Your thoughts on current and future changes to make Metafilter more woman friendly

November 23, 2007 8:19 PM

Recently, as in the past day or so, the flag for "offensive" was changed to "offensive/sexism/racism". This was done at the request of several female members who believe Metafilter has become or has been hostile to women and who wished to have some means of highlighting these instances. Several other changes are being considered, such as an addition to the FAQ/guidelines, although nothing concrete has been hammered out. If you would like to add suggestions or have constructive criticism, please do so in this thread. If you you would like to read the full story of how this came to be, check out this previous Metatalk thread. It's a bit long, but worth reading for a full understanding of how this issue came about.
posted by Brandon Blatcher to etiquette/policy at 8:19 PM (1005 comments total)

AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!
posted by Skorgu at 8:31 PM on November 23, 2007

It's a little more complicated than that, but that's the gist. The big thread spawned a lot of interesting discussion including feedback from many women that they feel that the atmosphere here can be hostile or alienating to them. We'd like that not to be the case, as moderators, keeping in mind that this is a site with a lot of people, men and women, and a long (proud?) tradition of snark and ass-grabbery.

I see this personally from time to time but not in a major way (since I'm mostly on Ask and here) so it was helpful to get a lot of feedback from people in that thread. We figured the first step to being able to actually work on this issue is to have admins be AWARE of it, hence the flag change. We'd like this to be a bit of a wake-up call that some of the more egregious racist/sexist stuff that crops up in MeFi (even stuff that's supposed to be at least partly ironic or jokey) is getting in the way of people feeling like this is a community where everyone's contributions are valued.

We're not planning, for the moment, to do anything major, but we're data collecting and letting people know what's up. We'd like to get some language into the guidelines and faq that maybe expands on what "don't be an ass" means so that women don't have to trudge through a swamp of "I'd hit it" and violent Ann Coulter rape fantasies to contribute in MeFi.

Feedback is encouraged especially the non-ironic kind.
posted by jessamyn at 8:35 PM on November 23, 2007 [3 favorites]

Could we get a luddite tag?
posted by b1tr0t at 8:43 PM on November 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

less ironically - I don't see the point of mixing sexism/racism in with the general offensive tag. Either leave it at offensive, or add in a bunch of subcategories.

also: wendell
posted by b1tr0t at 8:45 PM on November 23, 2007

This reminds me of how people often refer to "drug and alcohol abuse" as if alcohol weren't a drug.

On preview, what b1tr0t said.
posted by dhammond at 8:47 PM on November 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

Also note that the sexism thread killed off 3 members. That's got a be a record.
posted by puke & cry at 8:51 PM on November 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

Or 2 maybe. I'm not sure what vronsky was on about.
posted by puke & cry at 8:51 PM on November 23, 2007

If a primary point is to collect data, then having a catchall offensive/sexism/racism category won't be particularly helpful. For example, you won't be able to answer the question, "how many racist/sexist flags have appeared in the past month?" because you can't differentiate posts flagged as generally offensive vs. posts flagged as racist/sexist.
posted by googly at 8:52 PM on November 23, 2007 [5 favorites]

To add a bit of paraphrase/recap re: "what? isn't that covered under 'Offensive'?"...

Several people said they are reluctant to use the 'Offensive' tag for sexist / makes-me-uncomfortable-as-a-woman stuff, as they considered it to be more of a "hey, someone's being a blatant asshole" flag. The low-level, simmering sexist vibe of some comments didn't strike them as severe enough to merit the 'Offensive' tag being used.
posted by CKmtl at 8:55 PM on November 23, 2007

Also, I think the sexism/racism flag is totally unnecessary. both of those fall under offensive content so I don't see the point. Also, what googly said.
posted by puke & cry at 8:55 PM on November 23, 2007

In general it's more important to be clear than parsimonious when working with UI. For instance, if you're designing a medical form, sure you can pat yourself on the back for just having a checkbox for a family history of "drug abuse," but if someone doesn't check it because daddy just drank a quart of Wild Turkey a day and never smoked the marijuana, the form isn't doing its job.

If this does the job it's designed for, I'm all for it.
posted by L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg at 8:56 PM on November 23, 2007 [11 favorites]

I don't see the point of mixing sexism/racism in with the general offensive tag.

The point of mixing the sexism/racism monikers in with the general offensive tag IMHO is to make it clear that MeFi does actually consider sexist BS as meriting a flag. And not a subset of offensive, either - top level offensive.

Which I for one am all over. Because often enough, reading MeFi and watching all of the BS-of-that-flavour that goes by unchallenged and uncommented upon, you would not necessarily know that. Having it in the flag list makes it clear.

I finally flagged for the first time because prior to reading The Thread That Never Ends today, I thought that sort of crap was OK with The MeFi Powers That Be, even though it isn't OK with me. I sort of considered it the price one pays to play with the boys on MeFi. I am happy to no longer have to pay for that ticket. I already forked over my $5, thanks very much.

I'm not sure it is the most elegant phraseology one could possibly come up with, but I don't have a better suggestion right now. That it is there is, right now, more important to me than how it is stated.
posted by DarlingBri at 8:58 PM on November 23, 2007 [21 favorites]

Dammit. s/tag/flag/. That particular brainfart or typo is too easy to fall into.
posted by CKmtl at 8:59 PM on November 23, 2007

To import an idea that was batted around in the other thread, a "Site Etiquette" page would be a worthwhile addition. This page would include some general guidelines for participation on the site, e.g., avoid personal attacks, be sensitive to sexism/racism/other identity issues, explore the site before you let your guns blaze, etc. It should be short and sweet and easily cited with a link. The idea wouldn't be to create a rulebook (i.e. "you have been found guilty of violating section 2.4.3(a) of the Guidelines"), but rather an official statement that makes clear certain types of conduct are beyond the pale.

Of course, it should still allow plenty of room for general crudeness and tomfoolery.
posted by brain_drain at 9:01 PM on November 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

If you you would like to read the full story of how this came to be, check out this previous Metatalk thread.

You might have to read this one, too. To be truly hardcore, read them simultaneously using time stamps as a guide.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:04 PM on November 23, 2007 [3 favorites]

Hmm. Mine still says only "offensive comment".

Safari 3.0.4 on leopard if that helps.
posted by Stynxno at 9:10 PM on November 23, 2007

My only problem with "offensive/sexism/racism" is: "offensive" is an adjective. "Sexism" and "racism" are nouns. "Offensive/sexist/racist" would be better.
posted by bugbread at 9:10 PM on November 23, 2007 [16 favorites]

wait. it works. i just had to do a hard refresh.
posted by Stynxno at 9:11 PM on November 23, 2007

Stynxno writes "Hmm. Mine still says only 'offensive comment'."

Matt indicated you might have to do a hard reload of the page to see it (so that the javascript part is also reloaded). Dunno how to do that on Safari.
posted by bugbread at 9:11 PM on November 23, 2007

Whoops. Timing.
posted by bugbread at 9:11 PM on November 23, 2007

"Hard" refresh. Heh.
posted by 31d1 at 9:16 PM on November 23, 2007

Flagged.
posted by dhammond at 9:20 PM on November 23, 2007

Well this is good. It'll give everyone who doesn't find racism or sexism offensive a whole new way to flag all those inoffensive posts they're running across.
posted by ikkyu2 at 9:22 PM on November 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

My only problem with "offensive/sexism/racism" is: "offensive" is an adjective. "Sexism" and "racism" are nouns. "Offensive/sexist/racist" would be better.
posted by bugbread

Nah, not really.

The implied subject / verb is "This comment is..."

So, all three work.

"This comment is offensive."
"This comment is sexist."
"This comment is racist."

But I have to say... What's wrong with being sexy?
posted by The Deej at 9:23 PM on November 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

Wha?
posted by chinston at 9:25 PM on November 23, 2007

It wasn't just women who requested it, either.
posted by tristeza at 9:27 PM on November 23, 2007 [2 favorites]

No wonder q left.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 9:32 PM on November 23, 2007

? I'd be pretty surprised if that were true.
posted by taz at 9:35 PM on November 23, 2007

(At least) three separate flags would give better information.
posted by timeistight at 9:37 PM on November 23, 2007

You know, I posted an Ask Mefi thread asking people for non-offensive terms for fat men that can't be used to describe muscularity, for use in a personal ad. I promptly got called a "flabby" "Buffalo-Butt-Kentucky-Fried-Chicken-Eating Motherfucker".

It's not like the whole thread was full of those comments. But they were there, and even in small number, they deeply and significantly offend me.

So, Matt, Jessamyn, Cortex, I think we need a new noun added to that list. "Offensive/racist/sexist/fat nonacceptance."

Because Mefi is really not very accepting of fat people. It's a total thinzone, and I want moderated protection from those who would offend me by their nasty, non-fat-accepting ways. I cannot simply read their comments and write them off as rude assholes or as people whose value systems are both opposed to mine and offensive to my beliefs; I demand that their non-fat-accepting posts be removed from my field of view. They simply don't have a right to offend my sensibilities; Mefi must be a safe forum for me where I can participate without fear of having my character assaulted — indeed, where I must have official, institutional, moderated, built-in protection against people who would offend my sensibilities with their uncaring attitudes and words.

Obviously, I mean none of the above. Metafilter has a character to its populace, and part of that character is that people say what they mean, and other people challenge what they mean, and the clash inspires people to write well-crafted snark.

If I write a shitty FPP, I'm going to get 20 people immediately telling me in full, graphic, and nasty detail precisely how much of a shitty FPP it is. That's one of the many things that make Metafilter a unique community on the Internet, and I wouldn't want protection from it. I'm highly disappointed that this idea has garnered such utterly enthusiastic traction behind it. I guess Mefi couldn't hold off the P.C. police forever.
posted by WCityMike at 9:48 PM on November 23, 2007 [22 favorites]

Flagged as sexist. The system works!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:50 PM on November 23, 2007 [2 favorites]

I approve of this. It makes it clear that it's everyone's job to call people on their shit, not just the admins'.
posted by SassHat at 9:53 PM on November 23, 2007

I'm highly disappointed that this idea has garnered such utterly enthusiastic traction behind it. I guess Mefi couldn't hold off the P.C. police forever.

WCityMike, it's possible to be snarky and tell people their post is shitty without invoking racist or sexist undertones.
posted by mathowie at 9:54 PM on November 23, 2007 [5 favorites]

> WCityMike, it's possible to be snarky and tell people their post is shitty without invoking racist or sexist undertones.

I'm not defending racism nor sexism. I'm stating that if people write racist or sexist comments, call them out. God, I hate sounding Republican, but one of the key values that makes Mefi the place it is is that people are really not that careful with what they say, nor are they especially sensitive of other people's feelings. That actually gives it a sort of pleasant brusqueness and honesty.

The more we indicate to people that they need to watch what they say lest they offend other members' sensibilities, the more this place is going to be less than it is.
posted by WCityMike at 9:58 PM on November 23, 2007

I guess talking about values doesn't necessarily sound Republican.

Oh, shit. offensive/sexist/racist/fat nonacceptance/offensive to Republicans flag. Sorry 'bout that.
posted by WCityMike at 10:00 PM on November 23, 2007

I'm stating that if people write racist or sexist comments, call them out.

That's what the flag is for.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:01 PM on November 23, 2007

> That's what the flag is for.

The flag is for moderator removal of the comments. By "calling them out," I meant, "I'm callin' you out, pardner," i.e., MetaTalk or disagreement in the thread proper.
posted by WCityMike at 10:05 PM on November 23, 2007

Don't forget cat-declawist
posted by b1tr0t at 10:08 PM on November 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

This is the problem with a new thread.

People are not going to even skim the other thread - which is long and fruitful and contained pretty amazing examples of people reaching for mutual understanding - and are instead going to leap to loud conclusions about how the horrible, awful politically correct nannies have found MetaFilter at last, and I personally am just fresh out of patient explanations of why it is offensive to ladies to say that so-and-so female political figure deserves to get raped to death, and why it is exhausting and unhelpful to be the only person in that kind of thread commenting against the flow of traffic.
posted by thehmsbeagle at 10:08 PM on November 23, 2007 [16 favorites]

> I personally am just fresh out of patient explanations of why it is offensive to ladies to say that so-and-so female political figure deserves to get raped to death, and why it is exhausting and unhelpful to be the only person in that kind of thread commenting against the flow of traffic.

I'm sorry it's tiring to defend your point. I should probably just give in to save you that hassle.

And, of course, threads where one person says it's not okay to rape someone to death, and everyone else disagrees — they are so frequent and common here that perhaps you're completely correct.
posted by WCityMike at 10:11 PM on November 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

The more we indicate to people that they need to watch what they say lest they offend other members' sensibilities, the more this place is going to be less than it is.

Yeah, because god knows I've got a baker's dozen ass rape jokes just rarin' to go and oh no! what is this? the PC police?! Oh no, my creativity is being shunned! MeFi just won't be the same without my jokes how I would violently act towards Ann Coulter if given the chance!

WCityMike, we're not covering the place in nerf and asking you to say only nice things to one another from here on out, just asking people to dial back the worst stuff that we're bigger than and can do without (like calling famous women bitches, cunts, etc automatically in any thread about them).

It's not a slippery slope problem, it's bringing up the level of discourse slightly by saying a few things at the bottom are no longer tolerated.
posted by mathowie at 10:12 PM on November 23, 2007 [33 favorites]

I'll be interested to see how use of the flag plays out. I don't think we'll feel it right away, but I bet over a few months, most of us will be pleased by the result.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 10:13 PM on November 23, 2007 [3 favorites]

The Deej writes "So, all three work.

"'This comment is offensive.'
"'This comment is sexist.'
"'This comment is racist.'"

I think you read my comment backwards. With the current flag, it's:

"This comment is offensive."
"This comment is sexism."
"This comment is racism."

I'm recommending them to be changed to "sexist" and "racist" respectively, which would result in:

"This comment is offensive."
"This comment is sexist."
"This comment is racist."
posted by bugbread at 10:15 PM on November 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

Actually, WCityMike, pretty much nobody who participated in that thread and approves of the flag addition wanted admins to start deleting comments. I would say "nobody" but maybe one or two slipped by me. The resounding consensus response, repeated over and over, was that top-down radical moderation (deleting, banning) was not wanted at all, except in the most extreme cases (something that already exists - no change there).
posted by taz at 10:18 PM on November 23, 2007

I'm sorry it's tiring to defend your point. I should probably just give in to save you that hassle.

I think you're missing the point. The premise was hashed out over about 1500 comments distributed between a few threads. It was decided there.
posted by 517 at 10:19 PM on November 23, 2007 [3 favorites]

> It's not a slippery slope problem, it's bringing up the level of discourse slightly by saying a few things at the bottom are no longer tolerated.

Matt, no one on a slippery slope actually recognizes they're on a slippery slope. Incremental steps always appear to be innocuous and simple common sense, until you look around one day and compare where you are to where you used to be.
posted by WCityMike at 10:20 PM on November 23, 2007

> I think you're missing the point. The premise was hashed out over about 1500 comments distributed between a few threads. It was decided there.

You know, there's this weird few words between the TITLE tags for this pge. "Your thoughts on ... " But I'm sorry — the premise has already been decided and the argument is over. I see. Matt, could you: s/your thoughts/Announcement Regarding/g? Thanks.
posted by WCityMike at 10:21 PM on November 23, 2007

> I'll be interested to see how use of the flag plays out. I don't think we'll feel it right away, but I bet over a few months, most of us will be pleased by the result.

I'm sure you will. Were someone to weed out for me every comment I found offensive from Mefi, I too would be pleased by the result.
posted by WCityMike at 10:22 PM on November 23, 2007

I personally am just fresh out of patient explanations of why it is offensive to ladies to say that so-and-so female political figure deserves to get raped to death

I personally am just fresh out of patient explanations of why it is a bad idea to give a cultural monster a free pass for Its rhetoric.

That doesn't mean Coulter needs to get "raped to death", as careful reading of the original thread shows, but it does mean that one should be careful about extreme, often absurd measures imposed by others (not necessarily on Metafilter, but across the general human condition) to limit one's response to Its horrific behavior.

That's not to say this flagging scheme is necessarily extreme or absurd. But I don't think that monster's behavior applies to this discussion. Or if it does, then a discussion about the utility of being forced to be polite — accommodating, even — in the face of abject, craven evil might perhaps be worthwhile.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:24 PM on November 23, 2007

bugbread, it can also be interpreted as "this comment is offensive/this comment is an example of sexism/this comment is an example of racism". We could change it to be more grammatically correct as implied by the flag, but people in the previous thread really wanted to see the word "sexism" over "sexist" to put it in the minds of members viewing the site that that kind of behavior wasn't tolerated.
posted by mathowie at 10:25 PM on November 23, 2007

Calling it a night and got to travel tomorrow, so have fun stormin' the castle!
posted by WCityMike at 10:26 PM on November 23, 2007

I never got to comment in that other thread, because before I was patient enough to read it all, it was kinda too late.

I am thankful for the additions to the tagging jargon. I would have preferred if there was a separate tag "sexist/racist" because those types of comments outnumber any other offensive type of comments I have seen in Metafilter. We could count, I suppose. It is a good way for a lot of people who want to express their disagreement to do so without having it lumped up with some other, obscure type of offense.

However and given that the flagging system is hidden from the crowd, it's basically between the mods and the flagger, I do not want it to become an easy way out: those offended feel they have protested, those who commit the offence don't get to hear about it and a pseudo-peace is established. I have not liked MetaTalk most days, but I do like it and justify its purpose in my mind when shit like this gets called out here. Many a times it's someone's bad joke, bad day or bad phrasing, but other times it isn't. In short, I would not like to see the new flags substitute protestations, with full, readable by everyone, thoughtful words which in the end carry more weight and set a definitive precedent.
posted by carmina at 10:26 PM on November 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

You know, there's this weird few words between the TITLE tags for this pge. "Your thoughts on ... " But I'm sorry — the premise has already been decided and the argument is over. I see. Matt, could you: s/your thoughts/Announcement Regarding/g?

The premise was decided, which is what you seem to be going after.

This thread is about the implementation of some sort of solution.
posted by 517 at 10:27 PM on November 23, 2007

WCityMike, what are you so afraid of? Go and read the linked threads- nobody (well, very few) are asking for extreme measures. Part of what the flag is for is to help the admins get a better sense of what is upsetting people. Not to mention that the flag was already there, under a different name. This is really just encouraging people to use it with a promise from the mods that they're paying attention.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 10:27 PM on November 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

I wish we could have a 'stupid' flag too. I'd use the hell out of that motherfucker, I tells ya.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:29 PM on November 23, 2007 [2 favorites]

Matt, no one on a slippery slope actually recognizes they're on a slippery slope.

Please. I've been running the site for over 8 years, introducing incremental (and major) changes all along the way and every time we ask the membership to dial something back, the slippery slope arguments come out and I was directly addressing that. If you want to go down a list of changes to the site over the last five years that were met with slippery slope arguments, you could pick any of them: adding flagging, moderating ask mefi heavier than other sections, adding more than 1 moderator, etc. None of them caused the slippery slopes that were predicted as I suspect this won't either.

Matt, could you: s/your thoughts/Announcement Regarding/g? Thanks.

This was the state of my thoughts on the matter regarding this. Jessamyn said a lot of stuff as well, I'd suggest maybe cruising through the last 100 or so comments to get a feeling for where we're going with this.
posted by mathowie at 10:31 PM on November 23, 2007 [2 favorites]

Also, I think the sexism/racism flag is totally unnecessary. both of those fall under offensive content so I don't see the point.

Wondering how many female MetaFilter users would agree with this comment.
posted by KokuRyu at 10:35 PM on November 23, 2007

Or racial MetaFilter users.
posted by KokuRyu at 10:35 PM on November 23, 2007 [2 favorites]

I have nothing to add other than to say that this seems to be stupid. Which flag should I use?

This was never *really* a problem before. That is not to say that problems of these types didn't exist it is just to say that we didn't allow every offended individual to be a poor wronged snowflake by giving them a unique label. This will serve only to divide us.

To say that something is racist is to say it is offensive.
To say that something is sexist is to say it is offensive.
To say that something is offensive is to say that it offended me.
The need to splinter this and make martyr sub-groups of the offended will only result in a victim mentality of which 'victim group' do you most relate to?

This seems like such a knee-jerk over-reaction.

Good luck.
posted by geekyguy at 10:38 PM on November 23, 2007 [2 favorites]

WCityMike,

The TITLE field is short. And this isn't an announcement, it is a request for thoughts / advice. A specific subset of thoughts and advice, which wouldn't fit in the title. Substituting "announcement regarding" for "thoughts on" would make the title more innaccurate, not less. I think the title is fine as-is, because the post itself says:

"If you would like to add suggestions or have constructive criticism, please do so in this thread."

Note that "suggestions" here is meant as "suggestions on new measures to implement", so "don't implement any" doesn't really fit. Also, constructive criticism refers to criticism intended to improve the measures. "Don't implement them", while perhaps valid and useful, isn't really a criticism which leads to improved measures. So, yeah, this thread is for suggestions on what/how to implement measures. It isn't an announcement thread. It isn't a thread for suggesting "don't do it", because that ship appears to have passed.

mathowie writes "bugbread...people in the previous thread really wanted to see the word 'sexism' over 'sexist' to put it in the minds of members viewing the site that that kind of behavior wasn't tolerated."

Ah, ok, that's groovy. I read through that thread in bits and starts, but missed that part.
posted by bugbread at 10:40 PM on November 23, 2007

I just want to add that we're sort of raising a bit of awareness with this in the guidelines, faq, and/or wiki, in addition to the flagging, with the hopes and goal of making the site more welcoming to women by weeding out the hostile jokes and other stuff that can be problematic. I didn't think it was a huge problem before but it comes up often enough (and in the monster-sized thread it's clear is a bigger problem than I thought) that it's worth doing something about and hopefully resulting in a better environment.

For people like WCityMike that see a problem with this, imagine you hang out with five guys once a week or so. You get together, watch football, drink some beers, go out to dinner, and shoot the shit. This goes on for many years as you all grow up together. Eventually someone says hey, I just learned my brother is gay and I'd like it if we could cut out the occasional fag joke and stop calling lame stuff is "totally gay". Your friends can call that a slippery slope or the attack of the PC police or they can understand where you're coming from and refrain from it in the future. It's a clumsy analogy but similar to what we're doing here.
posted by mathowie at 10:41 PM on November 23, 2007 [29 favorites]

The Deej writes "So, all three work.

"'This comment is offensive.'
"'This comment is sexist.'
"'This comment is racist.'"

I think you read my comment backwards. With the current flag, it's:

"This comment is offensive."
"This comment is sexism."
"This comment is racism."

I'm recommending them to be changed to "sexist" and "racist" respectively, which would result in:

"This comment is offensive."
"This comment is sexist."
"This comment is racist."
posted by bugbread

Backwards I read your comment, because confused am I.

Or, you know, Yoda-like.
posted by The Deej at 10:42 PM on November 23, 2007

geekyguy writes "I have nothing to add other than to say that this seems to be stupid. Which flag should I use?"

Er...the flag is "offensive/sexism/racism". So if you see something which is racist and yet not offensive, you should pick the "offensive/sexism/racism" flag. If it's both racist and offensive, you should pick the "offensive/sexism/racism". Hits the trifecta? Use the "offensive/sexism/racism" flag. Other variations and iterations? Same flag.

It's pretty easy to choose which flag, because they're all one flag.
posted by bugbread at 10:45 PM on November 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

Those other 2 threads are too fucking long to read for anyone with any sense. Also, I'm going to be flagging every comment as offensive/sexism/racism just so you can figure out whether the comment is offensive, sexist, or racist. You've got a 1 out of 3 chance so good luck!
posted by puke & cry at 10:45 PM on November 23, 2007

This comment is:

confusing.
posted by The Deej at 10:46 PM on November 23, 2007

This will serve only to divide us.

If you read the linked thread (and anyone who wants to be taken seriously by me might want to), you'll see that those who participated in the linked thread came from all perspectives on this issue, and still managed to bond and come together to stand behind Matt on this decision. There was nothing knee jerk about it.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 10:47 PM on November 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

The need to splinter this and make martyr sub-groups of the offended
Um, all three are part of a SINGLE flagging category that isn't even being ADDED to the choices. Apparently you consider it a terrible thing to acknowledge in a place that is not even immediately visible that specifically "sexism" and "racsim" are NOT OK...

It looks like the "knee-jerk over-reaction" is yours, geekguy ... with emphasis on the jerk.

And 'slippery slope', WCityMike??? The most obvious slippery slopes I've seen on the Web are those in which a forum trying to be inclusive and tolerant gets taken over by the loudest, stinkiest, most obnoxious asses. This is a courageous step AWAY from that slippery slope.
posted by wendell at 10:48 PM on November 23, 2007 [2 favorites]

Q: Is there a problem with sexist stuff around here? I'm not sexist although I sometime make crude jokes.

A: First, try not to let the term "sexism" make you feel defensive. It's not that the flag is saying "this commenter is a terrible bigoted human being".

In this application, I think it's a term of convenience, an shorthand for a cluster of things that make women feel like this is a place where they're implicitly not part of the group. Rape jokes, knee-jerk "I'd hit it" (seriously or in irony), that kind of thing. See the long thread for a lot of good explanation of just how that stuff comes across.

And people reported in that thread that when they would step forward to say "hey, the rape stuff isn't funny", they would get piled on. A number of people said they would be more comfortable if there were a way to note egregious stuff without having to endure the pile-on. (Because if the likely response is a pile-on, then they would just leave the thread rather than try to explain why the sexist/misogynist stuff is scary/deeply disturbing/shitty/out-of-line/much worse than the commenter probably intended. And the idea is, this is why women end up spending less time on the blue -- since it's just SO much of that stuff, and each instance seems to call for a response, and one only has so much energy.)


Q: Why include the word "sexism" at all? Isn't it redundant?

A: The point was to make it explicit that sexist stuff is flaggable. Two purposes:

1. To encourage commenters to think over their comment for an extra split second, and ask themselves if their joke would come across as friendly and ironic, or come across as pointedly we're-all-dudes-here no-girls-allowed locker room talk (or even something worse).

2. To allow action by people who are bothered, without requiring that they steel themselves for a full on internet battle. Many people said -- and I agree -- that just "offensive content" seemed like a much higher bar. I don't think I've flagged anything as offensive, or maybe only once or twice. Even though there are plenty of instances of "have you seen her tits" or whatever that I would flag as sexist if I had the sense that that stuff was not tacitly approved.


Q: Why not make it a separate flag? Why bundle it in with "offensive"?

A: The worry was that this would lead to adding separate flags for a lot of different kinds of objectionable stuff (if racist is included, why not homophobic? etc). So, making explicit some of the stuff under "offensive" was a compromise.


Q: What's this about an etiquette section of the FAQ?

A: Again two purposes, just like the sexism flag. To make it clear that locker-room sexism isn't what Mefi is about (take it to Fark), and to make it easier for people who want to call out obnoxious stuff in-thread. Having a FAQ guideline would simplify the process of saying "lay off the choke-on-my-cock talk, please", since one could just link to the guideline and not have to defend against a huge derail/shitstorm of "you humorless bitch, we're only kidding".
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:49 PM on November 23, 2007 [19 favorites]

Without reading the thread in question I'll let that stand as the very reason that this looks like a knee-jerk reaction.

You are talking about one thread.
posted by geekyguy at 10:50 PM on November 23, 2007

is getting in the way of people feeling like this is a community where everyone's contributions are valued

Not everyone's contributions are valued.

It would be unfortunate if our culture were to change such that everyone's contributions were to be respected and valued equally. That way madness lies. Homeopathy and creationism would be treated as "scientific" and "factual" and worthy of respect.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:53 PM on November 23, 2007 [3 favorites]

Without reading the thread in question...

"I refuse to learn anything about this issue, but here's my two cents!" Seriously, geekyguy, you sound ridiculous.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 10:53 PM on November 23, 2007 [9 favorites]

Sorry geekyguy, your opinion doesn't mean shit unless you read EVERY COMMENT in both of those pointless fucking sexism threads. Call us when you're enlightened by your experience.
posted by puke & cry at 10:53 PM on November 23, 2007

Some Boyzoners are so afraid of anything that challenges their ability to wave their members around the site. I'm actually encouraged at how small the turnout of the "OMG they're taking away my 'I'd hit its'" crowd is here...

And the misunderstanding that this is somehow trying to quantify the amount of sexism/racism/etc. is truly comical.
posted by wendell at 10:55 PM on November 23, 2007

You don't have to read every comment to get the gist. For starters, you can skip much of EB's flameout, and by doing that alone, the length of thread is probably cut in half.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 10:55 PM on November 23, 2007 [2 favorites]

Nice start with the name calling, wendell.

The most obvious slippery slopes I've seen on the Web are those in which a forum trying to be inclusive and tolerant gets taken over by the loudest, stinkiest, most obnoxious asses. This is a courageous step AWAY from that slippery slope.

So you are saying the participants in one thread represent the entire population of Metafilter? It seems that the loudest, etc, etc, etc are getting their way.

I hope that this isn't something that is being done to protect from potential lawsuits. 'Cause that would only add to the suck.
posted by geekyguy at 10:55 PM on November 23, 2007

I may have missed this being mentioned in the other thread but will this new policy result in sexist-bigoted-fattist shitheads and provocateurs of that ilk actually being shown the door? I'm all for engendering a more welcome environment for folks who may otherwise become disenfranchised from the community, but all the new flags and constitutional amendments are just ones and zeroes on a screen if there isn't any sort of enforcement.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:55 PM on November 23, 2007

"with the hopes and goal of making the site more welcoming to women"
Ah! so the MetaDating subsite is going to happen.
posted by tellurian at 11:00 PM on November 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

Puke & cry, I don't know everybody very well who is going to get heated about this, but I do know you pretty well, and I really think that if you did read it, you wouldn't be so angry... and would probably even be agreeing. Just my feeling.
posted by taz at 11:01 PM on November 23, 2007

Can we get a "Defensive/Sexy/Racy" flag too?
posted by blue_beetle at 11:04 PM on November 23, 2007 [4 favorites]

Thanks, mods.
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 11:07 PM on November 23, 2007

heh, I'm not angry, taz. I just think that the addition of the sexism flag was pointless. I read every comment in both of those threads, unfortunately. Like I said, they're too long to read for anyone with any sense. I just see the entire episode as so blown out of proportion that it's comical. Matt has on his little badge to stamp out sexism, whatever. I'm sure nothing notable will come of it.
posted by puke & cry at 11:08 PM on November 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

Oh thank you. I sometimes notice the borderline racist stuff but refrain from saying anything because, as some mentioned, I don't want a pile-on. Sometimes even just a misuse of words gets me into a whole heap of trouble. This is great, thanks.
posted by divabat at 11:12 PM on November 23, 2007

I'm sure nothing notable will come of it.

puke & cry, maybe you could work on reassuring geekyguy that he's in no danger of being personally castrated here.
posted by wendell at 11:15 PM on November 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

WCityMike, this is radically out of proportion with the kinds of changes that are being discussed. (As others have pointed out above, mathowie with particular clarity.) Nobody is saying "no more jokes", nobody is even saying "no more snarky mean jokes". Nobody is saying "no more honesty" or "don't tell people that you think they're full of shit" etc, either.

We already have plenty of norms around here, which are not oppressive but instead serve to lift Mefi from the steaming swamp of l33t dudez on the rest of the internets. (Use complete sentences, normal capitalization and punctuation, be clever if you can, etc) Saying "let's tone it down with the rape jokes" is part of that same sensibility. It's not part of the PC Police who are Coming to Get All Freethinkers. If you look at the other thread, you will find pretty much everyone agreeing that we like funny, we are here because we mostly like the wit and the level of discussion, we don't want Mefi to get Nerfed or boring.
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:15 PM on November 23, 2007

Personally I think some people are jumping the gun on what this flag is going to do to Metafilter. Jessamyn has stressed that they are "data collecting letting people know what's up." She has not said that there will be persecution of sexist/racist commenters and all offenders will be burned off the cardinal directions of Metafilter.

I sense that perhaps the community is trying to figure out if it's a problem. That includes the mods, and should include the rest of us. I know I find myself wincing over some comments that denigrate women, even if ironic. This is a tricky media that we a communicating over. We can't see who other people are on this internets of ours, and sometimes that leads to behavior that is not inappropriate regardless of whether or not the commenter is in fact sexist/racist in reality.

I personally am going to question myself when I read comments that are overtly racist/sexist and pass them over without a word. And I'm going to question the comments I make myself. I can be against racism/sexism and still be one myself. I'm not saying that Metafilter is about personal cultivation. However, it certainly has room to allow people to be. It certainly encourages people to grow a thick skin. But that skin shouldn't grow thick because of racial or gender offense intentional or no.

We want this place to be amenable to all regardless of inherent gender/race. That is different from having to be amenable to people who's personality is assholish.

But we can't knock it until we see what's up. And as to the question of figuring out if a comment is offensive/racist/sexist: Our mods can read comments for themselves, right? They have eyes, right? Or did I miss something?
posted by Mister Cheese at 11:19 PM on November 23, 2007 [3 favorites]

Those other 2 threads are too fucking long to read for anyone with any sense. Also, I'm going to be flagging every comment as offensive/sexism/racism just so you can figure out whether the comment is offensive, sexist, or racist. You've got a 1 out of 3 chance so good luck!

To the person wot you are parodying, I shall just add the short, chilling fact that the moderators are all powerful and they log every-fucking-thing *insert googly eyes and woo-wooing here*.
posted by h00py at 11:20 PM on November 23, 2007

Alvy: mods can speak to "enforcement" but I think the discussion in the other thread was trending (as of yesterday - I haven't caught up fully) toward deletion of a comment only in the case of the worst and emptiest stuff, but with maybe a MeMail with a "give it a rest with the cunt stuff" nudge from a mod if a user seemed to be getting a lot of those flags over a period of time.

I think the principal action would still be by "whoa, not cool" callouts in thread, but with a FAQ guideline that could be linked to decrease the chance that the thread would derail.
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:22 PM on November 23, 2007

I guess I shouldn't make snarky comments about this because it makes it seem like I hold an opinion that I don't. What I'm saying is that there's no need to add anything to offensive tag. If some asshole makes a sexist comment and if offends you, flag it as offensive. There's no need to add anything to the offensive tag.

Now if you'll excuse me, one of my cats just puked. Twice. Thank god for brown carpet.
posted by puke & cry at 11:23 PM on November 23, 2007 [3 favorites]

I wish we could have a 'stupid' flag too. I'd use the hell out of that motherfucker, I tells ya. -- posted by stavrosthewonderchicken

And that feedback should be presented to the user as well. A "x" for each flag, in the page header section. The more x's, the more people despise you.

Naturally there would be those who would interpret it as some sort of progress indicator. Like rats pushing the pleasure-centre shock bar, they'd rapidly spiral out of control.

It would all end in a ripping self-destructive blowout of sublime beauty, a true Thing Of Wonder. And the survivors can sit back and enjoy the results of evolution in action. It'll be utopian. Or vanilla pudding.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:23 PM on November 23, 2007 [2 favorites]

geekyguy: It's not one thread. If anything, it's two metatalk threads, two deleted threads on the blue, and a slew of memails and other external communications which were discussed inthread. The two meta threads comprise the bulk of it, but are also combined at 1600+ comments right now. Over the course of this, we had a large number of female members of mefi speak up about their experiences here and the common thread of feeling alienated from participation on the blue by the culture of casual sexist remarks.

We had several longtime members dissent from the prevailing sentiment, consider the arguments some more, and then come around to a greater awareness. See: loquacious, It's Raining Florence Henderson, and dios. klangklangston is another notable dissenter in those threads, and he doesn't have a handy turning point comment like the three above, and he also is fairly vocal about points of contention throughout the whole thread, but still comes to support the reccomendations of the thread.

We had two of the mods, jessamyn and cortex, follow the threads in full, both contributing and adding to the consensus, who also served to keep matt informed of what was going on. When the time came that thread had a general consensus on what could be done, and that it should be done, matt came in to give his preliminary take.

We had, as noted in the previous thread, several members disable their own accounts, for various reasons. In EB's case, two accounts were disabled over the course of the discussion.

So I really hope you can see why this was more than just a thread.

puke & cry: that's a straw man argument and you know it. No one is saying that. It's possible for a comment to be clearly uninformed and not require becoming informed to be an outrageous and unreasonable commitment to knowing everything. Even in the case of being uninformed, a little awareness of your own ignorance goes a long way.
posted by Arturus at 11:29 PM on November 23, 2007 [13 favorites]

If you would like to add suggestions or have constructive criticism, please do so in this thread.

I don't know how much work this would be, but if a comment of mine is deleted for racist/sexist/offensive content, I'd really appreciate a MeFi mail message about it. Just some automated note to let me know, since I don't return obsessively to every comment I make to see how it's being received. I wouldn't want to know so I could complain about it, but so I could take the deletion (and more to the point, the flagging that must have made it happen) into account in the future.
posted by dreamsign at 11:29 PM on November 23, 2007 [2 favorites]

That last bit addressed at p&k refers to here. Fast moving thread.
posted by Arturus at 11:35 PM on November 23, 2007

geekyguy: Was this a response to my comment? Not sure I get the point, if so. The thread in question is long and a lot of ideas were hashed out. I was summarizing with extreme brevity. That thread is, by the last several hundred comments, extremely careful and non-knee-jerk in its discussion. If you mean that even thinking about this issue at all is knee-jerk, well, that doesn't seem true. If you mean that this action is being taken without a thorough vote by everyone on Mefi, that's true. But of course, here we are in a thread where you can give input. The other thread is still open too.
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:37 PM on November 23, 2007

If not a full solution, this seems like an excellent step to address the longstanding boyzone issue. Thank you mods, and especially, thank you to the participants in those long threads. I suspect there will be an improvement in atmosphere, which may take weeks or months to unfold. Then, if EB and vronsky and jennydiski would come back then it would be unqualified goodness.


Speaking of long threads, is there some issue with metafilter that long threads rarely seem to load completely, and/or, are very slow? I mean, even a thousand comment thread shouldn't be that large. Anyone else have this experience of threadus interruptus?
posted by Rumple at 11:38 PM on November 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

What I'm saying is that there's no need to add anything to offensive tag. If some asshole makes a sexist comment and if offends you, flag it as offensive. There's no need to add anything to the offensive tag.

The reason why it was necessary to add to the offensive tag is that many people, in the big threads and here if you'll look upthread a bit, expressed that they didn't know that sexism that wasn't on the level of "christ, what an asshole" was a flaggable offense, or that the moderators would understand the meaning if, to use the much discussed example, an "It'd hit it" post was to be flagged as offensive. It was needed to add something to the flag because the flag was not being understood correctly and this was happening in a manner which was to the detriment of female engagement with meatfilter.
posted by Arturus at 11:39 PM on November 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

Arturus: First off, I'm pretty sure you're misusing the "straw man" thing. I had to look it up to be sure but I don't think that has anything to do with my objective comments. Second, you make it sound like the offensive/sexism/racism flag is meant to be a corrective measure that will stop the commenter from making another sexist/racist comment. I don't know if you really believe that or not but damn, come on.
posted by puke & cry at 11:39 PM on November 23, 2007

er, metafilter.

Meatfilter is somewhere else entirely.
posted by Arturus at 11:40 PM on November 23, 2007

That was a response to this comment. damn fast moving thread.

btw, i cleaned the puke up. No one could even tell that carpet was ever puked on.
posted by puke & cry at 11:41 PM on November 23, 2007

puke & cry: your comment above was indeed a straw man argument -- that is, you were making a caricature of your opponent's position that was much stronger than they intended it, and by pretending this caricature was their actual argument, you pretended that it was an easily defeated argument. The metaphor is: You made a straw man (a scarecrow) out of their position, and then tried to score points in a jousting competition against it, rather than against live armed opponents.

(You pretended people were saying "read every single comment or else your opinion is worthless", when really all they needed to hold was "give a reasonable skim to at least the last part of that thread before complaining that we haven't considered the issue, or speculating about what solutions have been proposed.")
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:54 PM on November 23, 2007 [2 favorites]

A lot of snark is basically straw-man-making. I'm not against it as a comic tool. But it's just false to say it wasn't a straw-man.
/logic teacher
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:57 PM on November 23, 2007

puke & cry: I might be. The intention was more that you were using a sarcastic exaggeration of the position being staked out by TPS which seemed to fail to capture any actual detail of the position being staked out. Not really a straw man, in that you didn't mean it seriously, but eh.

And no, I don't think that this flag is corrective measure in and of itself. But it is a consciousness raising measure, not for people making blatantly sexist/racist comments, but rather for the community at large, and most importantly for female members trying to feel out the posting environment here.

This doesn't stand alone, either. The recommendations, or at least my take on them, that we arrived at towards the end of that thread are broadly the following:

• Alter the offensive flag, as an easy change towards consciousness raising

• Create an etiquette guidelines page, to broadly and not-terrible-specifically spell out what sorts of things are or aren't okay. This is intended to give a bit of backing when calling out sexist comments inthread. A common theme was that many posters were willing to call out sexism as they saw it, but were unwilling to engage in the lengthy debate which would then be created as a result. This is to try and help that, by giving a little institutional but non-restrictive backup.

• For the people involved in that thread to make an effort to call out sexism more often, and to encourage others to do so, and just in general raise awareness and get this going from a real grassroots perspective, which is the basis for the way metafilter culture works.

• For the moderators to be aware of this as an ongoing issue, to take an eye to this and, where possible, encourage more of the last point. We have a feedback loop on metafilter between the users and the moderators, and both sides are responsible for setting the tone here. It's not one or the other.

So yeah, I think that there's the potential for a really good thing to happen here. Do I think any of these are magic bullets? No, of course not. Do I think these are some real, constructive things, with the possibility, taken collectively, to create greater female involvement and comfort and make metafilter a bit more awesome? Absolutely.
posted by Arturus at 12:00 AM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

Right. As usual, Jessamyn has been a voice of relative calm in the middle of a major shitstorm. If reading 1500 messages sounds like a bit much, you can probably get a good primer by reading the following comments she made.

one
two
three
four
five
six
seven
eight
nine
ten
eleven
posted by tkolar at 12:03 AM on November 24, 2007 [3 favorites]

To add in my two cents. This is a good change. I sometimes whine about how I feel MetaFilter's evolving but this is an unalloyed *good thing.* Racism and sexism should be actively fought against on a community level. It's not enough to abstain from it.

[this is good]
posted by Kattullus at 12:08 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

KokuRyu writes '"Also, I think the sexism/racism flag is totally unnecessary. both of those fall under offensive content so I don't see the point."

'Wondering how many female MetaFilter users would agree with this comment.'

I thought I would mention that I am a female user and I agree with it. If it's sexist but not offensive then it's in the same category of Irishmen jokes - not a big deal. However I don't care enough to say it should/shouldn't have been done, if other people like it then clearly they have different mental categories to me. I also don't really find mefi that much of a boyzone, although I am aware that this just means I have been brainwashed into accepting domination of the patriarchy blah blah, and I am perfectly prepared to accept that things that don't bother me do bother other women. The only thing that bothers me about the whole load of crap in the last few weeks is the number of people prepared to speak for me (as a female), coupled with the sense I have often gotten that 'I'm a girl and this doesn't bother me' is not seen as an acceptable response to most of it by other women.
posted by jacalata at 12:12 AM on November 24, 2007 [6 favorites]

A bit from one of jessamyn's comments that does a better job of explaining why the flag was changed than I did:

What mathowie and I have been talking about is changing the offensive flag to be some variety of offensive/sexist/racist. I know it seems like a small deal but I think it serves two purposes

1. indicates that sexist sort of behavior is at some level against the guidelines and a flaggable offense (like people seem to know that about rascist stuff, most of them, but it doesn't hurt to add it as well)

2. indicate to people offended by people's sexist comments that a) they have an option b) they shoudl let us know c) the culture here isn't just for them to quietly slink off feeling "well maybe this place isn't for me"


and a bit from a later comment, speaking the the role of the community and general optimism:

The whole part about it being a community website is really that while we can make some changes, they need to be reinforced through community action, MeTa threads, and people sort of learning the new ropes. Unless we want a big purge, I really see these incremental changes as a solid move forward and a base to build on.
posted by Arturus at 12:14 AM on November 24, 2007

LobsterMitten: Ah yes, I can see that. I was trying to be as over-the-top as possible with my comments there. I tend to get a little carried away with that kind of thing. :D They don't actually represent my opinion. My response was mainly due to the response that geekyguy and or WCityMike got that if you don't like this you're an idiot sexist or a neanderthal that just doesn't get it.
posted by puke & cry at 12:17 AM on November 24, 2007

jacalata: about "I'm a girl and this doesn't bother me". I think there has been some bad timing, and maybe some accidental less than ideal rhetorical framing, when that was offered in the other discussion. I think it came off as sounding like "it doesn't bother me, so you other ladies should just toughen up" -- which seemed like an attempt to drown out the people who were saying "we feel drowned out", which naturally garnered a disapproving response.

But yeah - it's important in this debate not to say things like "all women at Mefi think X" or "this bothers all women". Plenty of men are bothered by the sexist stuff, and plenty of women aren't. My guess is that women are disproportionately bothered by it, and that it serves to drive away some who otherwise would stay and snark and generally fit in. Obviously we don't have hard numbers on any of this.

My sense is that there is some totally impulsive throw-away stuff, which people of good will toss off, not realizing how it will come across -- especially once they see a one-liner like "I'd hit it" or whatever as a prominent thing all over the site. That strikes me as lame-assery, rather than really offensive -- but it sets a general frathouse tone that puts (at least some) women off in a "maybe this isn't my kind of party" way. That specific frathousy stuff seems to me something that we could decrease a little with no loss of funniness or cleverness or honesty, mainly by community action. We could change that tone just by, you know, making and demanding smarter jokes.

The worse stuff is the casual rape jokes, which really bother at least the people who said as much in the other thread. This stuff is not all that common, but some threads devolve into real carnivals of it, and that sucks. That makes it a genuinely hostile environment for women, it seems to me, even if there are a sizeable number of women who are fine with it -- I think it gives people the wrong idea about what kind of party this is. This seems to me like a place for moderators to say something or delete the worst stuff.
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:32 AM on November 24, 2007 [3 favorites]

My response was mainly due to the response that geekyguy and or WCityMike got that if you don't like this you're an idiot sexist or a neanderthal that just doesn't get it.

Yeah, the other thread was pretty much a marathon session and everyone is tired and a little punchy.

There's a whole crapload of context that anyone posting in this thread is walking right into the middle of. It might have been better to wait to have this discussion until after the major stakeholders had some time to relax.
posted by tkolar at 12:33 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

From Jessamyns first comment: "do your part to make the place seem less like a frat house."

Sometimes a thread with a guys lockerroom atmosphere can be great fun.

There are a lot of threads that don't appeal to me or that I find irritating. I try to stay out of those and let those who enjoy them their fun.
I'd imagine that this place could be diverse. That there can be threads in which the gender studies crowd has their fun, which I stay out of since to me most gender studies is the furthering of gender politics wrapped in a cloak of science, and also lockerroom threads, etc. etc.

I didn't see a definition of sexism in this thread. Without one flagging would just amount to "I don't like your comment". Which is rather useless.

Basically I think this is a step in mefi getting more bland and boring.
posted by jouke at 12:35 AM on November 24, 2007

puke & cry: Yeah, I could see what you were going for. I do think that geekyguy and WCityMike were reacting to a small initial change (and a request for comment) in an over the top, characteristically MeTa, way -- "help help, I'm bein' oppressed" when the actions being contemplated are quite mild. I hate the phrase "the PC police" because, man, there are people who are honestly to-the-bone go-back-to-Africa racists or women-shouldn't-get-an-education sexists, and it's a good thing that they can't just mouth off openly without getting shocked stares of disapproval. We aren't missing out on some great revolutionary blast of cleansing honesty, by their view being socially disapproved of.

But of course, it's a hell of a long thread to have to catch up on. So, hopefully we've laid out a bit of the rationale in here now, and maybe as people come in here they will take a minute to catch up via comments here and tkolar's links to the other thread.
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:40 AM on November 24, 2007

jouke: There's not a definition of "derail" either, but that isn't a problem. These are fuzzy categories, flag as you see fit. A comment would need to get a bunch of flags in order to get looked at by a moderator, who would then make a decision using their own mind about whether any action on their part was warranted.
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:44 AM on November 24, 2007

For those who are opposed to this:

What do you think are the concrete negative results from changing the "offensive" flag to "offensive/sexism/racism"?

I understand that it may be considered illogical, since the two latter options are a subset of the former. But illogic is not a negative result, it's a thing that often causes negative results, and that's why it's usually best avoided. Illogic usually results in one of two negative results: confusion, or contradictory results.

I don't think a person would be confused by "offensive/sexism/racism".
I don't see how there would be contradictions caused by this.

So I'm not seeing any negatives to this.

"It will result in MeFi being bland" has been offered, so regarding that, I guess, my question is: "How?" To my understanding, if "sexism" and "racism" were already part of "offensive", there hasn't been any sweeping change that would result in the blandizing of MeFi. Same with the slippery slope: two things were already against the rules. How does writing them out in a different manner result in a slippery slope? The best hypothesis I can come up with would be "one day, we'll end up with a ginormous tag which includes every possible iteration of offensiveness", but my experience with Matt shows that he probably won't actually make a 20-line-long tag. I can also see a few MeTas being made about people complaining that "anti-overweight-ism" or "antisemitism" or whathaveyou not being represented in the tag, but that's not a slippery slope, that's just "people complaining in MeTa", which is a constant.

If there are any other negatives, I'd like to know what they are as well.
posted by bugbread at 12:48 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

I don't think I'm too far from agreeance with you, LobsterMitten.

But I still think the addition to the offensive tag is pointless.
posted by puke & cry at 12:50 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

At first, I was honestly apprehensive about this, simply because I don't like feeling like part of some fragile "victim" class - I'm not a delicate flower that requires protection from them nasty mens. I personally have never felt like Metafilter was a sausage party, but then, maybe I've been hanging around the wrong side of the internet too long.
After giving it some thought, I believe this is a perfectly reasonable solution to what is clearly a pervasive problem - it's subtle enough not to have a chilling effect, and asks nothing, really, that isn't expected of us in our daily civilized discourse. The moderators seem to have a good eye for the difference between a cheeky good time and crossing the line and doing a dance in the end zone AMIRITE? I'm a huge fan of free speech, but if there is a signifigant portion of the community that really doesn't feel that they are free to speak, then we don't really have that, do we?
Besides, we KNOW you'd hit that, and frankly, ew.
posted by louche mustachio at 12:54 AM on November 24, 2007 [13 favorites]

The only problem I have with the new tag is that someone may read it as "offensive (i.e., racism, sexism)" as opposed to "offensive (e.g., racism, sexism)." Other than that, no problem.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 1:06 AM on November 24, 2007

Also note that my snarky comment didn't have anything to do with teeps. We posted comments with the same timestamp, it was just a happy coincidence that they were next to either other.
posted by puke & cry at 1:09 AM on November 24, 2007

What do you think are the concrete negative results from changing the "offensive" flag to "offensive/sexism/racism"?

As pointed out above, fostering bad grammar. Otherwise, none. Good idea.
posted by dreamsign at 1:11 AM on November 24, 2007

next to each other. That's what happens when you use the post button instead of the preview button.
posted by puke & cry at 1:11 AM on November 24, 2007

Louche mustachio, I don't know that it's fair to characterize the women who've shared their thoughts on this as a delicate flowers that require protection from nasty mens. I know many of them personally, and have been pleased to find a lot more really bright, strong, thoughtful people in these recent threads, and they're hardly shrinking violets or fainting belles. In fact, speaking up despite the certain knowledge that is how they will be characterized sort of attests to their strength, to me, anyway.

(I'm sure you didn't really mean to frame it that way, but when you say I'm not bothered because I'm not like this, it sort of suggests that those who are bothered are like "this".)
posted by taz at 1:20 AM on November 24, 2007 [4 favorites]

Personally, and for myself, as a woman and all, I sometimes like to join in with the jocularity, and sometimes it's revolting because I like that.

But if I see a lamearse comment that belongs on fark or alt.men, I flag it as offensive. The fact that it's now offensive/sexist/racist doesn't really change things at all.

I should think that would be something that everyone on here does because otherwise we would be awash with lols (in amongst the bright and wonderful comments).
posted by h00py at 1:26 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

awash in, sigh.
posted by h00py at 1:28 AM on November 24, 2007

h00py writes "But if I see a lamearse comment that belongs on fark or alt.men, I flag it as offensive. The fact that it's now offensive/sexist/racist doesn't really change things at all."

The flag change helps for folks like me, though, as I always took "offensive" to mean "just way fucking out there indefensibly bad". If I could imagine a lengthy debate on MeTa with various people attacking and defending it, I wouldn't have flagged it. If I could imagine everyone at MeFi saying "No, that comment is just fucking wrong", I would have flagged it.

So, for me, at least, this change (or, rather, the background discussion of what the flag was for) changes things for me regarding how I use the flag (I think until now I've only used it like, twice, ever).
posted by bugbread at 1:36 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

challenges their ability to wave their members around the site

Hey, hold on one second! I signed up for not saying "cunt", nobody told me I couldn't talk about my (quite large) penis anymore. How is that boyzone? This is information I am sharing primarily for the benefit of the gals (although the homosexual men are free to be impressed as well).
posted by Meatbomb at 2:05 AM on November 24, 2007

Naw, taz, I didn't mean it like that. I was actually kind of surprised at the number of women who I consider to be quite strong and outspoken that said that they frequently felt they couldn't say something when they felt a comment was really out of line, because they didn't feel like dealing with the pile-on. I was commenting on my own initial, knee-jerk reaction to the change. Clealy, if some of the women who are the most poweful voices on Metafilter feel like they are being silenced or left out, something is wrong, and this seems like a reasonable solution that will let everyone have a voice.
posted by louche mustachio at 2:43 AM on November 24, 2007

LobsterMitten: I understand that that 'drowning out complaints' aspect was part of the problem, but I still don't know how to frame it without sounding dismissive or including so many disclaimers that I can't be bothered having the conversation. Any tips? Or, am I right when I think that it's usually not worth contributing (and therefore stayed out of those two threads)?

I think that for some reason there has been a lot of 'generation whoeverthefuck' talk around recently (partly related to the election over here) and I have gotten so sick of people assuming that they 'speak for' groups I am part of that I've started calling it out occasionally.
posted by jacalata at 2:43 AM on November 24, 2007

Flex them flaggin' fingers, folks. We got ourselves a Dov Charney post.
posted by maryh at 2:47 AM on November 24, 2007

Way ahead of you. Like, twice.

Wait, flex my fingers for WHAT????
posted by louche mustachio at 2:48 AM on November 24, 2007

Validation and a sense of relief. Cos lame is lame and we should all flag it, it's the metafilter way!
posted by h00py at 2:54 AM on November 24, 2007

I disagree with the principle of trying to change the site's tone by moderator fiat and minority advocacy, rather than by organic equilibrium from the community itself. To me, the appeal (and entertainment value) of discussions in the blue and gray stems from its emphasis on direct combativeness and wit, rather than validation and consensus (that's the green). IMO the best way to counter the Boyzone would have been rebuttals in-thread, like Jessamyn's trenchant quip "I am pretty all the time, fuckers", challenging individuals to defend their words and values openly -- i.e. community self-policing, not nannying. (I think Jessamyn highlighted the gendered "pretty" issue there to ORthey a lot more convincingly than a contentious deletion would have.) These flagging and guideline changes feel more like an imposed ideological shift instead.

As far as discomfort goes: we've long mocked people to "quit complaining/editorializing, flag it and move on" and "what did you expect for dropping into a thread about [x]" (Macs, fat acceptance, many American political topics, and yes feminism, etc.). In contrast against this "don't shit here if it bothers you" principle: has the large lad culture content of the web now officially been deemed too crude to be interesting enough to link to and discuss here, or must they now be discussed in such an antiseptic way so as not to offend those who enter those threads knowing full well they'll likely be offended by its contents? And are Bill Hicks ("drunk cunt" etc.), Chris Rock ("I hate niggers" etc.), and Sarah Silverman ("I love chinks" etc.) too racist/sexist for MeFi now? Because they make many people alienated/uncomfortable, to use that as the determining metric. Which is IMO a poor one.

There are other sites I frequent that are more highbrow than Metafilter (without all the superfluous lolcats and "it vibrates?"), and sites more lowbrow than Metafilter as well (all the lulz without the plate of beans). Personally I find it very presumptive to try to steer a highbrow community away from erudition and overanalysis, just as I would to force a more lowbrow site to be less crude/offensive and more inclusive -- I'd just leave if a community site got too one way or the other for my liking (and I've done so a few times before). Maybe that's just me, and I've liked MeFi's previously more anything-goes incarnation a lot (and right now still have no plans of leaving). But while I think this move is ideologically admirable on the part of the mods, I'd have preferred for the community to sort out how it uses its words -- and even its own membership, based on individuals leaving when they find things unacceptable -- all on its own, rather than being decided by proxy within a nonrepresentative, very small but outspoken (and often ideologically-invested) percentage of Mefi's active population on a couple of threads buried more than a week behind in MeTa's archives. Instead of changing the rules/guidelines or hiding behind flags and favorites, I'd rather see this issue settled by everyone using our own words during our normal everyday posting -- as, you know, a community. A self-policing one.
posted by DaShiv at 3:04 AM on November 24, 2007 [24 favorites]

DaShiv: the community is what decided on these measures, and the community is responsible for the flagging. True, not every member was consulted, but that's because there is no way to consult the entire community, and the proposals (change "offensive" to "offensive/racism/sexism" and write some stuff in the FAQ warning people away from being racist sexist assholes) really don't seem like the kind of big reforms that we'd need to call a referendum for.

DaShiv writes "IMO the best way to counter the Boyzone would have been rebuttals in-thread, like Jessamyn's trenchant quip"

But if you read through the referenced thread, you'll find that a lot of people didn't feel comfortable doing that. Sure, it's ideal, but it doesn't actually work. And if you stick to ideal plans that don't actually work anywhere but theoretically, you're a bit of a fool.

DaShiv writes "I'd have preferred for the community to sort out how it uses its words"

I would have too, but MeFi has been, to varying degrees, a boyzone for 6 or 7 years. Do you have some sort of estimate on when this working-out-on-its-own would happen?
posted by bugbread at 3:12 AM on November 24, 2007 [3 favorites]

And, I may be wrong in interpreting things this way, but I don't think that the new proposals would proscribe conversations specifically about sexism/racism/whatnot. For example, the "Jade Raymond Bukkakke thread" was a whole thread of people disagreeing about whether something was sexist. As far as I understand it, comments saying "I don't think a comic about Raymond blowing geeks for sales is sexist" wouldn't be flagged. It's the "What's the problem, FemaleMeFiteNameHere, that time of the month?" and "I hope Paris Hilton gets raped with a ScaryAndSlightlyAmusingObject" stuff.
posted by bugbread at 3:16 AM on November 24, 2007

Homophobia flag, please.

Also, AskMe neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeds a "this person did not read the question AT ALL" flag.
posted by Reggie Digest at 3:31 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

(And the -isms should indeed be -ists.)
posted by Reggie Digest at 3:34 AM on November 24, 2007

If this is intended to subtly remind users that sexism and racism aren't welcome on Mefi, I'm not thrilled about it appearing to elevate them above homophobia, transphobia and so on in their importance. But then you'd end up with a two- or three-line-plus entry in the flagging reason box, so maybe a different approach is required.

This is definitely forward progress for Mefi and I'm glad to see it happen, but I think the specifics don't really do the intent justice right now.
posted by terpsichoria at 3:46 AM on November 24, 2007 [4 favorites]

I'm in the DaShiv camp (you should join us; we're a small group but we all look fantastic on the publicity shots) philosophically on the best way to handle this and am chary of top-down approaches to cultural problems.
That said, the changes as outlined here seem considered and I am now happy we're not taking the first steps to an entirely sanitised discourse. Certainly I think it would be worth seeing how it works out for a while at least. This might appear to contradict my initial claim, but I'd be happy with aggressive deletion of thoughtless rubbish in the spirit of good editing. I hope we'd still allow any vaguely considered offering of the same ideas (as we did with some of the nonsense spouted in the recent race/IQ thread) so they can receive their inevitable skewering.
I think what gets me with the lazy sexism and racism are the general lowering of the tone by appeal to lowest comment denominator. Stereotypes and throwaway remarks are really more pernicious than, say, some looney-tune who appears to offer a thought-through defence of the idea that women are vessels for child-rearing ordained by God and nothing else. That would be patently silly to most reading it; the quips where the author perhaps doesn't even realise exactly how far they're revealing their mindset are worse. Since they reinforce an unpleasant status quo but aren't substantial, flagging and burning is about all they deserve.
posted by Abiezer at 4:06 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

To deal with the issue of specifics, how about renaming the flag "offensive/prejudiced/discriminatory"?
posted by divabat at 4:06 AM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

Or to put it more succinctly: I will not defend your right to be a useless dullard.
posted by Abiezer at 4:07 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

To deal with the issue of specifics, how about renaming the flag "offensive/prejudiced/discriminatory"?

I like. I'm uncomfortable with specifically marking out sexism and racism but not queerphobia.
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 4:12 AM on November 24, 2007

Nthed.
posted by Reggie Digest at 4:26 AM on November 24, 2007

I will not defend your right to be a useless dullard

We need a useless dullardist flag.
posted by Meatbomb at 4:27 AM on November 24, 2007

It wasn't just women who requested it, either.

This is an excellent point and one that people should remember. There were several men asking for a change also.

While I'm leery of pretty much anything that smells of PC feminism, it seems clear that drastic changes and a deletion posse aren't what's on the table, so the flag doesn't seem like that big of a deal.

Much as I believe that women SHOULD speak up when they see this shit happening and that any sort of "I'm uncomfortable and don't really want to rock the boat and/or deal with the consequences of bringing up this very important issue on a website as opposed to all the men and women who died for the right to vote, be free or only work 40 hours a week" smacks of childishness, I also can speak up if I see the flip side of too much thought policing (and will cheerfully do so). So again, the flag isn't a big deal, especially as the mods seem good at taking these things on the case by case basis that would be needed.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:37 AM on November 24, 2007

DaShiv is quite right, but this appeal-to-authority trend that has been growing at Metafilter for a long time continues apace, and I don't think anything's going to change that. Matt's comments

If you want to go down a list of changes to the site over the last five years that were met with slippery slope arguments, you could pick any of them: adding flagging, moderating ask mefi heavier than other sections, adding more than 1 moderator, etc. None of them caused the slippery slopes that were predicted as I suspect this won't either.

are hilariously ironic, given the context. Dude, you're describing the very thing that you're suggesting doesn't exist - a systemic shift in the way the 'community' has operated, and not for the better (in my humble), by policies that have shifted responsibility for behaviour from the individual to arbitrary appeal to arbitrary authority.

Still and all, though, I really don't give a damn what silly useless more-inclusive-than-thou crap is added to the list of reasons for appeals to authority, so go nuts, folks! I'm not going to behave any differently, and if there are people who here who will, those people should be run out of town anyway. Fuck 'em.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:38 AM on November 24, 2007 [14 favorites]

There's a large one that I hang at the back of the hall when chairing our local Useless Dullard Alliance meetings, Meatbomb.
posted by Abiezer at 4:39 AM on November 24, 2007

I'm not holding my breath waiting for a nother flag for homophobia, look how long it took for Mefi to get this far. First women's suffrage, then sexual liberation, right?
Besides, lots of us have just thickened our skins and passed over threads/comments/posters that are blatantly anti-gay (admittedly, a smaller proportion here than in average round the interweb, but still.)
It sems to that there's something about public discourse in the States (Mefi's homeroom, as it were) that is more risky, more willing to be blunt, more willing to sanction the use of labels, where the individual stands for the whole. Maybe, that goes on lots in private in the UK, but is seriously frowned on in public. I am all for robust language, but don't understand why it is so often deployed against individuals. Most who offend like this later apologise - I just wonder why they composed it in the first place?
posted by dash_slot- at 5:02 AM on November 24, 2007 [4 favorites]

If you read the linked thread (and anyone who wants to be taken seriously by me might want to)

Being taken seriously by thepinksuperhero or reading a thousand comment thread. That's a difficult choice.

It looks like the "knee-jerk over-reaction" is yours, geekguy ... with emphasis on the jerk.
posted by wendell

Why even post this thread if you're going to call someone a jerk just for questioning the topic?

I followed that thread from beginning to end. From the flameouts to the awe-inspiring conclusion where everyone was giving high fives for having the greatest debate EVER on the internet and singing kumbaya and then the 'we gotta make another thread to show everyone how enlightened we are' and I still find the whole thing silly.

Granted, matt's mind is made up and nothing is going to change, but certainly all views can be expressed without anyone who disagrees being shoved into the boyzone crowd as wendell seems to wish.

Some Boyzoners are so afraid of anything that challenges their ability to wave their members around the site. I'm actually encouraged at how small the turnout of the "OMG they're taking away my 'I'd hit its'" crowd is here...
posted by justgary at 5:24 AM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

Being taken seriously by thepinksuperhero or reading a thousand comment thread. That's a difficult choice.
That doesn't quite work as well when you get it wrong.

I still find the whole thing silly.

How so?
posted by peacay at 5:45 AM on November 24, 2007

How so?

That it makes any great strides to go from 'offensive' to 'offensive/sexism/racism'. If others do, great. Putting those that don't see it as great into the 'i'd hit it' club, not so great.
posted by justgary at 5:50 AM on November 24, 2007

and am chary of top-down approaches

Hey, new word! Good'n, too.
posted by cortex at 5:50 AM on November 24, 2007

the community is what decided on these measures

No, Matt decided on these measures. And he didn't do so at the behest of "the community"—only a very small subset of it. When I saw the original thread I thought it was yet another attention-seeking whine about a deleted post. If I had known that six days and 1000 comments later that trainwreck would result in a new administrative fiat, I might have bothered to participate.

the community is responsible for the flagging

Saying what kind of flagging the moderators will respond to is going to change the kind of flagging "the community" (which can be only a couple of people) do.
posted by grouse at 6:17 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

Putting those that don't see it as great into the 'i'd hit it' club, not so great.
Certainly. That is silly.

I myself prefer to think of the flag change as a form of stealth advertising. A good one. I like having women around and I'd rather guys reel in their misogynistic/sexist comments so that more women - not just those who have grown thick skins - feel a bit more comfortable contributing and sticking around. DaShiv was eloquent but not persuasive. You can still be all combative and witty, but it's not cool to be referring to women only by their magnitude of fuckability or by using vicious sexual imagery.

I mean, really, it's just about a bit of decorum. We all modify our behaviour to some or extent or another in public spaces like work, and just because the internet has been a forum in general for asshat behaviour doesn't mean we oughtn't try to make our bit of it just a tad less hostile or alienating for women.

So, maybe people will see that line in the flag list and it will be a little reminder that will tweak them and they'll post a few less offensive comments. The place might actually get smarter and more entertaining when people feel their barbs and witticisms need to constructed outside of a sexist construct (most of which are cliche and boring or disturbing at the margins anyways).
posted by peacay at 6:33 AM on November 24, 2007 [12 favorites]

When people called fourpanels a dick, did anybody flag that as offensive?

Ad hominems against the privileged class are bad rhetoric, but they do not seem offensive to me. I oppose capital punishment, but I have made jokes about killing politicians who displease me more than once, and it is something that is rhetorically weak. But not something I feel any guilt about or any need to apologize for.

Apparently the most offensive comments were calling Anne Coulter a tranny skank and wishing rape upon her. Here is where the logic breaks down. To describe this as offensive requires playing the non-privileged card. Wishing rape upon Anne Coulter demeans all women.

I think that is overdoing it. Johnny Cochrane can stand up in front of a jury and defend O. J. Simpson as a victim of racial persecution when his (formerly) well-to-do client's freedom is at stake, but do you want to uphold bullshit like that as an ideal to emulate?

The thousand comment thread is shocking and awing to me. I have to worry about this kind of crap in real life at my job. The legal department at the company I work for makes every employee sit through a few hours of sensitivity training every year. That people could get so worked up about this on their free time blows my mind.
posted by bukvich at 6:40 AM on November 24, 2007

I'm in on the homophobia flag.
posted by disclaimer at 6:43 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

After skimming through some of the other thread I can say, wow, I can't remember the last time I saw so much drama in one thread.
posted by grouse at 6:45 AM on November 24, 2007

I haven't been following any of this lately, been purposely focusing on my real life instead. But before disabling another account, EB wrote me (and other people, I guess?) a long e-mail about this. In it he said,

"...Here is, in summary, Matt's thoughts on this matter: there is no problem. There once was a problem with sexism on MetaFilter, but there is not a problem today. In recent days, he has consulted with numerous female acquaintances that are MetaFilter users, and they do not believe there is a problem. These users are AskMe participants. AskMe has little to no sexist banter and high female participation. AskMe accounts for 2/3 of MetaFilter's traffic. Therefore, there is no sexism problem on MetaFilter..."

The rest of the e-mail was in essence asking us to rise up with our torches and take a stand.

I don't know if these thoughts of Matt's were invented in EB's brain, were expressed in personal mail to EB or whether they were comments he made here (since I've not been checking Mefi much). I would just like to know more about Matt "taking measures" since the story I was told was that he wasn't concerned about the issue in the slightest, considering it a non-issue.
posted by miss lynnster at 6:50 AM on November 24, 2007

Has MeFi jumped the shark or what.

I mean, when can we get rid of the comment box altogether. How are we supposed to parse this? Was somebody's feelings hurt? Did somebody threaten to file a lawsuit? Is this a shrine we're building to jennydiski? I don't get it. I've seen this site hit ten billion brick walls, and I don't understand why this one was so special as to merit a new flag.

I don't get why you bastards deleted your accounts. Ego? Couldn't handle the drama? Political statement? Just couldn't step away from the keyboard anyway and thought this was a good time to kill two birds with one stone?

I can't argue against the new flags because, if the logic follows, MetaFilter would be a better place if sexism and racism are not rampant, if they were in the first place. But you know, I've made controversial statements on race that I didn't know were that controversial, and I have been engaged by other members of this community, and I've learned. My mind has grown. I don't get how we're fucking learning anything when people are throwing hissy fits, disabling their accounts, and then assumedly demanding that MeFi go about its business in a more politically correct way.

Finally, how ironic that jennydiski's MeTa post that implicitly argued against moderation (as she had previously argued against overmoderation) has resulted in no resolution other than... better flags with which to moderate each other with. That woman was a poison the minute she stepped foot in here.
posted by phaedon at 6:51 AM on November 24, 2007 [3 favorites]

To those bitching and moaning about "PC" and free speech and all that: I hear you. I am a free-speech absolutist, and I've always enjoyed the lively and edgy flow of debate and comment and random snark around here. A couple of years ago, I might have been bitching and moaning right along with you. I'm a quonsar fan, for god's sake.

But you know what? I like women, I think they add a wider assortment of views and understandings and, if present in sufficient numbers, create a different and more interesting atmosphere than your typical boyzone/locker room (as enjoyable as that can be in its own right). And over the years I've seen women get shouted down or sniped at to the point that they stop trying, and either focus on AskMe or leave entirely. And that makes me mad, and I want it to stop.

Nobody's saying "OK, listen up, from now on there will be NO comments offensive to women or other oppressed groups. If a single woman complains about something you've said, you will be hung from the yardarm, flogged, castrated, keelhauled, and made to sing Kumbaya before being tossed overboard tied to an anchor. Salute to acknowledge that you have heard and will obey!"

The point is to try to encourage people to think twice before letting fly with a reflex "I'd hit it!" or other dumb comment. Many guys do not even realize how hard this stuff is for women to deal with (and a number of them said exactly that in the Endless Thread), and many women don't realize the mods even care about the issue (and thus don't speak up when they see crap like that). This is an attempt to address that.

Nobody's saying you have to be mealy-mouthed and high-minded. This is always going to be an edgy, snark-loving place. But is it really so oppressive to be more creative and interesting with your snark than just "I'd hit it" or "What a cunt"?

If a primary point is to collect data, then having a catchall offensive/sexism/racism category won't be particularly helpful.

This, plus the predictable reaction from those who want other things to be added because "hey, aren't they just as important?", are exactly why I thought a separate "sexist content" flag should be added.
posted by languagehat at 6:54 AM on November 24, 2007 [17 favorites]

Wow. DaShiv, great comment.
posted by phaedon at 7:02 AM on November 24, 2007

EB wrote me (and other people, I guess?)

No, not other people, just women.

I would just like to know more about Matt "taking measures" since the story I was told was that he wasn't concerned about the issue in the slightest, considering it a non-issue.

Honestly, you really should read the previous thread and this one. Not going for snark here, but Matt has made several replies and explanations and rather than linking to them directly, it would be better to read them in context.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:10 AM on November 24, 2007

quick question: will the mods remove comments which may be offensive to whites/males if they are flagged as racist/sexist?
posted by bruce at 7:16 AM on November 24, 2007

Nevermind my earlier comment, I caught matt's comments.
posted by miss lynnster at 7:18 AM on November 24, 2007

I am amused that the two arguments against this: "This change is so inconsequential, it will do nothing, and is just a monumental waste of time!" and "This kind of drastic change will spell the end of MeFi!" I'd worry if everyone said this were too drastic. I'd feel it was a waste of time if everyone said it would do nothing. The fact that both are being said reassures me that this is neither too much nor too little, but in some good middle zone.

And, yeah, I'd love it if MeFi self-policed itself in regards to this, without the need for flagging and whatnot. But it's been half a decade, and the situation has gotten only marginally better, so if the choice is "change a flag to be a little more clear, with the possible benefit of improving the situation here for 50% of the population", and "leave the flag as it is, with the possible benefit of...uh...sending 14 fewer bytes over the internet", I'd rather spend the 14 bytes.
posted by bugbread at 7:20 AM on November 24, 2007

I realize that I don't have as strong a posting history as some around here but I didn't get that that was a requirement for continued participation in the community. I can't think of any boyzone behavior I may have been involved in despite the desire of some to include me in that camp for my being underwhelmed by this change.

I have flagged things in the past that the mods were able to deduce the reason for before the new 'HTML/display error' flag was added. I think the mods are quite capable of seeing the reason behind a flag and that further change to the 'offensive' flag was unnecessary. It should be obvious that something that is racist is offensive, that something that is sexist is offensive.
posted by geekyguy at 7:23 AM on November 24, 2007

I can't think of any boyzone behavior I may have been involved

geekyguy: i think this comment counts.
posted by Stynxno at 7:29 AM on November 24, 2007

quick question: will the mods remove comments which may be offensive to whites/males if they are flagged as racist/sexist?

Probably not, bruce, just as the mods probably won't remove most of the comments that are flagged as offensive/sexism/racism. Flagging is a way to indicate something; it's no guarantee of moderator action.

It should be obvious that something that is racist is offensive, that something that is sexist is offensive.

Maybe it should be obvious, geekyguy, but the experiences of people as described in the threads that lead mathowie to change the flag description show us it wasn't obvious enough to make MetaFilter as good a place as it can be. We'd left ourselves too much room to be prejudicial and unthinking, and over time, we'd alienated people whom, if asked, I think none of us would want to alienate. Of course, we do want to filter some folks—stavrosthewonderchicken's endorsement of a flag for stupidity would probably be pretty popular—but we were making the place worse for people we would want around, people like thehmsbeagle and grumblebee, for example.
posted by cgc373 at 7:37 AM on November 24, 2007

Hmm. "People whom"? "People who"? Dammit! I hate the objective case!

Pending grammatical derail is hereby encouraged.
posted by cgc373 at 7:40 AM on November 24, 2007

i think this comment counts.

Can someone please explain that photo for the uninitiated?
posted by grouse at 7:41 AM on November 24, 2007

I'm not holding my breath waiting for a nother flag for homophobia, look how long it took for Mefi to get this far. First women's suffrage, then sexual liberation, right?

This was an initial move so that we could actually get going doing something and stop just talking about it. I'm sure it will evolve over time and transphobia and homophobia were other non-acceptable things that came up in the course of that thread and a lot of emails to me and I assume mathowie. We're in the tweaking-this phase, not intending to be exclusive.

I know it's hard to hear both "this is a great new step" and "nothing is really going to change much, don't worry" but that's mostly true as I see it. The light moderation that we usually employ on all-but-AskMe parts of the site generally works. However sometimes it doesn't. One of the failure modes is that some threads become so vicious and I-fucked-your-mom nasty that a lot of people don't want to participate in them anymore. People felt that this sort of thing was a) outside the bounds of what they felt the guidelines of the site were and b) not being dealt with in any sort of fashion either by in-thread callouts or flag-and-maybe-remove actions. The next question was why.

So we talked about the issue of the guidelines. Are really overt sexist, racist and homophobic commentary okay, not okay but tolerated, celebrated, or somewhere in-between? I think most of us felt like the sort of "tranny cunt deserves to get raped" statements were against what we felt the guidelines should encompass and yet that's really not how things were working out. We moderate lightly and we're not always aware of these things as trends. This helps us see them, figure out what to do, figure out how to approach this.

This does NOT mean that every comment that is seen as sexist by anyone goes away. This does NOT mean that issues of race, sex, sexual orientation, whatever, are somehow verboten on MeFi or need to be approached wiht kid gloves. This DOES mean that we sat down and said "gee, if there is a big group of you who feel that the site is actively alienating to you in a way that we (as moderators and longtime users) don't feel that it shoudl be, is there a way to work towards a place where it is not?"

As bugbread says upthread, the site has been around long enough that just wishing for it to be otherwise isn't going to cut it. I personally don't want women leaving the site because they feel that MeFi is (or has become) a site where we don't walk the talk about how we, as the community, want the site to run.

And, on preview, miss lynnster/brandon: EB didn't send that email to ME either. I saw it as a mischaracterization of mathowie's statements to EB in an email (one that I did see) intended to elicit a response.
posted by jessamyn at 7:42 AM on November 24, 2007 [6 favorites]

There are a lot of threads that don't appeal to me or that I find irritating. I try to stay out of those and let those who enjoy them their fun.
I'd imagine that this place could be diverse. That there can be threads in which the gender studies crowd has their fun, which I stay out of since to me most gender studies is the furthering of gender politics wrapped in a cloak of science, and also lockerroom threads, etc. etc.

There's a lot to be said for this approach. And I mean that in more than simply giving guys a space to say "I'd hit it" or "Nice tits". Making these changes will make the site more monolithic. Despite all protestations to the contrary I don't believe that this will be used only for the most extreme comments. A poster detailing how they would like someone to die by an act of extreme sexual violence can certainly be flagged offensive. No change is needed on those grounds.

Metafilter has a fairly strong political bias. In my opinion, what's good for the site is to avoid pandering to that bias; it keeps things interesting. This is not an imagined issue. Recently, I participated in a thread on race and intelligence. Many members immediately called the post racist, but they also went further and said the entire discussion, and even investigating the matter scientifically was racist. Twice I posted a link to a document, signed by over 50 experts on intelligence, stating what the mainstream scientific consensus on intelligence was. Little in the discussion went beyond the bounds of that statement. Considering the numerous calls for it to be deleted, I'm skeptical it would have stayed if there were dozens of flags stuck on it.

Contrary to LobsterMitten, I think there are real issues with a encouraging a PC police mentality here. You don't just eliminate the "honestly to-the-bone go-back-to-Africa racists or women-shouldn't-get-an-education sexists". Having these terms listed along side 'offensive', encourages their use every time someone gets miffed. No doubt, most of the time it will just result in extreme material being removed or someone being told to make fewer overtly sexual comments but there is a case to be made for it changing more than that. Perhaps those sorts of contentious topics are considered no great loss to the site. That's fine too, and I thought someone should at least speak to them. But if it's important to keep the boundaries of discussion as broad as possible, then as DaShiv points out there are other ways the community can manage. Will it be as convenient as flagging a comment, no it won't.

And along those lines, this comment on Matt's comment is perfect:

If you want to go down a list of changes to the site over the last five years that were met with slippery slope arguments, you could pick any of them: adding flagging, moderating ask mefi heavier than other sections, adding more than 1 moderator, etc. None of them caused the slippery slopes that were predicted as I suspect this won't either.

are hilariously ironic, given the context. Dude, you're describing the very thing that you're suggesting doesn't exist - a systemic shift in the way the 'community' has operated, and not for the better (in my humble), by policies that have shifted responsibility for behaviour from the individual to arbitrary appeal to arbitrary authority.

I also prefer the anything-goes incarnation of Metafilter and I do understand the decision has been made.

P.S. This is awesome:

Finally, how ironic that jennydiski's MeTa post that implicitly argued against moderation (as she had previously argued against overmoderation) has resulted in no resolution other than... better flags with which to moderate each other with. That woman was a poison the minute she stepped foot in here.
posted by BigSky at 7:45 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

It should be obvious that something that is racist is offensive, that something that is sexist is offensive.

geekyguy, I don't disagree with you in principle. I was pretty skeptical, in the Big Thread, about the idea of a flag change, but I've considered it and shifted my position somewhat in the last couple days, and this is why:

A number of people in that thread shocked me by revealing that they didn't think that we considered sexist stuff at all actionable. That "offensive" didn't, in practice, include that, even if in theory it should.

So the change is an attempt to raise, somewhat, the awareness not just of commenters who engage in lazy or casual sexism but also the folks who see that stuff and don't know whether we consider their discomfort worth our time. The fact is that we do, and this is partly an effort to explore how to help make that clear.

So I hear you. I've split a few hairs already, trying to decide where the compromise between directness and clarity and utility should fall on the flag question. And at the end of all that, I agree with the change that Matt made well enough to be okay with it, because I think the important thing is that something happens and that we see the results.

I am very curious what will happen now that it's in place, and I fully expect we'll refine or modify things in the future.
posted by cortex at 7:46 AM on November 24, 2007

DaShiv and languagehat are both very intelligent, thoughtful, insightful people, and their comments, thus, leave me conflicted. I don't want to se PC run rampant, but I'm also not interested in seeing people chased from the site by blatantly offensive crudity. So I just don't know.

I do think that if you're adding tags for the express purpose of data collecting, then they ought to be separate from the generic "offensive" so that you can see the data without having to parse if from the comment. And yes, as long as you're at it, homophobia has stirred up similar ruckuses in the past, so may as well cover all bases, if you're really data collecting.

I do hope that Mattexamyn are intelligent enough to note if all their data points are coming from one or two particularly shrill and oversensitive members who are trying to go control freak, or whether the offense is widespread. This will be the key part of the experiment, and in that case, we're down to trust. I think they're fundamentally trustworthy, based on past experience, though.
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:48 AM on November 24, 2007

Having kinda-followed the Other Thread(s), one of the things I found encouraging about the flagging thing is that it allows people more choice. Was it "nannying" when the offensive flag just said offensive? Did it prevent people from calling out offensive comments? I don't see that it did: it gave people the option to flag-and-move-on (a fine tradition), or the option to maybe derail a thread and get piled on by calling out the offender.

You can still do that. If you see a comment that's racist or sexist, there's no rule that says you can only flag, and not call out - you can do both.

One result of the Other Thread(s) - for me - is that I'm probably more likely to call out (and flag) sexist comments, since I know that I'm not the only one who's made uncomfortable by the atmosphere they can produce and know that other mefites will probably join in to say "Yeah, that's not cool - enough with the rape jokes already."

It should be obvious that something that is racist is offensive, that something that is sexist is offensive.

Obviously, it wasn't, as many people have said above and in the other thread(s). It certainly wasn't obvious to me - and I know, I'm a n00b - that the "offensive" flag was for garden-variety, no-wit, stupid "I'd hit it" "nice tits" comments that, on a once-in-a-thread basis are "eh" to me, but taken in quantity are wearying and gross and make the blue in particular seem like a mung-stinky frat house, and I don't need to be in any more of those, thanks.

And I don't want to call out every "I'd hit it" comment - for one thing, I don't think they're always offensive: sometimes they're funny, in context. My context will likely be different from yours or someone else's, at least sometimes. Sometimes I just want to flag something like that, because I don't want to have the "But I was just joking, jeez, grow a thicker skin" argument Every. Fucking. Time.
posted by rtha at 7:56 AM on November 24, 2007 [4 favorites]

We need a Sexy flag.
posted by brautigan at 7:56 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

Considering the numerous calls for it to be deleted, I'm skeptical it would have stayed if there were dozens of flags stuck on it.

I'm skeptical re: the notion that there weren't dozens of flags stuck on it. But for whatever reason you did get to have your little "Black People: Stupid, Or What?" thread, so I'm not sure why you're still bitching about it.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:03 AM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

cgc373, you apparently misunderstood my question and utterly failed to answer it. i asked if the mods would remove comments potentially offensive to whites/males if they were flagged as racist/sexist, i didn't ask if they would necessarily remove comments flagged by me. i knew the answer to that already.

i asked my question because the tweak can be perceived in two different ways. if the racism/sexism constraints are enforced evenhandedly in favor of all races and both sexes, then it's a promising development which may improve the tone of dialogue.

if the racism/sexism constraints are not enforced evenhandedly in favor of all races and both sexes, then it's just pandering to a clique. it's establishing a premium reward for contrived dudgeon from a certain ideological sector, and real life teaches us that when you do that, you will be rewarded with enough contrived dudgeon to influence global warming.
posted by bruce at 8:12 AM on November 24, 2007

I think we should paint this bikeshed racist/sexist.

There was a catch-all offensive flag (which I understood to also include racist and sexist comments). Some people didn't. Now the flag has made those things explicit. I can't see how this changes anything, to be honest.

Now if Matt changes "Post Comment" to "Press this to make your comment visible to everyone else on the site"; I swear ... I WILL PRESS THAT BIG RED BUTTON.

And no one will notice
posted by geminus at 8:14 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

nthing a homophobia flag.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:18 AM on November 24, 2007

if the racism/sexism constraints are not enforced evenhandedly in favor of all races and both sexes, then it's just pandering to a clique. it's establishing a premium reward for contrived dudgeon from a certain ideological sector, and real life teaches us that when you do that, you will be rewarded with enough contrived dudgeon to influence global warming.

I would like to live in your fantasy land. Please let me know how to sign up for your newsletter. I would like to know more.
posted by Stynxno at 8:20 AM on November 24, 2007

This is going to be an interesting experiment in achieving the impossible, I think. I can't think of a single popular general-interest web site that allows comments which has less sexism and racism than metafilter.

Why not just get rid of the comments on mefi entirely?
posted by empath at 8:30 AM on November 24, 2007

DaShiv was eloquent but not persuasive. You can still be all combative and witty, but it's not cool to be referring to women only by their magnitude of fuckability or by using vicious sexual imagery.

Ding, ding, ding- we have a winner.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:36 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

Thank you for this. I missed out on the earlier thread somehow but I made my way through most of it last night. Just to add another datapoint: I've been a member of Metafilter since 2001. I met my husband through the site, for God's sake. Barring odd circumstances like vacation or lack of internet access, I've read the site every day. Every single day.

I very, very rarely participate in the blue any more because I'm sick of this shit. Things like the comic about the video game producer and bukkake, this thread about the teenaged pole vaulter who didn't like being objectified, and a million "I'd hit its" like I give a rat's ass who'd you deign to let touch your magical cock of mystical powers.

And I am absolutely delighted to see this thread devolve into a textbook example of what exactly is wrong with the site -- no sarcasm, honestly. I can point to this thread next time someone says there's no boyzone. False comparisons? Check. (Though I think that the fat hate on here is a terrible problem, I've long since given up even hoping that will ever be dealt with.) Being told sexism isn't a problem? Check. Shrill and oversensitive? Check and check.

Look: at a certain point, it's no longer the job of the women who feel uncomfortable to educate you on why statements ranging from I'd hit it to ass-raping Ann Coulter don't provide a welcoming environment. If it's more important to you to keep up your boyzone antics, well, I guess the community will continue to be a reflection of that and will be so much poorer for it.
posted by sugarfish at 8:39 AM on November 24, 2007 [43 favorites]

To me, the appeal (and entertainment value) of discussions in the blue and gray stems from its emphasis on direct combativeness and wit, rather than validation and consensus (that's the green). IMO the best way to counter the Boyzone would have been rebuttals in-thread, like Jessamyn's trenchant quip "I am pretty all the time, fuckers", challenging individuals to defend their words and values openly -- i.e. community self-policing, not nannying.

DaShiv, we're friends, right? So you know I am the opposite of a dour PC schoolmarm or a shrinking violet.

If you didn't know me, there's still my posting history. You'll see trenchant quips aplenty on the subject. This is particularly true when the subject is sexual violence, or casually belittling women as sluts or otherwise nasty for behaviors ranging from actual sexual boldness to simple outspokenness or autonomy.

Here is the thing. I believe in self-policing and I do it all the time, as when I want to call someone an asshole and be done with it instead of talking about their ideas. I'm human just like anyone but I rarely screw up on that score when I post. So why do some dudes fail to police themselves when it is time to talk about a newsworthy woman, particularly performers and athletes but also women in tech, in the sciences, politicians, women who are not "performing" in any celebrity sense like a Coulter does? Why is I'd-hit-it so often the main salient fact? Why is simple dislike of a woman grounds to haul out the choke-on-a-dick stuff? Why can't we talk about women like we talk about men; why is that a highbrow concept?

I don't expect us to be in perfect accordance. I like disagreement -- I can hold my own when it is time to defend my point of view. What's more difficult to argue is an argument that's never clearly made: that women are hit-it-or-not creatures first and people second. What I really don't like, what tends to make me leave the room altogether in fact, is when someone gets mad enough at a woman to call her a human trash can, a skank, a thing to sodomize with knives or asphyxiate with a cock. That woman everyone's so mad at isn't here. I am.

So sure, self-police away. If that happens more, maybe a lot of women who are made to feel unwelcome by that casual belittlement that is not about ideas or character but about the simple biological fact of their sex will participate more freely. I will trade trenchant quips with you all damn day, personally. But dick-choke talk is not a "quip." It is lazy and hostile in the extreme, and it makes more women than me feel unwelcome at the outset. I see this flag more as a handy reminder of that fact than a way to scrub the site into a soulless PC heaven. And I trust the mods -- and most of the rest of us -- to be able to tell the difference between it and garden-variety disagreement.
posted by melissa may at 8:40 AM on November 24, 2007 [37 favorites]

cortex writes "A number of people in that thread shocked me by revealing that they didn't think that we considered sexist stuff at all actionable."

you know why cortex? because up until this discussion started, you guys did leave OVERTLY sexist stuff around in threads and maybe you sent an email to people and maybe you didn't, but the larger pop. of meta would have no idea you did.

here is the problem people have with this. forever the moderation here has been soooooo lacking on issues like this that now you guys come and say "we're cracking down"(or people THINK that is what you're saying) and of course people are going to get upset.

you can't go from very little moderation of CRAP comments to "supposed" heavy moderation and not expect people to be upset about the change that is implied.

I read both of the threads all the way through. and personally, what matt wants to do with the site is his deal, but overall, the admins and all the vocal OMGSEXIST folks are going to have to decide what they want more. free and open conversation with some occasional assholes or fairly heavy moderation with no-ones feelings getting hurt.

because I'm not sure what you guys think is going to happen in the long run, but one of the possible outcomes is the possibility that stricter moderation will be needed to keep up with all the different groups that end up getting offended. and the minute you say "wait, we want open communication here" the afflicted will point to this and wonder why their issue isn't addressed.

Finally, how ironic that jennydiski's MeTa post that implicitly argued against moderation (as she had previously argued against overmoderation) has resulted in no resolution other than... better flags with which to moderate each other with. That woman was a poison the minute she stepped foot in here.
posted by PugAchev at 8:45 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

kittens for breakfast,

I understand nuance is not your strong suit. Let me clarify. I am not bitching about that thread. What I am suggesting is that the thinking behind listing it separately,

"Several people said they are reluctant to use the 'Offensive' tag for sexist / makes-me-uncomfortable-as-a-woman stuff, as they considered it to be more of a "hey, someone's being a blatant asshole" flag. The low-level, simmering sexist vibe of some comments didn't strike them as severe enough to merit the 'Offensive' tag being used." (courtesy of CKmtl)

will result in some worthwhile threads getting a plethora of flags. Sometimes these threads will have a large number of flags because of the political bias of the site instead of any inherent merit. I assume the moderators have lives of their own and don't have time to scrutinize each and every flagged thread. So they probably have to rely to some degree on the number of times a post is flagged. Since I would like the scope of discussion to be as wide as possible I think this modification will result in poorer quality of feedback. Hope that helps, I'm sure you'll let me know if you have further difficulties.
posted by BigSky at 8:54 AM on November 24, 2007

I guess there are some pacific, not questioned points:

1. Matt & the mods can decide what can be posted or not posted to MetaFilter
2. While that constitutes a restriction to what can be said here, the users are forewarned about the limits
3. There is no right to partecipate to Metafilter by posting, or to partecipate at all
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That said, the argument remains : should moderators censor sexist/racist comments ?

We should establish:
a. what assertions/behavior fit the sexist assertion/behavior definition.
b. how sexism can affect you, why bother instead of sitting all the time on the ass

So far, of all the comments I have seen I absolutely A++ recommend you to read this post by Occhiblu, as it offers an interesting display of why sexist behaviors have bad consequences.Another working definition of sexism is here It's worth remembering sexism can affect and do affect males as well as females

Yet, it very very easily flies over anybody head that some behavior have unintended, indirect, undesiderable consequences. Let me show you how in another example:

1. Mary see Joe sitting on his ass
2. Mary see Joe is a man sitting on his ass
3. Mary see Joe, John, Jack , The Letter J sitting on their supersizeme ass.
3. Mary concludes almost every man sit on ass

Mary chats with her girlfriend and the conversation goes on how most man sit on their ass, and this is bad because being too
much lazy is bad. She and the girls conclude Joe is just a boy tool, only marginally made less boring by the fact he has got some dick, at least. They sigh and conclude man just are insensitive blots, they don't "get" the emotions, one wonders if man are somehow sensible or if all they think about is fucking. There girls may be the sweetes and not harm a fly, but they are also misantrophists.

This idea of " man do..." very easily becomes part of a culture, because it is partially based on a true assertion : man spend some good part of their life thinking about having sex (and so do woman, but it's less evident)

The problem start when the assertion "man are insensitive chauvinistic assholes" becomes so ordinary, so unremarkable it doesn't attract any particular attention ; when the assertion is repeated, in any contest, it's soooo ordinary nobody pays attention. What happens is that it gets reinforced, validate by the fact nobody is contrasting it actively, nobody or too few people are saying "no this is bullshit, not every man is an insensitive chauvinistic asshole".

Yet, if just only one woman starts defending a man, her contribute is lost to the fact she seems to be the crazy bitch defending his poor lil schmuck of a man, the dickless ballsless cunt she adores so much godknows why. Similarly, the idea that there is nothing wrong with a woman feeling bad for feeling forced to wear an headscarf is reinforced by tradition : it has always been that way, so why does that crazy cunt question it ?

Except that, expecially but not exclusively in western civilization, we have been suggested sooo many times we are superior and good and better the these motherfuckin' Afghanis sandnigs that we just CAN'T BELIEVE / ALMOST DENY that we are practicing behaviors that reinforce prejudice and/or the consolidation of _wrong_ generalizations.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

HOW to reduce the effect of these behaviors ?

On Metafilter, some think moderators should censor comments fitting some established sexist/racist comment/behavior definition.
I see repression as sometimes a greater evil than the evil it wants to prevents, because:

1. it often works by delegation to an higher power, sometime not capable or interested to exercise it properly, but more concerned with showing the delegation is being worked on, in order not to lose credibility or authority.

2. it doesn't address the cause of the error, just removes it in a convenient out-of-sight/out-of-mind fashion

3. it doesn't teach anybody to "spot the error" , which learning how to tell one rude snark from a full blown mysoginist/mysantropist comment ; because the error is removed.


Similarly, it is not by hiding childrens from sex that you teach them about sex. Probably it's better to spare them from the stuff that looks crudest and that it's hardly understood without some kind of preparation.In a parallel, my fellow italians were NOT prepared to react to the rethoric and tactiques of Berlusconi government, as much as Americans were not ready to see throught Bush cronies propaganda. Obviously, it's their lack of preparedness that enabled the possibility of them being led into poor choices.

-----------

I guess, in costructive criticism, that it could be better to:
1. let the user flag the posts, thus expressing their opinion and help somehow spot the problems, when they are nor able or willing to counterargue the wrong point productively.

2. do NOT delete the post, put a placemarker link to it
3. move it to a thread specialized in the "offence" , f.i. a "sexist" thread

Thus building a knowable, transparent thread of "errors", allowing concerned user to see if the mod is gone insane as well.
posted by elpapacito at 8:56 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

Shrill and oversensitive? Check and check.

Sugarfish, I wasn't suggesting that anybody had been, or was being, shrill or oversensitive at this time. I was merely suggesting that in the future, we'd have to trust the admins to be able to differentiate between those and more genuine complaints, as posts were flagged. I was afraid someone would read into what I'd typed, and I hope this clarifies my post a bit for you. Hypersensitivity can stifle discussion, and I just wanted to point out my concern where that side of the debate needed consideration under the circumstances.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:58 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

you can't go from very little moderation of CRAP comments to "supposed" heavy moderation and not expect people to be upset about the change that is implied.

We aren't intending to go to heavy moderation, or to kowtow to anyone who complains, or any other such similar overstatement of the situation. The whole point is we're going to try to pay a little more attention and consider gently moving the boundries. If you did indeed read the whole thread, you saw some pretty staunch anti-hardline talk from me, because I can't even imagine Metafilter going in the direction of heavy, PC-obsessed moderation.

It bothers me that people weren't using the flag system to let us know about problematic stuff because they thought we didn't care. The followup on flagging has always been and will always be a pretty light-touch, case-by-case situation, but when we don't know about the stuff, we can't evaluate it and everybody loses.
posted by cortex at 8:59 AM on November 24, 2007

I'm a big fan of publicly shaming idiots, but it seems wrong to have a racism/sexism flag without a homophobia flag, given that being a homophobic asshole on the internet is even more acceptable than being a misogynistic asshole on the internet.
posted by cmonkey at 9:00 AM on November 24, 2007 [6 favorites]

will result in some worthwhile threads getting a plethora of flags.

What I'm saying is that if that was your idea of a worthwhile thread, then let's delete us some worthwhile threads, full speed ahead, and damn the torpedoes. You're really going to have to do a lot better than that to convince me that singling out racism and sexism as things that are unloved on Metafilter is going to cost us quality content. That thread was garbage, and you should be embarrassed to defend it. I am embarrassed for you.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:00 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

free and open conversation with some occasional assholes or fairly heavy moderation with no-ones feelings getting hurt.

It's a false dichotomy. As has been stated numerous times, this isn't about increased moderation, we just tweaked an existing flag and are adding language to the guidelines. We'll act on flags like we always have (light touch moderation) but there's some raised awareness about the issue of sexism.
posted by mathowie at 9:03 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

folks are going to have to decide what they want more. free and open conversation with some occasional assholes or fairly heavy moderation with no-ones feelings getting hurt.
I don't see that dichotomy. Are you unable to have frank discussions with your mum, partner, preacher or even boss, without resorting to overtly sexist or violent comments? If you can self-censor in front of the bishop, why not here?
I am not saying you should not say controversial stuff - I love controversy. I am in support of respect whilst disagreeing with one's ideological opponent. Even more am I supportive of refraining from drive-by 'ass rape' comments [much more often seen in prison/scandal type comments aimed at male victims, in my experience[.
posted by dash_slot- at 9:04 AM on November 24, 2007

bruce, I think the mods will act on flags in the same contextualized way they act in every other administrative capacity on the site. If somebody flags a bunch of posts accusing, say, Steven C. Den Beste (to choose a big white target) of being a running-dog apologist for capitalism with a weird slave-trade mentality and a cracker's privileges, or some other set of vituperative hooey, I'd expect the mods to yank those comments as offensive (or email the poster, or ban them, or act as appropriate to the circumstances) regardless of SCDB's supposed privileges. Such comments would be offensive, sexist, racist, or otherwise unacceptable, and they'd be dealt with as such.

Your question seems to me to tacitly expect there's a political charge or an agenda beyond simple humane courtesy that lies behind the changed label in the flagging box, which I don't think is the case at all. I think we're thinking in public about how to make MetaFilter a more generous, welcoming place; I don't think we're talking about policing—more about politesse.
posted by cgc373 at 9:04 AM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

I assume the moderators have lives of their own and don't have time to scrutinize each and every flagged thread. So they probably have to rely to some degree on the number of times a post is flagged.

You're making some bad assumptions here.

One or more of us is going to at least glance at everything that gets flagged. The posts and comments that get the most flags are the ones we scrutinize the most, and we've never relied solely on number of flags to decide whether something should go, nor depended on some sufficient number of flags before something was worthy of deletion.
posted by cortex at 9:05 AM on November 24, 2007

Melissa May, thank you for saying what I've wanted to say all along.

I'm one of those silent females. I've posted twice on the green, not at all on the blue. I'm not a fragile female -- I've survived many, many rejections, rejection letters, etc., etc. But veiled threats, verbal violence (even against Ann Coulter, whom I loathe), and the like have kept me from participating lest I be seen as one of those "castrating man-haters". I don't hate men. I just hate violence against anyone.
posted by lleachie at 9:06 AM on November 24, 2007 [3 favorites]

Metafilter has a fairly strong political bias. In my opinion, what's good for the site is to avoid pandering to that bias

So making women feel equal is pandering to "political bias"? Interesting.
posted by languagehat at 9:12 AM on November 24, 2007 [6 favorites]

I assume the moderators have lives of their own and don't have time to scrutinize each and every flagged thread. So they probably have to rely to some degree on the number of times a post is flagged.

Dude seriously, did you see how many times I posted on Thanksgiving? We read them all. Numbers sometimes influence which we read first and may influence which we act on but they are one indicator among many.

In my dream world, my little heart of hearts, where you're all good sensible people, this is what would happen.

- people will see the flag option and think, oh I have the option of flagging that casual nonsense rape joke maybe I'll do that
- people will read these threads and think, oh I don't have to sit idly by when threads about certain topics turn into "i'd hit it" and "I fucked your mom" derails
- people may think twice before
1) tossing casual sexist comments everyplace (and racist and homophobic and jokes about developmentally disabled people and whatever is making people squicked out but maybe not feel deputized enough to say something)
2) bitching someone out for calling people out on those sorts of comments
- people will take those disputes to MetaTalk, to here, to ask the community whether they think they're being a special snowflake or whether the glut of prison rape jokes is a little over the top, and other people will respond and we will talk about it.

To restate we are NOT moving to heavier moderation. We are pointing out a problem, giving people tools, pointing out the tools that already exist and restating our personal opinions on the subject as moderators and getting feedback from everyone about it.
posted by jessamyn at 9:13 AM on November 24, 2007 [3 favorites]

We aren't intending to go to heavy moderation, or to kowtow to anyone who complains, or any other such similar overstatement of the situation. The whole point is we're going to try to pay a little more attention and consider gently moving the boundries.

Wherein I mentioned that I fundamentally trusted the three of you to handle this like adults. Sure, Metafilter is a self-policing community, but the Unseen Hand of the Triumvirate has a lot to do with the success as well. And I agree after reading through the Pole Vaulting thread just now, that it is getting, or has gotten, or has always been, a little out-of-hand. A gentle movement of the boundaries does seem like movement in the right direction.
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:15 AM on November 24, 2007

"Several people said they are reluctant to use the 'Offensive' tag for sexist / makes-me-uncomfortable-as-a-woman stuff, as they considered it to be more of a "hey, someone's being a blatant asshole" flag. The low-level, simmering sexist vibe of some comments didn't strike them as severe enough to merit the 'Offensive' tag being used."

FWIW this is exactly how I felt when I got what amounted to a fucking proposition in an AskMe about washing my hair. This is needed. I'm sorry if some people who aren't female can't see it, but that's too bad.
posted by Medieval Maven at 9:15 AM on November 24, 2007

There was a debacle in a recent thread about the use of the term "lynch."

A half-dozen people spoke up. They associate the word so strongly with deep South racism that they find it absolutely intolerable. To say they hate its use is not an exaggeration.

What those people fail to recognize is that for the greatest majority of users the word "lynch" does not carry loads of emotional baggage. The number of people on MeFi who aren't offended by its use is roughly four orders of magnitude greater than the number of people who are offended.

This is a truly global community. It behooves everyone to remember that the associations and issues one's own self has with use of certain language is almost certainly not the norm for the world.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:18 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

Devils rancher, I apologize for mis-reading your statement. However, please recognize that shrill and oversensitive are code words that are often specifically tossed at women in order to minimize their concerns. Hysterical is another.
posted by sugarfish at 9:19 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

In fairness, there are plenty of places where lynching is a fine and respected practice. Many countries celebrate Lynching Day, in fact!
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:20 AM on November 24, 2007

cortex writes "It bothers me that people weren't using the flag system to let us know about problematic stuff because they thought we didn't care. "

Oh it is sure annoying to be considered careless. One cause could be that we don't see your efforts, because the deleted threads and comments and deleted , maybe ? In my most recent and just above post, I suggest moving them to a thread , a sexist thread, a racist thread so that your efforts are under scrutiny both way.

If some complains you are not doing enough, you can always invite them to flag and remember that , after all, this is a free and private systems ..that the resources to manage the site are limited and that you guys are under no obligation to be perfect or even to do very well constantly. At the very same time, if the problem of a rampant sexism and racism present itself , a specific thread with a collection of deleted post could very well provide evidence of it.

Also , by collecting all the s**t under one point, there's an opportunity to explain why these kind of message are wrong and why their effect are negative..which is, imho, a potentially good teaching opportunity.

All of this without forgetting the fundamental premise : Metafilter isn't about providing a perfect, "risk of offence free" environment and you guys are under no obligation to provide it.
posted by elpapacito at 9:20 AM on November 24, 2007

Hypersensitivity can stifle discussion

* So can boorishness. If people feel that they're going to be buried under a pile of personal insults the second they open their mouths, they're not going speak at all. Silent people do not help foster good discussions.

* So can throwing around accusations of hypersensitivity, even (especially) hypothetical ones. The reason many of us don't speak up, in the way that DaShiv was advocating, is because we're tired of being called hypersensitive, humorless, shrill ideologues. When people regularly trot out that image, its pure repetition becomes a warning or threat: Don't talk back too much, don't get too uppity, or we'll all dismiss you as just another hysterical bitch who doesn't understand how the real world works and who's too thin-skinned to be on our playground. Be like the good girls who don't bother us too much, or who play along.

As jessamyn pointed out in the other thread, women are not somehow a special-interest addition to the community. We are part of the community. If you [editorial you] are somehow thinking of the entire community as white, straight, and male, and see taking into account the feelings of "anyone else" as infringing on the community, then you're not really getting the idea of "community," at least as it fits on MetaFilter.
posted by occhiblu at 9:23 AM on November 24, 2007 [33 favorites]

okay cgc373, i'll accept that as a reasonable position, but

your question seems to me to tacitly expect there's a political charge or agenda beyond simple humane courtesy...

well, brandon blatcher, our original poster on this thread, characterized the goal as "to make metafilter more woman friendly." i see this as a more specific goal than simple humane courtesy. in fairness, the mods have neither endorsed nor disavowed this goal, and their silence as to mr. blatcher can no more be construed as assent than their silence as to me.
posted by bruce at 9:23 AM on November 24, 2007

Devils rancher, I apologize for mis-reading your statement. However, please recognize that shrill and oversensitive are code words that are often specifically tossed at women in order to minimize their concerns. Hysterical is another.

Can we add "kerfuffle"? I never once saw this word in use, popular or otherwise, until earlier this year my typical area of the blogosphere was hit with a scandal re: a pop culture company's production of an (arguably) sexist product. The resulting brouhaha was dubbed a kerfuffle, and I have since seen this applied to every internet controversy that involves folks accused of sexist dickatry. (Including the Big Thread.)
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:23 AM on November 24, 2007

Devils rancher, I apologize for mis-reading your statement. However, please recognize that shrill and oversensitive are code words that are often specifically tossed at women in order to minimize their concerns. Hysterical is another.

You are correct, those words are used as a bludgeon at times -- it was not my intention to do so.
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:24 AM on November 24, 2007

I learned something. I've said "I'd hit it" jokingly (though never here), and I didn't intend anything violent by it at all. It [i]was[/i] to me a way of saying "I'm so lame that even though this person has been deemed less than desirable, I am a pig with self-esteem so low that basically if I could get gratification from a fluffy pillow in a dumpster, I might just consider it. Because I'm that pitiful.

I put "was" in italics because now that I've seen the explanations of the violent connotations, I'll not be saying that ever again, even as a joke.

And it's worth it to me because no amount of laughter that could come from making the joke is worth unwittingly furthering the old boys club, implied violence or the like, to me.
posted by cashman at 9:25 AM on November 24, 2007 [6 favorites]

Also, I think sports talk radio has gotten popular as of late because it's one of the safe havens for the 'bucket of cocks' talk. So anything that makes mefi more dissimilar to sports talk radio is good.
posted by cashman at 9:26 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

Seriously? Jesus.
posted by kbanas at 9:29 AM on November 24, 2007

It took me a good long while to write this, so I apologise for the fact my comments are lagging.

I read both "grow a thicker skin" and "call it out in the comments, you wuss" as shorthand for "sack up and be more like everyone else and you'll get along fine." Where everyone else means "those of us happily residing in or uncritically tolerating the boyzone." That isn't an acceptable solution to me.

Women and men operate in social spaces differently. There is ample evidence that women are less confrontational than men. While there are many women, myself among them, who have zero problem with confrontation, it is a bigger deal to do this in a thread when you know that, statistically, your biggest pool of supporters is likely to remain largely silent. You may get a lot of favourites, but you will not get a lot of in-game support. Who wants to fight a battle they shouldn't even have to fight in the first place on their own?

Empath noted: I can't think of a single popular general-interest web site that allows comments which has less sexism and racism than metafilter.

I think this is a good juncture at which to note that there are far, far more self-defined women's communities online than men's communities. It is really critical to understand that when women join women's communities online, it isn't so that we can discuss knitting, periods and babies away from men who just don't understand our delicate constitutions. It is so that we can discuss politics, technology, consumerism, art, relationships and other "general interest" topics in an environment where the expectation is that we're not going to come up against sexist, belittling, reductionist, misogynist BS in discussion of these topics.

The prevalence of these communities, and the arguably unfortunate need for them, may have slipped by the average male MeFite. I found one of Matt's comments on the other thread very illuminating:

I see women asking about very private matters and worries and concerns that can't be asked anywhere else on the web and that's a very good thing.

I about fell out of my chair on that one. I have a lot of respect for Matt and for the thing that is MetaFilter, but the idea that this is somehow as good as it gets for women online really and truly flabbergasts me.

So yeah, I think MeFi has a way to go in this department, and that this is a good first step. The issue isn't "should a comment saying Coulter should be raped and beaten be removed?" but rather "wtf is so wrong with our community standards that anyone, even the most fringe member, thought that was an OK thing to post here in the first place?"
posted by DarlingBri at 9:30 AM on November 24, 2007 [18 favorites]

It is worth it to hit the preview button though.
posted by cashman at 9:30 AM on November 24, 2007

* So can boorishness. If people feel that they're going to be buried under a pile of personal insults the second they open their mouths, they're not going speak at all. Silent people do not help foster good discussions.

* So can throwing around accusations of hypersensitivity, even (especially) hypothetical ones. The reason many of us don't speak up, in the way that DaShiv was advocating, is because we're tired of being called hypersensitive, humorless, shrill ideologues. When people regularly trot out that image, its pure repetition becomes a warning or threat: Don't talk back too much, don't get too uppity, or we'll all dismiss you as just another hysterical bitch who doesn't understand how the real world works and who's too thin-skinned to be on our playground. Be like the good girls who don't bother us too much, or who play along.

As jessamyn pointed out in the other thread, women are not somehow a special-interest addition to the community. We are part of the community. If you [editorial you] are somehow thinking of the entire community as white, straight, and male, and see taking into account the feelings of "anyone else" as infringing on the community, then you're not really getting the idea of "community," at least as it fits on MetaFilter.

For Christ's sake, [NOT XTIAN-IST] I've been trying to agree, and be supportive of the notion that I trusted the moderators to do a good job of helping sort the situation out. If I came off as a lout, no doubt it was unintentional. I wasn't calling anybody anything. Really. Let's not let this dwindle into stupid semantical quibble, when we're fundamentally on the same side of the issue.
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:36 AM on November 24, 2007

Another man in favor of this change (a queer one, though, so one whose opinion is worth less in the fraternity/boyzone/machismo camp). There have been plenty of sexist and/or racist comments I've read on the site that made me groan and say "oh for fuck's sake" but generally I don't bother engaging them because arguing against sexists or racists frequently feels to me like arguing against flatearthers.

In any case, those sorts of comments definitely make for an exclusionary environment and I'm glad to see an effort to discourage them.
posted by Tuwa at 9:42 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

cortex said: It bothers me that people weren't using the flag system to let us know about problematic stuff because they thought we didn't care.

Maybe that is what bothers me the most. People unable to express themselves when offended need an easier button to push in order to be able to express themselves. Hand-hold much? By flagging something as 'offensive' you were, without drawing attention to yourself and in a nice silent way, letting the mods know that, by your standards, this was not an acceptable post. What more really needs to be done?

If it makes anyone feel better by having it changed then, sure, institute it. It is a benign change that is really just semantics. But be aware that this change is a door that once opened may not easily be closed. Already other flags are being called for.

A different approach to this would have been to send a MefiMail to all members encouraging them to act accordingly within the already stated guidelines and if they see someone who is not to report it using the 'offensive' flag. Failure to play by the rules would result in a warning and then bannination.

I have always been proud of my inclusion in the Metafilter community. I generally try to weigh whether or not my post contributes to the discussion before posting. Of course, exceptions exist, (9722v2), but I value and respect the community and want to believe that others do as well.


cmonkey said: but it seems wrong to have a racism/sexism flag without a homophobia flag

Flag it as offensive and trust your moderators to see the reason.

at the end of the day the 40 or so of us who participated in this thread plus the 1000 or so who read it are just a drop in the bucket
posted by geekyguy at 9:43 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

elpapacito: That said, the argument remains : should moderators censor sexist/racist comments ?

No. The altered wording of the "offensive" flag does not involve censorship. The inclusion in the guidelines of a section addressing sexism does not involve censorship. (alternatively, please explain your reasons for thinking that, in practice, these adjustments will equate censorship.) This mischaracterization has been corrected several times already, in the Endless Thread and this one. From the other thread, here's an example of a gracious concession on this point:

anotherpanacea said (scroll down to last sentence): Can we afford to uphold strict punishments for incivility in a space that has benefited so much from the respect born of relatively uncensored dialogue?

jessamyn replied No one is talking punishments here, at all. People are saying that a little personal pre-screening in order to actively try to be civil and mindful would be appreciated.

LobsterMitten added: I don't understand what position you're arguing against. Nobody's advocating punishment for saying stuff like EB said, and nobody is saying "the new policy will be: no mistakes are allowed, and don't apologize if you make one". Straw, straw, straw-men. Obviously people will sometimes say things they later regret, and apologizing is the natural and appropriate thing to do in those cases.

anotherpanacea replied:
Fair enough. Not sure why, but I appear to need frequent reminders that we're talking about communal pressures and not administrative regulation. Sorry about that.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 9:43 AM on November 24, 2007

i see this [the goal of making MeFi more woman friendly] as a more specific goal than simple humane courtesy.

I guess it is technically more specific, but it's more specific in much the same way sexism and racism are more specific subsets of offensive and inhumane behavior generally. You and BigSky both used the term "pander" to describe the way the site's moderators might react to the site's perceived (U.S. liberal/progressive?) biases, as reflected in the way people might tend to flag controversial subject matter. The phrasing makes me think you—and BigSky—probably prefer some more freethinking and open situation, without new policies and regulations and administration, that requires each of us to stand up for ourselves and to speak freely about our interests and our difficulties. While I find the idealism admirable, I find the practical situation that members here have explained to be more compelling, and in greater need of attention, than the principles: I think the people who feel excluded and unwelcome deserve better from us. The flag option changes one small area of text in the flagging box, and it isn't even a permanent change, but it may make a real difference for people who feel they've been shouted down or shut out, and maybe we'll get to hear from them more often, maybe we'll learn something we may not have been able to learn. I'm not worried about losing anything because of this change, but I get the sense that you are, bruce, although I'm not sure what you think might be lost.
posted by cgc373 at 9:47 AM on November 24, 2007

Tuwa said: There have been plenty of sexist and/or racist comments I've read on the site that made me groan and say "oh for fuck's sake" but generally I don't bother engaging them because arguing against sexists or racists frequently feels to me like arguing against flatearthers.

You could have flagged it as offensive without engaging the offender.

If more people had been part of the solution within the pre-existing framework this all would have been unnecessary.
posted by geekyguy at 9:50 AM on November 24, 2007

However, please recognize that shrill and oversensitive are code words that are often specifically tossed at gays and women in order to minimize their concerns. Hysterical is another.

See the average reaction to amberglow's objections to homophobia on Mefi. I note his absence from these debates - I would not be surprised if he is just all worn out by it all.
posted by dash_slot- at 9:53 AM on November 24, 2007

The flag tweak is a big issue? It was there before, and now it has simply been tweaked to heighten awareness that sexist, racist things are not sanctioned by this community. These are values that mathowie as site owner has stated on numerous occasions. This just makes it a little more upfront. BFD.

Most of the people who participated in that thread said they favored community self-policing over deletions or top down authoritative solutions. But let's face it, as the community has expanded to more than 60,000 members, self policing becomes a harder ideal to achieve. Every month, we have thousands of new users. Is it so bad to be a little more overt about putting a "this is not like Fark" stake in the ground in a few places (flags, guidelines) so that new users understand this is a place where the bar for successful participation is a little higher? So that those in the minority understand their participation is welcome?

What I heard people in the discussion thread citing as offensive content was less "ouch, you hurt my little feelings" and more as egregious stuff that is hostile, violent, threatening, or inimical to a degree that women actually feel uncomfortable participating and instead chose to leave the thread or avoid the site altogether - and many women spoke up to say they have done just that. I know that when stuff like that occurs, it has a chilling effect on me - yet I am hardly a shrinking violet and I don't think many would call me the PC police.

Go look at the profile page - it's a self-selecting sample true, but lists very heavily to white males in a certain age range. Well I don't know about y'all, but much as I have had a lifelong fascination with this demographic, I also like others - don't you?
posted by madamjujujive at 9:54 AM on November 24, 2007 [3 favorites]

That's probably true, geekyguy, but people haven't often enough been part of the solution, hence the changes are necessary.
posted by cgc373 at 9:55 AM on November 24, 2007

First of all, thanks to Matt, Jess and cortex for their efforts to manage the shit storm.

All I have to add right now is that I (too) am very wary at this point for a community-wide move towards political correctism, which is something I despise only slightly less than racism and sexism. occhiblu's Kate Harding comment really resonated with me - it did an excellent job of pointing out the specifics of a very real problem without painting the speaker as a victim or the addressee as an aggressor: as a guy reading this, it's just so incredibly easy to be put off - wrongly - by something like that the very moment it feels like a lecture.

However, I can't shake the feeling that somehow it hands us a list of forbidden words. The hippie in me likes to believe that we're living in a post-sexist, post-racist age, for whatever value of we at least, and that out of that follows the understanding that anything I say cannot be construed as sexist or racist, simply because we've already established that, you know, I'm not.

At the same time I understand that this is an incredibly naive notion. I also get that my point here is an alarmist one, and that the sky is probably not falling. Ultimately I can only speak for myself, and I merely want to emphasize that as far as I am concerned we could all do with a little more sensitivity (hopefully fuelled by unbridled open-minded curiosity) towards people of a different race or (in this case especially) gender, and that this should work both ways, but that at the same time I reserve the right to call Ann Coulter a tranny cunt if that's how I feel, thank you very much.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 9:56 AM on November 24, 2007

You could have flagged it as offensive without engaging the offender.

If more people had been part of the solution within the pre-existing framework this all would have been unnecessary.

But here's the thing, dude: If this is true -- if everyone should have realized, implicitly, that this stuff was offensive all along -- what is the difference now that it's explicitly been made clear that this stuff is, in fact, something that the site considers a problem? By this logic -- your logic -- all that's happened here is that a condition that already existed has been clarified. If this is true, and if said condition is one that you find agreeable, then what is your objection to spelling it out?
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:57 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

gnfti, I don't see how you can say that we are in a post-sexist age and in the next breath say that "tranny cunt" is anywhere near appropriate. If we were in a post-sexist age, then that insult wouldn't hold any water. But we're not, and I have a feeling you're being disingenuous.
posted by sugarfish at 10:01 AM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

You know, I just assumed people that paid $5 to join this site were a little more thick-skinned. God knows I get fed up with all of the "this will end wells" and "LOLCATS" and "WHAT. THE. FUCK." comments, and move my ass over to AskMe for the day. It never occurred to me that this was a particularly female things to do.

I have come to the realization that the reason I paid my due here (after months of licking my lips due to closed membership) was that people were to be judged by the merits of their own written contributions. To be frank, I am not at all comfortable with the move towards personalization over the past year or so. I don't want to see a picture of you; I don't want to get personal email from you; I don't care about your flicker account; and I don't really want to meet you at a bar. Back when none of this existed, I felt that I had something in common with people I'd never met. Now everybody belongs to a demographic, and have varying degrees of political clout.

I mean, didn't this whole issue start people because the moderators dealt with a pair of posts in a way that appeared to be sexist in nature? And what do we do with the longstanding bias against conservatives on this site? Should we just go ahead and code MeFi "Groups" so that we can publicly identify with a particular set of beliefs, and then go to war?

What I appreciate the least in this conversation is the assumption that the men here are incapable of dealing or being dealt with. "You're a guy, you wouldn't understand." It's not the end result which upsets me, which now that I've calmed down, I feel is a good thing. It's the way this all came about. Just makes me feel came about much less as a matter of principle or discussion, than a "who can put the most pressure on the system" by making people feel bad, turning their closed accounts into unexplained acts of martyrdom, employing back-channels to create a ruckus, and using their real-world fame to go with the argument, "I'm famous, this site bites, you guys should really look into it." And then splitting.

In this sense, MeTa is now an incomplete account of how things move and shake in this virtual world. And I feel disconnected. And would be happy to close my account because I feel like this is bullshit. But I'll be in AskMe if you need me. :P
posted by phaedon at 10:05 AM on November 24, 2007 [4 favorites]

A week ago, flags were only used to decide whether to delete comments or posts. If it got enough flags and the mods agreed, it was nuked. Now there's talk about how this particular flag won't really be used for that any more, and that's it's just for "data collection". That no one's going to be deleting anything... That seems like a bigger change than just the wording of a flag to be more and/or less inclusive.
posted by smackfu at 10:05 AM on November 24, 2007

Also, I really agree with what DaShav wrote here:

rather than being decided by proxy within a nonrepresentative, very small but outspoken (and often ideologically-invested) percentage of Mefi's active population on a couple of threads buried more than a week behind in MeTa's archives.
posted by smackfu at 10:07 AM on November 24, 2007

Flag it as offensive and trust your moderators to see the reason.

I sort of agree, geekyguy. However, if racism and sexism is going to be singled out, either to make MetaFilter a more welcoming place, or simply as a data gathering tool, homophobia should be included. I've seen some notably nasty comments about gay or transgendered people on here (particularly the latter), and it's just not right to ignore that if we're getting all specific with the flags.
posted by cmonkey at 10:11 AM on November 24, 2007

smackfu, there's a flag for fantastic comments and a flag for broken HTML, neither of which have anything to do with deletions, nor ever have.
posted by cgc373 at 10:11 AM on November 24, 2007

kittens for breakfast said:
But here's the thing, dude: If this is true -- if everyone should have realized, implicitly, that this stuff was offensive all along -- what is the difference now that it's explicitly been made clear that this stuff is, in fact, something that the site considers a problem? By this logic -- your logic -- all that's happened here is that a condition that already existed has been clarified. If this is true, and if said condition is one that you find agreeable, then what is your objection to spelling it out?

This strikes me as change that was made with little or no attempt/effort by the mods to enforce the existing methods. It strikes me as an attempt to appease a certain group. Already other groups have expressed an interest in being part of the special sub-set of groups that qualify for protection.

Offensive is offensive.

Had the mods properly enforced that we wouldn't be here. Had the offended members used the existing infrastructure to, (anonymously and silently), draw attention to the offenders we wouldn't be here. Had the mods let all members know, in a clear and succinct way, (an annual email outlining the guidelines?), what the behavior expectations were it might not have been necessary to start down the road of 'special interest groups'.

I'm just disappointed that we are here.

on preview, what phaedon. said. and smackfu said.
posted by geekyguy at 10:13 AM on November 24, 2007

Is there any chance that users could be given access to the deleted comments from the new flag? I don't believe for a second that the new flagging will be abused, but I think the added transparency would enhance the legitimacy of the policy. I'm guessing such a list would be mostly just lame one-liners, which would go a long way to quieting the fervor here.
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:15 AM on November 24, 2007

I reserve the right to call Ann Coulter a tranny cunt if that's how I feel, thank you very much.

I'm just waiting for the "freedom of speech" part to come next.

Do you not get that by calling Ann Coulter a tranny cunt as an insult, you are not deriding Ann Coulter so much as a) holding up transvestites as objects of contempt, and b) positing women's genitals as being disdainful?

If that isn't what you meant, then choose other words. The English language provides you with more canon fodder than almost any other. You have an ample selection to work with.
posted by DarlingBri at 10:16 AM on November 24, 2007 [6 favorites]

Isn't using the term "cannon fodder" insensitive to veterans?
posted by smackfu at 10:19 AM on November 24, 2007 [3 favorites]

anotherpanacea said:
Is there any chance that users could be given access to the deleted comments from the new flag? I don't believe for a second that the new flagging will be abused, but I think the added transparency would enhance the legitimacy of the policy. I'm guessing such a list would be mostly just lame one-liners, which would go a long way to quieting the fervor here.

Good intention but, um, bad idea. There is enough asshattery around here without there being a Wall of ShFame.
posted by geekyguy at 10:22 AM on November 24, 2007

at the same time I reserve the right to call Ann Coulter a tranny cunt if that's how I feel, thank you very much.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane
Wow, gnfti. That seems really misjudged, like you didn't get any of the preceding 2 - 3 - however many threads.
You are one of the more interesting and, I thought, sensitive guys here. Can you not see how that comment, as has been pointed out upthread a plenty, insults women generally, not just Coulter? That falling to that level of vocabulary here, now, is a step too far?

What exactly are your limits then?
Is Elton John a hysterical shirtlifting bumboy? O.J. a murderous nigger?
posted by dash_slot- at 10:23 AM on November 24, 2007

If the term "cannon fodder" does offend any veterans, they should flag the comment and hope.
posted by cgc373 at 10:24 AM on November 24, 2007

Well . . . "hysterical shirtlifting bumboy" is awesome phrasing, whether Sir Elton deserves it or no.

HOPE!
posted by cgc373 at 10:25 AM on November 24, 2007

This strikes me as change that was made with little or no attempt/effort by the mods to enforce the existing methods.

Your impression is incorrect. What is it based on? What you're seeing is part of that attempt/effort. It is ongoing.

We do not have or want a way to email the entire membership. We hammer things out in MetaTalk as we are doing now. People who have issues have been told since day one to use the flag queue and take things to email (now MeFiMail, another solution to the same set of problems of moderating a community site) or MetaTalk. Well they came to MetaTalk to say that they didn't understand the guidelines or lack thereof, w/r/t sexist stuff, didnt understand how we were moderating and/or dealing with that stuff, and didn't understand what the general plan was.

This isn't because they were clueless or not paying attention, its because there was a lot of conflicting information and actions taking place and it was a good time to reconnect and talk about things. This is how the site operates. We don't let everyone vote and we don't poll everyone. People who care about stuff show up in MetaTalk to talk about it, and we do.

I've also been on the receiving end of email and MeFiMail about this, both good and bad. One user described this as a "recommitment" to the same old idea that we want MeFi to be a site where lots of different sorts of people feel that they cam come and talk about things and not get shouted down or gratuitously and constantly insulted and belittled. There are limits. If swearing bothers you, you are out of luck. If the occasional lolcat or boobie joke bothers you, you may also be out of luck. However, while we've been saying what we want the site to be, there were more steps that we could take, as moderators and as site members, to make the site be that way. This is an affirmation of that.
posted by jessamyn at 10:28 AM on November 24, 2007

There is enough asshattery around here without there being a Wall of ShFame.

They could be anonymous: just a list of the deleted comments from the last few days, with maybe timestamps and links back to the threads from which they were deleted.
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:30 AM on November 24, 2007

i'm a fan of the flag. i have good reasons.

i like responsibility, and here's the thing about that. you can say whatever you want. but others have the right to their feelings about your comment.

i'll give you a hypothetical example. (and, being hypothetical, it's fair to say i think it's convenient for my purposes. i leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine if this example fits into the context of their feelings.)

so someone didn't like a person's comment that they'd "hit it" when discussing princess diana's car crash. they flag it as "offensive/racist/sexist". the commenter is now angry ("this is pc bullshit!"), and that does tell us something.

one, i think the commenter likely can appreciate that what they did offended someone. how can i conclude this? because i don't think anger is the response someone has when they unknowingly offend someone; confusion is much more likely, because they'd wonder "what did i say?" before they express anger over another's response.

two, i think it bothers the commenter that someone would openly feel that way. and i think that's a fair assessment of the feelings of those who decry political correctness on this thread.

i think the commenter likes being able to say what you will, but they do care what people think of them. if no one says anything bad about them, then perhaps no one judges them ill (which they could, then, argue with them). what this flag does is it allows people to express their feelings without necessary confrontation.

perhaps you feel that you should have the right to confront your accuser. but this isn't a court of law. i think people have the right to their feelings. this flag does not prevent you from saying what you want, but it does also preserve that right people have to their feelings.
posted by moz at 10:31 AM on November 24, 2007

If MeFi is an offensive boyzone it is because people — and especially our moderators — have failed to publically tell-off the offenders.

Want to change the social nature of this community? Have our community leaders participate in threads, telling people straight-out that their "jokes" and idiocy are inappropriate and will not be tolerated.

Flagging their posts accomplishes nothing as regards behaviourial change. It does not provide timely, in-your-face feedback. Post deletion doesn't raise flags; the offender likely never even knows the post disappeared.

As for all the self-silenced: if you can't work up the conviction to tell someone he's being a sexist asshole, you probably aren't going to have the conviction to defend your own controversial beliefs or opinions.

Which in turn means you probably aren't going to contribute in any valuable or useful way to MeFi, as any good discussions there are due to people arguing passionately about their beliefs. If you can't do that, I advise sticking to the non-confrontational AskMe.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:33 AM on November 24, 2007 [4 favorites]

People who care about stuff show up in MetaTalk to talk about it, and we do.

I care about stuff but I didn't think the latest attention-seeking deleted post whine would result in new policy. Guess I should watch all of the posts now.
posted by grouse at 10:33 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

Also, no more calling people assholes. It doesn't so much subject the person to scorn as much as it paints the asshole as something disdainful - yet it is beautiful, this orifice we share.

It's not sexist or racist, it's personist - we all have assholes, and we have to stick together. Every time I see someone drop the a-bomb, I pinch my cheeks together a little bit and hate myself.

I am flagging that shit from now on.

No pun intended.
posted by kbanas at 10:33 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

Isn't using the term "cannon fodder" insensitive to veterans?

You know what? Maybe. I hadn't thought about it that way.

But I swear to God, if a vet (or anyone else) posted in a thread or sent me MeFi mail and said "look, here is what that term really means, and in the context in which you're using it, it's pretty thoughtless" I'd apologise and find another phrase. I would not tediously argue for my right to be an asshat. I wouldn't continue to throw it around, knowing it made people uncomfortable, just to prove what a rebellious shitstorm magnet I am.
posted by DarlingBri at 10:33 AM on November 24, 2007 [4 favorites]

Have our community leaders participate in threads, telling people straight-out that their "jokes" and idiocy are inappropriate and will not be tolerated.

Seems to work for MetaChat.
posted by grouse at 10:35 AM on November 24, 2007

I have come to the realization that the reason I paid my due here (after months of licking my lips due to closed membership) was that people were to be judged by the merits of their own written contributions. To be frank, I am not at all comfortable with the move towards personalization over the past year or so. I don't want to see a picture of you; I don't want to get personal email from you; I don't care about your flicker account; and I don't really want to meet you at a bar. Back when none of this existed, I felt that I had something in common with people I'd never met. Now everybody belongs to a demographic, and have varying degrees of political clout.

Goddamn right!

The anonymity of old-style network comms freed us from the problems of judging people by anything other than their words and ideas. No one could dismiss others' words on the basis of skin colour, sexuality, income level, etcetera. The only thing that counted was what they wrote.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:39 AM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

I would not tediously argue for my right to be an asshat.

Well, this gets into the whole thing: is there such a thing as "oversensitive" or are all viewpoints equally valid? If someone calls you an asshat, does that make you one? Should you change your behaviour to please someone you don't agree with?
posted by smackfu at 10:39 AM on November 24, 2007

They could be anonymous: just a list of the deleted comments from the last few days, with maybe timestamps and links back to the threads from which they were deleted.

Then they aren't anonymous. Even if you take out the timestamps and links, then you'd got a guessing gossip game as people ask "Who said unbelievable comment?!" and of course someone will remember and then it's not anonymous.

The whole point of deleted comments is that they're deleted, gone, poof. Having a running list of "this is what we deleted" defeats that.

As for transparency, MaJeCo have shown that, while not perfect, they also are not power mad asshats with personal agendas that override their ability to moderate, so they're pretty trusted. Let's leave it at that.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:41 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

Well, this gets into the whole thing: is there such a thing as "oversensitive" or are all viewpoints equally valid? If someone calls you an asshat, does that make you one? Should you change your behaviour to please someone you don't agree with?

Yeah, I guess that's the rub. I think the general thinking is that it only makes you an 'asshat' if your comment goes against a sort of 'social morality'.

I mean, look, if you make a joke about bestiality (to pick an extreme), I don't think you have to watch where you step - because, seriously, that's fucked up.

But it's only because we all just kind of agree that it's fucked up.
posted by kbanas at 10:42 AM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

Seems to work for MetaChat.

Which has a membership 100x less than here.
posted by jessamyn at 10:44 AM on November 24, 2007

at the same time I reserve the right to call Ann Coulter a tranny cunt if that's how I feel, thank you very much.

As a transsexual woman, it is extraordinarily insulting to me to see "tranny" used as a shortcut for "manly" or "ugly" yet again. Part of the reason I've never really engaged here, despite being a member for a long time, is that I've always felt an outsider to the boys' club.

So yeah, use "tranny" as an insult if you like. I've always flagged that stuff before and put the user on my internal list of people I think are disgusting. So we're good! You can continue to do your thing, and I'll keep doing mine.

I have such a love/hate relationship with this place.
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 10:45 AM on November 24, 2007 [23 favorites]

Christ, the stupid is thick in this thread.

Slippery slope is a fallacy. We are not eliminating everything that could be sexist or racist.

If you want to be offensive, be offensive. Just realize that you're offending someone. Step your game up, you illiterate motherfuckers. Realize that you will get called out and think, "Is 'I'd hit it' what I wanna get called on? Am I that fucking lazy?"

And it's not even that "I'd hit it" is de facto off-limits, just that it's gonna get some scrutiny. Riffing on some soybomb near-miss? Still funny, at least to me. But it might not be to someone else, and I'm prepared to take flak for saying it was.

I have no problem with women, who you do kind of have to admit tend to be disproportionately under-represented here, saying that I stepped over the line. I want to encourage that discussion, because I think it's interesting.

If you don't, that's fine. But if you don't want to have a discussion on why what you said was stupid sexist bullshit, don't say it. And I understand that's the inverse of what a lot of what women are told now (unfair to one side's unfair to the others, the thinking goes), but isn't it better than using the implicit force of a social power system to shore up lazy riffing? What kinda kitten are you if you need that to make a point? Maybe you should come back to Metafilter when your milk teeth are out.

Will I get called on saying things that, you know, are lazy and retarded? Yes. Hey, y'know what, "retarded" wasn't strictly what I meant there. I shouldn't have used it, because it was unnecessary.

Wendell mentioned this in the other thread, and I remember it from having a column on rock, but editors aren't necessarily bad. My "genius" was not diluted by being unable to use "fuck" every other word, like I kind of wanted to.

(I'm sorry that I've missed further comments—my girlfriend made me come back and fold my own underwear instead of continuing to fight sexism on the internet.)
posted by klangklangston at 10:46 AM on November 24, 2007 [13 favorites]

Well, this gets into the whole thing

It kind of doesn't, actually, if what you mean by the "whole thing" is whether someone's comments are in fact racist, sexist, etc. Someone thought they were, so they flagged the comment. Were they right to do that? If eight other people flagged it, that sounds like a strong possibility. In a definite, fact of the universe way, you can't prove that a comment is anything any more than I can prove that the sky is blue because it looks blue to me. But I can tell you that if it looks green to you, you got a problem. Ultimately, when it comes to whether the comment/post has to go, that call is up to the moderator, but that's not any different from how it's been.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:49 AM on November 24, 2007

But I swear to God, if a vet (or anyone else) posted in a thread or sent me MeFi mail and said "look, here is what that term really means, and in the context in which you're using it, it's pretty thoughtless" I'd apologise and find another phrase. I would not tediously argue for my right to be an asshat. I wouldn't continue to throw it around, knowing it made people uncomfortable, just to prove what a rebellious shitstorm magnet I am.

One of the realities of this world is that someone, somewhere, will inevitably take issue with something you've said or a term you've used.

You are going to have to draw a line where you say "I don't care that it offends you: I didn't mean it that way, so the problem is yours, not mine.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:49 AM on November 24, 2007

...we're tired of being called hypersensitive, humorless, shrill ideologues.

Undoubtedly.

Still, the existence of hypersensitive, humorless, shrill ideologues (of any stripe) is not something that can just be discarded from this conversation. They exist at opposite ends of the spectrum on any topic, doggedly being offended and fighting furious battles with friends and foe alike.

The truth is that I don't want people like that moderating Metafilter, and as much as the ability to flag comments constitutes moderation I'm not particularly happy that we're encouraging them.

Still, there are a couple of points that make this a good thing:

1) The *true* zealots were never silenced in the first place. Flagging a post is such a milquetoast approach when you could be delivering page long screeds on the rightness of your cause. To me this means that the people doing the bulk of the flagging will be the people whose opinions really ought to be listened to: people who care, but who have enough perspective to just flag things and move on.

2) The actual Moderation of the site is being done by people who are, frankly, quite moderate. All of them have healthy dollops of grey in the their world views, and they all seems to display solid judgement. Somehow I don't see their worldviews radically changing because the "offensive" tag changed.

So, while I sympathize with the fear that we're opening the door to a horde of fringe-feminist man hating zealots, I'd have to say its misplaced. We're actually just encouraging far more sensible people to speak up more often, and that's something I can always support.
posted by tkolar at 10:51 AM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

I mean, look, if you make a joke about bestiality (to pick an extreme), I don't think you have to watch where you step
I think you do.
posted by Wolfdog at 10:51 AM on November 24, 2007

It seems to me that the trouble with the change in the flagging system is it specifies some offensive activity, but, as a result neglects to specify others. I mean, is there really so much racism on this site that it must specifically be named, but so little homophobia (or antisemitism, or other social ills) that they get to be marginalized into a generalized "offensive" category?

Besides that, I have never flagged a post because I was offended by it. I have only flagged posts because they seemed to be deliberately disruptive. If I have disagreed with the sentiments of a posters, I have stated so in the thread. Although, the web forum I moderate, I do delete homophobic jokes, as they had gotten common enough to be disruptive, even if they weren't' intended as trolling. But, in general, my feeling is that the cure for bad speech is more and better speech.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:52 AM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

I think you do.

Well look, just stay clear of me.

And my pets.
posted by kbanas at 10:52 AM on November 24, 2007

five fresh fish wrote...
Post deletion doesn't raise flags; the offender likely never even knows the post disappeared.

It's weird. You have to be reading MeTa in order to be commenting on this conversation, but it's like you've never read MeTa before...
posted by tkolar at 10:53 AM on November 24, 2007

Not illiterate, klangklangston, merely sub-literary and somewhat unimaginative. Let's be precise.
posted by cgc373 at 10:54 AM on November 24, 2007

and what do you call yourselves?


The Aristocrats!
posted by geekyguy at 10:54 AM on November 24, 2007

I'd worry if everyone said this were too drastic. I'd feel it was a waste of time if everyone said it would do nothing. The fact that both are being said reassures me that this is neither too much nor too little, but in some good middle zone.

We're talking about a wording change in a flag description: surely it's possible that the concrete steps taken so far could be pretty negligible while the overall course being charted is slightly daunting? We're filling in the blank parts of the map here: I think it's prudent to tread cautiously.

The whole point of deleted comments is that they're deleted, gone, poof. Having a running list of "this is what we deleted" defeats that.

Frankly, I've always wanted this feature, and this little tweak is just a chance for me to advocate it. When a post is deleted, it's still available for viewing. Gone, yes, but not *poof* It's still available for discussion, and it's still possible to drag an alleged 'bad deletion' to MetaTalk. That's harder to do with comments, and while I generally laugh and pull out the popcorn when deletion complaints make their way here, I also appreciate the sense of collective involvement in the community.

As for transparency, MaJeCo have shown that, while not perfect, they also are not power mad asshats with personal agendas that override their ability to moderate, so they're pretty trusted.

I don't know any of the mods personally, and I share this general sense that they are actually really cool people and swell human beings with whom I'd be happy to share a tasty beverage. What I love about them most is how hard they try to avoid seeming like tyrants, even benevolent tyrants. They seem to understand that metafilter is about a self-constituting and self-sustaining community: they're responsive, they explain themselves, and they try to understand the nature of the complaints leveled at them.

There will always be some people with access to the moderator tools and some people without that access, but it's important that that access not grant inherent righteousness. Transparency levels the playing field: we may not make the decisions, but at least we can see the decisions being made, and discuss them. As the recent threads on misogyny have shown, sometimes what goes on in MetaTalk is the Best of the Web.
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:56 AM on November 24, 2007

My teeth are seriously going to start bleeding any minute now.

Well, this gets into the whole thing: is there such a thing as "oversensitive" or are all viewpoints equally valid? If someone calls you an asshat, does that make you one? Should you change your behaviour to please someone you don't agree with?

I am failing to understand how these questions track from my comments.

Yes, people can be oversensitive. Would a vet in that situation possibly be oversensitive to the use of "canon fodder" in that context? Maybe. But it costs me nothing to simply use the term fodder or even ammunition in the future.

The vet in question isn't even asking me to change my opinion, argument or point of view - just to use less offensive terminology when making it. It doesn't make any difference to me if, in the context of debating whatever the topic may be, the person is "on my side" or not. So sure, changing my language to to please someone I don't agree with in the course of disagreeing with them is not a big deal. That simply seems conducive to actually having debates in a mutually respectful environment.

If someone calls me an asshat, then no, that doesn't make me one. I think, however, that people are rarely told "you, sir, are an asshat." More often we see "you sound like an asshat when you say that" or "stop being an asshat."

All of which implies that the asshattery in question is not the default state of the poster, but rather a behaviour the community trusts the poster has control over.
posted by DarlingBri at 10:57 AM on November 24, 2007

I have an issue with the pretend veteran and his ridiculous pretend objection to the word "cannon fodder," which is a perfectly legitimate phrase and should not be upsetting his imagined sensibilities.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:00 AM on November 24, 2007

but at least we can see the decisions being made, and discuss them

Oh, please, god, NO. There's lies the road to endless nitpicking. I rather the mods focus on something else.


like giving Matt time to implement custom CSS on profile pages in a secure fashion.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:01 AM on November 24, 2007

I don't want MetaFilter to be zoo-unfriendly.
posted by Wolfdog at 11:02 AM on November 24, 2007

sugarfish: "gnfti, I don't see how you can say that we are in a post-sexist age and in the next breath say that "tranny cunt" is anywhere near appropriate. [...] But we're not, and I have a feeling you're being disingenuous."

Well, I am honestly not. I see where you're coming from, and I cannot say I hadn't expected my comment to be met by such sentiments. I also feel that maybe after all the community has been through the past few days, my comment might be construed as somehow detracting from that which has been achieved, maybe "pissing in the new pool" if you will.

But without simply repeating all the valuable contributions that have already been made, I felt that this was the most meaningful point I could make, and I stand behind it.

People swear. Swearing involve words, and some of those words evoke strong reactions in people. I feel one should take these reactions into account, but at the same time realize that using those words does not automatically suggest an underlying prejudice.

DarlingBri: "I'm just waiting for the "freedom of speech" part to come next.

Do you not get that by calling Ann Coulter a tranny cunt as an insult, you are not deriding Ann Coulter so much as a) holding up transvestites as objects of contempt, and b) positing women's genitals as being disdainful?

If that isn't what you meant, then choose other words. The English language provides you with more canon fodder than almost any other. You have an ample selection to work with."

Well, I'll gladly walk into that trap, because yes, it is exactly about freedom of speech. Not only that - I'm also going to argue semantics.

Your assertion about the meaning of "tranny cunt", to the best of my understanding, is simply not true to my mind. I feel that people should count on my lack of prejudice as much as they should comprehend that words are polysemous and/or reach such a high level of abstraction that they can be used to mean something markedly different from its original dictionary meaning.

Unless, of course, you can keep a straight face while claiming you have never in your life referred to an unpleasant man as a "dick".

dash_slot-: "Wow, gnfti. That seems really misjudged, like you didn't get any of the preceding 2 - 3 - however many threads. You are one of the more interesting and, I thought, sensitive guys here. [...]What exactly are your limits then? Is Elton John a hysterical shirtlifting bumboy? O.J. a murderous nigger?"

What I will gladly concede is that I lifted "tranny cunt" straight from the Kate Harding quote, and it certainly might not be the best example. I certainly wouldn't readily use those exact words, and if that undermines my point then so be it. In my world view, it may under certain circumstances be acceptable to use the word "cunt" to indicate an unpleasant woman, and I understand that some people will interpret this as being insulting to all women, but I simply do not feel that way. It's a semantic minefield, because people who argue this point automatically gain the moral advantage, but I stubbornly hang on to the freedom of expression angle not in a small part because I sincerely do believe it's a slippery slope, as smackfu humorously but expertly pointed out.

Now, to answer your question I'm not so sure about the bumboy and nigger bits. If you're asking for a cut-and-dried solution well, I don't have one, but if you're asking for my opinion then yes, it might under circumstances be acceptable to refer to Sir Elton as a shirtlifting bumboy, preferably while giving the old wink-wink nudge-nudge, if only in that "British" way I you will surely be familiar with. This is assuming it is mutually clear that the speaker is not a homophobe, which I will concede is not as easy as it sounds, but I can only repeat that this is my idealistic view which might not be valid anywhere outside my head (or circle of close friends, at least), but it's my naive conviction and I cling to it.

I'm not so sure about the hysterical part, and I personally wouldn't readily call O.J. Simpson a nigger of any kind. Surely this will paint me as inconsistent, which I will gladly concede. It's a truism, but language is an imprecise, blunt tool that we all sharpen and apply in different ways: I just cannot see a blanket black-and-white solution, and I personally have an intense dislike for political correctness.

One final point I'd like to make is that there are probably cultural issues at play here: not that we don't publicly discuss the usage of swear words here, of course, but to give a simple example, the Dutch equivalent of "cunt" would, as far as I can see, be considered perfectly acceptable - within the context of swearing - by people of both genders equally. "Dick" too, incidentally. YMMV.

Summarizing, I understand that my opinion might not be a popular one, but I stand behind it for the reasons stated above. If because of it you feel I'm inconsistent, I believe you're right. If because of it you feel I'm barbaric, I believe you're wrong.

Sorry about my verbosity - looks like I might be carrying forth EB's torch after all. :)
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:02 AM on November 24, 2007 [5 favorites]

If swearing bothers you, you are out of luck.

We-e-e-ll, personally I curse quite freely when I'm with my mates, say in the pub. I wouldn't angrily swear at them. Nor would I think it ok if they did to me.
The distinction I made for my offspring, when she was old enough to hear crap in the playground, and so maybe bring it home, was:
'I had a fucking bitch of a day': cool.
'My tutor is a fucking bitch': not cool in the least.

Mefi ain't the schoolyard, that's a given, and anglo-saxon epithets are to be expected, and I don't ask for action there. Just that we don't need to hurl the epithets at each other, nor at people in the public eye offsite. It is peurile behaviour, and alienates whole sections of our community.
So - I distinguish between swearing in a thread, and swearing at a member.

Basically we're better than this.
posted by dash_slot- at 11:03 AM on November 24, 2007

As for all the self-silenced: if you can't work up the conviction to tell someone he's being a sexist asshole, you probably aren't going to have the conviction to defend your own controversial beliefs or opinions.

If there's a discussion on sexism, gender relations, rape, and anything else of that sort, then yes, people who hold strong opinions on these topics should speak up.

But if a discussion on another topic includes some comments that some people find offensive (subtype: sexist, racist, homophobic, what have you), then speaking up at length about those specific offending comments, as firmly as you would in a thread about sexism, leads to derailments, side arguments, and the kinds of dismissal several people here have reported.

Reacting vociferously to every sexist comment in a thread is highly counterproductive for keeping the discussion valuable. That person, if they now consistently speak back passionately about sexism in every thread where they encounter it, will increasingly be seen as a one-note commenter who kills threads and has little useful and on-topic to say.

People still have the choice to respond in thread, or to send mail to the other commenter, or to come to MeTa. This is a small tweak of the current system, not an excuse for the entire female population of MeFi to collapse on their fainting couches.
posted by maudlin at 11:06 AM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

I find it vaguely ironic that the putative "solution" (albeit an admitted work-in-progress) to MeFi's "boyzone" problem is to perform the technological equivalent of clearing one's throat and announcing, "Ahem. There are ladies present."

This is quaint and pleasing to me in a contrarian sort of way, as long as it does not impinge on my propensity to cuss like a rat-fucking sailor.

And while we're swinging away at our ideological pinatas, I'll note that the people most often mischaracterized, lampooned, and otherwise discounted on this site are poor white Southerners. Of course, that's just what I'm sensitive to, so that's my perception.

I'll happily try to emend future comments to uphold whatever standards of discourse the community feels are most appropriate, but I'm sure gonna miss my bucket of cocks.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 11:07 AM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

Still, the existence of hypersensitive, humorless, shrill ideologues (of any stripe) is not something that can just be discarded from this conversation.

Yes it can. There are only a few MeFites who might fit the description "hypersensitive, humorless, shrill ideologues," and none of them are involved in this conversation as far as I can tell. Some people are saying "we're thinking about ways to make this place more welcoming to women, and the first step is a slight modification to the 'offensive' flag" and others are saying "OMG what is this shit?? the feminazis are taking over, they won't let me call anybody a tranny cunt any more, if this keeps up I'm outta here!!" Well, you know, if it comes to a choice between interesting women leaving and guys who insist on their right to use sexist and abusive language leaving, I'm not going to waste any tears on the latter.

And some people really seem unable to think for five seconds about an issue (let alone actually listen to somebody else) before coming out with a kneejerk reaction.
posted by languagehat at 11:07 AM on November 24, 2007 [7 favorites]

Constructive criticism from me...

I hope that vitriolic content winds up being deleted more often. I hope, on the other hand, that the questionably sexist or ist of any sort, of comments which are flagged are not removed too much more hastily than they would be in the past, rather that some effort is made to retain and promote ngood discourse about such language in the threads. I believe this as it exists now both reflects some of the best metafilter cultural content, both for showing our thoughtful and incisive ability to create callouts that might change minds, and in shaping generally known norms of acceptable behavior here. If n00bs don't know it's uncool, telling them so can be as good as flagging their comments for removal.

So, I would also like to think the mods might clue frequent button-pushers or asshats in on their behavior modification needs, even if their comments aren't each and every one across the line for removal.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:09 AM on November 24, 2007

What? Fuck that, languagehat, I'm outta here!
posted by cgc373 at 11:10 AM on November 24, 2007

Oh, wait. I meant, good point. Well said.
posted by cgc373 at 11:10 AM on November 24, 2007

I'll note that the people most often mischaracterized, lampooned, and otherwise discounted on this site are poor white Southerners.

They have it easy compared to the way this site treats zombies.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:11 AM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

Fat Italian women should go back to the kitchen, wash their greasy hair, and exercise a little, already.
posted by Krrrlson at 11:12 AM on November 24, 2007

The anonymity of old-style network comms freed us from the problems of judging people by anything other than their words and ideas. No one could dismiss others' words on the basis of skin colour, sexuality, income level, etcetera. The only thing that counted was what they wrote.

And the best part of it was that the actual meetups were so infrequent that you could pretend that we weren't all middle-class white males! Ah, that was such a great fantasy.

Reality sucks.
posted by tkolar at 11:12 AM on November 24, 2007

Krrrlson, exercising in kitchens doesn't help grease. Please think before suggesting such weird solutions. Thanks.
posted by cgc373 at 11:14 AM on November 24, 2007

But if a discussion on another topic includes some comments that some people find offensive (subtype: sexist, racist, homophobic, what have you), then speaking up at length about those specific offending comments, as firmly as you would in a thread about sexism, leads to derailments, side arguments, and the kinds of dismissal several people here have reported.

This is the crux of the problem: if, in a lengthy and articulate comment, a writer uses an insulting word or phrase, will that comment be deleted? We've mostly discussed terse insults of the "I'd hit it" variety; what will we (the community, the mods, the interlocutors) do when someone slips a single bigoted label into a civilized discussion? (I.e., when a commenter in the race and IQ thread uses the n-word, should the comment be deleted or left as evidence?)

I'm personally persuaded that those are the times when only a derailing interruption is an appropriate response. But I'm really, really curious to hear what others, especially Jessamyn and Cortex, think.
posted by anotherpanacea at 11:15 AM on November 24, 2007

This is assuming it is mutually clear that the speaker is not a homophobe, which I will concede is not as easy as it sounds

Not easy? It's impossible. If you use homophobic language, people will assume you're a homophobe (and gay people will likely be hurt and/or insulted), and your saying "Oh, no, I'm not homophobic at all, that's why I get to say that!" is going to sound as stupid as "Oh, no, I'm not racist at all, that's why I get to call him a nigger!" It's a ridiculous assumption to ask people to make, and claiming "But I'm not racist/sexist/whatever!" is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

I have an issue with the pretend veteran and his ridiculous pretend objection to the word "cannon fodder," which is a perfectly legitimate phrase and should not be upsetting his imagined sensibilities.

Yeah, can we leave the straw men out of this? This is a difficult enough conversation as it is. Thanks.
posted by languagehat at 11:15 AM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

But if a discussion on another topic includes some comments that some people find offensive (subtype: sexist, racist, homophobic, what have you), then speaking up at length about those specific offending comments, as firmly as you would in a thread about sexism, leads to derailments, side arguments, and the kinds of dismissal several people here have reported.

"Speaking up at length" is not necessary. Vis a vis Jessamyn's "I'm always pretty, fucker" comment. Brevity does the trick quite nicely.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:17 AM on November 24, 2007

"...my propensity to cuss like a rat-fucking sailor."

Flagged as offensive to Navy veterans.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:17 AM on November 24, 2007

gnfti: Why do you have to refer to a person's appearance at all?
As you assert, we can use thoes transgressive words when there is an explicit knowledge that the other speaker, like oneself, is patently not a bigot.

But how can I know that about [plural] you?
posted by dash_slot- at 11:20 AM on November 24, 2007

five fresh fish, brevity works quite well sometimes, I agree. The right person, with the right quip, at the right time, can accomplish a lot. But as many women have already said here and elsewhere, there are some comments out there a lot more loaded than what Jessamyn was responding to. In these cases, lighthearted responses are ignored and sincere explanations can be mocked. Situations really do vary.
posted by maudlin at 11:21 AM on November 24, 2007

> Unless, of course, you can keep a straight face while claiming you have never in your life referred to an unpleasant man as a "dick".

Actually, just yesterday I called someone a "complete cock." That post was deleted, as it bloody well should have been. What I really meant was that his post smacked of whining entitlement issues. Which it did. However, I didn't take the time to express myself very clearly, and that fault was all mine.

As to freedom of speech - oy, vey, the ever-burning chestnut. Assuming you are American, you have a constitutional right to free speech. That does not, however, mean that you get to say whatever you want, wherever you want. You can say what you like in your own house, but this isn't your house. Comments you may wish to make here may not be acceptable by the standards set for this community. That doesn't mean you can't say them somewhere else, or in your own blog/space/forum/soapbox/corner.
posted by DarlingBri at 11:22 AM on November 24, 2007

Still, the existence of hypersensitive, humorless, shrill ideologues (of any stripe) is not something that can just be discarded from this conversation.

Yes it can. There are only a few MeFites who might fit the description "hypersensitive, humorless, shrill ideologues," and none of them are involved in this conversation as far as I can tell.

And yet the fear of such people is very present.

Some people are saying "we're thinking about ways to make this place more welcoming to women, and the first step is a slight modification to the 'offensive' flag" and others are saying "OMG what is this shit?? the feminazis are taking over, they won't let me call anybody a tranny cunt any more, if this keeps up I'm outta here!!" Well, you know, if it comes to a choice between interesting women leaving and guys who insist on their right to use sexist and abusive language leaving, I'm not going to waste any tears on the latter.

I will, especially if they leave because they really do believe that the feminazis are taking over and that isn't the case. And in fact I would probably join them if I thought that I was losing the right to use sexist and abusive language.

Sexist and abusive can be funny in small doses.
posted by tkolar at 11:22 AM on November 24, 2007

"Oh, no, I'm not racist at all, that's why I get to call him a nigger!"

I've actually come across some really swell people who use "nigger" for all sorts of people not just African Americans Blacks. Admittedly, they're rare, but they seem to exist. Case by case basis is important.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:24 AM on November 24, 2007

And while we're swinging away at our ideological pinatas, I'll note that the people most often mischaracterized, lampooned, and otherwise discounted on this site are poor white Southerners. Of course, that's just what I'm sensitive to, so that's my perception.

Of course. It's not even close. But there's not a large enough poor southern mefi contingent to worry about or get kudos for defending. We get 'other'.
posted by justgary at 11:27 AM on November 24, 2007

Oh, please, god, NO. There's lies the road to endless nitpicking. I rather the mods focus on something else.

Here's the thing: the site's norms are enforced by the members who shame stupid people into acting differently. The moderators delete things, but it's the community pressure turns this simple erasure into new and better commenting and posting habits. MetaTalk threads are where members work on the site norms, and we can only have norms on the topics we discuss. With things we don't regularly discuss at length (sexism, it would seem) there's less of a prevalent site norm. We should be so lucky as to face regular asinine complaints regarding deletions for sexism, because that's how the culture here changes. The progression goes: 1. New Rule 2. Transgression 3. Deletion 4. Complaint 5. Smack-down 6. Flameout (Optional) 8. Rinse and Repeat 7. Everybody Profits! (It turns out that the ??? part is a little complicated.)
posted by anotherpanacea at 11:28 AM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

What was 7, again?
posted by cgc373 at 11:29 AM on November 24, 2007

"And yet the fear of such people is very present."

What are they, Jews?
posted by klangklangston at 11:32 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

I think that "offensive" covers offensiveness nicely.

Adding "racism" and "sexism" indicates that these are subset that require co-categorization with offensiveness to be acknowledged. Meanwhile, there's plenty of racism and sexism that isn't offensive. Should we flag it all just for posterity? Gah.

If we're collecting data, how about a separate racist/sexism/homophobic/other intolerance/asshole flag.

/girl woman feminist
posted by desuetude at 11:35 AM on November 24, 2007

And yet the fear of such people is very present.

Oh yeah? Who exactly is so afraid of them? I'm certainly not, and I gather you're not either. This isn't one of those straw men I've heard so much about, is it?

I will, especially if they leave because they really do believe that the feminazis are taking over and that isn't the case.

What a surprise!

And in fact I would probably join them

What a surprise!

the people most often mischaracterized, lampooned, and otherwise discounted on this site are poor white Southerners

I'm not sure about the "most," but yeah, it's a problem. And I call people on it every time I notice it (as do others, and one of the reasons I miss davy is that he was one of the most vociferous). If you notice it, say something.
posted by languagehat at 11:36 AM on November 24, 2007

dash_slot-: "But how can I know that about [plural] you?"

You can't. Which is an important reason for me not to readily use those words in an open forum, and I don't think I ever did so here. In fact I don't believe I swear much at all. So apparently I'm on some sort of Quixotic-Voltairian crusade where I'm defending people's right to say nasty things even if I don't really identify with those people, and I do so, as I said, out of my intense dislike for implicit but pervasive PC-ness.

If this is straying too far into hypothetical terrain then I apologise for the derail. But I would like to thank you for actually engaging me in debate, which at the very least enables me to refine and expand some of the trickier parts of my point.

This as opposed to people simply putting words in my mouth that I would never utter.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:38 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

"Of course. It's not even close. But there's not a large enough poor southern mefi contingent to worry about or get kudos for defending. We get 'other'."

Yes, poor Southern whites often get screwed. On the other hand, you're not above shit-stirrin' yourself, Gary, and if we're being honest, the defense of the honest hick is a relatively minor worry that doesn't have the historical tenor of disenfranchising women.

But I don't see many women, say, flying the Confederate battle flag, so poor white Southerners may still have a bit more to work on as a group.

Plus, they can always secede.
posted by klangklangston at 11:39 AM on November 24, 2007

racist/sexism/homophobic/other intolerance/asshole flag

I can describe the first three to a martian who stumbles acroos this thread. I may be able to make a stab at other intolerance. But can you define, as succinctly as you can, what asshole means (not literally. I have one, you berk*)

*Translation available on request.
posted by dash_slot- at 11:46 AM on November 24, 2007

I'm not sure why this has to be perceived as a PC-police effort to remove any and all content that might be offensive to someone, somewhere. Part of the reason that gender-based comments are so obnoxious is because in most cases they are totally irrelevant to the issue or person being discussed. The mods have always been empowered to use their discretion to remove irrelevant, obnoxious derails - why shouldn't this apply to substance-free sexist comments?

For example, a few comments into the pole vaulter thread that sugarfish mentioned above, there is a link to a similar post on sportsfilter. Look at how much more interesting the sportsfilter discussion is because it doesn't immediately descend into "I'd hit it" and "sit in my lap so I can fondle you."
posted by lalex at 11:46 AM on November 24, 2007 [6 favorites]

To deal with the issue of specifics, how about renaming the flag "offensive/prejudiced/discriminatory"?
posted by divabat at 4:06 AM on November 24 [+] [!]

If we're really trying to be inclusive, this is definitely better phrasing. I am not convinced that more specific flags are really the most effective way to set the tone of a site. What will be effective in a more immediate and preemptive way (for those that lurk before joining) is in- thread comments. I suppose that alerting a mod to objectionable content is one way to make this happen, but I was hoping that the most recent kerfuffle would actually encourage the people here to point stuff out at the time it's posted. If we have to add a few words to a flag for people to feel less disenfranchised, it's not going to hurt anything, but it's a little bit disappointing somehow. I guess I find it more satisfying for individuals to learn from their peers rather than infrastructure- I'm not sure people learn much from infrastructure, other than how to avoid breaking rules. However, if that's going to be the case, can we please make this about humans instead of only genders and races? You don't have to be a woman or a minority to be the target of prejudice.
posted by oneirodynia at 11:49 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

*Translation available on request.

Or you can just have Wikipedia redirect you. :)
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:53 AM on November 24, 2007

Note: I'm not saying mods aren't people, even if they do ride silly underpowered scooters and have bad haircuts.

[NOT MODIST]
posted by oneirodynia at 11:56 AM on November 24, 2007

Political correctness has never solved anything.

Vigilant enforcement of the "don't be a dick" rule would render unnecessary any new emphasis on rooting out sexism.
posted by Afroblanco at 11:57 AM on November 24, 2007

I am not convinced that more specific flags are really the most effective way to set the tone of a site. What will be effective in a more immediate and preemptive way (for those that lurk before joining) is in- thread comments.

Nobody's saying we should have flags instead of in-thread comments. We've always had in-thread comments, and the idea is to have more of them as well as flags. The expanded flag is supposed to help people realize that it's OK to call out sexist comments in-thread. It's not about sweeping the problem under the mods' rug.
posted by languagehat at 11:58 AM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

tkolar, anyone who fears that the so-called feminazis are taking over has been listening to too much Rush Limbaugh.

Most feminists are just regular women who want to be treated fairly. To help dispel the negative myth (or to reinforce it, depending on your perception of me...) I would like to self identify in this thread as a feminist. (ph34r m3!)
posted by madamjujujive at 11:59 AM on November 24, 2007 [5 favorites]

Dammit, if I'd known that was going to be comment #300, I'd have added:

SPARTA!!!
posted by languagehat at 11:59 AM on November 24, 2007

I, for one, have no problem with white Southerners being offended by something I say.
posted by Stynxno at 12:07 PM on November 24, 2007

Vigilant enforcement of the "don't be a dick" rule would render unnecessary any new emphasis on rooting out sexism.
posted by Afroblanco

Ironic.

I guess you didn't have the space to spell out what 'don't be a dick' means.
posted by dash_slot- at 12:08 PM on November 24, 2007

Also, the idea that the blue and the gray are going to turn into the green (in terms of moderation) is just silly. If that was true, cortex and jessamyn would have received a half a dozen timeouts by now.

Cortex is the creator of butts.lol. You're not going to have your "I'd hit it" comments deleted - what you are going to have though is an environment where someone who doesn't like those comments is going to feel comfortable calling you out on it which is what all you dissenters to this concept want anyways. For crying out loud, this is a good idea and it's going to make work much less boring over the next month or so.

Though, I'm with everyone else and I think a homophobia addition to the tag would make it an even better idea.
posted by Stynxno at 12:11 PM on November 24, 2007

I'm not saying mods aren't people, even if they do ride silly underpowered scooters and have bad haircuts.

*throws deck chair, starts beachside riot*

As for the change to the flag, I'm filled with weary resignation over the weird grammar, but fine with the sentiment.
posted by scody at 12:16 PM on November 24, 2007

I reserve the right to call Ann Coulter a tranny cunt if that's how I feel, thank you very much.

goodnewsfortheinsane, I would genuinely like to understand why you even need to be able to say this here. Ann Coulter isn't worthy of condemnation because she's a transvestite (even if she were) or because she has a vagina, she's worthy of condemnation because she's a vile person with hateful ideas. Why isn't it enough for you to be able to say that? Or is it purely the hypothetical that concerns you?

As others have covered, people have the right to say nasty sexist things, just not necessarily on Metafilter. The issue is how the community wants to balance some members' desire to say that kind of stuff with the desire of other members to have a higher level of female participation. Although he called the analogy clumsy, I think Matt gets it right here:

Imagine you hang out with five guys once a week or so. You get together, watch football, drink some beers, go out to dinner, and shoot the shit. This goes on for many years as you all grow up together. Eventually someone says hey, I just learned my brother is gay and I'd like it if we could cut out the occasional fag joke and stop calling lame stuff is "totally gay".

Yeah, you'd still have the right to make the fag joke, but is it really that important to you to exercise it?
posted by lalex at 12:16 PM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

Look, you're gonna get a lot of this kind of nitpicking again. I for one am gonna have to balance out the impulse to ask for someone to be more precise/descriptive/less whatever, and the desire to see a thread flow.

But really, does "don't be a dick" mean the exact same thing all the time? To me it translates as "stop doing [this thing I dissapprove of]".
My response is - why? What do you object to? Why haven't you offered suggestions for alternative behaviour/phrasing?

Don't be a dick = don't be a retard = don't be a cunt. The core meaning is discriminatory, the wider meaning is shifting, subjective and distracting. IMHO.
posted by dash_slot- at 12:17 PM on November 24, 2007

"I, for one, have no problem with white Southerners being offended by something I say."

How far south, and how white? There are limits, y'know.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:18 PM on November 24, 2007

How far south, and how white?

I'm talking really southern- honky, white trash southern bastards. People like this.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:22 PM on November 24, 2007 [3 favorites]

How far south, and how white? There are limits, y'know.

20 dollars. same as in town.
posted by Stynxno at 12:24 PM on November 24, 2007

I, for one, have no problem with white Southerners being offended by something I say.

Unless they're gay. Or female. And then it's an issue. Because white Southerners are beneath your contempt. Because they're a cartoon that exists only in your head. Because you can't imagine someone being proud of being a white Southerner who isn't a racist, sexist homophobe. Because you've stereotyped them to a degree that, if a similar sentiment were expressed about women or blacks, we'd all be collectively horrified.

Yeah, that's a bold position, Stynxno. Way to display your open-mindedness.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 12:31 PM on November 24, 2007 [10 favorites]

And I apologize for derailing the thread.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 12:36 PM on November 24, 2007

Do I understand correctly that Da Shiv is in favor of reworking/prettying up photographs but not comments?
posted by Cranberry at 12:40 PM on November 24, 2007

And after viewing the pic posted by TPS, what I see there are people subverting stereotypes and showing some humor at a time when a HURRICANE HAD DESTROYED THEIR FUCKING HOME.

I guess you just see fat rednecks.

Sucks to be you.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 12:40 PM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

BitterOldPunk, I'm pretty sure that picture is of ColdChef, with whom TPS is friends, and also that it was a joke.
posted by cgc373 at 12:42 PM on November 24, 2007

Dude, ColdChef is my father. Sucks to be YOU.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:43 PM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

Wherever this goes, I'm heartened to see that by and large, we as a group regard Ann Coulter as a vile specimen of humanity, regardless of her genitalia. This heartens me, and gives me hope for humanity.
posted by Devils Rancher at 12:43 PM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

I'm sorry if I over-reacted, but how the hell was I supposed to know that? I don't keep a MeFi geneology primer handy when posting.

And for the record, it does, in fact, suck to be me.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 12:46 PM on November 24, 2007

MeFi geneology primer

I smell a new Wiki section!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:49 PM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

If you're a white southerner and you feel the need to wave around a confederate flag to support your heritage, then I have no problem with saying something that said person might consider extremely offensive.

And if all white southerners are bothered by that, than that's alright by me.

my hate has specific targets. also some of my best friends are white and southern.
posted by Stynxno at 12:50 PM on November 24, 2007

I've always flagged FPPs that use wikipedia caret notation as 'offensive'
posted by delmoi at 12:59 PM on November 24, 2007

Also this flag seems like CYA for two poor moderator decisions, leaving the obnoxious "Was Watson Right" post, and deleting the post about the guy flashing on the freeway.
posted by delmoi at 1:00 PM on November 24, 2007

Nobody's saying we should have flags instead of in-thread comments.

I know that. My sentiment was that I hoped the outcome of all this typing and anger would be more aware and proactive people, rather than the modification of a drop-down menu. I understand the reasoning behind it; I'm not against it. I'm just the kind of person who's pleased if a smoker happens to see me coughing and choking and steps away of their own volition, rather than me having to point to a no-smoking sign. Are people thoughtful and sensitive because they have become more aware of other people's feelings, or are they just making an effort to avoid getting flagged on this website? If the latter, that's not real change, it's just sweeping crap under the rug. However, I'm more concerned that the wording is not inclusive. I feel exposed to more offensive language directed at homosexuals and religious people (neither of which I am) here than toward women. Then again, I always felt like ridiculous misogyny was a useful indicator of who not to pay much attention to. Here's hoping the flag makes more people here feel like participants on equal footing, with no unwanted side effects.
posted by oneirodynia at 1:00 PM on November 24, 2007

If you're a white southerner and you feel the need to wave around a confederate flag to support your heritage, then I have no problem with saying something that said person might consider extremely offensive.

..and I agree with you 100%, Stynxno. The problem is when you conflate "white Southerner" with "Confederate-flag waver" -- the two are not equivalent.

And I'll assume the "some of my best friends" line is some sort of sophisticated Yankee humor I wouldn't be expected to grasp.

I'm losing this pissing match, and rather than continue to derail the thread, I'll step back. Besides, it's about time to get likkered up for the Alabama-Auburn game.

ROLL TIDE
posted by BitterOldPunk at 1:04 PM on November 24, 2007

And I apologize for derailing the thread.

You didn't derail the thread. If it's OK to bring up homophobia and other forms of bigotry, it's OK to bring up anti-Southern prejudice, which is not of course worse but is certainly more accepted around here. Keep fighting the good fight. (And no, it's not about Confederate flags, to ward off a bigoted rejoinder.)
posted by languagehat at 1:07 PM on November 24, 2007

We should have flags instead of in-thread comments.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:08 PM on November 24, 2007

I, for one, have no problem with white Southerners being offended by something I say.
posted by Stynxno

If you're a white southerner and you feel the need to wave around a confederate flag to support your heritage, then I have no problem with saying something that said person might consider extremely offensive.
posted by Stynxno

Fuck, don't wimp out and include the 'and you feel...' the second time around.

my hate has specific targets. also some of my best friends are white and southern.

Well, excuse me. Then insult away (and some of your best friends are black... ya, I get it).

Yes, poor Southern whites often get screwed. On the other hand, you're not above shit-stirrin' yourself, Gary
posted by klangklangston

Not if I had, say, a 'bigot' tag. Then I could just tag your comments klang, and I wouldn't stir the shit.
posted by justgary at 1:09 PM on November 24, 2007

gnfti there are probably cultural issues at play here: not that we don't publicly discuss the usage of swear words here, of course, but to give a simple example, the Dutch equivalent of "cunt" would, as far as I can see, be considered perfectly acceptable - within the context of swearing - by people of both genders equally. "Dick" too, incidentally.

Yes.
I'm allowed to be blunt & gross. It's because I'm Dutch. Joepie!

Ok. Here goes.
darlingbri, cover your ears

Kut!

you can't flag what you don't understand
posted by jouke at 1:10 PM on November 24, 2007

I know I'm really really late to these threads, but let me just add that I think this is a good move. While I'm a big fan of self-policing, if the women of MeFi don't feel comfortable around here, then it's a problem needing attention.
posted by yeti at 1:17 PM on November 24, 2007

you can't flag what you don't understand

Ik zou raken.
posted by grouse at 1:17 PM on November 24, 2007

And I'll assume the "some of my best friends" line is some sort of sophisticated Yankee humor I wouldn't be expected to grasp.

actually, it's a reference to the "but some of my best friends are black! gay! mexican!" comments that people use to justify their racist/homophoboic/sexist or whatever comments.

