Maybe you weren’t to know, but given this is the sixth or seventh time this year she’s had to point this out, I would understand one’s patience wearing thin. I would already have made a forum-wide memo about it if I was in the same position, which seems a bit ridiculous when all you’re asking for is to be referred to by the correct pronoun, no? But since it appears that 99% of active users on a forum (like this) are male, it’s an often overlooked or simply blatantly disrespected issue. Just ask Kristina.
And that, there, is the real point. I wouldn’t take it personally, I’d just get it right next time
I see no malice in microwave’s answer. And, exactly, just ask Kristina. Happens to every woman, due to the “everyone is a dude on the internet” line of thought. I would just ignore it, since it is not directed at packbat or kristina or anyone in particular, just a mistake. Also, correcting others like this is a bit on the annoying side.
I definitely don’t want to continue the derailment of this thread. I didn’t even want to say anything the first time around, so hopefully this will be the only time I have to continue this conversation (but it won’t be).
Leo, if I understood you correctly, you’re somehow implying that being in the very slim minority of forum users means it’s okay if somebody refers to you by the incorrect pronoun if there was no malice in their actions. I certainly agree that it’s an innocent mistake, but I sincerely hope you didn’t actually mean it quite like that. After all, we can quite clearly see that not every user on the internet is a guy and it’s about bloody time we made an effort to address this fact.
Absolutely. Mistakes happen, shit happens. At least cobaltgirl has the big girl on the username to help us remember it all the times Since 98% of the people here are men, it could happen for us to forget if someone is a man or not.
Remember sayonara? I only learnt she was a woman when she joined the beta, on the mean time, people called her him and she never complained at all.
A lack of complaints doesn’t mean everything is fine. Someone mentioned how most people on Internet forums use masculine pronouns. Well, most people on Internet forums also respond pretty badly to being criticized. They make excuses, they try to turn the complaints back around on the person complaining, and they generally oppose any action that would require them to change what they do - however easy the change. By your same logic, why should any woman or non-binary person bother to complain, if most of the time the response will be contempt?
Strop is right. We as a culture need to do a better job of including people in our spaces. When we assume that no-one unlike ourselves is around - even tacitly - we make it uncomfortable for the people we are ignoring. Things like using the singular they when you don’t know someone’s gender are simple enough habits to practice - I think it’s past time we start.
I think it’s hard to grasp as a guy to be honest. Because it’s not often that I get called a girl. So, it’s, perhaps something we should try to be me wary of. Because I know if people do call me a girl of course, I don’t really like that.
Why I don’t like it is for another conversation on culture, psychology and my brain, so I’ll avoid that. But I certainly think it’s ok to correct.
As for the thread topic, I still think it’s a matter of time.
Like with every facebook change, everyone loses their minds. Now, we’d never have it any other way.
I think discourse is far better. It just took me a while to get used to it.
Packbat, you cannot seriously expect everyone to know that you identify as a woman or whatever. To my knowledge, the amount of women on the forum is like 2 in total. You also cannot expect a new user (for example) to know what you identify as.
Frankly, I don’t like how blunt you were with your comment. I was just using what you said as an example, and I meant no harm by it. You can’t really treat people like that and expect them to be nice back, can you? If you want people on the internet to be a bit more sensitive about gender, the Automation forum is not the place to start.
Nobody fucking cares about whether you’re a he or she on the internet, to be quite honest, everyone communicates normally despite whatever gender you may be.
Edit: I’m also not gonna de-rail the thread any further. If anyone has an issue, come on the IRC or PM me.
I promise this is the last post I’ll make on this derailment, unless it becomes apparent people haven’t gotten the point. Then I guess I’ll have to keep at it until we’re all on the same page or a mod hauls me up for being off-topic
@Microwave While the way you were corrected was perhaps confrontational, your ongoing responses to this are completely illustrating Packbat’s comments. As Absurdist said, the 98% of us who are male won’t ever feel the irritation of being misidentified without even the bat of an eyelid. You are absolutely correct that one cannot be expected to “know who the 2 women on this forum are” (it’s a few more than that, but that’s beside the point), but it is therefore also actually inappropriate to refer to everybody with a male pronoun when you haven’t verified they are, in fact, male*. That we’re in a skewed gender environment doesn’t make the majority right.
You could have been the bigger person, ignored the slight (or even addressed the slight), and said, anyway, sorry, won’t happen again. But you have not. And you continue not to. It wouldn’t have been a big fucking issue if you’d just done that in the first place, then I wouldn’t have felt the need to make this wall of text because just because people don’t get it means we can keep on doing the wrong thing.
I know you’re not commenting on this thread any further and I’m certainly mostly responsible for turning this section of the thread into something uncomfortable. I also did not want at all to make this about the actions or comments of any particular one user but when you’ve provided such a perfect example of how not to go about resolving this, I really can’t pass that up now can I!
EDIT: not to blow my own trumpet, but if you search my posts, not that I expect you to when there’s 3500 of them, you’ll find the occasional use of “them/they” because I’ve no indication of the gender of the person I refer to. It’s not hard to make a habit when you’re being mindful that people are, well, people.
@All those boys and girls arguing about girl, grill or boy: Get a room, a different thraed or continue in PMs. Respect each other please and dont shit on eatch other. Treat everyone equal and if they were physically in front of you. This thread is not about… arguing about that. Please.
@Packbat: To avoid further “he”-ing i suggest adding something to your profile card You only mentioned it afaik once in the BRC thread - which I wasnt following when you corrected me back then.
@Thread:
I like the wider formatting and the small CSS changes to the post structure. Much better!
I have one or two suggestions (if possible):
a) Bring back the colour coding. Red = Admins, Blue = Mods, Light Purple = Beta Testers, White = Everyone
b) make Username maybe 1 or 2pt bigger. There is enough room for it - and would make clearer who made the post
And i would suggest not to hide information behind pictures. (is there a way to make the avatars not forced spheres too?)
I know who is who here, but i really dont need to know who is a frequent poster in that thread. I want to know the creator and last poster (and when he did post last) - nothing more. And in text that would be MUCH MUCH easier imho.
With every big change in the forums there’ll obviously be a lot to get used to. I agree, adapting isn’t hard.
When I was first linked to the new forums, it was a big shock, I had no clue where things were. But after a few days and a few UI tweaks, everything is much clearer.
@pyrlix Yes, seconded on that post info business! (I know there’s a like button but I still like to register my… actually, thirding lol).
@Speedemon I’d like to see sizes too, if possible. Colour is already in, just use [color=whatever] tags (with the appropriate close). I can’t find it on any popup section though, that’d probably be helpful to also tell us what colours we can use.
Sorry to derail back to the gender issue. But I’ll be real quick.
It’s pretty easy to use gender neutral pronouns. You, Your, Theirs, them, the persons name directly, etc. I know once in one of my replies, I was writing something like: “Look at xperons post, he has done”. Then correct the he to they. I’m not saying I’m perfect on this. But I try.
I dislike this, and it’s totally up to @packbat of course. I don’t think anyone should feel obliged to publicise anything about themselves they don’t want to. Or just because they are a minority (on this forum), feel that they have to air it.
The great thing about an internet forum, is users are really just a brain/mind outputting text/images to a board. What body the brain is encased in doesn’t matter.
tl;dr. Unless you actually know, try an use gender neutral pronouns or the persons name.
There is a plugin I havn’t installed yet that brings up a popup menu (like the smiley one) for all tag codes when you open a [.
Since 98% of the people here are men, it could happen for us to forget if someone is a man or not.
You only mentioned it afaik once in the BRC thread - which I wasnt following when you corrected me back then.
