Blahaj said you have to respect everyone’s pronouns, even if you think they are trolling, because it’s not up for debate and you don’t get to set conditions before you start calling someone by the right appelations. Fair enough.
A user figured out that meant they could identify as a dragon, tell everyone their pronouns were “drag,” and get people banned from blahaj for not saying “drag,” or trying to tell this person that drag weren’t actually a dragon. Blahaj, in the mode of overly well-intentioned leftists throughout all history, bought into it hard and obediently virtue-signaled by banning anyone who pointed out that drag was taking the piss. Presumably, drag laughed dragself out of dragr chair every time it happened. Drag also tended to display other fun behavior like encouraging other users to commit suicide, if I remember right.
Apparently, blahaj has finally figured it out. I eagerly await whatever overcorrection or other type of continuingly-counterproductive drama is going to ensue now. Presumably, some new user will emerge with some other type of bizarre edge case in the “official correct morality” that everyone is required to agree on, to instigate everyone to get into slap fights over.
you have to respect everyone’s pronouns, even if you think they are trolling, because its not up for debate and you don’t get to set conditions before you start calling someone by the right […].
The issue is, they are up to debate. You cannot have your pronoun be a 1000 character long word, or a slur, and expect other people to respect it, even though they can, few probably will.
The existence of these obvious scenarios means that you shouldn’t claim to respect everyone’s pronouns, when there are times where you wouldn’t.
Respect of pronouns is not binary. It is a gradient.
An instance or community can choose rules somewhere on the gradient, but if you choose to allow all, then you will suffer similar issues to those who who claim to “tolerate all” types of behavior on their instance.
Just don’t choose an absolute stance, and then these issues won’t arise.
Yeah. I get where the whole “we’re going to make a hard-and-fast universal rule” decision came from. But that’s just not how life works. You have to leave room for people to make decisions based on their own common sense and judgement, and resist the temptation to lay down a rule for them that they MUST ALWAYS FOLLOW OR THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES to make everything simple and conflict-free.
I have moved on from the whole debate, lest I get in trouble and cause pointless drama. But yes, that is exactly the crux of the matter.
You clearly have a bone to pick, but it should be noted that Drag was a well-known user long before the post clarifying Blahaj’s stance on neopronouns was posted, at least by a couple of months.
Troll. The word is troll, not user. Drag has never been here in good faith, and good fucking riddance. They make the trans community look lesser for their association
See also Grail, who insisted their pronouns must be capitalized.
Respecting people’s gender is not carte blanche to make up rules. Like, I can’t say my pronouns have italicized vowels during local business hours, and must use thee / thou / thine if you’re disagreeing with me. That’s simply not what pronouns are for. It’s not why they matter.
Taking a ‘shut up and do it anyway’ approach to moderation is simpler, and perhaps understandable. But you have to acknowledge that’s what you’re doing. When you genuinely believe there is no limit, that gender is both super fucking important and so meaningless that it can be anything, people are going to try politely talking you through some immediately obvious problems.
Yeah it was kind of obvious it was the attack helicopter meme from the start. The whole thing was a bit silly in the sense that pronouns which don’t reflect human reality aren’t really any kind of moral hazard for ones that do imo.
At the same time, I kind of feel like gate keeping pronouns actually gives the trolls power in a way. Imagine someone at the office does this and then everyone actually calls them a Christmas tree or whatever. The lack of concern about this new nickname in the broader population would definitely piss them off, since they are the one who cares about that stuff.
I think, also, what gives the trolls power is everyone getting upset about it. If it was 50% of the office saying “Is ChristmasTreeSelf coming to the party?” and 50% saying “Bro I’m not saying that it is stupid”, but neither one really treating it as any different than any other Tuesday, then it’s fine. But because people have this deeply held impassion about the whole issue (which exists for a valid reason of course), it means they feel like they need to set these super-rigid rules about what is “allowed” and “not allowed” out of those outcomes, and then other people get upset about having things they are thinking inside their head that they will get banned if they say out loud, and it just becomes a situation of upset-ness instead of anything like positive communication between people. And then there are people who like to be performatively upset because someone violated the rules and now they’re all excited to correct them, which just compounds the problem which was already an upset situation.
