Mostly another non-apology. Not sorry for what they did, but for doing it arbitrarily, without following a procedure, and for not taking account of the Jewish holiday Monica was observing. Instead of just imposing the CoC they’re going to rush it through three days of discussion, then impose it.
They all acknowledge that they made mistakes, name those mistakes reasonably accurately, take personal responsibility for those mistakes and apologize for the harm those mistakes caused.
What else were you looking to see? I would have liked to see more of an explanation of why these mistakes were made, but this is a far better apology than the last one.
Of course, an apology is just words and should be taken with a grain of salt until actions are taken to back up those words. It seems to me that they could easily have reached out to Monica BEFORE posting a public apology.
We will see how they handle feedback on the new CoC and what other actions they will take to restore trust.
It would take them a few clicks to undo their mistake and reinstate the mod, no?
> We’ll keep those discussions completely private unless we both agree to share any of it with the community.
So unless they agree to it, she can't publish what they talk about in private, no matter the words spoken or the outcome. That's such a weird commitment to privacy in this context, it's not like this has anything to do with private stuff as far as the moderator is concerned, unless I'm completely mistaken. So it's basically offering a conversation with the option on their part to pretend there never was a conversation, should it fail to achieve the goal they no doubt already outlined in meetings.
Yeah, that stuck out to me as well. She’s been discussing this openly, so it reads like a threat to keep all future grievances private unless SO allows otherwise if there’s any hope of being reinstated.
> It would take them a few clicks to undo their mistake and reinstate the mod, no?
I'm not convinced that removing Monica as a moderator was a mistake.
She made it clear in a comment quoted by The Register that she refused to use the singular they in any circumstance, even when it was known that it was someone's preferred pronoun.
And in the leaked transcripts (if you trust them) it seems she was repeatedly asked to rethink her stance on this by other moderators, and repeatedly refused.
Obviously SO could have done a better job in terms of the process, timing, and communication (which is what they apologised for), but ultimately it seems that she's just not not a good fit for SO. There's no suggestion that SO is not going to enforce a rule requiring moderators to use people's preferred pronouns, when known and when appropriate, and Monica was very clear that in at least some cases she would not do so. So...one way or another, she was clearly going to be removed, right?
Arguably she could be re-instated today and then re-removed later in the week when the CoC changes come into force, but to what end? That doesn't help her, SO, or the community. (And that assumes she didn't violate the existing CoC, which is still disputed.)
> She made it clear talking to a journalist from The Register
I'm not sure what you're referring to: Monica didn't talk to anyone at The Register..? Only Stack Overflow knew that article was coming.
If there was a formal policy in place, Monica would not violate it. If the differences were unresolvable, she would have resigned, but only after looking for a compromise.
Under no circumstances would she have broken with policy and needed to be forcibly removed. We have eight years of character evidence from her, including several posts from Stack Exchange employees over the years commending her reasonableness and contributions. Sara Chipps' actions ignore all of that and assumed the worst.
I fixed my wording relating to the Register article; it's getting a little confusing to try and track all the different comment threads, edits, and updates.
As for the rest of your comment, that seems to contradict claims made by others, including other moderators, but alright. Even granting it to be 100% true, that suggests as most that she should have resigned (or been removed) this week instead of a week and a half ago, right?
> She made it clear in a post quoted by The Register that she refused to use the singular they in any circumstance, even when it was known that it was someone's preferred pronoun.
So just fire her pre-emptively without warning because she might violate a policy that's not yet in place?
> she was repeatedly asked to rethink her stance on this by other moderators, and repeatedly refused
I don't know what transcript that refers to, but her account reads very different:
> I raised some issues with the formation of the policy and asked some questions, the vast majority of which were never answered.
[..]
> On Monday I received email from a different CM explaining why they were making the change and mis-stating some issues I had raised. Concerned that I had not made myself clear in my haste to respond quickly on Friday, I replied with some questions. This was an amicable exchange; I thought we were having a productive conversation. I was promised a reply by this past Friday.
> Instead, I saw my diamond disappear before my eyes and briefly saw an announcement from a CM in TL that contained false allegations against me. When I tried to respond I was booted from the room. Around this time I received email firing me. This email did not cite anything I have done wrong; this was a pre-emptive move that runs counter to how SE tells moderators to treat users when considering suspensions. (Moderators suspend in response to behavior, not speculatively.)
I agree that it wasn't a mistake though: a mistake is pressing the wrong button. This is just a shoddy way to treat people, and a shoddy way to not-apologize for it.
> SO could have done a better job in terms of the process, timing, and communication
Namely a.) not fire for precrime, b.) not ever c.) respond to questions as promised, rather than answering with a ban for no valid reason.
I regularly write emails on mailing lists in reply to people whose gender and pronoun I do not know. Sometimes their name is ambiguous (as an American English speaker — maybe it’s reasonably clear in another language or region). Sometimes someone’s name is in an alphabet or other orthography that I can’t read at all. In general, this isn’t a problem, and I usually manage without pronouns.
In fact, I would find a policy that would require me to know someone’s pronoun at all to be deeply problematic. Imagine for a moment a purely binary world in which everyone was simply male or female. I would still prefer to think of kernel contributors I’ve never met as people, not as men or women. Adding LGBTQ+ into the mix changes nothing. If someone sends me a patch to review, my response should not depend on whether the sender is male, female, “they”, “xe”, or anything else.
So I tend to agree with Monica’s publicly stated point: if I’m going to use a potentially gendered pronoun to refer to someone, I should respect their preferences. But I don’t think I should be required to do so in the first place.
For what it’s worth, there are contexts where personalized pronouns are a nonstarter. If someone is anonymously reviewing an academic paper or a blinded resume, the reviewer must not know the pronoun in question.
Fully agree - I believe one of the core stated issues about writing in a non-gendered way when the "preferred gender pronoun" is known is that is it can be considered rude and disrespectful to the persons identification. And, to me, this seems quite forced and too "inclusive". I have absolutely no issues with any preferences, identifications or anything similar, but I don't think anything positive for any community can come out of characterizing people as rude when they simply try to write/speak in a way that is as neutral as possible, and instead require them to go out of their way to find and recognize the person's preferred pronoun. Especially so when the topic/context is one that has nothing to with the person / gender / identification - as is mostly the case on sites like SE...
Is using "they" as third-person pronoun across the board potentially problematic on SE?
I can get that a person identifying as "she" shouldn't be referred to as "he" and vice-versa, but if somebody's having issues with the only all-inclusive alternative, it's not something anyone should be expected to accommodate for.
I seriously hope this is a straw man. Same thing as the few individuals who make a ruckus whenever they're not referred to as "Dr". If I'm forced to keep track of people's gender identities to be able to contribute, I'm out.
> She made it clear in a comment quoted by The Register that she refused to use the singular they in any circumstance, even when it was known that it was someone's preferred pronoun.
But this is more subtle than that. Monica didn't say that she would use "he" or "she" even when someone prefers "they". She said that she would write in a gender-neutral manner while avoiding gendered pronouns altogether.
Here is the full context of Monica's stance:
> I completely agree that it is rude to call people what they don't want to be called; knowingly misgendering someone is not ok. But the policy was about positive, not negative, use of pronouns. I pointed out that as a professional writer I, by training, write in a gender-neutral way specifically to avoid gender landmines, and sought clarification that this would continue to be ok. To my surprise, other moderators in the room said that not using (third-person singular) pronouns at all is misgendering. The employee never clarified, and this is one of the questions I asked in email. In my email I said clearly that I'm on board with "use preferred pronouns when using pronouns", but from the fact that they fired me without warning (or answering the question), I conclude that that's not the policy. I haven't seen an actual policy, though I am being accused of violating it.
Yeah, that's a good point. If they're keeping the rule that you must use someone's preferred pronouns, then it sounds like Monica can no longer be a mod there regardless of their conversation.
