Hi Cygnus. Hope things are good with you, good to see you still around.

What's winter bash? Why do I have a hat

Winterbash FAQ We do this at the end of every year.

@Twyxz don't you like hats? are you a dirty commie?

@RichardU Isn't it indirectly targetting the add to a specific generation or gender ?

or social status and culture

I'm not qualified to say it's discriminatory and it proabably isn't but isn't it a terrible thing to do in a job ad

@ArthurHavlicek that "funny" SNES requirement does neither of those things though

Indirect targetting ? To me it's undeniable

its not discrimination though

it's just that the population of people that play snes isn't balanced in gender, age and social status

We learned not to care because neither is the population of developers though.

I'd interpret this as being dumb, or at the very most a prompt for a discussion point in the interview. I certainly don't read it as "we won't employ anyone who doesn't have a SNES".

@ArthurHavlicek how so? I'm not trying to be obtuse here - I genuinely can't see how it is

@ArthurHavlicek Anyone can play SNES games.

You can pick basically any hobby or skill or profession and 99% of the time it's not going to be balanced in gender, age and social status

@motosubatsu yes, it's nonsensical. Back in the ancient days of the 1980s, all we wanted was a fair shake, now it's special privileges for all but a select few.

When I was growing up, we were taught to overcome our differences, not weaponize them.

idk, i find the selection on hobbies to be quite a sloppy ground. Anyone can go to the church too fwiw

So if you include some hobbies specifically, it probably means you want to target that population specifically for who knows what reason

@ArthurHavlicek FWIW I generally don't approve of using hobbies to influence hiring decisions.. but I think you're making connections that aren't there

You're overthinking this.

yea yea I admin probably.

admit*

the demographic of people who e.g have SNES games skills is (for the sake of argument) white males in their mid-late thirties, I suppose it's possible that someone writing a job advert might be trying to use it to increase the chances of someone in that demographic applying but I think it's more likely (by several orders of magnitude) that they would be using it to try encourage applicants who share hobbies with existing team members (to improve the chances of a better team fit)

or that they simply think they're being funny

I hope you are right, in my twisted mind the 1st scenario is likely

@ArthurHavlicek I'm half deaf, autistic, diabetic, no degree, and a few other chips stacked against me. If I worried about what people were thinking and how they might discriminate against me, I'd have ended it all a long long time ago.

The simple fact is, people will find a way to exclude you. In reality, that's a good thing, as you don't want to be where you're not wanted.

@ArthurHavlicek it really, really isn't

also you'd find that demographic of SNES players would be shifted amongst the sub-set of the population that otherwise meet the requirements for an IT job

for example an early 20s black female who is in the IT profession is far more likely to also be into SNES games than one who is in say sales

I guess the biggest thing for me isn't just that it's a really obscure way of doing "indirect" discrimination, it's not even a particularly effective one

the popularity of the Nintendo virtual console system, the SNESmini release etc make it pretty much a crapshoot with regards to age

the extremely low cost-to-entry for the SNES makes it nigh on useless for social status

and as for gender..well that's harder to judge but if we allow anecdotes I can safely say that out of my entire social circle the only person who currently has a SNES or SNES mini is female (who interestingly doesn't even work in IT so doesn't have that skewing things)

I don't think the particular example is especially bad in terms of discrimination, I just think hobbies in a job description is a ground there is no real good reason to explore

and yes it and snes go fairly well together

but I can imagine positions where you could ask strong interests in X and that would be an indirect way of saying male/female shouldn't apply

@ArthurHavlicek as I say.. it's not something I use personally and I couldn't ever see myself being bothered enough to do it. There are valid reasons though - usually in more niche industries where an interest or passion in the matter at hand can be useful

Having an interest in say motorsport would probably stand you in good stead working in an F1 team for example

I agree if it's relevant to the job

@ArthurHavlicek honestly.. if you aren't wanting to hire men or women then you don't do anything to advertise that fact

you simply don't hire them

I'm not denying that some people/companies will discriminate on gender when hiring - I don't but I've known people who do (and for the record I 1000% don't approve of that!)

