Timeline for Stack Overflow is doing me ongoing harm; it's time to fix it!
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61 events
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| May 26, 2020 at 20:26 | comment | added | Justin Time - Reinstate Monica | ... someone’s pronouns because you are uncomfortable " clause was interpreted as being worded so that it could be used against users who were uncomfortable with using any pronouns in general on the network, users who were uncomfortable with using specific pronouns (e.g., singular "they") in general, and users who were uncomfortable with a specific user's requested pronouns, with an explicit example of the second case being the primary reason for this interpretation. CesarM subsequently clarified it, but the full picture requires more than just screenshots of one draft of the FAQ to see. | |
| May 26, 2020 at 20:20 | comment | added | Justin Time - Reinstate Monica | Again, sorry for the delayed reply, @Nij, but what I'm saying is that screenshots of one version of the FAQ do not provide a full picture of the issue. While it does revolve around an already-quoted section, it was also in part fed and exacerbated by edits to and comments on the original post, which wouldn't be visible in screenshots of a single draft of FAQv1. Comments showed that people interpreted it differently than you do (most likely due to the whole Monica situation, leading people to expect they'd receive similar treatment from the company); IIRC, the "Explicitly avoiding using... | |
| S Jan 16, 2020 at 19:33 | history | suggested | Gloweye | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Updated the part about the gofundme.
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| Jan 16, 2020 at 19:12 | review | Suggested edits | |||
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| Dec 31, 2019 at 14:23 | comment | added | DTRT | "egos of paid staff (and some Mods) trump everything...well-being of the LGBTQ community...happiness and inclusion of people" oh boy, is this true. Had my own experience. | |
| Dec 30, 2019 at 11:45 | comment | added | Petter Nordlander | SE must respect time put down on this site. Without community contributors such as @MonicaCellio this site is nothing. Highly active, caring and competent community members and moderators are the main asset of SE. | |
| Dec 11, 2019 at 11:14 | history | bounty ended | gnat | ||
| Nov 20, 2019 at 9:39 | comment | added | The_Sympathizer | @Nij : "understates the vehemence with which people have opposed the use of requested pronouns and the implication that they must acknowledge other users' gender identity." In other words, bigotry - plain and simple. The rot starts with the people. The people are bigots. Bigotry, of course, then is from the larger society. | |
| Nov 16, 2019 at 5:24 | comment | added | Nij | You don't need 10K. For the third time, there are screenshots of the public FAQv1 posted and linked and reserved in multiple places. If you think that it says what you claimed, it should not have taken this long or this much typing to have found one and checked it - you've spent more time and effort not doing it. | |
| Nov 16, 2019 at 3:38 | comment | added | Justin Time - Reinstate Monica | A bit late, @Nij, but I unfortunately don't have 10,000 rep, and thus don't have access to the edit history. And what "everyone" thought it required was based on interpreting the FAQ's wording in light of SE's own actions. I believe the case in particular effectively boiled down to (as quoted by Kyle Strand), "Q: Can we avoid pronouns? A: Use pronouns as you would naturally write." Considering the question associated with the answer, and SE's own actions (heavily implied, but not explicitly stated, to be pre-emptive support of the new CoC)... | |
| Nov 15, 2019 at 14:20 | review | Suggested edits | |||
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| S Nov 14, 2019 at 21:18 | history | suggested | vikingosegundo | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added helpful information
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| Nov 14, 2019 at 21:02 | review | Suggested edits | |||
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| Nov 14, 2019 at 20:45 | history | edited | Cesar MStaffMod | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
We have to remove links: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/338270/why-is-se-removing-links-and-community-ads-about-legal-issues
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| Nov 5, 2019 at 19:00 | comment | added | Kyle Strand | Personally, although I think FAQv2 is definitely an improvement over FAQv1, I think FAQv1 wouldn't really be bad if SE hadn't demonstrated by its behavior concerning Monica that the policy can and will be used to punish people for exactly the behavior you're saying isn't disallowed. | |
