The Upper Room

Nathaniel

3:56 AM

And... I'm out of comment votes on MSE. It's going to be a long UTC day!

Nathaniel

5:46 AM

Let's see how this goes...

-1

A: You're only being asked not to misgender people intentionally

With great trepidation I offer to act as an intermediary of information that many here will find to be offensive, bigoted, and vile. Many may find it personally injurious. But I hope that this will be received as evidence that some people out there have a completely different worldview than you...

Caleb

7:08 AM

Does anybody have links to Mark somebody's comments about self-identification? I remember a couple very salient remarks from what I think was comments on an answer on some mod's resignation notice, but I can't find them now.

Nathaniel

67

A: SE has removed a moderator

Gotta love how tolerance and inclusion always starts with a purge. Anyway, forced speech is a red line for me (regardless of what is being forced or why), so this little experiment is over. Bye all.

Is that it?

Caleb

Yup, that's the one thanks.

Nathaniel

np

Caleb

So it's user16226 now eh? The collateral damage at this point is getting harder to estimate. Inclusivity has made itself an echo chamber.

Nathaniel

Yep. I wonder how much of this will get flushed down the memory hole in a few months

I like to think posts on individual metas are safe, but who knows...

Caleb

7:27 AM

Given the combination of silent treatment on any issue they don't want to engage on and the active removal of other people engaging on things they don't plan to address I think in 6 months it will be hard to even find evidence our concerns existed.

Nathaniel

I figured it would be interesting...

curiousdannii

Not a post I would've wanted to engage with

Nathaniel

My initial read was that the Q was at least in somewhat good faith. But...

Caleb

7:56 AM

@Nathaniel Wow. No apparent awareness of presuppositions there, not to mention a few other issues.

> One of the painful signs of years of dumbed-down education is how many people are unable to make a coherent argument. They can vent their emotions, question other people's motives, make bold assertions, repeat slogans—anything except reason. — Thomas Sowell

Nathaniel

Sowell is awesome.

Caleb

@Nathaniel Wasn't that OP the same one asking on the FAQ post what they were doing about all the people who's answers and comments indicated intent to violate the CoC? (Seemingly in favor of cranking up the suspensions being the way I read it.)

Nathaniel

@Caleb Yeah; I didn't make that connection

Caleb

Wow, with the CoC out in force comments have seriously degenerated int open antagonism of anybody objecting.

Nathaniel

8:17 AM

All the CMs must be asleep...

How my post and attacker get treated will be very interesting...

Caleb

@Caleb if you're asking if if you should be banned, it's an un-equivicoval yes. — apaul 1 min ago

Nathaniel

that user's top site and associated rep is very interesting...

Caleb

Wow, hadn't noticed that.

@Nathaniel If he applied his own advice maybe he would feal the pressure on his IPS account.

Okay I have better things to do today that track and feed trolls (even if there are some real classy ones circling).

Nathaniel

Heh yeah me too

Caleb

8:40 AM

@Nathaniel A variant of your post about why this is a big deal to some might go better under this question that under apaul's.

Nathaniel

@Caleb Yeah...

Caleb

I'd like to try to write something for that too ... along the lines of refuting not just the way tho CoC was introduced but that the change in itself is inherently (a change of kind, not just of degree|counterproductive to it's stated goal|hypocritical|myopic|unenforceable|...). And yet, for this week what writing energies I have left need to go into finishing my sermon.

Nathaniel

9:10 AM

1

A: Why are the Code of Conduct changes received so negatively, and what can / could have been done to change that?

The idea of a "religious objection" has been pointed out numerous times and is certainly one (probably small) factor in the negativity. But because of the nature of religious objections, there's probably no way that SE could have avoided this source of negativity without actually making substant...

Maybe if my other answer gets deleted I'll put its content here, but not sure if I should try to mask it in html tags or something.

Caleb

@Nathaniel I think what you did is good for now.

@Nathaniel Ağızına sağlık.

Nathaniel

@Caleb Thanks.

Luke McGregor

10:10 AM

Im feeling really disheartened by all of this. Anyone have any bright sides to cheer me up? I don't even feel like im welcome here(SE) anymore

Caleb

They've also from the very start excluded the worldview of white supremacists, misogynists and zealots who promote terrorism. Stop complaining that you can't keep being transphobic. @Caleb — Nij 6 mins ago

Calling people who disagree with you ugly names does not legitimize your argument @Nij. I am not afraid of, nor do I bear any ill will toward, nor do I wish any harm come to members of society that hold a different worldview from myself on issues of sexuality or gender identity. Ergo calling me "transphobic" after directly equating that label with terrorism is itself offensive, an ad hominem attack against my person, and a violation of the old CoC. — Caleb 45 secs ago

Sorry @Luke those comments are copied here for posterity (since one or the other will likely be nuked soon). Not trying to cheer you up.

