Timeline for answer to Post for clarifications on the updated pronouns FAQ by user245382
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
Post Revisions
63 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 19, 2020 at 2:22 | comment | added | kkm mistrusts SE | @CesarM, may I suggest a touch-up copyedit? “Interacting with people online is often confusing and distressing. We want to minimize this for everyone.” — The this in this statement is ambiguous in a wrong way. The priciple of late closure makes it read at first as if your goal is to minimize "interacting with people." A rewording of the first sentence can make it closed in the Ferreira-Henderson sense, avoiding the “garden path,” for example: “Interacting with people online often causes confusion and distress.” | |
| Aug 19, 2020 at 2:16 | comment | added | kkm mistrusts SE | @CesarM, do you feel that saying “If you're writing "The OP wrote in the OP's question" for a user who asked you to refer to them with a neopronoun, that is more clearly discriminatory unless this is your default way of writing��� is hypocritical after hurling Monica out of the door for mere asking if the future policy might proscribe her regular pronounless default way of writing, especially given that she never spoke in such foot-in-mouth sentences like in this example? If your answer is no, do you feel it's a doublethink? (Deleting my question is an answer "no" to both questions.) | |
| Jun 3, 2020 at 13:30 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
Commonmark migration
|
|
| Nov 14, 2019 at 19:49 | comment | added | jxh | @Quantic: I think they could be politely referred to by some gender neutral pronoun. | |
| Nov 14, 2019 at 19:24 | comment | added | user245382 | @Quantic I'm quoting directly from the FAQ, which uses "uncomfortable" for trans people and "really distressing" for others. These aren't my words. | |
| Nov 14, 2019 at 19:19 | comment | added | Quantic | Arguing that trans people are merely "uncomfortable" while everyone else is "distressed" is extremely disingenuous. Many trans people are extremely distressed to be continually misgendered and this unacceptance and disdain for our identities contributes to our high suicide rates. People don't tend to kill themselves for feeling a bit "uncomfortable". | |
| Nov 14, 2019 at 19:08 | comment | added | Quantic | @jxh God created xxy people, xxxy people, xy females, xx males, and a dozen other intersex conditions. She created some xx people without a vagina, some without a uterus, some xy people without testicles. How does the bible refer to these people? Note that this is an argument against "god created men and women for the purposes of procreation" and is not related to non-binary people whose sex and potential intersex condition is unrelated to their gender. | |
| Nov 13, 2019 at 12:29 | comment | added | EpicKip | @Ryan_L '@Sam "simply avoiding a preferred pronoun isn't in itself discrimnatory." According to the new rules it is.' Ehm.. discrimination is an existing concept outside of SE, SE doesn't get to decide the definition no matter how many rules they make. | |
| Nov 10, 2019 at 5:20 | comment | added | Michael Freidgeim | @CesarM, please follow meta.stackexchange.com/questions/11474/… never change meaning | |
| Nov 10, 2019 at 5:03 | comment | added | Michael Freidgeim | @CesarM, could you please remove you change and put it as a separate answer/question. You shouldn’t hijack the others post. I wish to upvote the original question, but I can’t, because I disagree with your answer. | |
| Nov 10, 2019 at 0:00 | comment | added | YiFan | Wow, the "answer" by Cesar M is a really spectacular way of dodging the question. So ridiculous. | |
| Nov 6, 2019 at 8:12 | comment | added | jmort253 |
It seems to me that this is finally the answer to the question that Monica had been asking all along. Why couldn't someone just say this and avoid all this trouble?: For example, you can change "The OP wrote in his question" to "the OP wrote in the question" this is a non-obvious rephrasing. If you're writing "The OP wrote in the OP's question" for a user who asked you to refer to them with a neopronoun, that is more clearly discriminatory unless this is your default way of writing.
