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To be fair, you don't have to try very hard to find 'bro' offensive. The definition of bro I'm familar with (quoting wikipedia here) is 'a type of "fratty masculinity", predominantly "if not exclusively" white'. See also the phrase 'bros before hoes'.

This isn't the most serious thing in the world, but there are definitely people who find it excluding, and that seems reasonable to me.



Excluding? How? If it were a .chick or something similar I would not feel like it was meant for only female use.

This is CS, a lack of groupthink-y "professionalism" is why I like this field.


The reason you wouldn't feel it was only for female use is that (I imagine, I'm sorry if I misinterpret your life) you have not been made to feel that a field you love (computing) is mainly "not for you", but for the other gender (or another group).

While it's not nice to accept, most women I know well in computing have had bad experiences with "bro"-type people, saying they shouldn't / can't use a computer because they are a woman. On an at least monthly basis. For years. It grinds slowly over time.

If you think CS is professional, I've got some bad news for you -- there are quite a lot of toxic badly behaved people around unfortunately.


I agree, women should not be discouraged from the CS field. It is in fact bizarre to me that someone would tell women they don't belong in CS.

But my point is that this is not particularly offensive, it's purely a pun. I think being oversensitive can be as damaging as being unsensitive.


.chick sounds offensive, but for different reasons.


It could be. I could mean it that way, or I could mean it like "Sis", or I could just like the sound. Without intent to be rude, it's not.

But I disagree with how hard you have to try. The people on here are trying fairly hard to make sure everyone knows how offensive they might find it. It didn't offend you, but you're offended that it might offend someone, or worse - that it might not offend someone. Nobody said "It's the compression method for white men", that whole racist angle is yours.

I find your shaming word-police game to be exclusionary. Please stop it.


I do not find it offensive. But, I do know people who found it offensive, and wanted it changed. If that is the case, I can see no particular reason not to change the name.

Who exactly is being excluded? No-one (it seems to me) watch attached to .bro, it only existed for a couple of days.


Who wanted it is beside the point. It was crushed under political correctness (ie the assumption of unspeakable harm) rather than any actual harm in only a few days.

If anyone did like it I doubt they'd have felt free to speak up.

> I do know people who found it offensive

I find Bros offensive - in my house. But the word? No. "Nazi" is just a word, Nazis are offensive.

> I can see no particular reason not to change the name.

Ditto there's no reason to. Someone went out of their way to take offense which was bounced around an echo chamber and now everyone is offended by something they didn't know existed before today.

That's not something we should reward.




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