Back in the mid-late 90s, TalkCity was where I lived when not in school or working

@DavidA I couldn't do public view stuff. I respect those that can override unrelenting stage fright unlike myself.

@Mgetz There were a few in rooms I used to frequent that made a point to say they didn't log chats. But that could of been a lie for all I know.

@Froopy and that stops individual users?

@weegee A moderator's job is not ever going to be to remember the pronouns of every person on their site. At all. For one thing, the only people that need remembering are the ones that have specific pronouns that and they tell you that they want you to use those. I still don't see the difference between this and seeing and finding patterns of low-key harassment on the site. Both aren't easy, but not the end of the world either. Both rely heavily on reporting, especially on the bigger sites.

Herd mentality is a thing, but then again, the only evidence I have is of their word.

Yeah, but does anyone use their real names on here......

Yes

I wish my real name was Froopy.

@StephanS Yup

@Froopy You could get it legally changed :)

@AdamLear it this where we apply peer pressure?

Froopy I'll Fax you the paper work

@AdamLear Yeah, but I can't. I was named after my grandfather and I want to honor his memory. I feel like changing it would dishonor his memory even though I've wanted a new name forever.

If we remove other non-enhancing detail from Q&A regularly, why would this be an exception?

@Froopy why not have both?

@AndrasDeak How?

Froopy-(your name here)

Or a middle name.

^

But yeah, I feel that

to be specific, I had "Froopy Granddad Smith" in mind

@AdamLear, I have his first middle and last name. Only difference is mine has a II at the end of it.

ah...

I'll sweeten the deal, I'll buy you a title

king Froopy?

Two middle names!

At one point I used IRC through trillian... it was sort of a meta-client for ICQ, AIM, MSN, GTALK, IRC, etc

@PaulBeverage yeah, that is one of the points where I go "wait what?" as well, but it of course depends on how it comes up in a post. If it's completely tangential, it's fine to go I'd say. But if it happens to weave into a narrative naturally, don't go editing it out for the sake of editing ... but you've got to love hypothetical cases.

First Middle Last Froopy-II

@StephanS but they are already nobility

The style guide radicalcopyeditor.com/2017/08/31/transgender-style-guide is great. But its intended audience is writers who want to know how to write trans inclusively. It's a bit much to expect your average Stack member to adhere to such high standards.

I love these ideas! It really never occured to me to put it before/after the whole name.

@Bart I see...that line of reasoning seems reasonable. Things can sometimes tie in, other times not

@canon all of those protocols now dead ... except maybe IRC

@PM2Ring still good as general info

imo

Honestly, a lot of what Cesar M has commented on is concerning to me. Not removing pleasantries/irrelevancies just because they contain a pronoun... Not being able to avoid pronouns if we're uncomfortable using them...

For sure. @Magisch

@JohnDvorak it was ages ago...

@JohnDvorak I thought ICQ was still around?

@JohnDvorak Discord reminds me a lot of IRC

Oh man, I remember Trillian...

@PaulBeverage I haven't seen it in ages

@Froopy look you started this dumpster fire, and now you're getting pressured into changing your name

@Zircon you know what I'd suggest? Give it some time. See how it works out in practice. And then determine if it really still concerns you. I'd guess it will all be fine.

@PaulBeverage ICQ and the amount of replies in this room would surely kill whatever's left of my sanity :)

imagine the penetrating ICQ "DING" every time someone posts to chat

That sound is just imprinted in my brain forever

@StephanS, no pressure. I've just never been given an idea that didn't say "Oh, he'd understand, etc". I want to honor him, but I always wanted my own identity. It bothered me significantly I never had one.

give yourself a headache just with your imagination :D

Wasn't it more like "uhoh!" or something like that

@Bart yes, it's definitely easy to blow the situation way out of proportion. I guess it just seems to me that we are "shifting the goalposts" of inclusivity, not really remedying anything

@Zircon Has Cesar M said that a pleasantry which would normally be removed without pronoun should be kept when pronoun is present?

@Zircon apparently to some people, the very core of their being is encapsulated in those words and minimizing or messing them up is considered deeply injurious.

@Magisch That's definitely part of my skill set

@Emilie that sound and the WinAmp jingle will never leave me ...

