If I don't like reddit, and don't participate there, does that mean that reddit owes me an apology?

Or does that only work if you're a minority of some kind

This and the second (too boring to link) Joel's post. Copious amount of white guilt on display.

> I’ve got more posts coming! The next one will be about the obsessive way Stack Overflow was designed for the artifact, in other words, we optimized everything to create amazing results for developers with problems arriving from Google, not just to answer questions that people typed into our site.

That may be worth sharing throughout these discussions, once it's up.

> I am @StackOverflow employee number 19. I have been working on Stack Overflow since 2010. There is no question that Stack Overflow has a huge inclusivity problem, and it's our fault. It would have been our job to prevent that from happening, and now it's our job to fix it. -- Jason Punyon, yes it's just my name is that ok? at 12:42 PM - 13 Apr 2018

There are more of these to come apparently.

Sad to see SO kowtowing to Wenzel and her cronies.

randomly-generated names and avatars, and run every post back and forth through google translate.

we already like to edit individuality out of posts; let's automate its removal from profiles too. :P

I guess the moral of the story is that I should go create a profile with a black female face and see whether there's a difference, or whether any issues are on deeper levels than that would expose.

If there's any investigation of systemic racism on the site, I would hope that anti-indian racism would be a consideration since they are one of the largest groups on the site and one against whom casual racism is common in the industry.

Systemic discrimination against them is a heavier issue than against several other potential groups from a perspective of "aggregate harm done", both in terms of total population (prospective users) and actual users.

I didn't use the word "minority"; I'd frame it more in terms of balance of community influence/stature, where they can be sort-of proportionally disadvantaged compared with Americans or Australians.

I don't concede (or reject) the premise that there is a significant problem, but if there is, I would consider this to be an important angle.

I have started embracing the Indian half of my blood as the world has been telling me to be ashamed of my White half. 😐

Mind you, while Britain was subjugating my Indian ancestors they were also deporting my White ancestors to serve as involuntary indentured servants in a foreign land, so I'm not sure from whom I am supposed to have inherited that sin.

@Magisch two of my babies :) eating a much needed hard feed with supplements and milk replacer. The little tacker on the left was weaned early and suddenly

@πάνταῥεῖ ikr and my mare is ready to have her foal, so there will be 3 babies

@SFTP is this serious?

@AaronHall I see this in myself in ways I'm ashamed of not having entirely purged yet. I have evicted the word "bitch" and other gendered slurs from my vocabulary, but sometimes if I'm really angry at an individual my subconscious will still suggest associated terms like that, before I internally tell it to shut the hell up.

But even if the root cause is "I'm angry at this individual for non-discriminatory reasons", if the comment uses language that evokes that kind-of baggage, it is worse, and therefore still a source of discriminatory bias in responses.

@AdamLear totally agree - I've replied to some of the twitter remarks - I don't want to rubbish SO, as it's not SO - SO does a good job of striving to improve things - we are dealing with a global community and I can tell I'll be striving to make things better for ... anyone who needs it

@πάνταῥεῖ they're pets, trust me. They get pats and hugs and gentle talks

@ShadowWizard when it occurs it can be subtle and pervasive. It's the same for anyone on the receiving end of discrimination - we can take it for granted that things seem ok - when they may well not be.

@READandSee-It'sNotaDupe when people suggest this type of test, I always groan, it's glib. A life of being on the receiving end of racism cannot be truly felt by putting up a phony avatar to see what it feels like. These things a pervasive and affect people's lives on so many levels. In our country our Aboriginal people have a much shorter life expectancy than all else. It's appalling and yet people fail to see the inbuilt systemic discrimination that sets people up to fail and be outcast

@ShadowWizard the pile on of comments, sometimes downvotes and some of the hostility to people who struggle with programming or English as a language. The site has improved though and the ethos of SE is excellent in trying to bring about change - it's a matter of making the community feel as though they've made that decision on their own.

Stack Overflow doesn't seem particularly well-positioned to offer therapy to resolve a lifetime of abuse.

If the answer is "reduce the amount of general nastiness, because that is felt more painfully by disadvantaged groups", that's hard to disagree with.

It is a real issue.