| Nov 5, 2019 at 18:58 | comment | added | Kyle Strand | @Nij I'm not ignoring it; my question, "how can one objectively determine hwne a user would have 'otherwise' used a pronoun", still applies despite the "as you would naturally write" qualification. I hadn't interpreted "explicit" to mean that users wouldn't be punished unless they stated their reasons for avoiding pronouns, but I suppose that maybe you're right that that is how it was meant. But the problem is twofold: (1) there is ambiguity (which is, as you point out, somewhat unavoidable), and (2) the only example we have of how such ambiguity is resolved looks extremely malicious. | |
| Nov 5, 2019 at 7:59 | comment | added | Nij | How can you completely ignore a key phrase, and another keyword, then act like you're reading "literally"? As you would naturally write means you don't have to inject pronouns where they aren't needed. Explicitly avoiding pronouns means exactly that - explicit action. Not an unexplained one, not an implied one. Don't waffle about objectivity, we already trust moderators to make thousands of subjective decisions every day. So unless you want to also argue that suddenly, we can't trust any of them, you look a lot like someone who's only arguing against the use of requested pronouns. | |
| Nov 5, 2019 at 7:48 | comment | added | Kyle Strand | @Nij Here's the bit of FAQv1 in question: "We are asking everyone to use all stated pronouns as you would naturally write. Explicitly avoiding using someone’s pronouns because you are uncomfortable is a way of refusing to recognize their identity and is a violation of the Code of Conduct." Taken literally, yes, this does provide a way for users to be punished for not using pronouns; how can one objectively determine when a user would have "otherwise" used a pronoun in a comment that doesn't include one? | |
| Nov 5, 2019 at 7:32 | comment | added | Kyle Strand | @Nij It's not "paranoia" when the only example of how the policy would actually be enforced is as egregious as SE's treatment of Monica. The CoC, FAQv1, and announcement blog post had some amount of ambiguity, and SE has only doubled down on its treatment of Monica, which is a pretty good indication that the probability the CoC will be interpreted and applied harshly and uncharitably is pretty high. | |
| S Nov 4, 2019 at 16:22 | history | suggested | larry909 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added "of" which was missing
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| Nov 4, 2019 at 15:31 | review | Suggested edits | |||
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| Nov 3, 2019 at 4:17 | comment | added | Nij | Yes, the FAQ was updated. But again, it never required injection of pronouns where they were not needed. I am still waiting for you to show a record of a publicly available version of the COC FAQ that required this. The edit history is available to 10K users and the original public version has been posted. @JustinTime what "everyone" (actually, not true, there were a lot of people pointing out that it didn't at all) thought it required, was based on misconceptions, skim-reading and their own paranoia and overreactions. | |
| Nov 3, 2019 at 3:57 | comment | added | Justin Time - Reinstate Monica | In particular, there was at least one case where one of the employees (CesarM, I believe) explicitly said that the FAQ didn't mean what it said in one place, and it was subsequently edited to line up with their comment. It was... actually, I think it was this case specifically; everyone read it as saying to insert pronouns even if you otherwise wouldn't, CesarM commented that that wasn't the intent (even if it was the message conveyed), and the FAQ was modified to reflect this. | |
| Nov 3, 2019 at 3:50 | comment | added | Justin Time - Reinstate Monica | The problem, @Nij, is that the FAQ had been edited repeatedly, and further clarified/modified in comments that were (usually) subsequently edited in as well; the original version, as first posted, was a MESS, & a decent portion of it appeared to be intended to "justify" the contempt a certain employee showed Monica here (which, amusingly, would never hold up in any legal setting, on the grounds that creating laws after the fact to retroactively support previously-unsupported verdicts is a blatant miscarriage of justice). What we need is the revision history & comments, for the full picture. | |
| Nov 1, 2019 at 17:09 | history | edited | TheCog19 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Unless a moderator asks me to remove this, i'm leaving it in.
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| Nov 1, 2019 at 16:51 | history | edited | user474678 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Please don't monetize this.
