Stackoverflow is a website so focused on getting good technical answers to good technical questions that thank-you notes are removed because they are noise. And yet somehow there is now a 17 point FAQ about the gender pronoun rules recently added to the code of conduct. Says one response:
I am all in favor of wanting to be respected, I really do, but this is the most overhead to “don’t be mean” I have ever seen.
Another takes aim at the people who run the web site:
Putting identity politics front-and-center in what is supposed to be a neutral, objective Q&A environment promotes division and strife, not inclusion, and more importantly, it distracts from the primary mission of these sites: getting good answers to good questions. Our values reject it.
If you truly value your community, that means respecting the community’s values, not attempting to impose new and incompatible ones by fiat. Your values are out of alignment with the values of the community you are supporting. Please fix them.
Another points out that too many rules do not help:
I would very much like if we could all get along. We have rules and moderators because in a big community, there’ll always be a few participants who can’t get along. But increasingly, getting along is against the rules.
One of two things is going on.
- This is just people on the Internet arguing because they can and anyone with things to get done will simply ignore them.
- This is an example of an attempt to infiltrate and change a community, and the resistance to this attempt.
See also: Linux and its code of conduct.