And, I guess, that's the crux of the problem really. Does SO want people like her around? Ostensibly they do, if they're trying to have sites for Judaism, Islam, etc. But it seems incompatible with the new CoC. Monica offered the half measure of only using names, but it seems a hard needle to thread if you're trying to support incompatible ideologies. I think SO is going to have to give up something, and I'm betting it's going to be the goal of being a central place to discuss religion.
That sentence starts with "We", meaning Stack Overflow won't publish anything unless both sides agree to it. She's free to share whatever she wants, whenever she wants.
Granted, the sentence in question is awkwardly written I agree.
> We’ll be reaching out to her directly to apologize for the lack of process, privacy, and to discuss next steps. We’ll keep those discussions completely private unless we both agree to share any of it with the community.
I don't know... it's really awkward if so.
There are three "we"s here. First we = SO. Second we = ambiguous, following on from the first we it could be read as meaning SO like you say. But then, clearly, the third we = SO + Monica (and incidentally she is not named).
The part about her being free to share whatever she wants is not stated.
It's a small point to be sure. But consider: these statements are almost always run through multiple layers of approval before they go out. PR, legal, and relevant C-level execs, typically. And if it is an issue that has blown up, everyone is doubly and triply cautious about phrasing.
At best, the phrasing is innocently awkward. At worst, it's... revealing, I guess?
Disagree with the non-apology part. It's clearly very grovelling, although it's late and a response to the snowballing community reaction rather than because it's the right thing to do.
Of course, it's possible that that reaction has prompted genuine reflection and contrition and the apology is sincere as well as a panic measure.
Groveling isn't an apology. If you ever have to make an apology of this type, always apologize to individuals before groups and before stating your mission. It reads better and gives the impression you care about the person. Also, undo what you did if you can, otherwise it's "sorry, not sorry".
Well, yes by definition, but groveling is not, in and of itself, an apology. Generally in an apology you undo what damage you did to the maximum extent allowable or offer some sort of compensation.
That is not how any apology I've heard of has ever worked. Apologies are an acknowledgement of wrongdoing, or of pain caused, usually combined with an attempt to avoid the same wrongdoing in the future.
All of that is evident here. Actions to make right a prior wrong (of which there are some here too) are not normally a requirement, although they can apology.
I guess I was taught differently. Apologies without positive action are hollow. Repentance requires positive steps and attempts to fix and undo the harm you have caused. How can a person truly trust an apology has meaning when harm is left in place?
Positive action need not be to fix what has already happened. Steps to prevent a repetition are still positive action, and imo do more to instill confidence that a behavior won't be repeated than an attempt to fix the existing mess.
Not to say that one shouldn't do both, but often it isn't possible to fix something you're apologizing for. That doesn't make sincere apology impossible.
Note that no where did they apologize for removing her from her position.
Ultimately this was an apology for procedural failings, not their ultimate impacts. Reinstating the removed mod would be correcting something they aren't apologizing for.
Disagree with the non-apology part - "I disagree with the 'non-apology' part of your comment"
It's clearly very grovelling - "the apology is clearly very grovelling".
I'll assume my comment confused you in some way due to me not typing every implied word or punctuation mark out (no snark intended - was on a phone), I can see that I suppose. Fair enough.
The former is redress and the latter is compensation. One of the great problems with the legal process is often all it can give is compensation and no apology, and often people really do want an apology.
The fear of being held legally liable for giving a simple apology is why various legislatures have recently passed laws that make it so apologies or assistance do not amount to legal liability for negligence. UK example: the Compensation Act 2006 s2.
Knowing the difference between an apology, a form of redress and compensation is important because a process may give a person one thing when they really want another.
I tried unsubscribing but none of the options actually worked. I stopped participating in the network about two years ago and I can’t say I’m disappointed.
Terrible apology. Codes of conduct are oppressive, officious trash being pushed by literal communist meddlers. The technorati are becoming insufferable.
i mean... most people are already on the moderator side, but she might need to take it slow too. i might be reading all this wrong but she is coming off as the side that is slightly aggressive to me. she's been going at every single post they make or people on these post.
i mean, that wasn't like her job, was it? again i might be reading all this wrong or maybe we aren't being shown everything.
> i mean, that wasn't like her job, was it? again i might be reading all this wrong or maybe we aren't being shown everything.
From what I've gathered, there seems to be additional angle here in which SE talked to the press, apparently using her real name and telling falsehoods about her, and now her name is attached to a slanderous story. This means for her it's no longer about a volunteer position at a tech company, but about her entire life.
> This apology has come not a moment too soon.... for the past days, almost a week, now, moderators from across most sites have collaborated on communicating our concerns to the SE staff. We have been working "in plain sight" of the SE staff (using the TL to collaborate). ... The timing of this apology appears to have been in a race to beat our statements about the issues.
Note that Fullerton's apology lacks any reference to Stack Exchange's turn towards the press during the controversy. As brought up in the Dear Stack Exchange letter (and in numerous Meta posts over the last week), it is concerning that SE would be willing to make a (potentially libelous) statement to the press, while refusing the same to the community.
This conspicuous absence makes me question the authenticity of the apology.
In this post, Mr Fullerton 'takes the brunt' of the blame, clearly defusing any more singular issues with the various individuals involved. This has the unfortunate side effect of highlighting how SE is not a community run system, but is more of an oligarchy. One wonders how it could have been handled better, but still, all decisions went through one person and it wasn't a community that did it.
My take on that decision is it's because SE is a business: They use the community to MAKE money.
Now, it's not entirely one-way as they need to be providing value to the community in order for it to continue but business decisions need to be made at some level and the community level isn't the place for it.
If SE perceived a loss in profits from community members' actions then they need to take steps to mitigate that loss and I suspect that's what they did(rightly or wrongly).
Not trying to defend SE's actions, or those of the community (I have no opinion on the matter and, not to make light of the issue, I don't really care either) but a mistake that I sometimes make is thinking businesses make decisions for reasons other than profit.
In saying that, if SE thought that putting it to a community vote (or whatever best decision making tool the community could use) would make them more money then they likely would have... makes good business sense.
My cynical self noticed that there are a lot of "apologize" and "sorry" in this update, yet I believe this is a first good step.
However, the update accumulated to the 'fix' being SO will release an updated CoC on Oct 7/10/11 with inputs from all mods, and an updated mod firing process. These are absolutely essential, no doubt, but incomplete.
What is missing, in my opinion, is the update still did not address how the original conflict came to the firing of a respected member. The most sincere way to apologize would be to use this failure of process as an example, to showcase how SO erred and how SO intends to change. Finally, a separate, public apology to the fired mod, with specific example of how SO mishandled each step, is crucial in regaining the trust.
EDIT: After giving some thoughts, I realize that SO is apologizing, not for wrongful termination, but for not privately firing the mod with due process. In SO's management eyes, the firing is still justified. Fine. Explain to us, with examples, how the firing is justified, and how pronoun usage would re-conciliate with moderators with religion restrictions.
It reads like a clinical PR piece. Mostly it reads as they're sorry it blew up in their face, and it doesn't really feel like they're sorry about what they did except harm themselves.
> how pronoun usage would re-conciliate with moderators with religion restrictions
It seems clear that, in their updated CoC, the requirement to be respectful trumps religious restrictions. And that's pretty much the standard here, isn't it? I can't imagine rudeness being OK here, even if it's required religiously.
That's a pretty large canyon you're leaping across to conflate someone's personal preference to how they get addressed and rudeness being "required religiously". Oops, I just used "they" without asking the hypothetical "someone" how they'd like to be addressed.
I assume youd also say someone believing a man cannot be a woman is someone who should be wiped from the public discourse of the internet as well. Can you be offended by it? Absolutely, but there is nothing inherently "rude" about such a statement.
I prefer to be addressed "Sir Knight of the Round Table". Failure to do so will constitute breaking HN and SE CoC. It doesn't take far down the rabbit hole for the shoe to land on the other side.