Cool. If that's what much of this discussion boils down to in practice, all may be happy with the result.

@AaronHall of course - it's a group mentality that is not uncommon and we need to crack it on it's head

@READandSee-It'sNotaDupe seriously - don't make comments that do not follow a socratic argument - it just degrades and derails the discussions and doesn't actually help to solve anything - in fact it helps to ensure the problems are perpetuated

One thing that needs to stop is pile on - a particular thing that @rene has made clear is unacceptable in the SOCVR

it needs to stop on the main site and on meta, how many times do people need to tell someone - "I don't agree!"

@AdamLear have a nice time

@YvetteColomb Okay, let me make that Socratic: is Stack Overflow well-positioned to resolve the root issues that cause some people to be more sensitive to the same types of responses? If not, what is the point in that casual chain where Stack Overflow can make progress?

Answers, above: "no", and "reducing baseline hostility on the site".

:s/casual/causal

Mentorship kind-of provided good cops to balance the endless bad cops.

Having that bit of positive or contextualizing feedback seemed to help users interpret other negative feedback in a more constructive way.

@READandSee-It'sNotaDupe no one was suggesting that we do. We're discussing community attitude

@πάνταῥεῖ To be frank, the industry as a whole has also grown up a bit, and immature idiocy that was once tolerated is being appropriately increasingly rejected.

I'm sorry if that adversely affected you, but this is hardly an imposition of unreasonable standards.

@AaronHall yep agree - not everyone who comes onto the site is sainted that's for sure - it's the people who are making that effort - but you can see they're struggling to make a question on topic - doesn't mean they will always be like that. Scaring them off doesn't help

@READandSee-It'sNotaDupe yes, agree

@πάνταῥεῖ I don't think anyone is blaming as such there just needs to be some standards set. Well perhaps the standards raised

The frequent framing of the external discussion as focusing on racial and gender issues may lead users (such as myself) to read-into-that an implicit accusation that the community is overtly racist/sexist, while (from the discussion above) it appears that the intent is rather than that the community is mean and there are external systemic factors that cause that to lead to indirect racist/sexist outcomes.

Twitter is an awful venue to talk about this because it invites people to assume the worst subtext and get offended.

@Magisch yes :) they're my new babies - they are from the wild - no they have their forever homes

@READandSee-It'sNotaDupe it's not confined to any race/gender/religion it's the basic mentality that can still prevail and is much seen on meta... it's not helping to make people feel welcome

on meta (less so the main site - it gets jumped on quickly there) people jump onto posts and it's overwhelming and like watching a rugby match.

I honestly think it's counter productive and toxic

@READandSee-It'sNotaDupe and sorry - I was harsh before - I'm so used to the arguments on so meta. They are often attacks in the guise of betterment for the community

I was inappropriately flippant.

@AaronHall my slogan is "be a part of the change you want to see"

and I put that on twitter fwiw - you get more bees with honey.

@READandSee-It'sNotaDupe which comment are you replying to?

@YvetteColomb I was replying to your apology and referring to my earlier comments such as about therapy.

@READandSee-It'sNotaDupe ah ok. and thanks

ok I'm going to bed. I've been on foal duty all night :) so I'm in some other time zone atm... not Aussie

o/ cheers

\o

o/

be prepared for more foal spam though

@Magisch night/morning nice to see you \o

@SonicWizard How can I //help?

Next, expect Justin Bieber to issue an apology for failing to appeal to male population to the same extent as to female population.

(Substitute a current teen girl idol if necessary; I'm not current on the topic.)

Such discrimination and exclusion.

I can understand why birds chirp more during spring, I wonder whether people talk more (on the internet) for the same reason, at least partially due to the same reason.

@SonicWizard Less likely than for Docs, because Teams are positioned as a revenue product from the beginning.

stackoverflow is a great place for lurking - you can get all your answers if you're good at lurking, no interaction necessary ...

Having re-read all of the tweets again I see now that my interpretation was initially mis-coloured

having seen tweets like this first:

I was interpreting much of the discussion as being on that angle

when most of it was more about friendliness in general with that as an ancillary point.

silly me

I think It's advantageous to be able to move on quickly.

Have a variety of things in your life also means you spend less attention on each