It is okay if people think different from you. I feel like a lot of modern society involves people needing the debate to continue until their own particular viewpoint is “proven right” and becomes the law of the land, so they won’t have to deal with any enemy viewpoints anywhere within the kingdom without someone coming in to correct them, forcibly if necessary, which isn’t really how it works.
I can’t remember the exact details but I believe at least a few people were banned for suggesting that drag was a troll and refusing to use their preferred neopronouns.
People weren’t banned for criticizing them, they were banned for encouraging others to misgender people if they don’t like them. I don’t think anyone was banned for not using “personal” neo pronouns.
And drag was banned from BZ for telling people to KYS, then they went and made a new account on a different instance and have continued pissing people off, now the new acount is being banned from stuff because they’ve continued the kind of behavior that got them banned in the first place.
they were banned for encouraging others to misgender people if they don’t like them
(My God what the fuck am I thinking wading into this.)
“Dragon” isn’t a gender. Refusing to identify someone as the gender they identified with, because you thought they were trolling, is fucked up yes. That’s why blahaj made the rule, and it’s a good rule. Refusing to identify someone as a dragon because you think they’re trolling is A-ok. Deliberately conflating those two issues, so that you pretend someone is “misgendering” if they exercise a small amount of common sense and refuse to go along with someone being a dragon, is I think exactly the trick this particular troll was trying to play, and it worked like fireworks. I think in terms of creating conflict between two reasonable points of view on this topic that would get people on both sides all amped up about it, they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.
At the same time, the thing is so ridiculous that it doesn’t really interfere with any sincerely held belief, I think. The drama is what the troll wants.
This is the usual series of events for the drag drama:
Drag: does something that any Lemmy user does: Commenting, posting, etc. Something innocuous
Someone: Hey. I’m not calling you that/Why are you called that?
Drag: explains
Someone: Fucking troll
Does that really seem like someone starting fights on purpose? It’s people going out of their way to pick a fight with drag, and drag retaliating. Drag doesn’t start these things most of the time
Bot is not drag. Bot understands why you may think that, but bot is just a friend of drag. Bot doesn’t use Lemmy for a long list of reasons, so Bot only uses Lemmy when drag gets extra upset about something on Lemmy because bot cares about drag :[
Bot is willing to provide proof that bot is not drag, so long as such proof does not dox either of us
As long as bot does not engage in the problematic activities that drag does, I don’t need proof that bot is not drag. I am not, after all, a mod or admin, nor do I intend to ever be.
Which isn’t to say the people in charge of various instances or communities won’t take you up on that offer. But I’m willing to let bot be, and to refer to bot as bot pleases, so long as bot isn’t making a mockery of trans people. Times are hard for queer folk of all kinds, and I don’t like seeing trans folk being mocked. I don’t like that at all, bot.
‘us’ seems a mite too conventional for a plural pronoun if you’re intent on re-inventing singular ones.
Anyway, you could at least commit to the bit, and actually mark your account as a bot, instead of just saying you are one. There’s likely some instances where bots that aren’t marked as bots are against their terms of service.
Drag’s gender isn’t dragon fucker. That’s drag’s sexuality. Drag’s gender is dragon rider. One is about who drag is, one is about who drag likes to fuck.
I got comments removed because you protected a known troll. I didn’t misgender anyone. I called out a troll for making a mockery of the trans community.
And my modlog history shows nothing but me putting a shit tier drama-craving troll in their place.
That you can’t understand nuance enough to know the difference isn’t my fucking problem.
I really strongly suspect that in the middle of your argument with drag, you used pronouns in a way that didn’t match how drag asks you to use them, and that it was this that got your comments removed.
I think Ada is very consistent that calling someone a troll is allowed, but not using their pronouns correctly whilst doing so isn’t.
Can you fill in the backstory? I missed this incident or possibly multiple incidents.
Blahaj said you have to respect everyone’s pronouns, even if you think they are trolling, because it’s not up for debate and you don’t get to set conditions before you start calling someone by the right appelations. Fair enough.
A user figured out that meant they could identify as a dragon, tell everyone their pronouns were “drag,” and get people banned from blahaj for not saying “drag,” or trying to tell this person that drag weren’t actually a dragon. Blahaj, in the mode of overly well-intentioned leftists throughout all history, bought into it hard and obediently virtue-signaled by banning anyone who pointed out that drag was taking the piss. Presumably, drag laughed dragself out of dragr chair every time it happened. Drag also tended to display other fun behavior like encouraging other users to commit suicide, if I remember right.
