Inclusive Coding Bot on GitHub(github.com)
github.com
Inclusive Coding Bot on GitHub
https://github.com/github/gitignore/pull/4029
240 comments
You guys are all being absurdly ridiculous. I don't know why programmers make such reaches when the answer is much simpler.
University student looking for easy side project to create and put on resume decides to go with "inclusive language bot", doesn't actually put in effort beyond wix site and ridiculously simple bot, boom. That's all this is.
University student looking for easy side project to create and put on resume decides to go with "inclusive language bot", doesn't actually put in effort beyond wix site and ridiculously simple bot, boom. That's all this is.
You're probably right about it being an exercise in resume building, and that's totally fine. But then they unleashed their creation on projects as prominent as Rust. If you're looking for that kind of exposure you might want to spend twenty minutes testing the code first.
> If you're looking for that kind of exposure you might want to spend twenty minutes testing the code first.
Eh... I think that part is explained by "University student" ...
Eh... I think that part is explained by "University student" ...
A "university student" has no free license to go around damaging the work of professional developers (whose output is relied by many other programmers around the world). Even actual interns at companies try to tread carefully when it comes to the work of people there.
The fact that the "university student" doesn't even care about basic syntax (e.g. the word 'man' for manual), and repeatedly spams repos, tells you that this is a really carelessly-designed bot and that the writer of the bot is incompetent and disruptive.
The fact that the "university student" doesn't even care about basic syntax (e.g. the word 'man' for manual), and repeatedly spams repos, tells you that this is a really carelessly-designed bot and that the writer of the bot is incompetent and disruptive.
Looking at the contribution history of that bot's repos, I believe you're correct. Appears to just be a single student attempting to pad their resume by issuing PRs to the largest repos on GitHub.
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I think it's more likely to be the project of a near-retirement-age programmer who is outraged at all the "social justice warriors running amock" and created the project to mock people working on inclusiveness, generate blowback at them, and misrepresent their movement to de-legitimize them. Sort of like how in the 50's and 60's everyone ran around screaming about how feminists were "kill all men" commie baby-stealers.
It's working. Look at all the comments here full of outrage at how "PC" everything has gotten etc...by people who clearly have no idea what the actual majority of people pushing for inclusive language are typically suggesting and shy.
You see this a lot from conservative/right-wing types, because it's a lot easier to strawman and ad-hominem someone pushing for inclusiveness based on empathy than it is to present a legitimate argument.
There really isn't a legitimate counter-argument to "can we please work to discontinue using 'master' and 'slave' to describe things in computer science and electronics" so people just run to "THIS IS ABSURD!"
It's working. Look at all the comments here full of outrage at how "PC" everything has gotten etc...by people who clearly have no idea what the actual majority of people pushing for inclusive language are typically suggesting and shy.
You see this a lot from conservative/right-wing types, because it's a lot easier to strawman and ad-hominem someone pushing for inclusiveness based on empathy than it is to present a legitimate argument.
There really isn't a legitimate counter-argument to "can we please work to discontinue using 'master' and 'slave' to describe things in computer science and electronics" so people just run to "THIS IS ABSURD!"
"can we please work to discontinue using 'master' and 'slave' to describe things in computer science and electronics"
This is not an argument, thus it does not require a counter argument. This is a silly request, with no justification. Nothing more.
This is not an argument, thus it does not require a counter argument. This is a silly request, with no justification. Nothing more.
It’s not a silly request. “Slave” is a very specific term that is highly emotionally charged. There are plenty of alternatives which convey the intended meaning just as clearly without the offensive connotation.
Imagine if one were to insist on referring to “male” and “female” connectors as “cocks” and “fuckholes”.
This is not a hill worth dying on.
Imagine if one were to insist on referring to “male” and “female” connectors as “cocks” and “fuckholes”.
This is not a hill worth dying on.
That emotional charge is pretty specific to a single culture, while English is used by a large part of the world as second language. It's ok to try to right the wrongs you are guilty of, but please stop trying to project that guilt to other cultures. Where I live there were no slaves or slavery after ca. 1600 - and even before that it was foreign institution imported from the Mongols. That's enough time for emotions to settle down, really.
I choose not to use the term “gypped” in technical contexts even though I live in the US.
I wouldn’t use “genocide” to describe a technical concept even though it’s been over a century since the US has taken part in one.
Why not error on the side of decency?
I wouldn’t use “genocide” to describe a technical concept even though it’s been over a century since the US has taken part in one.
Why not error on the side of decency?
Sure, why not? If you name the default branch of your repository "main", I will happily submit PRs against it. I won't be doing that in my repos any time soon though, thank you very much. Why? Because that would suggest that I have a reason to do that, while I don't. It's your cross to carry, not mine.
I have my own set of words that I need to be careful with if I want to err on the side of decency. You almost assuredly use some of them as if there was nothing offensive about them. To you, there isn't. I accept that. I'd be grateful if you reciprocated, instead of trying to impose your own cultural norms on me, thank you in advance.
I have my own set of words that I need to be careful with if I want to err on the side of decency. You almost assuredly use some of them as if there was nothing offensive about them. To you, there isn't. I accept that. I'd be grateful if you reciprocated, instead of trying to impose your own cultural norms on me, thank you in advance.
What are some examples of these words? I’d like to know for my own edification, this is not a challenge.
If you actually want to be decent, then that means taking global perspectives into account if your communication is to a global audience.
If I posted a tweet saying that my company is looking for “refugees from big tech”, that would be insensitive even though there aren’t refugees fleeing the US. Saying that the issue of refugees is not sensitive in my local cultural scope is not an excuse if the audience for my communication was larger than that.
If you actually want to be decent, then that means taking global perspectives into account if your communication is to a global audience.
If I posted a tweet saying that my company is looking for “refugees from big tech”, that would be insensitive even though there aren’t refugees fleeing the US. Saying that the issue of refugees is not sensitive in my local cultural scope is not an excuse if the audience for my communication was larger than that.
I don't even know how the phrase "refugees from big tech" could be offensive or insensitive. It isn't at all.
Given the burnout rate and the pace of the tech world, it's an apt (and even meaningful) description of the state of working in that industry.
To presume/take offence at every single word is absolutely silly.
Given the burnout rate and the pace of the tech world, it's an apt (and even meaningful) description of the state of working in that industry.
To presume/take offence at every single word is absolutely silly.
Slave is just a USA thing, like many others. Let the rest of the world be please!
https://www.reddit.com/r/kubernetes/comments/o4h1fq/using_go...
https://www.reddit.com/r/kubernetes/comments/o4h1fq/using_go...
And the holocaust was just a Europe thing, but I’d still choose not to use that word to describe a technical concept to an American audience.
What if the package name contained some kind of blasphemy, should that be allowed? Because this could be very offensive in many places.
What irks people is the presumption that the entire world (or at least the entire Anglosphere) should learn American history and then alter their use of language to conform to it. And that it ends up being a kind of linguistic annexation of the Internet where everybody has to make an effort to not offend Americans but Americans make little effort to not offend the rest of the world.
What irks people is the presumption that the entire world (or at least the entire Anglosphere) should learn American history and then alter their use of language to conform to it. And that it ends up being a kind of linguistic annexation of the Internet where everybody has to make an effort to not offend Americans but Americans make little effort to not offend the rest of the world.
Yes slave is derived from the word slav as they were the victims of the brutal ottoman slave trade for hundreds of years. We should be nicer to our slavic bretheren.
