Thanks everyone for your contributions to this discussion. I'm grateful particularly for Jed for taking the trouble to respond so eloquently and personally to Josiah's questions.
The fact is that gender is one of many controversial topics that just shouldn’t need to be brought up in the context of a community about TiddlyWiki. It’s clear that Josiah’s motivation in opening the topic was just to explore an idle thought, and he didn’t intend to cause offence. But, it is the responsibility of all of us to be aware of when we inadvertently offend people, and when it happens we need to accept what has happened, and take steps to learn. This group is for talking about TiddlyWiki, and the members of the community don't necessarily need to have anything in common beyond interest in TiddlyWiki. Everyone can see that we are geographically and linguistically diverse, and so it's not much of a leap of imagination to think that we'll be diverse across every other dimension as well. The minimum requirement for working with TiddlyWiki is a smartphone or tablet, and we're now at the point that means that most of the population of the planet is a potential TiddlyWiki user, regardless of where and how they live. As I say, I’m grateful for how graciously everyone has behaved. Perhaps we might try to make something positive about the incident by starting to think about whether we should adopt a written code of conduct. It’s pretty standard for projects these days, and I’ve been thinking for a while we should open it up for discussion. Best wishes jeremy 1. We endeavour to respect each others differences, and not to cause offence 2. When we do cause offence, we apologise and try to learn how to avoid it in the future 3. We do not question whether the person reporting the offence was justified in doing so 4. > On 8 Jul 2018, at 08:43, TonyM <[email protected]> wrote: > > Jed, > > Personally, I think you are making a lot of valid points, and it is good you > put this argument, and participants be aware of this. I differ in so far as I > do not think in this case there was serious risk of unfair gender stereo > types, and people should react if their was. In some languages masculine and > feminine is attributed in somewhat arbitrary ways and English does this in a > number of cases. Sometimes it is a matter simply knowing what or whether to > use he and she, feminine or masculine forms that exist as part of many > languages. Fortunately when "gendering" inanimate objects, we will not be > imposing on a person our judgement, when it is they who have the right to be > addressed as they wish. True, trying to select a gender for tiddlywiki may > make people stray into gender stereotypes, and thus unfair or sexist > statements, but I, you and perhaps others may call this out if we see it. > > I was involved in building a social enterprise network from 2000 to 45,000 > within a large organisation and what we found was rather than moderating, > unless very offensive, it was better to mediate - when in the conversations > and thread you see people objecting to inappropriate language of many kinds > what remains in the threads a lesson to those who would behave badly. > > This is in fact what you and I have just done, and I hope others learn from > it. > > I am pleased to see your words and others reasonableness here and once again > this community gets a tick. > > Best wishes > Tony > > On Sunday, July 8, 2018 at 5:19:30 AM UTC+10, Jed Carty wrote: > As enlightening as it is to see people's perceptions of what it means to be > 'female'/'female'/'hermaphodite'/'trans', they all come across as > prescriptive. If I don't show the 'male' or 'female' qualities described, am > I not 'male'/'female'? > > If I say that I am female, but I don't fit any of the 'female' qualities > described here, am I going to be accepted as female by the group? What about > the 'male' ones? If instead I display the 'male' qualities described, am I > going to be treated differently than if I display the 'female' qualities? > > If I am a male and my name is 'Jackie', am I going to have to spend the > entire time wondering how that affects how the others in the group think > about me? If the question is important enough to be asked and answered then > it certainly seems like it would have some effect. > > And then when the question being an uncomfortable one for people is brought > up, the response is that the only way something is going to be done about it > is if a good enough explanation can be given. > > This is not an isolated incident. This happens in every group where something > like this comes up. After the 10th or 100th time it seems rather hopeless and > there is no reason to actually answer the question because in a month/six > month/year/whatever the same thing will come up and the same explanation will > be demanded. > > So if you are someone whose gender is routinely questioned by people, how > much effort should you have to put into making other people actually treat > you as a person? Does the responsibility of making a group a friendly and > inclusive place fall on the people who lack friendly inclusive places? Should > they have to explain every time something happens? > > Questions like this also beg similar questions. Is TiddlyWiki NT? ND? If > tiddlywiki has a gender, does it have a sexual orientation? Why would any of > those questions be any less reasonable to ask than if it has a gender? > > If you want an enlightening experience, you should ask if people think that > TiddlyWiki is bipolar, and then remember that everything someone says in > response is what they think when they hear that I am bipolar. Or dyslexic. > And then there will be innumerable reasons why "oh, well it wasn't about > you", just somehow the generalisations are about the mythical "bipolar people > who aren't present". > > These are hardly academic questions, when I saw this question here, I > seriously considered just leaving the group. The only reason I am answering > you is that you have been nice in the past, and I think that you genuinely > don't understand what the question implies. If I had been feeling bad today I > would have just left. > > The tech community in particular is very bad about things like this, and it > is much much easier to just leave a group that has problems than try to > explain every time. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TiddlyWiki" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/tiddlywiki > <https://groups.google.com/group/tiddlywiki>. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tiddlywiki/ce61aa1b-2ee7-45ce-866c-9a6674f24f18%40googlegroups.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tiddlywiki/ce61aa1b-2ee7-45ce-866c-9a6674f24f18%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout > <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWiki" group. 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