“Sorry, but it's a bit ridiculous that something as minor as the color of a tiny hat in an image that's only going to be seen once can be "fixed" so quickly, when other REAL issues that are actually related to Visual Studio itself get closed as "not a priority".”
That's not a useful comment. Changing a hat color can be changed quickly because it's easy. Fixing "real" issues is a lot more difficult, requiring more time, people, development, qa, and so on.
Sorry, who was being offended here? Who's shame is being protected? Maybe "his" partner did "cheat" on him. Visual Studio should not be used by people with unfaithful partners? I understand being culturally sensitive, but I fail to see who was being wronged here, and who benefits from the change.
I love the following comment because it begs the question: Where do we draw the line? When do we, as a society, stop contemplating every single person special needs? When do we stop the "everyone is a snowflake" mentality?
"Very disappointing. The most stupid change ever made. I found the new color offensive to me and many i know so change it to another color".
Also the question: on who does the responsibility to be tolerant and understanding lie in such a situation? Is it our responsibility to change green hats to blue, or their responsibility to understand that not everyone sees any negative connotations with green hats? I think in this case, where there is absolutely no protected class being victimised (cuckolds are surely not a protected class), it should not be changed.
Both. And with fix being so easy and self-contained, it shouldn't even trigger any discussion. You just fix it and are done with it.
If fixing it meant more work, like redesigning all of the artwork, then you can ask the other side to be tolerant and understanding. In this case, there was no need to.
I agree the pragmatic thing to do is just to change it, but how much work the fix requires is not really the point here. We're talking about something more than what is simply the optimal business decision. I think it's wrong to indulge people's prejudices.
We simply don't, because why would we. Of course the effort to benefit ratio has to be considered, but in many cases, like this one, fixes are actually trivial. The only thing that really needs to be ignored is awful trolling, like the one you quoted.
Changing the hat's color is such a non-issue that it's really pathetic that there's actually a discussion about it.
This does make people ask that question, but looked at from another way, if they have have the possibility of offending a totality of the largest market in the world, does that really fit into this question. It's more like an extreme example to show that sometimes a trivial change would have a large effect.
Globalism and PC culture aside, aren't "cultural" biases bad? Aren't we are supposed to stand united and be against dogmatic principles, prejudices and intolerance? I should be able to wear a green hat or/and a skirt outside if I want to, without being shamed or threatened. As well as I should be able to incorporate that hat and a skirt in any of my designs or mockups if those please my senses and fit my vision, right?
But it's also your right to change anything you want for whatever reason you want. Microsoft decided that they don't care about the color and prefer to not have some of their users thinking about their cultural biases when seeing the image. They're free to do so.
It spells weakness. Weakness disguised as a tolerance of intolerance.
"prefer to not have some of their users thinking about their cultural biases" -- extremely negative approach. I don't think you guessed it right. That's the same as saying "we are supporting you cultural biases, don't worry about improving. ever."
How about changing the color of the main character in the game Chuchel[0] to avoid misinterpretations suggesting any blackface connotations? For European developers it was a surprise that some Americans were getting such associations - after all, it's just a black ball of dirt. After swapping the color palette, it pretty much received the same, if not worse, "anti-SJW" reactions like those we can see here. Was this also an "extremely negative approach", or is this one exempted due to being a western culture bias? :P
> Globalism and PC culture aside, aren't "cultural" biases bad?
No, not inherently. Cultural “biases” about the meaning of symbols particularly, unless you think language itself is bad.
> Aren't we are supposed to stand united and be against dogmatic principles, prejudices and intolerance?
The meaning of symbols in a particular culture may be influenced by any of those things, but it is not intrinsically any one of them, so those are at best tangentially relevant, and more likely irrelevant, to the issue at hand.
Also, those are tenets of PC culture, not “PC culture aside”.
> As well as I should be able to incorporate that hat and a skirt in any of my designs or mockups if those please my senses and fit my vision, right?
You can, just as you can include a figure with and extended middle finger. OTOH, product designs are a form of communication, and communication done without awareness of what symbols mean to the audience tends to be less effective or even counterproductive.
Middle finger is universal. I feels like you are saying oranges and I'm talking about apples.
