Iâve been near the middle of this since the beginning, and donât think itâs turned into a witch hunt at all. I think @Kelfecil has been reasonable. Itâs fine for some people to not accept the apologies, but there havenât been (to my knowledge, anyway) very many people who did so. If there were some kind of organized effort to shout the offenders down in every public Netrunner space, that would be a witch hunt, but I donât see that happening. A few of the offenders are a little withdrawn right now, but I think thatâs equal parts self-reflection and upcoming US Regionals.
I disagree with this very strongly. I agree with you that offtopic commentary is fine in a vacuum, although in my opinion less so when itâs the grand finals of one of the biggest, most multinational tournaments in the gameâs history. But the blasĂ© sexism on display in that stream would not have been okay in any context. Thatâs a big part of why I wrote the article: I and many others think these are reasonable ground rules for inclusive participation in this community, and while thereâs obviously no way to explicitly enforce such things, weâll certainly keep speaking up when itâs warranted.
I put the âguysâ thing in very much intentionally. Itâs a prime example of a thing that seems totally normal only because so many people do it. If you stop and look at it, though, itâs only ever actually used to apply to a group that is either all men, or has men and women. That is, it implicitly refers to men by default, optionally including some women as well. It is not used to refer to groups of women, or when referring to groups one might assume default to women or assume to be majority women.
For example, have you ever heard a woman say she was going away for a weekend with âthe guys,â when meeting up with several women for a vacation? Or that she was talking to âthe guysâ from her pregnancy support group, unless there were men in the group?
That means it is inherently not gender neutral. Whether it is definitively a problem, or to what extent, is something I think reasonable people can disagree about â thatâs why I said âpotentially problematic.â
Iâm not suggesting that we should start shouting down anyone who ever uses the word âguys.â Iâm saying itâs a great example of something many people say without thinking about it, but that can leave some people feeling excluded. And the fact that itâs so commonly used makes it harder, not easier, for people who feel excluded to speak up.
A more obvious or egregious example would be easily dismissed as âoh, I never say that.â But many, many people say âguys.â Itâs a good way to get people thinking about this kind of stuff.
This is in some ways the first step toward becoming aware of this kind of stuff. I think people tend to go two ways from this statement: one is bemoaning modern âpolitically correctâ culture; the other is listening to the objections and thinking about why people have those objections, as I suggested in the article. You can do that and then conclude you donât agree, but it doesnât seem like youâve really heard and understood the objections yet. I hope this explanation combined with what I already wrote helps with that, even if you donât ultimately change your opinion.
Thanks for the feedback and for expressing appreciation! 
This article wasnât easy to write, and I really wanted to be testing for my upcoming Regional a lot more than I have been. But this was important, and the Stimhack front page was the right venue.