bisonrav

With respect, someone is categorizing programmers as "nearly autistic" on the basis of zero understanding of (a) the underlying root cause of the issue, (b) the makeup of the programming team (c) the release and testing processes. Programmers make mistakes. It's not extreme sloppiness. It's not a view of attitudes towards specific sub-segments of humanity, in this case leaving specific groupings out of test cases, which was the thrust of the post I was reacting to. It's a mistake that has been rectified.

Pulling it out as evidence of something it's not based on a particular agenda or worldview is disingenuous. It says more about the person making the specious comparison than the underlying situation. That this was tweeted for likes and retweets is reprehensible in my opinion. It is asking people to draw a general conclusion from a decontextualised and unusual situation.

DYKWIA

Anybody who claims programmers are all white hasn't been involved in IT for at least 20 years

SKT-DK

lorcancoyle

I really should have added some emojis to my original post

Yes, this isn’t BA being deliberately sexist
Yes, it does show a poor approach to testing and thinking things through
BA’s IT is so bad we shouldn’t be surprised these things crop up (weeks of downtime for upgrades that have multiple bugs, 2004 style interfaces at times, iPad apps that had to be withdrawn etc., haven’t had a FLY outage for at least a few weeks I think)

This is an airline that invested in getting Viscount, Countess etc. in as titles in their systems. And they fired the intern who kept loading those great mistake fares, the most value creation they’ve managed in a while (RIP Tequila, Viking etc.)

guytp

I recently interviewed a lady that has been working as a tester at BA. She was neither white, nor male, was not middle aged and also did not appear neurodiverse.

Yet here with are with BA’s systems.

wanderingjock

EXACTLY!!!!

IHateLHR

Another data point pointing in this direction is that I get the same answer trying to add API contact info for my daughter who is a 'Miss' per her BA account. Some switch that seems to be broken for linking the numerous BA account-allowed titles and gender in API.

General BA IT incompetence, as opposed to luddite sexism, would surely be the first port of call for this board? Those who don't interact with it as regularly, in the general public, would obviously not have the same "benefit" of experience!

​​​​

JayTee

BA has been aware of this issue since at least 2019.
*This is only my second post so I'm not allowed to post any photos or links, so here's a copy of the BA tweet:

@British_Airways Replying to @greenlee_Anne
Hi there. I've heard back from our technical team who've said: We know how important it is for all of our customers to feel comfortable and welcome no matter how they self-identify. We are working to see if we can change our booking platform to reflect this. Danny
12:25 PM · Mar 9, 2019·Verint Messaging

T8191

To avoid such issues, Lady T8191 has sternly forbidden me to use any of our titles or former military ranks on ba.com. Mr and Mrs will suffice.
Dammit. 🙁
Baron T …. oops!

DeathSlam

Since a few people have had a pop at me I'll bite.
My current IT team is 20% white but have exactly the same blind spots I used to see 30 years ago, Please understand that the beauty of rhetoric is that it doesn't have to be exactly correct, it merely needs to make you think about the issues. The point is devs didn't test correctly because of their assumptions.
As someone who is neurodiverse myself, I can spot it in others.
I am not a doctor and neither is my partner, but I do actually stop this sort of thing happening in my day job, so yes, I do lecture.

Oxon Flyer

That’s your assumption in itself. Forum members with actual IT development experience have concluded, from the numerous and significant functional and technical deficiencies on show in the production software, that the BA software development operation has major failings in its technical and end-user testing functions. Missing a subtle defect like the “Dr” thing is much more likely to be an outcome of this, rather than any unconscious bias in the testing team.

DeathSlam

The last time I entered Russia I was greeted with "What is your military rank?"
Easy for me to answer since I never had one, but possibly indicative of a distrust of people with lots of stamps in their passport.

DeathSlam

It's a fair comment that this is likely to be pure incompetence rather than intentional bias. But you are making a distinction that doesn't matter. If something is wrong it's because someone made a mistake. They almost always will have made that mistake innocently, but what is the root cause of the error?

Tafflyer

Being in IT for over 40 years, I know exactly where you are coming from. We have all had to learn to deal with our fellow citizens feelings and, yes, sensitivities. Being familiar with the issues at hand, I would also expect you to appreciate the effect this sloppiness by BA could have on some individuals feelings. I think we’d all agree that PC has probably crossed the line of common sense, especially when something non-PC is used in humour, satire, or in this case ridicule. Growing up as a nerd myself, I remember how easy these mistakes were to make and while people of various upbringings and cultures must open their minds, some others must unfortunately exercise patience.

When I see these kinds of errors, I recognise that this error message was probably coded over 30 years ago and it does give me the giggles. That might not help a lady Ph.D who has been offended, but I do think the lady originating the tweet in question here was ridiculing archaic IT and not necessarily archaic thinking.

Ladyfliestheredwhiteandblues

I’m puzzled. Why is there any cross check at all? In this gender diverse world I can be Lady flies etc but identify as any gender. I don’t want to but I could. So what was this all about? Has a change been put into the app to allow all genders but they failed to realise that inclusivity means there can be no cross check with title?
Sorry, just thinking out loud but I really don’t understand how they even got here.