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by MauranKilom 2449 days ago
It's kind of the reverse: The mod in question adamantly refused singular "they" in particular, not for religious or transphobic but rather stylistic reasons (from what I could find). But that's hours of chat and months of context boiled down into one third-hand sentence.

SE has not said whether this in particular was the cause for the firing, but it seems evident. Regardless, there is no indication that SE intends to undo the firing.

1 comments

Thank you for summing up.

What I still don't quite get is: did the mod reject singular they a) when preference was unknown (ie: prefer to rewrite), b) reject singular they, when preferred (someone not identifying as male/female), c) Choose the conventional "he" over singular they when preference was unknown?k8s

From what I've read it's a) - and it's pretty hard for me to imagine a scenario in which that seems like a good reason to drop a moderator.

Also, is this a volunteer being kicked, or is it some kind of paid position?

Ed: from tfa: "Second, we hurt a longstanding member of the community and an important volunteer moderator." So I guess that answers my last question.

From what I can tell it's a) and b). Side-stepping the issue by avoiding pronouns or disengaging altogether was suggested by the moderator but dismissed as not an option because similarly hurtful in (perceived?) intent.