Daniel, while you may be technically correct it's really not useful to point out.
At various points in the past people have attempted to patch the masculine version of pronouns to be gender non-specific (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun). This has been widely unsuccessful and while "guys" to you may be the equivalent of "people" it definitely has gendered tones. The best solution is to try your best to stick to gender neutral versions. Saying "Hey everyone" or "Hey rubyists" or "Hello there, reader" can all work. This goes across the board, if you don't have enough information to pin a gender, you should try not to. I personally enjoy playing "the gender-neutral game" by trying to avoid all references to gender, even when the subject is obviously gendered to all parties (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Gender-neutral_language). And now a lesson: When someone expresses they feel like they're being excluded, the easiest way to make that worse is to explicitly tell them they're wrong. I personally believe you had the best of intentions, but I recommend more tact in the future. These conversations can easily flame up - so I'm hoping that we won't have too many more replies. Let's all try to keep this list on topic (while still allowing people to bring up issues of inequity and unprofessional conduct). - Ben On Friday, 3 May 2013 at 5:33 PM, Daniel Sabados wrote: > > On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 2:49 PM, Alex "Skud" Bayley <s...@infotrope.net > (mailto:s...@infotrope.net)> wrote: > > On 3/05/13 9:17 AM, Brent Thomson wrote: > > > > > > Hi Guys, > > > > > > > > > > > > Just a reminder that not everyone on this mailing list is a guy. > > Just a reminder guys that "guys" refers to either sex. > > http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/guy > > (guys) people of either sex:you guys want some coffee? > http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/guy > > b : person (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/person) —used in plural > to refer to the members of a group regardless of sex <saw her and the rest of > the guys> > > Just saying.. > > > > > A. > > > > -- Alex "Skud" Bayley s...@infotrope.net (mailto:s...@infotrope.net) > > http://infotrope.net/ > > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > > "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group. > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > > email to rails-oceania+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > > (mailto:rails-oceania%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com). > > To post to this group, send email to rails-oceania@googlegroups.com > > (mailto:rails-oceania@googlegroups.com). > > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania?hl=en. > > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to rails-oceania+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > (mailto:rails-oceania+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com). > To post to this group, send email to rails-oceania@googlegroups.com > (mailto:rails-oceania@googlegroups.com). > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania?hl=en. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rails-oceania+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rails-oceania@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
