hubot-guys

Listens for mentions of 'guys' and responds with helpful alternatives. The original idea came from Adrienne Marshall.

Installation

In hubot project repo, run:

npm install hubot-guys --save

Then add hubot-guys to your external-scripts.json:

["hubot-guys"]

Sample Interaction

user1>> What's up guys?
hubot>> Why not try 'buds' instead?

Why would you do something like this?

Because language is an important part of the way we communicate our culture and can affect those around us. By addressing people with a gender-specific word you can subtly exclude those who don't self-identify as 'guys'.

Getting Hubot (or the original Slackbot) to gently remind people they're using language that can exclude, struck me as a nice way to encourage people to be more inclusive.

If you want a longer explanation, Jenée Desmond-Harris wrote an article on this on Vox