Tavern on the Meta - 2018-05-02 (page 5 of 6)

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3:00 PM

I mean they'll probably are all over scheduled

To be super clear to everyone, I am really proud of the way (nearly) everyone has been out and talking about this. Had that blog post gone over with crickets chirping, well, that would be a very big problem indeed. We may not yet agree on a lot of things, we may find each other annoying as we contemplate the effort it's going to take to talk through things, but we're here talking and that makes me proud.

@TimPost ok, that makes me happy :) I understand it can be a challenge with the limited resources you have.

To the fact that we're way overworked: This is something I brought up and it's something we're going to do something about. The big push there is give y'all better tools to help self-regulate, and feel far less frustrated, and see where that gets us.

Then we're going to see if we need to hire more, open more specific / narrow topics about inclusivity problem (way more specific than 'I think we're getting most of it wrong'), and more. But each step requires us to pause and evaluate how much better (or, hopefully not worse) things got.

Sterling Archer

@TimPost I appreciate that. Sometimes we need to be loved too :)

We can't let the noise of shouting outdrive the voice of numbers

@TimPost You'll keep us posted I hope

Sterling Archer

3:04 PM

Just because somebody yells, doesn't make them anymore valid than the one speaking calmly

WE WUV YOU. This is ~~Jay and Tim's~~ mommy and daddy's fault, don't blame yourselves (but you don't get a free pass for acting out either!)

Yes, talking over noise doesn't automatically create reason.

@TimPost unrelated: is there any kind of "punishment"/consequences for comment flags?

Tim, I have one more question: what would be the best place to submit feedback about the blog post, in a private way? As in, something I don't mind sharing with the team, but not something I want to post publicly.

@PrincessLuna Depends on the context. Mods will generally reach out to you if it becomes a pattern over time.

Journeyman Geek

@PrincessLuna Not unless we need to.

Sterling Archer

3:05 PM

@TimPost I have to ask, and I will try to word this carefully. Why does April Wensel have such an influence when she actively tells people not to use StackOverflow, or to raise issues in Meta?

@Stijn probably team@stackoverflow.com, but I'm not staff

@TimPost That's something that I'd personally really love to see improved.

But if you go seriously over the top in just ONE comment, well, you're equally likely to get a strongly worded email

Journeyman Geek

@SterlingArcher she's actually a pretty effective communicator

@SterlingArcher Influence over who?

3:06 PM

@TimPost But there's no automated warning system or anything like that?

Sterling Archer

I never said she wasn't, from what I've seen she's a great speaker, I simply just don't agree with much she says.

Journeyman Geek

@TimPost well, there's a certain perception that a lot of the recent stuff's a reaction to her tweets.

Admittedly I have that view too

@JourneymanGeek That actually illustrates part of the problem, a big one.

20

A: Can we do more than just delete rude comments?

I'm going to preface this answer a bit with some information about myself: I'm not a SO user. I'm a moderator on two sites including Interpersonal Skills which, in the time it's existed until now (~9 months), has had over 15K comments deleted. This is nothing on SO scale but I think I know a bi...

Sterling Archer

@TimPost it just feels like she's leading a twitter brigade against StackOverflow. The has the following to snap her fingers and cause hell. A simple tweet and her followers will shut down an entire chatroom

3:07 PM

@Catija Thanks

Sterling Archer

I've read the reply tweets, it's aggressive, were hated.

Stay with me for a second. April is one of the few people that puts herself out there talking about this stuff. The bulk of it is actually worse than what she's pointing out, and usually communicated privately, because people fear twitter dog piles / doxxing / jerks being jerks

So it's not her tweets that led to this, her tweets just put the rest of the wind in a sail that was already quite full.

@SterlingArcher but you don't know what was moderated there already. Maybe even bigger hatred from SO fans

@TimPost Surely you noticed though that a whole lot of users find her arguments to be entirely unfounded and made in bad faith, too?

@TimPost Can SO mods be let in on this bulk of stuff?