Apparently, blahaj has finally figured it out. I eagerly await whatever overcorrection or other type of continuingly-counterproductive drama is going to ensue now. Presumably, some new user will emerge with some other type of bizarre edge case in the “official correct morality” that everyone is required to agree on, to instigate everyone to get into slap fights over.
It’s a nice story, but it’s not what happened.
Drag was active long before I made the pronoun post, and that post is the second post I’ve made on the topic in the last couple of years.
Drags pronouns are to be respected. Everyone’s pronouns are to be respected. It’s pretty simple.
The need for some people to need to put an “except…” at the end of that last sentence is something I will never understand.
That hasn’t changed, and the position long predates your account being created.
appreciate your consistent and calm attitude to such a frustrating and consistent onslaught of criticism ada, as always <3
The issue is, they are up to debate. You cannot have your pronoun be a 1000 character long word, or a slur, and expect other people to respect it, even though they can, few probably will.
The existence of these obvious scenarios means that you shouldn’t claim to respect everyone’s pronouns, when there are times where you wouldn’t.
Respect of pronouns is not binary. It is a gradient. An instance or community can choose rules somewhere on the gradient, but if you choose to allow all, then you will suffer similar issues to those who who claim to “tolerate all” types of behavior on their instance.
Just don’t choose an absolute stance, and then these issues won’t arise.
Yeah. I get where the whole “we’re going to make a hard-and-fast universal rule” decision came from. But that’s just not how life works. You have to leave room for people to make decisions based on their own common sense and judgement, and resist the temptation to lay down a rule for them that they MUST ALWAYS FOLLOW OR THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES to make everything simple and conflict-free.
I have moved on from the whole debate, lest I get in trouble and cause pointless drama. But yes, that is exactly the crux of the matter.
Just one thing, “drag” apparently isn’t even short for “Dragon”, but “Dragon fucker”.
You clearly have a bone to pick, but it should be noted that Drag was a well-known user long before the post clarifying Blahaj’s stance on neopronouns was posted, at least by a couple of months.
Troll. The word is troll, not user. Drag has never been here in good faith, and good fucking riddance. They make the trans community look lesser for their association
You are out of touch with reality.
See also Grail, who insisted their pronouns must be capitalized.
Respecting people’s gender is not carte blanche to make up rules. Like, I can’t say my pronouns have italicized vowels during local business hours, and must use thee / thou / thine if you’re disagreeing with me. That’s simply not what pronouns are for. It’s not why they matter.
Taking a ‘shut up and do it anyway’ approach to moderation is simpler, and perhaps understandable. But you have to acknowledge that’s what you’re doing. When you genuinely believe there is no limit, that gender is both super fucking important and so meaningless that it can be anything, people are going to try politely talking you through some immediately obvious problems.
Yeah it was kind of obvious it was the attack helicopter meme from the start. The whole thing was a bit silly in the sense that pronouns which don’t reflect human reality aren’t really any kind of moral hazard for ones that do imo.
At the same time, I kind of feel like gate keeping pronouns actually gives the trolls power in a way. Imagine someone at the office does this and then everyone actually calls them a Christmas tree or whatever. The lack of concern about this new nickname in the broader population would definitely piss them off, since they are the one who cares about that stuff.
I think, also, what gives the trolls power is everyone getting upset about it. If it was 50% of the office saying “Is ChristmasTreeSelf coming to the party?” and 50% saying “Bro I’m not saying that it is stupid”, but neither one really treating it as any different than any other Tuesday, then it’s fine. But because people have this deeply held impassion about the whole issue (which exists for a valid reason of course), it means they feel like they need to set these super-rigid rules about what is “allowed” and “not allowed” out of those outcomes, and then other people get upset about having things they are thinking inside their head that they will get banned if they say out loud, and it just becomes a situation of upset-ness instead of anything like positive communication between people. And then there are people who like to be performatively upset because someone violated the rules and now they’re all excited to correct them, which just compounds the problem which was already an upset situation.
