "him"? Yes, this. It seems we just disagree. You may be right that I am overstating the case regarding all gender-specific language being "unacceptable", but on reading this particular example, my immediate reaction, which has not weakened in the ensuing discussion, is that it is entirely inappropriate. Perhaps I'm failing to recognize a nuance or finer distinction whereby I place this example in a different category from certain other examples of he/him. I didn't think it was the subject matter context, although that is worth noting. I.e. that the male-gendered language here hardly helps the undeniably undesirable proportions of men and women in technical roles.

da39a3ee 5y ago

Could I please ask for some explanation of the multiple downvotes I've received here? I note the following: 1. I made my point politely, and constructively. 2. I did also offer an answer. 3. My point was not related to "preferred pronouns" or even "political correctness". It's simply a violation of basic avoidance-of-sexism principles to use a male pronoun in this situation, when a technical cofounder may be any gender. (It hasn't been acceptable to do that for several decades.)

Zababa 5y ago
> (It hasn't been acceptable to do that for several decades.) Really? Gender neutral text is something recent for me, I'd say in the last 10 years. And most of what you can find around still use most of the time males as examples, as a default, etc. I'll add that "avoidance-of-sexism" could be seen as political correctness depending on who you're talking about. I agree with the idea of gender-neutral text in general though.
- da39a3ee 5y ago
  In the culture's that I'm familiar (western anglophone) it's entirely unacceptable to use the word "him" for a putative technical cofounder that does not exist. I've flagged this thread to give the moderators an opportunity to consider this data point; HN is a great community but I think that it is numerically male-dominated. That of course needn't necessarily translate into cultural problems but I am disappointed by the behavior of thread participants here.
  - Zababa 5y ago
    "entirely unacceptable" sounds very strong to me. The Wikipedia page on gender-neutral language has a point on avoiding "him" and the reference dates back from 2015 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_language. But nothing on that page suggests something as strong as what you say. Same thing with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_English#Pronouns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_English#P.... The page suggests that there is an ongoing debate, but no answer is accepted by everyone. Perhaps your social circles don't reflect the whole western anglophone sphere? Considering all of that, you unnecessarily said that English may not be the author's primary language, implying that their usage of "him" was only rooted in ignorance and couldn't be a deliberate choice. You said that you made your point "politely", but that isn't the case. I don't know if you acted in bad faith or in ignorance, but in both cases, you should try to be a bit more nice and open about how you approach people here. I don't really get what you're trying to say with "I've flagged this thread to give the moderators an opportunity to consider this data point; HN is a great community but I think that it is numerically male-dominated. That of course needn't necessarily translate into cultural problems but I am disappointed by the behavior of thread participants here.". Are you disappointed because you got downvoted without any explanation? Or that people don't react as much as they should to the "him"? Or something else?
    - da39a3ee 5y ago
      > you unnecessarily said that English may not be the author's primary language They wrote "Which one is easy?" when they meant to write "Which one is easiest?" or perhaps "easier". Given that, I certainly assumed English wasn't their first language. I honestly thought I was improving matters by leading with the possibility that English wasn't their first language, in order to avoid it seeming that non-English speakers were being battered for a mistake. I'm interested you perceived that as impolite or disingenuous; it wasn't the latter, although in retrospect, and given my priors, a semi-literate native English speaker is a distinct possibility. > Are you disappointed because ...people don't react as much as they should to the "him"? Yes, this. It seems we just disagree. You may be right that I am overstating the case regarding all gender-specific language being "unacceptable", but on reading this particular example, my immediate reaction, which has not weakened in the ensuing discussion, is that it is entirely inappropriate. Perhaps I'm failing to recognize a nuance or finer distinction whereby I place this example in a different category from certain other examples of he/him. I didn't think it was the subject matter context, although that is worth noting. I.e. that the male-gendered language here hardly helps the undeniably undesirable proportions of men and women in technical roles.