Don't use Summer and Winter for event invites, it's "northern" and not inclusive

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03245-0

by fsckboy • 2 years ago

14 18 2 years ago

h2odragon• 2 years ago

68% of the land surface of the earth is in fact "northern". What percentage of scientific publications originate in the southern hemisphere?

We should immediately classify all human knowledge by the geography of its originators and refuse to accept anything not of "southern" origin until the imbalance is addressed.

Remember, only statistics can enforce equality!

wlesieutre• 2 years ago

Is it summer where the event is hosted? Then it’s a summer event.

This is like saying “Stop inviting me to uninclusive birthday parties, it’s not my birthday.”

geetee• 2 years ago

People keep finding more hills to die on.

mlinhares• 2 years ago

Such a terrible use of "inclusive". Just say it's dumb to use non-global references to time in global events, this isn't about being inclusive, but about not being an idiot and noticing we do have a very global way to measure time, in months and years, and use that instead.

Worse, if you're in the tropics, northern hemisphere or not, there are only two seasons, so these seasonal references make even less sense.

morpheuskafka• 2 years ago

The term should describe where the event will be held. If it is held in somewhere where it is summer, then call it Summer Expo. If it is held somewhere where it is winter, then call it Winter Expo. Not sure how this could even be remotely controversial. Of course it is based on where the event/organizer is located, not wherever you happen to be reading the email.

If it is truly a global, virtual event not linked to any one place (or a group of physical events), then yeah you shouldn't use either.

dstanko• 2 years ago

Right now is tomorrow somewhere. The article is East/West non-inclusive.

wheybags• 2 years ago

Until shockingly recently I thought the definition of summer, winter etc was just when it's hot / cold in England. So I thought December is still winter even in Australia, it's just not cold in winter there. In my defense, we measure longitude and timezones relative to London, so it wouldn't be without precedent.

zeroimpl• 2 years ago

Avoid scheduling events for January is just a good idea regardless. CES is the worst date possible.

xhkkffbf• 2 years ago

And all of this is caused by the way that the earth spins on an axis. And who chose this axis? Is this axis somehow privileging some? We should now devote lots of effort to change the axis to rectify this unfairness.

Dilettante_• 2 years ago

The author makes it sound like precise dates are never given, like you just get an invitation to a "summer" event and are expected to just show up whenever?

There's a utility to telling people early in the planning stage "Hey, we're gonna be hosting this thing vaguely in summer" and send out the proper date when you've set one.

(Though point taken about the seasons, maybe something like "2nd Quarter" would be less culturally ambiguous?)

mdp20212• 2 years ago

point taken about the seasons

They have not provided examples; for all it seems, their suggestion could attack the use of "we do it twice per year, so we called one the Summer event and the other the Winter event". Which is just a fuzzy adoption of the terms for practical reasons. Not an «oversight», not a «mistake»: just a quick neutral labelling for calling things some way.

grahamj• 2 years ago

Is that fiscal or calendar? :D

mdp20212• 2 years ago

I find it so difficult to believe that invitations arrive for an event without a date and/or place specified, so that there will be no ambiguity - making the denomination "Summer event" just a convenient label for something that does not happen more than four times per year.

anotherhue• 2 years ago

My gut says southern hemisphere researchers would much prefer increased funding and visibility than language policing.

tzs• 2 years ago

My gut says saying "June" instead of "Summer" when describing a northern hemisphere event would have no effect on southern hemisphere research funding.

kcplate• 2 years ago

I honestly felt the need to check the date on this article to make sure it wasn’t April 1st. I am disappointed that it wasn’t an April Fools day prank. Of course I may be risking offending somebody who practices April Fools day on another day by this comment.

hagbard_c• 2 years ago

How Nature has fallen, how they relish in publishing articles by those who wallow in victimhood. From an objective meritocracy to a subjective victimacracy, from the scientific method to the the squeaky wheel.

In other words, if you feel you need to question whether you're invited when someone invites you to his winter conference because it happens to be summer where you are when the conference takes place, by all means consider yourself to be disinvited. It is clear the seasonal discrepancy is too much hardship for you and it is also clear the conference is much better off without having to cater to yet another victimhood hierarchy. Just ignore the invitation and be done with it.

For those who nevertheless want to consider going to a winter conference it is probably more informative to know it is going to be bloody cold - i.e. winter - when that conference takes place. This is good to know if you come from the southern hemisphere where it can be bloody warm around that time.

voidr• 2 years ago

I think this video says it all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bMmboRqRe8

Don't use Summer and Winter for event invites, it's "northern" and not inclusive

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