« first day (1663 days earlier)      last day (2739 days later) » 

DoritoStyle
DoritoStyle
12:35 PM
http://stackoverflow.com/help/privileges/comment

"When shouldn't I comment?

Comments are not recommended for any of the following:

Suggesting corrections that don't fundamentally change the meaning of the post; instead, make or suggest an edit;
[...]"
http://stackoverflow.com/help/privileges/vote-down

"When should I vote down?

Use your downvotes whenever you encounter an egregiously sloppy, no-effort-expended post, or an answer that is clearly and perhaps dangerously incorrect.
[...]
Down-voting should be reserved for extreme cases. It's not meant as a substitute for communication and editing.

Instead of voting down:

[...]
If something is wrong, please leave a comment or edit the post to correct it.
This seems extremely clear to me. If gender-neutrality edits doesn't change the intent, then they are within guidelines. Ergo, If they would change the intent, then that should be made clear in the question.
Comments (As stated in the linked guidelines above) are not appropriate for suggesting such correction, and voting to promote answers you like (by down-voting others) is not recommended.
Did I miss any issues here?
 
DoritoStyle
DoritoStyle
1:41 PM
@MaskedMan great job deciphering that mess
 
 
2 hours later…
Kaz
Kaz
3:54 PM
@DoritoStyle Only the most fundamental problem: You want to assume (or believe, or however you want to phrase it) that changing gender pronouns does not change the intent of a post. I'm arguing 2 points in contention: First, that there are posts where it would. And second, that you can't tell which posts those are without asking the OP in the first place.
 
DoritoStyle
DoritoStyle
4:20 PM
@Kaz, First, if it would change the intent, then (As I have stated multiple times) then the question should make that clear, or be edited to do so.
@kaz, Second, I disagree completely. Example, if the question is about refilling a coffee pot, then we can safely assume it's not gender related (unless the OP left out crucial info, in which case, the question wasn't clear enough).
And, by the way, if we can't interpret intent from questions, then either 1. the question is poorly written. 2. This whole website is meaningless.
I lean towards the former. So yes intent can be reasonably assumed, and therefore questions can reasonably be edited if the intent isn't affected.
 
Rory Alsop
Rory Alsop
5:10 PM
@DoritoStyle - if in any doubt, don't edit.
As a related, but less important example - a lot of the English speaking world uses English spelling of words, but a significant percentage uses American spellings. We don't correct one to the other as it doesn't improve the post and can be seen as interfering or imposing your own view on the OP's words
In English, some male words can be gender neutral in context. If the OP uses them, leave them. If they use feminine gender - leave them. Changing them is interfering, just like in the spelling example.
 
 
3 hours later…
DoritoStyle
DoritoStyle
8:28 PM
Sure, and that's the only real contention point that I see: does gender-neutrality improve a post?

Some say no, others say it helps somewhat. So all in all I see no hard and no reason to fight to prevent it.
At least some some prominent members of the stack exchange community have come forward saying they hid their gender because they perceived it to be a problem, so I say any oppurtunity to get rid of that stigma in SE is a good thing. So far I don't see anyone saying it causes harm, only that it might offend someone's interpretation of rules. Is that unfair to say?
 
Kaz
Kaz
@DoritoStyle It depends on if site policy should be "When in doubt, edit" or "When in doubt, comment".
 
DoritoStyle
DoritoStyle
Not really. If there's no doubt then edit it. If there is doubt then ask for clarification. That's what I've been saying.
 
Kaz
Kaz
@DoritoStyle Except that your argument is based on the assumption that you can determine a poster's intent on an issue which is inherently not objective.
 
DoritoStyle
DoritoStyle
Yes, I think we can. We're all smart and (hopefully) rational people here. If the question is properly written then you don't have the guess intent.
If you can't glean intent from the question, then it is not adequately explained.
@kaz We keep circling around that point; do you disagree? Do we have to ask OP about the minutia of every aspect of their question, or can we rely on OP and other collaborators to make the question clear?
 
Kaz
Kaz
@DoritoStyle Personally, I'd say our fundamental disagreement is over whether changing the gender pronouns in a post is changing the post's meaning & intent or not.
 
DoritoStyle
DoritoStyle
8:40 PM
Again, I agree that if there is doubt, comment to get clarification, but I disagree that there is no way to objectively determine if gender is relevant to a question.
@kaz I say it's to be determined on a case-by-case basis
Two examples: "I have a coworker and he never refills the coffee pot" and "My coworker thinks the women in the office should refill the coffee pot".
 
Kaz
Kaz
In essence, I support the intent but I think jumping straight to editing someone's post crosses that line between "correcting a spelling mistake" and "putting your own words, opinions and meaning in the author's mouth".
My contention isn't that it's a good outcome. Just that it shouldn't be a thing that is considered so "obviously" right and objective that we can jump straight to editing peoples' posts without asking them first.
 
DoritoStyle
DoritoStyle
Edited my examples
In the first example, gender is not relevant, there is just a ride person. In the second, gender is relevant and this is a serious HR issue.
It's very important that the question be clear. Now, just because the first example has a "he" in it, some people could infer that the situation is similar to the second example. It's not clear enough.
 
Kaz
Kaz
@DoritoStyle According to you, yes. According to me, probably. According to someone else, who knows?
 
DoritoStyle
DoritoStyle
yes, that exactly why clarity is paramount
Removing gender from the question removes any doubt about the question's nature. And if the question is about gender then that should also be very clear.
Typos can cause just as much confusion, but nobody is really fighting to prevent those corrections.
 
