EDIT: well fuck me for sharing, right? 2021 Hacker News karma scores are fucking cold.
I wonder what other words can be used as a pronoun?
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.
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.
But to answer your "wondering" question: nope, because "he/him/his," nor their analogues (person, number, gender, etc.), don't work there.
* - 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.
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 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.