This is actually fairly similar to the comment I was thinking of posting, if the discussion headed in a direction that would allow it:
Assume that accessability is relatively isomorphic. I’m not sure if it is, but using that assumption seems to work in this case.
If you’re designing a building, and want it to be accessable, it’s a good idea to imagine it being used by people of varying abilities. Consider how it’d be used by someone in a wheelchair, someone who’s blind and uses a cane, someone with a seeing eye dog, someone who’s deaf, someone who has trouble walking very far, and so on. If you can envision all of those people being able to use every aspect of your building, you’ve probably done a reasonable job.
If you’re trying to have a public discussion, and want it to be accessable, it’s a good idea to imagine it being used by various kinds of people, too. Would a woman feel comfortable contributing to all of the discussions here? How about a parent? A teenager? Someone from another culture? Someone who’s more interested in painting than in programming?
I use the RSS feed, and don’t bother clicking on links to articles that don’t sound interesting, so I have too much selection bias to comment on what portion of the articles are useful to all of those groups. And I’m not saying that every article has to be useful to everyone. But to whatever degree the discussion here focuses on the interests of unpartnered, heterosexual, male computer geeks—or any other group—over everyone else, people who are not members of that group will find less value here, and simply won’t stay.
The world is full of discussion clubs available to everyone. But virtually all the online communities I’ve ever liked have first thrived on exclusivity and early adopter bias, and then became utterly uninteresting due to dilution. I, for one, would volunteer to get banned and have read-only access to LW if this would increase the quality of discussion back to pre-gender-wars levels.
See, I’m precisely that math and code nerd that you stereotype. I don’t want “accessible”; I want interesting, thought-provoking, mind-expanding. I’d like every post to include math and psychology references to follow into the maze, simulator programs to run and rewrite… If there’s an interesting application of math to PUA, I want to see it and try it out, not be overwhelmed by a chorus of accessibility activists who can’t even recite the formulas from memory, much less make sense of them. You want to talk gender politics because my choice of words offends you? Go back to your hole where other people’s opinions matter instead of facts. I heard Facebook is a nice site—they even have special forums where you can argue about gay marriage.
Whew, sorry if that was inflammatory. I didn’t mean you specifically; just a strawman I desperately want to knock down and forget the whole topic like a bad dream.
I really need to find a way of making my ‘if’ statements more obvious. If you’re interested in having a discussion that’s accessable to a diverse group of people, consider following the above advice. If not, ignore it. I didn’t comment one way or the other on whether or not the group should do so, and even commented negatively on the fact that Alicorn did.
I’m not sure what to make of the comment that I’ve stereotyped nerds. I strongly implied that the topics here focus on the interests of the most common demographic (again, there was an ‘if’ in front of that), but you just said that you see that as a good thing, so I’m not sure why you’re offended that I mentioned that it may be happening.
I’ve also said nothing about word choice, mostly because I find feminists who take offense at word choice to be fairly confusing, and if I have to chime in on that issue, my comment will not be in support of them.
ETA: I’m having a very bad brain day. I know this post is probably not as coherent as I usually try to be. My appologies if I put my foot in my mouth somehow.
I found a flaw in my post. There is not a dichotomy between valuing making LW more accessable and valuing other things, so the second sentence should read “To the degree that you value having a discussion that’s accessable to a diverse group of people, consider following the above advice. In cases where other things that are more important conflict with that, ignore it.”
Sounds good to me.
This is actually fairly similar to the comment I was thinking of posting, if the discussion headed in a direction that would allow it:
Assume that accessability is relatively isomorphic. I’m not sure if it is, but using that assumption seems to work in this case.
If you’re designing a building, and want it to be accessable, it’s a good idea to imagine it being used by people of varying abilities. Consider how it’d be used by someone in a wheelchair, someone who’s blind and uses a cane, someone with a seeing eye dog, someone who’s deaf, someone who has trouble walking very far, and so on. If you can envision all of those people being able to use every aspect of your building, you’ve probably done a reasonable job.
If you’re trying to have a public discussion, and want it to be accessable, it’s a good idea to imagine it being used by various kinds of people, too. Would a woman feel comfortable contributing to all of the discussions here? How about a parent? A teenager? Someone from another culture? Someone who’s more interested in painting than in programming?
I use the RSS feed, and don’t bother clicking on links to articles that don’t sound interesting, so I have too much selection bias to comment on what portion of the articles are useful to all of those groups. And I’m not saying that every article has to be useful to everyone. But to whatever degree the discussion here focuses on the interests of unpartnered, heterosexual, male computer geeks—or any other group—over everyone else, people who are not members of that group will find less value here, and simply won’t stay.
Teenagers? Parents? What’s with that?
The world is full of discussion clubs available to everyone. But virtually all the online communities I’ve ever liked have first thrived on exclusivity and early adopter bias, and then became utterly uninteresting due to dilution. I, for one, would volunteer to get banned and have read-only access to LW if this would increase the quality of discussion back to pre-gender-wars levels.
See, I’m precisely that math and code nerd that you stereotype. I don’t want “accessible”; I want interesting, thought-provoking, mind-expanding. I’d like every post to include math and psychology references to follow into the maze, simulator programs to run and rewrite… If there’s an interesting application of math to PUA, I want to see it and try it out, not be overwhelmed by a chorus of accessibility activists who can’t even recite the formulas from memory, much less make sense of them. You want to talk gender politics because my choice of words offends you? Go back to your hole where other people’s opinions matter instead of facts. I heard Facebook is a nice site—they even have special forums where you can argue about gay marriage.
Whew, sorry if that was inflammatory. I didn’t mean you specifically; just a strawman I desperately want to knock down and forget the whole topic like a bad dream.
I really need to find a way of making my ‘if’ statements more obvious. If you’re interested in having a discussion that’s accessable to a diverse group of people, consider following the above advice. If not, ignore it. I didn’t comment one way or the other on whether or not the group should do so, and even commented negatively on the fact that Alicorn did.
I’m not sure what to make of the comment that I’ve stereotyped nerds. I strongly implied that the topics here focus on the interests of the most common demographic (again, there was an ‘if’ in front of that), but you just said that you see that as a good thing, so I’m not sure why you’re offended that I mentioned that it may be happening.
I’ve also said nothing about word choice, mostly because I find feminists who take offense at word choice to be fairly confusing, and if I have to chime in on that issue, my comment will not be in support of them.
ETA: I’m having a very bad brain day. I know this post is probably not as coherent as I usually try to be. My appologies if I put my foot in my mouth somehow.
My apologies; I didn’t read your comment as carefully as I should have before replying.
Don’t feel too bad, that kind of misreading happens all the time. It’s almost certainly something about my writing style. :P
I found a flaw in my post. There is not a dichotomy between valuing making LW more accessable and valuing other things, so the second sentence should read “To the degree that you value having a discussion that’s accessable to a diverse group of people, consider following the above advice. In cases where other things that are more important conflict with that, ignore it.”