Did you know "server" is derived from Latin "servus", which literally means "slave"?
and "slave" apparently comes from "Slav", due to the vast amounts of Slavs that were sold into slavery back in the day. ack!
"servus" historically meant servant as well as slave though, iirc. imo etymology is less important than the current emotional valence of words, though. nobody's thinking of Slavic people being slurred by the word "slave" unless they dive into Merriam-Webster.
"servus" historically meant servant as well as slave though, iirc. imo etymology is less important than the current emotional valence of words, though. nobody's thinking of Slavic people being slurred by the word "slave" unless they dive into Merriam-Webster.
> nobody's thinking of Slavic people being slurred
Yet! Nobody thought about "master" being offensive either. But with enough activism, anything is possible. I eagerly await people trying to cancel "Masters" degree because it implies less credentialed people should be slaves to more credentialed ones.
Yet! Nobody thought about "master" being offensive either. But with enough activism, anything is possible. I eagerly await people trying to cancel "Masters" degree because it implies less credentialed people should be slaves to more credentialed ones.
How far do you want to take this?
Would you get behind a movement to remove the term 'beat' from our lexicon?
As in 'Tampa beats Kansas 31-9'
Would you get behind a movement to remove the term 'beat' from our lexicon?
As in 'Tampa beats Kansas 31-9'
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> There really isn't a legitimate counter-argument to "can we please work to discontinue using 'master' and 'slave' to describe things in computer science and electronics" so people just run to "THIS IS ABSURD!"
But there is! The BDSM community has a right not to be discriminated against! If we're going to be inclusive, we should hear them out, too...
But there is! The BDSM community has a right not to be discriminated against! If we're going to be inclusive, we should hear them out, too...
I don't know now what we can't just refer to components in systems as dominant or submissive partners, so that we can dispense with the distracting and problematic language.
> people who clearly have no idea what the actual majority of people pushing for inclusive language are typically suggesting and shy.
It does not seem to matter what any majority wants. I have never seen a request to rename something because a majority of black/trans/female/... people considered a term offensive, or the majority of staff, or - as you say - the majority of people who are pushing for inclusive language. (Who gets to define this group? Do I count if I make sure to use singular they, but don't care about master branches?)
The way it works is that a person or institution high up declares a term offensive, and then it takes only one or two people to suggest a change in a company Slack or other public space. Nobody wants to be racist/sexist, so the path of least resistance is to go along and make the change. That's why it feels like power games - if things were decided by anonymous polls instead, then I think acceptance of either outcome would be much higher.
It does not seem to matter what any majority wants. I have never seen a request to rename something because a majority of black/trans/female/... people considered a term offensive, or the majority of staff, or - as you say - the majority of people who are pushing for inclusive language. (Who gets to define this group? Do I count if I make sure to use singular they, but don't care about master branches?)
The way it works is that a person or institution high up declares a term offensive, and then it takes only one or two people to suggest a change in a company Slack or other public space. Nobody wants to be racist/sexist, so the path of least resistance is to go along and make the change. That's why it feels like power games - if things were decided by anonymous polls instead, then I think acceptance of either outcome would be much higher.
agreed. it tends to just be bikeshedding that costs companies nothing to implement but makes them look as though they're woke or inclusive.
personally, as a trans woman, all I do is use "she" instead of "he" when giving examples about users. I don't mind when people say "he." I don't have anything against "they," I just like using "she" so that's what I do.
personally, as a trans woman, all I do is use "she" instead of "he" when giving examples about users. I don't mind when people say "he." I don't have anything against "they," I just like using "she" so that's what I do.
Perhaps your argument for inclusiveness shouldn't be based on blatant ageism.
> I think it's more likely to be the project of a near-retirement-age programmer who is outraged at all the "social justice warriors running amock" and created the project to mock people working on inclusiveness, generate blowback at them, and misrepresent their movement to de-legitimize them. Sort of like how in the 50's and 60's everyone ran around screaming about how feminists were "kill all men" commie baby-stealers.
Let's just be clear: that's pure speculation on your part, and not facts.
And to entertain your speculation, it's also possible that the disruptive bot is instead the genuine work of a coloured/female/young social justice warrior who was trying to police the language of professional repos on the internet, right? Since you are speculating, that's just as much a legitimate speculation as well, if we go by the actual user history of the profile.
Let's just be clear: that's pure speculation on your part, and not facts.
And to entertain your speculation, it's also possible that the disruptive bot is instead the genuine work of a coloured/female/young social justice warrior who was trying to police the language of professional repos on the internet, right? Since you are speculating, that's just as much a legitimate speculation as well, if we go by the actual user history of the profile.
> Sort of like how in the 50's and 60's everyone ran around screaming about how feminists were "kill all men" commie baby-stealers.
Well, about that ... Sep 2020:
https://www.distractify.com/p/kill-all-men-tiktok
or, Feb 14th 2022:
https://srhsoffleash.org/2171/showcase/kill-all-men-is-only-...
Which has some useful history:
"SCUM, or the Society for Cutting Up Men was an idea based on the manifesto of the same name that was released in 1967. At the time, it had been described as satire or parody, until the author attempted to murder Andy Warhol a year later"
Maybe that's they were running around saying that about feminists in the 60s?
Well, about that ... Sep 2020:
https://www.distractify.com/p/kill-all-men-tiktok
or, Feb 14th 2022:
https://srhsoffleash.org/2171/showcase/kill-all-men-is-only-...
Which has some useful history:
"SCUM, or the Society for Cutting Up Men was an idea based on the manifesto of the same name that was released in 1967. At the time, it had been described as satire or parody, until the author attempted to murder Andy Warhol a year later"
Maybe that's they were running around saying that about feminists in the 60s?
Yeah, the amount of moralistic tutting and vitriol in this thread is ridiculous. And ironically the same people would complain about moralistic tutting and vitriol.
Right, the ol’ whatever you object to, you’re guilty of routine. No false equivalence there. IGYNYSOAB! Oh no, now I’m guilty too.
Haha! You got me! There's no comparison between people railing against a trend they say is now the status quo and which was mostly formed on echo chamber social media sites by people railing against the status quo, on their echo chamber social media site.
:)
:)
> terrible attempt at satire
If it is indeed satire, I think it's actually pretty good. It demonstrates the absurdity of the situation with minimal exaggeration.
If it is indeed satire, I think it's actually pretty good. It demonstrates the absurdity of the situation with minimal exaggeration.
Agreed, if satire manages to push buttons then it's doing great.
What about that site makes you think it's satire?
Perhaps 'satire' is the wrong word, but it feels 'off' somehow. I can't quite put it into words
I will say that the repo that the bot is using is absolutely whack, https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/gender-inclusive-lang...
replaces 'mother' with 'parent', 'boyfriend' with 'consort', 'maiden voyage' with 'first voyage'. What a strange world.
I will say that the repo that the bot is using is absolutely whack, https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/gender-inclusive-lang...
replaces 'mother' with 'parent', 'boyfriend' with 'consort', 'maiden voyage' with 'first voyage'. What a strange world.
They say “-master” can be replaced with “-maker”, and they give the examples of:
shipmaster -> shipmaker
headmaster -> headmaker
I can understand wanting to coin a new gender neutral suffix to replace “-master” but why would they include a literal counterexample. Very strange.
shipmaster -> shipmaker
headmaster -> headmaker
I can understand wanting to coin a new gender neutral suffix to replace “-master” but why would they include a literal counterexample. Very strange.
I think refraining from the use of 'comrade' suggests it's not satire. Otherwise, I would agree that it would be hard to know.
I can't tell whether or not you are kidding, but "comrade" is indeed gender-neutral and the Pravda recently recommended using it: https://english.pravda.ru/society/149390-ladies_and_gentleme...
If the bot replaced "man" with "comrade" it would be accused of being Russian propaganda.
If the bot replaced "man" with "comrade" it would be accused of being Russian propaganda.
Yeah, agreed. The site is almost on the nose.
Maybe not though and you and I are just that "unwoke" lol
Maybe not though and you and I are just that "unwoke" lol
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The terrible stock clip art, language that reads much like I would expect a boomer trying to imitate social justice folks would write...
It's hosted on Wix, which screams "boomer."
I think this is likely some near-retirement-age back-end programmer who is threatened by social justice movements, trying to manufacture outrage/blowback.
It's hosted on Wix, which screams "boomer."
I think this is likely some near-retirement-age back-end programmer who is threatened by social justice movements, trying to manufacture outrage/blowback.
I only think I see one thing that stands out...
> For example, instead of using using the term "Bachelor" or "Bachelorette", this term can be replaced with the word gender-neutral word "Baccalaureate".
This is a substitution that only makes sense in the context of college degrees and even then only barely. (One would not describe a Bachelor of Science degree as a gendered thing, and say that a woman has a Bachelorette of Science degree or so.) A serious website would have recommended a plain word like “unmarried” or “single,” rather than such a strange construct.
> For example, instead of using using the term "Bachelor" or "Bachelorette", this term can be replaced with the word gender-neutral word "Baccalaureate".
This is a substitution that only makes sense in the context of college degrees and even then only barely. (One would not describe a Bachelor of Science degree as a gendered thing, and say that a woman has a Bachelorette of Science degree or so.) A serious website would have recommended a plain word like “unmarried” or “single,” rather than such a strange construct.
> This is a substitution that only makes sense in the context of college degrees and even then only barely.
My college literally had an option for having the "gender neutral" Baccalaureate in your degree, and I think it's becoming even more common.
My college literally had an option for having the "gender neutral" Baccalaureate in your degree, and I think it's becoming even more common.
[deleted]
a riff on a general trend of taking analogies beyond comprehension-
like 'trans' and 'cis' from.. chemistry? or taking the botanical definition of fruit and trying to apply it to 'fruits and vegetables'
like 'trans' and 'cis' from.. chemistry? or taking the botanical definition of fruit and trying to apply it to 'fruits and vegetables'
I'd say it's a false-flag operation by someone who doesn't like inclusive language.
You're underestimating people's stupidity.
Yes. I got called out by some random "offended" person while discussing a master slave topology on i2c bus I was working on in an embedded system with a friend. It was a coffee shop in Austin so it wasn't exactly shocking but the first time in my life so worth mentioning. Also a company I worked at once declared we should use different terms going forward in our own systems that used master/slaves topologies, they had a variety of alternatives.
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stock photos with stuff like 'love equals love'.
thrown together on a quick'n'dirty templating site (Wix)
their blog https://inclusivecoding.wixsite.com/home/blog gives 5 tips, but then lists '4' twice
thrown together on a quick'n'dirty templating site (Wix)
their blog https://inclusivecoding.wixsite.com/home/blog gives 5 tips, but then lists '4' twice
Good satire is often indistinguishable from the real thing.
Good satire is also often funny. This is just stupid.
Good satire is only funny when recognized as satire, and even then only to those who support the actual position it advocates for (the opposite of the one it satirizes.) Otherwise, it trends to be offensive (for different reasons to those who are targeted vs. those who fail to recognize it.)
I often disagree with the viewpoint of an Onion article while simultaneously finding it funny. Same with comedians. I don't need to agree to appreciate a humorous approach the expression of an opinion.
I do the same at babylon bee, or at least used to. The past couple of years it has really taken a nose dive in quality.
Good satire should insult the foolish and hypocritical.
Humor is subjective.
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This level of language policing puzzles me. It literally wants to replace 'mother' and 'father' with 'parent', 'son' with 'child'. I thought we wanted the world to be more tolerant, not more authoritarian.
Well everyone has a preference. Personally, I don't really care about my pronouns. But my preferred adjectives are 'smart', 'clever', 'clean', and 'elegant'. Please only refer to me using those.
In what meaningful sense of the word is a third-party, anonymously-created (and apparently buggy) bot "authoritarian"?
This reeks of artificial engagement. HN should avoid buying into it.
This reeks of artificial engagement. HN should avoid buying into it.
You don't want to wait to the last minute to stop something. If you see an accident forming from afar, you start reacting now.
This bot may be a "joke" but it represents the thought police and the author should be sternly reprimanded.
This bot may be a "joke" but it represents the thought police and the author should be sternly reprimanded.
So, what appears to have happened is, someone who views political correctness as stifling made a troll bot to paint their opposition as absurd.
And you are asking us to treat this as a representation of a real threat to free thought, and not only to respond, but to respond as it were an emergency or natural disaster.
Do you hear how absurd that sounds to my ears?
And you are asking us to treat this as a representation of a real threat to free thought, and not only to respond, but to respond as it were an emergency or natural disaster.
Do you hear how absurd that sounds to my ears?
> This bot may be a "joke" but it represents the thought police
It represents the thought police in exactly the same way that anyone having any opinion represents that.
It represents the thought police in exactly the same way that anyone having any opinion represents that.
Well, if we pretend that it's just this single instance, it probably isn't.
But this is part of a cultural phenomenon, unless you want to argue that wokism doesn't exist.
But this is part of a cultural phenomenon, unless you want to argue that wokism doesn't exist.
This is what I meant by artificial engagement: we're now in the "complain about vague cultural phenomena" segment of the program.
Besides, there's nothing particularly wrong with cooking on a Wok.
Besides, there's nothing particularly wrong with cooking on a Wok.
> vague cultural phenomena
It's not vague at all.
> Besides, there's nothing particularly wrong with cooking on a Wok.
Lol, I had to look up what a wok is. Blessings of learning English as a second language.
It's not vague at all.
> Besides, there's nothing particularly wrong with cooking on a Wok.
Lol, I had to look up what a wok is. Blessings of learning English as a second language.
dragonwriter(4)
sadmanycases(1)
This isn't (sincere) policing, it's a troll account. Let's not take the bait. There are people (myself among them) who would like us to start using "main" instead of "master" and "allowlist" instead of "whitelist", but there is not a preponderance of people who think "boyfriend" is problematic or that "consort" is it's PC equivalent.
[deleted]
I still don't understand why changing the language to main makes society better in any way except to make us feel like we are making progress and hiding the fact that we are not. Maybe it causes us to pat ourselves on the back and not actually deal with the infected roots of our culture and societies?
Whitelist may be a bit different. I understand that language shapes how we think, but master seems like it would trigger people who have a but of a victim mentality. It's like the word dick, it has a meaning outside of genitals, and if all we can think about is genitals when the word is spoken maybe the problem lies a bit deeper than the word itself.
I don't know.. with whitelist and blacklist I could see how unconsciously that could cause people to see black as bad and white as good. But still.
Everything has tradeoffs and I also believe that Obama led to Trump. Too much change too quickly leads to backlash and the pendulum swinging violently in the other direction.
This increases polarization.
I think the solution is more likely not in trying to force our language to change, but is to change our technologies and culture into one that promotes empathy, listening and understanding, and for us to count our blessings instead of running around seeing who can be the better victim, which as a non-american, is what USA looks like to me.
If anything the language is more of a symptom of culture than the other way around, even though I agree there is a bidirectional relationship.
Hormones change our thoughts more than our thoughts change our hormones, even though there is a bidirection there as well. But to me, to attempt to change culture through language is going to be as effective as trying to will ourselves out of anxiety and depression.
I wouldn't be surprised if our generation simply feels powerless in this world. We face a lot of issues ranging from inequality to climate change, and since those issues seem so depressing and insurmountable instead we go on a war against what we feel like we can change, for example words, and then justify to ourselves that this is actually making enough of a difference to steer the ship. But is there any proof of that? All I see is feelings-based decision making without any actual evidence.
Again, aside from blacklist vs whitelist which might actually have some substance to its argument.
Whitelist may be a bit different. I understand that language shapes how we think, but master seems like it would trigger people who have a but of a victim mentality. It's like the word dick, it has a meaning outside of genitals, and if all we can think about is genitals when the word is spoken maybe the problem lies a bit deeper than the word itself.
I don't know.. with whitelist and blacklist I could see how unconsciously that could cause people to see black as bad and white as good. But still.
Everything has tradeoffs and I also believe that Obama led to Trump. Too much change too quickly leads to backlash and the pendulum swinging violently in the other direction.
This increases polarization.
I think the solution is more likely not in trying to force our language to change, but is to change our technologies and culture into one that promotes empathy, listening and understanding, and for us to count our blessings instead of running around seeing who can be the better victim, which as a non-american, is what USA looks like to me.
If anything the language is more of a symptom of culture than the other way around, even though I agree there is a bidirectional relationship.
Hormones change our thoughts more than our thoughts change our hormones, even though there is a bidirection there as well. But to me, to attempt to change culture through language is going to be as effective as trying to will ourselves out of anxiety and depression.
I wouldn't be surprised if our generation simply feels powerless in this world. We face a lot of issues ranging from inequality to climate change, and since those issues seem so depressing and insurmountable instead we go on a war against what we feel like we can change, for example words, and then justify to ourselves that this is actually making enough of a difference to steer the ship. But is there any proof of that? All I see is feelings-based decision making without any actual evidence.
Again, aside from blacklist vs whitelist which might actually have some substance to its argument.
it's a never-ending rabbithole. 'Guardian' is probably more inclusive than 'parent', even...
What I really want to know is how whoever is trying to force it deals with languages with grammatical genders.
What I really want to know is how whoever is trying to force it deals with languages with grammatical genders.
My native language is Russian. There are three grammatical genders, but only two of them are used for sentient beings, to talk about someone in the neutral gender is derogatory af (not that it stops people — I've seen one person call themselves "оно"). Other than this extremely rare occasion, everyone is 100% okay with using gendered words because those are the only ones we have. Hell, we don't even have the word "sibling", it's either a brother or a sister.
But we do have another similar phenomenon going on. Feminitives. It's when some people assign the female gender to words that don't have a female form, or that do have one but it's not cringy enough. So автор becomes авторка, врач becomes врачка (instead of врачиха), учитель becomes учителька (instead of учительница), and so on.
But we do have another similar phenomenon going on. Feminitives. It's when some people assign the female gender to words that don't have a female form, or that do have one but it's not cringy enough. So автор becomes авторка, врач becomes врачка (instead of врачиха), учитель becomes учителька (instead of учительница), and so on.
That "sibling" thing is quite interesting actually. In Polish, we have "brat" and "siostra" for brother and sister, and we have "rodzeństwo" for siblings (plural), but there is no singular form in the language. Is it similar in Russian?
On the other hand, "autor" and "autorka" are normal forms; same for "lekarz" and "lekarka", "nauczyciel" and "nauczycielka". These seem to be equivalent to the shorter forms you list. I'm not sure how to translate your longer forms, "nauczycielniczka"? There's no such word.
Interesting to see that different languages can have perfectly opposite grammar rules, even if the words are similar and the grammar also shares some similarities in other areas :)
On the other hand, "autor" and "autorka" are normal forms; same for "lekarz" and "lekarka", "nauczyciel" and "nauczycielka". These seem to be equivalent to the shorter forms you list. I'm not sure how to translate your longer forms, "nauczycielniczka"? There's no such word.
Interesting to see that different languages can have perfectly opposite grammar rules, even if the words are similar and the grammar also shares some similarities in other areas :)
> Is it similar in Russian?
Nope, no equivalent to "sibling" at all, not even plural. If you want to say "siblings", you say "братья и сёстры".
edit: "родня" might be kinda like "rodzeństwo", but it's not just siblings, it's relatives in general.
> I'm not sure how to translate your longer forms, "nauczycielniczka"? There's no such word.
"Учительница" (or short slang form "училка") is the correct feminine form found in dictionaries. "Учителька" is the cringy one coined by feminists. They both mean "female teacher", but apparently the correct one is somehow worse or not modern enough? I don't know.
Nope, no equivalent to "sibling" at all, not even plural. If you want to say "siblings", you say "братья и сёстры".
edit: "родня" might be kinda like "rodzeństwo", but it's not just siblings, it's relatives in general.
> I'm not sure how to translate your longer forms, "nauczycielniczka"? There's no such word.
"Учительница" (or short slang form "училка") is the correct feminine form found in dictionaries. "Учителька" is the cringy one coined by feminists. They both mean "female teacher", but apparently the correct one is somehow worse or not modern enough? I don't know.
> There are three grammatical genders, but only two of them are used for sentient beings, to talk about someone in the neutral gender is derogatory af
What about дитя? Isn't that a neuter in Russian? I know the equivalent "dítě" is a neuter in Czech. (For obvious reasons this is why the neuter is not being used in Czech either for referring to adult people -- it's completely infantilizing.)
What about дитя? Isn't that a neuter in Russian? I know the equivalent "dítě" is a neuter in Czech. (For obvious reasons this is why the neuter is not being used in Czech either for referring to adult people -- it's completely infantilizing.)
It's kinda archaic. All words normally used for small kids (ребёнок, младенец) are masculine.
German unfortunately has no equivalent of singular they. The concept is a non-starter because "they" and "she" are both "sie". The new PC spelling is to always write he*she or he:she instead of he/she to make room for nonbinary people, which doesn't make any sense to me. We still don't have a pronoun to refer to nonbinary people, we can only include them if we're not sure of someone's gender. Yay?
What I found interesting about this particular bot is that it wants to replace "actress" by "actor". (Yes please!! You don't know how good you have it in English, where most occupations are gender-neutral.)
In contrast, the current progressive push in German is to replace generic/masculine Schauspieler (actor) with der*die Schauspieler*in (think "actr*ess"; male, female, and everything in between, a bit like latinx). Maybe it makes sense that German has a tendency to become ever more complicated like C++, while English becomes simpler? But it shows how fad-driven this whole thing is: Either gendered nouns are good or bad, why would it depend on the language?
What I found interesting about this particular bot is that it wants to replace "actress" by "actor". (Yes please!! You don't know how good you have it in English, where most occupations are gender-neutral.)
In contrast, the current progressive push in German is to replace generic/masculine Schauspieler (actor) with der*die Schauspieler*in (think "actr*ess"; male, female, and everything in between, a bit like latinx). Maybe it makes sense that German has a tendency to become ever more complicated like C++, while English becomes simpler? But it shows how fad-driven this whole thing is: Either gendered nouns are good or bad, why would it depend on the language?
> We still don't have a pronoun to refer to nonbinary people
How could you have one? You have inflected nouns and adjectives -- you'd have to come up with new endings for those if you could use neither masculine nor feminine ones (not the neuter ones in case that this were offensive in German). And teach everyone to use them.
English is in this weird place where pretty much the only morphological remnant of gender is in the third person singular personal pronouns. Even if someone felt that to be a problem in general (not everyone obviously does), in other languages, this is either a non-existent issue (say, in Finnish), or an outright unsolvable issue (say, in Slavic languages). So basically English speakers get the benefit of even being able to virtue signal just with tiny language changes that cost you very little. Pretty much nobody else has this option to begin with - either lacking opportunity (like in Finnish) or the ability (like in Slavic languages).
How could you have one? You have inflected nouns and adjectives -- you'd have to come up with new endings for those if you could use neither masculine nor feminine ones (not the neuter ones in case that this were offensive in German). And teach everyone to use them.
English is in this weird place where pretty much the only morphological remnant of gender is in the third person singular personal pronouns. Even if someone felt that to be a problem in general (not everyone obviously does), in other languages, this is either a non-existent issue (say, in Finnish), or an outright unsolvable issue (say, in Slavic languages). So basically English speakers get the benefit of even being able to virtue signal just with tiny language changes that cost you very little. Pretty much nobody else has this option to begin with - either lacking opportunity (like in Finnish) or the ability (like in Slavic languages).
> You have inflected nouns and adjectives -- you'd have to come up with new endings for those
Two proposals that I've seen replace all endings with either -x or -ens.
German source - https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lann_Hornscheidt#Gendertheorie...
Now one might think that these are outlandish ideas that will never fly, but...
> And teach everyone to use them.
...that's easy, because languages changes are implemented top-down. Considering how unpopular the neutral forms using : and * are in polls, it is absolutely fascinating to see them spread so quickly from academia, to tech (macOS, Spotify), to local governments, to normie coworkers. Nonbinary people wouldn't have to do the teaching themselves.
Edit:
> ...not the neuter ones in case that this were offensive in German...
My first intuition was that using the neutral gender would indeed be offensive. But children (das Kind) and girls (das Mädchen) are neutral - and it doesn't feel rude to refer to them as "it"? I think it could work.
Two proposals that I've seen replace all endings with either -x or -ens.
German source - https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lann_Hornscheidt#Gendertheorie...
Now one might think that these are outlandish ideas that will never fly, but...
> And teach everyone to use them.
...that's easy, because languages changes are implemented top-down. Considering how unpopular the neutral forms using : and * are in polls, it is absolutely fascinating to see them spread so quickly from academia, to tech (macOS, Spotify), to local governments, to normie coworkers. Nonbinary people wouldn't have to do the teaching themselves.
Edit:
> ...not the neuter ones in case that this were offensive in German...
My first intuition was that using the neutral gender would indeed be offensive. But children (das Kind) and girls (das Mädchen) are neutral - and it doesn't feel rude to refer to them as "it"? I think it could work.
They mostly don't, this is an anglosphere obsession. Which is why you'll hear of a device like "latinx" from anglos, but literally nothing else that actually pertains to the way Spanish people speak.
The bot's dumbest mistake so far was when it replaced "mother" and "father" objects in a Rust struct with "person" and "person". That won't compile...
The dumbest mistake was changing pronouns that refer to specific people. So much for respecting people's own pronouns!
I think trying to replace "man" as in manual with "person" was stupider.
I like that it replaces French "son" with "child".
Remember when "tone policing" was a buzzword? As a way of saying "don't criticize my snark or vitriol", i.e. the language used.
The thing is, sometimes specificity is required (and helpful). Nothing about gender neutrality is inherently more inclusive IMO. And it's annoying to correct colloquialisms like "guys" as if it's meant with ill intent instead of just being a part of our collective vernacular for DECADES.
HN doesn’t do April Fools very well I see
Power Politics suck and now it’s hard to distinguish genuine concern from authoritarian horseshit.
[deleted]
Political correctness can't succeed without authoritarian control
Ah yes the classic authoritarianism of suggesting that you use words inclusive of every kind of person… the horror.
It literally wants to replace gender specific language with gender neutral language it’s literally like 1930s Germany… jfc
It literally wants to replace gender specific language with gender neutral language it’s literally like 1930s Germany… jfc
1930s Germany is not the low-water mark for authoritarian thoughts and actions. You can get to authoritarianism long before you get to actual Nazism.
so what don't you do that in all your writings, code, etc and educate others. You won't get anyone to do it by nagging others or trying to get the government to impose gender neutrality into everything.
Reminds me of the guy stuck in the wework elevator [1]. Bots don't understand human.
[1] https://i.redd.it/wqld5v9s5ln81.jpg
[1] https://i.redd.it/wqld5v9s5ln81.jpg
Hi! "guy" is a gendered pronoun. We recommend alternatives such as...
I wish this were an April Fools joke, but sadly, it's real.
Reminds me of when they changed the factory_girl gem to factory_bot.
Many, many, many hours wasted in service to the idea that women found factory_girl to be offensive, which had less than 0 evidence to it.
Reminds me of when they changed the factory_girl gem to factory_bot.
Many, many, many hours wasted in service to the idea that women found factory_girl to be offensive, which had less than 0 evidence to it.
People will find a way to interpret anything with gender as offensive. Like people complain about the default voice of assistants like Siri being female, saying that female was picked because people want women to be subservient to them. But if you made those assistants male voiced by default, it could still be spun as being misogynist with a reason like: people think men are more intelligent and therefore want a man to answer their questions.
Seems that Apple realized that they can't win with either of those as the default, so now the default voice is one that's intended to be ambiguous.
Seems that Apple realized that they can't win with either of those as the default, so now the default voice is one that's intended to be ambiguous.
Well at least it seems to have eclipsed the trend of changing "master" repository branches to "main".
Someone mentioned this being an April fool's joke, to be honest nowadays it's hard to tell if it would be (I'm 40 years old so see-sawing as old).
I guess if code needs to be gender inclusive there's a few spoken languages in the world that need to get rid of their gender specific grammar. I say that as a monolingual Scot.
I guess if code needs to be gender inclusive there's a few spoken languages in the world that need to get rid of their gender specific grammar. I say that as a monolingual Scot.
> I guess if code needs to be gender inclusive there's a few spoken languages in the world that need to get rid of their gender specific grammar. I say that as a monolingual Scot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinx
Watching who is using Latinx, Hispanic, or Latino/Latina in political discourse in the United States has been interesting.
> As of 2018 the term Latinx was used nearly exclusively in the United States.
> A 2019 poll (with a 5% margin of error) found that 2% of US residents of Latin American descent in the US use Latinx, including 3% of 18–34-year-olds; the rest preferred other terms. "No respondents over [age] 50 selected the term", while overall "3% of women and 1% of men selected the term as their preferred ethnic identifier".
> Supporters say it promotes greater acceptance of non-binary Latinos by being gender-neutral and thus inclusive of all genders. Critics say the term does not follow traditional grammar, is difficult to pronounce, and is disrespectful toward conventional Spanish; the Royal Spanish Academy style guide does not recognize the suffix -x. Both supporters and opponents have cited linguistic imperialism as a reason for supporting or opposing the use of the term.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinx
Watching who is using Latinx, Hispanic, or Latino/Latina in political discourse in the United States has been interesting.
> As of 2018 the term Latinx was used nearly exclusively in the United States.
> A 2019 poll (with a 5% margin of error) found that 2% of US residents of Latin American descent in the US use Latinx, including 3% of 18–34-year-olds; the rest preferred other terms. "No respondents over [age] 50 selected the term", while overall "3% of women and 1% of men selected the term as their preferred ethnic identifier".
