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I upvoted because this isn't the only bot, it's a big public example of a trend I've seen. We've had two different new hires try to set up Slack bots with autor

I upvoted because this isn't the only bot, it's a big public example of a trend I've seen. We've had two different new hires try to set up Slack bots with autoresponse complaints whenever someone says "guys", and now I know it's not just some weird idea they both happened to have.

tomlockwood 5y ago
You know one of the reasons you see the "trend" is people keep upvoting tiny things like this.
- cbg0 5y ago
  Those PRs are open whether we upvote this submission or not. Putting your head in the sand and pretending something isn't happening has never really worked, better to at least try to have some discourse.
  - tomlockwood 5y ago
    Is this poorly coded bot newsworthy, or even notable? Why?
    - vasco 5y ago
      Nobody knows, HN doesn't have an editor to ask. Much like the stock market nobody knows why stories get upvoted or not or stocks go up or down. The hivemind does what the hivemind does (with a caveat for astroturfing and brigading).
- SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
  I do. It's a hard problem! How do you know when a new phenomenon crosses the line from "minor issue which probably means your attention's being hijacked if you're worried about it" to "big thing that needs to be argued against or everyone's gonna start doing it"? I don't have a great answer, other than to say that inclusive language bots subjectively feel to me like they're now in the second bucket. I'd bet $20 that within a decade some major tech company will implement inclusive language rules into every team's linter.
  - tomlockwood 5y ago
    And? Who cares? The linter won't letMeDoSnakeCase? I move on. Is this worth our time to complain about this and upvote to number ONE article on HN?
    - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
      I wouldn't argue that this is a tremendously impactful problem, but that's not what "top of HN" represents and doesn't mean that it's not worth our time. If you don't think language is an important topic, it won't really matter to you which side of this argument wins, and you can just kinda skip over it the same way I skip the hardware posts on the frontpage. If you do think language is an important topic, I think you should do some reflection on why that is, and how similar motivations might be driving people to feel it's important to argue against this kind of bot. It's easy to accidentally fall into an attitude where whatever things I personally don't mind are implicitly "neutral", and so anyone who argues against them must be looking for things to get mad about.
      - tomlockwood 5y ago
        > If you don't think language is an important topic, This doesn't follow from anything I've said. > it's important to argue against this kind of bot. But is it? What's the magnitude of this problem?
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
        The effect of the problem is that, if the inclusive language bots win (which I'm confident they will absent some kind of counterargument), I'll have to communicate in a form of English I consider awkward and stilted and I'll have to implicitly endorse a couple of political stances about the concept of gender neutrality I don't agree with. I don't know how to quantify that into a "magnitude", but I don't think that's a precondition for discussing the issues of the day.
- funcDropShadow 5y ago
  That is the reason that every social media site which has a like or upvote should also have a dislike or downvote. That way you can signal, that you have a reaction to it, but you don't want to spread it further.
  - tomlockwood 5y ago
    Unfortunately, many of these sites rely on ad revenue, and a hate watch with a dislike still provides ad revenue.
gaws 5y ago
> We've had two different new hires try to set up Slack bots with autoresponse complaints whenever someone says "guys", and now I know it's not just some weird idea they both happened to have. Why are new hires allowed to make bots on a company Slack server. Take away their privileges. Problem solved.
- SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
  Well, why not? People deciding to code Slack bots on their own initiative has done a lot of good for us, and the problem was easily solved in both cases by removing the slack bots and (I've heard secondhand) a short private conversation about it. If we ever get to a point where leaders aren't willing to push back against a "guys" bot, presumably anyone who wants to build one would be able to get through whatever approval process could be put in place.

tomlockwood 5y ago

You know one of the reasons you see the "trend" is people keep upvoting tiny things like this.

cbg0 5y ago
Those PRs are open whether we upvote this submission or not. Putting your head in the sand and pretending something isn't happening has never really worked, better to at least try to have some discourse.
- tomlockwood 5y ago
  Is this poorly coded bot newsworthy, or even notable? Why?
  - vasco 5y ago
    Nobody knows, HN doesn't have an editor to ask. Much like the stock market nobody knows why stories get upvoted or not or stocks go up or down. The hivemind does what the hivemind does (with a caveat for astroturfing and brigading).
SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
I do. It's a hard problem! How do you know when a new phenomenon crosses the line from "minor issue which probably means your attention's being hijacked if you're worried about it" to "big thing that needs to be argued against or everyone's gonna start doing it"? I don't have a great answer, other than to say that inclusive language bots subjectively feel to me like they're now in the second bucket. I'd bet $20 that within a decade some major tech company will implement inclusive language rules into every team's linter.
- tomlockwood 5y ago
  And? Who cares? The linter won't letMeDoSnakeCase? I move on. Is this worth our time to complain about this and upvote to number ONE article on HN?
  - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
    I wouldn't argue that this is a tremendously impactful problem, but that's not what "top of HN" represents and doesn't mean that it's not worth our time. If you don't think language is an important topic, it won't really matter to you which side of this argument wins, and you can just kinda skip over it the same way I skip the hardware posts on the frontpage. If you do think language is an important topic, I think you should do some reflection on why that is, and how similar motivations might be driving people to feel it's important to argue against this kind of bot. It's easy to accidentally fall into an attitude where whatever things I personally don't mind are implicitly "neutral", and so anyone who argues against them must be looking for things to get mad about.
    - tomlockwood 5y ago
      > If you don't think language is an important topic, This doesn't follow from anything I've said. > it's important to argue against this kind of bot. But is it? What's the magnitude of this problem?
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
        The effect of the problem is that, if the inclusive language bots win (which I'm confident they will absent some kind of counterargument), I'll have to communicate in a form of English I consider awkward and stilted and I'll have to implicitly endorse a couple of political stances about the concept of gender neutrality I don't agree with. I don't know how to quantify that into a "magnitude", but I don't think that's a precondition for discussing the issues of the day.
funcDropShadow 5y ago
That is the reason that every social media site which has a like or upvote should also have a dislike or downvote. That way you can signal, that you have a reaction to it, but you don't want to spread it further.
- tomlockwood 5y ago
  Unfortunately, many of these sites rely on ad revenue, and a hate watch with a dislike still provides ad revenue.

gaws 5y ago

> We've had two different new hires try to set up Slack bots with autoresponse complaints whenever someone says "guys", and now I know it's not just some weird idea they both happened to have. Why are new hires allowed to make bots on a company Slack server. Take away their privileges. Problem solved.

SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
Well, why not? People deciding to code Slack bots on their own initiative has done a lot of good for us, and the problem was easily solved in both cases by removing the slack bots and (I've heard secondhand) a short private conversation about it. If we ever get to a point where leaders aren't willing to push back against a "guys" bot, presumably anyone who wants to build one would be able to get through whatever approval process could be put in place.