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| Oct 30, 2019 at 17:32 | history | edited | TheCog19 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 161 characters in body
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| Oct 29, 2019 at 15:25 | comment | added | Monica Cellio | @Nij the first version, shared just with moderators, did. The first public version appeared to allow what I do, and on that basis I posted there asking for immediate reinstatement because their fears of future CoC violations were now null and void. I was pressured to take that answer down and there were then some confusing comments. Things seem clearer in the second FAQ. | |
| Oct 29, 2019 at 11:53 | comment | added | TheAsh | "The fact is, someone could not handle polite but relentless disagreement, and abused their position to remove someone without demonstrable cause." Exactly. | |
| Oct 29, 2019 at 3:51 | comment | added | Nij | No publicly available version of the FAQ or COC has required injection of pronouns where they would not have otherwise been used, @MonicaCellio. While I can accept a private/confidential version might have done so, the general public has had no such indication, and therefore such concerns were not reasonably founded. | |
| Oct 29, 2019 at 3:42 | comment | added | Nij | No, I am not under the impression and have seen no evidence that Monica Cellio wrote a statement indicating that intent. It was an example of what many other users have said, though, and demonstrates that the paranoia against thought-policing is neither reasonable nor credible. Intent does not need to be inferred when it is explicitly stated. @aparente001 | |
| Oct 29, 2019 at 0:15 | comment | added | Monica Cellio | It's part of my professional training; been writing that way for decades. Clarity for a wide range of readers, including those for whom English isn't the first language, is important. I see people get tripped up by the number mismatch. I get majorly tripped up by it and I'm a native speaker. | |
| Oct 29, 2019 at 0:06 | comment | added | aparente001 | @MonicaCellio - Well, the instinct to avoid the singular third-person "they" is extremely common. You're far from alone in that. I had good reasons for training myself to use it; nevertheless it took me months to get comfortable with it. I kept having to rewrite my posts and texts. I don't think there's any reason to feel embarrassed about having written that. // Thanks very much for the clarification. | |
| Oct 29, 2019 at 0:02 | comment | added | Monica Cellio | @aparente001 I didn't write that sentence or anything close to it, no. I have no problem with recognizing non-binary genders. It's a newer idea to a lot of us including me, but I'm not one of the people challenging validity or anything like that. What I was bullied into admitting is that I personally don't use singular they -- which until recently was about unspecified gender, not anybody's specific pronoun. Tensions were elevated and some people wanted to read things uncharitably without seeking clarification. I could have phrased things better too; it was chat, not Q&A, so less formal. | |
| Oct 28, 2019 at 23:59 | comment | added | aparente001 | @MonicaCellio - Is that accurate? If so -- was it taken out of context? Is it a distortion of what you wrote? Did you express yourself badly? Did you feel that way at the time? If so, have you changed any of your thinking? Sorry for the barrage of questions. A real time conversation could be a much gentler expression of my curiosity. I do want to understand the genesis of this huge mess. Thanks. | |
| Oct 28, 2019 at 23:57 | comment | added | aparente001 | @Nij - Are you saying that Monica wrote that exact sentence? "I refuse to acknowledge the existence of non-binary genders and will not refer to UserExample1 by they"? | |
| Oct 28, 2019 at 20:19 | comment | added | Monica Cellio | I was bullied into admitting that, @Nij, as part of what I thought was an otherwise-constructive policy discussion. It would never have come up in "normal" conversation like we have with users on our sites and in chat. And "you must inject pronouns" very much was part of the original version shown to mods, along with the stuff about judging intent, which is exactly why I asked those questions in TL. | |
| Oct 27, 2019 at 23:12 | comment | added | Nij | Go find a copy of the FAQv1, then. There are plenty of WBM links and screenshots from 10K-priv users. Quote the part where SE say "exactly that" you can't keep referring to users by username. | |
| Oct 27, 2019 at 23:10 | comment | added | Nij | And thought-policing, really? There is no need to decide what others intend when they literally write the words that say their purpose was to do something. What Monica Cellio said was that she refused to use they/them as singular pronouns. If somebody (as she did) modified the entire writing style to not require pronouns at all, that's not a problem. But if someone says "I refuse to acknowledge the existence of non-binary genders and will not refer to UserExample1 by they", and then follow through, their intent is clear, and it is their actions which will be policed. | |
