The internet’s largest coding forum told users Thursday to start deleting “unkind comments” to make the community more inclusive for black people and women.
Stack Overflow executive vice president of culture and experience Jay Hanlon said he wanted to change the site’s policy from “don’t be an asshole” to “be welcoming” (emphasis theirs).
“Too many people experience Stack Overflow as a hostile or elitist place, especially newer coders, women, people of color, and others in marginalized groups,” Hanlon stated.
The executive vice president proceeded to explain precisely why these individuals’ feelings were so indisputable.
“The nice thing about problems that relate to how people feel is that finding the truth is easy,” Hanlon said. “Feelings have no ‘technically correct.’ They’re just what the feeler is telling you. When someone tells you how they feel, you can pack up your magnifying glass and clue kit, cuz [sic] that’s the answer. You’re done.”
Hanlon suggested that a poor user experience often consisted of “snarky or condescending comments,” remarks critiquing others’ ability to speak English, and Stack Overflow’s “no pleases or thank yous” rule, intended to optimize the question-answer process.
“As it happens, making people feel left out is a deep personal fear of mine,” the administrator confided. “Those of us who have privilege, but care deeply about reducing bias should be uniquely positioned to help, but we struggle the hardest to recognize that we are (unintentionally) biased ourselves.”
The executive vice president said he would be assigning employees from the company’s community, data, design, engineering, executive, and research teams to the inclusion effort and pointed to Stack Overflow’s code of conduct, which includes provisions banning “rudeness and belittling language” and “be[ing] a jerk,” saying the community needed to “empower [all users] to enforce it.”
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