@Emilie What's sanity? ;)

@JoseAntonioDuraOlmos "you can remove the thanks, you should leave he/him. I know this is a big departure from what we do right now, and it is less than ideal. Until we have a better solution, please do so."

@Bart winamp is still very much alive BTW

Winamp > everything that plays music

Yeah, UhOh!

@PaulBeverage ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@Zircon Ugggg.

Yeah, I saw the other day @SébastienRenauld. Just not relevant to me anymore with Spotify and such.

I hear it really whips the llama's ass.

it's still out there... still whipping the llama's ass

:D

@SébastienRenauld those poor llamas...

@Froopy Can WinAmp play YouTube videos and (preferably) navigate the recommendation web?

@JohnDvorak Never tried, but it wouldn't surprise me if someone made a plugin for it.

At least Cesar M admits it is less than ideal.

@JohnDvorak, it'd be neat if it could and also came with direct youtube-dl integration. <3 heaven.

@DavidA I have the ultimate picture as my only viable answer to you, but I'd rather not throw it on here. It's a picture of a llama with a neat haircut

I googled 'llama with a neat haircut' and was not disappointed at all.

@Froopy And now I have done so, and am not either

They even made one look like a poodle.

Hahaha, my favorite

Google trends: "llama with a neat haircut" #4 top searched

That is undeniably a neat haircut.

I prefer symmetrical haircuts

That llama wants to speak to a manager or something.

Llamas are cool, bur alpacas are even cooler.

he could steal your girl then spit in your face

Karen llama?

Totally not the llama song

@Catija I can sing that from memory. One of my proudest accomplishments.

Same.

Alpaca are to llamas like sheep are to goats, right?

@Catija llama llama duck!

It's really hard to say 'alarm a llama'.

I think I learned "rake" from that song

@Mast just really close friends?

@AndrasDeak and how apparently their weaknesses are oranges? :D

Aaaand, I'm out of upvotes on MSE

Orange is the most sinister of the citrus fruits.

Orange hater ಠ_ಠ

Orange juice is the elixir of life.

I didn't say I disliked sinister...

Fair point, indeed.

Meh

Paranormal movies are not my taste

@Bart Look a lot like each other, until you start looking at the hair.

Now if you gave it to Shyamalan

I think I might start coming around more often. I like what I see so far.

@JohnDvorak I don't want to spoil it for you, but you're probably out of downvotes too.

@StephanS imgur.com/gallery/OXTKD

(SFW llama)

So, I think SE could help the userbase with pronoun remembering some

As a developer, while it might take some time, it seems like we could programmatically help people remember pronoun usage as needed. While I am on the fence about a lot of this CoC change,

why not at least help your users to not get banned for what could end up being a mistake? Perhaps if we went to tag someone, it displayed a set preferred pronoun to the side to assist in the adoption. Although, realistically, it just seems sensible to begin with to help us remember the plethora of people's differing pronouns. Just sayin...I think this could be helpful to all of us :)

It would at least help us to not forget and cause distress based on honest mistakes

I don't think technology is a good fix for a personal issue. I see it all the time at work.

Can we drop the pronoun debate, it's getting old. Just call everyone Comrade.

^

I support one's suggestion to use comrade.

Oh, I do too -- not trying to fix the people issue. Just trying to suggest a way to assist a user in knowing which pronoun to use. This really should be simple overall, unless the databases are a right mess

@Mast Well... Alpacas & llamas are more closely related to each other than goats & sheep are to each other. In terms of intelligence, I think alpacas are a little smarter, and a little more laid back. But like all members of the camel family, they don't take crap from anyone. And alpaca fur is amazingly soft. If you've never patted one, you need to remedy that situation. :)

Who are you, Comrade Question?

@Paul, I'm not sure how that exactly would be feasible without checking a user's written history, and even then, that may not accurately represent current usage.

Well... I guess I'll just ... sleep for four hours, or something? Unacceptable!

@JohnDvorak Rest well!

o/ nice meeting you!

@JohnDvorak Ouch, after this mellow rush of emotions, I don't think I'd enjoy sleep, whether it's four or ten hours

It's more cortisol than adrenaline

My Comrade, just start every interaction with "My Comrade", or informal "Comrade"

I guess I'll just watch YouTube videos instead

I am now. My apologies!

