Cultural relativity and the appropriateness of potentially offensive words

Question

I was surfing the side-links today and came across an answer that had been edited to replace a word with another which, according to the comments relating to the edit, was intended to be a less problematic equivalent. The comments indicated that the word violated the "no bigotry" rule:

Bigotry of any kind. Language likely to offend or alienate individuals or groups based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc. will not be tolerated. At all. (Those are just a few examples; when in doubt, just don't.)

The word in question (obscured to preserve delicate sensibilities) was:

twat

The sense of the usage was: a foolish or despicable person

I tried to discuss this with the moderator who had made the change, with a nod towards the fact that it is quite likely that my perception of the word is quite different. He sent me here.

From my view there is nothing about the word which contravenes the "no bigotry" rule. The specific usage of the word is gender neutral and does not touch on race, sexual orientation, religion or any other individual or group designation. Obviously this is not true of whichever culture the mod is from.

To further complicate things, the word was replaced with "Jerk" which - in the culture I was raised in - is a term applied exclusively to males and is generally considered to be a crude abbreviation for a particularly male activity. By definition then it is gendered and in contravention of the rule in question.

Not that I have a problem with either word, I honestly don't. But since the given reason for the change was to correct a violation of a rule, I find it a little concerning that the replacement is a much more apparent violation of that rule by the definitions of my culture. If we're going to moderate away one, why not both?

Or better yet: neither.

I am not advocating for a complete lack of manners in questions, answers or comments. I'm not asking to be able to use the common abbreviation of pusillanimous in my descriptions, since that one is mistaken as gendered fairly universally. Nor am I insisting that all discussion be carried out in carefully neutered words to ensure that no possibly offense can be taken from any of them.

What I'm concerned about is that petty words of neither impact nor importance are being treated as bigotry, regardless of intent or cultural considerations. I'm hoping that I'm not the only one that finds this to be concerning.

Do we need better definitions as to what words are bad and banned, or could we perhaps put out a few of the fires on the censor ship?

Answer 1

Keeping loaded language to a minimum is part of our ongoing work to cultivate a welcoming and patient environment, so thank you for letting us know we've been ignorant of a word's loaded implications!

I agree with the answers already posted dealing with policies; I'm posting to suggest an action for posters and editors to keep in mind going forward.

Replace generic "not behaving nice" phrases with more specific and constructive words.

We really shouldn't be putting "petty words of neither impact nor importance" into our answers, whether they're rude or not. In this case, I suggest:

What happens in the real world when it becomes known that someone is greedy?

and

It's known that "Chaotic Greedy" gets more than her share of loot?

Not only is this hopefully less offensive, it's often more clear what specific problem is being talked about. Meaning is not lost, and is instead often gained, by using context-accurate descriptions in place of generic "misbehaviour" words, whether they're insulting or not. This change helps us Be Nice and be more helpful by shifting away from blaming people and toward solving problems.

That said, in cases where I can't take the time to understand the original poster enough to find better words for them, I use [snip]: "What happens in the real world when it becomes known that someone is a greedy [snip]?" and "It's known that "Chaotic [Snip]" gets more than her share of loot?" are still clearly meant to deride and don't add anything useful to the post, but they aren't using specific loaded language anymore.

Answer 2

On the "t***": The word in the OP is definitely offensive in some cultures. In the US, there's a good chance that it will ring misogynistic. If one culture considers a word offensive, it doesn't belong on an international site like this, even if other cultures do not.

In this situation, those who experience discomfort take precedence over those who don't. One person perceiving a word as okay doesn't make it less hurtful to others. On the flip side, there is no harm in not using the handful of words this policy applies to. There are plenty of other ways to express oneself that don't carry unfortunate connotations (which exist regardless of the author's intent).

On "jerk": If it's really that bad in your (or any) culture, we should look at alternatives, as above. We don't want anyone harmed or put off by the language here. It's common on this site because it's one of the most innocuous American insults. It's so clean that even American children might use it without protest -- it's not on the default list of "bad words." I've also never encountered a less innocuous reading of it, even online. That's why it's important to talk about it, though.

