Will a local refutation of this by daenerys relax fears?
Maybe? But she didn't.
I think that omission was justifiable. The nature of social principles of construction is that making your disagreement with them explicit is unlikely to be effective because (1) you won't always be believed, (2) you might look like you are signalling a belief rather than holding that belief, and (3) noting that a particular social convention doesn't apply in this circumstance can function to reinforce that the convention does and should apply in most circumstances.
Also, I owe you a bit of an apology. All of this was really obvious to me in reading Konkvistador's comment, and I erroneously assumed a short inferential distance. My semi-snarky reply to you assumes the short inferential distance. That is, I didn't assume your question was in good faith, and I should have. Sorry.
I in no way mean to make males feel unwelcome in this survey. All voices are welcome. However, I do feel that it is worthwhile to specifically encourage females to answer. Here is my reasoning below
Say 100 people respond to the survey. At only 8% female users, we are only going to have 8 female answers. If we want to know how females came to find the site, this isn't a very good sampling size.
I understand that this may upset some readers, and am sorry for this fact. I have set up a survey above, and if either the majority of respondents OR at least 15 people are upset by this, I will take down the phrase referring to gender in the OP.
In another thread, we have been discussing how people (especially female people) have come to find out about LessWrong. Instead of just guessing, I figured I would make a poll.
I remember in recent history there was a thread on the subject, but the answers were mainly "I got here from HPMoR" or "I've been here since OB". However, the question I want answered is:
How did you find HPMoR or OB in the first place?
Were you referred by a friend? Were you searching the internet for keywords like "rationality"? Were you linked from some other site you read?
Please answer! Even if you are a lurker; ESPECIALLY if you are a female reader! (There is a question where you can say you are a lurker, if you like!)
Click here to take the poll!
ETA- female *reader* and female *people*