This isn't about society, it's about a website with worldwide access using anonymous usernames. Nobody is inherently disadvantaged. The exact issue is harsh replies and actions that stem from the gamification dynamics and strict moderation. It has nothing to do with physical traits of the user on either side, especially when users are anonymous. Minorities and marginalized groups are nice to mention in the current PC climate but have little do with the actual topic.
Law is based on provable damages, which is why it's particularly focused on physical harm. Your feelings are not included in that. Experiencing an emotion is not damage. Also tort law means the defendant had a duty to act in a certain way and failed to do so, with the plaintiff proving the failure of that duty led to the harm. Intent also matters a great deal so unless you can now derive and prove intentions and duty behind StackOverflow comments, this example does not apply to this topic.
Yes, and I answered your question about where the pattern of using “minorities” as it was used there came from.
> This isn't about society, it's about a website with worldwide access using anonymous usernames.
How is that not part of society?
> Nobody is inherently disadvantaged.
The issue with disadvantaged, underrepresented, and/or marginalized groups has very little to do with inherent disadvantage, and the suggestion that it centrally is about that is fairly broadly offensive, since it implies that such groups are generally inherently inferior.
> The exact issue is harsh replies and actions that stem from the gamification dynamics and strict moderation.
Whether or not that’s true, it had nothing to do with the question you posed and I answered, so I don't see why it is being offered in response.
> Law is based on provable damages,
True.
> which is why it's particularly focused on physical harm.
This is far less true.
> Your feelings are not included in that.
Yes, they are included in the scope of legally cognizable harms. While the eggshell rules name references physical vulnerability, civil and criminal law address (and the eggshell rule applies to) emotional injuries, as well.
> Experiencing an emotion is not damage.
Torts like those of intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress demonstrate the falsitt of this generalization of the law, as does the “suffering” part of “pain and suffering” damages in other torts.
You're reaching here and if you are more affected than average by comments from other people (on SO or life in general) then perhaps you should work on that instead of claiming emotional suffering.
As I expressly stated, to demonstrate that two moral principals that contradict claims made upthread are well established in our society: (1) that the particular sensitivity of a victim to harm from a particular wrong doesn't mitigate the wrongdoers responsibility for the harm, and (2) that experiencing adverse emotional states is a harm.
And couldn't they find a better person in this tech company to deliver this message than a white dude VP?
Then they explain that this is really, actually happening because the marginalized groups "do feel less welcome... because they tell us" (emphasis mine). Do these marginalized groups know how everyone else feels? Have the marginalized-but-anonymous users invented a telepathy device with which to gauge their feelings against others?
Please demonstrate how any Stack Overflow user can know that they feel something more or less than any other user.
The quote doesn't say women and PoC are broadly inexperienced, it says women, PoC, and the inexperienced are examples of marginalized groups on SO.
Because that use of language about marginalized/disadvantaged/underrepresented groups arose specifically in the context of racial minorities in the US, at a time when Whites were both an overwhelming majority and socially dominant it of proportion to their numerical dominance; the language is sometimes extended to contexts where “minority” is not strictly to accurate (though note that the article here does not make that error, it refers to “women, people of color, and others in marginalized groups”, not “minorities”.)
EDIT:
Also,
> If you have less tolerance, how is that anyone else's problem?
That someone doing unconsented harm is not absolved of responsibility for that harm because the victim is unusually susceptible is the moral principle underlying the eggshell rule [0], which applies widely in civil and criminal law, so it's not exactly a novel principle.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggshell_skull