That was the ideal, and in my experience, the norm at the time.

The Hacker Manifesto said it nicely:

"This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals. We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals.

Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for.

I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all... after all, we're all alike."

http://www.phrack.org/archives/issues/7/3.txt

I recently tried to join a discord that was tangentially relevant to the trans community and the amount of self-identification they wanted was troublesome to me (region, age, sexual preference, opinion on pronouns/pronouns, etc).

EDIT: well fuck me for sharing, right? 2021 Hacker News karma scores are fucking cold.

S'ok. I was asked for my preferred pronouns on an application (for a job I didn't care too much about, but the pay was OK) so I put my preferred pronouns as he/him/dude, which are my actual preferred pronouns. I was told never apply to the company again. They make video games...

My first response to reading this was "dude isn't a pronoun", but after thinking about it, I realize it is being used more and more as a pronoun and not just as a noun.

I wonder what other words can be used as a pronoun?

A name for the male segment of this class of words is "bronoun," which includes things like bro, man, guy, etc.

Basically anything you can use in place of a name, so long as the grammatical usage is namelike.

"That guy doesn't have a clue." -- guy is a noun

"Guy doesn't have a clue." -- guy is a pronoun (you can tell because "he" also works grammatically)

However, I think these would need to be in the initial position(s) when slash-delimiting one's pronouns, because the final position is for a possessive form. That is, they're analogous to "he" but not analogous to "his" (and using them like "him" would be a stretch, as far as I can figure...), which might be what got GP in hot water.

> "Guy doesn't have a clue." -- guy is a pronoun (you can tell because "he" also works grammatically)

You don't think that's merely people being lazy and leaving off a word that can be inferred ('That')? This is something I often do in casual conversation, particularly vocal conversations:

"I am wondering what you mean" - 'I' is a pronoun

"Wondering what you mean" - 'Wondering' is now the pronoun??? Clearly not. It's just a way that people are lazy and sloppy with grammar when correct grammar isn't important.

This is convincing.

But to answer your "wondering" question: nope, because "he/him/his," nor their analogues (person, number, gender, etc.), don't work there.

It really isn't a pronoun, but goes into the implicit versus explicit thing. If your pronouns are "He/Him" you want to be called "Man", implicitly. If I don't say "Dude", explicitly, how are they to know?... Plus, I've met several people who chafe at being called "Dude", and I prefer it TBH. "Hey, dude" or "Dude's got good coding practices" are perfectly fine by me, but I'm also in my 40's and it shows =/

When I first read this it did sound a bit funny - I'm guessing they thought you were trying to be humorous, but, like the other reply, I can also totally understand that you actually enjoy being called dude.

LOL. Love it. But wouldn’t it be dude/the dude/dude’s?

I mean, most spaces have those as roles that you can fill in, but don't have to. wrt pronoun roles, they are used for figuring out how to refer to you -- it is after all, a trans space where appearance and expectation won't match up with people's preferences, and where people are tired from the water-drip torture* that is constant implicit and explicit misgendering.

* - that is to say, each individual instance (drip) wouldn't cause pain, but when you face it almost constantly, and you're already hyperaware of it, it can cause a lot of anguish.

In this case they were mandatory. I get that it represents an issue for that community but I'm merely describing a schism compared with earlier internet attitudes and some spaces today.

I left the community because it just upset me to have to do that. a/s/l always broke my heart and it still does.

I also think asking for some of those things is absurd and intrusive. I would feel a little (*not deathly) uncomfortable baring my soul like that to some anonymous Discord admins. I'd like to know what others feel/why this is a downvoteable comment.

I participate in a Discord that is kind of similar. Not the same one, because my example has totally optional pronoun choice. But they have reason to be cautious of newcomers: before they added an interview/onboarding step, they were continually brigaded by trolls of various levels of sincerity. The internet can be a harsh place, and I understand the desire to create a refuge.

I totally get _why_ its like that, and I'm not upset, its just unfortunate that this is a chasm of difference between very early internet culture.

I am guessing you are downvoted because a transforum is arguable one of the very few places where that question makes sense.

I would find it deeply wrong if HN were to ask for the gender of their users, let alone their sexual preferences, but I would expect the same of a dating site.

But I don't disagree with you in general. I also miss the intimacy a nick could afford you. Somehow you could talk about deeper things when nobody knew your name.

Is that a problem? Just give them fake information.

it changes how people might act around you. I always wanted it to only be about the words.

Any group like that is going to get a lot of trolls, so you probably experienced a kind of manual captcha.

sure, its a shame because I really like the content.

You can also enter fake data (for the things that aren't important: e.g. location), I do this all the time on the internet.

The beautiful era where everyone had to either adopt the persona of being a cis het white western man or be subject to all manners of harassment and offensive jokes. I tried being a girl openly on the early internet when I was young and naive but after constant jokes like "how are you using IRC from the kitchen?" and "tits or gtfo" you just give up and learn to talk like a guy.

> being a cis het white western man or be subject to all manners of harassment and offensive jokes.

Believe it or not but cis white western men were and still are subject to all manners of harassment and offensive jokes. As a cis white western man myself I personally have experienced harassment online.

I didn't say they couldn't be. You're doing the thing where you assume that a implies b means that b implies a.

"If you did not pass as a cit het white man you would likely be harassed for it on the early internet."

is not the same thing as

"If you were harassed on the early internet then you must not have passed as a cis het white man."

During a safety meeting at a lumber yard you wouldn't respond to "workers who use the malfunctioning machine in building A have been getting injured" by saying, "well I didn't use that machine and I also got injured."

> I didn't say they couldn't be.

The way you worded it sounded like you were as explicit as you can be without explicitly saying that men are not harassed. You said you either adopt the persona of a man OR you are harassed. You also said you gave up and learned to talk like a man (to stop certain harassment). Both of these implies that you are not harassed if you act like a man.

>During a safety meeting at a lumber yard you wouldn't respond to "workers who use the malfunctioning machine in building A have been getting injured" by saying, "well I didn't use that machine and I also got injured."

There is a difference in your original post and your analogy due to the use of the word 'or' in the original post. If you go to a restaurant and they ask if you want salad or soup as a side dish they are not implying you get both, but one or the other.

It is too bad in English we do not have xor to prevent such confusions.

It was a simpler, more naive time.

People are too forthcoming on the internet today, with some divulging almost their entire being to the megacorp spy machines. It's easy for stalkers, let alone adtech and three letter agencies, to find and track people.

I prefer today's tech, but yesterday's freedom, mindset, and lack of tracking.

I'm not 100% on board with today's tech either. I miss when every instant messenger supported XMPP so I could just use Adium/Pidgin to handle all my communications in one program.