Here is a little humor to lighten the mood.

On the 6th day the Benevolent one made vim, and saw that it was good, and so he rested. Some time after that, man got bored with Benevolent knowing what was best for him and started mucking around with things that were above his pay-grade. Thus he beget emacs. After much toil and sorrow he gradually became aware of the error of his ways and is now trying working hard to earn his way into heaven. — Caleb 10 mins ago

Luke McGregor

10:25 AM

LOL

not that im a vim guy, but my dad used emacs, and I grew up hating it

Caleb

I miss the days on the internet when we could have flame wars over our respective editors and at the end of the day both parties would get a laugh out of it.

Also those days were before atom and vscode came along and bungled everything up, confusing a whole generation of programmers about what was an editor and what was a browser. Kids these days.

Luke McGregor

10:45 AM

haha

whats wrong with coding in a browser, its basically an os anyway

Real programmers set the universal constants at the start such that the universe evolves to contain the disk with the data they want.

^obligitory

(if im in a terminal I use nano ;) )

TRiG

It's fun to watch browsers fumblingly recapitulate the history of window management. Someday we'll have xmonad as a Firefox extension.

Caleb

@LukeMcGregor I'm pretty sure using nano puts you in the "Go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200" category. Sorry mate, I hope you roll doubles.

Luke McGregor

ikr

it shows how much I edit from a terminal >myfavoriteeditor ./whatever

also lol @ xkcd

TRiG

11:20 AM

@Caleb I'm in work right now, so I can't really look up YouTube. I'd like to direct you to Panti's Noble Call. Gay people get to define what is and what isn't homophobic. And trans people get to define what is and what isn't transphobic.

Luke McGregor

I feel those words shouldn't end in phobic, based on common use.

I think christians define a lot of things that they find offensive, the problem is that's ignored but other groups are condoned

and maybe to have a healthy friendly place to live they do need to be ignored, but that means we need to ignore it all and just try to treat each other respectfully

also I really liked @Caleb's post on how this community has dealt with differences. This is probably one of the highest potential conflict sites as it deals with core beliefs but people seem to get along civilly

TRiG

@LukeMcGregor Depending on how snarky I'm feeling (quite a bit right now) and how much of a rush I'm in (ditto), I might say that the fundamental difference between respect for trans people and respect for God is that trans people exist.

Luke McGregor

11:38 AM

@TRiG but it isn't even about respect for God its about respect for people who believe in him. Im not demanding that you respect God but it would sure be nice if you were sensitive about the things I find offensive even if you disagree with me

Caleb

12:29 PM

Interesting notes from behind the scenes here. It looks like the compelled speech thing came up in TL/Mod discussion earlier this week and they sort of changed the letter of the law (did drop a proposed clause), just not the spirit (as evidenced by the FAQ, staff comments, and enforcement).

> Moderators were consulted on various drafts of the CoC amendments and we successfully requested the removal of the compelled speech ("do not avoid using pronouns when requested"). This clause implies that people cannot address people by name or "The OP" if they declare a pronoun. This makes a mockery of how to address them individually among a discussion group of many participants. I thought that we had reached a clear, concise, straightforward wording.
>
> I didn't expect the raft of FAQ clauses that followed, and the compelled speech enforced by them. The FAQ is bewildering, confusing, …

(source)

Nathaniel

12:40 PM

@Caleb Cf. meta.stackexchange.com/a/335004/300411

Nathaniel

1:01 PM

And meta.stackexchange.com/a/335133/300411

Caleb

Uggg. That sounds familiar. The comment has long since been nuked but I remarked on somebody's answer that was thanking SE for making changes based on feedback that they hadn't actually changed anything of substance, only dressed it up in prettier language.

I'm all out of votes but that post deserves a +1 from tomorrow's stock.

As they say, the devil is in the details.

