7 ms·

In software development, nobody knows you're a dog.

type0 5y ago
It's been broader than that before https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_you%27re_a_dog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_... Unfortunately even in some open source projects you can't be a pseudonymous dog anymore, you have to declare your pronouns, sometimes even ethnicity etc all in the name of equity. I don't like these kind of development and urge more more people to abandon such projects.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  My bigger concern is having some other dog commit a change to my Terms of Conduct without prior experience in the org, and then witch-hunting me when I mark their PR as wontfix.
- forgingahead 5y ago
  Yes, the identity politics seeping into what was previously an anonymous, decentralised, and democratic process of software development has been both sickening and infuriating. I echo the call to abandon such politicised projects, and also to immediately cut out those for who identity is more important than meritocracy of work.
  - baremetal 5y ago
    yeah seeing this transpire serves to confirm the decision to move to another line of work. i have only enough energy to solve real problems, cant be wasting energy on made up ones.
- Igelau 5y ago
  Gender: Bitch Pronouns: Who's a good girl Ethnicity: Rottweiler
- Guthur 5y ago
  It's sort of strange that this selective pronoun approach only really works in an online context and doesn't scale appropriately to real life interactions, to the point where pronouns become useless as an information compression and so we would be better off not using them at all and just use proper nouns. But this is where it gets funny because that's easiest in most online comms with the use of @. It's quite clear no one has any idea what they are doing.
  - treeman79 5y ago
    It’s a way to force people to participate and to alienate those that don’t want to. Lost my job because I didn’t want to participate.
    - Eldt 5y ago
      If you don't want to be kind to others then that's on you
      - nuerow 5y ago
        > If you don't want to be kind to others then that's on you Kindness has really nothing to do with persecuting and punishing anyone who doesn't comply with arbitrary demands regarding etiquette.
      - vibrato2 5y ago
        It’s not kind to encourage delusions or mental illness. Loving someone enough to tell them the truth is kind.
        lostcolony 5y ago
        Even if you're against trans people, in an online forum, normalizing calling out pronouns allows cisgendered women to say "I'm a woman and would like to be called as such" without it being disruptive or cause men to view her as pushy.
- upofadown 5y ago
  >...you have to declare your pronouns, sometimes even ethnicity etc all in the name of equity. Where and how would you do this? How would anyone know if you just made stuff up?
  - FearlessNebula 5y ago
    Not a FOSS project, but the black people twitter subreddit apparently does photo confirmation of your wrist.
  - baremetal 5y ago
    i identify as amish. my pronouns are "builds stuff" and "feeds people". ;) you know im not making it up because you can live in the houses ive built, run the code ive written, and eat the food ive grown. i dont know what everyone else is up to though with their "identity politics". seems irrelevant to anything productive. why would anyone care what your pronouns are? you arent special.
- pavlov 5y ago
  Isn’t the whole point of declaring pronouns that it gives you the option not to be gendered, if you prefer? If you’re a pseudonymous dog, your pronouns can be “they/them”.
  - lostcolony 5y ago
    That, and to prevent it from being presumed all male. That is, without calling out pronouns, people will either default to "he/him" (which presumes everyone is male), or "they/them". If you don't want to identify a gender, "they/them" doesn't. But it normalizes calling out pronouns such that someone can say "I am a woman and would like to be called as such" without sticking out. That's really the intention; by making it so everyone, even those who legitimately don't care how they're identified (which is a smaller number than those who are fine being 'defaulted' to 'he/him' or 'they/them'; most who don't want to call out a pronoun will object to being referred to as 'she/her') define a pronoun, it normalizes it for those to whom it is important. And it doesn't de-anonymize anything; "they/them" is an option, as is asking "please don't use pronouns when referring solely to me; use my username").
    - type0 5y ago
      > as is asking "please don't use pronouns when referring solely to me; use my username"). Often it's not considered as an option though.
      - lostcolony 5y ago
        Sure, but it still would need to be provided pre-emptively; it doesn't really avoid the issue that some people have of having to upfront declare preferred mode of address. Even though that's perfectly normal even in day to day conversation, i.e., "Hi, I'm (name)".
  - nuerow 5y ago
    > Isn’t the whole point of declaring pronouns that it gives you the option not to be gendered, if you prefer? English already supported gender neutrality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_English Enforcing arbitrary pronouns aims to achieve the exact opposite: enforce the use of gender-specific pronouns to third-parties based on someone's preferences.
- Igelau 5y ago
  https://web.archive.org/web/20060203045552/http://modernarthur.com/blog/christwhatanasshole.html https://web.archive.org/web/20060203045552/http://modernarth... Yep, works here too.
- nyanpasu64 5y ago
  As a pseudonymous cat, the issues I've seen aren't being required (not just normalized) to supply a pronoun, but rather being expected to supply a human name to the KDE project for copyright tracking purposes.
  - type0 5y ago
    In the name of equity I would suggest not promoting cats on the Internet and software projects since your species already over-represented in picture on the web, we all know we should reverse the bias in favor of dogs. /s > but rather being expected to supply a human name For the record my cat is called Cat (that's short Catherine) and agrees with me.
- tomjen3 5y ago
  As I am not a dog, I usually search for the other option on race and write down "human". Granted it is fraud, as I am a Vulcan, but I can't say that.
- detaro 5y ago
  What open-source projects are those? Never encountered that.
h2odragon 5y ago
Eat enough bug reports and people begin to have suspicions.

