@Gwideon I'm...not sure. There is definitely a big issue that's going on, but I'm not sure that the discussions are toxic. I think some approaches are, though.
some people are just unwilling to accept any change to policy and some of the arguments in the comments boil down to "I shouldn't have to do this because of insert -arbitrary reason-" such as grammer, personal beliefs, Politics. it's really hard to read some of this as alot of it comes off as ignorant and malicious
there are many toxicities going around on meta. Some are the result of oneself own heart. Some are the reflection of the toxicity in the hearts of others. Too many different arguments going on at the same time
@doppelgreener okay, making sure i'm not making it worse. I personally am surprised that the answer stating one side is being pedantic is getting so many upvotes is occurring.
I'm an idiot, aren't I? Y'all are talking about the BIG issue around the stack CoC and not our little issue around subjective support. I gotta get out more.
@NautArch I've been staying out of that debate because I don't have a strong opinion on it, but I am very curious if or how we change our standards on subjective questions.
@NautArch It's not just the CoC. The big issue is the company losing touch with the community entirely, it seems, and refusing to communicate with the community while being all to willing to be buddies with the press and twitter.
@vicky_molokh I mean, I definitely agree that that's the thing that most people are upset by—and make no mistake, I definitely agree with that perspective that says SE hasn't been communicating well—but given the outpouring of Transphobia that occurred in response to that CoC meta, I'm somewhat disinclined to give a ton of credence to that particular side of the argument right now.
It's pretty difficult for me to not view that particular side of the argument as just being the "It's actually about Ethics!" part of this ersatz StackExchange!Gate blowup.
Which now that I've typed that out, suddenly crystallizes a lot of the forces in play in this whole debacle, for me at least.
I was initially supportive of the community when it was just about se being out of touch but now that transphobic rhetoric has just spilled out of the community they've lost all credibility to me
@Xirema to be fair, people were lamenting that SE lost touch with the community FAR before the CoC thing even happened. Animated Ads, leaked email address, contact info given to amazon, the whole April Twitter thing, the license change... should I continue? I don't think some of those users started lamenting that just now.
@Xirema That's . . . well, that's the kind of statement that makes me feel caught between two warring groups and wary of raising my head out of concern that both will see me as 'belonging' to the opposite group. (I do wonder if my assessment is accurate, but the only way of trying that is to speak up and risk drawing more ire from one or both sides.)
@vicky_molokh I mean, that's why Monica ultimately deleted her post to that same Meta: she realized, if only too late, that her arguments were being repurposed by bad faith actors who just wanted to use her as an effigy/martyr for their own sinister purposes.
@Gwideon You also need to be careful and not assume the loudest voices are the most common. Especially in Meta discussions where you're already dealing with a subsection of the community.
yes it is more complicated and I understand that alot of the community isn't like that but I was just saying that it's hard for me to take community arguments seriously right now
@Xirema And similarly, by assuming that any objections to the new policy are caused by hate and not by some legitimate reasons, you too seem to be disincentivising people with a complicated stance from speaking out.
@vicky_molokh I mean, that happened when people started using this conflict to attack the LGBT community. Bear in mind: I absolutely agree with those essential arguments. But, well...
@Gwideon no need to apologize, I wasn't angry at you. Just suggesting you don't see the community as your "enemy". It is distinct people who posted those word, not a community collective entity.
@Derpy So one thing I should point out though: many of the arguments I objected to most vehemently also got very popular and highly upvoted. So yes, those arguments do represent only the precise views of a very small number of people, but they also represent the broad consensus of a large number of active users on the site.
@Yuuki Well, I'm not sure I totally agree with at either. Letting those apples do their thing can drive people away. Or we can opt to ignore those apples and just focus on the delicious apples (not the red delicious apples, those are bad apples.)
So while I respect to an extent the argument saying "this is just a vocal minority; they don't speak for everyone", there were a whole lot of people who implicitly declared that they agreed with the perspectives being put forwards.
@Xirema Oh, yes, I am sure that is true. Just pointing out it is not every user. I for one don't really want to be put in some of those groups, thank you.
@GcL It was in the tavern. I'd have to dig through literally tens of thousands of messages to find it.
user15026
@Gwideon the best I can tell you is to find space for yourself that isn't dealing with this - it's okay to not have the spoons to do it. It doesn't mean any less of you, it just means there are people who have more resources and capacity right now to do the thing. Rest. Care for yourself, if you are burned out and sad and in a bad place, you can't possibly fight. Be kind to yourself, so you can take up the sword again when it is the right time.
Like this one, top rated on the post, which has the not-as-subtle-as-they-think accusation that they're being forced to respect pronouns, and gets upset at the implication that they might have to double-check a user before trying to engage with them.