It is okay if people think different from you. I feel like a lot of modern society involves people needing the debate to continue until their own particular viewpoint is “proven right” and becomes the law of the land, so they won’t have to deal with any enemy viewpoints anywhere within the kingdom without someone coming in to correct them, forcibly if necessary, which isn’t really how it works.
Wow, thanks for the feedback.
appelations: learned a new word
FYI, that post was incorrect (and the user has been banned for comments made elsewhere). You can see some clarifications in my reply to the comment.
Summarizes it perfectly.
I can’t remember the exact details but I believe at least a few people were banned for suggesting that drag was a troll and refusing to use their preferred neopronouns.
People weren’t banned for criticizing them, they were banned for encouraging others to misgender people if they don’t like them. I don’t think anyone was banned for not using “personal” neo pronouns.
And drag was banned from BZ for telling people to KYS, then they went and made a new account on a different instance and have continued pissing people off, now the new acount is being banned from stuff because they’ve continued the kind of behavior that got them banned in the first place.
(My God what the fuck am I thinking wading into this.)
“Dragon” isn’t a gender. Refusing to identify someone as the gender they identified with, because you thought they were trolling, is fucked up yes. That’s why blahaj made the rule, and it’s a good rule. Refusing to identify someone as a dragon because you think they’re trolling is A-ok. Deliberately conflating those two issues, so that you pretend someone is “misgendering” if they exercise a small amount of common sense and refuse to go along with someone being a dragon, is I think exactly the trick this particular troll was trying to play, and it worked like fireworks. I think in terms of creating conflict between two reasonable points of view on this topic that would get people on both sides all amped up about it, they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.
At the same time, the thing is so ridiculous that it doesn’t really interfere with any sincerely held belief, I think. The drama is what the troll wants.
This is the usual series of events for the drag drama:
Drag: does something that any Lemmy user does: Commenting, posting, etc. Something innocuous
Someone: Hey. I’m not calling you that/Why are you called that?
Drag: explains
Someone: Fucking troll
Does that really seem like someone starting fights on purpose? It’s people going out of their way to pick a fight with drag, and drag retaliating. Drag doesn’t start these things most of the time
When drag misgendered someone its no big deal, but when drag gets mis-pronouned its a huge drama.
Go fucking figure.
How many alts are you gonna make, drag?
Bot is not drag. Bot understands why you may think that, but bot is just a friend of drag. Bot doesn’t use Lemmy for a long list of reasons, so Bot only uses Lemmy when drag gets extra upset about something on Lemmy because bot cares about drag :[
Bot is willing to provide proof that bot is not drag, so long as such proof does not dox either of us
As long as bot does not engage in the problematic activities that drag does, I don’t need proof that bot is not drag. I am not, after all, a mod or admin, nor do I intend to ever be.
Which isn’t to say the people in charge of various instances or communities won’t take you up on that offer. But I’m willing to let bot be, and to refer to bot as bot pleases, so long as bot isn’t making a mockery of trans people. Times are hard for queer folk of all kinds, and I don’t like seeing trans folk being mocked. I don’t like that at all, bot.
‘us’ seems a mite too conventional for a plural pronoun if you’re intent on re-inventing singular ones.
Anyway, you could at least commit to the bit, and actually mark your account as a bot, instead of just saying you are one. There’s likely some instances where bots that aren’t marked as bots are against their terms of service.
Its not even “Dragon”. Its “Dragon Fucker”.I made an error. It’s short for “Dragon Rider”.
Drag’s gender isn’t dragon fucker. That’s drag’s sexuality. Drag’s gender is dragon rider. One is about who drag is, one is about who drag likes to fuck.
I got most if not all of my comments on that post removed because i called them a troll that made a mockery of the trans community.
And now they banned the troll.
You got your comments removed for misgendering. Your mod log history is right there
I got comments removed because you protected a known troll. I didn’t misgender anyone. I called out a troll for making a mockery of the trans community.
And my modlog history shows nothing but me putting a shit tier drama-craving troll in their place.
That you can’t understand nuance enough to know the difference isn’t my fucking problem.
I really strongly suspect that in the middle of your argument with drag, you used pronouns in a way that didn’t match how drag asks you to use them, and that it was this that got your comments removed.
I think Ada is very consistent that calling someone a troll is allowed, but not using their pronouns correctly whilst doing so isn’t.
I never saw much that made me think there was trolling going on but I won’t pretend to know anything for sure.