35 upvotes, 2 direct replies (showing 2)
View submission: Announcing Online Presence Indicators
Words matter. "hiding" is a negatively loaded term.
It speaks volumes for what the admins want to accomplish if they don't choose a more neutral term when this feature is fully released.
Here are some options of varying quality:
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We can all imagine what people will do if they're online when they get banned from a subreddit. They'll check who's online or "hiding" to find out who banned them.
If a post is removed, same thing. If they have any gripe and don't get an instant reply in modmail and see a mod online, there'll be an expectation that they should be bugged with a private message or chat request.
The affordance of this feature is obvious. That's something admin has to plan for.
Comment by [deleted] at 03/03/2021 at 20:58 UTC
10 upvotes, 1 direct replies
It speaks volumes for what the admins want to accomplish if they don't choose a more neutral term when this feature is fully released.
Based on past cockups with language on other features, I think it's less likely that the word choice is nefarious and more likely that they've just got zero people on their team that know thing one about language, communication, and messaging. In other words, I don't think they considered connotation at all.
Comment by txmadison at 03/03/2021 at 20:43 UTC
7 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I give it less than a day before someone writes a script to poll the status of every mod of a subreddit constantly so they can map 'activity' to 'which mods are online' and also use it to break rules during the 'least modded' time of day.