If this word is a problem, it won't be easy to fix, but we should try. This is what we need to consider: if someone from your culture saw that word being used here, would they be harmed or put off from the site? If the answer is "yes," we should avoid it. If the answer is "no," it may not be worth the effort. I would ask this of any potentially problematic word.

On being nice: The rule against bigoted language is just one part of the "Be nice." policy. Even if we hold that "jerk" is okay (not arguing either way myself), it's still an insult. Users should not be insulting other users. Directly insulting others is antithetical to to "Be nice." We should discourage this.

Talking about non-users gets a little hazier. Sometimes askers come to the site for advice about people who are rude, mean, manipulative, and so forth. In those cases, it's useful to emphasize to the asker that the behavior they're describing is truly not okay and should be dealt with. Of course, we can say exactly that: "[The behavior in question] isn't okay. Don't tolerate it." As BESW notes in his answer, specificity is often both less offensive and more informative than vague insults. I think this is ideal.

But people communicate in different ways, and when responding to destructive or malicious behavior, sometimes they reach for mild insults. Is this something that is worth an edit by itself (assuming the words used are otherwise inoffensive)? I'm not certain.

Answer 3

An update note: I'm no longer sure that “jerk” is actually offending anyone. The meta's asker has stated in comments that they don't believe anyone should be offended by any of these words, and nobody else has said anything that makes me believe that “jerk” is, in some locales, naturally offensive on actionable grounds. The original claim that it is appears to have been a false equivalence, made only to make a rhetorical point.

The discussion is still well worth having, and I think this post still stands since it was already full of “ifs” regarding that point anyway.

Well, removing neither isn't an option if they're both inappropriate for civil discourse. If they're both inappropriate, then they both go — they don't cancel out with a shrug. Intent is also a distraction we can dispense with — our code of conduct doesn't allow for intent to excuse a term and let it stand.

But the point is worth examining: we are an international site (apart from being strictly English-speaking), so North American standards of civility aren't the only ones relevant. In practice, what is probably the most sensible result is taking the union of inappropriate name-calling terms and tossing those out as “not constructive in civil international discourse.”

I've never been particularly happy with “jerk” as the boilerplate replacement for various nastier terms, anyway. It's still name-calling rather than describing the objectionable behaviours. It's pretty inoffensive where I and other mods come from though, so it got chosen more-or-less by default.

(Aside, “twat” is probably more offensive here in the same way “jerk” is more offensive there: its slang meaning is highly visible and it can't be used casually without that other meaning being an inherent part of the insult. The effect here is to not only insult the person name-called, but also to insult female genitals as a category, by suggesting they're so bad that anyone should be insulted to be associated with them. As gendered insults go North America certainly offers worse options, but it still crosses the bright line laid out in the Be Nice policy by a fair margin. Here “jerk” doesn't have that gendered connection at all (maybe it once did?), so we appear to have two terms that are perfect inversions in use, here and there.)

Anyway. Being a thoughtless default doesn't make it sacrosanct, so it's worth considering…

How can we clean up posts that contravene our Be Nice policy?

So far, replacing the inappropriate word has been the course of action, and “jerk” has been used because it has the virtue of being a drop-in replacement for most more vulgar terms, both for grammatically fitting into the sentences we're cleaning up, and for being (at least in North America) mild yet carrying a distinct meaning of opprobrium for someone's selfish, mean, or insensitive behaviour.

1. Finding a different word that doesn't raise eyebrows anywhere in the English-speaking world is an option. What I doubt is that there's one that carries a meaning that can work as an inoffensive drop-in replacement. If anyone can think of a good alternative, that would be useful to hear.

2. More extensive rewrites of the sentences that step over the line is a possibility. This has the drawback of taking an order of magnitude more careful thought and time than just dropping in a word replacement, but it has the significant advantage of completely avoiding calling people names, even mild ones. I like that. Being slower and hard means that cleaning up such messes gains a barrier to actually doing it consistently and punctually though; I don't like that aspect so much.

