[AnimalMuppet]

> except without additional context it could’ve been a she.

True. And sometimes I even say "he/she" or "they". But 1) the vast majority of people on HN are male (I'd guess 90%, but I have no hard data), 2) the default "she" for doesn't fit on a male-dominated site, especially when referring to a real individual, 3) "he/she" sounds more inclusive, but it still misses nonbinary people, and 4) "they" just sounds off to me when referring to an individual.

I could have, instead of saying "he", gone up-thread and used the name of the poster, but... sometimes I'm lazy.

[vacuity]

I try to use people's names directly but sometimes I forget and sometimes it just reads weirdly. On HN I'd use "parent", "grandparent", etc. anyways because it's a fun little quirk here. I don't like using "they" to refer to an individual either.