TRiG

1:17 PM

@fredsbend I still haven't parsed out all my own feelings on this, and I certainly don't feel particularly skilled. I will say that I think that SE has been more motivated by looking good to their New York investors than in doing good by the communities here.

in Tavern on the Meta on Meta Stack Exchange Chat, Oct 4 at 12:10, by TRiG is Timothy Richard Green

How much (internally) does SE actually know about inclusion and diversity, especially across an international audience? I'm getting the impression of a lot of ham-fisted "peformative wokeness". (I should probably write this up, but I don't have the energy.)

Peter Turner

@Caleb bless me father for I have vimmed. It's been 4 years since I used emacs to do anything except replace semicolons with linebreaks.

curiousdannii

@Caleb Everyone knows jail is the best place on the monopoly board. Can't get charged rent while in jail!

Caleb

Just for the record, if vimming is a sin then I'm due for a lot of purgatory. Even this chat message is being composed in a full blooded Neovim instance running inside my browser.

curiousdannii

@Caleb Sounds like you're a lost cause. Sorry.

Caleb

That's with Firenvim in case you are wondering. Just reach out, it can change your life too.

curiousdannii

1:27 PM

@Caleb I don't want to have to turn my computer off every time I select a textbox

2

Caleb

@curiousdannii There are other ways to exit vim besides pulling the plug.

curiousdannii

@Caleb Fake news!

Caleb

@curiousdannii This is going downhill fast. My editor experience is very near to my heart you know. Next thing you'll be telling telling me to get ed from a trustworthy pastor or councilor instead of soliciting the advice of random strangers on the internet whose ideas are less than sublime. I think I should disengage now before someone gets hurt. ;-)

curiousdannii

The actual text of the CoC and their explanations that disengaging or just using names is acceptable are reasonable I think. But sadly it's clear from everything that's being said that there's no sense that you can respect and honour a person without affirming everything about them.

@Caleb Editors is a clear case of fence morality. It is not that there is one righteous editor, there are many acceptable ones, but on the other site of the fence are the depravities of vim and emacs

I'm sure the Screwtape Letters contained the demonic strategy of pushing the vim vs emacs war to lead more people into darkness, not realising the light was found in avoiding both.

Luke McGregor

1:45 PM

I've always been awkward about reading screw tape, I've read every other lewis book but the topic of that one bothers me

curiousdannii

@LukeMcGregor how so?

Luke McGregor

It focuses on evil and demonic.
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

maybe I should go to bed and not think about gender pronouns lol

Nathaniel

@LukeMcGregor I was going to say, that's a good verse for me right now

Luke McGregor

well here's another for the evening @Nathaniel:
Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake.

ima sleep now night all thanks for the company

Nathaniel

@LukeMcGregor Thanks; good night

TRiG

2:25 PM

@curiousdannii Oh holy Nano?

Nathaniel

4:01 PM

Another one for posterity... i.stack.imgur.com/VLqFB.jpg

Caleb

4:11 PM

@Nathaniel Ya that retweet has been around since the day after the first flopped apology. It wasn't the only tactless Twitter post from that quarter either. Most of them have since been removed. The original in that case is still live and a raging dumpster fire.

Nathaniel

6:12 PM

@Nathaniel My flags are still pending.

Caleb

6:50 PM

@Nathaniel I opted to to flag anything there. I did see the most egregious comment (where he actually pretty much equated me with a terrorist) got deleted so I assume that happened automatically because of N flags. What's left is mostly where he goes on to defend his initial position.

Here we go...

Nathaniel

@Caleb There were numerous personal, vulgar attacks against many people in that q/a combo. Most got immediately deleted because of their content with a single flag. But I left a flag on the post pointing them out. If they had happened on our site two weeks ago I would have suspended him in no time flat.

Just another example of how my values are out of alignment with SE's, I suppose

Caleb

@CesarM Stating one's pronouns in a question, comment or ansewer violates so many established rules we have had for years, those rules should also be changed? — Teemu 8 mins ago

@Teemu it's a very imperfect solution - and a temporary one. For now, yes. We're in the process of implementing a suggestion from another MSE post so we don't need to have that anymore. — Cesar M ♦ 3 mins ago

Nathaniel

So staff is around; it's just that the flags are low priority.

@Caleb Hmm, maybe the change to user cards?

Caleb

@Nathaniel So I see. If it disagrees with your agenda delete first, ask questions later. If it agrees, who cares a little vitriol slips in here and there.

@Nathaniel Ya in spite of the negative reaction almost every time that's been suggested, I'm guessing that's the next bandaid on this heart attack.