@NautArch One thing that I think the age of the Internet worsened: people's ability to deal with people who radically disagree with them. E.g. when I was in school, the closest friend of mine was a hardcore commie. And when I say hardcore, I mean 'he thought that nationalists should be sent to GULags, Ukrainian language obliterated, USSR resurrected, and a new leader should emulate Stalin'. And yet we got along on other fronts. But I see a lot of Internet communities break up over smaller stuff.
Or this one who just goes straight to the bad-faith attack "but what if someone's trying to troll us??" like that's a credible issue they've dealt with.
And I'm literally just starting from the top, but this is how I've been seeing these posts the whole week.
@vicky_molokh That is definitely an aspect here. But it's also that folks can be more 'free' with their opinions because of a level of perceived anonymity. But I think the world in general is dividing up more right now. I'm not sure the internet is to blame, as it has also connected many.
@Xirema I'm reading that as the user is unhappy with having a safe default. I can definitely concur with them about technical discussions. I avoid gendered pronouns in those discussions like the plague. Nobody should care if the suggestion for a particular study design came from a person of whatever gender, but it does affect the conversation if it's there.
@Derpy I mean, I've been in that chat room before, and I didn't walk away from it feeling like it was a bastion of civilized, respectful discussion in the first place.
@vicky_molokh Well, did you ever compromise with him on those points? "Well, I guess I'm all right with some nationalists being sent to gulags, part of the Ukrainian language obliterated, bring back some of the USSR (I mean, Putin's in power, so mission accomplished?), and our new leader can kinda emulate Stalin but not completely (again, Putin's in power, so mission accomplished?).
And like, I do know that there are trolls out there, and they will try to abuse this kind of stuff, but like... It's usually pretty obvious when they are, and they're often quite rare.
@Yuuki We would each stand one's ground. He didn't budge in his opinions, I didn't budge in mine. We kept interacting, and each kept speaking as one saw fit.
Like, I could give a rundown of why I find many of the top-level posts in that meta objectionable, but that feels like a tedious use of everyone's time here, if I can just simplify and say "these posts are all framed and phrased to make their objections sound reasonable, or like they're not really about objections to respecting the pronouns of Trans People, but it's incredibly difficult to buy their sincerity".
One thing to keep in mind is that different users come to SE for different reasons. Many use the site as a community where they want to belong, so inclusiveness is important. Others just show up for technical questions, so questions of inclusiveness may seem irrelevant to them.
@Gwideon Certainly many people are unwilling to give others respect, just like the two of us in school wouldn't give each other's stances respect. But nobody can give you dignity - nor can anyone take it away from you; while respect is external and relates to society, dignity is internal.
@GcL I mean, the "safe default" continues to be not that difficult: use the pronouns you're aware of, use they/them for people whose pronouns are unknown to you, and if you mess up, just honestly admit your mistake and correct yourself in the future.
So if you're writing a post on Meta about how you think these rules are going to be used as "gotcha's" by people trying to personally attack you/demod you/ban you, I don't get the sense you've actually tried to follow those rules in the first place.
@Xirema This is the only post I made on the issue. Fell free to vote as you wish, and please do leave a comment if you want to discuss anything about it. Should you wish, fell also free to ping me there if you want to avoid meta.se mess right now.
Disclaimer: yep, that one is my alternate meta account. Long story.
@Xirema Yeah, but someone can specifically tell you to introduce gender into the conversation and not use they. That makes me really uncomfortable. I don't like having gender in any discussion that isn't specifically about that.
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@Xirema That's an assumption. I don't know what their experience is nor how they perceived their experience. I read that post as an expression of their anxiety for fear surrounding the issue. I believe they specifically stated "fear", but I assume it could be anxiety.
@GcL It is an assumption, but it's an assumption backed by my experience interacting with users on a lot of other sites with a variety of different political climates.
@Xirema And on the flipside, if someone is asking a question and using pronouns of their choice, then don't question them. Unless the pronouns of choice in the question are the problem.
@Xirema Is your experience include directly asking people about their experiences and believing them? If so, just believe that the poster is actually "scared" about the issue. It's their perception of the situation.
@Yuuki If someone says use xyz, but I don't want gender in the conversation about database schemas. I just want to use they or their name, because I don't want gender in a discussion about database schemas. It's not relevant, but will affect the conversation if it's there.
@GcL Yes; but that also involves asking people about their experiences being the people whose gender identities are most often under attack in these conversations.
I have to balance the concerns of a hypothetical well-meaning-but-ignorant Cis-Person's "I'm really worried that if I don't understand this policy I'll be attacked/demonized" vs a Trans-Person's "People keep calling me 'she' and I'm not a 'she' and they won't apologize or change their behavior", and I apologize: but I don't see those concerns as equally weighted.