Well, Sir Knight of the Round Table, I don't have any problem with that. It's a little on the long side, but whatever makes you happy.
Seriously, though, that just simplifies to male.
I'm just an old anonymous coward who doesn't get out much. But I did ask a younger friend about this, and got that people who care advertise their declared status in their sig and/or username. As does, for example, "Zoe the transgirl".
Problem is she wasn't rude. She was communicating exemplary and no examples have been given of anything else. What is happening is she's been tried for thought crime in a secret court and it seems her professional[0] writing style can be construed using the necessary mental gymnastics as her not wanting to please the wishes of certain people.
[0]: again, not only professional but also exemplary based on all we've heard.
I'm not saying that Monica was rude. I'm not even talking specifically about her, here.
I'm postulating the existence of a religious person who would (for example) refuse to use "he" for a biologically female person who identifies as male. But would instead use singular "they", or passive voice, to evade the issue. I'm not saying that they would insist on using "she". Just that they wouldn't use "he".
That might be her position, based on two meta threads.[0,1] But she doesn't actually say that. Others sort of say that, and she doesn't correct them. And certainly I may have missed her clear statement. But as I've said, I'm not claiming that to be her position.
So anyway, if someone actually did refuse to use declared gender, that would arguably be rude. Or at least, it would be perceived as rudeness, which is arguably what matters in communities.
OK, good point. That does rule out using singular "they" after someone expresses a preference. For her, that is. But not for my hypothetical religious person. Who, it's hard to deny, wouldn't be all that unusual.
However, she doesn't flatly say "use preferred pronouns". And she also talks about not using pronouns at all.
So, as an alternative hypothetical, even avoiding pronouns completely when someone says "I declare as female" could be perceived as rude.
> even avoiding pronouns completely when someone says "I declare as female" could be perceived as rude.
Would it be rude if I simply ignored the comment and disengaged from the conversation? Hypothetically, I am doing it with the motivation of avoiding pronouns completely.
The contentious point in the TL discussions that led to all this appears to have been Monica's refusal to use singular "they" in particular. But there is certainly more context to that than I could hope to fit into a comment here, even if I knew all of it.
I don't know why religion gets involved. Requiring every else in the world to treat them with gloved hands at risk of public shaming seems rude to me. Bullying, even.
Is there a thread I can follow so I can "woke" myself on pronouns? I definitely fear LGBT+ now in a practical way. I'm naturally anti authority and I don't like this authoritarianism -- but I don't want tar and feather.
Religion only gets involved when people cite it to justify their behavior.
As much as I intellectually and emotionally support people's right to self-determination, it is a little frightening how fast things are changing. It's even more frightening how polarized things are getting. My best bet is listening carefully, being polite, and avoiding offense. Not that I'm always successful.
This isn't really hard. Use the pronouns people prefer. If you accidentally mis-gender somebody, it's not that big of a deal. Hell I do it with people I know and love. It happens. If you intentionally mis-gender people, then you are just an asshole.
> for a biologically female person who identifies as male
"biologically female" is a much more loose concept than one might think. Hermaphroditism, sex chromosome aneuploidy, androgen insensitivity etc etc etc... when it matters, doctors ask and run tests. Don't just assume you can guess what someone "biologically" is any more than you can guess what they identify as.
But this isn't about me. It's about my hypothetical religious person. Who might say, "she looks female to me". I'm not arguing that it would be a valid assessment.
> I'm postulating the existence of a religious person who would (for example)
Postulating the existence of a person with the traits you want to attack is a nice trick and is often referred to as a strawman.
It is not hard either, I could also want to postulate about the existence of certain people with unfavorable traits (no no, not pointing at anyone, just postulating), and then go on to paint large targets on them etc but I think we are better off without going further down that street.
> I'm postulating the existence of a religious person who would (for example) refuse to use "he" for a biologically female person who identifies as male.
Here's what the first of those you accuse has to say (in between a lot other):
> For the record, I personally don't usually have a problem using peoples' preferred pronouns online. I don't go around trying to figure out if the way individuals are representing themselves online is consistent with my beliefs about the nature of the universe.
> If person A comes along and demands that I refer to them by their "preferred pronoun" (even if it is a mismatch for their genetic sex or the grammar of the language being spoken) and I refuse, that's considered an insult. Now, SE staff's enforced interpretation is that if I deliberately avoid pronouns altogether, whether by carefully avoiding sentences that even need pronouns at all or by sticking to proper names or by disengaging from the individual — those are all being considered insults too if the other party says they are insulted.
And yes, he does say that gender issues about pronouns aren't an issue for him. But then he goes on to say:
> Unfortunately the new CoC (as interpreted by staff) specifically enshrines the rare and awkward scenario where those issues in particular are brought up and the other party demands affirmation of their specific world-view, and the staff interpretation makes no accommodation for agreeing to disagree or politely disengaging.
So no, I don't agree that it's another issue entirely. But a broader issue, yes.
Edit: Cut misquote.
Also:
> Ironically in the specific the issue at hand called out (using people's preferred pronouns) [Monica] is on record as being much more accommodating than I would be.
It was dumb of me to invent a hypothetical when I could just have quoted ex-moderators Caleb and Nathaniel. And broadened to issue from pronouns to being forced to actively support issues that violate religious beliefs.
> First of all, we hurt members of our LGBTQ+ community when they felt they couldn’t participate authentically and we didn’t respond quickly or strongly enough in supporting them. Worse, through our handling of this situation, we made them a target for harassment as people debated their right to express themselves and be addressed according to how they identify.
So wait - what are they apologizing for?
If I understand this situation correctly there are basically two sides:
- The people who put in place the new code of conduct, who think that they "hurt members of our LGBTQ+ community when they felt they couldn't participate authentically..." by not putting this code of conduct in place fast enough.
- The moderator who fired/the people who resigned who think they "hurt members of our LGBTQ+ community when they couldn't participate authentically..." when they put in place the new poorly thought out policy
Is this intended to double (triple? quadruple?) down on the original position? Or apologize for it and move to the second?
They are apologising for 1) not implementing the new CoC fast enough and 2) not being clear enough when they did, which led to people arguing about what happened, whether a CoC is even a good idea, whether or not people should be forced to use other people's preferred pronouns, etc.
So yes, this is intended to strictly double down on the original position.
This resignation notice [0] coincided closely with the Judaism moderator's firing by SE. It should provide a bit more context with respect to their apology to the LGBTQ+ community that felt let down by SE:
Not sure I understand what happened and who why people were offended. If there's wrongdoing by SO, what does this have to do with a holiday(jewish or other)?
Thanks for clarifications and filling in the gaps for me.
She is Jewish. They canned her at 6pm EST on a Friday then were a bit flippant about it using the no-class phrase We learned (or were painfully reminded, rather) to never ship at 6 PM (EDT) on a Friday in a previous update. It was also before a Jewish holiday.
This is not the way to treat people, but, if you think cynically, is an excellent way to make sure you have time before the person fired can make a proper response depending on how they practice.
SO removed a Jewish mod during a Jewish holiday, when she would not be using the internet. She complained about it, and they apologised for the timing.
I think they realized that having a time-sensitive process unfold during a religious holiday when observant individuals would be forbidden from being online (guessing here) was not a good idea. It could give the impression that they were trying to ramrod something through when a certain group of people would not be able to weigh in.
There is also the additional irony of being disrespectful of one's identity in the process of enforcing respect for others. It undermines the initial effort.
> Not sure I understand what happened and who why people were offended.
I'm pretty sure no one outside of SO does (except perhaps the terminated mod, if they have already reached out to her a they just said they would), since the whole reason for controversy was termination of a mod without explanation (there was circumstantial reason to suspect it was connected with the new CoC, which seems confirmed implicitly, but even then he exact relationship was an remains unclear.)
People are offended because the CoC changes concern a culture war issue, so people on both sides are keyed up for a chance to be offended, which ambiguity always provides.