It's been broader than that before https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_you%27re_a_dog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_... Unfortunately even in some open source projects you can't be a pseudonymous dog anymore, you have to declare your pronouns, sometimes even ethnicity etc all in the name of equity. I don't like these kind of development and urge more more people to abandon such projects.

smoldesu 5y ago
My bigger concern is having some other dog commit a change to my Terms of Conduct without prior experience in the org, and then witch-hunting me when I mark their PR as wontfix.
forgingahead 5y ago
Yes, the identity politics seeping into what was previously an anonymous, decentralised, and democratic process of software development has been both sickening and infuriating. I echo the call to abandon such politicised projects, and also to immediately cut out those for who identity is more important than meritocracy of work.
- baremetal 5y ago
  yeah seeing this transpire serves to confirm the decision to move to another line of work. i have only enough energy to solve real problems, cant be wasting energy on made up ones.
Igelau 5y ago
Gender: Bitch Pronouns: Who's a good girl Ethnicity: Rottweiler
Guthur 5y ago
It's sort of strange that this selective pronoun approach only really works in an online context and doesn't scale appropriately to real life interactions, to the point where pronouns become useless as an information compression and so we would be better off not using them at all and just use proper nouns. But this is where it gets funny because that's easiest in most online comms with the use of @. It's quite clear no one has any idea what they are doing.
- treeman79 5y ago
  It’s a way to force people to participate and to alienate those that don’t want to. Lost my job because I didn’t want to participate.
  - Eldt 5y ago
    If you don't want to be kind to others then that's on you
    - nuerow 5y ago
      > If you don't want to be kind to others then that's on you Kindness has really nothing to do with persecuting and punishing anyone who doesn't comply with arbitrary demands regarding etiquette.
    - vibrato2 5y ago
      It’s not kind to encourage delusions or mental illness. Loving someone enough to tell them the truth is kind.
      - lostcolony 5y ago
        Even if you're against trans people, in an online forum, normalizing calling out pronouns allows cisgendered women to say "I'm a woman and would like to be called as such" without it being disruptive or cause men to view her as pushy.
upofadown 5y ago
>...you have to declare your pronouns, sometimes even ethnicity etc all in the name of equity. Where and how would you do this? How would anyone know if you just made stuff up?
- FearlessNebula 5y ago
  Not a FOSS project, but the black people twitter subreddit apparently does photo confirmation of your wrist.
- baremetal 5y ago
  i identify as amish. my pronouns are "builds stuff" and "feeds people". ;) you know im not making it up because you can live in the houses ive built, run the code ive written, and eat the food ive grown. i dont know what everyone else is up to though with their "identity politics". seems irrelevant to anything productive. why would anyone care what your pronouns are? you arent special.
pavlov 5y ago
Isn’t the whole point of declaring pronouns that it gives you the option not to be gendered, if you prefer? If you’re a pseudonymous dog, your pronouns can be “they/them”.
- lostcolony 5y ago
  That, and to prevent it from being presumed all male. That is, without calling out pronouns, people will either default to "he/him" (which presumes everyone is male), or "they/them". If you don't want to identify a gender, "they/them" doesn't. But it normalizes calling out pronouns such that someone can say "I am a woman and would like to be called as such" without sticking out. That's really the intention; by making it so everyone, even those who legitimately don't care how they're identified (which is a smaller number than those who are fine being 'defaulted' to 'he/him' or 'they/them'; most who don't want to call out a pronoun will object to being referred to as 'she/her') define a pronoun, it normalizes it for those to whom it is important. And it doesn't de-anonymize anything; "they/them" is an option, as is asking "please don't use pronouns when referring solely to me; use my username").
  - type0 5y ago
    > as is asking "please don't use pronouns when referring solely to me; use my username"). Often it's not considered as an option though.
    - lostcolony 5y ago
      Sure, but it still would need to be provided pre-emptively; it doesn't really avoid the issue that some people have of having to upfront declare preferred mode of address. Even though that's perfectly normal even in day to day conversation, i.e., "Hi, I'm (name)".
- nuerow 5y ago
  > Isn’t the whole point of declaring pronouns that it gives you the option not to be gendered, if you prefer? English already supported gender neutrality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_English Enforcing arbitrary pronouns aims to achieve the exact opposite: enforce the use of gender-specific pronouns to third-parties based on someone's preferences.
Igelau 5y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20060203045552/http://modernarthur.com/blog/christwhatanasshole.html https://web.archive.org/web/20060203045552/http://modernarth... Yep, works here too.
nyanpasu64 5y ago
As a pseudonymous cat, the issues I've seen aren't being required (not just normalized) to supply a pronoun, but rather being expected to supply a human name to the KDE project for copyright tracking purposes.
- type0 5y ago
  In the name of equity I would suggest not promoting cats on the Internet and software projects since your species already over-represented in picture on the web, we all know we should reverse the bias in favor of dogs. /s > but rather being expected to supply a human name For the record my cat is called Cat (that's short Catherine) and agrees with me.
tomjen3 5y ago
As I am not a dog, I usually search for the other option on race and write down "human". Granted it is fraud, as I am a Vulcan, but I can't say that.
detaro 5y ago
What open-source projects are those? Never encountered that.

h2odragon 5y ago

Eat enough bug reports and people begin to have suspicions.