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Comment by Ygg2 | Hacker News Reader

Because toilet humor and gender discrimination are the same?

Because "guys" is gender discrimination? Give me a break. Might as well call ~everyone who speaks the Spanish language massive sexists while you're at it.

I guess it is if you're oversensitive to everything that might be construed as sexist, through any historical, cultural etc. link. Like some people are oversensitive about bodily functions.

Besides, some groups of people might be put off by such crass analogies. You don't want to exclude those people, do you Ygg2?

Yeah, no, the default male plural pronoun in other languages is a language feature. One doesn't feel like they're being called male when it's used. On the other hand "guys" sounds like you're being called, well, a guy (and English has singular they and many other constructs that can be used in its place).

Usage of "guys" makes many women feel they don't belong. It perpetuates ideas about programming being a boys club that shouldn't exist.

Poop jokes might make some people uncomfortable, but they're not as harmful as "guys".

Plus, if you read kibwen's comment below that, it's not something that's considered a serious offence, but you will be asked to stop. The same would probably go for excessive poop jokes in IRC or whatever.

(Also, it's an unofficial blog post. Not the same standards. There wouldn't be poop jokes on an official blog post, and there wouldn't be much of a ruckus if someone used "guys" in an unofficial one)

I dunno, I'll say "hi guys" to groups of women as well as mixed or male groups. I've also heard girls say "hi guys" to a mixed group.

I've also heard people say things like "hey up A" where A is in

["guys and gals", "guys and girls", "everyone", "mothafuckas", "nerds", "friends", "all you", "people", etc.]

Coming form a very formal understanding of language, I can see how it could be taken as a reference to only the men, but coming from my practical experience, "guys" has been used as a gender neutral way of referencing a group without issue.

Now that I think of it, this really is a context sensitive issue. For example, saying "hi guys" to a group of 100 with only one or two women in it might give some listeners the impression that there are no women, thus perpetuating the "boys club" view, whereas saying "hi guys" to an evenly mixed group might not give the listeners that impression.

Language is hard yo.

> but coming from my practical experience, "guys" has been used as a gender neutral way of referencing a group without issue

That's sort of the problem here. We're so used to it that we forget that it might not mean the same thing to others.

As I understand, "guys" wasn't a huge problem but the discussion that followed. It got ugly quick. I'm pretty sure even Spanish has the variant of "guys and gals".

What I want is besides the point. It's a club. It has rules. I'm Ok with them.

I usually go with "Hi peeps!" (Yes, I imagine everyone on Rust IRC is a talking marshfellow).

Spanish nouns have two genders, and a corresponding plural for a noun of that genders. When you have a mixed group, both chicos (boys) and chicas (girls) you use the masuline plural (chicos).

I've also noticed that male genitalia are used to mean something positive (es la polla, tener cojones)

and female genitalia are generally used to be negative (un coñazo, coño)

I think the suggestion was that you could use "chicos y chicas." But I don't imagine any native Spanish speaker would find chicos discriminatory.

There is certainly some awareness of the issue. For example preferering neutral words such as estudiantes in some contexts.

You're okay with the rules because you live in the clubhouse. The fact that you are pulling up the ladder to keep other people out unless they roll over and pee themselves to acknowledge your dominance speaks volumes about what life is like inside the clubhouse.

Nope. I'm just a guy passing through that knows the customs and didn't enter the house with his shoes on (well, there was that one time). Rust community in my experience only ever censored people that were actively rude for a long time - I'm talking months if not years.

Anyway, if Rust community did allow such transgressions, people would be up in arms because they are promoting Linus brand of verbal abuse...

It's like they say - you can't please everyone.

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