> So they still won't say exactly what Monica did to deserve being de-modded
Direct from the apology:
> We’ll be reaching out to her directly to apologize for the lack of process, privacy, and to discuss next steps. We’ll keep those discussions completely private unless we both agree to share any of it with the community.
> ...and they still won't reinstate her.
Again, a direct quote from the apology:
> We’ll be sharing with our moderators this week our proposed processes for handling situations like this in the future. This includes a process for handling moderator removals, and a process for reinstating moderators who wish to be reinstated.
I don't want to provide too much additional input in this reply, because I believe David's words adequately speak for themselves. However, I do believe that taking those two points private and discussing them outside of the public view is the correct choice. Emotions are already running high on both sides of the argument, and it's not a bad idea to give everyone a moment to breathe, and come at the situation rationally. We should give them a chance to work it out.
That's kind of like punching someone in the stomach, then later apologizing for not following the correct punching procedure and for not respecting their privacy by punching them in public.
> We made a decision to act quickly, which I personally approved, but in doing so skipped several critical parts of the process.
Okay, got it. Acting in haste can lead you to make critical errors of judgment. Smart to slow down so you don't make the same mistake again.
> On Monday, October 7, we’ll be sharing a second draft of an update to our Code of Conduct with all moderators for feedback.
Good call. Get feedback on the revised plan from the moderators to whom it will apply. Smart move.
> On Thursday, October 10, the update to the Code of Conduct will be announced publicly.
Wait, what?
You just said that you need to slow things down because you acted too quickly the last time and ended up screwing things up and causing a lot of pain, which is the reason you're apologizing in the first place.
And now the timeline between "solicit feedback" and "release document publicly" is three days?
How in the world are you going to be able to thoughtfully incorporate any feedback other than typo corrections and still meet this deadline?
There is no reason to solicit feedback unless you actually plan to listen to it and to be prepared for that feedback to say that the draft still needs work. But this timeline does not allow enough time for that to happen.
The CoC is almost certainly already written, but this quip is a cherry on top:
> We’ll be reaching out to her directly to apologize for the lack of process, privacy, and to discuss next steps. We’ll keep those discussions completely private unless we both agree to share any of it with the community.
So they're going to demand she stays hush about what they say to her unless they approve? Seems extremely dishonest and scummy to try and control someone you've already wronged.
Literally speaking, sure. Absolutely it could mean that or half a dozen different things.
In the context of an apology about being heavy-handed, I highly doubt it means they intent to suppress speech from a third party that they have no power over, implied or otherwise.
I think he's just trying to avoid suggesting that if they don't release it all, it's because she didn't agree to it. If he'd said, "We'll release it publicly as long as Monica's ok with that," it could easily be seen as pressuring her to do so.
The schedule is a dead giveaway that there are no plans to actually take significant action on feedback. The feedback process is likely only there so that they can say "We requested feedback," and to appease the type of person who thinks "there was a written process, therefore the outcome must be unassailable."
I did delete all my accounts when this first came out. Fortunately I've been around long enough that I don't find stackoverlow that useful for myself, but it does mean I won't be providing help to other people anymore. Hopefully a new stackoverflow will arise soon.
I would do this, but I wonder what damage it would do to people like me several years ago. It was a fantastic resource for me when I was a junior, and I see juniors today relying on it too. I don’t care about SE the company — in fact, I’d love to see anything with a hint of SJW meddling implode — but I don’t want to hurt the resources and opportunities of the people coming into the industry.
I'm sympathetic to that line of thought. On the other hand, if you support SO.corp, nothing will change. If everybody kept supporting experts-exchange.com and not migrated to SO, we'd still deal with hidden text. My guess is that we will do that again, as SO is aggressively pushing for more monetization, and that might be the point for people to switch again - or they may not, because of the time and effort they've put into SO and not wanting to give that up.
And the funny thing about this and every other “code of conduct” is that it’s so vague that it reads like a corporate “mission statement”. So vague, in fact, that it can be (and is) used as a weapon arbitrarily by anybody with an axe to grind.
Perhaps they just want to find out who the dissenters are, so they can be summarily dismissed. There is at least one other instance in the gender wars of requesting feedback, only to publicly fire the hapless person which happened to take them up on their word.
I think they were in a rush to beat / get in front of the dear stack exchange letter that was coming from the mods. It's not a bad tactic - they may be getting better PR advice.
The answer by Squeamish Ossifrage is interesting because they try to call out SO on a variety of stuff that sounds like what any other large tech company tries to do, with the slow and steady tactics of trying to gain more control or power and encroaching on user rights. [0]
It's also interesting to ponder if the StackOverflow community format is subjecting them to more calls of transparency than other sites might get.
What do you mean by 'avoidance of pronoun use'...avoiding them entirely or ignoring some kind of signal about what pronoun a specific person associates with?
Hey if you're on the front lines of all this i get not taking what i'm saying at face value, but for what it's worth i am just trying to understand.
I think you're asking if submissions to SE will (or will not) be permitted to dodge the identity issue by writing in a way that avoids pronouns.
This just seems so over the top to me that it's hard to believe, which is why I also included another option. I wouldn't call it 'refusing' as much as 'not bothering to do the legwork for every party you refer to in your content'. Which is, of course, also onerous but possibly a bit less so.
Hey I appreciate you hanging in there but i think we’re on two different wavelengths and aren’t communicating well. I don’t know what passive voice has to do with avoiding pronouns, you can write active and passive with and without. But let’s call it even its been a long day. Take care.
Yes. Those were not good days. In those days, every tech savvy person somehow automatically got the privilege to be rude to the less knowledgeable people. If a user came for help without doing sufficient homework, a project author or community would rudely ask the user to go RTFM. There are more civil ways to send the same message. CoCs are a way to bring in that civility in discourse. Do you have a better idea?
All jokes aside, there's surely a middle ground between being rude to everyone and "hi guys wowzors dinosaurs and ninjas! this project is made with <3" and the overwhelming passive-aggressiveness of this inane dumpster fire drama over CoCs.
Ironically it is is almost impossible to engage on this topic in a thoughtful way without stepping on some sort of social landmine. As someone who has been around for a while I find much of the back and forth in this area exhausting and at times bewildering. Treat others how you want to be treated, count to ten before replying, don't engage with annoying people, pick your battles, life isn't necessarily fair. This sort of advice has been around forever and I much prefer it to the legalistic CoC approach.
I was referring to the formality of CoCs vs more informal approaches to disagreements.
So in this context, "pick your battles" means that not every dispute is worth escalating and mediating in the context of a CoC. More often than not, when you have been wronged it is better to just walk away rather than intensifying the dispute.
As for "life isn't fair", It is misleading to think that a CoC is going to eliminate unfairness, sometimes things won't go your way and you should accept that and move on rather than reach towards contractual or legal frameworks for some sort of resolution.
CoCs aren't about regulating behavior, they're about group associations. They cover pretty much the same things that have always been covered in forum rules and moderation policies, only worded a bit differently to justify their existence. The point of replacing your old style of rules with a CoC, named "Code of Conduct", is that by doing so, you signal allegiance. You pay fealty. The mob can now go on and harass some other community.
(At least, that was some time ago. Today, CoCs are frequent enough that people just add them by default.)
If I understand what you are saying, I agree. The show of "fealty" associated with adopting a CoC with all the approved progressive language is problematic to me.
I would also add give people the benefit of the doubt.
Don't assume that just because someone accidentally misgendered you that they were being malicious. They probably weren't. I mean, if you continually find that you see aggressions and 'isms everywhere then maybe you are just tilting at windmills.
>Yes. Those were not good days. In those days, every tech savvy person somehow automatically got the privilege to be rude to the less knowledgeable people. If a user came for help without doing sufficient homework, a project author or community would rudely ask the user to go RTFM.
Two things.
1) 'RTFM' isn't as rude as expecting to be hand-fed. That's the grace in the statement, it's meant to be used as a retort to the expectation that the person being asked the question even has the time to entertain the notion of training someone, given that the manual is available and ready for consumption.