@Xirema The poster isn't advocating that. They want a safe default such as, just referring to people by name. It's conference call protocol and is kind of cumbersome, but it's not bad.
And I don't blame anyone (for example the hypothetical people putting their pronouns on Q's, etc.) for wanting to inject their gender into a conversation, because many people aren't comfortable assuming the 'Anon' identity that so many people tend to occupy, which itself is, let's be honest, coded male, white, cisgendered, etc.
Both "I'm really worried that if I don't understand this policy I'll be attacked/demonized" and "People keep calling me 'she' and I'm not a 'she' and they won't apologize or change their behavior" sound like legitimate concerns to me.
I'm sorry if this is annoying but um as someone who has to hide their gender identity in meatspace due to fear of being attacked or demonized it's incredibly freeing to be able to express that part of my identity online. It's um kinda hard to feel comfortable when I feel like I can't express that part of my identity without being antagonized or attacked.
@GcL I can agree that both perspectives are valid without needing to treat them as both holding the same priority—or, given that those perspectives can and do sometimes come into conflict with each other, presume that any conflict between them must be resolved by simply finding a compromise between them.
It's rarely been properly safe on stack exchange the way it should be, and witnessing that over and over made me decide I needed to be Out, and start working to change things to protect others like me.
And boy this whole thing has drawn a lot of need to act out of me.
@MikeQ I mean, I don't have a specific study to point to, but yes: when communities assume "no identity" as a matter of stated practice, the implicit assumptions about who constitutes that community skew towards white men.
Now, there's a corollary: it's extremely contextual to the actual community we're talking about.
@doppelgreener Personal anecdote: given the unisex nickname I've been given (and now carry on the Internet), people seem to guess masculine and feminine about equally. Nobody ever guessed a true neuter, but a bunch (mostly here) seem to have guessed plural.
Like, if we were talking about the Tumblr community, you'd find that the "anonymous identity" often skews towards the assumption of female identities, despite Tumblr being a relatively gender-balanced website by demographics.
(Although I would be Jacks complete lack of surprise if that's a manifestation of the way that many people, especially men, tend to perceive "gender balance" when a community is only 1/3 female, and perceive "female dominated" at gender parity, but technically that's a different discussion)
The whole idea of a "safe default" isn't really a compromise, in my opinion. The trans-phobic position is one where they want to be able to ignore the transgender community completely. So the concept of a default that you blindly follow in safety is essentially the trans-phobic position written in language that sounds compromising.
@NautArch Closest I could find offhand is an ESA report... so not exactly impartial, but their survey methods could have been fine. Haven't found those yet. theesa.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/…
If someone addresses someone else anonymously, why should we assume that they assume that the addressee is a cis white male? Doesn't that mean making assumptions about the addresser's identity too?
@doppelgreener I'm so tired I can't even come up with an attempt at a funny 90's reference to respond lol. So, just substitute your own and have a hearty laugh, from me.
@NautArch Slight misconception, actually: if you watch Anime where a character shows up that is explicitly coded as American/European/"Western", they actually usually look pretty distinct and stand out compared to the other characters.
If you ask Japanese audiences why the characters in Anime look "White" or "European", they'll give you a perplexed response along the lines of "they didn't look Caucasian to me."
@NautArch nah it's the "default human" thing: they're just drawing people. to a Japanese resident, those people look Japanese, because they look like their default human. To Westeners they look Western. Someone a couple of years ago went and tried to demonstrate that anime typically depicts Westeners through comparison to Asian features, but their effort made a lot of fallacies.
Meanwhile, speaking as someone who has watched quite a lot of Anime, characters that are explicitly American often usually have some major facial signifiers, like really well defined jawlines (maybe a reference to Western comics/superhero books?).
@doppelgreener Interesting! I've always looked it at through the perspective of how they draw eyes. But does that mean that the everyday eastern doesn't look at that difference?
It's interesting because I'm watching FMA brotherhood right now, and I certainly wouldn't say that the main characters look any different than most anime characters, to my eyes at least.
@Rubiksmoose Weeeeellllll.... Fullmetal Alchemist is kind of a trap in terms of character designs. The Manga never made this explicit (though the 2003 anime did) but "Amestris" is coded as a pre-World-War-II Germany, where the protagonists are all basically 1930's German Liberals/Leftists.
(I'm not going into further details on the extended metaphor, because I think some of it might constitute spoilers otherwise)
@Xirema the guy in charge of their fictional country is literally a "Fuhrer" and a major part of the setting background is a campaign of genocide against another race, is there anyone who didn't get the subtle nazi germany thing?
@Xirema I mean, I think that was kind of my point right? they are clearly coded as western, but don't look that different from normal anime characters?