| Oct 27, 2019 at 23:09 | comment | added | Justin Time - Reinstate Monica | Except, @Nij, that the original (now-deleted) FAQ clarified that it did intend exactly that. In fact, there was even a FAQ question specifically asking whether, if you didn't normally use pronouns (but preferred to e.g., use names directly), you could continue to do so; the answer was to use pronouns. And... I suppose pointing out that heavy-handed encouragement is essentially the same as forcing something could count as scare quotes, though I had to look the term up. Please stop with the intentionally downplaying the situation. | |
| Oct 27, 2019 at 23:05 | comment | added | Nij | That wasn't the original intent, as the FAQ made clear, and the FAQv2 made more explicit. You do not have to shoehorn pronouns if they aren't needed, you never did have to shoehorn pronouns if they aren't needed, and if SE ever does require shoehorning pronouns if they aren't needed, SE would get rejection from the Lavender community as well for missing the point. As for scarequoting encouraged and parenthesising forced, wow. A suggestion is just that - you can act on it or ignore it however you feel. Please stop with the paranoia. @JustinTime | |
| Oct 27, 2019 at 22:59 | comment | added | Justin Time - Reinstate Monica | Everyone deserves respect, yes. But that, combined with the explicit thought-policing requirement (where moderators were required to determine intent, and by extension decide what others are thinking), and the whole "make an example of Monica, then later turn around and admit everything she said was right but we're still screwing her over anyways" thing, left a bad first impression of the new CoC as a whole, which is likely to have actually caused more damage than it solved (potentially provoking more discrimination out of spite). I believe it's better now, but it may be too late for many. | |
| Oct 27, 2019 at 22:56 | comment | added | Justin Time - Reinstate Monica | Particularly, @Nij, I dislike the original intent that people would be "encouraged" (forced) to bend over backwards to shoehorn in pronouns that don't actively benefit the conversation at hand, and the way they flat-out suggested that users should check someone's profile for pronouns and then shoehorn them into answers that wouldn't otherwise need or require pronouns in normal conversation (e.g., Stack Overflow (site), where the focus is on the programming and not the programmer and, say, even the PotUS identifying themself as the PotUS while asking a question would be considered noise). | |
| Oct 26, 2019 at 13:30 | comment | added | cp.engr | "just like we took the lumps from the licencing change, ... the community would have moved on, and perhaps bled a little, but would be ultimately unharmed in the long term." This has neither been addressed (at all by the company), nor has the community moved on, AFAIK. It seems there are just bigger fish to fry at the moment. | |
| S Oct 25, 2019 at 15:55 | history | suggested | GentlePurpleRain | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Proofreading: Fix some grammar and punctuation
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| Oct 25, 2019 at 15:14 | review | Suggested edits | |||
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| Oct 24, 2019 at 14:10 | comment | added | Emil Jeřábek | I wouldn’t say the community has “moved on” from illegal relicensing and other problems. These have just been momentarily eclipsed by Monica’s dismissal and the ensuing chaos, but I for one fully expect it to get back on the table after the current most pressing issues are resolved. It’s counterproductive to suggest otherwise. | |
| S Oct 24, 2019 at 14:04 | history | suggested | snakecharmerb | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
"egos" is plural, so use the third person plural as the corresponding pronoun
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| Oct 24, 2019 at 13:54 | review | Suggested edits | |||
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| Oct 24, 2019 at 13:21 | history | edited | TheCog19 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
deleted 4 characters in body
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| Oct 24, 2019 at 9:25 | comment | added | user | @terdon "Just because some of us aren't being toxic on meta doesn't mean we aren't furious and honestly afraid about our own well being as mods, wondering when SE will decide we've crossed some invisible line and it's now time to drag our names through the mud in the press." I wholeheartedly agree with that, and I'm trying really hard myself to stay away from making toxic or otherwise inflammatory statements. See also my resignation announcement. | |