but that's all done in the hiring decision making process

anything that would actually make a meaningful difference in preventing the gender you didn't want to hire applying or not would be ripped to shreds in seconds and the company would be on a one way ticket to the courts to get hosed for a substantial chunk of their bank account

if we use an absurd example "Desirable Skill: Able to pee standing up"

technically that doesn't say "men only" and women can pee standing up, it's just that they don't because it's unpleasant and messy (good grief.. why did I pick that example??)

but any "reasonable person" (such as is used in legal tests) would take that as being de facto descrimination against women

@ArthurHavlicek It's just a playful phrase added to the job order that says "we're pretty laid back here".

comparatively if you ignore the fact that she wouldn't want or otherwise be qualified for an IT job my SNES mini owning friend would read the "Desirable: mad SNES skillz" advert and go "cool"

also FWIW from personal experience I've been flat out asked in an interview if I liked Football (or "soccer" as you crazy Americans call it), it wasn't for a job that required anything football related

but it was for a company owned by someone who also happened to own the local football club

@motosubatsu Manchester united!

I answered honestly that I had zero interest in it and was hired anywway

@RichardU hehe.. not quite, couple of divisions lower!

@motosubatsu I consider myself to be a cosmopolitan redneck

@RichardU isn't that just a new yorker who forgot to pack sunscreen when they went somewhere sunny?

@motosubatsu ROFLMAO! Too much win in that one to counter!

@motosubatsu actually, I've lived in urban, suburban, and also in a place so remote that it was a two hour drive to the nearest traffic light, and over an hour to the nearest intersection

@RichardU Alaska?

@IDrinkandIKnowThings Colorado, the high desert. In a town where when they ask you "What's that close to?" you reply "Absolutely nothing".

I actually Uncle Ben-ed someone today

@motosubatsu very good answer

hmmmm our overlords haven't been around in a while. are we back to benign neglect.

@RichardU more a case of a shortage - MM - gone, Enderland - gone, Monica - had some more important things going on IRL of late, Snow - absolutely buried with work last I heard

@motosubatsu 2019 will be interesting, to say the least.

another day, another rep-cap

This stomach bug can go away

@IDrinkandIKnowThings Mint Tea, Ginger Tea, Jaegermeister, burned toast, and rice can all help settle the symptoms.

I'm thinking of putting an add on craigslist for a contractor. "Must like SNES, the song 'Baby it's cold outside', and conservative politics. Part of your uniform will be a MAGA hat". Just to see what kind of fire and fury it generates.

@RichardU Jaegermeister would make it worse i think :p

@IDrinkandIKnowThings Jager has licorice and other herbs that help digestion, I'm not saying chug it, but a shot might help

@RichardU Jaeger has never been my friend. Though I have tried to befriend it on more than one occasion. It always ends up kicking my ass

@IDrinkandIKnowThings LOL, it's a friend that demands respect. :D My SO hates Jaeger, but takes it every time her stomach is doing summersaults. If you can stand Ginger beer, it works wonders as well.

I wonder what the percentage of questions we have boil down to I dont like what my coworker is doing.

@IDrinkandIKnowThings that and "I'm mad, I want to tell HR instead of dealing with my coworker"

@Walfrat good day

hi, thanks :)

@Walfrat what brings you into the dark, dank depths of the water cooler?

@RichardU I wanted to see how things were going into the chat

Between the differents leaving, the history of close votes,the HNQ and Be nice, I was wondering how things are going there

Usually I mostly check on the day where I can't access chat

@RichardU hahah

I'm good, thanks, although I am really burdened with projects and stuff at work

both internal and external requests

(The internal requests are the most tiresome)

Translating from spanish, we have a quite explicit saying that goes something like:

I am currently like a prostitute's panties.... up and down and up...

how about you @RichardU

@Walfrat I came back in a limited capacity. I will chat, I will answer questions, but I will not vote or participate in meta. I may flag if I'm annoyed.

@DarkCygnus busy, getting ready to see my kids on Christmas

Just to close this loop (and because it's buried with all the other answers there):