What about me seeing a (what I perceive as) bag of oats on some drawn porch in one of the Huawei adds? Should I scream of indecency and insensitivity, suggesting that Huawei promotes something offensive, and start trolling their support channels?
I have a question... Mao Zedong used to wear a green hat... that means that he was a cuckold?
Are chinese people offended by maoists with the green hat?
Is Luigi offensive in China?
Or Link from Zelda?
I just want to understand.
Perhaps you can explain me why you think my comment is unsubstantive. I was in China, and the images of Mao with the green hat with the communist star are very common. And he is like a god there. So please, explain me the difference. And of course is not an unsbstantive comment, you're offending me.
I'm sure you have a lot of interesting things to say about your experiences, and they're welcome here. But your comment upthread was not the way to do this on HN. The ratio of inflammation to information was too high in your comment.
If you'd like to post a longer, thoughtful comment about your experience, that would be fine. Such a comment should include information that people can learn from. If it contains inflammatory details, it should convey them neutrally, rather than in a way that is likely to provoke fiery reactions. That way your post will more likely lead to good conversation, which is what this site is for, rather than angry argument, which it is not.
These considerations grow in importance as a topic becomes more divisive, the way nationalistic topics and especially large ideological topics (e.g. Mao) inevitably are.
39 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 84.2 ms ] threadA green hat on a random unidentified figure in an illustration is funny at worst.
“Sorry, but it's a bit ridiculous that something as minor as the color of a tiny hat in an image that's only going to be seen once can be "fixed" so quickly, when other REAL issues that are actually related to Visual Studio itself get closed as "not a priority".”
/s
"Very disappointing. The most stupid change ever made. I found the new color offensive to me and many i know so change it to another color".
If fixing it meant more work, like redesigning all of the artwork, then you can ask the other side to be tolerant and understanding. In this case, there was no need to.
Changing the hat's color is such a non-issue that it's really pathetic that there's actually a discussion about it.
- remove any imagery of LGBT people for Chinese market
- remove any imagery of black people for Eastern European market
- black out any imagery of women for Saudi market
And yes, this actually happens all the time. Maybe it's ok not to market to people who are offended by some things?
But it's also your right to change anything you want for whatever reason you want. Microsoft decided that they don't care about the color and prefer to not have some of their users thinking about their cultural biases when seeing the image. They're free to do so.
"prefer to not have some of their users thinking about their cultural biases" -- extremely negative approach. I don't think you guessed it right. That's the same as saying "we are supporting you cultural biases, don't worry about improving. ever."
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuchel
No, not inherently. Cultural “biases” about the meaning of symbols particularly, unless you think language itself is bad.
> Aren't we are supposed to stand united and be against dogmatic principles, prejudices and intolerance?
The meaning of symbols in a particular culture may be influenced by any of those things, but it is not intrinsically any one of them, so those are at best tangentially relevant, and more likely irrelevant, to the issue at hand.
Also, those are tenets of PC culture, not “PC culture aside”.
> As well as I should be able to incorporate that hat and a skirt in any of my designs or mockups if those please my senses and fit my vision, right?
You can, just as you can include a figure with and extended middle finger. OTOH, product designs are a form of communication, and communication done without awareness of what symbols mean to the audience tends to be less effective or even counterproductive.
What about me seeing a (what I perceive as) bag of oats on some drawn porch in one of the Huawei adds? Should I scream of indecency and insensitivity, suggesting that Huawei promotes something offensive, and start trolling their support channels?
https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/storage/temp/633...
contains a woman (or is it?) driving a male bicyle (with a horizontal bar)
If you'd like to post a longer, thoughtful comment about your experience, that would be fine. Such a comment should include information that people can learn from. If it contains inflammatory details, it should convey them neutrally, rather than in a way that is likely to provoke fiery reactions. That way your post will more likely lead to good conversation, which is what this site is for, rather than angry argument, which it is not.
These considerations grow in importance as a topic becomes more divisive, the way nationalistic topics and especially large ideological topics (e.g. Mao) inevitably are.
In addition to https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, you might find these links helpful for getting the spirit of this site:
https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html
http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html
http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html