|
|
| Nov 1, 2019 at 18:40 | comment | added | JPhi1618 | I don't understand how anyone knows what the sex of anyone online is anyway. This all seems like a huge ordeal out of almost nothing. | |
| Oct 30, 2019 at 13:57 | comment | added | Evgeniy | Not an answer to the concern. Sneers and jeers are prohibited by the current policy. What the suggested policy attempts to declare is that willingly avoiding neo-pronouns is automatically a sneer or a jeer. Sometimes it is. But it does not work like this always. Personal relationships is a deeply subjective matter. Sometimes such use would not be any kind of sneer and would be an innocent expression of someone's identity. For avoiding to use neo-pronouns or pseudo-words like "foo" or "bar" is an identity in its own right. | |
| Oct 29, 2019 at 16:17 | comment | added | jxh | @Lyd: Catholicism (and probably other Christian denominations) teaches that God created men and women for the purpose of procreation. So, sexual acts between people who are not trying to procreate when doing so is knowingly committing a sin. This is not a pronoun issue per se, but using a non-binary neopronoun is as good as just calling the person a sinner outright, which would be a bare insult. A gender neutral pronoun may provide a better pretense of politeness. | |
| Oct 29, 2019 at 5:15 | comment | added | cde | Edit as an attempt to reply. I thought that was a bannable offense. | |
| Oct 25, 2019 at 23:31 | comment | added | Ryan_L | @Sam "simply avoiding a preferred pronoun isn't in itself discrimnatory." According to the new rules it is. Not saying I agree with it, but that's SE's stance. | |
| Oct 25, 2019 at 22:46 | comment | added | SierraOscar | @Ryan_L even still, simply avoiding a preferred pronoun isn't in itself discrimnatory. Discrimination isn't that implicit, it just very much feels like the stance taken by SE on this topic is "guilty until proven innocent" and ever since Joel posted that post it feels like I can't just help people anymore without all the political bullshush. My stance is very much if you want my help on a programming matter, cool. If you want me to shut up and drink the koolaid at the same time then byyyeeeeeee. | |
| Oct 25, 2019 at 19:01 | comment | added | Ryan_L | @Sam It's not that "OP" is discriminatory, it's that you're avoiding their preferred pronoun. I have no idea how mods are supposed to know if you meant to discriminate or if you simply thought "OP" sounded better. | |
| Oct 25, 2019 at 14:33 | comment | added | Stop Harming the Community | Related question on Community Building: communitybuilding.stackexchange.com/q/3126/4159 | |
| Oct 25, 2019 at 14:32 | comment | added | O S |
There were like -1800 votes on the last post how is this Interacting with people online is often confusing and distressing. We want to minimize this for everyone.? It's seems more to us like you SE want to their own thing and not listen to the community.
|
|
| Oct 25, 2019 at 10:39 | comment | added | SierraOscar |
"The OP wrote in the OP's question" for a user who asked you to refer to them with a neopronoun, that is more clearly discriminatory unless this is your default way of writing - what??? we're now saying "OP" is discrimanatory? I'm done with all this.
|
|
| Oct 25, 2019 at 10:03 | comment | added | Resistance Is Futile | @trlkly Also main problem here is that it is easy to ban n-word or f-word... but it becomes harder when same unoffensive sentence suddenly becomes offensive depending on whom you are addressing. | |
| Oct 25, 2019 at 7:18 | comment | added | trlkly | You guys keep acting like the rules are some sort of horrible disposition, when it's literally just how you have to act in normal society. It doesn't matter if you're more comfortable calling a black person the n-word: you don't get to say it. It doesn't matter if you are more comfortable calling gay people the f-word. It doesn't matter if you are more comfortable referring to a trans person by a different pronoun--such is not acceptable outside of bigoted places, and SE doesn't want to be bigoted. | |
| Oct 25, 2019 at 7:17 | comment | added | trlkly | The two types of discomfort are not remotely equivalent. The discomfort trans people feel when being misgendered is a form of gender dysphoria--the very thing that caused them so much harm they had to transition. The discomfort felt by being required to use polite language is self-imposed, and quite small. It at best is just clinging to an outdated understanding of language known as prescriptivism. And, at worse, it is just a desire to be able to voice one's opinion on trans identities, and such is not welcome here or in polite society. | |
| Oct 24, 2019 at 22:51 | comment | added | logos_164 | "Our intention is not to tell you what to think or force you to act in a way that makes you uncomfortable" actually, that's exactly what you're doing, you're literally forcing people to use language that is distressing to them. | |