It's (supposed) to speak to the laziness of the person asking the question.
Personally, I think a lot of 'RTFM's that got thrown around have historically lead to the person asking the original question to become a lot more knowledgable on the subject than had a simple answer. I know that I learned that way.
2) I don't have a lot of faith that the politeness that many CoCs enforce got rid of 'RTFM', it just shifted it to "Hi User! Have you tried scouring our extensive question-base for that frequently asked question?" , and that kind of unnecessary glad-handed wordiness irks me as an individual.
In historical context, RTFM was often times unhelpful.
* The manual was accessible via a set of arcane commands, if it was at all accessible. Poor usability and lack of good search was common. Remembering the incantations required for accessing the manual was a task in itself, which left very little brain space for the actual task.
* The manual was usually a mere list of API calls, with little in the way of big picture explanations, usage examples or tutorials. There was no widespread internet content and search to supplant the paucity of the manual.
* The person asking the question had a task accomplished by combining several parts in the manual. RTFM translated to: read the equivalent of 200 print pages, filter out the 197 pages irrelevant to your task, but keep enough of them to grok the big picture, then aggregate the remaining 3 into a working incantation. And better get it right, or else a stream of cryptic and undocumented errors will come your way.
My suspicion is that RTFM wielding persons often times didn't know on top of their heads how to solve the task either, and were too caught up in protecting their expert status image to admit so. RTFM, you lazy intellectually challenged person vs. I dunno, try RTM.
An effective CoC simply outlines a community definition for abuse. The use of "glad-handed wordiness" is unnecessary, a simple "please read the docs" would likely suffice.
I think the bottom line is that 'RTFM' is not a professional way to reply to anything. There's no need for a "retort" when a stranger is asking a technical question - it's not like it's personal or anything.
I completely disagree. Yes, you can word it less directly by saying "Please Read the Manual", but there's really no better answer to a low-effort "do my work for me" question. Those have become more and more common, just putting the question title into Google often serves up another question that solves that exact problem, but people don't even bother using a search engine - they go directly to asking others to do the thinking for them, then complain when they are given a solution that they can't just plug into the client project they are working on.
> CoCs are a way to bring in that civility in discourse.
Like posting on reddit that someone is a bigot because they disagree with a change in the CoC? Because that happened here. There's a whole class of people online that it's literally impossible to have civil discourse with if you disagree with them on any level. It's better to not even engage.
> We’ll keep those discussions (with the erstwhile mod) completely private unless we both agree to share any of it with the community.
Does this mean they're looking to prevent the mod from speaking out unless SE agrees to public release? Or is the first "we" (in "We'll") different from the second we ("unless we both")? Hopefully this is just sloppy/rushed drafting, not forced secrecy.
I used to participate in SO but it is really turning into a hit n run site for me now. Overzealous duplicate and notconstructive flags combined with the dumbing everything down for new users policy made it frustrating and unrewarding experience. It still is to be frank when the "answer matches actual question in title" rate is about 10%, but what else is there?
Are Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky still involved? It seems hard to believe they could mismanage SO as thoroughly as this without having a complete change in personality.
I agree, I was actually watching this situation with glee, hoping every moderator on the entire site would quit en-masse. Maybe then it would be useful again.
Anyone who thinks that moderators quitting will stop questions being closed as dupes doesn't understand how StackOverflow works. The moderators are the ones doing the absolute dirtywork of handling cases of abuse, harassment, vandalism, spam, vote fraud, and so on. If half the mods quit, all you get in return is more spam and hostile comments. The remaining community will keep closing questions like before - that's simply not the job of moderators.
In almost all cases it points to something only tangentially related and is of no help.
SO used to be a place that smart people could go to get other smart people to help them with a problem.
Now it mostly seems to be a place where people help students with their high-school CS homework and then bitch about not being there to help with homework!
Quora is even worse!
I am eagerly waiting for whoever comes up with the next reasonable knowledge-sharing site to leave these two POS sites where they belong!
With great fear of this, I opened a question on SO a while ago and at the bottom linked to several other SO questions under the heading "similar but different, because ...", and it went quite well, although moderation was quite angry that I didn't choose an accepted answer within a day.
> although moderation was quite angry that I didn't choose an accepted answer within a day.
I don't know about Stack Overflow, which is the largest SE site, and may have some cultural differences.
But I'm pretty sure that accepting an answer within a day is strongly discouraged on all Stack Exchange sites in general. You should wait, at least one day before accepting it - some users may still want to answer it. I only accept answers when nobody posts new answers. Also, a user doesn't have to accept an answer, if none of the answer is helpful for solving the question - it has been discussed on Meta before.
Personally, if I asked a question and none of the answer solves the question, I'll accept the most helpful one. If none is helpful, I don't accept any answer, and usually I will be able to answer my own question and accept myself in the future.
I've tried that before too, but over-zealous mods still closed as a duplicate - I really believe a lot of them do that without even reading the question, or the question they say is a dupe :/
Can you mention the tags you are experiencing this in? I see this complaint all the time and yet I don't observe it myself despite being quite active on the site (but in only specific tags)...
I don't have a list of tags at the ready, but it has happened enough to piss me off as a pattern.
I can say that I am usually on there looking for help on "advanced" programming or hardware issues. So think long-tail type questions, not the type that you stumble onto early in your career.
At one point I was beginning to think that the mods just did not technically understand the questions and that was why they had an itchy "dupe" trigger finger.
SO has been on the decline quite long already, drowning in a sea of homework question, fix my bugs beggars and editors running perfectly fine answers. finding relevant solutions is as hard as ever and asking moderately difficult questions just gets you nowhere. long standing issues, like a way to tag library versions to avoid people ending in stale answers or restrict your area of expertise properly as to be able to quickly network with other in the field working on the same problem were never addressed, meanwhile we got a disfunctional job board that did the opposite of attracting talent, resulting instead in a horde of resume padding desperados copy pasting answer off a script in all questions tagged java or xml
258 comments
[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 262 ms ] threadhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21173643
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21153224
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21149770
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21113344
This thread is a new post from stack, not another link to 21153224 which has the similar title "update to our community and an apology"
The new post is @ 199 upvotes versus -1278, so the reception so far seems to be very different
What else were you looking to see? I would have liked to see more of an explanation of why these mistakes were made, but this is a far better apology than the last one.
Of course, an apology is just words and should be taken with a grain of salt until actions are taken to back up those words. It seems to me that they could easily have reached out to Monica BEFORE posting a public apology.
We will see how they handle feedback on the new CoC and what other actions they will take to restore trust.
> We’ll keep those discussions completely private unless we both agree to share any of it with the community.
So unless they agree to it, she can't publish what they talk about in private, no matter the words spoken or the outcome. That's such a weird commitment to privacy in this context, it's not like this has anything to do with private stuff as far as the moderator is concerned, unless I'm completely mistaken. So it's basically offering a conversation with the option on their part to pretend there never was a conversation, should it fail to achieve the goal they no doubt already outlined in meetings.
I'm not convinced that removing Monica as a moderator was a mistake.
She made it clear in a comment quoted by The Register that she refused to use the singular they in any circumstance, even when it was known that it was someone's preferred pronoun.
And in the leaked transcripts (if you trust them) it seems she was repeatedly asked to rethink her stance on this by other moderators, and repeatedly refused.
Obviously SO could have done a better job in terms of the process, timing, and communication (which is what they apologised for), but ultimately it seems that she's just not not a good fit for SO. There's no suggestion that SO is not going to enforce a rule requiring moderators to use people's preferred pronouns, when known and when appropriate, and Monica was very clear that in at least some cases she would not do so. So...one way or another, she was clearly going to be removed, right?
Arguably she could be re-instated today and then re-removed later in the week when the CoC changes come into force, but to what end? That doesn't help her, SO, or the community. (And that assumes she didn't violate the existing CoC, which is still disputed.)
I'm not sure what you're referring to: Monica didn't talk to anyone at The Register..? Only Stack Overflow knew that article was coming.
If there was a formal policy in place, Monica would not violate it. If the differences were unresolvable, she would have resigned, but only after looking for a compromise.
Under no circumstances would she have broken with policy and needed to be forcibly removed. We have eight years of character evidence from her, including several posts from Stack Exchange employees over the years commending her reasonableness and contributions. Sara Chipps' actions ignore all of that and assumed the worst.
As for the rest of your comment, that seems to contradict claims made by others, including other moderators, but alright. Even granting it to be 100% true, that suggests as most that she should have resigned (or been removed) this week instead of a week and a half ago, right?
So just fire her pre-emptively without warning because she might violate a policy that's not yet in place?
> she was repeatedly asked to rethink her stance on this by other moderators, and repeatedly refused
I don't know what transcript that refers to, but her account reads very different:
https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5193/stack-...
> I raised some issues with the formation of the policy and asked some questions, the vast majority of which were never answered.
[..]
> On Monday I received email from a different CM explaining why they were making the change and mis-stating some issues I had raised. Concerned that I had not made myself clear in my haste to respond quickly on Friday, I replied with some questions. This was an amicable exchange; I thought we were having a productive conversation. I was promised a reply by this past Friday.
> Instead, I saw my diamond disappear before my eyes and briefly saw an announcement from a CM in TL that contained false allegations against me. When I tried to respond I was booted from the room. Around this time I received email firing me. This email did not cite anything I have done wrong; this was a pre-emptive move that runs counter to how SE tells moderators to treat users when considering suspensions. (Moderators suspend in response to behavior, not speculatively.)
I agree that it wasn't a mistake though: a mistake is pressing the wrong button. This is just a shoddy way to treat people, and a shoddy way to not-apologize for it.
> SO could have done a better job in terms of the process, timing, and communication
Namely a.) not fire for precrime, b.) not ever c.) respond to questions as promised, rather than answering with a ban for no valid reason.
In fact, I would find a policy that would require me to know someone’s pronoun at all to be deeply problematic. Imagine for a moment a purely binary world in which everyone was simply male or female. I would still prefer to think of kernel contributors I’ve never met as people, not as men or women. Adding LGBTQ+ into the mix changes nothing. If someone sends me a patch to review, my response should not depend on whether the sender is male, female, “they”, “xe”, or anything else.
So I tend to agree with Monica’s publicly stated point: if I’m going to use a potentially gendered pronoun to refer to someone, I should respect their preferences. But I don’t think I should be required to do so in the first place.
For what it’s worth, there are contexts where personalized pronouns are a nonstarter. If someone is anonymously reviewing an academic paper or a blinded resume, the reviewer must not know the pronoun in question.
I can get that a person identifying as "she" shouldn't be referred to as "he" and vice-versa, but if somebody's having issues with the only all-inclusive alternative, it's not something anyone should be expected to accommodate for.
I seriously hope this is a straw man. Same thing as the few individuals who make a ruckus whenever they're not referred to as "Dr". If I'm forced to keep track of people's gender identities to be able to contribute, I'm out.
> She made it clear in a comment quoted by The Register that she refused to use the singular they in any circumstance, even when it was known that it was someone's preferred pronoun.
But this is more subtle than that. Monica didn't say that she would use "he" or "she" even when someone prefers "they". She said that she would write in a gender-neutral manner while avoiding gendered pronouns altogether.
Here is the full context of Monica's stance:
> I completely agree that it is rude to call people what they don't want to be called; knowingly misgendering someone is not ok. But the policy was about positive, not negative, use of pronouns. I pointed out that as a professional writer I, by training, write in a gender-neutral way specifically to avoid gender landmines, and sought clarification that this would continue to be ok. To my surprise, other moderators in the room said that not using (third-person singular) pronouns at all is misgendering. The employee never clarified, and this is one of the questions I asked in email. In my email I said clearly that I'm on board with "use preferred pronouns when using pronouns", but from the fact that they fired me without warning (or answering the question), I conclude that that's not the policy. I haven't seen an actual policy, though I am being accused of violating it.
Link: https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5193/stack-...
And, I guess, that's the crux of the problem really. Does SO want people like her around? Ostensibly they do, if they're trying to have sites for Judaism, Islam, etc. But it seems incompatible with the new CoC. Monica offered the half measure of only using names, but it seems a hard needle to thread if you're trying to support incompatible ideologies. I think SO is going to have to give up something, and I'm betting it's going to be the goal of being a central place to discuss religion.
Granted, the sentence in question is awkwardly written I agree.
I don't know... it's really awkward if so.
There are three "we"s here. First we = SO. Second we = ambiguous, following on from the first we it could be read as meaning SO like you say. But then, clearly, the third we = SO + Monica (and incidentally she is not named).
The part about her being free to share whatever she wants is not stated.
It's a small point to be sure. But consider: these statements are almost always run through multiple layers of approval before they go out. PR, legal, and relevant C-level execs, typically. And if it is an issue that has blown up, everyone is doubly and triply cautious about phrasing.
At best, the phrasing is innocently awkward. At worst, it's... revealing, I guess?
Of course, it's possible that that reaction has prompted genuine reflection and contrition and the apology is sincere as well as a panic measure.
But sure, there might be better ways to do it.
Well, yes by definition, but groveling is not, in and of itself, an apology. Generally in an apology you undo what damage you did to the maximum extent allowable or offer some sort of compensation.
All of that is evident here. Actions to make right a prior wrong (of which there are some here too) are not normally a requirement, although they can apology.
Not to say that one shouldn't do both, but often it isn't possible to fix something you're apologizing for. That doesn't make sincere apology impossible.
Perhaps that is what is happening behind the scenes, but I think everybody would feel better about this apology if they said that right up front.
Ultimately this was an apology for procedural failings, not their ultimate impacts. Reinstating the removed mod would be correcting something they aren't apologizing for.
It's clearly very grovelling - "the apology is clearly very grovelling".
I'll assume my comment confused you in some way due to me not typing every implied word or punctuation mark out (no snark intended - was on a phone), I can see that I suppose. Fair enough.
The former is redress and the latter is compensation. One of the great problems with the legal process is often all it can give is compensation and no apology, and often people really do want an apology.
The fear of being held legally liable for giving a simple apology is why various legislatures have recently passed laws that make it so apologies or assistance do not amount to legal liability for negligence. UK example: the Compensation Act 2006 s2.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/29/section/2
Knowing the difference between an apology, a form of redress and compensation is important because a process may give a person one thing when they really want another.
https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/334573
i mean, that wasn't like her job, was it? again i might be reading all this wrong or maybe we aren't being shown everything.
From what I've gathered, there seems to be additional angle here in which SE talked to the press, apparently using her real name and telling falsehoods about her, and now her name is attached to a slanderous story. This means for her it's no longer about a volunteer position at a tech company, but about her entire life.
EDIT: here's the article in question: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/01/stack_exchange_cont....
> This apology has come not a moment too soon.... for the past days, almost a week, now, moderators from across most sites have collaborated on communicating our concerns to the SE staff. We have been working "in plain sight" of the SE staff (using the TL to collaborate). ... The timing of this apology appears to have been in a race to beat our statements about the issues.
The comment was updated to include a link to https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/334575/dear-stack-e... , which in turn links to: https://dearstackexchange.com .
[0] https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/334570/346001
This conspicuous absence makes me question the authenticity of the apology.
Now, it's not entirely one-way as they need to be providing value to the community in order for it to continue but business decisions need to be made at some level and the community level isn't the place for it.
If SE perceived a loss in profits from community members' actions then they need to take steps to mitigate that loss and I suspect that's what they did(rightly or wrongly).
Not trying to defend SE's actions, or those of the community (I have no opinion on the matter and, not to make light of the issue, I don't really care either) but a mistake that I sometimes make is thinking businesses make decisions for reasons other than profit.
In saying that, if SE thought that putting it to a community vote (or whatever best decision making tool the community could use) would make them more money then they likely would have... makes good business sense.
Just my £0.02
However, the update accumulated to the 'fix' being SO will release an updated CoC on Oct 7/10/11 with inputs from all mods, and an updated mod firing process. These are absolutely essential, no doubt, but incomplete.
What is missing, in my opinion, is the update still did not address how the original conflict came to the firing of a respected member. The most sincere way to apologize would be to use this failure of process as an example, to showcase how SO erred and how SO intends to change. Finally, a separate, public apology to the fired mod, with specific example of how SO mishandled each step, is crucial in regaining the trust.
EDIT: After giving some thoughts, I realize that SO is apologizing, not for wrongful termination, but for not privately firing the mod with due process. In SO's management eyes, the firing is still justified. Fine. Explain to us, with examples, how the firing is justified, and how pronoun usage would re-conciliate with moderators with religion restrictions.
It's clear they have no desire to explain and would very much prefer nothing further is made public:
>We’ll keep those discussions completely private unless we both agree to share any of it with the community.
> My cynical self noticed that there are a lot of "apologize" and "sorry" in this update, yet I believe this is a first good step.
in particular with the "yet". Would it be a better first step without apologies?
Then again, I might just be a bit jaded like GP.
It seems clear that, in their updated CoC, the requirement to be respectful trumps religious restrictions. And that's pretty much the standard here, isn't it? I can't imagine rudeness being OK here, even if it's required religiously.
I assume youd also say someone believing a man cannot be a woman is someone who should be wiped from the public discourse of the internet as well. Can you be offended by it? Absolutely, but there is nothing inherently "rude" about such a statement.
I prefer to be addressed "Sir Knight of the Round Table". Failure to do so will constitute breaking HN and SE CoC. It doesn't take far down the rabbit hole for the shoe to land on the other side.
Seriously, though, that just simplifies to male.
I'm just an old anonymous coward who doesn't get out much. But I did ask a younger friend about this, and got that people who care advertise their declared status in their sig and/or username. As does, for example, "Zoe the transgirl".
Seriously, I'm tired of this. In what company that HNers want to work in does being a male give you any advantage?
Or in what school? (I'm aware of certain nurse and chemistry studies prioritizing men, but that's it.)
If you cannot come up with any I kindly suggest stop insulting men. You don't need to do that to support others.
- Someone who has gone out of his way to help women and immigrants
I was just pointing out that "sir" implies male gender. And given that we're talking about gender pronouns, not titles, the rest of it is irrelevant.
Rudeness never was OK.
Problem is she wasn't rude. She was communicating exemplary and no examples have been given of anything else. What is happening is she's been tried for thought crime in a secret court and it seems her professional[0] writing style can be construed using the necessary mental gymnastics as her not wanting to please the wishes of certain people.
[0]: again, not only professional but also exemplary based on all we've heard.
I'm postulating the existence of a religious person who would (for example) refuse to use "he" for a biologically female person who identifies as male. But would instead use singular "they", or passive voice, to evade the issue. I'm not saying that they would insist on using "she". Just that they wouldn't use "he".
That might be her position, based on two meta threads.[0,1] But she doesn't actually say that. Others sort of say that, and she doesn't correct them. And certainly I may have missed her clear statement. But as I've said, I'm not claiming that to be her position.
So anyway, if someone actually did refuse to use declared gender, that would arguably be rude. Or at least, it would be perceived as rudeness, which is arguably what matters in communities.
0) https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/333965/firing-mods-...
1) https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5193/stack-...
> In my email I said clearly that I'm on board with "use preferred pronouns when using pronouns"
I think this rules out using singular "they" if the person would rather be referred to by "he" or "she" for example. At least I hope so.
However, she doesn't flatly say "use preferred pronouns". And she also talks about not using pronouns at all.
So, as an alternative hypothetical, even avoiding pronouns completely when someone says "I declare as female" could be perceived as rude.
Would it be rude if I simply ignored the comment and disengaged from the conversation? Hypothetically, I am doing it with the motivation of avoiding pronouns completely.
But if you were the moderator of a forum, or her supervisor, that probably wouldn't work. Maybe if you were very clever at it, I suppose.
Is there a thread I can follow so I can "woke" myself on pronouns? I definitely fear LGBT+ now in a practical way. I'm naturally anti authority and I don't like this authoritarianism -- but I don't want tar and feather.
As much as I intellectually and emotionally support people's right to self-determination, it is a little frightening how fast things are changing. It's even more frightening how polarized things are getting. My best bet is listening carefully, being polite, and avoiding offense. Not that I'm always successful.
"biologically female" is a much more loose concept than one might think. Hermaphroditism, sex chromosome aneuploidy, androgen insensitivity etc etc etc... when it matters, doctors ask and run tests. Don't just assume you can guess what someone "biologically" is any more than you can guess what they identify as.
But this isn't about me. It's about my hypothetical religious person. Who might say, "she looks female to me". I'm not arguing that it would be a valid assessment.
Postulating the existence of a person with the traits you want to attack is a nice trick and is often referred to as a strawman.
It is not hard either, I could also want to postulate about the existence of certain people with unfavorable traits (no no, not pointing at anyone, just postulating), and then go on to paint large targets on them etc but I think we are better off without going further down that street.
Edit: Also, for context, an eight year old post from Caleb.[2]
0) https://christianity.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6718/b...
1) https://christianity.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6717/r...
2) https://christianity.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/193/br...
> I'm postulating the existence of a religious person who would (for example) refuse to use "he" for a biologically female person who identifies as male.
Here's what the first of those you accuse has to say (in between a lot other):
> For the record, I personally don't usually have a problem using peoples' preferred pronouns online. I don't go around trying to figure out if the way individuals are representing themselves online is consistent with my beliefs about the nature of the universe.
Something else entirely, isn't it?
> If person A comes along and demands that I refer to them by their "preferred pronoun" (even if it is a mismatch for their genetic sex or the grammar of the language being spoken) and I refuse, that's considered an insult. Now, SE staff's enforced interpretation is that if I deliberately avoid pronouns altogether, whether by carefully avoiding sentences that even need pronouns at all or by sticking to proper names or by disengaging from the individual — those are all being considered insults too if the other party says they are insulted.
And yes, he does say that gender issues about pronouns aren't an issue for him. But then he goes on to say:
> Unfortunately the new CoC (as interpreted by staff) specifically enshrines the rare and awkward scenario where those issues in particular are brought up and the other party demands affirmation of their specific world-view, and the staff interpretation makes no accommodation for agreeing to disagree or politely disengaging.
So no, I don't agree that it's another issue entirely. But a broader issue, yes.
Edit: Cut misquote.
Also:
> Ironically in the specific the issue at hand called out (using people's preferred pronouns) [Monica] is on record as being much more accommodating than I would be.
So wait - what are they apologizing for?
If I understand this situation correctly there are basically two sides:
- The people who put in place the new code of conduct, who think that they "hurt members of our LGBTQ+ community when they felt they couldn't participate authentically..." by not putting this code of conduct in place fast enough.
- The moderator who fired/the people who resigned who think they "hurt members of our LGBTQ+ community when they couldn't participate authentically..." when they put in place the new poorly thought out policy
Is this intended to double (triple? quadruple?) down on the original position? Or apologize for it and move to the second?
So yes, this is intended to strictly double down on the original position.
0: https://literature.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1195/res...
Thanks for clarifications and filling in the gaps for me.
This is not the way to treat people, but, if you think cynically, is an excellent way to make sure you have time before the person fired can make a proper response depending on how they practice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUE0PPQI3is
Ah, kinda like getting a 5PM meeting on a friday and getting fired ... classy.
I'm pretty sure no one outside of SO does (except perhaps the terminated mod, if they have already reached out to her a they just said they would), since the whole reason for controversy was termination of a mod without explanation (there was circumstantial reason to suspect it was connected with the new CoC, which seems confirmed implicitly, but even then he exact relationship was an remains unclear.)
