Luckily it doesn't change my response in any way other than in addition to all the "he" translating to "the author" all the "she" should refer to "the author's sister". I'm a "he" who provided software support to my sister, so you can see the likely source of that assumption. No negative implication of her ability to successfully portray her chosen gender role intended.

Also I think its lame to check out bylines to make sure I run stuff thru the right sexism filter; I clearly stated its a "good" article; not "good, for a girl" article, or "not up to the manly standards of excellence" article.

You don't have to run a "sexism filter" as long as you don't assume that every speaker (whether technical or not) is a man. If you think that the grammatically weird "they" or "he/she" is awkward, and "OP" or "the author" too cold, you've restricted yourself to checking bylines.

It's not a byline. It's the name of the website, the name of the window when opened in Safari, it's got her picture right next to the text.

You might not have belittled her because she's a woman, but simply assuming "Programming article = male by default" is in and of itself harmful.

Lets try p(female|has authored programming article on a blog called 'http://alyssafrazee.com' with a woman's picture on the side).

VLM made a mistake. They were told, rather gently, of their mistake. "My mistake, edited" would have been fine. Instead they doubled down that they were totally right and fine and cool with blazing past ample evidence of the author's gender in pursuit of "Male as Default".

True, I made a minor grammatical mistake, and when information gathering I read the author's work instead of meditating on her reproductive organs, but that is utterly irrelevant to my claim about the article. I still claim I was correct when I identified the article as a well written general audience tutorial although in my personal experience, tutoring works best as an "extreme customization" presentation not "here's something very general from someone who happens to be your sibling". I don't see any particular reward or advantage in distracting from that analysis of the article.

I do disagree with the interpretation, that doubling down, would have been changing the focus of the article analysis yet again, to something even more gender oriented and even less article oriented such as "the most important topic to discuss right now is if vcrash is male or female? Because that's apparently important somehow other than to vcrash's partner?"

flyingbrotus's reply about the RODBC package was awesome because it was on the topic of the discussion and relates directly to the article and busting thru the vertical learning curve of R.

I may very well be an idiot; I'm OK with that.

However, being an idiot would (appear to) have nothing to do with "That's a good article; also, here's another strategy that's worked slightly better". If that specific individual claim about the article were dumb, discussion of my idiocy would be completely on topic.

On the other hand, grammar errors and irrelevant research errors may very well indicate I'm an idiot, but it has nothing to do with the topic. That's why I was pretty cool with it. I'm never going to be hired as a proofreader by anyone not totally desperate and I'm cool with that.

Fomite puts one space after each period. That is wrong, and henceforth we will solely discuss that yawn inducing aspects of that topic. Or maybe not. I'd rather talk about the article, or learning R, or teaching R, or teaching people, or teaching siblings...

Someone noticed, and gently corrected you. If you had wanted to, a very simple edit would have been the end of it. Instead, you went on some weird tangent about sexism filters and how it's A-OK, and now you're upset that we're on the tangent?

OK Fomite, I think we are repeating ourselves, so agreement is highly unlikely although I'm sure civil coexistence is likely.

The author is a heck of a good writer about a topic I like, and also is female, and we can each be interested in one of those topics, its a big internet and we'll all fit in somehow with plenty of space.

Have a pleasant day, and I hope you enjoyed the article.

its -> it's

If p(female) was 5%, would it be safe to assume that everyone is a man?

It's not checking you against a sexism filter - it is subtly pointing out the pervasive gender assumptions society has.

It's in all likelihood an innocent mistake on your side - but the accumulation of those tiny things is, in the long run, "not fun"(tm). It doesn't matter that they're innocent mistakes, it matters that it is a constant thing.

So, please, don't consider this an attack, but a polite request to double-check the next time you make a gendered reference to somebody. Every time you do check, you'll have made life a tiny bit better for the women in the field.