Can I ask a stupid question? Is the end goal of this to end discrimination or to encourage civility and tolerance? Because the former is a pipe dream and the latter might be achievable.
@user58 I agree: SE could have known this would happen. It seems as though they didn't care. I believe they do care, but they refused to listen to common sense, and now they are responsible.
Apologies as I struggle to communicate, the perils of autism. But it seems to me that the policy is coming off as an attempt to legislate the former and not the latter.
@JohnDvorak I'd doubt that. I wonder how much gendered language we practically use anyway in our general site contributions, particularly of the kind directed at a specific user. Maybe more in chat, but on the Q&A ... So if we're required to try and be correct on the rare occasions that we do, or to correct ourselves when we're mistake, or to (oh god no) actually learn from our mistakes ... I don't see what the big deal is there ...
> I don't know what's right and what's real anymore > I don't know how I'm meant to feel anymore > When do you think it will all become clear > 'Cause I'm being taken over by the fear > -- Lily Allen - The Fear
What I'm super confused at is what happens with a discussion with more than two people in it, still. I raised a question (as an answer) on the FAQ and honestly, the more I think of it the worse it gets. It's all down to whether "encouraging" others to correct a mistake in pronouns also applies to a third-party. If it does, then there's potential for so much damage
I think another aspect of all this is that it has raised the background level of tension substantially. No matter how inclusive you try to be, everyone will always one day fall short. As a fallback, I try to be decent and charitable to others so when I do eventually offend, I will at least be forgivable.
@rene What if people don't reveal their pronouns? What if I flag someone as they are using wrong pronouns. What if the flag handler doesn't know about that particular pronoun.
@Bart Suppose I told you my pronoun, and my pronoun isn't standard or public. I'm having a chat with a third party, and that third party mispronouns me, but I don't care. If the "encourage them to change" part of the FAQ applies to third-parties, then you're encouraged to correct the guy, yeah?
Think of the ramifications of this for a second when you don't know who that third-party is or how they may react
It's standard information disclosure and that's why I honestly believe this should be narrowed down to if somebody mispronouns you (then you're encouraged to point it out) and not some third-party
@user58 That's why I'd rather have a clarification of the CoC and the FAQ on this before somebody feels compelled to correct third-parties and cause somebody to get hurt
@SébastienRenauld then again, we have in this very room corrected people over the years. "He" is often assumed for users and on occasion we have corrected to "she". I guess you're not to "out" someone against their will, but then again if you're in the know of their preferred pronoun use, you'd also know if you were outing them against their will? But it's all rather hypothetical I think.
Not necessarily; I can think of plenty of cases where involuntary disclosure about a third-party may happen, much like in meatspace people's religion tends to leak out every now and then for the same kind of reasons
Okay, yes, I've corrected people using the wrong pronouns for someone who wasn't around at the time, because I knew that the person in question cared about it. I would do the same under the new CoC, but it would not be required of me. It wasn't required then either. Nothing has really changed.
@weegee no, I have not. Use a pronoun if you know it, either because they told you or have it stated in their profile. Make honest attemtps to get it right and correct it and appologize if you screw up.
Another point: if A and B have a conversation, and C corrects B's pronoun usage, not only does C leak A's preferred gender, but also their own affiliation with A.
I've been using the term "judgement call" a lot. And that's for a reason - a lot of this stuff is going to end up being a judgement call. As long as we're all working under the assumption of good faith, the amount of trouble I expect this to directly cause is hovering around zero. That is, if people decide to give it a chance instead of blasting it after being public for, what, an hour.
I think some of the backlash might also be because people are perceiving all of this as an admonition that their behavior is not good enough (possibly due to identifying with Monica and a "there but by the grace of God go I" sentiment).
@weegee Presumably, that would be a helpful thing to note in the flag. We deal with a whole lot more sensitive of information than pronouns. You could also ask a mod to check in on the user to see if corrective action is even needed by anyone.
This isn't a Nomic and the aim isn't to poke as many logical holes as possible. A lot of this comes down to a judgement call between mods and CMs and is neither justiciable nor plausible without specific context.
Oddly enough, my employer suppresses employee gender from general access as protected diversity data, so people just guess the pronouns in emails. I'm sure it doesn't always end well.
On the flipside, why not stop trying to coerce behavior of people who may not necessarily agree with it? What about the offence to THEIR feelings and rights of existence?