| Oct 24, 2019 at 20:53 | comment | added | Gershy | If I feel uncomfortable or deeply upset for any reason on this site, am I encouraged to express this feeling to SE and vie for an update to the CoC? | |
| Oct 24, 2019 at 12:18 | comment | added | Orace | @Legxis, context: I only use SO on a regular basis. fact: new user poorly welcomed on SO is a known issue. a priori: LGBT+ and new user feeling unwelcome are poorly welcomed because they are new, not because LGBT+. personal advice: Most Q&A doesn't event need a third person pronoun (TPP), most of the time I appear in the Q. and You in the A. Most uses of TPP is not specific it's used for examples, like: Alice and Bob. Uses of a specific TPP are for person to person public conversation and at this point the No Asshole Rule apply. Knowingly use the wrong TPP is being an AH._ | |
| Oct 24, 2019 at 11:13 | comment | added | Legxis | @Orace Can you elaborate? | |
| Oct 24, 2019 at 8:33 | comment | added | Orace | "[Trans] are not the only ones who are uncomfortable." : Totally agree about that and show how all this mess in in fact a XY problem. | |
| Oct 24, 2019 at 7:14 | comment | added | jxh | @CesarM A final note, I appreciate that what you label as edge cases would require a moderator to review. My gut tells me that the moderators will face many distinct edge cases, and a few of them won't be as "edge" as originally anticipated. In any case, while I, by and large, trust the judgement of moderators, they are after all humans, and the decisions rendered may appear like selective enforcement. So I urge caution and some more thought placed into some of the hypothetical edge cases. | |
| Oct 24, 2019 at 5:48 | comment | added | NPN328 | Can someone give one example of a religion that prohibits specific pronouns? That scenario is being thrown out everywhere, but I can't think of one religion that has this pronoun limitation. | |
| Oct 24, 2019 at 1:22 | comment | added | Stop Harming the Community | Related: FAQ contains language likely to offend or alienate people based on religion | |
| Oct 23, 2019 at 23:38 | comment | added | jxh | @CesarM Yes: since we have stated that some people are neither male nor female, you are saying that "male or female" isn't including everyone that is what I meant. And thank you for: That is not a violation of the CoC. | |
| Oct 23, 2019 at 22:47 | comment | added | user245382 | Unless, of course, the bag only looks good on males and females, and doesn't look good on any other gender. Then that's just a non-inclusive bag, but the sentence would still be accurate. | |
| Oct 23, 2019 at 22:43 | comment | added | Cesar M StaffMod | @jxh Okay, I understand now, please correct me if I am wrong, but since we have stated that some people are neither male nor female, you are saying that "male or female" isn't including everyone. That is not a violation of the CoC, but if a person points out that they are left out (and you are writing it for them, as you said they are the asker), you could rephrase that as "would look good on anyone". Or someone could make that edit to make it more neutral and all's well. | |
| Oct 23, 2019 at 22:31 | comment | added | jxh | @CesarM If he or she is used as a pronoun, and a neopronoun is asked to be used instead, then if the same individual had been referenced as male or female, would it need to be changed too? If I had a sentence that said "this bag would look good on a male or a female", would a challenge to its inclusivity be entertained if the person asking about the bag used a neopronoun as their stated pronoun? | |
| Oct 23, 2019 at 22:25 | comment | added | Cesar M StaffMod | @jxh I honestly don't understand what you are asking by "male or female need to be changed". If you mean you're not allowed to write that... then, hmm, you are? It feels weird making a call completely out of context. That by itself is not an issue, but depending on the context it might be? | |
| Oct 23, 2019 at 22:21 | comment | added | jxh | @DoctorDestructo The phrase need to be changed should be read need consideration to be changed, and you are saying Yes. | |
| Oct 23, 2019 at 22:18 | comment | added | DoctorDestructo | @jxh Your comment about male or female might be easier to answer if you put the phrase in a complete sentence to provide some context. Otherwise, the only reasonable answer is "it depends on the context". | |
| Oct 23, 2019 at 22:07 | comment | added | jxh | I also apologize to you, @Houseman. I got pointed to your answer as a dup of one I had written. | |
| Oct 23, 2019 at 22:06 | comment | added | jxh | @CesarM: I apologize if my questions seem petulant, but I am genuinely curious what other cases will be considered disenfranchising, and how much I will have to mentally monitor myself when I write to remain inclusive and gender blind. | |
