Timeline for Are there specific issues with unwelcoming behavior toward LGBTQ persons on Stack Exchange?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
33 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Feb 6, 2024 at 7:35 | history | bounty awarded | Karl Knechtel | ||
| Apr 3, 2022 at 20:23 | history | bounty awarded | Alexei | ||
| S Jun 22, 2020 at 16:03 | history | suggested | JYelton | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Fixed typo/apostrophe, commas to help readability |
| Jun 22, 2020 at 16:02 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Jun 22, 2020 at 16:03 | |||||
| Oct 14, 2019 at 16:57 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| Oct 14, 2019 at 17:34 | |||||
| Oct 7, 2019 at 5:58 | comment | added | fixer1234 | These sites are really more of a structured forum, which doesn't really fit SE's Q&A format. When you introduce personal factors, you also introduce the potential for personal issues. SE doesn't need to overhaul the CoC and find something that fits everywhere. The more logical solution is to subdivide SE and group the sites that don't fit the Q&A model separately. A simple "be nice" policy is more than adequate for the technical sites. The personal sites can have a different CoC that addresses the issues introduced by the different nature of those sites. | |
| Oct 7, 2019 at 5:58 | comment | added | fixer1234 | Great answer, and it, maybe unintentionally, identifies at least part of the problem. The network started with technical sites. The Q&A model works great with these subjects, and personal characteristics are irrelevant and out of place. There are objectively testable answers. Some sites have been shoehorned into the Q&A format, which is totally inappropriate for those subjects. There aren't objectively testable or correct answers. Most questions can be answered only with opinion, personal experience, or the like. Personal factors are necessary for context. (cont'd) | |
| Oct 3, 2019 at 9:40 | comment | added | Mark Booth | CBs answer is pretty much spot on @VictorStafusa TL has not been a very welcoming place for trans and non binary people recently. | |
| Oct 2, 2019 at 18:22 | comment | added | Konrad Rudolph | @Izkata It either means that; or it means that Monica has the same misunderstanding, which spiralled out of control. Based on my sharing the politics of SE at play here, I’m strongly leaning towards the latter. Monica has my empathy for her unacceptable treatment, but I don’t trust her understanding of the situation. See also CB’s explanatory answer: meta.stackexchange.com/a/334121/1968. | |
| Oct 2, 2019 at 17:32 | comment | added | Izkata | @KonradRudolph Monica Cellio has updated her post with more information; it does indeed seem to be that Modus is correct, however crazy it sounds. | |
| Oct 1, 2019 at 23:11 | comment | added | Victor Stafusa | @ModusTollens Exactly. Mandating a rule that people should not refer to other people by the usernames and that an artificial usage of 3rd person pronouns should be enforced no matter of what seems to me as simply extremely lunatic and insane. | |
| Oct 1, 2019 at 23:06 | comment | added | user204841 | @VictorStafusa It seems like that would be a problem under the new (unpublished) CoC. It was hinted that avoiding specific pronouns by using neutral ones wouldn't be allowed. | |
| Oct 1, 2019 at 23:03 | comment | added | Victor Stafusa | I have no idea of what nvoigt's genre, race or sexual orientation is (nor I think that I should care about) and yet, I can make a reference to this answer by writing "nvoigt's answer" instead of "his answer", "her answer", "their answer" or "zis answer". Does somebody think that there is a problem with that? If yes, why? | |
| Oct 1, 2019 at 21:19 | comment | added | Zach Lipton | I disagree that the technical sites are fundamentally different. There's all this stuff. There are instances of unnecessary assumptions about people's genders, and pushback whenever someone attempts to change that. There is ableism, as Renan notes. Universally unwelcoming behavior still impacts people disproportionately based on how much they feel like they belong in the first place. SE is not telling all its users that we're bigots. SE is telling us we need to fix this, and that impacts both the technical and non-technical sites. | |
| Oct 1, 2019 at 19:48 | comment | added | Steffen Winkler | The fundamental problem is that SE mixes all of this into one big bowl of telling their users they are all bigots I have seen claims like this a few times...where did this actually happen? Because I was never told by SE that I'm a bigot. What I have read was that the community needs to be a bit friendlier and more respectful. Which for the technical side of the SE network had almost 0 impact aside from the 'help new people find their way instead of downvoting them to oblivion'. | |
| Oct 1, 2019 at 19:17 | comment | added | Wildcard | This is a brilliant post. I have always thought that it was a bad idea to expand the scope of the SE network to "soft" sites where all answers are opinions and demographics actually matter. The Q&A model we have works brilliantly for technical, objective subjects. For personal or emotional matters, it totally sucks. If SE had steadfastly refused to create such sites, and stuck to their initial goal of "creating a library of detailed answers," we wouldn't be having this problem now. | |
| Oct 1, 2019 at 13:20 | comment | added | nvoigt | @Renan And I say: maybe it's smarter to go about it in a way that the majority (in your example: of men) can agree to the proposed changes. Because the problem in your "not all men" scenario are not the few that say "it's not us how dare you", it's the many that do not act. Maybe they are like me and think "if you want my support, maybe start by not insulting me". | |
