this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2024

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A request to change the docs etc for those of us who aren't human. (beehaw.org)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by SweetCitrusBuzz@beehaw.org to c/support@beehaw.org

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We were wondering if the docs etc here could be rewritten in such a way so as to not call all of us human since some of us are not.

Much like being transgender, being otherkin, alter{human/being} or transspecies can have a lot of dysphoria attached to it and we have had to at least explicitly tell one person on lemmy that we are not human even though it is in our profile.

We think that being more inclusive is always a good thing and will gladly work with those who can edit the docs etc in order to find more inclusive ways to say what needs to be said without misspeciesing any{one/many}.

Thanks for reading this and we hope this finds y'all well.

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[–] TehPers@beehaw.org 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Do you have any specific examples of text that should be changed in the docs?

[–] SweetCitrusBuzz@beehaw.org 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

being emotional is a normal part of being a human

Humans are pretty good at figuring out when someone is being a jerk online

One solution to this problem is to recenter humans in our online social platforms.

explain to someone why you’re a human and why you shouldn’t be subject to incessant bigotry online.

However, get enough humans together

you’re probably at least aware of this from simply living with other humans.

and other such disconnects are commonly discussed when cohabitating with another human.

I treat other Beeple with good faith, even when I think they are not responding to me in kind, unless they are unequivocally advocating for hate or intolerance of fellow humans.

In the context of human emotion, however, we see plenty of reasons to not have downvotes.

if people want to disagree they will need to think about how they want to approach another human being and frame this disagreement.

Mental health is often an emotionally charged subject and even though we’re all human and want to hold space to allow this kind of healing

certain kinds of communities focused on taking pictures of humans

Bots that always post without human intervention are noisy and are often unwanted.

Some are also simply fairly regular humans

rife for abuse in a plethora of ways that humans

We understand that we’re all human and aren’t going to be perfect at all times

There’s been a lot of content which I so rarely see on other places on the internet that feels so much more welcoming and human than many other spaces on the internet.

You’re all wonderful human beings.

[–] TehPers@beehaw.org 10 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

To me, it seems like replacing almost all instances of this with "people" would be a harmless change. Is that something that would work? (Some, like "human emotion", could just become "emotion")

[–] SweetCitrusBuzz@beehaw.org 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

We were thinking people or sentients/sapients, yeah.

[–] Gaywallet@beehaw.org 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

As @alyaza@beehaw.org already mentioned, completely open to making changes here, but I'm curious to gather some more of your thoughts. People includes human in the definition, are there not some who would disagree with its use because of this? Sapient is a word derived from the Latin word for wisdom. Wisdom is most certainly a human concept, and I doubt many would consider non-human life "wise" and certainly some might withhold that designation from otherkin because of their beliefs. While sapient has been used in science fiction as a way to somewhat dehumanize the concept of intelligence, I'd argue that humans might not be all that great at determining what intelligence is. Over the last 100 years our concept of what life on Earth are intelligent has changed drastically. Sentient is perhaps the least problematic of these suggestions, however even it refers to the ability to experience feelings or sensations, which are both also ultimately human concepts - whether someone would consider the ability to detect magnetic fields as a feeling or sensation is much more debatable than the senses that humans have (sight, hearing, etc.).

I know some who identify as otherkin and plenty of folks who might be closer to that constellation of identities than I am, but I've never had a discussion around this particular topic - how to best refer to you and others like you when creating documents meant to apply to them. I think we want to do our best to accommodate your needs as well as the needs of those similar to you, but given the issues I've raised above I could see how accommodating you might not accommodate others and we could easily get trapped in an endless revision cycle. I don't know that you have an answer for me, but if you get a chance could you share your thoughts on the above? Is there a path forward in which we can still create a document which is clear enough that anyone who possesses the ability to read and understand English will understand our intentions? Or is there a cutoff point at which "enough" comprehension is acceptable because an attempt to widen the language will make comprehension more difficult?

[–] alyaza@beehaw.org 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

at least for this specific wording change: we can get around to this eventually, but it's on the backburner for now

[–] SweetCitrusBuzz@beehaw.org 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

We realise that asking to change quotes or organisation names is too much so we're sticking to what's directly in the documents that aren't quotes or organisation names, as best as we can tell.