Every time I read about IndieWeb, Small Web, there's so much drama. It makes me not want to be part of anything. I wish we could just join a group of like-minded folks and have fun? But I guess...
Every time I read about IndieWeb, Small Web, there's so much drama. It makes me not want to be part of anything. I wish we could just join a group of like-minded folks and have fun? But I guess drama is human, part of any group, maybe I'm overthinking it.
I don't know that I'd call it a "crisis" over IndieWeb in general. Just an instance of a participant not really adhering to the values/CoC the IndieWeb tries to uphold, sadly. That guy is just one...
I don't know that I'd call it a "crisis" over IndieWeb in general. Just an instance of a participant not really adhering to the values/CoC the IndieWeb tries to uphold, sadly. That guy is just one of the many people involved in creating projects that happen to be considered part of the "IndieWeb" which is a loose community of independent/personal sites and the tools/platforms that power them. I don't think he's involved in any official capacity with indieweb.org and so on, though I could be wrong- doesn't seem to be much in the way of info about any involvement in any places of power or leadership or self-identification as "part of the IndieWeb".
That said, I think the apology is pretty lacking especially given the fact that he doubled-down initially, and tried to play the victim (a theme that still even carries through into the apology). They made it about themselves, they don't make any kind of statement that would lead one to believe they see things differently at all, etc. They avoid the subject entirely. It's more about what they didn't say than what they did. My takeaway is, this person seems like they're probably still a transphobe and just sorry they made their transphobia public.
I understand that the Indie developer had some subtext around their quotes around the word pronouns and I am not here to defend what the article implied that means but I have a question I am a bit...
I understand that the Indie developer had some subtext around their quotes around the word pronouns and I am not here to defend what the article implied that means but I have a question I am a bit hesitant to ask...
What is wrong with adding a skip button to the pronoun prompt? Wouldn’t it be more inclusive to have such an option for people who don’t care about pronouns? Or maybe those who aren’t even sure yet what their pronouns should be?
I think having a skip button would make it even more complicated to implement from a game developer perspective, especially depending on the context of the game. Would you then just always have...
I think having a skip button would make it even more complicated to implement from a game developer perspective, especially depending on the context of the game.
Would you then just always have the character referred to by their name rather than pronouns, in every dialogue? That seems like it would be more complicated to implement. Pronouns are fairly ingrained in the English language and so it would feel a bit odd to not use them at all. In the case where someone isn’t sure what pronouns they preferred to be called, I feel the standard would just be “they/them” (like I used in this sentence). I wouldn’t expect most games (even ones being inclusive) to provide options outside of “he/him, she/her, they/them” as pronoun options, but they certainly could (as there are people that go by other neo-pronouns, combinations of the above, etc). (But adding a free-text field for pronouns could lead to messy interactions, hence why likely a game developer would choose a subset to select from rather than allowing a free-text field).
I would assume the indie web developer complaining would prefer the “skip pronouns” option to default their character to the pronouns associated with the characters gender-presentation…which I would assume would be the default pronoun selection, assuming a checkbox rather than free-text entry. In which case, “skip” would be the same as just hitting “continue.” So without knowing how the game presented it, it’s very difficult to see any sort of positive framing (or non-negative subtext) from the indie web developers comment.
Yeah as I said I did not want to excuse their comment whatsoever. I was just wondering if there was any implicit transphobia in choosing to have a skip button - outside of the context of their...
Yeah as I said I did not want to excuse their comment whatsoever.
I was just wondering if there was any implicit transphobia in choosing to have a skip button - outside of the context of their comment.
I would have imagined a skip button would simply default to they/them. Or random. Not a “no pronoun” run where the character is called by name every time.
Don’t worry, I didn’t take your comment as excusing theirs. Yeah, I don’t think having a “skip” would be implicitly transphobic, but I also don’t see how a “skip” button would realistically differ...
Don’t worry, I didn’t take your comment as excusing theirs.
Yeah, I don’t think having a “skip” would be implicitly transphobic, but I also don’t see how a “skip” button would realistically differ from a “continue” button and default selection.
A “skip” button just assigning “they/them” or random pronouns would likely result in more anti-pronouns comments from people choosing to skip and then being mad about their characters pronouns not being the cisnormative pronouns they expected.
The way I see it is that there are abstract games where the player doesn't even have any gender at one extreme and games with an elaborate character sheet at the other extreme. How much time...
