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22:09
@NullUserExceptionอ_อ that's not exactly helping
there used to be a time when community had a voice
still does, we're not being silenced
it's up to the company whether they want to listen or not, though
that's debatable... and we aren't being heard either
and it's up to you whether you value that listening enough to leave over it or whether you stay on
the only SE employee I've seen on MSE lately is @Shog9
22:18
Well, I think I'll leave this particular beehive unpoked.
poke poke
user384163
It is a beehive that's for sure. I won't tell you you can't poke it because I've done it myself.
user384163
But at least you know what you are getting into.
(According to Google Ngram Viewer, the word "unpoked" has a frequency less than 0.00000002%.)
that's exactly the problem
user384163
22:22
what is? What's the problem?
we shouldn't feel like we are walking on eggshells whenever we talk about this issue
yet here we are
I don't feel like I'm walking on eggshells at all.
But I don't want to precipitate an argument.
user384163
It's a controvercy
Not here, anyway.
user384163
I'm sorry you feel like you are walking on eggshells
user384163
22:24
It has been a highly polarized topic.
it was also hardly an issue, until some people decided to make it an issue
user384163
But it was an issue for some people. They were leaving over it.
user384163
If that group of people is small and unimportant to you then please just know they exist.
Nobody decided to make it an issue. It's been an issue for a very long time.
22:27
Also, what's the big deal about walking on eggshells? There've gotta be worse things to walk on. Like, LEGOs
user384163
@Shog9 Trigger Warning next time please
Stomp on those egg shells. Bust 'em up. They're good for the soil.
I meant to say how often do pronouns actually get used?
All right, I'm poking the beehive.
I see this as being very closely analogous to accessible construction.
Wheelchair ramps and elevators and all that.
I always used the singular "they" (if ever), and then started moving towards rephrasing my sentences so I avoid pronouns altogether... that's become my natural writing style.
but apparently it's no longer acceptable
22:30
Should be fine
you just can't not use pronouns for some people, while also loudly declaring that you're not using pronouns for those people
user384163
Seems reasonable to me
Some folks are saying stuff like, "All buildings with stairs should also have wheelchair ramps or elevators."
@Shog9 didn't all the drama with Monica happen because that's what she wanted to do, but it was in violation of the new CoC?
Some folks are saying, "You can't force people to build stuff they don't want to build! That's slavery!"
Nobody knows why Monica was dismissed.
Some folks are saying, "There was never a problem before this mandate for wheelchair ramps came along."
yeah I don't think this analogy works
user384163
22:34
Stop conflating the CoC with the suppositions on why Monica was removed
I think of it the same way I think of oxford commas. Yes, oxford commas make sentences ugly, as though a fly had been crapping all over it. But you don't want to just make a rule that says "no oxford commas" - sometimes it's convenient to write ambiguous sentences, and a liberal application of commas is a quick fix for that. So instead you say, "either write unambiguous sentences, or use oxford commas to reduce ambiguity, you hack".
Anyway, I'm going to dinner. Talk to y'all later.
IOW, leave the choice up to the writer.
Mandate only that their writing achieves good results.
@AGirlHasNoName it's hard to do that when she's come out with her side of the story but SE has been silent?
Honestly, it'd have been better if we'd been a bit more silent. We aren't normally proponents of talking about folks behind their backs. Let's bring that back.
7
user384163
22:37
I'm not sure how that undermines what I said
user384163
yes. Don't talk about anyone.
@TannerSwett I think a better analogy would have been: there used to be stairs and ramps or elevators, and you could freely choose which to use
then some folks demanded not only a climbing wall to be built, but that people who previously used the other options now have to use the wall if they are asked to do so, with no regard for their ability to actually climb it
user384163
I wouldn't call that a fair analogy at all.
except the climbing wall is about a foot tall and yeah some people might trip over it the first few times but it's not hard to get the hang of
Once there was a stairs. It worked great - there were no restrictions on who could use it. Men, women, kids, folks in wheelchairs, folks on crutches, folks in hospital gurneys... Everyone was welcome, and everyone was treated equally on those stairs.
6
Then folks started complaining...
22:49
@Shog9 I find it strange you're active on a Sunday...that's rather unusual
user384163
These are unusual times
I'd argue the wall is much more than a foot tall
how many pronouns have been added to English in the last... few hundred years?
define "added"
there's no single governing body for what qualifies as "English"
@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog it's because of the weather
user384163
please don't say made up. please don't say made up. please don't say made up
