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@StephanS I hope it was clear that previous comment was an illustrative example, and not a personal attack
@M.A.R. pfff, @rene is a newbie. A young whipper snapper.
As opposed to you?
user206222
@MarkAmery I would answer, truthfully, but I am exhausted with being asked to explain myself over and over for the past week. There are some deep flaws in the messages you've sent me that run deeper than a pronoun issue.
user206222
5:15 PM
And that's really the problem. Pronouns aren't the issue, but vocal advocacy against using they/them like you would any other pronoun betrays a deeper lack of understanding about who trans people are.
user206222
This isn't really the cachet answer, though. People don't like to be told, "you've misunderstood this, so please just do it and then learn on your own time." People want the answer to be justified, and that puts us in the position of having to justify it to every person we meet.
user206222
So what I'm essentially saying is: You know less than you think you do. Give us the benefit of the doubt and use they/them pronouns as you would any other, without asking us to teach you, to explain, to justify, to defend. And then, maybe once we're on human respect terms, we can talk about gender and what it actually means.
3
user206222
I realize I'm essentially skirting past everything you've written, but truthfully, it's just not a discussion worth having yet.
@OrangeDog I perfectly understand, I didn't take it that way.
user206222
> “The function, the very serious function of racism, is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language, so you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly, so you have scientists working on the fact that it is.
user206222
5:22 PM
> Someone says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of that is necessary. There will always be one more thing.” -Toni Morrison
I think one (perhaps unsolvable) problem with this dilemma is that the internet is fundamentally impersonal, and teaches you at every turn to take nothing on faith, to verify everything said to you. To avoid being burned, everyone acquires a high amount of natural skepticism
Disproving something is hard
user206222
@Magisch I think it's worth recasting this in the light of a deliberate structure of power. There is already skepticism about minorities groups in the public eye; whenever we pop up in public conversation, that skepticism turns laser-like. There's a reason it has reconstructed itself so virulently in the modern internet culture.
of course
I get it every time I mention that I'm asexual
@Magisch not just that, but the agents of doubt know how to manipulate the conversation to insist on proof that is impossible tangibly get. They know this which is why they do it.
5:29 PM
Imagine casually mentioning that and then you spend the next 2 hours in discussion to validate your existence. Tiring if nothing else. But it's a natural function of the amount of distrust and natural defensiveness the internet breeds in everybody
@Aza well it's allowed disparate pockets of hate to group up in socially acceptable ways like they were not what they are.
I wish I had a solution to it. My only way of dealing with it is to hide away every extraneous detail about myself. To pass as uninteresting as possible. Because I don't have the emotional energy to justify myself every hour of every day. It never stops.
user206222
Also: just like with racism, people who aren't trans are gonna have to grapple with the fact that they have transphobia within them. But it comes in degrees, and thinking about it as a binary "you are or are not capital-T Transphobic" is a lil reductive. Asking us to defend ourselves is a transphobia. It's not the same as, for example, purposefully advocating damaging information, which has also happened over the past week, though I don't think by your hand.
what is a "troll"? i've always thought of trolling as a to point out hypocrisy (make everyone play by the same rules), but it has been mentioned to me that trolls, or trolling can be darker than that.
can anyone shine a light on this topic?
Hey @Aza I'm on mobile and not going to be on here for more than a second, but I wouldn't mind your feedback on my edit to my resignation post. Does that clarification help it sound less like ridicule? Even a little less? I'll check replies later, thanks.
user206222
5:32 PM
@Mgetz It does, yeah.
@Magisch I have a friend that didn't understand what I said when I explained that I have to live with the fact that people I know and am friends with could literally be the people at a pogrom tomorrow where I die... it took them awhile to get that things aren't always simple.
user206222
@Caleb Nah, you're digging the hole deeper. Just being bluntly honest.
@StephanS the definition is far broader than that. Just have a read through en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll
Okay thanks. Not sure what to do about that but thanks for the feedback.
@Bart thank you, I really didn't know there would be a wiki on it, I'll do more research next time I ask
5:34 PM
@StephanS a troll is someone that does something to elicit a reaction of outrage or disgust deliberately in the broadest sense
@StephanS no worries. There's not really a research requirement in here. But it avoids me having to write a lot :D
@Caleb "foibles" might not be the best choice.
I already flagged it.
Flagged
My flag just now poofed it
5:36 PM
maybe the definition has changed since the days of little hearted trolling
Thanks, folks. I like you.
@Bart Good call. I'll try to fix when off mobile.
Flag team freeze frame high five!
5:37 PM
I flagged it yesterday
we did it!