Journeyman Geek

3:09 PM

@TimPost Funny thing is, I don't respond to most of that (and try to ignore it) cause of fears of the same reasons

Sterling Archer

The fear of being twitter doxxed is all too real

especially since we the community never see any evidence of this, since rude stuff is uh, ... deleted

Journeyman Geek

and I do think a lot of folks actually have the same views/feel attacked

@TimPost are you planning on a podcast with April?

Journeyman Geek

well, mostly dogpiles.

3:10 PM

@PrincessLuna Sure. I may be able to help with other specific questions if you have them and that answer doesn't clear things up for you. :)

@user5389107 I have noticed that, yes. But in the same breath, I've also noticed many attacking her with impossible arguments (like "prove it") and the whole time I'm just sitting here screaming at my screen I WISH I COULD SHOW YOU ALL THESE EMAILS UGGGGGG

@TimPost So redact the personal details and show us

let us in on all the ugly detail for once

@rene I am not aware of any plans for that but I certainly would not place it outside of the realm of possibility.

He'd probably have to get permission from the authors first.

And magically the community might get really motivated to put a stop to it

Journeyman Geek

3:11 PM

@user5389107 they're still privileged in a sense and would still be a betrayal of trust.

@user5389107 Would me being shown enough data to be convinced that it's a real problem be, in turn, enough to convince you?

Sterling Archer

Unfortunately I know Tim's frustration. I have a private conversation between a twitter user and one of our ROs that ended in the twitter user being horrible, then took one message from our RO and blasted it on tiwtter.

@Undo sure

Sterling Archer

The bulk can't be shown... we just have to have some sort of faith.

I know you long enough that I'll accept a claim from you on faith for now

3:12 PM

@Catija Thinking of creating a couple of feature requests on meta, just wanna make sure I get all the facts correct :) Since there's already a feature request on comments though, I'm not gonna do anything with it

Sterling Archer

Unfortunately in every movie the mob always rebels beforehand and ruins the plan and then Alderan is destroyed.

I like the SO employees and I like tim, but I know undo

Vote @Undo for Mod .. oh wait ....

Let me put this in perspective. I have been through chemotherapy, and 50 fractions of radiation. That was more enjoyable than my job has been in the last 7 days, and I essentially demanded that we take the action that we did because the problem from my vantage point has just gone on way too long.

We would not be doing this, and taking this on, and creating all of this tenseness if there wasn't a damn good reason.

@TimPost Wait why can't you show us those

3:13 PM

@Jhoverit privacy is a bear

@Jhoverit Expectation of privacy.

@TimPost Maybe letting our community ambassadors (the mods) in on some more would help to generate acceptance

The senders would happily allow

Sterling Archer

what no grizzly is a bear @Undo gawd

don't you know your bears?

It's too easy to inadvertently identify someone to say, their office mates, even if we redacted anything technically personal. People can easily be identified through circumstances.

3:14 PM

@TimPost I believe you, but there's a large contingent of people who won't. My reading of meta is that exposing something hard about this would turn plenty of people to your side quickly.

Journeyman Geek

@user5389107 TBH, we don't really need to know the details to do our jobs for most part. We need the folks around us to do their part.

@Undo We are working on that.

awesome

We're programmers. We like being able to quantify the problem, apply a fix, re-quantify the problem and see if it's still there.

I've been really critical and unbelieving of this because it's essentially just "believe us" from employees who I've had nothing to do with

Sterling Archer

I hope this isn't another year-spanning faith plan.

Journeyman Geek

3:15 PM

@TimPost I'm sorry to hear that :(

@TimPost I might have misunderstood... It would be easy to identify real life co-workers from emails about discrimination on Stackoverflow?

We have a lot of actual data to stand on, but we're putting it through excruciating vetting. Our data science team is working on it pretty much exclusively.

Not to dislike you guys but ... I'm weary to take such a big claim on faith alone

@Jhoverit It could be.

@Undo That's probably not how one should handle these kinds of issues, but the alternative is something like kicking out all the programmers.