Kaz
Kaz
@DoritoStyle Sure. It's where you presume to know whether the OP considers it relevant that I take issue with. Because I guarantee there will be other users who disagree with you. In a system where both sides leave a comment and the OP clarifies, there is no problem. In a situation where you're free to edit based on your personal opinion of what's "obviously" right or not, you'll get an edit war and other unwanted outcomes.
 
DoritoStyle
DoritoStyle
8:49 PM
In such a case where it is that unclear, then the question should have been much more clear. It's not my fault if I mis-read a poorly written question, and we shouldn't need to tiptoe around editing such things to be more relevant.
Essentially, neutral pronouns are a great tool to remove confusion from a question and get more direct answers, and being asked to ignore them because the question wasn't clear is not productive, and at worst only reinforces the status quo.
Now, once again, I don't think OP's problem is as important as building a good question to get good answers.
The site is here to build general knowledge and not to help every specific case. If OP has a gender related problem and they don't state it clearly then the question simply needs to be re-written. No flame war needs to occur.
In fact, questions are downvoted or closed every day for being poorly worded.
 
Kaz
Kaz
@DoritoStyle Your interpretation is not your fault. The tools and allowed behaviours that this community establishes are. Given that people will misinterpret questions. Given that there will be poor questions. Given that some situations will be clear and some won't.
Given that people will disagree over all the above. Given that it's an issue that still elicits strong responses on both sides. Establishing a deliberately non-combative behaviour (commenting) over one that encourages direct conflict (edits and counter-edits) is a very important decision.
 
DoritoStyle
DoritoStyle
I disagree, and the guidelines are currently on my side. If we don't think the intent is changed, we are advised to edit. If we are unsure, then we comment.
Your position that we can't determine intent is perplexing considering that it is something that happens literally every time and edit is made.
 
Kaz
Kaz
If I can offer my personal opinion, ignoring the details for a second, you want to establish a policy based on the presumption that Gender Pronouns, Gender Bias, Sexism and related issues have already been "settled" and are non-contentious to "all right and moral people". And I believe that the issue you consider settled is anything but, and that moving from comment-by-default to edit-by-default will cause far more conflict than its' worth for only marginally more benefit.
 
DoritoStyle
DoritoStyle
There is no move, edit by default is spelled out in the guidelines, we simply differ on our confidence to determine if gender is part of the question's intent.
(And that's fine of course!)
My problem is that there are people who believe gender has no place in this site, and I must fight against that due to the continued gender issues you are referencing there.
 
Kaz
Kaz
@DoritoStyle You say the guidelines are on your side, but I'm going to point out that not one but two mods answered this meta and they both said that edits that change gender pronouns are not fine.
 
DoritoStyle
DoritoStyle
8:59 PM
Please do not presume that I think sexism & gender bias are stelled.
 
Kaz
Kaz
@DoritoStyle And I'm on your side, re: fighting gender bias, it's your proposed methods that I disagree with.
 
DoritoStyle
DoritoStyle
@kaz A site note: Please refrain from telling me what I supposedly believe, you've done it twice now, possibly without meaning to insult me, but I have to try very hard not to react to that personally. :)
(I'm reading thru your link now, I have been using a much older and more in depth post as reference before now)
 
Kaz
Kaz
@DoritoStyle There's an implied "In My Opinion" before everything I write. And I'm not telling you what you believe, just what my interpretation, based on your words, of what you seem to be arguing, is.
Which is, relatedly, a great point about how determining peoples' intent from a limited sample of their words is not an exact science.
 
DoritoStyle
DoritoStyle
{joke} Well, it wasn't clear to me, maybe I should edit your chat message :-) {/joke}
This meta from the main site is a bit of a long read at this point, but for I'm posting it for posterity:
54
A: Any thoughts on how to react to gender-specific language?

Kate GregoryI've had people use he, him, and his in comments referring to me ("Kate made some good points in his answer" or "The OP says he tried that" when I'm the OP) and I usually do nothing about it at all. There are names out there that I can't map to genders (sure, aliases and made-up names, but even w...

 
Kaz
Kaz
@DoritoStyle Do you mind if we leave this debate here for now? I don't want to leave in the middle of an argument (I hate when people do that) but it's getting late here.
 
DoritoStyle
DoritoStyle
9:08 PM
No worries @kaz
As always, thanks very much for hearing me out.
I'll probably leave it to the Meta posts for now; this probably isn't likely to spawn much more productive debate than has already been had!
 
Kaz
Kaz
@DoritoStyle I do like being able to have a good debate ^^
@DoritoStyle And hey, if you think you can make a good meta question out of it, go for it.
 
DoritoStyle
DoritoStyle
Actually it seems like @Monica Cellio pretty much sums it up perfectly in one comment
@RichardU the OP here asserts that, which is controversial. However, I figured I could answer the question about editing guidelines without taking that on. Even without bias, we know that some people are uncomfortable with grammatically-gendered pronouns, so if someone can make an edit to change that without breaking the post in other ways, that seems like a slight improvement even if I, personally, don't think it's necessary. But just swapping in "they" does not work; it replaces one issue with another. — Monica Cellio ♦ Oct 27 at 20:38
Another good point there is to avoid the 'singular they' since it's not grammatically ubiquitous and possibly confuses the grammar enough to discount and benefit of gender-neutrality and at worst starts a flame war for people who disagree about the relevancy of gender awareness.
 
DoritoStyle
DoritoStyle
10:00 PM
30
A: Washing away apparent gender bias conveyed in an original poster’s question?

Garrison NeelyI made the edit to the question. Here's my viewpoint. If it's a sexism thing, show evidence. As a result, the question will be closed because it's an HR concern, which is out of scope of The Workplace. If it's not a sexism thing, take gender out of the question, since it will only muddy the r...

 

« first day (1663 days earlier)      last day (2739 days later) »