University student looking for easy side project to create and put on resume decides to go with "inclusive language bot", doesn't actually put in effort beyond wix site and ridiculously simple bot, boom. That's all this is.

Eh... I think that part is explained by "University student" ...

The fact that the "university student" doesn't even care about basic syntax (e.g. the word 'man' for manual), and repeatedly spams repos, tells you that this is a really carelessly-designed bot and that the writer of the bot is incompetent and disruptive.

It's working. Look at all the comments here full of outrage at how "PC" everything has gotten etc...by people who clearly have no idea what the actual majority of people pushing for inclusive language are typically suggesting and shy.

You see this a lot from conservative/right-wing types, because it's a lot easier to strawman and ad-hominem someone pushing for inclusiveness based on empathy than it is to present a legitimate argument.

There really isn't a legitimate counter-argument to "can we please work to discontinue using 'master' and 'slave' to describe things in computer science and electronics" so people just run to "THIS IS ABSURD!"

This is not an argument, thus it does not require a counter argument. This is a silly request, with no justification. Nothing more.

Imagine if one were to insist on referring to “male” and “female” connectors as “cocks” and “fuckholes”.

This is not a hill worth dying on.

I wouldn’t use “genocide” to describe a technical concept even though it’s been over a century since the US has taken part in one.

Why not error on the side of decency?

I have my own set of words that I need to be careful with if I want to err on the side of decency. You almost assuredly use some of them as if there was nothing offensive about them. To you, there isn't. I accept that. I'd be grateful if you reciprocated, instead of trying to impose your own cultural norms on me, thank you in advance.

If you actually want to be decent, then that means taking global perspectives into account if your communication is to a global audience.

If I posted a tweet saying that my company is looking for “refugees from big tech”, that would be insensitive even though there aren’t refugees fleeing the US. Saying that the issue of refugees is not sensitive in my local cultural scope is not an excuse if the audience for my communication was larger than that.

Given the burnout rate and the pace of the tech world, it's an apt (and even meaningful) description of the state of working in that industry.

To presume/take offence at every single word is absolutely silly.

https://www.reddit.com/r/kubernetes/comments/o4h1fq/using_go...

What irks people is the presumption that the entire world (or at least the entire Anglosphere) should learn American history and then alter their use of language to conform to it. And that it ends up being a kind of linguistic annexation of the Internet where everybody has to make an effort to not offend Americans but Americans make little effort to not offend the rest of the world.

"servus" historically meant servant as well as slave though, iirc. imo etymology is less important than the current emotional valence of words, though. nobody's thinking of Slavic people being slurred by the word "slave" unless they dive into Merriam-Webster.

Yet! Nobody thought about "master" being offensive either. But with enough activism, anything is possible. I eagerly await people trying to cancel "Masters" degree because it implies less credentialed people should be slaves to more credentialed ones.

Would you get behind a movement to remove the term 'beat' from our lexicon?

As in 'Tampa beats Kansas 31-9'

But there is! The BDSM community has a right not to be discriminated against! If we're going to be inclusive, we should hear them out, too...

It does not seem to matter what any majority wants. I have never seen a request to rename something because a majority of black/trans/female/... people considered a term offensive, or the majority of staff, or - as you say - the majority of people who are pushing for inclusive language. (Who gets to define this group? Do I count if I make sure to use singular they, but don't care about master branches?)

The way it works is that a person or institution high up declares a term offensive, and then it takes only one or two people to suggest a change in a company Slack or other public space. Nobody wants to be racist/sexist, so the path of least resistance is to go along and make the change. That's why it feels like power games - if things were decided by anonymous polls instead, then I think acceptance of either outcome would be much higher.

personally, as a trans woman, all I do is use "she" instead of "he" when giving examples about users. I don't mind when people say "he." I don't have anything against "they," I just like using "she" so that's what I do.

Let's just be clear: that's pure speculation on your part, and not facts.

And to entertain your speculation, it's also possible that the disruptive bot is instead the genuine work of a coloured/female/young social justice warrior who was trying to police the language of professional repos on the internet, right? Since you are speculating, that's just as much a legitimate speculation as well, if we go by the actual user history of the profile.

Well, about that ... Sep 2020:

https://www.distractify.com/p/kill-all-men-tiktok

or, Feb 14th 2022:

https://srhsoffleash.org/2171/showcase/kill-all-men-is-only-...

Which has some useful history:

"SCUM, or the Society for Cutting Up Men was an idea based on the manifesto of the same name that was released in 1967. At the time, it had been described as satire or parody, until the author attempted to murder Andy Warhol a year later"

Maybe that's they were running around saying that about feminists in the 60s?

:)

If it is indeed satire, I think it's actually pretty good. It demonstrates the absurdity of the situation with minimal exaggeration.

I will say that the repo that the bot is using is absolutely whack, https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/gender-inclusive-lang...

replaces 'mother' with 'parent', 'boyfriend' with 'consort', 'maiden voyage' with 'first voyage'. What a strange world.

shipmaster -> shipmaker

headmaster -> headmaker

I can understand wanting to coin a new gender neutral suffix to replace “-master” but why would they include a literal counterexample. Very strange.

If the bot replaced "man" with "comrade" it would be accused of being Russian propaganda.

Maybe not though and you and I are just that "unwoke" lol

It's hosted on Wix, which screams "boomer."

I think this is likely some near-retirement-age back-end programmer who is threatened by social justice movements, trying to manufacture outrage/blowback.

> For example, instead of using using the term "Bachelor" or "Bachelorette", this term can be replaced with the word gender-neutral word "Baccalaureate".

This is a substitution that only makes sense in the context of college degrees and even then only barely. (One would not describe a Bachelor of Science degree as a gendered thing, and say that a woman has a Bachelorette of Science degree or so.) A serious website would have recommended a plain word like “unmarried” or “single,” rather than such a strange construct.

My college literally had an option for having the "gender neutral" Baccalaureate in your degree, and I think it's becoming even more common.

like 'trans' and 'cis' from.. chemistry? or taking the botanical definition of fruit and trying to apply it to 'fruits and vegetables'

thrown together on a quick'n'dirty templating site (Wix)

their blog https://inclusivecoding.wixsite.com/home/blog gives 5 tips, but then lists '4' twice