   Another significant downside to this approach is that a minimal edit that retains their intent but changes their particular word choice is much less likely to get pushback from the original poster and turn into a big blowup. A more extensive edit that changes phrasing and tone entirely is more likely to inspire edit warring and other unfortunate dynamics. This downside may be the much more relevant one, now that I've thought on it more.

3. There's always the possibility of just removing the inappropriate post entirely and instructing the poster to fix the problem. The difficulty here is that this remedy is only available easily to diamond mods, and is much more disruptive besides — and much less likely to result in the poster wanting to cooperate.

For possibility (1) I can't personally think of words that are better — that is, a mild name for someone that still expresses that they have earned opprobrium. Signing on to (2), due to its more significant commitment of editing time for the edit-privileged users and diamond moderators, probably requires buy-in from the community to be effective. (3) is always there as a fallback, but is rather a nuclear option, as it would be more disruptive in general.

So this answer is far from a full and final answer that I wish I could give you, and is more attempting to lay out the practical dilemma, as I see it, and inviting further feedback and ideas from the community at large.

Answer 4

The Be Nice policy applies to the entire Stack Exchange, not just this site, so lobbying for a change to it will have to go to the Stack Exchange meta rather than this particular iteration of it. But there is some variation in enforcement of Be Nice from Stack to Stack, so let's look at that.

The Be Nice policy is deliberately vague, because the longer a list of what's not allowed gets the more it leaves off. This means that enforcement of the policy usually takes this form: Someone sees something that they don't think is Nice, and either edits it themselves or flags it for a moderator to look at. Moderators usually feel that if someone's taken the trouble to flag something, it's legitimately giving off Not Nice vibes whether the moderator sees it or not. Edits are, of course, expected to also be Nice, which means not changing the content of the answer.

This isn't perfect, obviously. As you've noticed, a lot of Not Nice words get left lying around and sometimes things get a bit overzealous. But it allows a certain amount of leeway per site; exactly what Be Nice means for a particular group changes over time as our active user base shifts, and there's no universal solution for all time. It'd be unreasonable for me to say what others should or shouldn't find objectionable. This "edit/flag it when you see it" approach is a compromise that usually works pretty well by only kicking in when something's actually going wrong.

The approach does, however, assume good will on the part of the users. Some sections of the Internet (and society at large) indulge in "manufactured outrage" and this isn't welcome in the Stack either. It's harder to detect though. Until a pattern indicates otherwise, we assume good will on the part of both poster and editor/flagger but err toward removing questionable material.

Does this make the Stack seem oversensitive sometimes? Yes, of course. When someone goes on a word-changing spree it may get kinda ridiculous. But much more often people don't react to things which really should be addressed, and the Stack (in general and this one in particular) gets noticeably more complaints that we're too rude than that we're too sensitive. So I don't think there's a big need to relax our already very laid-back approach to policing Not Nice behaviour. Nobody is asked to go looking for things to take offence at.

For more discussions on this topic, I recommend the Meta SE tags for [behavior] and [etiquette].

Answer 5

As a point of reference I (British, and somewhat given to formality) find jerk very much more offensive than twat. I am aware of the various shades of meaning of both, and since Stack Exchange is fond of American slang I appreciate that 'Don't be a jerk' is only unintentionally foul-mouthed. But if one of my posts uses the t-word (improbable) and some well-intentioned Yank substitutes the j-word, there will at best be an edit war and at worst an action for defamation.

Answer 6

I read through the edit history and discovered that the T word was being used as a pejorative term for a female player. That combination was inappropriate for this site, and would have been even if the T word not by itself on an auto-censor list. .

I question the need for any of us who participate here to use name calling as a method of presenting a question or an answer. Under the premise of the above noted "Be Nice" rule at SE/SO family of sites, there are a lot of ways to characterize a difficult player that does not involve name calling.

As to feeling stuck between T-word and J-word, that argues for whomever is crafting the answer or question to expand their vocabulary.

Bottom Line: this isn't a problem. The policy is sound, and the intent behind it sounder.