@StephanS Haha it was a comment posted a half hour ago =P
oh i thought you meant the whole post
user206222
Side note: I really want to kill 'preferred pronouns.' They're just... they're just pronouns, Jim...
5
Has there ever been a question on meta, which had more downvotes than this one?
5:44 PM
Nope
@Aza you are really killing it with the starred post today. Congrats
I feel like zir actually being genuine meta.stackexchange.com/questions/334392/…
@StephanS The problem there is, not everyone wants their pronouns to be known
??? Can somebody fill me in please?
5:49 PM
@Dharman Fill you in on what?
Why would I want my personal details to be shared with the world? This post is a joke right?
@Dharman I'm not sure but some people do
My Avatar clearly states who I am. A human. My name clearly hides who I am. This is by design.
@StephanS The pronouns zem etc. are genuine AFAIK.
but
WHAT THE HECK IS UP WITH META THESE DAYS
GOSH
Sorry. Feel better now.
Is someone trying to change the English language?
5:51 PM
Alright, I'm closing all meta.SE tabs unless people get a grip.
@M.A.R. aka you're never going on meta again
@Dharman Yes. A lot of people are. Language is a dynamic thing.
The formal rules how to refer to people are all agreed upon ages ago
@Dharman times change. Language is fluid.
How would you refer to me in the third person then?
5:52 PM
@StephanS Nah. I'm usually tolerant.
oh no, i didn't mean to open this can of worms
Main reason being I'm an idiot myself.
@Dharman how would you prefer to be referred to in the third person?
@Dharman Dharman
5:53 PM
@Dharman thou art kinda wrong
Either, my name or they. This I was lead to believe is the correct way my whole life.
As Shakespeare used to say @M.A.R. :p
@Dharman then that is what we will do for you.
@Bart yeth
@Dharman Well OK, an issue that seemed to have mostly gone under the radar.
This sort of "training" doesn't happen to the significant majority of non-native speakers.
Sometimes it is acceptable to use he, man, dude irrespective of the gender or species, but it is informal and rather frowned upon. e.g. They found a whale in Dublin bay yesterday, he is dead now.
Uh, whales don't have much of a pronoun
5:56 PM
This however is incorrect and I would not use such general term in formal writing or speach
That is offensive to whales, man.
Some people default to thinking people online are male. A fewer number default to female, and an even fewer number have been online enough to internalize not defaulting to any gender.
They do not deserve to be punished just for that.
can we talk about whales
> They found a whale in Dublin bay yesterday, he is dead now.

That sounds totally wrong to me, unless the whale has developed a specifically male persona in the news
and how cool they are
Apparently it's going to quote both lines :|
5:58 PM
yup
whales are the biggest animal on earth that's crazy
@StephanS oooowooohooowoooowaaaaaaoooooohhooo ... ah you said ABOUT whales ... sorry.
can't mix quote and non quote just like you cant mix block code and non block code
@meagar This weirds me out about ships too, in the west ships are usually feminine but in russia they are masculine pronouned. Because culture
@Bart lol whale noises
5:59 PM
@meagar quoting yourself is either cheesy and corny or pretty awesome
I'm going for the latter, because your avatar is a methyl
@Bart No, I disagree. ooooooooooowwwwwoooooooooohhhhhooooo
Flagged! The nerve!
me is my trollish avatar that happens to be my initials :p
@Mgetz That is an important fact to consider. In many languages items have clear genders.
@StephanS I gave Zir a genuine response. Hopefully it helps
@Bart You are being such a oooooowowowoooooooo right now
TO META
6:01 PM
But I'm more of an ethyl man, myself.
Don't say that
Methyl is much awesomer than ethyl
Beer disagreeeees
"much awesomer"
The funny thing is, I'd be all for an optional way for users to disclose their pronouns. It's something I wish Twitter had an option for
@Stevoisiak Where though? People don't check profiles
6:06 PM
Would be an effective way to determine who to interact with
@M.A.R. Users already put their pronouns in their twitter profiles "about" section. I don't see an issue with having a spot in the profile
I've talked to what, a thousand people here over the years, definitely much fewer bothered to check my profile and much fewer commented on it.
@KevinB wut? How?
I'd be worried people might start getting offended "my profile says I'm a them, but this person called me a he" if you put pronoun info in profiles
user206222
There's also a dynamic to Twitter pronouns. If you list 'em it keeps hostile people outta your mentions, because they see pronouns and nope out. Even if you're not trans.
6:08 PM
@Stevoisiak I don't see an issue with many things but they have been thrown in the dumpster called meta.SE to gain the random upvote in the future.
user206222
Which ironically, incentivizes Twitter users to list pronouns, for reasons totally unrelated to transness.