You should team up and call the article "The sky is falling and it's everyone's fault - how an undercurrent of tension can lead to spiraling assumptions of what will happen"
I'd rather just see a policy that pushes for removing the problem, rather than compounding it. I agree with respecting folks and treating them well, but that does not mean that we should supersede the rights of individuals who do not agree. We should expect and require respect, but not forced adherence to a specific plan that mainly benefits specific sectors of the community only.
@Magisch For years we weren't being better. "Nothing changes if nothing changes" is something I try to drill into my students' heads. There's nothing to suggest that, absent some action on SE's part, anything would get better for trans users.
(Making no claim on whether this was the good or best thing to do by SE.)
@nitsua60 I'm not excusing years past. I'm saying that the sky is not suddenly falling and everyone's getting banned. I'm in favor of the COC change broadly
@Magisch I'm not sure I'm parsing correctly: are you saying 'the sky's not suddenly falling and it's not the case that everyone's getting banned' or 'the sky's not suddenly falling so why are we suddenly banning everyone'? (Sorry for the confusion.)
This policy is primarily designed around the LGBTQ+ community, no? It directly benefits them, but serves to only conform the rest of the community. IE, it comes off negatively, and is causing more issues than it is solving. Do you not think some will be pissed and keep causing trouble when they are demanded to conform? Just saying...I'd rather see the problem resolved in a way that does not heighten tensions, but still addresses the issue
@PaulBeverage the discomfort someone experiences when being misgendered does not compare to the discomfort someone experiences when breaking a fussy 19th century grammar rule
@nitsua60 No, I'm arguing that this is not going to make everyone get banned due to ambiguity, but is a eminently good change that will ideally just lead to some more respectful treatment
I'm addressing concerns that the ambiguity in this policy will be abused because it's ambiguous. I think thats a weak argument because we've always had ambiguity - more then now, in fact.
Really? I've been misgendered more times than not when calling anyone, or ordering at the drive thru, due to medical issues with my lungs and throat. Ma`am, mrs, ms, miss, etc. So do not tell me as though I have no clue
@PaulBeverage I disagree. I believe (as a Christian, if you care) that even though I am not of the LGBTQIA+ community I am benefited by being taught to treat them better. It makes me better. I do better. I love and understand better.
@PaulBeverage I'd say it benefits everyone. Even selfish old me. If us being kind and caring as shown through a little gesture as pronoun use is going to get us more and happier users, I'm sure somehow somewhere I'll benefit in the long run. And no matter what you do, there are always users going to be upset or cause trouble ... does that imply we should not be actively kind? I'd say not.
It attacks people without religious views as well. Not all atheists, etc support specific measures like this, regardless of their thoughts on Transgenderism
user194636
It really is hard to see how SE could have implemented all this any worse. A loss for all concerned.
@nitsua60 -- I agree that we should treat people better (always). But there is a difference between better treatment, and forced conformity. That is not kindness. That is merely politeness. I'd rather see the problem solved with actual kindness, honestly
All this letter-of-the-law stuff is really confusing... Why couldn't we just add "be respectful of people's gender-identities and pronouns" to our definition of being nice?
I think someone brought up a great point in a comment, that because he's straight, he's called "cis" which makes him upset due to the fact he doesn't prefer the term "cis" over the term "Straight".
@Zaralynda that's just my point. If we didn't try to be so formal about it, things would smooth over more easily, wouldn't they?
user194636
@rene Implementation, Rene, not goals. SE failed to engage the mods or the community, and just cocked it up at every stage of the process. Far too many to list. See meta.
@weegee well you could always link to some instance of it in the flag, a moderator could also already be aware of it. They could also reach out to you for more information and gather any examples you have. The tooling right now is really conducive to making searching for instances easy, but we'll make do with what we have for now. And at the very worst it means the mod will try to keep an eye out for problems with that user.
We clearly have members that do not want to be particularly respectful to trans people. Eg meta.stackexchange.com/a/334636/334566 This CoC will antagonize them. And over the last week, posts & comments by various LGBTQ+ people have expressed that they now feel less comfortable and welcome because of their association with the troubles of the last week.
I know a few people who are trans/bisexual/DID (live in a very small town and near a small city) -- and I have never disrespected them, regardless of my thoughts on their specific beliefs (the same as differences in religion). So I am all for better treatment of all, LGBTQ+ or not.