The way I see it is that there are abstract games where the player doesn't even have any gender at one extreme and games with an elaborate character sheet at the other extreme.
How much time should you spend on setting up your character? It depends on game.
Some games let you roll for a random character. Others might give you a few default characters you can pick if you don't want to customize.
Defaults can be political. For example, whenever you ask a user their country, what's the default going to be? Would it make sense to put common defaults first, or just go with an alphabetical pulldown list?
Every time I read about IndieWeb, Small Web, there's so much drama. It makes me not want to be part of anything. I wish we could just join a group of like-minded folks and have fun? But I guess drama is human, part of any group, maybe I'm overthinking it.
Edit: Not saying he's not wrong, of course he is.
Yeap. Related, that's the reason I moved from small Mastodon instances to the flagship one (.social).
Crisis over indie web. Adam is talking about this guy.
I don't know that I'd call it a "crisis" over IndieWeb in general. Just an instance of a participant not really adhering to the values/CoC the IndieWeb tries to uphold, sadly. That guy is just one of the many people involved in creating projects that happen to be considered part of the "IndieWeb" which is a loose community of independent/personal sites and the tools/platforms that power them. I don't think he's involved in any official capacity with indieweb.org and so on, though I could be wrong- doesn't seem to be much in the way of info about any involvement in any places of power or leadership or self-identification as "part of the IndieWeb".
That said, I think the apology is pretty lacking especially given the fact that he doubled-down initially, and tried to play the victim (a theme that still even carries through into the apology). They made it about themselves, they don't make any kind of statement that would lead one to believe they see things differently at all, etc. They avoid the subject entirely. It's more about what they didn't say than what they did. My takeaway is, this person seems like they're probably still a transphobe and just sorry they made their transphobia public.
I understand that the Indie developer had some subtext around their quotes around the word pronouns and I am not here to defend what the article implied that means but I have a question I am a bit hesitant to ask...
What is wrong with adding a skip button to the pronoun prompt? Wouldn’t it be more inclusive to have such an option for people who don’t care about pronouns? Or maybe those who aren’t even sure yet what their pronouns should be?
I think having a skip button would make it even more complicated to implement from a game developer perspective, especially depending on the context of the game.
Would you then just always have the character referred to by their name rather than pronouns, in every dialogue? That seems like it would be more complicated to implement. Pronouns are fairly ingrained in the English language and so it would feel a bit odd to not use them at all. In the case where someone isn’t sure what pronouns they preferred to be called, I feel the standard would just be “they/them” (like I used in this sentence). I wouldn’t expect most games (even ones being inclusive) to provide options outside of “he/him, she/her, they/them” as pronoun options, but they certainly could (as there are people that go by other neo-pronouns, combinations of the above, etc). (But adding a free-text field for pronouns could lead to messy interactions, hence why likely a game developer would choose a subset to select from rather than allowing a free-text field).
I would assume the indie web developer complaining would prefer the “skip pronouns” option to default their character to the pronouns associated with the characters gender-presentation…which I would assume would be the default pronoun selection, assuming a checkbox rather than free-text entry. In which case, “skip” would be the same as just hitting “continue.” So without knowing how the game presented it, it’s very difficult to see any sort of positive framing (or non-negative subtext) from the indie web developers comment.
Yeah as I said I did not want to excuse their comment whatsoever.
I was just wondering if there was any implicit transphobia in choosing to have a skip button - outside of the context of their comment.
I would have imagined a skip button would simply default to they/them. Or random. Not a “no pronoun” run where the character is called by name every time.
Don’t worry, I didn’t take your comment as excusing theirs.
Yeah, I don’t think having a “skip” would be implicitly transphobic, but I also don’t see how a “skip” button would realistically differ from a “continue” button and default selection.
A “skip” button just assigning “they/them” or random pronouns would likely result in more anti-pronouns comments from people choosing to skip and then being mad about their characters pronouns not being the cisnormative pronouns they expected.
The way I see it is that there are abstract games where the player doesn't even have any gender at one extreme and games with an elaborate character sheet at the other extreme.
How much time should you spend on setting up your character? It depends on game.
Some games let you roll for a random character. Others might give you a few default characters you can pick if you don't want to customize.
Defaults can be political. For example, whenever you ask a user their country, what's the default going to be? Would it make sense to put common defaults first, or just go with an alphabetical pulldown list?