| Oct 1, 2019 at 12:45 | comment | added | nvoigt | @AnkitSharma The point of my post is not pronouns. It's the fact that "I perceive no problems" and "I experience problems" are both valid experiences and it would help a lot more to get all the people in the boat of solving the existing problems of some, instead of telling those that experience no problems that they are the problem. | |
| Oct 1, 2019 at 12:44 | comment | added | Martin James | @Renan SO is not a respectful place. Many users ask grossly-disrespectful questions daily: those that expect others to do SO and/or Google lookups for them, deadbeats with homework dumps, those who think that any testing/debugging can be just outsourced etc. etc. | |
| Oct 1, 2019 at 12:22 | comment | added | Senior Wrangler | To be fair I've seen a lot of ableism in Stack Overflow. Comments and answers with bits similar to "this code's author is mentally retarded" and other awful things. I had my share of guilt, I once posted an answer that read, verbatim: "You could always just RTFM" (as a link to some documentation). I'm glad now that was deleted. SO is a neutral and respectful place, but it took some work to make it so. | |
| Oct 1, 2019 at 12:20 | comment | added | nvoigt | @CBBailey It sounds ridiculous because I cannot "respect" the gender pronoun of "KawmzaHuga17". I cannot respect an unknown. I can guess one and go with it, hoping it's right. That's not respect... it's guessing. Especially since I cannot be responsible for remembering every single user's wishes, even if explicitely expressed. Four weeks from now on a different post, I will make the same guess from the same data. And probably fail again in the same way. Would that be considered "disrespectful"? How much personal memory would I need to be in compliance with the CoC? Do I need to keep notes? | |
| Oct 1, 2019 at 12:04 | comment | added | Lara Bailey | I may have misunderstood, but I don't really understand your example about the use of pronouns. You say "telling me I have to respect their correct gender pronouns sounds ridiculous", but then you go on to say "if any of them had corrected me in the use of the one's I estimated, I would have complied", the latter behavior is precisely "respecting someone's pronouns" and if you are happy to do this, presumably because it is a simple and decent thing to do, why shouldn't it be a standard at a site the wants to be welcoming and inclusive? | |
| Oct 1, 2019 at 12:03 | comment | added | Disenchanted Lurker | (And yes, "special snowflakes" and "attack helicopters" is a reference to real highly upvoted comments that I've seen during previous Meta discussions on similar topics.) | |
| Oct 1, 2019 at 11:58 | comment | added | Disenchanted Lurker | You make some good points about the division between technical and non-technical sites. Problem is, we have this huge mixing bowl called Meta, where you have users from all sites of the network. Sure, maybe you're right and there's no bigotry on SO or SU. But imagine someone who's experienced very real issues on say, Workplace or Academia, coming here and being repeatedly told that "there is no problem" and "people are overreacting", interspersed with highly upvoted snarky comments about "special snowflakes" and "attack helicopters". That person is certainly not going to be happy. | |
| Oct 1, 2019 at 11:53 | comment | added | user437611 | @MarkBooth Perhaps you could start with demonstrating the intersectionality of these apparently distinct problems then (ideally, in your own answer). I can't possibly "appreciate" what I don't even perceive. | |
| Oct 1, 2019 at 11:50 | comment | added | Mark Booth | A lack of appreciation of the intersectionality of these problems is actually one of the barriers to solving them @Blue. Divide and conquer is a common tactic used to slow progress on diversity and inclusion issues. | |
| Oct 1, 2019 at 11:42 | comment | added | user437611 | @MarkBooth Yes, SO is considered toxic by many, but for reasons that are very much different from this pronoun/gender issue. All nvoigt is asking is that we don't mix these clearly distinct problems. | |
| Oct 1, 2019 at 11:34 | comment | added | Mark Booth | Incidentally, I have lost track of the number of times friends in my social media circle who are professional programmers have said things along the lines of "I don't do Stack Overflow, I find it too toxic", so a perception of toxicity isn't just an issue for soft stack exchange sites. | |
| Oct 1, 2019 at 11:32 | comment | added | Raedwald | The current dumpster fire started in the context of site moderators talking among themselves. As you say, technical questions are effectively anonymous: we address the questions, not the people. But moderators must reach out to individual people, and address them by name. So moderators do have opportunities for incorrectly using names, and thus (deliberately or accidently) causing offense. | |
| Oct 1, 2019 at 11:31 | comment | added | nvoigt | @MarkBooth I would go with the easy answer of "if they did it again after being told it's not acceptable, it should be considered intentional". At least that is what the law in my country goes by. Speeding? Considered negligent. Speeding next to a red flashing speed limit sign you cannot possibly overlook? Considered intentional, fine doubled. | |
| Oct 1, 2019 at 11:27 | comment | added | Martin James | While I agree, it's actually worse than that. As a software developer, not only do I not care about the religion, race, sexual orientation etc of posters, I am fully aware that they are unknowable outside of a meat-greet and investigation. So, if I am obliged,to avoid the use of any language that could be interpreted as unwelcome/insulting/abusive by user X, my only option is to post nothing. | |
| Oct 1, 2019 at 11:24 | comment | added | Mark Booth | It's almost impossible to truly judge intent, all we can do is take action based on observable behaviour. | |
| Oct 1, 2019 at 11:02 | history | answered | nvoigt | CC BY-SA 4.0 |