| Oct 23, 2019 at 21:29 | comment | added | jxh | @CesarM: Will sentences that have the phrase male or female need to be changed to be more inclusive? | |
| Oct 23, 2019 at 21:18 | comment | added | Cesar M StaffMod | @jxh That's too hypothetical to answer, essentially it will be handled by moderators on a case by case basis. A moderator will always talk to you first and point what needs to be adjusted (if anything). | |
| Oct 23, 2019 at 21:16 | comment | added | jxh | @CesarM: Since the FAQ does much to say Use the preferred pronoun if asked to do so, are there limitations on when it is required to satisfy such an ask? Are we required to defend our writing style if it is challenged? Will we be given time to improve our writing style if it is stilted at first? | |
| Oct 23, 2019 at 20:56 | history | edited | Cesar MStaffMod | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 929 characters in body
|
| Oct 23, 2019 at 20:56 | comment | added | Cesar M StaffMod | I apologize if my previous comment was unclear, it was past 2 am when I wrote it and it was probably not my best. I've written an answer to the question and posted on the answer as a quote and deleted a bunch of no longer needed comments that were about it. | |
| Oct 23, 2019 at 18:34 | comment | added | Christian | @JonathanReez : It seems to me like not engaging with a person because they self label as having "xe" pronoun is discriminatory. I have a hard time seeing why it should be less problematic then answering them their question and calling them "they". | |
| S Oct 23, 2019 at 15:40 | history | suggested | PatJ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
This sentence seemed to imply that "trans people" where not among "users". Obviously not the point.
|
| Oct 23, 2019 at 15:36 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Oct 23, 2019 at 15:40 | |||||
| Oct 23, 2019 at 7:30 | history | edited | Cerbrus | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
deleted 2 characters in body
|
| Oct 23, 2019 at 5:21 | comment | added | JonathanReez | @Cerberus dunno, I've been a mod for two years now and never once used anyone's pronouns in all this time. I always call users "OP" or address them by their username. | |
| Oct 23, 2019 at 5:14 | comment | added | Cerberus_Reinstate-Monica | @JonathanReez: From the text, it seems that moderators are not allowed to not engage, nor to disengage. | |
| Oct 23, 2019 at 5:10 | comment | added | JonathanReez | There's always the alternative of not engaging with users if your personal beliefs clash with theirs for some reason. It's a purely theoretical issue for 99.9% of SE users anyway. | |
| Oct 23, 2019 at 4:49 | history | edited | user245382 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Added Cesar's answer
|
| Oct 23, 2019 at 4:46 | comment | added | The Anathema | @Aza Hold on. I never said it was a request to "beat anyone down." In fact, I explicitly said it wasn't. | |
| Oct 23, 2019 at 4:43 | history | edited | user245382 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 200 characters in body
|
| Oct 23, 2019 at 4:42 | comment | added | user206222 | @TheAnathema Trying to beat down one group by saying your distress is Worse is really missing the point, no matter how you cut it. I'm... not getting into a distress battle here. | |
| Oct 23, 2019 at 4:39 | comment | added | The Anathema | @Aza You are saying they merely feel uncomfortable. For some, it is really distressing. Let's not mince words - Caleb found it really distressing to not exercise his freedom of conscience and religious thought. He wasn't "just uncomfortable." He intensely disliked it. Don't read this as a request to debate gender identity, or request to go out of one's way and call them he instead of she or zir instead of xe. It's a request for how SE is weighing anyone else's emotions. | |
| Oct 23, 2019 at 4:23 | history | edited | user245382 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added groups of people; edited body
|
| Oct 23, 2019 at 4:15 | comment | added | user206222 | This is already answered by the FAQ. They are aware that attempts to be inclusive will make some people uncomfortable and they are stating that this is a known and accepted repercussion. That seems like a reasonable line to draw. Also: this answer to the FAQ strongly implies that the comfort of people who state pronouns is less serious and less important than the comfort of people who don't. That's not really okay. | |
| Oct 23, 2019 at 4:13 | comment | added | nvoigt | Right now the FAQ says the user's comfort counts for more than the mods, because mod is a special position and is held to a higher standard. | |
| Oct 23, 2019 at 4:10 | history | answered | user245382 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |