Comment by superdisk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by superdisk | Hacker News Reader

I fully agree with everything listed in this article. One point he alluded to (by mentioning the "friendly" exclamation marks) but didn't fully address is the Elm community's bizarre and infuriating language policing.

You can't say the word "guys" in the Slack channel, or a bot will come and correct you, and tell you to say "folks" instead. And from then on, you'll notice the core team all use the word "folks" incessantly in their writing, it's like some weird cult. You'll notice it from the quotes of Evan and Richard in this article.

The forbidden JavaScript FFI is called either "kernel modules" or "native code" despite it being neither. They also claim it's an "implementation detail" or "flaw" despite the fact that it's obviously not.

There are more examples. If you go against any of these rules then you're ostracized.

I quit using Elm because of this problem above all else. I recognize the need to have respectful rules for conversation but having a dialect of newspeak that you're forced to use is just too ridiculous.

> You can't say the word "guys" in the Slack channel, or a bot will come and correct you, and tell you to say "folks" instead.

Being asked to use inclusive language is a weird thing to complain about, especially as the very first example you give.

> And from then on, you'll notice the core team all use the word "folks" incessantly in their writing, it's like some weird cult.

I use "folks" and other non-gendered language by my own choice. It's a habit I developed after self-reflection. Am I in a cult?

What is he allowed to complain about first?

>Being asked to use inclusive language is a weird thing to complain about

that is, if you consider the word 'guys' as gender bound and inclusive.

Female friends with myself in attendance are often referred to as 'Guys' by waitresses, waiters, and serving staff nearly anywhere I've gone. A former roommate who worked as a server at a restaurant used the word non-inclusively with the same meaning as 'Folks'.

So, first get people to believe the word 'Guy' is inclusive.

It's not.

It's originally synonymous with 'Fellow'[0], which is also from non-inclusive origins meaning colleague, even if 'Fellow' was attached to males in the 50s and 60s common American English.

>I use "folks" and other non-gendered language by my own choice. It's a habit I developed after self-reflection. Am I in a cult?

Good. That's a great choice of habit. I commend you.

Now, please, reconsider 'Guys', it's not as bad as the (current) common tongue might paint it.

[0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

> >Being asked to use inclusive language is a weird thing to

> that is, if you consider the word 'guys' as gender bound and inclusive.

I think you might be overlooking another possibility. The same reasoning applies if you believe that SOME OF YOUR AUDIENCE considers the word "guys" to be gender-bound. If that is true, then a reasonable person might decide that for the sake of that audience it might be polite to use a different term even if that reasonable person doesn't ascribe any gender to the term.

Any personal behavior becomes cultish when it's other people dictating you adopt them.

Which is specifically the circumstance abnegated by the post to which you're replying.

> Being forced to use inclusive newspeak is a weird thing to complain about.

Somehow your post sounds threatening. I'm guessing it's intentional.

Perhaps it feels a little odd when one form of respect, addressing people properly, is strictly enforced when in a much broader sense, e.g. by not acknowledging (potential) contributors, it's so obviously lacking. Imagine holding a door with one hand while giving the finger with the other. What good is that?

It's still good to address people properly, regardless of how people's behavior might fall short in other respects.

I think it depends about messaging.

There's one aspect to saying "Hey, we are trying to be ultra-inclusive, and there have been members in this group that feel offended or excluded via the term "guys". To make everyone feel welcome, we ask you refrain from "guys" and use the more inclusive "folks", instead.".

vs

"'Guys' is a non-inclusive and harmful term. Please consider using 'folks' instead."

I don't know how the Elm slack channel has broadcasted this messaging, but the first offers the benefit of the doubt and a chance to understand the situation / learn. The second is just asking to put people on the defensive.

Unfortunately, I've come across the second type of messaging far too often, and it often just induces eye-rolls more than anything.

If you don't have a choice, in the end makes no difference, and the first option can come as passive aggressive.

Using positively connoted words like “inclusive” doesn’t change the fact that most people find these demands on our word choice strange and burdensome.

> Am I in a cult?

Don’t make this personal - the GP is absolutely right that obscure moral proscriptions on language is cult-like behavior, whether or not the people involved are literally in a cult.

> I fully agree with everything listed in this article. One point he alluded to (by mentioning the "friendly" exclamation marks) but didn't fully address is the Elm community's bizarre and infuriating language policing.

Is this something that is unique to IT folk? I don't hear about this in other fields, but that might be because I'm not exposed to it.

Or is their something about IT / programming that just attracts these people who are so easily offended / find offence in everything?

Maybe because they are mostly young?

In the past few decades, there's been a broad movement to stop using unnecessarily gender-specific language in male-dominated fields. "Guys" is an interesting one because many people really do use it in a gender neutral sense. But for a significant number of speakers, the word does have a clear gender restriction. To these people, greeting a room with "Hey guys" sounds about the same as "Hey boys". You can imagine how this greeting would grate a little if you were not a man.

It is not really about people getting offended. The only people who really seem to get offended are the people who insist on using "guys" in spite of a polite request not to.

Language diversity tends to get overlooked quite easily. Remember that just because "guys" is gender neutral in your dialect doesn't necessarily mean that it has this feature for all English speakers across the world. You can't assume as much shared linguistic and cultural background in a programming language Slack channel as you can when you greet your friends at a bar.

I just can't take the irony of the Elm leadership trying to come across as inclusive.

There's a difference between trying to make the community inclusive, and trying to make the core development group inclusive. Asking people not to say "guys" in community fora is an attempt to make more people comfortable using those fora in the first place. It has nothing to do with actually developing the language itself, just with using the language.

That's like saying it's ironic that a taxi driver will let you sit in the back but won't let you drive the taxi.

>You can't say the word "guys" in the Slack channel, or a bot will come and correct you, and tell you to say "folks" instead.

Yeah I'm not going to be a part of any community that does this. This is the rust community on STEROIDS.

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