[smsm42]

> What do these political police stand to gain from all of this?

A warm fuzzy feeling of seemingly contributing to the Forces of Good and fighting the Forces of Evil. Some launch rockets to the Moon, some create beautiful art, some create awesome software. Some instead bully people to not use certain words. The consider it their contribution to the society. Unfortunately, as more and more people fold to their pressure, this serves as confirmation that this contribution is worthwhile and there's more to come. If you write a symphony and it is applauded, you want to write another one. If you speech-police one project and it works, you want to speech-police another one.

[master-litty]

It's creating a culture that is welcoming to more individuals, regardless of sex, race, and background.

It's not bullying. In fact, I'd say active code maintainers who receive these requests and don't _reasonably_ accommodate them are the real bullies.

[smsm42]

> It's creating a culture that is welcoming to more individuals

Somehow I feel less welcome in a culture where there are lots of people vigilantly seeking offense where none ever was and waiting to pounce on the use of every word they can find any reason, real or imaginary, to feel slighted with. In fact, I feel a strong desire to not touch such a culture with a ten foot pole. I am glad to contribute my time and my effort to open source (and I regularly do), but I would not want to be a target of hate mob trying to ruin my life or argue with concern trolls, that's just not how I want to spend my life.

> It's not bullying

You do what they want, or they'll hurt you and your project. How it's not bullying?

> In fact, I'd say active code maintainers who receive these requests and don't _reasonably_ accommodate them are the real bullies.

You may say whatever you want, but you will be wrong. Actual bullies are those who try to force people to behave to their liking with threats and hurt. No amount of redefining terms will change that. If you threaten to hurt someone in any way - virtually or physically - over some words that they say or don't say to your liking - you are a bully. It's not hard to see.

[lanyard-textile]

This is extreme and very, very far beyond the scope of what I was attempting to discuss.

That's a lot different than simply submitting a PR to change "man" to "person" -- If there's actual physical threats occurring on a regular basis within our communities I'm severely uninformed. No argument, it's bullying and it's wrong.

I suppose in that case, I advocate the underlying message but not its conveyance.

[malvosenior]

Creating and maintaining an open source project is an act of generosity. Making demands on open source maintainers and "shaming" them into political actions in no way creates a welcoming culture, quite the contrary.

If you don't like the code, fork it if you must but don't harass the creator of the thing you get to use for free.

[lanyard-textile]

I believe I'm misinformed about what's happening lately, I'm not advocating for political action or anything of that nature. Just supporting the underlying message.