@PaulBeverage Not to draw the discussion out, but just one thing: users in general don't get banned for single mistakes. They get banned for repeated patterns of persistent behaviour. So let's not make things bigger than they really are.

Okay... could we please drop the "comrade" thing?

Perhaps a few additional attributes tied to the main profile record? If using class table inheritance, it could be done; I'm using that for a project currently

Can you cut that out please? Last thing I need is communist references

@PaulWhite It does? I always thought it would pick the first available one.

@user58 Why are you copying me ahead of time

@Bart failing at English twice = repeated behavior

I support one's request to drop the "comrade" thing.

@PaulBeverage stackapps.com/questions/8440/pronoun-assistant ?

@Bart Right -- but to my question earlier, forgetfulness (which I have at times) can potentially lead to banning per @JohnDvorak's concern that telling mistakes from intent is hard

@user58 Wait whats wrong with Comrade now?

Apologies to all about the comrade thing.

@PaulBeverage One thing to clear up: we mods are not gunning to ban people for this. This issue is no different than any other moderation issue in that nobody is getting banned for mistakes or most cases of first time violations. We have moderation policies and intuition and we're not changing any of that with this update.

@DavidA Ah, thanks -- that is good...Have upvoted this suggestion

@StephanS the implication that SE is a tyrannical police state, probably.

I did not know there was anywhere like that on SE

anything*

comrade = friend.....

@M.A.R. I think it comes from German.

I mean... I got suspended for a "first time" mistake with no warning, then unfriendly follow-up messages. It seems like some mods don't mind

Wasn't it used in the anti-apartheid movement before it was communist?

@StephanS I don't know, has anyone checked on them lately? ;)

The connotations of "comrade" are not ones that I want to get into in this room.

^

see: 1984

Sorry. I just thought it was a joke.

eye roll

You can call me that, Froopy

I enjoy it

That's the only reason I went along with it.

You could also demand to be called that.

@canon I wonder what the response on that is going to be.

Can we go back to talking about lama haircuts? :)

@Froopy me too. Until someone called out caaaaaaaaaaaaar. Then we had to stop the game.

Ugh, let's no go down that road again @canon ...

...no. That's not how it works. Please don't try to misrepresent the CoC changes that way. It's extremely unhelpful.

That road

I'm so confused...

I'll just take @Emilie's suggestion. At least llamas are universally comforting.

And hopefully won't get me in trouble.

Don't count on it! :p

Until they spit on you I guess.

At least they took the time to spit on me.

XD

I'll just add another word to things that can't be said here, for some weird reason

*sigh*

What a busy day at the Tavern.

I'm talking about llamas spitting, not anyone else! full disclosure

!!/coffee @202324

@202324 brews a cup of Macchiato for @202324

@202324 It's a bloody headache.

@user58 weren't you taking a break?

No.

Unfortunately.

did you take one recently?

I remember something about a break. Maybe I'm misremembering.

There have been a few religious holidays that I've been offline for.

@PaulWhite You're the first Paul I can choose from in the drop down list, so, I don't know. You might've been first. But I got it, thanks for enlightening us.

Guh. I wish I was home right now. Can't listen to music here.

But suuuure, one other programmer gets to work from home three days a week.

sigh

Why don't you ask to work from home.....

Get yourself some headphones?

@StephanS They asked as a 'prerequisite' for their job. I get somewhat annoyed responses when I ask too many times a week. (usually only do one).

@Bart I don't have any on me. I did, but they broke.

It's on my list of things to get this friday.

@Froopy best investment I ever made for work was a pair of noise canceling headphones. Glorious.

I wonder if they'd let me bring my gaming headset. That's got some awesome NC on it.

Because earbuds are annoying because they make my ears hurt after a few hours.

/me steps in

It's kinda weird to know that most of us in this chat room are adults at work just blowing time

Whaaaaaaaaaatup

so my answe r got deleted, sigh.

h01!

I'm at home spending my evening keeping an eye on this chat

I wanted to make a point, but making a point is bad yo.

on a completly unrelated node, I'm nursing a growing headache

@Magisch, save meeeeee

That's no way to spend an evening @Magisch

@Magisch hey, me too, what are the odds!

@djsmiley2k they answered your point in an answer, if you use "My highness" as pronoun, you can get reported and b&

@Magisch you need to drink more. *waters Magisch*

@djsmiley2k I made a point once ... ended up stabbing myself with it. Careful with that.