Nathaniel

at this rate I'll have 10k soon, but I'm still a lowly peon who can't see anything at your link :)

Caleb

7:01 PM

That's one of several, where several means many.

Nathaniel

heh... how many answers do you see on that thing? I see 97...

Caleb

124.

Nathaniel

Actually figured it would be worse

Caleb

Minor questions like "what if I make a mistake" and "what if I don't speak English" get answered asap, flat out objections get dismissed and deleted, and thoughtful detailed objections get stonewalled. No official acknowledgement that we're even saying anything.

Caleb

7:33 PM

@Nathaniel twitter.com/SaraJChipps/status/1182650441882058752

Nathaniel

she's a far cry from the CMs, that's for sure...

Mr. Bultitude

8:04 PM

@Caleb "For now, complying with the CoC means breaking many other rules. Our programmers will have a way of circumventing that, but for now the CoC has precedence over the other rules." ...Why not just wait to roll it out until you've addressed the technical aspect? Was this CoC that much of an emergency?!

@Nathaniel So does that make "problematic" a core part of our identities? Why does the CoC make every identity classification a protected class except for us poor problematics?

I've decided to just offload my snark here for now and leave the Meta dumpster fire alone.

Caleb

@Mr.Bultitude I've had two working theories as to the urgency and secrecy. Today I've kind of warmed up to a third. None of them workout great for this site.

Mr. Bultitude

@Caleb What are your three working theories? I'm very curious.

Peter Turner

It's CYA, this is the moral equivalent of a PCI audit.

Nobody would ever do this if they weren't forced to and the only thing that can force a company to do anything that would alienate their clientele is being audited.

El'endia Starman

@Caleb Wow. My esteem of Sara keeps dropping, bit by bit...

Nathaniel

8:21 PM

@Mr.Bultitude Probably for the best. I have been able to restrain myself so far on MSE but it is difficult.

Lovely. meta.stackexchange.com/a/335065/300411

I'm not sure how I could have presented this more carefully

I wonder if I could turn it into a C.SE main site Q&A...

But... the whole Q/A was a dumpster fire so I get it

What do you think? Should we be trying to lay low and avoid academic-style Q/A on transgender topics on the main site right now? Or full steam ahead and no worries about pointing MSE masses to it?

Mr. Bultitude

@Nathaniel Might have to screen shot that.

Nathaniel

@Mr.Bultitude Too long. Here's the content: pastebin.com/BiRj0nSr

Deleted without comment by Shog when he deleted the whole question and suspended the OP for a month

so no hard feelings

Mr. Bultitude

8:37 PM

@Nathaniel That's a tough one. My inclination is to say go ahead. It's good info that could use a home. You could add a disclaimer (in the comments?) that if people bring abuse then you'll delete it. I dunno.

Mr. Bultitude

8:58 PM

On another note...

curiousdannii

11:32 PM

@Nathaniel The Protestantism question does need more answers so that people won't think CARM is the definition of Protestantism

Nathaniel

11:42 PM

@curiousdannii Hmm yeah... there's an interesting angle to that question. I'd rather ask something like on what basis evangelicals object to transgenderism, and I wonder if that'd be too close

probably wouldn't know until I reasearched the answers more...

curiousdannii

I'm kinda unhappy that answer is there because I don't think there's really any consensus yet. Other than confusion.

Nathaniel

Not sure. I think it is solidifying, at least in some conservative circles, but there's more work to be done.

curiousdannii

Maybe only among the CBMW crowd.

I'm far from convinced that it's sinful to transition. Many treat transgender as parallel to homosexuality, but it's not.

Nathaniel

Maybe. Will be interesting to see how the PCA's study committee turns out this year. I need to read what the Southern Baptists came up with this year.

@curiousdannii Interesting. Anything in particular you have read that points that direction?

curiousdannii

@Nathaniel It's just my personal reflections on the scriptures. Cross dressing is proscribed in Deut but not repeated in the NT, and transvestism is distinct from transgender anyway.

And the bigger issue is that the pastoral approach to those with gender dysphoria or who are transgender is a different question than our theological assessment of it. We need to know how to care for people whether they agree with us or not.

Nathaniel

11:55 PM

@curiousdannii Yep

Gotta run; be back later

curiousdannii

Cheers

My theology lecturer said that he knows few people who have thought about this enough, himself included. I worry that most evangelicals putting their positions forward have not thought enough theologically or pastorally.

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