Can't say I am. People should be free to use the language they wish.
The words that were offensive 200 years ago are laughable today. It's just such a superficial thing, almost arbitrarily deciding which words are 'sensitive' and which ones aren't, I cannot stand behind efforts to censor the world.
Once upon a time 'idiot' was the more common word for the mentally disabled. Has GitHub banned 'idiot,' too? Good long while ago people would've been pretty offended by that.
I get that we're more concerned with what people are offended by TODAY rather than 200 years ago; my point is that we SHOULDN'T be concerned.
> The words that were offensive 200 years ago are laughable today.
Even if we take this at face value, we are not living 200 years ago. We're here now, and your words can have impact beyond what you realize.
You're lucky that words don't affect you so. That's your good fortune. Some words evoke experiences and implications that can drive people to depression and suicide.
Basic. Civility. Is. Not. Unreasonable.
> my point is that we SHOULDN'T be concerned.
Then you won't be concerned when I tell you your basic set of inalienable rights you take for granted has, by and large, been won on the backs of slaves and economic disparity for thousands of years. You are at the tip of a pyramid of privilege that expands backwards in time. Have some good grace about it and stop using useless and hurtful words just because you technically can.
Would it actually bother you if you couldn't use those words in those contexts? You're arguing over a principle while dismissing the real harm people have suffered. The word that got banned has no meaning or use outside the most base kind of interactions.
It's not like you can no longer say the word "eggplant" at the supermarket to refer to a vegetable.
A foreshortening of "developmentalluly retarded" that became its own derogatory noun.
Again for someone who beat the drum about the fluidity of language you seem to have a tough time seeing it in action or accepting that new words can emerge via the context.
Would it be alright, then, if it said, "WebM for Black People?"
It isn't important to quibble over what words we consider offensive in the past, present, or future. The real problem is speaking about a classification of human being as being less than fully human or using those classifications as shortcuts for "inferior."
A person with darker skin is no less human than one with lighter skin. Similarly, two people with differing sets of abilities are both also fully human. Just because someone else is made of slightly different stuff doesn't make those differences fair game for ridicule.
Normally, I don't argue with people on the internet. Tonight, I'm bored and I'm making an exception.
That being said, this isn't an argument about how we should treat people. This is an argument over whether we should be allowed to say what we wish and let others react how they will. If people don't want to use this individual's code because of his questionable mentality, let that be their choice. Instead we're now papering over it and making him perhaps look nicer than he is.
Would you also like to halt publication of Mein Kampf? It's available in bookstores near you, and I assure you there are many people who are offended by its content, myself included.
Shall we reword the sections of the Bible chastising homosexual behavior?
While I did not speak to censorship, nor did you in the comment I replied to, I do agree that blanket censorship is not good for anyone. That does not mean that casual discriminatory speech shouldn't be considered foul in general.
Insert bit here about it not being illegal or immoral to police discriminatory speech on a private service.
Say whatever you like. Do it on your own resources. And when you run a server, boot off whoever you like for acting against whatever standards or lack of standards you choose to have. And if you run a bookstore, you're welcome to carry or not carry whatever books you like.
GitHub is not the center of the world. They are not establishing law. You can publish Mein Kampf if everyone else decides not to. You can edit the bible if you wish.
Or you can try to foster the development of a professional community by taking steps to prohibit needlessly offensive language.
You can publish whatever you like on your personal website and link to it from anywhere. I don't see how this is an over-reach of censorship.
It's not, and this isn't a big deal. I agree. But I'm bored and I hate seeing people censored over little things, drops in an ocean, so I'm sharing my opinion, which is that this doesn't accomplish anything useful in any way.
Some ( many! ) years ago there was a popular how-to entitled something like 'Kerberos for Imbeciles' which I had to save to disk and edit to retitle before printing it in work.
It was a useful guide but several people were offended by the original title.
>It's just such a superficial thing, almost arbitrarily deciding which words are 'sensitive' and which ones aren't
This cannot be further from the truth. Words that are deemed offensive are deemed so because of the attitude and the meaning behind using these words
The reason white people get yelled at for using n (don't know if I can post it on HN) is because it represents hundreds of years of oppression by white people that has basically continued. People who were "retarded" used to be thrown into asylums or abandoned as small children because they were just a pain to deal with
The thing about words is that they have context and actual loaded meanings, and trying to ignore that is to ignore how language works
Good Lord, I have heard so many different takes on 'what makes something offensive.' My favorite was a teenager telling me only one person has to find something offensive before we have to all consider it as such and stop saying it.
The fact that words "have context and actual loaded meanings" is besides the point. I am saying that these things come into fashion and then pass away.
I'm sure you know it was only in the past 70 years that 'gay' took on its new meaning.
> I am saying that these things come into fashion and then pass away.
If words can come INTO fashion for various reasons, then some must be allowed to LEAVE fashion for other reasons. Letting them pass out of empathy is probably one of the most noble and equitable reasons we could have to change our language.
Your argument is so strange. You argue that language is fluid then get angry, confused and dismissive when people use that fact to change the world around them.
The meaning of the word retard has drifted. It used to be a totally acceptable word, a polite alternative to Mongoloid, used by doctors and societies.
Now outside the US it's pretty much only ever used as hate speech. The US is a bit different because the word still has some small pockets of acceptable use (although I can't see those lasting much longer).
Have a nice look at this list and let me know if you'd like to ban all of these too. After all, they have context and actual loaded meanings, and in many cases represent hundreds of years of oppression.
It's as if we as humans have some kind of context-sensitive language recognition capability, and can tell when a word is being used as a slur or if it has entirely unrelated meanings. We're slightly smarter than regular expressions. And yes, I'd fully expect Github to ban those too.
I'm sorry, but I believe that allowing even one idea to be banned from discourse is the first step towards a system where someone like Edward Snowden has to find asylum in Russia.
I don't believe in censorship or hiding away what was really said or done. If anyone has a problem with this developer's language, they can boycott his repo.
Slurs aren't discourse, or even the start of discourse. And removing them has nothing to do with pervasive surveillance.
> If anyone has a problem with this developer's language, they can boycott his repo.
Github did, and they did. And then someone decided to stir up trouble by posting it as though people should be offended by what Github did, rather than applauding them.
Github can do as they like on their own resources. If you don't like it, host your own, and welcome everyone who doesn't like to be decent to other people. See how it goes.
No matter what you do, you'll exclude people and silence ideas. Either you exclude hateful people, or you exclude people who don't enjoy hatefulness. Pick one.
Oh, is there a threshold? How many people have to be offended by it before it counts? Can you give me a number? I find 'idiot' to be a derogatory slur, does that mean nothing to you?
And note what I said in a previous commend about the elder meaning of 'idiot.' Pretty much means the same thing as 'retard' but people don't think of it that way anymore. You're taking such a traditional mindset about this, kind of "just what your parents told you."
You don't have to agree with a criteria to be able to apply it objectively; it just has to be something that can be evaluated by anyone to come up with the same answer. You can't objectively evaluate whether art looks good; you can only get subjective answers and attempt to find consensus. You can objectively determine if a word is a noun, verb, adjective, etc (given context, as some words can fall in several categories). And given context, you can objectively determine if a word is a slur. (Personally, I avoid both slurs and insults, but github only bans the former, not the latter, and that seems like a reasonable position to take.)
So, to be clear: there's an objective criteria for "what is a slur"; there's no objective criteria for "what is acceptable" or "what is offensive". But in any case, a hosting company is hardly required to provide an objective criteria for what they accept; it's nice if the rules they supply can be objectively evaluated, but that doesn't mean their choice of which rules to apply needs to be objective.
In any case, I have no further interest in arguing with you; I doubt you're going to stop being outraged that someone won't give you a free platform for hatefulness.
It's easy to go on the internet and virtue signal.
What sacrifice have you ever made toward the right of no race, person, or condition to not be offended?
What makes you so holier-than-thou, you can think it's ok to sit behind the keyboard like God and quash whatever idea runs contrary to your psyche?
There is a whole website called Twitter, where people act very pompous, very pious, but seldom have the fortitude to trouble themselves to help what they "fighting for". Kind of like how Occupy Wallstreet drank Coca Cola and brought iPhones to protests.
Yes, I would like to ban the use of the word "ape" to refer to a black man (at least on Github), keeping in mind the Use-mention distinction and "common sense" to realize that the person was actually using it as a slur.
People are free to use the language they wish. They are not necessarily free to host said language on other people's websites. This isn't a legal ban or something, GitHub is a private company and they have the right to limit what content they want on their website.
Yes, the developer had every right to say retard. 100% correct. And if they said it in front of me, I'd have every right to kick them, hard. Both of us will have paid a price, sure, but hey, freedom of speech wasn't violated.
You're free to call me a retard. I'm free to kick you for doing it. Everybody wins. But your calling me a retard isn't a divinely bestowed right to get away with it without a response just because you had the right to say it. GitHub chose to respond. The author chose to comply with the request. Done and done.
Just to nitpick... Battery is the physical act. Assault is telling someone that you're going to kick them, hard, and giving them the impression that you intend to actually do so. Both of these things are criminal, obviously.
You're not free to kick someone that calls you a retard. That is assault, which is a crime in most places on earth. I thought every adult would know that, but here we are.