@ArthurHavlicek what about god emperor?

sigh

@Bart :D

:(

@djsmiley2k I suggest you try

Is this how it's been happening all day?

oh no, I overwatered him

!!/coffee @Magisch

Whoever misses the quiet Tavern raise your hands.

The Tavern is not the place to contest answer deletions. If you have an issue with an on-site moderation action, please raise a flag.

@ArthurHavlicek oh i've set my profile, shrug.

@Froopy just start doing contract work, you'll get paid more but you won't always have work

@user58 don't see the point in arguing about it tbh

@user58 I don't think they are; it's just regular shitposting

^ Andras

"not cool", as some would put it

@M.A.R. me, me ... oh god me. I want a Tavern where Smokey is the most talkative :p

@StephanS, I've heard work gaps can be a bit cumbersome though.

In that method.

@Bart And that is why you're trusted with the smiting back scratcher, sir.

@Froopy they are

I'm wondering what is, and isn't a 'valid' pronoun.

@Bart that won't be FULL OF STARS AND BACKLOG

@djsmiley2k it's a fallacy

Anything made in bad faith.

@Froopy According to who?

@djsmiley2k "pronoun" isn't a made up word. It's literally a part of speech that has a definition

According to those that hold things like this dear.

@AndrasDeak unlike having an effectively unenforcable rule?

Subjective, not universal.

@Kaz Steve the Magical Snail ... he decides things. Nobody knows why. We all live with it.

@AdamLear nod, but who defines the valid ones?

Real Trolls aren't going to helpfully admit in chat that they are trolling.

@AdamLear Neopronouns don't quite fit that definition; not saying this to be inflammatory or anything, just saying that only classical pronouns do

I know people who concider themselves jedi's

Oh, ffs.

@SébastienRenauld no, I mean the literal word "pronoun" :)

If the CoC said 'be nice' I don't think there'd be much to discuss xD

There seems to be some confusion between titles and pronouns.

Jedi is an accepted religion in Australia I think. You can apply to the same things other religions can.

@djsmiley2k there's no Pronoun Authority if that's what you mean, generally neopronouns are valid when someone says "these are my pronouns"

@djsmiley2k your answer wasn't implying that the CoC was unenforcable. It was implying that pronouns are dumb and arbitrary. You're right that this is also a point, but not a very good one, and it will easily get you mistaken for either a troll or an intolerant person

@djsmiley2k right, and that's an identity, not a pronoun. "god emperor" can't be a pronoun because it's a phrase made up of two nouns that doesn't function as a pronoun in any sentence

@Froopy welcome to the Tavern for the last few weeks ;) Hang around when the dust settles down, and we'll got back to our regular scheduled nonsense.

@StephanS, If I were in a better financial situation, I'd consider giving it a go. I need to work on my programming portfolio.

Semi-trolling all the time?

@JoseAntonioDuraOlmos It's not, at least not in terms of the census

@AndrasDeak I'm intolerant of somethings, sure.

@Bart, I intend to. Ya'll seem like a good bunch.

→ 2 messages moved to Trashcan

:7959498 well yeah, that too, and the licencing issues, and the other issues in the past year...

There was a big thing in ... 2014, I think. Atheists had been regularly picking "Jedi" on the census form for the lolz. Then the Aussie census bureau mentioned they didn't consider that a valid response so just recorded the form as if no answer had been provided. That meant atheism was under-represented in census statistics, and religiousness was over-represented. The next census people stopped doing this and there was a sudden bump in atheism in the stats.

@rene I didn't realise I'd stepped over a line. I'm not hugely familiar with the tavern, could you let me know what I should avoid for future reference?

I guess my point is, I can't even have a sensible discussion about this because raging fires and stuff.

So i just reverted to stupid post instead.

Because that makes sense /s

Just as an FYI, any variation on the "joke" that goes like "I'm going to change my pronoun to [insert trolly ridiculous word/phrase]" is not cool and not funny. Firstly, you aren't the first or even the 1,000,000,00th person to make that comment. It's so old. More importantly, trans/NB have had to live with that attitude of the general public IRL every day of their lives. It's not a joke and it's not nice.

^

It's weird, I have my 'views' on stuff, and if people ask I share them, otherwise.... I don't and everyone gets on happily.