@weegee And honestly, this is basically the same exact thing that comes up with any kind of accusation of long term harassment, abuse, or rudeness. Pronouns are not a special case.
@PaulBeverage So I guess that's where reasonable people can differ. I'm not seeing this as forced conformity (aside from the conformity of 'when someone asks you to address them a particular way, do that'), I'm seeing it as the removal of an actual harm that many members have been telling us is routinely done to them. You're seeing it differently. That's okay.
@PaulBeverage I'm not quite sure what you're saying. But the feeling that some LGBTQ+ have expressed is that the conservative / anti-LGBTQ+ crowd are looking at them saying "It's all your fault!"
Wait, MSE chat gets a cool animated countdown during freezes? That's because it's hosted on the SO side of the chat-divide, not the SE side, right? No fair. They get all the best toys.
@nitsua60 -- Perhaps I have misread the changes, it seemed like I could not choose to start using more generalized language on SE to avoid upsetting or misgendering. The "as you would normally" made me think that the way I talk (he/she/him/her unless I'm told different) was not allowed anymore
@Rubiksmoose Pronouns are indeed a special case if you think the workings of flags and handling. How come we can expect every moderator to handle so many flags? And still, expect mods to remember the pronouns of every user they have to moderate for?
I think we can all agree that the English language is suboptimally designed. It would be nice if I could issue a pull request to its governing body, but I know of no such thing.
@PM2Ring I am conservative-ish (more independent really) and Christian (not that it matters, it should push me more towards kindness and love), but I have never blamed anyone outside of SE for SE's policies. That is sad that others are doing so
I wish people would get over the whole issue about using someone's preferred pronoun. It's not that hard. We're never going to achieve infinite diversity in infinite combinations like this, and as a result, we'll stagnate as a species.
@weegee There are going to be easy situations, though: "can you please call me 'xe,' not 'he,'" "Yeah, foo always goes by 'x'" "No way I'm going to do that!" And the boot comes. That alone is an interaction that we now, publicly, say we support. When it happens, an unambiguous message is sent to the offender and every observer. That's good for everyone--LGBTQIA+ or not--because it's another vector for the message "use your words reasonably, and ROs/mods will have your back."
@Froopy Most people don't have issue using specific pronouns when told to. Most have issues with using specific pronouns instead of names / other language constructs, and with having to remember for indefinite time all pronouns they have been told about. As well as plethora other issues with the FAQ.
@JohnDvorak The remembering them is a concern for me, I am forgetful at times, and might slip up out of poor memory, rather than mal-intent. I hope the CoC and those who prefer different pronouns would be understanding of mistakes (specifically mistakes, not when people keep conveniently forgetting)
@Zaralynda The determining factor was presumed to be whether the students read an essay first? Did you see a link to the published study? I'm trying to find it...
I still stand by my original point, though. We should just allow people to be called what they want to be called and move on. When you deny someone's identity, it's a deeper hit than most people realize.
If a user states their preferred pronouns in the course of asking a technical question - where personal identity doesn't generally apply - would removing that language then constitute a violation of the CoC?
@Gwideon you can't decouple it from the past two weeks' events (i.e. what happened to Monica). And in this context the new CoC sounds like a beating stick, when it should be a shield.
@KevinB there's a need for such clarifications on other SE sites and in chat, so a blanket CoC change makes sense. Maybe it won't get much use on SO. shrug
@Gwideon it is a reasonable policy change. The debate seems to be about the consequences this can have for them. That is what users are concerned about.
@Zaralynda lol, nm then. Just the short summary smacked of an editorial leap (as is common in news); so, I wanted to check the actual study. Thanks for the alternate study, though.
I can get things like that but there's some people who hate the very idea of this policy. also some of the discourse around this is frankly rather hurtful especially as someone who prefers gender neutral pronouns
@canon a reasonable impulse! I'd do it too, except that I've been aware of the concept for a long time so even if there are problems with that particular study, I don't doubt the concept in general
@Bart True, but it's still always there. In IRC, you had the luxury of most people not logging chats, but everything here is up to see pretty much forever. I was always terrified of saying the wrong thing.
If a user states their preferred pronouns in the course of asking a technical question - where personal identity doesn't generally apply - would removing that language then constitute a violation of the CoC?