3:15 PM

It would help a lot if at least some other people I trust (like most SO mods) could get some insight

Journeyman Geek

@Jhoverit heh, after a while you learn to identify some people's voices ;p

It's the chance of that which precludes sharing them.

There are lots of them. It seems like the issue is finding the *right* ones... We've talked about:
- comment-only locks
- comment-only suspensions
- ignoring the reputation bonus when determining the comment privilege (either entirely or only on protected questions)
- increased autoflagging
- changing the "add a comment" text to something else...
Which one or ones to use is where it's difficult... or if any of them will do any good...

That makes absolutely no sense

But sharing them wouldn't change much anyway.

@TimPost So to extract meaning from that ... you guys have internal data that shows this to be a big and widespread problem meriting special action on SO?

3:16 PM

off-topic: There is some opacity problem again it seems

Big and widespread as in rising above a few snarky comments

@user5389107 We do.

Sterling Archer

@TimPost so, you have all this data of discrimination. I assume the posters were punished and remove? (most likely by the community?) Why is the community being punished for it?

My operating theory right now is that we're talking about general unwelcomingness around asked questions, which leads me to think a question template would be a decent start. But I haven't seen what you're seeing.

@SterlingArcher It's not that easy.

Sterling Archer

3:17 PM

Maybe that's a strong word, but I feel like we're being punished for the deeds of others.

@SterlingArcher punished is a pretty strong word there.

@user5389107 You know me. You know my IPS comment project. Would you trust me if I said the amount of toxicity I see is... way too much?

@TimPost Looking very much forward to it.

@Mithrandir I would

Is it that bad?

Sterling Archer

@Undo agreed, assume I mean a less harsh word. I can't find it atm

3:18 PM

@user5389107 Yes.

Sometimes you need a certain point of view to find something to be horrible, but to everyone else, it looks like nothing special at all.

inconvenienced, disrupted

@Catija Imo, it should affect more than just comments. Optimally, it stars out affecting comments and eventually starts affecting the main user in general

I would've held off on the witch hunt until you quantified that data is my only opinion.

@user5389107 It makes my eyes bleed sometimes.

3:18 PM

Since it's still completely unavailable haha

And there's some stuff that is just universally horrible.

Also, take a look at what HeatDetector detects at times.

And while universally horrible stuff disappears from our system in minutes, it's still visible for a short time to a whole lot of people.

Journeyman Geek

@TimPost which, hopefully should be taken out as soon as possible

@Catija whut? I've known of the occasional BS comment about sexuality or other things, got some myself on some of my questions, but I wasn't aware it was really widespread

Sterling Archer

3:19 PM

But these horrible things are removed in seconds/minutes

@user5389107 that's mostly due to the hard work of flaggers and mods on IPS

@user5389107 Spend a couple weeks watching The Closet when there's a question tagged lgbt+ and you'll see.

'morning, folks

@JourneymanGeek "Soon as possible" is a long time some times. Last night I was deleting 5-9 year old comments that shouldn't have survived: meta.stackoverflow.com/a/367098/189134

@Shog9 'fternoon

Journeyman Geek

3:19 PM

What's the closet?

Sterling Archer

We bust our butts in the queues and questions to get those out

@Shog9 yo

@Mithrandir lgbt+ is not a tag on stackoverflow

@user5389107 I don't have stats but ... yes. The toxicity is real and it makes me sick. There's a reason apaul wrote what he did on our meta and why I responded the way I did.

some airhead took the time to find my github and reddit account and took to commenting on my reddit posts about something I'd talked about in TAS

Journeyman Geek

@Andy yeah, that's a process/community problem

3:20 PM

but that's the worst I've got from IPS

Just FYI: I've gone back through the past few weeks of chat here on meta and removed a number of messages in this room and the Den. This is probably a good reminder that everyone is responsible for their own words, even if it doesn't seem like anyone's reading them.

@Jhoverit No, but it is on Interpersonal Skills. And the vast majority of those people leaving comments were SO users. And if someone is acting like a bigot on one site on the network it's not unexpected that they'd be a bigot on a different network site.

@JourneymanGeek It's also a legacy problem that SO/SE needs to overcome. For 9 years these posts sat around. Users saw them, upvoted them and kept walking on by. For all the time, it helped others form opinions of how the site operates.

@Mithrandir This issue has nothing to do with the exchange or other sites. It's StackOverflow singularly

@Jhoverit No. It's not.

3:21 PM

If it was every site they'd not have said "STACKOVERFLOW has a problem" lmao

No, it's about the network.

On the stackoverflow blog

Stack Overflow is the company.

About stackoverflow posts

Oh, if it's about the network then yea we suck

sigh ... alright

Journeyman Geek

3:22 PM

@Jhoverit heh, that's something that I think we asked about

@Jhoverit It is a problem everywhere and we need to address it everywhere. SO is the company.

Journeyman Geek

But but but...

I'll accept that there is a problem and stop demanding data on it

We have religious networks on here, it's assinine to assume there won't be discrimination ;P

Journeyman Geek

even if its totally about SO the site, eh, nothing wrong with re-examining ourselves

3:22 PM

@SterlingArcher not always. Just think, if you were the recipient of crap in a comment, and it just lingered there until you happened to read it in your inbox. That stuff could be visible to others for a while. I've shared this a few times in the last few days, but I wrote about something similar in 2014.

I'd still like some but It's becoming untenable to remain on the fence for now

This has been happening for a long time. What I wrote there has happened to me the entire time I've been on SO, almost 8 years now.

Man I have seen some messed up stuff on the hindu and jewish exchanges..

It's a network thing. It's highly exacerbated at scale (hence, SO has the biggest problem), but it has happened on the network as communities turned from their initial dirt roads and farms into more upscale subdivisions with a few high rises.

@Jhoverit You can consider that a formal statement from a company representative.

Journeyman Geek

3:22 PM

@Jhoverit ehhhh....

> Too many people experience Stack Overflow¹ as a hostile or elitist place, especially newer coders, women, people of color, and others in marginalized groups.

[...]

¹ This post focuses on Stack Overflow, but most of it applies to the broader Stack Exchange network as well.

Journeyman Geek

If its an issue, flag it.

I have a great deal of respect for some of the judaism mods

@Jhoverit There's been a troll attacking those two sites for a while now. Is that what you mean?

@JoeFriend As if there's anything formal to your community engagement. Thanks tho

@TimPost I don't envy you right now between the uglyness you have to wade through and all the people that think you're out to kill the network to appease feminists

3:23 PM

@Jhoverit Huh?

@Jhoverit We get some outright trolls and I'm pretty proud of how we repel them. What we're talking about is the stuff that tends to just get sort of ignored out of complacency, or just unawareness of the potential harm it does to people's feelings.

Journeyman Geek

@Mithrandir I never worked out if it was one or more. There was a guy also attacking islam with a indian sounding name I think.

Trolls are easy though

@JourneymanGeek Same guy.

Journeyman Geek

its the seemingly well meaning users who... cross the line that are hard

from experience

@TimPost It is at this point that one logically asks for an example

3:24 PM

@JourneymanGeek if the smokey posts I sometimes see are a representation of the rest of the dogpile ....

Sterling Archer

@Taryn but I have been the recipient of crap

@Jhoverit That's what we're working on.

But I keep asking to better understand and get nothing. So eh

Looking forward to it.

I can give you one, a common one, here goes:

"Thanks man! I really appreciate the time you put into your answer, I'm accepting it right now and you are seriously a saint for saving me!"

^^^^ Why would that make someone feel bad?

The whole community has been confused on it so far from what I see. We're not sure if it's blatant attacks or "shop talk" or mansplaining or what, the users are saying all sorts of stuff

Sterling Archer

3:26 PM

@TimPost because it's not gender neutral?

@SterlingArcher yeah, but if you're someone browsing the site and you see that nonsense out there, guess what? that doesn't show a place that's inviting to others.

@TimPost Two reasons. "saint" and "man".

Sterling Archer

wait why is saint bad?

@TimPost I have no idea, why would it? If it's really about "Thanks Man" I don't belong here.

@SterlingArcher Well, look into it more. Let's say you're really used to men getting credit for your work, and here's an example of someone thinking that since you're competent, you must be a man, even if that's not what the person meant to say.

3:26 PM

Wow......

Sterling Archer

@Taryn that seems like a difficult problem to speed up the removal

Peace

That's how the site can reinforce negative aspects in people's own perceptions and appear to be "not for them" hence unwelcoming.

Changing that is going to be a fight against windmills

Now that's probably the least worst example, but there are many more, and unless you've experienced it yourself or are trained to look for it, you don't often see it.

3:28 PM

we have a lot of people from countries where it is still common place to assume only men work

Journeyman Geek

@user1114 so here's the thing with religious texts. A lot of it reflects the historical contexts of their time

Sterling Archer

@TimPost I have a hard time seeing that point of view because my supervisors have almost exclusively been women, and all my life I have had strong women in my life tell me not to care about that

@SterlingArcher Because some of us are atheists.

Journeyman Geek

and a lot of folks tend to cherry pick cause it reflects what they want, or what they hate

@SterlingArcher something something not everyone has the idea of "saints" and different religions

3:28 PM

@TimPost Tbh I don't see how that's valid in the slightest...

Sterling Archer

@Catija so what? I'm jewish technically, I don't believe in God, but I still wish people a merry christmas

Just trendy to get offended by non-gender-neutral greetings

Can I say "dude"?

Anonymous

@JourneymanGeek "there are no conditions or circumstances when either the husband or the wife may refuse the invitation of the other" doesn't seem to be placing this belief in a historical concept, it seems to be declaring a current moral imperative.

Anonymous

One that is vile and has no place being promoted on Stack Exchange.

@user5389107 And many a windmill to come. But the fact that we at least acknowledge it, agree it's a problem (however unsurmountable it might be) and present a culture that is willing to change to accommodate as many people as it can - we're winning.

3:29 PM

Regardless, should be extremely simple for you to regex all the man-centric words to neutral ones.

Journeyman Geek

@user1114 followed up by a quote from a source. And the selected answer's something else.

@user5389107 nit-picky, but that seems like the wrong idiom; "tilting against windmills" is a battle against an imaginary enemy, one only you can see; this is probably more of a sisyphean task, one which is difficult and never-ending

@Jhoverit Interesting related question: interpersonal.stackexchange.com/q/2802/102

We don't have to fix everything, we just have to end the perception (and reality) that we're simply unwilling to try, or even admit the problem exists for some.

@SterlingArcher You've made that choice... but recognizing that not everyone has is part of the struggle.

3:29 PM

@Shog9 sure, I'm probably using that analogy wrong

I only mention it because I've heard the windmill thing a few times the last few days

@Jhoverit dude! come on ...

Anonymous

@JourneymanGeek White nationalists have "sources".

@HDE226868 Well @TimPost just directly said the opposite. Maybe that's a poor answer

By that I mean a lot of people will see that and say "screw you because you said that I'll be extra sure to only assume men"

Journeyman Geek

3:30 PM

@TimPost "unwilling" - ehh, more that there's other priorities

Sterling Archer

@Catija in my mind, and I've said this before, "That's a you problem" (not you as in @Catija, general "you")

Journeyman Geek

or have been? I donno

Sterling Archer

I've done what I need to do, I'm a nice person, but when I have to correct my way of talking because a percentage of people can't handle it?

I can relate to this to some extent

Journeyman Geek

@user1114 was that a half godwin?

3:31 PM

often people will call socially awkward people autistic as a lighthearted joke

@SterlingArcher And that's exactly the pickle we're in. :) People who feel marginalized by being called "man" or "sir" or "dude"... and the people who do it saying "not my problem". If that's where we want to end up, we're good... if we want to recognize that it is a problem, we have to work on it and encourage people to change.

Journeyman Geek

I mean, "I disagree with this" is fine.

It still stings a bit every time...

Anonymous

@JourneymanGeek I reject the relevance of godwins law to an already deeply moralized debate.

@Jhoverit No, I think Tim's right; it's a different term with different connotations.

Anonymous

3:31 PM

Declaring that rape is okay should be grounds for suspension.

Sterling Archer

@Catija quite a shame too. I'll admit I don't recall saying "thanks man" to a woman

@HDE226868 Meh, it's childish

Sterling Archer

But I call everything dude

@SterlingArcher dude

you'll be suspended next, both of you

Journeyman Geek

3:32 PM

@user1114 You should probably make that arguement on their meta. While cringeworthy, it literally quotes some guy...

Folks, I am not an expert on being a better person than I was yesterday and I don't presume to know all of the answers. That's why my focus right now is making room for more of my coworkers, people like April, and others to feel safe enough to think about this stuff with us, with the expectation that they won't be wasting their time. That's all.

Journeyman Geek

But islamic law is in no way one of my expertise.

Sterling Archer

If you're out there literally calling a woman a man, or sir, that's different. Assuming gender is... tough. But if the comment is cheery like "Thanks bro! You saved me <3" maybe take it as empowering?

2

Journeyman Geek

hah

@SterlingArcher And the easiest way to avoid it is to just not use it... see the answer Shog wrote on the question about using "father" to refer to the "father of computing" question. meta.stackexchange.com/questions/309695/…

3:33 PM

@SterlingArcher World needs more sanity from Archer

@TimPost I wonder what your opinion is on SE sites that host a religion which is decidedly anti feminist and utterly incompatible with gender inclusion

3

@SterlingArcher Maybe. But maybe life put you in a position where it's hard to take that as anything other than another drop in the bucket.

Are you going to enforce enclusiveness on these sites too?

Journeyman Geek

@SterlingArcher I don't suspect that's what folks mean.

@SterlingArcher Also relevant: interpersonal.stackexchange.com/a/1119/36

3:34 PM

"Get a thicker skin" isn't a good strategy to communicate.

2

@user5389107 Those users aren't complaining apparently so no need

Sterling Archer

@Catija I've read it, many times now lol

Journeyman Geek

shrug

So, here's something that kinda bothers me (Oh and this is for many people here).

Personally speaking, I'm not even on some sites not even to flag spam because I can't go there without getting angry

Sterling Archer

I think we've devolved past the original topic drastically

Anonymous

3:35 PM

Yeaaah.

@SterlingArcher Oh? Are people linking to it? I've been getting votes on it recently but I didn't think about that possibility.

Idk, it was eye opening for me

Journeyman Geek

If I've had a problem with folks, and their views. I basically think talking to them directly is the best way. Not appealing to folk with authority to do their dirty work.

I was starting more and more to think maybe there really is some genuine concern here

But I was just shown that yea, it's just some 2018 trendy get mad for someone else so I feel righteous BS

If it's acceptable for me to say to someone face to face, it should be acceptable here. That goes for "Man"

Journeyman Geek

I've had social anxiety for years. Big case of imposter syndrome. If I can go "hey, guys, I don't think this is right" - talking to the folks we're unhappy with, rather than trying to deflect the conversation with "what about this site" ...

2

Sterling Archer

3:36 PM

@TimPost I have to go, thank you for the engagement (you shouldn't have 💍), I will try to have faith, but we need faith as well :)

Here is a post on a SE site with the accepted answer that it's ok to have female sex slaves: islam.stackexchange.com/questions/649/…

Sterling Archer

(And thank you to everybody else who was able to calmly open up)

This is why I'm not on that site

Sterling Archer

Especially @Taryn :D

Journeyman Geek

@user5389107 see above

3:37 PM

I'm not comfortable in my ability to use r/a flags there

@SterlingArcher we can chat whenever about this. :)

@user5389107 ... what?

5th most popular question on that site to be exact

Sterling Archer

@Taryn I may take you up on that, I take pride in being able to debate very well (mostly because I'm an idiot who loves to learn)

@user5389107 I don't think that answering in the context of a religion is a problem. If they were then to go leaving comments other places that having sex slaves is okay they'd get shut down quickly.

3:38 PM

@SterlingArcher well enjoy the rest of your day/night wherever you are located

Within the context of a religion, or a game, or whatever, is different from making blanket statements.

@user5389107 That answer explicitly says it's not. . . Read to the bottom.

Journeyman Geek

Once again - its worth looking at the answers, and the broader historical context.

Sterling Archer

@Taryn morning 😃 I'll be back soon, it's meeting and lunch time lol

"In Islam, sex slaves are viewed as acceptable" is drastically different from "sex slaves are okay".

Sterling Archer

3:39 PM

oh my god I've done NO WORK today

Anonymous

> we have international contracts and therefore Muslims can't make prisoners of war and therefore not have any kind of slaves!

Anonymous

READ THAT

@SterlingArcher welcome to our world!

Anonymous

"International law stops us from taking sex slaves in war"

Journeyman Geek

lol

Anonymous

3:39 PM

That is not a "no".

@SterlingArcher none of us have ...

Anonymous

That is very much a "morally, yes".

Anonymous

Which is fucking disgusting.

@SterlingArcher Thanks for the talk, it was kinda tense there and I feel a lot better after chatting with you.

idk - I find that offensive and it makes me sad, which is why I'm not on that site. I'm not sure this is what the network wants to represent it

Journeyman Geek

3:40 PM

@user1114 that's a "we don't do that sort of thing any more"

Anonymous

@JourneymanGeek NO

Anonymous

You are being too generous.

Then again I fully acknowledge that I'm not religious and can't grasp the religious perspective at all

Sterling Archer

@TimPost disagreements aside, SO is my home and I will back you guys up.

Just remember that

@Shog9 sorry Shog, I'd personally curious if I had my messages deleted so I'd know that I apparently crossed that line, if possible...

Anonymous

3:41 PM

Note that this answer was posted by their moderator.

I only argue here because I'm not prepared to leave SO for dead - it still is by far the best Q/A site for my needs and I need and want to be part of it

2 mins ago, by Mithrandir

"In Islam, sex slaves are viewed as acceptable" is drastically different from "sex slaves are okay".

Anonymous

> And Allah knows best!

Journeyman Geek

Dude, do you actually have something against muslims?

If you're on a site about Islam you're going to run into Islamic ideology.

3:42 PM

Well that escalated quickly.

Journeyman Geek

I mean, they did try to wipe my folks out once and I'm not really trying to find stuff to get mad at them for.

alright

Yeah, I'm not gonna quote directly. Bad idea.

I'm sorry I brought this up and got a unrelated discussion going

Journeyman Geek

@TimPost sorry :(

3:43 PM

Same here.

Yeah, that got a little bit out of hand.

@tim sorry for putting you on the spot like that. Feel free to bin the conversation

Journeyman Geek

Its remarkably... actually I shouldn't jinx that ;p

I do have another 9 hours on my night shift, and I need to stay awake ;p

@User1114 you've made the most pathetic straw man out of the debate. Pls end

Go attack that exchange site on your own. lol

Journeyman Geek

@Jhoverit heh, you're a little late. Everyone stepped back.

3:45 PM

@Jhoverit That's not particularly constructive.

Ahh

@Jhoverit That's... probably not the most constructive thing to say now.

@Catija Well he's literally attacking a specific group

Im sticking up for the group.

Anonymous

well,

Anonymous

that appears to have gotten me de-modded.

3:46 PM

Meh, I leave now

I think this is a case where we have to be clear of not painting a whole group of people with the same brush. . . In every religion, there are various sects and different interpretations of the same text. Not everyone believes X, Y or Z.

But this also a good example of how seeing one of those interpretations - one set of behaviors - can influence how a person sees the whole site or community. So if someone sees people being jerks at one place on SO . . . they might make assumptions about the whole community.

Anonymous

I'm sorry that I care about women's rights in the rest of the world, not just in urban america.

@Jhoverit Sticking up for someone shouldn't involve being rude to them. You can make that point without using those words.

Fighting fire with fire is generally a bad idea.

@Catija Is it not pathetic to attack another?

This is going to get nitpicky.

3:48 PM

In this case, there were people saying "No, that's not an interpretation that all people of this faith agree with." But the problem - and here, replace "faith" with "community" - is that for, say, a new user to Stack Exchange, nobody is there to say that any rude behavior they experienced isn't representative of the majority of the site's users.

@Jhoverit It'd probably be best to drop that at this point.

Anonymous

well this is probably for the best.

@Mithrandir You just messaged about it. I responded. This is how conversations work

Too fragile... Afk

There's a difference between fragile and wanting the conversation to stay civil

we're not here to shit on a entire religion that way ... this is a public and forced-constructive chat room

Journeyman Geek

or simply choosing to move on because a conversation dosen't seem constructive

Anonymous

3:53 PM

yes how dare we judge them for defending slavery

Journeyman Geek

"forced constructive"

Anonymous

truly, there is no objective morality which we could use to decide that.

Journeyman Geek

Word choice man...

@hey I didn't keep track of authors. I'd rather move on. As for avoiding line-crossing... Criticism of others' actions or opinions is always fair game; weird fan-fic involving them isn't. "Don't be creepy"

3

Journeyman Geek

ehhh

@user1114 now, if your sole purpose is to rail about islam, please do so elsewhere please

3:54 PM

Islamic views on slavery

Islamic views on slavery represent a complex and multifaceted body of Islamic thought, with various Islamic groups or thinkers espousing views on the matter which have been radically different throughout history. Slavery was a mainstay of life in pre-Islamic Arabia and surrounding lands. It was in this social milieu that Islam emerged, whence the Quran and the hadith (sayings of Muhammad) address slavery extensively, assuming its existence as part of society but viewing it as an exceptional condition and restricting its scope. Early Islamic dogma forbade enslavement of free members of Islamic society...

If you're documenting something, you're expected to be honest. That doesn't necessarily constitute an endorsement.

somehow I feel none of the discussions that are going on - including tweets - would have happened if that blog post wasn't posted.

4

Anonymous

@JourneymanGeek "do so elsewhere please" is exactly what I would request of them.

Journeyman Geek

@JohnDvorak incorrect

@Shog9 You mean it serves as more of a historical documentation?

@JohnDvorak wishful thinking. Maybe less concentrated, but they've been going on for years.

Journeyman Geek

3:55 PM

@user1114 I'm sure there's more appropriate fora for requesting a site be removed.

@user5389107 could easily serve as contemporary documentation

In that case the "allah knows best" line on the bottom contravenes that somewhat ... but it shows the entire post in a bit better light

Journeyman Geek

@user5389107 most religion is basically a bundle of history and culture.

@Shog9 thanks, I agree. It's also really surprising that the messages got starred...

Journeyman Geek

From my own perspective - my specific branch of hinduism is actually fairly distinct from say "small village" worship or north indian hinduism or the form practiced in say Bali.

3:57 PM

(since I just checked now from the "starred" messages and they're gone)

Journeyman Geek

and its as much my cultural and lifestyle underpinnings as a pure expression of faith.

And there's some strangeass stuff there

@JourneymanGeek I can't relate to that. I grew up an atheist and have never been exposed to religion in my family

Journeyman Geek

and some practices folks do which would be distasteful to us

Outside of my grandma who was a weakly practicing protestant (as in going to church once a year only)

Journeyman Geek

@user5389107 which is also fine.

hah. I'm pretty much the same about formal religion

3:59 PM

I don't know I think I need to work on coming across better in my arguments

Journeyman Geek

But its accepted that one can walk into a temple whenever it happens to be open

not the first time today I've read back something I said and though "I shouldn't have said that"

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