@Kaz don't use words that are considered vulgar

@doppelgreener there's a case pending now in the SCOTUS for discrimination based on gender identity

Whatever happened to the world where people didn't try and pick up on everyones faults o_O

@djsmiley2k I wish it existed actually picking up on faults is important so I'll take that back

@djsmiley2k that world was never real

Whatever happened to being personally responsible for your own actions?

@rene klkl, thanks for the clarification.

@doppelgreener Umm, you are right. That has changed. It was in the census before but it is not now. There other nations that acknowledge Jedi as religion though.

Sims?

@StephanS I b eg to disagree

But, also, picking up on faults is how we improve and get better

@Froopy oh that's easy

generations of 'you get a medal for taking part and it doesn't matter if you failed'.

now get off my lawn or something.

If you do pick up on faults, lift with your knees. Just some general advice. And with that I'm out for the night.

Wait, is that generationalist :o

@Bart thanks for making me smile today, not much of that going around

o/ Bartness.

@doppelgreener Umm, you are right. That has changed. It was in the census before but it is not now. There other nations that acknowledge Jedi as religion though.

oops

@djsmiley2k name me one time in history when people didn't pick someone apart for their faults

@Bart Goedenacht

@StephanS deliverately, in every single second of every single day?

WW2?

WW1?

Industrial revolution maybe

you know, times when people were busy

I think you need to look more into history

I almost feel like this is what happens when we reach post-scarcity and it worries me

yeah that's a super rosy-glasses view of history

I'm talking more specifically, in this case about.... notr sure how to put it into words

@djsmiley2k That didn't answer my question, friend-o. I asked what happened being responsible for your actions? Even if your actions don't intend harm, if they do harm, they're still your actions.

that's not how things worked

@djsmiley2k I'm going to have to assume you're being ironic here.

but I'm sure some of you were on the net in the 90's and know it was kinda.... friendly

in what way

i mean, we had forums in the 90's

@Froopy well used to be you could go 'whoops, sorry, didn't mean any harm' and the other.... person?? would go 'sure no worries' and you'd get on with life.

i know those weren't friendly

@djsmiley2k Internet is friendly

@doppelgreener hmmm some were friendly?

@Rubiksmoose I think SE is kind of "trying too hard" by two points - letting everyone set an arbitrary pronoun, when just he /she /they was probably fine for like 99.99% people and 2. get in the way of people avoiding pronouns. I mean this is so difficult to moderate, everybody fears bans will happen for no reason.

Methinks people have different definitions of "friendly", based on their personal experiences.

Yes. This is true. But what about you? Are you going to repeat the mistake or fix it?

/me might need to take off the rose tinted glasses maybe.

When I first started on the internet in 2005 or so there was already quite a bit of hostility on the 'net

@djsmiley2k the term flame wars came for the 90's internet

@user58 that too

@Rubiksmoose Which would be fine, if there was an exception in the policy for "this person is obviously trolling".

@djsmiley2k you're taking a super revisionist view of the past: there was never a time when this was just generally always the case.

I'm not seeing one.

Because if you keep repeating the mistake, your apology is worthless.

@StephanS they didn't come from vietnam's and the use of flame throweers?!

people are jerks all the time and always have been, there was no magical golden age of niceness.

@doppelgreener ok i'm explaining badly, and I am not sure how to make it clearer

@Kaz There are ways of dealing with people obviously trolling. Contrary to what people seem to be thinking, common sense has not gone out the window.

I mean, I remember a time when I cou8ld walk into a mosh pit, fall over, and someone would pick me up

I don't even know how to reply to that

@djsmiley2k that's still today

@ArthurHavlicek you are way off the mark. You could as well say that SE just lets everyone have arbitrary genders when boys and girls were just fine for so long

Sure, people are jerks

@user58 Great. How about the non-obvious trolls?

but it feels like the jerks are outnumbering the sensible people?

@djsmiley2k what? no

@djsmiley2k depends on who's the jerk.

@ArthurHavlicek Gender and pronouns are a given. They depend entirely upon the subjective identity of the given person. It's inside their head. Anything else starts outside the head.

@202324 it feels that way...

Usually, I'd say "I trust mods/CMs/SE employees to apply judgement, nuance, context etc"