I guess I'm thinking more of Twitter culture than SE culture
@KevinB I like your new profile pic
@StephanS He's been a batman axe for as long as I remember
what about the orange triangle......
6:11 PM
tis my old avatar, made it some time around... 2007? 2006?
He changed to a downvote in the middle, but we can't hide who we are
Speaking of which, I should maybe change my profile.
was my blog logo
. . . avatar.
oh ok
I cant remember if I ever used a different avatar on SE
6:30 PM
I feel like this must have been addressed before - a gold tag-badge holder (potentially ab)using their instant reopen powers on their own question
As soon as I sent that I found it meta.stackexchange.com/questions/283870/…
At worst, it just doesn't look good.
Or a person with 60k+ meta rep went on a troll binge
@MikeTheLiar We had a problem in my community with moderator benefiting their own questions, there's nothing you can really do other than call them out on it and let time pass
6:51 PM
5 messages moved to Trashcan
okay, we're not having this debate here
2
1 message moved to Trashcan
I had something non-inflammatory to add but I'll drop it
If you've seen me around you already know which side of this I'm on. That's irrelevant. I'm not having a debate here if it can't be kept civil, and a debate that turned nasty in the first 5 messages is not one that's going to stay civil.
The fact that there's a "debate" to be had is somehow even more depressing than the debate itself.
So how about this weather, anyway? Crazy stuff.
I've been having fun playing some video games
I think I've spent more time on SE in the past week then I had ever.
6:57 PM
looks at "Fanatic" badge no comment
been trying to get galacticraft pipes to not break every time i unload the chunk
I've been doing interviews
because apparently people want jobs
Whaaaa?
Jobs? What do people need, money?
@StephanS oh, you sweet summer baby...
@Stevoisiak Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Give him an iPhone and he will starve to death texting and posting to Instagram
7:01 PM
Teach a fish to man and he sits at a desk all day complaining "man, I'm swamped"
@Machavity nature is cruel that way.
@Machavity ...If you'd replaced Instagram with Twitter, I'd have felt personally called out
Also, nice TF2 avatar
@Stevoisiak pssh nobody calls out anybody personally on SE. That's crazy talk
Light someone a fire and they're warm for a night. Light someone on fire, and they're warm for the rest of their life.
@MikeTheLiar Light them on fire at 11:59 pm and you'll get both
7:09 PM
@Stevoisiak it's comments like this that make we want to respond to almost everything with a youtube link to songs, in this case to the doors...
@Mgetz You wouldn't be the first to want to show me the door
"There's the door Steven" isn't an an uncommon phrase among one of my friends
Uh... it's a song "Light my Fire" by a band called the Doors
Oh
...well that's embarassing
>.>
<.<
I see nobody wants to break this awkward silence for me
7:24 PM
@Stevoisiak Nope
But, Mgetz should've capitalized that to avoid misinterpretation
@Mgetz 🎶 I see a door on fire and want to paint it black 🎶
🎶 oh shit this paint is flammable everybody get back 🎶
@MikeTheLiar So that's what happened to freedom of speech
7:51 PM
@MikeTheLiar and now my mind went to "Ballroom Blitz" by Sweet
For a second there I thought you meant Blitzkrieg Bop and I was very confused.
8:14 PM
@MikeTheLiar also good
8:31 PM
hah, someone just made a useful edit to one of my old "canonical" answers. It's nice when the system works.
8:43 PM
Already voted
@rene without looking closely, my first thought was that it was a gender/chromosome joke...
@Bart I just returned from a show by Erik van Muiswinkel about Drs. P. this song explained by Christina Applegate is in it: youtu.be/0jDdNORZXvQ
@canon any joke would do for me ...
@rene By joke I meant some thinly veiled jab at transgendered folks.
@canon meh, maybe we should leave that topic at rest while we wind down for happy hour
@rene the climate just has me looking for that kind of thing. That's all. :/
wired up
9:02 PM
@rene Got to love Drs. P. :D The nostalgia
9:13 PM
@Bart yep. Sad part was that when he got 90 his mental capabilities were kind of gone but strange enough he would still singalong all his lyrics when a piano played one of his tunes.
Did you know he was Swiss btw?
@Bart No, I didn't. I learned that tonight. As 3 years old or so emigrated to the netherlands
10:10 PM
@rene Welp. Tried to be nice. Had to file in small claims today.
 
1 hour later…
11:31 PM
29 messages moved to Chimney
@410 wtf are you talking about?
@Stormblessed Employees can see all their deleted posts on all sites
@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog well yeah but for others who might be curious I guess

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