| Oct 24, 2019 at 9:19 | comment | added | terdon | @aCVn oh. Apparently so, yes. But not much of it: Please don't try to minimize this because some people are being very loud about pronouns. Or something to that effect. Just because some of us aren't being toxic on meta doesn't mean we aren't furious and honestly afraid about our own well being as mods, wondering when SE will decide we've crossed some invisible line and it's now time to drag our names through the mud in the press. | |
| Oct 24, 2019 at 9:09 | comment | added | user | I think "hundreds of thousands of hours" is an exaggeration at best, and it potentially detracts from the point you're making. There's 8760 hours in a 365-day year. Ten years (including two leap years) is 87,648 hours. SE has been around for a little longer than that, but not much. There is no reasonable way any individual can have put even 100,000 hours into SE, and a more reasonable first-order estimate even for a highly dedicated person is probably a quarter or so of that. So tens of thousands of hours, sure, that's reasonable; plural hundreds of thousands of hours, just no. | |
| Oct 24, 2019 at 9:08 | comment | added | user | @terdon Did your comment get cut off? | |
| Oct 24, 2019 at 8:48 | comment | added | Nij | ... give any credence whatsoever to GenericUserX requesting that particular pronouns be used when referring to GenericUserX, and actively oppose such pronouns when they believe GenericUserX 1. is actually a different gender than stated, and/or 2. don't believe the stated gender even exists. SE has some serious issues to resolve, but pretending that one major issue wouldn't even exist if not for another, when a big chunk of the former issue has come totally without regard to the latter, only lends shelter to those users who are doing exactly what is claimed would not happen. [2/2] | |
| Oct 24, 2019 at 8:44 | comment | added | terdon | @Nij Again, I'm sorry but that's not my perception at all. I can flat out guarantee that that isn't the case for the moderators for one thing: the way Monica was treated is absolutely central to the issue for most of us. There are multiple angry groups here. And a very, very large one is fine with the CoC but furious about how it (the whole thing, from Monica through the heavy handed FAQ v0.1 through how SE has been acting) was handled. See Dear Stack Exchange: a statement and a letter from your moderators. Please don't try to minimize this because some peo | |
| Oct 24, 2019 at 8:40 | comment | added | Nij | The answer leads with statements like "This argument hasn't been about the CoC, ..." and then continues with "Had this just been about pronouns, we might have seen a moderator resignation or two, but just like we took the lumps from the licencing change, or the ad changes, the community would have moved on, ...". This is simply not true. A huge number of people have not paid any attention nor attached any relevance whatsoever to Monica Cellio being brutally axed, because they do not care about that. They have argued that they should not have to, at all, give any credence ... [1/2] | |
| Oct 24, 2019 at 8:37 | comment | added | terdon | @Nij no, it doesn't. Sure, some people are up in arms about other things, but this post perfectly describes the feelings of a very large part of the community, myself and many other network moderators included. Too many people are trying to cast this as a simple case of people disliking the CoC. And that is part of it. But not all of it, not by a long shot. Dealing with Monica fairly and at least trying to correct their mistakes is essential. | |
| Oct 24, 2019 at 6:42 | comment | added | Peter | @Nij it seems these posts have been deleted awfully quickly, which is a good thing, as I didn't see them. Just in case you're accidentially misrepresenting posts like those that protested compelled speech: The Monica incident created an expectation that the CoC will be abused to slander people as bigots, which massively amplified the pushback against the pronoun-avoidance prohobition, and against the mandatory singlar they. | |
| Oct 24, 2019 at 4:51 | comment | added | Nij | This exaggerates the impact of Monica Cellio's removal from moderatorship on the COC update, and understates the vehemence with which people have opposed the use of requested pronouns and the implication that they must acknowledge other users' gender identity. There have been dozens of users posting that they don't care, don't want to care, and will actively avoid caring what pronouns they have been requested to use, with absolutely no reference to Monica Cellio. It's certainly a significant issue, but it is absolutely not the "bottom line" as far as COC update arguments go. | |
| Oct 24, 2019 at 2:39 | history | answered | TheCog19 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |