I am perfectly alright with this.
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.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs_by_ethnic...
It's not like you can no longer say the word "eggplant" at the supermarket to refer to a vegetable.
https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=retard&num=10
Also, please be careful how you use the word 'vegetable.' My aunt is in a coma, and many people find that offensive.
Homonyms are not the same word, you ridiculous caricature.
Where exactly do you think the word 'retard' as a noun comes from?
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.
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.
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?
Or do we only censor the little things?
Insert bit here about it not being illegal or immoral to police discriminatory speech on a private service.
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 was a useful guide but several people were offended by the original title.
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
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay#Shift_to_homosexual
Stop trying to lock words in place and ban them. Let people use them or avoid them as they will, and their meanings will shift, as they always have.
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.
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).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs_by_ethnic...
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.
> 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.
Slurs are considered a problem because they're offensive. Banning them is the first step on the road to banning offensive content.
Who arbitrates what is offensive? Sure, we can agree on "The N-Word", but how about Idiot's Guide to Web Tools?
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."
---
Please, PLEASE try and tell me that definition is compatible with a discussion of "which words hurt people's feelings."
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.
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.
Personal donations of money and time towards diversity-in-tech efforts. You?
> What makes you so holier-than-thou
Basic human decency. You?
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use%E2%80%93mention_distinctio...)
I'm saying that their choice to enforce this right doesn't make sense to me, on multiple levels.
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.
Where do you live? In most countries, that would be assault, and is considered a crime.
But apparently saying $BAD_WORD is, too. /s
Sticks and stones.