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This is rather well aligned with my personal feelings, but I'm having trouble squaring it with the objections that get repeatedly made by people who feel attacked by other users' insistence upon certain pronouns that they perceive as "trolling". The "I identify as an attack helicopter" case is the most well-known, but there have been many other instances emerge on Stack Exchange after the announcement of this policy by users who feel it is an act of performative protest against the policy. Is all of that OK? What do we tell the people who say it denies the legitimacy of their identity?
– Cody Gray - on strike
Commented Nov 16, 2019 at 1:55
34

@CodyGray We tell them that they didn't just fight for the legitimacy of their own identity, but for the legitimacy of everyone's identity, even those they don't believe are valid. Maybe they don't like being on the other side of the issue, but that's life. At the end of the day, the philosophy of respecting others' identities implies that it's far better to incorrectly call a troll what they want than to incorrectly call a legitimate person what they don't want.
– manveti
Commented Nov 16, 2019 at 2:39
11

@CodyGray very few people from my community that I know personally are offended by anyone trying out a non binary gender identity, whatever their apparent motivation. The attack helicopter is loaded based on it's history. I have no problem with it personally, but I'm probably in the minority there. Otherwise, if it's not offensive in some other context, it's hard to see it as offensive as a pronoun.
– De Novo
Commented Nov 16, 2019 at 4:00
23

As a non-binary person, I would rather have a false-negatives (troll is considered legitimate) than a false-positives (legitimate neo-pronoun user is flagged as troll). If it means we have to allow the "helicopter attack" thing, them I'm okay with it.
– BelovedFool
Commented Nov 16, 2019 at 6:50
11

@BelovedFool I fully agree with you on this one. " I would rather have a false-negatives (troll is considered legitimate) than a false-positives (legitimate neo-pronoun user is flagged as troll)." Protecting the innocent is far more important. Also, trolls thrive on inducing bad reaction in other people. If others just ignore and don't react, then trolling becomes worthless.
– Resistance Is Futile
Commented Nov 16, 2019 at 10:15
6

@CodyGray You are right. Someone will always get hurt. This is the nature of the problem. If you accept all pronouns, people who use neo-pronouns will get hurt by those who they feel use "troll" pronouns. If none are allowed, people who use neo-pronouns will be hurt because they can't express themselves. Any moderation attempt will inevitably result in the same problems, just with having the moderation team involved as well.
– MechMK1
Commented Nov 16, 2019 at 11:05
4

Wouldn't the latter option not be "we don't allow any neo-pronouns", but, "we don't enforce use of any neo-pronouns"? There's no need to ban someone from, in good faith, kindly asking to please use a neo-pronoun, or ban people who do understand this from being nice by using it. We just need an easy, clear, safe, accepted fallback option (like "they") for the confused - for example, for those whose native language doesn't even have gender pronouns, who struggle with pronouns in English class, don't understand this, and just want to respectfully help fix some stranger's server.
– user56reinstatemonica8
Commented Nov 18, 2019 at 10:21
Enforcing the usage of user-defined pronouns has been the core of the issue of a lot of discussion. And telling users they are free to request their pronouns from being used, but users can just ignore that request and use something else is bound to run into the same issues.
– MechMK1
Commented Nov 19, 2019 at 5:27
11

When you allow made up pronouns (and all neo pronouns are, when you're pedantic, the classic pronouns are as well), there is no way to troll it. When you choose something obscure as your pronoun on a site where everyone can demand his favourite pronouns, there is no reason to call it trolling. What would be a proof, that "attack helicopter" is trolling or not? What criterion would make a proof for a pronoun valid or invalid? You would need to judge other people's personal boundaries, what is not up to you. So we either need to allow everything or just stick with classic and neutral pronouns.
– allo
Commented Nov 21, 2019 at 0:53
@allo I would like to keep my political views out of this situation - a move I could recommend SE, Inc. to try for once - but I agree that in a pedantic sense, there is no way to know for sure which pronouns are "legit" and which one's are not.
– MechMK1
Commented Nov 21, 2019 at 6:18
@mechMK I would think we could use the same standard as for anything else, not re: whether a pronoun set is valid, but whether the content is allowed in general.
– De Novo
Commented Nov 21, 2019 at 15:27
That depends on the kind of content in question.
– MechMK1
Commented Nov 21, 2019 at 16:16

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