People are offended because the CoC changes concern a culture war issue, so people on both sides are keyed up for a chance to be offended, which ambiguity always provides.
Direct from the apology:
> We’ll be reaching out to her directly to apologize for the lack of process, privacy, and to discuss next steps. We’ll keep those discussions completely private unless we both agree to share any of it with the community.
> ...and they still won't reinstate her.
Again, a direct quote from the apology:
> We’ll be sharing with our moderators this week our proposed processes for handling situations like this in the future. This includes a process for handling moderator removals, and a process for reinstating moderators who wish to be reinstated.
I don't want to provide too much additional input in this reply, because I believe David's words adequately speak for themselves. However, I do believe that taking those two points private and discussing them outside of the public view is the correct choice. Emotions are already running high on both sides of the argument, and it's not a bad idea to give everyone a moment to breathe, and come at the situation rationally. We should give them a chance to work it out.
But not for what they did to her.
It seems very analogous: unprovoked punches and unprovoked de-modding are both wrong, but both are also needed to stop some kinds of abuse.
Okay, got it. Acting in haste can lead you to make critical errors of judgment. Smart to slow down so you don't make the same mistake again.
> On Monday, October 7, we’ll be sharing a second draft of an update to our Code of Conduct with all moderators for feedback.
Good call. Get feedback on the revised plan from the moderators to whom it will apply. Smart move.
> On Thursday, October 10, the update to the Code of Conduct will be announced publicly.
Wait, what?
You just said that you need to slow things down because you acted too quickly the last time and ended up screwing things up and causing a lot of pain, which is the reason you're apologizing in the first place.
And now the timeline between "solicit feedback" and "release document publicly" is three days?
How in the world are you going to be able to thoughtfully incorporate any feedback other than typo corrections and still meet this deadline?
There is no reason to solicit feedback unless you actually plan to listen to it and to be prepared for that feedback to say that the draft still needs work. But this timeline does not allow enough time for that to happen.
> We’ll be reaching out to her directly to apologize for the lack of process, privacy, and to discuss next steps. We’ll keep those discussions completely private unless we both agree to share any of it with the community.
So they're going to demand she stays hush about what they say to her unless they approve? Seems extremely dishonest and scummy to try and control someone you've already wronged.
Reads to me as StackOverflow will not share anything if they feel revealing the conversation would hurt their PR.
In the context of an apology about being heavy-handed, I highly doubt it means they intent to suppress speech from a third party that they have no power over, implied or otherwise.
It's also interesting to ponder if the StackOverflow community format is subjecting them to more calls of transparency than other sites might get.
[0] https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/334573
* contrition
* the moderator dismissal was too hasty
* they will create a process for reinstating moderators
* new Code of Conduct announced Oct 11
It's not clear if speaking in passive voice will be acceptable on SE come October 10th.
I think you're asking if submissions to SE will (or will not) be permitted to dodge the identity issue by writing in a way that avoids pronouns.
This just seems so over the top to me that it's hard to believe, which is why I also included another option. I wouldn't call it 'refusing' as much as 'not bothering to do the legwork for every party you refer to in your content'. Which is, of course, also onerous but possibly a bit less so.
And no, I'd rather not call it even, not after you slip in with a, "you're wrong but I don't want to talk about it, bye!"
All jokes aside, there's surely a middle ground between being rude to everyone and "hi guys wowzors dinosaurs and ninjas! this project is made with <3" and the overwhelming passive-aggressiveness of this inane dumpster fire drama over CoCs.
I can’t even conjure up an example of anything that is failing harder at it’s intended purpose, then.
What is that supposed to mean?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/headshrinkers-guide-...
So in this context, "pick your battles" means that not every dispute is worth escalating and mediating in the context of a CoC. More often than not, when you have been wronged it is better to just walk away rather than intensifying the dispute.
As for "life isn't fair", It is misleading to think that a CoC is going to eliminate unfairness, sometimes things won't go your way and you should accept that and move on rather than reach towards contractual or legal frameworks for some sort of resolution.
(At least, that was some time ago. Today, CoCs are frequent enough that people just add them by default.)
Don't assume that just because someone accidentally misgendered you that they were being malicious. They probably weren't. I mean, if you continually find that you see aggressions and 'isms everywhere then maybe you are just tilting at windmills.
Two things.
1) 'RTFM' isn't as rude as expecting to be hand-fed. That's the grace in the statement, it's meant to be used as a retort to the expectation that the person being asked the question even has the time to entertain the notion of training someone, given that the manual is available and ready for consumption.
It's (supposed) to speak to the laziness of the person asking the question.
Personally, I think a lot of 'RTFM's that got thrown around have historically lead to the person asking the original question to become a lot more knowledgable on the subject than had a simple answer. I know that I learned that way.
2) I don't have a lot of faith that the politeness that many CoCs enforce got rid of 'RTFM', it just shifted it to "Hi User! Have you tried scouring our extensive question-base for that frequently asked question?" , and that kind of unnecessary glad-handed wordiness irks me as an individual.
* The manual was accessible via a set of arcane commands, if it was at all accessible. Poor usability and lack of good search was common. Remembering the incantations required for accessing the manual was a task in itself, which left very little brain space for the actual task.
* The manual was usually a mere list of API calls, with little in the way of big picture explanations, usage examples or tutorials. There was no widespread internet content and search to supplant the paucity of the manual.
* The person asking the question had a task accomplished by combining several parts in the manual. RTFM translated to: read the equivalent of 200 print pages, filter out the 197 pages irrelevant to your task, but keep enough of them to grok the big picture, then aggregate the remaining 3 into a working incantation. And better get it right, or else a stream of cryptic and undocumented errors will come your way.
My suspicion is that RTFM wielding persons often times didn't know on top of their heads how to solve the task either, and were too caught up in protecting their expert status image to admit so. RTFM, you lazy intellectually challenged person vs. I dunno, try RTM.
Like posting on reddit that someone is a bigot because they disagree with a change in the CoC? Because that happened here. There's a whole class of people online that it's literally impossible to have civil discourse with if you disagree with them on any level. It's better to not even engage.
Some community.
Does this mean they're looking to prevent the mod from speaking out unless SE agrees to public release? Or is the first "we" (in "We'll") different from the second we ("unless we both")? Hopefully this is just sloppy/rushed drafting, not forced secrecy.
Are Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky still involved? It seems hard to believe they could mismanage SO as thoroughly as this without having a complete change in personality.
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2012/02/07/jeff-atwood-bids-adieu-to-...
[2] https://stackoverflow.blog/2019/09/24/announcing-stack-overf...
This one is really killing me lately.
In almost all cases it points to something only tangentially related and is of no help.
SO used to be a place that smart people could go to get other smart people to help them with a problem.
Now it mostly seems to be a place where people help students with their high-school CS homework and then bitch about not being there to help with homework!
Quora is even worse!
I am eagerly waiting for whoever comes up with the next reasonable knowledge-sharing site to leave these two POS sites where they belong!
/s
I don't know about Stack Overflow, which is the largest SE site, and may have some cultural differences.
But I'm pretty sure that accepting an answer within a day is strongly discouraged on all Stack Exchange sites in general. You should wait, at least one day before accepting it - some users may still want to answer it. I only accept answers when nobody posts new answers. Also, a user doesn't have to accept an answer, if none of the answer is helpful for solving the question - it has been discussed on Meta before.
Personally, if I asked a question and none of the answer solves the question, I'll accept the most helpful one. If none is helpful, I don't accept any answer, and usually I will be able to answer my own question and accept myself in the future.
I can say that I am usually on there looking for help on "advanced" programming or hardware issues. So think long-tail type questions, not the type that you stumble onto early in your career.
At one point I was beginning to think that the mods just did not technically understand the questions and that was why they had an itchy "dupe" trigger finger.
the moment to remove that sticker was c.a 2013