> Supporters say it promotes greater acceptance of non-binary Latinos by being gender-neutral and thus inclusive of all genders. Critics say the term does not follow traditional grammar, is difficult to pronounce, and is disrespectful toward conventional Spanish; the Royal Spanish Academy style guide does not recognize the suffix -x. Both supporters and opponents have cited linguistic imperialism as a reason for supporting or opposing the use of the term.
Having talked to quite a few spanish speakers, latinx is pretty much unpronounceable in spanish.
Seems like it might be satire after all. The bot follows and is followed by this account @exclusive-human-programmer, which has the following content in their readme: https://github.com/exclusive-human-programmer/exclusive-huma...
I think someone deserves to have a stern talking to by GitHub or maybe even a temporary or permanent ban. Wasting other people’s time like this intentionally really is using your account for something indistinguishable from spam.
It made so persony mistakes too..
Who's upvoting this garbage? A poorly coded bot submitted some bad pull requests and this is news?
I upvoted it as a curiosity. The idea of a cultural agenda-signalling bot loose on GitHub actively breaking code and documentation sparks quite a few feelings. Some questions arise, such as whether or not any of the projects receiving contributions from the bot are improved in any material (technical, inclusiveness) way. It's quite common that absolutely the wrong thing gets done in the name of some noble cause, seems this is a fine example of that.
> I upvoted it as a curiosity. The idea of a cultural agenda-signalling bot loose on GitHub actively breaking code and documentation sparks quite a few feelings.
How widespread and impactful is this problem?
How widespread and impactful is this problem?
What specific information do you need? 1000 twitter accounts? An MIT study? I'm curious what you need to not be annoyed?
I don't think 1k "twitter accounts" are going to reasonably prove anything, and I'm not sure a singular "MIT study" is either. Do you think those prove there's some impactful issue happening here?
It's a curiosity, it's funny, and it lightly touches on a modern theme/discussion around language and terminology in software development.
Not every article/submission needs to be some big, serious new thing.
Not every article/submission needs to be some big, serious new thing.
I upvoted because this isn't the only bot, it's a big public example of a trend I've seen. We've had two different new hires try to set up Slack bots with autoresponse complaints whenever someone says "guys", and now I know it's not just some weird idea they both happened to have.
You know one of the reasons you see the "trend" is people keep upvoting tiny things like this.
I do. It's a hard problem! How do you know when a new phenomenon crosses the line from "minor issue which probably means your attention's being hijacked if you're worried about it" to "big thing that needs to be argued against or everyone's gonna start doing it"? I don't have a great answer, other than to say that inclusive language bots subjectively feel to me like they're now in the second bucket. I'd bet $20 that within a decade some major tech company will implement inclusive language rules into every team's linter.
And? Who cares? The linter won't letMeDoSnakeCase? I move on.
Is this worth our time to complain about this and upvote to number ONE article on HN?
Is this worth our time to complain about this and upvote to number ONE article on HN?
I wouldn't argue that this is a tremendously impactful problem, but that's not what "top of HN" represents and doesn't mean that it's not worth our time. If you don't think language is an important topic, it won't really matter to you which side of this argument wins, and you can just kinda skip over it the same way I skip the hardware posts on the frontpage.
If you do think language is an important topic, I think you should do some reflection on why that is, and how similar motivations might be driving people to feel it's important to argue against this kind of bot. It's easy to accidentally fall into an attitude where whatever things I personally don't mind are implicitly "neutral", and so anyone who argues against them must be looking for things to get mad about.
If you do think language is an important topic, I think you should do some reflection on why that is, and how similar motivations might be driving people to feel it's important to argue against this kind of bot. It's easy to accidentally fall into an attitude where whatever things I personally don't mind are implicitly "neutral", and so anyone who argues against them must be looking for things to get mad about.
> If you don't think language is an important topic,
This doesn't follow from anything I've said.
> it's important to argue against this kind of bot.
But is it? What's the magnitude of this problem?
This doesn't follow from anything I've said.
> it's important to argue against this kind of bot.
But is it? What's the magnitude of this problem?
The effect of the problem is that, if the inclusive language bots win (which I'm confident they will absent some kind of counterargument), I'll have to communicate in a form of English I consider awkward and stilted and I'll have to implicitly endorse a couple of political stances about the concept of gender neutrality I don't agree with. I don't know how to quantify that into a "magnitude", but I don't think that's a precondition for discussing the issues of the day.
> if the inclusive language bots win
I've worked in SF and this is the first one I've seen.
> I don't know how to quantify that into a "magnitude", but I don't think that's a precondition for discussing the issues of the day.
Sure! You go ahead and prioritize your brainspace the way you want - but I'm frustrated that I keep having to see culture war crap because people dug up the one twitter user or github user with a bad take. And I'm frustrated that otherwise reasonable people turn into moralizing frenzy-bots as arbitrary and poorly conceived as a bot that changes "man page" into "person page", when they see that tiny sliver of takes.
I've worked in SF and this is the first one I've seen.
> I don't know how to quantify that into a "magnitude", but I don't think that's a precondition for discussing the issues of the day.
Sure! You go ahead and prioritize your brainspace the way you want - but I'm frustrated that I keep having to see culture war crap because people dug up the one twitter user or github user with a bad take. And I'm frustrated that otherwise reasonable people turn into moralizing frenzy-bots as arbitrary and poorly conceived as a bot that changes "man page" into "person page", when they see that tiny sliver of takes.
I don't mean this as a gotcha, but you don't have to see culture war crap! It's a lesson I personally learned this lesson much later in life than I should have. If "Inclusive Coding Bot on GitHub" doesn't sound like a topic you want to talk about, it's 100% okay to not click into the comments section. (It's not even on the front page anymore - these kinds of posts tend not to last long there.)
As above, if it did sound like a topic you want to talk about, I think you should reflect on why that is and why people who aren't "moralizing frenzy-bots" might nevertheless want to talk about how they don't like it. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I've seen a lot of people say "I can't believe we're arguing about this nonsense" with the strong expectation that the result shouldn't be no conversation but a conversation where everyone agrees.
As above, if it did sound like a topic you want to talk about, I think you should reflect on why that is and why people who aren't "moralizing frenzy-bots" might nevertheless want to talk about how they don't like it. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I've seen a lot of people say "I can't believe we're arguing about this nonsense" with the strong expectation that the result shouldn't be no conversation but a conversation where everyone agrees.
> I don't mean this as a gotcha, but you don't have to see culture war crap!
This article was, albeit briefly, number one on hackernews.
> I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I've seen a lot of people say "I can't believe we're arguing about this nonsense" with the strong expectation that the result shouldn't be no conversation but a conversation where everyone agrees.
Except, what you're effectively saying is you want a conversation where everyone agrees, because you don't want the people that think this is vacuous nonsense, to engage.
This article was, albeit briefly, number one on hackernews.
> I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I've seen a lot of people say "I can't believe we're arguing about this nonsense" with the strong expectation that the result shouldn't be no conversation but a conversation where everyone agrees.
Except, what you're effectively saying is you want a conversation where everyone agrees, because you don't want the people that think this is vacuous nonsense, to engage.
[deleted]
Those PRs are open whether we upvote this submission or not. Putting your head in the sand and pretending something isn't happening has never really worked, better to at least try to have some discourse.
Is this poorly coded bot newsworthy, or even notable? Why?