FWIW, I don't know that the characters in FMA are literally supposed to not be Japanese, aside from the Ishvalans, but FMA is still a weird example where we can't be totally certain these characters are definitely Japanese.
when we're talking about how Western characters look visibly very different, we're talking about in animes where Western characters aren't already the default.
@doppelgreener ah that's a fair point. If there were appearance differences they would likely be more used to show a difference between asian/non-asian in the same anime. Which isn't something that would happen in FMA. Right?
But yeah, there's two major examples I tend to think of with respect to Western/American characters in Anime: a scene in Azumanga Daioh, where a man who is Obviously American™ because of his blonde hair, blue eyes, and extremely detailed jawline, nonetheless speaks in a stilted, Japanese-accent English while asking for directions to the train.
And the characters who first confront him are baffled by how to talk to him, until their friend, a child genius, manages to talk to him.
Talking about eye differences in Western/Eastern in anime is somewhat strange to me partly because we're tiptoeing around what those differences are. The most obvious difference that exists in real life is the double eyelid that most East Asians are pre-disposed to have. And eyes in anime very rarely if ever go into enough detail to depict that.
The other example comes from Steins;Gate, where a man is coded as American because he's black, so Okabe blurts out a bunch of nonsense in stilted English before the man replies, in perfect Japanese, "can I help you?"
That reminds me. I think the MET and the British museum have massive collections available digitally. Back to 12th century Mediterranean galleries. See yaaaaaaa
@Gwideon "as long as that's how you address everyone that's fine with me". +1. Had the writers of the CoC/FAQ your caveat to it, that would've defused much of this tension within the community.
@Gwideon At the end this really is just a Be Nice policy. Don't be a jerk! Use whatever you want to use, but if someone says "hey, if you're talking about me can you use X?" then use or go neutral and don't get upset.
@vicky_molokh This is one of many positions that is fine on an individual basis, but as a broad policy would be insufficient protection and enable abuse
@GcL sure there is. do what you normally do: address people by their name when you would and, if you'd use a pronoun, use a gender neutral one or guess, and be open to correction. if they do correct you, work with it, using the same energy as if someone had corrected you on how to say their name.
The whole idea of a "safe default" isn't really a compromise, in my opinion. The trans-phobic position is one where they want to be able to ignore the transgender community completely. So the concept of a default that you blindly follow in safety is essentially the trans-phobic position written in language that sounds compromising.
If you use a pronoun incorrectly, you're far more likely to receive a gentle correction than an immediate ban.
@GcL [shrug] if what i'm describing includes what you consider to be a safe default, yes? but it's just normal conversational practice, not something that's specifically "safe" or a "default"
@Yuuki I disagree. I like a safe default because gender shouldn't have a bearing on most of the conversations I have, and it only mucks things up if it's included.
@Yuuki I don't. If someone said, you must use xyz, which is a gendered pronoun, I'd be very uncomfortable if that's not what the conversation was about to begin with. I also expect I'd be a bit miffed if someone was trying to inject gender into a conversation where I did not want it.
@doppelgreener Like conference call protocol. No pronouns. Is no pronouns a safe default? Or in typing, is "they" a safe default?
Like, you're looking for a version of the conversation where someone says "my pronouns are she/her", and the response is "so is it okay to keep using 'they' for you?", and the short version is: probably not, unless they specifically tell you that it's okay when referring to them.
right: there are people who do not want to be called by they/them, and will correct you and ask you to call them he/him or she/her. that makes calling them they/them even after that not okay. same energy as if i told you "the name's just bill, not billy, please", and you kept calling me billy.
@doppelgreener Not sure if the name pronunciation is a good equivalent. A lot of gave up fairly early in our lives on correcting people (especially with last names.) I think, and you can probably answer better than I, that pronouns are a bigger issue than names.
@doppelgreener That's not the same. That's specifically asking for a consideration that is not generally afforded to everyone, and is impressing on me to include gender in a conversation about something where I don't want gender. E.g. study design, specimen collection, technical... whatever. I do not like gender in those conversations for sound reasons.
Also: I know I've said this before, but it bears repeating: from the perspective of the person you're talking to, it's tremendously difficult to tell the difference between someone who persistently uses 'they/them' when referring to you because they don't know how you identify, vs someone who keeps using they/them because they specifically do not respect the identity you hold.
@GcL So, a safe guess? One that generally will apply to most people? "They" could maybe sorta work in that sense. But then you can't let the fact that you've labeled something as "safe" for you get in the way that you may encounter someone for whom it's not safe.
Like, I know from experience that there's a lot of Transwomen who found themselves being referred to exclusively by 'they/them' after telling people how they identified because the people they were talking to specifically did not want to acknowledge them as women.
