
Removed gendered pronouns; replace with neutral, singular "they" - pearjuice
https://github.com/LightTable/LightTable/pull/1055
======
justinsteele
What's interesting to me is the argument that feminists have "too much time on
their hands" if they are concerning themselves with submitting real gender
neutral patches that make sense (ie. not this). Compare that to the creation
of "languages", fake patches, and troll accounts in order to attempt to
discredit actual points made by feminists.

I find the second immensely more of a "waste of time".

~~~
MetaCosm
I have to say, I support this type of thing. It is social commentary in a way.
Every patch that gets merged (as this one did) that is absolutely ridiculous
shines a bright light on the fact that it isn't the content of the patches
that matter.

If you can't tell the difference between an obvious troll with an email
address "feministsoftwarefoundation@loves.dicksinmyan.us" and a ridiculous
patch from a real one, I think the community needs to take a beat and think
about why. Why could it be taken seriously? Why wasn't it challenged? Are we
so terrified of being called a sexist that we will do insane things?

~~~
codygman
I would argue that changing language to be gender neutral hardly counts as
insane.

~~~
MetaCosm
They wanted song lyrics changed, they wanted libraries that are provided
upstream changed (which the author has no control over).

Both of those requests are insane.

~~~
codygman
They are trolls. They are disappointed that project maintainers are empathetic
and merging the pull requests. What do they do? They ask for an impossible
request and demand it again and again in the hopes they'll piss someone off.

The aim of it all?

To make all feminists look like crazy women who you just can't get along with!

How does this help anti-feminists?

It will inspire you to just tell _your_ woman[1] to get in the kitchen whilst
you pick the chili dog out of your neckbeard, dust curmbs off of your
formidable beer gut, and submit your newest groundbreaking post to
/r/theredpill.

Forgive the rant, but I've seen way more sexism today than I care to see. The
apologists are just as bad if not worse.

1\. Because owning people is definitely ok and part of being a man

~~~
sleephz
>To make all feminists look like crazy women who you just can't get along
with!

Because any disagreement with fringe feminists, or "SJWs", is misogyny?

~~~
codygman
Does disagreeing with the popular male opinion make me a "Social Justice
Warrior"?

I'm curious... how do you, whatever your background may be, define what is a
fringe feminist? I'm interested in how you figure out what is important to a
feminist and what makes her a fringe feminist? Are you, or have you ever been
totally or partially female?

Furthermore, what would you consider an "acceptable feminist"? How can
feminists fight for their rights in a way you approve of?

~~~
quenlinlom
>the popular male opinion

I'm sorry, but opinions don't have genders.

~~~
codygman
That's a pretty commonly used phrase, "The popular X opinion". However, I
guess it would be more accurate to say "The opinion most commonly held by X".
I still think you are being pedantic though.

------
wanda
Don't discuss this.

I beg of you all.

------
mcv
I generally approve of gender-neutral language, but there are two big problems
with this pull request:

1: "They's" is wrong. Don't do this with a blind global replace, but read what
you're modifying.

2: Some of the changes are a quote from a song. No idea what that quote is
doing in the code, but misquoting is not an improvement.

It doesn't help that the person proposing the change is behaving like a troll.
But if someone wants to do this change correctly, I'm all for it.

------
mtrimpe
Handled with class by Chris. No drama, no fanfare. Good job.

~~~
MetaCosm
It is a troll: feministsoftwarefoundation@loves.dicksinmyan.us
([https://github.com/Feminist-Software-
Foundation](https://github.com/Feminist-Software-Foundation)) ...

What is amazingly sad is that an obvious troll was taken seriously. Has the
discussion gotten so skewed that obvious trolls can't be seperated from real
complaints?

Swift action was taken out of fear -- fear of being called a sexist, fear of
being judged... it just makes me sad all around.

~~~
mtrimpe
I wasn't sure if it was a troll or a mentally unstable person (although trolls
arguably are too,) but either way this was still an excellent way to deal with
this.

Ideally Chris would've made the troll improve the correctness of his edits, in
which case they might actually end up having a net positive effect, but it was
still handled pretty well.

~~~
MetaCosm
Really? Gotta be honest, I found it sad. Not on behalf of the troll -- it is a
clever sort of social commentary (if it was intentional social commentary).
Pointing out with a bright light that we will apply insane patches rather than
even be lightly brushed with the label sexist.

------
lemcoe9
"They" is plurals. It doesn't make sense to replace all he's and she's with
they.

~~~
mcv
It does, but you need to do it correctly. "They's" is stupid and wrong. Had it
been changed to "they're", it'd be fine.

~~~
codygman
I thought this too, but apparently "They's" is correct? I'm not all too sure,
but all in all none of it seems like a big deal to me.

------
cbeach
Do people join the "Feminist Software Foundation" when they've given up on
actual software development and instead prefer to incite needless gender
warfare?

~~~
jimboyoungblood
Why don't you ask them directly? The email address listed in their github
profile is: feministsoftwarefoundation@loves.dicksinmyan.us