Nobody knows, HN doesn't have an editor to ask. Much like the stock market nobody knows why stories get upvoted or not or stocks go up or down. The hivemind does what the hivemind does (with a caveat for astroturfing and brigading).
That is the reason that every social media site which has a like or upvote should also have a dislike or downvote. That way you can signal, that you have a reaction to it, but you don't want to spread it further.
Unfortunately, many of these sites rely on ad revenue, and a hate watch with a dislike still provides ad revenue.
> We've had two different new hires try to set up Slack bots with autoresponse complaints whenever someone says "guys", and now I know it's not just some weird idea they both happened to have.
Why are new hires allowed to make bots on a company Slack server. Take away their privileges. Problem solved.
Why are new hires allowed to make bots on a company Slack server. Take away their privileges. Problem solved.
Well, why not? People deciding to code Slack bots on their own initiative has done a lot of good for us, and the problem was easily solved in both cases by removing the slack bots and (I've heard secondhand) a short private conversation about it. If we ever get to a point where leaders aren't willing to push back against a "guys" bot, presumably anyone who wants to build one would be able to get through whatever approval process could be put in place.
It's apparently already breaking a few people's compilers, check the 2nd comment on the PR.
If a bot that creates poorly conceived PRs can break someone's code they have bigger issues than any of the ones implied by the upvoting here.
It changed
struct Simba {
int father;
int mother;
};
struct Simba {
int parent;
int parent;
};
Did that make it into any releases?
[deleted]
I think OP meant that no one should be accepting PRs without reviewing them, and that a bad PR that’s simply submitted should not break anyone’s canonical code.
Because it looks like an entertaining April Fool's day prank.
[deleted]
Ah, but you see it's something something Orwellian something something
This is fantastic, I can just imagine it now. Typing `person journalctl` instead of `man journalctl`, truly a step toward to a more gender inclusive society.
I am offended by this blatant speciesism. This is the internet, how do you know I'm not a dog?
Dogs would not be offended by that
Edit: I just remembered: dogs are man's best friend :D
Edit: I just remembered: dogs are man's best friend :D
*Dogs are person's best friend.
This is a hilarious April Fools joke, and so many people are falling for it.
EDIT: Damn, the PRs did not go up today.
EDIT: Damn, the PRs did not go up today.
>This is a hilarious April Fools joke, and so many people are falling for it.
Why would it be an obvious April Fools joke if the timestamps in the referenced github thread are March 30 and March 31 ?
Why would it be an obvious April Fools joke if the timestamps in the referenced github thread are March 30 and March 31 ?
The PR is from 2 days ago
[deleted]
It's no longer possible to tell satire from reality.
As veggietales [0] once said, "In the future, entertainment will be randomly generated."
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4Ph02gzqmY
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4Ph02gzqmY
It's this repo that implements the bot; https://github.com/inclusive-coding-bot/bot
I'm not sure who is responsible for it.
I'm not sure who is responsible for it.
LOL. I may start telling people to check the personual page when they ask about linux commands
*compersonds
This would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
Reminds me when i had to work with a Unix illiterate tech writer who changed ever y use of "man page" in a document to "main page"
No way this isn't an April 1st joke
No, it's been around for about a week now.
Long enough there is a "Human Exclusive Robot" that solely exists to refute the Gender-Inclusive Robot by automatically replying to everything the GIR posts on with a post refuting it and asking contributors to close the issue and ban GIR.
IMO, it would be hard to do this all at once.
Also, don't forget time zone skew: Your March 31, 22:00 can be April 1 somewhere else.
Also, don't forget time zone skew: Your March 31, 22:00 can be April 1 somewhere else.
This is a testament to needing to test your code for edge-cases before deploying. And if it doesnt work how you intended... dont deploy.
Looks like this bot is falling afoul of the Scunthorpe problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem
I thought it's a mediocre April 1 joke, but turns out it was done before today.
It replaces "helps" with "theylps" and "many" with "persony". Yes really.
I mean if you are going to virtue signal, at least you could bother to check out decades of accumulated experience on the topic. It's not like the first time such things are discussed. If it's a satire, it's lazy. If it's for real, inexcusable as anything beyond elementary school "first coding exercise" level.
It replaces "helps" with "theylps" and "many" with "persony". Yes really.
I mean if you are going to virtue signal, at least you could bother to check out decades of accumulated experience on the topic. It's not like the first time such things are discussed. If it's a satire, it's lazy. If it's for real, inexcusable as anything beyond elementary school "first coding exercise" level.
I for one applaud these efforts. Herstory will look at this day as the day when hupersonity took a step into the future. One step for person, a giant leap for personkind!
To prevent spam, github should not allow bots to interact with repos by default.
It's up to repo owner to opt-in PRs, issues, comments, etc made by bots. Maaybe also add whitelists.
It's up to repo owner to opt-in PRs, issues, comments, etc made by bots. Maaybe also add whitelists.
That's funny, man
It's Terrible at its Job too. Theylps, personuel, and theirsestorical are not words
Why did the title of the post change? It doesn't reflect what's on the page.
These people exclude themselves by not participating in a healthy and well structured society. If your main problem in life is you can't conform to social norms, perhaps you shouldn't be telling others to conform.
The replacements are hilariously bad.
“helps” → “theylps”
“Un manuel de Metapos” → “Un personuel de Metapost”
“helps” → “theylps”
“Un manuel de Metapos” → “Un personuel de Metapost”
Some bots are simply terrible.
(And I’m definitely not posting this comment to help this HN post getting kicked out of the front page thanks to the flameware filter).
(And I’m definitely not posting this comment to help this HN post getting kicked out of the front page thanks to the flameware filter).
It’s helpful to remember when reading these comments how overwhelmingly male the user base of HN is.
Obviously whoever made this didn’t intend for it to replace a reference to “manual.” This is a silly bug.
But the idea behind the project is not silly. Defaulting to male pronouns and references happens all the time in our industry, and it has an impact.
And using gender-neutral language costs nothing.
Obviously whoever made this didn’t intend for it to replace a reference to “manual.” This is a silly bug.
But the idea behind the project is not silly. Defaulting to male pronouns and references happens all the time in our industry, and it has an impact.
And using gender-neutral language costs nothing.
I enjoyed my time laughing at the substitutions
> Click on these badges to see how you might be able to theylp
> Click on these badges to see how you might be able to theylp
It's an April Fool's joke, and anyone getting mad about it fell for the ruse.
Replaces
> help with theylp
> many with persony
breaks working code
And no, its not an April fools joke-- some of the PRS were sent 2-3 days ago
> help with theylp
> many with persony
breaks working code
And no, its not an April fools joke-- some of the PRS were sent 2-3 days ago
Of course. Can only be on GitHub.
Nice april fools.
Clbuttic.
Is this what we've come to? Robotic dogs barking reminders to not use the word 'man'? My social credit is going to tank, as my father named me Manny.
HN should use this thread as a honeypot and ban anyone who commented without understand that this is parody.
Is switching to gender neutral pronouns bad? That being said the bot is pretty poorly coded.
Think you’d need something more sophisticated to do it properly. It might actually be intractable to do this (limiting to just man/woman and she/he replacement) in a way they introduces no false positives.
On that note these sorts of bots should be opt-in not opt-out.
Think you’d need something more sophisticated to do it properly. It might actually be intractable to do this (limiting to just man/woman and she/he replacement) in a way they introduces no false positives.
On that note these sorts of bots should be opt-in not opt-out.
Maybe, maybe not, but replacing "man page" to "person page" to submit a breaking PR probably is?
Note that "man page" is an abbreviation of "manual," which etymologically derives from 'manus' (Latin for "hand") and "al" (roughly, "pertaining to"). Arguendo, one could object to 'manual' being the de facto implementation as it is gendered male. Manumal could be a workable neuter representation, but "man page" avoids the Latin gender preference altogether.
Note that "man page" is an abbreviation of "manual," which etymologically derives from 'manus' (Latin for "hand") and "al" (roughly, "pertaining to"). Arguendo, one could object to 'manual' being the de facto implementation as it is gendered male. Manumal could be a workable neuter representation, but "man page" avoids the Latin gender preference altogether.
I’m not sure what you’re going on about - we’re in agreement that the bot in question doesn’t even do what it purports to do well at all.
The question isn’t whether the bot in OP is good, it’s not, it’s whether or not switching to gender neutral language is useful or not.
The question isn’t whether the bot in OP is good, it’s not, it’s whether or not switching to gender neutral language is useful or not.
I began my answer before your edit, so "what I'm going on about" is the topic at hand
Even before my edit, I never implied the bot was effective or good, though. The bots effectiveness and the thing it purports to do are two separate matters.
Please note that the context you seem missing is the original submission, which I am guessing you hadn't looked at before your edit.
So my point was that "irrespective of the inherent goodness of gender neutral language, this bot is flawed" which was neither implied nor inferred by your original submission, but which is relevant to the discussion of both gender neutral language's adoption and also but more specifically to this submission.
So my point was that "irrespective of the inherent goodness of gender neutral language, this bot is flawed" which was neither implied nor inferred by your original submission, but which is relevant to the discussion of both gender neutral language's adoption and also but more specifically to this submission.
I did look at the original submission. My original comment explicitly said and still says the bot sucks. My comment is around what the bot is trying to do in principal, not what it has failed to do in practice
Well there you have it. Mine is about what it's doing in practice, which is I believe the point of the article.
That said, I believe your original comment was just `Is switching to gender neutral pronouns bad?`
That said, I believe your original comment was just `Is switching to gender neutral pronouns bad?`
Nah it was the first three sentences. I just added more and a line break
In English, "he" is traditionally gender neutral, like in most languages. So the bot's really just changes gender-neutral singular into gender-neutral plural.
That might be true historically but I would doubt the majority of people today would agree that “he” is a gender neutral pronoun.
"He just cut me off" and similar things are often said while driving, in a gender neutral sense.
I don’t disagree but advocates of gender neutral language would say that’s more of a symptom of male dominance than gender neutrality.
Fascinatingly enough w.r.t driving nearly 80 percent of drivers were men in the 60s (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15389588.2012.7...).
You see similar things where she is used as the “gender neutral” pronoun for situations in which a woman was historically over represented
Fascinatingly enough w.r.t driving nearly 80 percent of drivers were men in the 60s (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15389588.2012.7...).
You see similar things where she is used as the “gender neutral” pronoun for situations in which a woman was historically over represented
I have noticed that female drivers will sometimes use "she cut me off". Although my sister uses "he".
> Is switching to gender neutral pronouns bad?
Yes, it is bad (and of course that's not the only thing the bot is doing). Many of us find this kind of manipulative browbeating distasteful.
Yes, it is bad (and of course that's not the only thing the bot is doing). Many of us find this kind of manipulative browbeating distasteful.
The bot aside why do you believe gender neutral pronouns are bad?
Because I (and many others) don't share the moral framework that instructs us to use them, and it kinda seems that they are often used by people who want to impose their values on others. (Although if by gender neutral pronoun you mean "singular they", I'm OK with that.)
depaya(1)
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It's neutral. As per de Saussure, just like pretty much any feature of the language besides onomatopoeia, they're arbitrary. You could call a computer 'a spedhlurf" and it would be neither better nor worse.
This is not quite the right thing to take away from Saussure! In the absence of true signifieds, signifiers are "arbitrary" in the sense of the classical model, but that very thing opens up a huge number of questions about how these relations are formed and enforced, in the absence of substantial nodes. In the absence of signifieds, there can only be, in a broad sense, enforcement, or "rules" to language games that form and disform as society changes, in a more Wittgenstein/Cavell sense.
Saussure would absolutely be on the side of questioning our use of language because the effects it has, he is probably the biggest early intellectual source for these discussions.
Saussure would laugh quite a bit at everyone's extreme defensiveness in this thread. So many people scared of losing their signifieds that never really existed in the first place. Consider precisely what everyone is so angry about, such that GP is being downvoted so much, it is a faith in a ground that is only a illusion, at the cost of discussions and progress that only aspire to help people. Sad!
Saussure would absolutely be on the side of questioning our use of language because the effects it has, he is probably the biggest early intellectual source for these discussions.
Saussure would laugh quite a bit at everyone's extreme defensiveness in this thread. So many people scared of losing their signifieds that never really existed in the first place. Consider precisely what everyone is so angry about, such that GP is being downvoted so much, it is a faith in a ground that is only a illusion, at the cost of discussions and progress that only aspire to help people. Sad!
Why isn't it "the right thing to take away"? The fact that a computer is called "Rechner" in German and "ordinateur" in French and "počítač" in Czech shows that it's arbitrary and all three options work equally well -- neither a Frenchman or a German or a Czech will have a misconception of what is being talked about when seeing their respective native words instead of "computer". The fact that "I" in French is "Je" and in German it's "Ich" and in Czech it's "já" shows that that is arbitrary as well and all three options work equally well, too. Or are you saying that one of these language is better or worse than the others?
"So many people scared of losing their signifieds"
Are you saying that someone is about to steal my computer?
"So many people scared of losing their signifieds"
Are you saying that someone is about to steal my computer?
I mean just think it through though: you are right, but if they are all arbitrary, then it is up to people/us to care about how language is used. If it was otherwise, than all those who resist modifying their language could just appeal to the universal/set-in-stone structures of a language mapping onto a reality. Rather, what we have is language as a kind of spontaneous activity, where we can inquire and question about it, perhaps try to change some things to more closely map onto a better world.
Also more historically: structuralism is very much the intellectual tradition from which this kind of discourse ultimately comes from, whether you like it or not. And Saussure is widely considered the "founder" of it.
People arent trying to steal your computer, but people on here are very worried about someone stealing their manhood or whatever, and that is silly.
Also more historically: structuralism is very much the intellectual tradition from which this kind of discourse ultimately comes from, whether you like it or not. And Saussure is widely considered the "founder" of it.
People arent trying to steal your computer, but people on here are very worried about someone stealing their manhood or whatever, and that is silly.
The bot just does a naive string replace, which means it's generating a bunch of nonsensical PRs with completely broken code and silly substitutions like "manual" -> "personual".
It's also unclear if it's an April Fool's joke, or a glib protest at gender neutral language initiatives, or if it's just a well-intentioned bot with a poor implementation.
It's also unclear if it's an April Fool's joke, or a glib protest at gender neutral language initiatives, or if it's just a well-intentioned bot with a poor implementation.
Something similar has already been done a while back with all the predictable whining and bitching from the HN comment section one before.
I don’t remember if it was automated PRs lime this though, or if it was copy/paste PR templates with real people submitting them.
I don’t remember if it was automated PRs lime this though, or if it was copy/paste PR templates with real people submitting them.
The real question is, "is it good"? I don't like to merge PR's just because.
Well it depends on whether or not subscribe to the belief that gender exclusive language introduces bias.
Edit: I think this might be a terrible attempt at satire, e.g. the website is: https://inclusivecoding.wixsite.com/home