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Comment by cbd1984 | Hacker News Reader

cbd1984

> The user is a woman

Nothing changes.

Like "The user is trans" or "The user is Bulgarian" or "The user listens to Kinky Friedman" or "The user drinks from a hose".

> your own preconceptions

Speak for yourself.

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I think you just misread his comment - his point was anti-sexist.

There is exactly zero reason for bringing up gender in this thread, unless you're the kind of person who wants to turn every discussion into a gender problem.

If my service targets general population and I'm using only men in UX testing, I'm not being sexist - I'm just being an idiot, missing out on feedback that could be relevant to 50% of my audience.

This thread is inspired by a joke concept (an interesting one, but ultimately primarily intended for fun). It features comments about drinking, cats, pensioners, toddlers and men. My intent was not to bring up a gender argument any more than the cat one was intended to enrage dog owners and have YouTubers flock to upvote. Merely to provide some amusement to the other readers of HN, an audience generally enlightened enough to appreciate such comments, and to join in on the theme & variations initiated by @sharkweek's comment.

With regards to your last comment; again I don't understand.

    "I'm not being sexist - I'm just being an idiot"
    "I'm not targeting only the tech savvy - as above"
    "I'm not forgetting accessibility - as above"
    "I'm not ignoring usability - as above"
    "I'm not a fan of IE6 - as above"

Consider also: your response could be considered trolling from another's perspective.

And do you believe there are no idiots making websites?

Surely 'The user is a woman' suggestion is one method of cutting down on web designers making unthinking gender-related assumptions, just as the 'User is drunk' person is trying to provide a service related to competency-related assumptions...

If discussing gender is a threatening proposition to you, your problem is likely not that gender exists.

Also, you've admitted that gender matters since by general population statistics 50+% of your users aren't men? So like... seems like it'd be a legit topic to discuss?

It doesn't have to be discussed in every single comment page on hackernews to be taken seriously, it gets tiresome. In traditional forums john's comment would be considered a topic derailment. What does a guy testing websites drunk have to do with gender in tech?

Exactly this. It not only gets tiresome, but people go batshit insane in topics about gender, and it spawns some of the most ridiculous threads on this site. I get it, it's an important topic, but not every goddamn thing boils down to women in tech issues.

> There is exactly zero reason for bringing up gender in this thread

What, is it against the rules? No, I don't think it is. I think you should ask yourself why the topic makes you so upset/uncomfortable.

Just because it isn't against the rules, doesn't mean it's on-topic. Also, it's not the topic itself that makes me upset, it's the quality of discussion that usually follows. Most of the people lose their minds when they start to talk about politics. On HN this happens with social justice issues instead.

Well, although you didn't have any preconceptions, seems like you confronted them anyway.

I think that was his point?

did you even read the post you replied to?

Did you understand his?

Regarding "nothing changes" he's spot on adding other groups that are entitled to fair and equal consideration. He's expanding the discussion, which is the point of this place (or is suppose to be).

Regarding 'speak for yourself', I have to agree with him. When someone uses 'you' or 'your' in a sentence indicating someone specific should 'confront your own preconceptions' what they are really doing is making a blanket blaming statement across a group of people on whether or not they have preconceptions.

That's a conversational no-no because someone doesn't have the right to speak for me on my behalf. It's the trust, man. It's the trust.

Meh, I just read it as an anti-joke. I think you guys are getting worked up over nothing.

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