[ctdonath]

What "gatekeeping"? The whole fascinating point is that there isn't any "gatekeeping" on SO. The demographics may be remarkably skewed, yes ... not for any categorical exclusion, but for self-selected choice to not engage.

If people choose to avoid a group, while that group in no way excludes them, why keep blaming the group?

[marcAKAmarc]

By "gatekeeping", I'm referring to the efforts made to exclude certain content. By this definition (which I probably should have defined earlier), I would say that SO is founded on gatekeeping and that gatekeeping even makes SO the great resource that it is. After all, the quality of content on SO would surely go down if low quality content wasn't downvoted.

So I'm not "blaming the group", but instead I'm trying to make the point that when the current SO system is paired with a homogeneous user base will, it probably naturally become more an more homogeneous for the reasons stated above, unless an outside force enters the system.

I would argue that this isn't about fault or blame or guilt, but instead about deciding whether or not to take action to make SO a more inclusive place, especially for those who may be predisposed to feel exclusion in the context of SO.