It wasn’t in documentation, but a code comment. No user would see this.
One part was a rejected change on the README, which was trying to remove this “white supremacist language”:
## On ideologically motivated changes
This is a purely technical project. As such, it is not an appropriate arena to advertise your personal politics or religious beliefs. Any changes that appear ideologically motivated will be rejected.
Someone changing “he” to “they” (original PR that started all this) in a comment as their only change could absolutely be seen as “politically motivated.” My understanding is that if changing the comment was part of some larger useful change, it would be fine (as would using “she” or “they” in a new comment), but just changing the gender of a pronoun in a comment is a useless change.
If the comment said “she,” would someone have been motivated to make this change? Probably not. Should changing this from “she” to some other pronoun (he or they) also be rejected? Yes, on the same grounds as changing it from “he,” it’s not a useful change and just wastes everyone’s time. If you’re in the code already, then go ahead, correct silly language like this if you care to.
They are political, because people (I’m not one of them) think they shouldn’t be allowed and there are only two genders (e.g. the current president of the US).
Someone changing “he” to “they” (original PR that started all this) in a comment as their only change could absolutely be seen as “politically motivated.”
Look at the fallout in the comments on those PRs, it quickly devolved into politics and quickly away from any technical merit.
If this exact same change were included with other changes, I highly doubt anyone would’ve cared about the comment. The issue isn’t with the text of the comment, but with the likely motivation and the actual merits of the PR. Many projects immediately reject tiny PRs because they clog up the review queue, and that appears to be what’s happening here, plus all the political nonsense in the issue comments.
Someone else posted a writeup about it.
It wasn’t in documentation, but a code comment. No user would see this.
One part was a rejected change on the README, which was trying to remove this “white supremacist language”:
Someone changing “he” to “they” (original PR that started all this) in a comment as their only change could absolutely be seen as “politically motivated.” My understanding is that if changing the comment was part of some larger useful change, it would be fine (as would using “she” or “they” in a new comment), but just changing the gender of a pronoun in a comment is a useless change.
If the comment said “she,” would someone have been motivated to make this change? Probably not. Should changing this from “she” to some other pronoun (he or they) also be rejected? Yes, on the same grounds as changing it from “he,” it’s not a useful change and just wastes everyone’s time. If you’re in the code already, then go ahead, correct silly language like this if you care to.
Inclusive pronouns are not political, full stop.
They are political, because people (I’m not one of them) think they shouldn’t be allowed and there are only two genders (e.g. the current president of the US).
I never said they were.
Look at the fallout in the comments on those PRs, it quickly devolved into politics and quickly away from any technical merit.
If this exact same change were included with other changes, I highly doubt anyone would’ve cared about the comment. The issue isn’t with the text of the comment, but with the likely motivation and the actual merits of the PR. Many projects immediately reject tiny PRs because they clog up the review queue, and that appears to be what’s happening here, plus all the political nonsense in the issue comments.
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