22:52
@Shog9 "added" = incorporated into regular use by native speakers
yesterday I saw a hazel flowering... (on the Northern hemisphere)
pronouns are a linguistically closed class
@NullUserExceptionอ_อ depends on who you are probably. I've never heard a new pronoun used in spoken English in my lifetime. I see quite a collection used on tvtropes.com
So... if you're a troper, loads. If you're someone I talk to, zero.
If you're you... Who knows?
@NullUserExceptionอ_อ that's... fairly meaningless
22:55
it just means it's really hard to get people to use new pronouns
There have been two pronoun shifts in English: in the 1200s, "ye", formerly strictly a second-person plural, was adopted as a second-person singular formal pronoun. In the 1600s, "you" (a pronunciation shift of "ye") replaced "thou" as the general second-person singular pronoun.
so, basically pronouns have remained unchanged in the last 400 years or so
in a language like English
And, will likely not change much for another few centuries. Making this entire line of debate rather pointless.
In the unlikely event that you're ever asked to use something unusual, you can just use it; otherwise, you can worry about something more likely, such as getting struck by lightening while being attacked by bees and thus prevented from cashing in your winning Powerball ticket.
3
@AGirlHasNoName in a sense, all English is made up.
user384163
@DavidA well played
23:04
no you're made up!
Realistically, this stuff usually only matters on SO when you're quoting someone. Which is already an activity that has a lot of special rules and guidelines attached to it. And also an activity that may require you to violate English norms on occasion: if you're quoting bobince, you might have to use Zalgo text; if you're quoting E E Cummings, you might have to not capitalize stuff. So quoting already requires care; this is a small addition.
23:17
For the non-coders among us who may not be familiar with the bobince Zalgo reference, please see stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/4014959 There's some Zalgo text at the very end of that answer.
user384163
> The <center> cannot hold
user384163
I never noticed that reference before
it's semantically incorrect. Should be contained in a shape with lion <body> and prefaced by the <head> of a man
"that's not hurtful" is a generalization, "that's not hard to do" is a generalization, human language is a generalization, and we cannot get out
@Shog9 As a Python coder, I approve of oblique Sphinx references.
user384163
23:28
@Shog9 Where will we find our indignant desert birds? @Tinkeringbell isn't a good match.
I donno, always seems right on the edge of indignation to me
user384163
><
Not to be confused with someone living in Digg nation, which is in dire straits and yet can no longer get any money for nothing
@Shog9 Hi, I read through your experiment changing the required votes from 5 to 3 and found it quite interesting. I was wondering if you'd run the analytics again after the moderator resignations to see if they'd had any effect on the queue lengths as well?
@david I believe Julia is looking into this
Though... I would not expect to see an immediate effect there
user384163
23:38
> Imagine the company cafeteria. "I'm allergic to nuts", ok no nuts. "I'm a vegan", ok, no meat, eggs, or dairy including almond milk. "I need gluted free"... Eventually there will either be some bland bit of starch as the only thing served or it would be mercifully closed completely.
user384163
As a chef, I can say we can and do frequently accommodate these people with ease and deference. Just saying. Great analogy on inclusion. Just not the way the poster meant
@Shog9 I'm not actually sure how much of the queue work is handled by mods and how much is done by regular users
and i believe SO is going to be less affected than some of the smaller sites
98
Q: 2018: a year in moderation

Shog9It's New Year's Day in Stack Exchange land... A distinguishing characteristic of these sites is how they are moderated: We designed the Stack Exchange network engine to be mostly self-regulating, in that we amortize the overall moderation cost of the system across thousands of teeny-tiny sli...

ah, thanks! this will be an interesting read
@NullUserExceptionอ_อ I agree. And I'll even agree that one can be critical of neopronouns for linguistic reasons, without that criticism having any implications regarding trans or non-binary people. However, in the current emotion-charged climate on SE we have to choose our words carefully when discussing neopronouns (or even singular "they"). We cannot ignore the sociopolitical dimension.
23:43
lol @ users destroyed
wow okay, so moderators only handle a tiny fraction of the queues
@david kinda by design
As a hint to how hard it can be to attribute cause & effect here... The # of flags raised can go down because folks are discouraged by mods not handling flags quickly enough and give up flagging... Or because mods are handling flags very quickly, and thus fewer are needed to bring problems to their attention.
tldr: Its all really messy. ALL of it.
user384163
23:58
@AGirlHasNoName It... is not
mmf. Now I want coffee.
Yanno what is fine?
Hot soup on a cold day

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