I wasn't conflating white Southerner with Confederate-flag waver. Upstate New York's confederate flag wavers outnumber the ones I've seen in North Carolina and my racial experience with white redneck sterotypes was much more negative while in New York rather than in the south. My comment earlier was not meant as an attack on white southerners - it was more meant as a trollish dig at the "but what about or or - we get offended too!" comments that this thread (and the others) always get. Everyone gets offended and the idea of this thread change is to help create an enviornment where a person who is offended has no problem saying something (as you've done in this thread). If a significant body of members on this site felt that white southerners were being discriminate against and they felt that their communication was being squelched or self-regulated because of this problem, then something would need to be done to help provide that group with the necessary situation where they would feel comfortable speaking up. And, if you look at how you reacted in this thread, how other people have reacted in other threads, white Southerners who get offended do speak up. That might be one reason why homophobic wasn't added to this change - amberglow and others have been much more vigilant in the last year to make it appear as if there is a large enough vocal group that feel comfortable enough to speak up.

But, like you, I'm biased in certain ways and I pay attention to certain things. My perception is that the homosexuals and women and minorities on this site don't feel comfortable to speak up while white Southerners do. I could be wrong though.
posted by Stynxno at 1:19 PM on November 24, 2007

"Kut!

you can't flag what you don't understand"

Flagged as incomprehensible.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 1:19 PM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

I can flag whatever I want. It is my right as an American; a right I don't expect you Dutch to understand.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:20 PM on November 24, 2007

cybercoitus interruptus writes "(alternatively, please explain your reasons for thinking that, in practice, these adjustments will equate censorship."

I'll pick this notion of censorship as a reference point ; Censorship is defined as the suppression or deletion of objectionable information, as determined by a censor.

Some argue that if it is not acted by a goverment, it is not censorship. So let's call it "bannination" or "mufabuka" it doesn't change the substance of the action which is suppression/deletion.

Now let's have a look at the current version of comment guideline

Comments should not be directed at other members of the site -- remember to stick to the subject and issues raised by the post, not the person who made it or others that commented on it.

That's imho, to discourage at hominems that usually are just destructive and uninenteresting. If I was to strictly enforce that, most intra-personal comments should be removed, but the rule says "should" and not "must".

Yet if you delete the "offending" (in the legal sense) posts there is no way to get around the fact they are being censored, banninated, mufabukated. Similarly, when some protesters of GWB were told they could no protest in a certain way or place and were moved to "free speech zone" they were effectively denied presence, they were not silenced , but they were effectively slapped into a desert where one can shout as much as they want, the consequences will be zero, nada.

Similarly, I feel that when a post gets deleted, on whatever grounds, a similar form of censorship happens..no matter how crude and idiotic the comment may be. This has also the negative effect , maybe sometime seeked, of stirring a controversy and casting a bad light on unpopular, but sensible practices.

That's why I was suggesting the possibility of moving the "offending" post into an area. Thanks to the nature of the site, as opposed to the shame of people being confined into limbos of free speech zones, it is easy to link to an offending post that is being moved to another area, let say the sexist thread.

Quoting Matt

but it's difficult to make large sweeping decisions without a body of work we can point to and say these are the undesirable actions and traits

Which kind of express my feeling that it's hard to say what is what, if we don't define it , for instance by having a number of samples of what most people feel like to be "offending" ; a public sample that could be discusses in here, as opposed to an authoritarian determination.
posted by elpapacito at 1:21 PM on November 24, 2007

grouse Ik zou raken.

hahaha.
posted by jouke at 1:21 PM on November 24, 2007

Astro Zombie: I can flag whatever I want. It is my right as an American; a right I don't expect you Dutch to understand.

Yes, you guys like to wave your flags, don't you?
We Dutch know that kind of behaviour only too well:
from WWII!
posted by jouke at 1:25 PM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

And for the record, it does, in fact, suck to be me.

I am sorry about that BitterOldPunk, and sorrier still that you haven't made the acquaintance of the wonderful man who is ColdChef. His Twitter stream alone, funerals and deaths mostly, is enough to cheer anyone up. Go be friends with him, he will blow your mind.
posted by jessamyn at 1:28 PM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

...the Dutch equivalent of "cunt" would, as far as I can see, be considered perfectly acceptable - within the context of swearing - by people of both genders equally.

Even within one language that's true. 'cunt' is used quite differently in England and it isn't nearly as offensive as it is in vernacular American.
posted by atrazine at 1:30 PM on November 24, 2007

Some people are saying "we're thinking about ways to make this place more welcoming to women, and the first step is a slight modification to the 'offensive' flag" and others are saying "OMG what is this shit?? the feminazis are taking over, they won't let me call anybody a tranny cunt any more, if this keeps up I'm outta here!!"

If you're not with us, you're against us. Certainly there are no alternative views possible.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:30 PM on November 24, 2007

What bothers me about this is the idea - hinted at but not said outright - that there is no place for certain types of communities online. Yes, Metafilter has been a place where people say things that sometimes cross offensive lines and it has been up to individuals to hit back in those cases.

And you know what? I'm glad. Lots of people like it that way.

If some people don't feel comfortable with online literary confrontation, well, there are plenty of communities for them. Why does Metafilter have to be one of them?

Is there something wrong with a community where it is up to an offended party to say, "Hey, fuck you you racist/sexist/homophobic pig!". Metafilter has been such a community and I don't see why it necessarily makes it a better place to move it away from a self-policing mindset. It makes it a different place. A place where some people will like Metafilter more and some people will like Metafilter less.

But it doesn't make Metafilter better; only different, and in a way I think makes it blander and more like a zillion other sites out there.
posted by Justinian at 1:30 PM on November 24, 2007

lalex: The issue is how the community wants to balance some members' desire to say that kind of stuff with the desire of other members to have a higher level of female participation.

You've pretty much nailed it right there. This is the most important thing, and I agree with it fully.

The (in light of the above very minor) point I was trying to make is that in my opinion, when someone calls Ann Coulter a cunt it's perfectly possible that they mean exactly that she's worthy of condemnation because she's a vile person with hateful ideas, and not worthy of condemnation because she has a vagina. In fact, I find the latter parsing laughably PC, and if anyone actually means that by it then they are, well, total dicks.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 1:35 PM on November 24, 2007

So Stynxno, are you saying that the problem is not the offensive remarks but that the offended group feels uncomfortable confronting the offensive remarks? So if women felt comfortable speaking out about sexist remarks it would be okay to make them?

I can say that I'm not always comfortable speaking out against anti-Southern remarks. And as some of the women have said about sexist remarks, it just gets tedious.
posted by grouse at 1:37 PM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

gnfti then they are, well, total dicks.

You're being disdainful of male genitalia gnfti.
If you weren't Dutch I'd flag you as offensive/sexism/racism
posted by jouke at 1:41 PM on November 24, 2007

My biggest problem with people calling Anne Coulter a tranny cunt is not that such a statement is sexist, or anti-tranny, it's that the statement is so fucking lazy. Can we have a flag for "not rying hard enough"?
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:42 PM on November 24, 2007

So making women feel equal is pandering to "political bias"? Interesting.

This pathetic rhetorical posturing really doesn't deserve a response beyond noting its complete lack of merit. But for the hell of it, "No, it isn't.".

-----

jessamyn & cortex,

OK, good enough. I've never had any issues with the moderation here. You and mathowie have been exceptionally patient and fair minded. If you don't think this change in the feedback will alter your response then there's nothing more to say. My preferences are otherwise and I'm sure this site will continue to be great whatever the flags say.

-----

a note on 'codewords': There are few responses to an argument that do more to subvert the possibility of dialogue than telling the other person what they really meant. It's very easy to make points by saying 'blah-blah' is a codeword for 'bleh-bleh', or "hoopity-loopty" = "sleppity-doo", but I've rarely if ever seen such an alienating response persuade. If all you're looking to do is "win the crowd" it may be the way to go, responding to an argument at face value would probably just be a waste of your time.

-----

cgc373,

While I find the idealism admirable, I find the practical situation that members here have explained to be more compelling, and in greater need of attention, than the principles: I think the people who feel excluded and unwelcome deserve better from us.

Obviously, I disagree but I don't want to overstate the issue. While I tend to participate in more than my share of political threads, countering what I feel is a progressive bias is hardly end of the world importance. Especially when the moderators disagree that it will be taking place at all. My preference is for the topics of discussion to be as open as possible and if it can be done easily I think it should. The issues you raise could in my opinion be better countered by some of the other means suggested: a Mefi mail restating expectations, more liberal flagging and moderation when sexual violence is wished upon someone, and even a little tolerance for some crude humor.
posted by BigSky at 1:43 PM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

goodnewsfortheinsane, no offense, but that makes absolutely no sense.

It's like me saying that Ann Coulter is totally English! Yeah, a total England-loving boot-licker! ...and following that up with protestations that that I don't think there's anything wrong with English people, I'm just saying I hate Coulter because of her political leanings.

Wha? Right, that makes no sense at all and you'd think I was crazy. Calling anyone, man or woman, a cunt as an insult holds no rhetorical value unless cunts are widely understood to be something vile, distasteful or gross. Which, ya know, is fine if that's your opinion--I'm not saying you have to love them or give them kisses every night--but as an owner of one, it's kind of tedious to be reminded that there are people out there that find my body repulsive precisely because it has woman-parts. If I want to talk about how stupid and disgusting women are, I'm sure there are places on the web for it. I'd rather metafilter not be one.
posted by iminurmefi at 1:50 PM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

Is this a mess yet? Because it looks like a mess to me, and I'd like a second opinion.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 1:52 PM on November 24, 2007

I agree with everything that's been said here. Turning MetaFilter into a more respectful and civil place that respects difference is a thoroughly laudable goal.

One question though. There's a pretty strident atheist contingent here and their aggression and derision often wind up silencing people who have faith commitments or who take faith commitments seriously. Are the mods willing to extend their flagging system to make these members of the community feel respected and valued? If not, why not?
posted by felix betachat at 1:52 PM on November 24, 2007 [3 favorites]

you can't flag what you don't understand

Matennaaier!

This pathetic rhetorical posturing really doesn't deserve a response

In other words, "I have no answer because I really don't give a fuck if women feel excluded."

I think the people who feel excluded and unwelcome deserve better from us.

Obviously, I disagree

Yup, that's what I thought.
posted by languagehat at 1:53 PM on November 24, 2007

iminurmefi, were you home schooled? I'm told that happens in the US.
Genitals are used as insults right across the gender divide. From lower school on. By people who are very enthusiastic about said genitals btw.
So now you know.
posted by jouke at 1:56 PM on November 24, 2007

Interesting question felix.

And languagehat is being very disrespectful to me as a Dutchman. I'm hurt. I feel this is a very US centric place. Can I have a flagging system extension please?
posted by jouke at 2:00 PM on November 24, 2007

I think the solution MeFi's problems is now clear: let's all just hate on the Dutch.

My perception is that the homosexuals and women and minorities on this site don't feel comfortable to speak up while white Southerners do.

Really? I don't see that at all, but then I can't see what is never posted. I'll accept, from perusing The Thread That Cried Love At The Heart Of The World, that women MeFites feel that way, and I don't think it's unreasonable to ask a bunch of jackasses like myself to hew to a teensy higher standard of social discourse.

Robust and uninhibited discussion is what made this place what it is, and if this tiny tweak (to a part of the UI that I'll bet thousands of members have never thought to use), helps foster those discussions, then great. I'm on board with that. I don't think it will, but I don't think it'll hurt, either.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 2:01 PM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

iminurmefi: "Calling anyone, man or woman, a cunt as an insult holds no rhetorical value unless cunts are widely understood to be something vile, distasteful or gross."

iminurmefi, no offence, but that makes absolutely no sense. Let me make this as simple as I can: a little questionnaire.

-Have you ever called someone a dick?
-Do you plan on calling anyone a dick in the future?
-Do you think it's okay to call someone a dick?

This may come as a total shock, but sometimes words have multiple meanings. Yes, I might call someone a cunt. No, I do not think cunts are vile, distasteful, or gross. That people infer some sort of contradiction between these two facts strikes me as outright bizarre.

For the record I'd like to state that I think cunts, cocks and assholes are all totally awesome.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 2:04 PM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

I've yet to hear any objection that convinces me we'll lose anything other than thoughtless and pointless gobshitery of the worst order if this goes ahead as described.
posted by Abiezer at 2:08 PM on November 24, 2007 [4 favorites]

I'm another one of those women who often craft long responses to obnoxiously sexist/misogynistic in lots of metafilter threads, pausing just before I hit the "post" button to wonder whether my tirade is going to do any good, change any minds, or prompt anyone to reconsider their (in their own minds) edgy and wittily irreverent quip. During those 3 seconds I think through the probable outcome:

1. I will post my earnest, thoughtfully crafted reaction to the 45,012 "I'd Hit It"/"I wouldn't Hit It/"She'd Be Lucky to Have Me Hit It"" comment (carefully edited 6 times to remove all of my initial references to "asshole-ish" "mouthbreathing" and "cretins")

2. It will be met with annoyance for derailing the thread/ starting a fight/ I will be asked to flag it and move on or,

2.a It will be treated as a non-sequitur

3. In the next 10 minutes more comments, all highly creative and competitively scatological variations of "I'd Hit It" will appear, perhaps with a token "shut up, you're ruining a good time" type of comment directed my way, likely with the subtext of "feminazi" attached to it.

I decide I'll wait a little while, and if nobody else calls anyone on the offensiveness, then I'll have to go ahead and be the bad guy. Usually someone else steps up to the bat and composes an eloquent and thorough rebuttal to all of the "LOLtheyhavevaginas" sentiment in the thread.

Instead saying my bit as well, I (along with 20-60 other women and a few men, all of whom may also have had an arsenal of similar, secretly stashed comments at the ready) hit that "favorite!" button rather than make every one of the threads that start to go in this direction (and there are so, so many) into a debate about sexism- or worse, into a discussion about whether we are all feminazis that can't take a joke/ are jealous of other women's attractiveness/ are ruining metafilter's sense of giddy playfulness/ can't face the reality that it's natural for men to objectify women.

I understand the sentiment expressed in a few of the comments in this thread that women should speak up and challenge the misogynistic BS when we come across it, rather than be so delicate or non-confrontational that we need a special flag in order to secretly protest the things which offend our delicate sensibilities, but you know what? I honestly don't think many of men here understand just how disruptive that would be to the entire site, because the offending crap is just So. Damn. Pervasive.

I read this site often, but I rarely have the time to contribute to the interesting discussions that occur daily. Given that, I'm generally only moved to make time to post a comment if the topic is a subject I know about extensively, that I have additional information on, and that I don't think someone else will share if I don't, or if I feel that something very important is going unsaid and someone needs to say it. Unfortunately, the obnoxious sexist banter falls in the latter category, and if I posted every time I actually felt moved to do so, even *I* would think "grind, grind, grind" when I looked at my posting history.
posted by stagewhisper at 2:08 PM on November 24, 2007 [32 favorites]

Jouke, I take your comment ("I'm told that happens in the US") to mean you're not from the US?

Of course genitals are used as insults across the gender divide. The rely on the connotations we associate with piece of our body for their oomph, as I'm sure you realize: to tell my brother "you're being such a woman!" or "what's your problem, got sand in your vagina?" has a totally different meaning than telling him he's being a dick. Calling someone a dick means they're behaving in ways that we associate with the negative stereotypes of masculinity--being belligerent, loud, and abrasive. Calling someone a cunt (in the US, although I understand it has different connotations in other parts of the world) is pretty much one of the worst insults you can sling, and means that they're a vile human being. Which is why it seems to be a favorite in Coulter threads.

And if you're not from the US, I take this teachable moment to let you know that many woman who do reside in the US will write you off as a total asshole (that is, disgusting = source of feces) if you use "cunt" as an insult.
posted by iminurmefi at 2:08 PM on November 24, 2007 [3 favorites]

For the record I'd like to state that I think cunts, cocks and assholes are all totally awesome.

Let me assure you, the feeling is mutual.
posted by felix betachat at 2:08 PM on November 24, 2007

Are the mods willing to extend their flagging system to make these members of the community feel respected and valued? If not, why not?

Actually, we get a lot of shit from the atheist contingent (I know, amazing, right?) for defending people from faith communities. People think it's because we have some personal religious angle but actually all the mods are atheists. Most of the atheist comment deletions fall pretty solidly under the "don't harass other people" guideline and mostly occur in AskMe questions about religion.

So, in short, yes. Put another way, that already happens and will continue. Put yet another way, we have gotten very little in the way of complaints from practicing religionists of whatever stripe except for the occasional MetaTalk thread (usually as a result of a Dawkins thread being removed). My guess is it won't show up as another option on the flag menu however.

Awareness that overt sexism isn't okay needed to be given greater visibility here, in our opinion. Lack of tolerance for LOLXIAN stuff is better known, I suspect.
posted by jessamyn at 2:09 PM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

The Thread That Cried Love At The Heart Of The World

This is the best thing I've read on MeFi all day.

Krijg de typhus, jouke!
posted by languagehat at 2:12 PM on November 24, 2007

stagewhisper, I'd just like to thank you for your comment about the pervasiveness of the offending crap - as a man it's very easy to forget about the weight of that in trying to get heard.

I may be defending an unpopular position here, and I do so sincerely, but let me state that my tiny crusade here pales in comparison to what you've touched on there. Thanks.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 2:14 PM on November 24, 2007

iminurmefi: Calling someone a cunt [...] means that they're a vile human being.

Hang on, that's what I mean by it! I thought when others said it meant that vaginas were gross. Now, which is it?
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 2:17 PM on November 24, 2007

darlingbri, cover your ears

Oh yeah. Because my delicate feminist sensibilities are really the issue here. Feis ort.

I currently reside in a country where "cunt" is regularly used, conversationally and as a term of endearment. We are not talking about it being used in a friendly way on MeFi, or reclaiming it, however; we are talking about it being used as a derogatory term of abuse.

If "why it is less of an issue to call someone a dick than it is to call someone a cunt" is seriously a point of confusion, I despair and leave this thread to it's own devices. Perhaps a woman with bigger balls than mine can step in and explain.
posted by DarlingBri at 2:23 PM on November 24, 2007

lh Krijg de typhus, jouke!

Admins! He's doing it again!

Yes, swearing using illnesses. Very Dutch.
Kolerelijer!
posted by jouke at 2:24 PM on November 24, 2007

Can we change the flag to 'sexist, racist, or otherwise offensive'?
posted by pracowity at 2:26 PM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

From Chambers English Dictionary:
cunt: noun 1 taboo the female genitals. 2 offensive slang a woman regarded as a sexual object. 3 offensive slang an abusive term for an unpleasant person. 4 slang a person in general.

Note meanings 3 and 4, which are the contexts in which I (a Briton) would generally use the word. Cunt is not always sexist, nor is it always offensive, except in the USA where it is regarded as both. See also: ^.

iminurmefi: you can choose to brandish knee-jerk accusations of sexism at anybody who uses the word cunt if you like, but I hope that this teachable moment will give you cause to step outside your insular little worldview and consider that not everyone in the whole world uses language in exactly the way you do. Part of the appeal of MeFi is exposure to people from a diverse range of cultures; don't expect us all to be well-versed in the nuances of US cussing.
posted by nowonmai at 2:27 PM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

Good analysis nowonmai.
posted by jouke at 2:29 PM on November 24, 2007

Surely some more guys want to come in and do their little mock-whiny "what about so-and-so we're victims too do I get a flag" breakdance poses then run back to their mates for some high-fives.

Me, sometimes I'd like to flag a FPP as "dipshit parade." Not this one necessarily, I just thought I'd mention it.
posted by fleacircus at 2:35 PM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

Having thought this through a bit more and dug further back into the thread, I want to take exception to a statement I see being made repeatedly with little or no critical reception:

I think the sexism/racism flag is totally unnecessary. both of those fall under offensive content so I don't see the point.

Oh, many people objected to say that there is a point, but I didn't see anyone calling into question the idea that
sexist automatically = offensive. If it does, I hope you're being so self-critical in your own life as to not let a hint of it enter your dialogue, even among like-minded friends.

Of course MeFi, community aspirations aside, is not a group of like-minded friends. The membership is diverse, and that can be easy to forget when every person you're in contact with is represented by alphanumeric characters. And obviously online behaviour varies, as is oft noted, from most people's behavior IRL so special considerations are required. What concerns me is this:

If this is simply about explicitly reminding MeFites to be considerate of other members, it's a definite positive step. I mean, yes, we can argue about the number and type of flags, but there can't be much wrong with reminding people that others' standards of civil behaviour count as well as your own, so think twice before commenting.

In framing the flags as sexism/racism/offensive, however, the implication is that comments which fall under, say, the first category, but not the third, are still flag-worthy. That is to say, inoffensive sexist comments.

Before, you had a good metric of what sexist comments people actually found offensive, because it would be flagged as such. Now? You're inviting people to flag comments that they intellectually perceive some hint of sexism, whether they find it offensive or not. Whether or not anyone does. How is that a positive step? How would that be beneficial for data collection? You've turned a valuable flag into a much less valuable one. Do you really want to know how many people find a comment sexist, but do not want to know how many people find it offensive?

Obviously, there is the added concern that the mods will start eliminating anything that hints at sexism, offensive or no, but the first problem I see here is that you've just thrown away your ability to tell which is which.
posted by dreamsign at 2:37 PM on November 24, 2007

Hmmm, we've got about 45 references to the c-word in this thread. Maybe I'm too US-centric, or too old (42), but I've never been able to see/hear the word without wincing a little bit. I've heard that for younger women it doesn't shock quite as much, that its force is diminishing.
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 2:39 PM on November 24, 2007

Surely some more guys want to come in and do their little mock-whiny "what about so-and-so we're victims too do I get a flag" breakdance poses then run back to their mates for some high-fives.

Christ this thread is a toxic swamp.

Jessamyn, thanks for the clarification. I don't fully agree, but I see the logic. It should be made clear that this is an attempt, however minor, at community social engineering and that there are definite preferences embedded in that attempt. I agree fully that the idiot contingent lowers the level of discourse and that this can have a chilling effect on conversation. But lets not kid ourselves here. Gender issues are being taken rather more seriously than other sorts of routine intolerance. The result may be a more egalitarian and respectful community, or it may be a community which wrings its hands visibly over gender oppression while sweeping other sorts of routine intolerance under the rug.

As someone who takes this community seriously, I'm going to be watching carefully to see how this plays out.
posted by felix betachat at 2:50 PM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

As a white southern gentleman, there's a lot in this thread that I simply do not understand. The big words, mostly.
posted by ColdChef at 2:55 PM on November 24, 2007 [9 favorites]

I think I managed to get all the tired and overused arguments used regularly during these sexism threads. Now instead of getting worked up, I'll just play along. When I get bingo, I'll apologize to another female acquaintance for having suggested she sign up here.

Do you have BINGO?
posted by FunkyHelix at 2:57 PM on November 24, 2007 [45 favorites]

Wow. DaShiv, great comment.

Indeed.

EB's meMail campaign is just about the lamest thing I have ever seen. I'd call him a dick, a pussy, or an asshole, but those are gendered insults, and by doing so, I'd draw the penalty flags for having insulted these precious, precious voices that (while so instrumental to the site) cannot handle a bit of offensiveness.

You going to pad the walls while you're at it?
posted by Kwantsar at 2:58 PM on November 24, 2007

You are going to have to draw a line where you say "I don't care that it offends you: I didn't mean it that way, so the problem is yours, not mine.

This point-of-view assumes that the problem must be SOMEBODY'S. It's your fault, because, if it's not, it MUST be my fault.

I don't buy it. If I call you an X and you're offended, it may be that you have a very rational reason to be offended AND that I meant no offense.

There are two problems here:

1) that you got offended.
2) that -- since you talked about it -- I feel censored.

Why must we assume that you or I are the OWNERS of these problems? How does it help to assign blame? Why not just say that the problems exist and try to solve them?

I don't believe that this is a perfect solution, but that still doesn't mean that assigning blame (or blamelessness) will help anything. Sometimes the best "solution" is to admit that there is no solution -- or not perfect solution -- and for everyone to realize that and feel a little uncomfortable. At least in that case, we're all sharing in the problem.

If I feel constrained when I cause offense without meaning to cause offense while you feel offended by my comments, that's not solvable in a way that will make everyone happy. And yet both points of view are reasonable. It's reasonable -- given your background -- that you'll be offended by certain comments. It's reasonable, given my lack-of-ill-intent, that I'll feel unfairly chided and constrained if you try to censor me.

One way to help this problem (though perhaps not solve it) is to be HONEST about it. You tell me you're offended when I say X. I feel like I have a perfect right to say X and don't intend to stop saying. Okay, then here's what I should say:

"I'm sorry that X offends you, and I wish it didn't. At the same time, I AM going to keep saying it."

That sounds a bit mean, I know, but it's honest. What's not honest is to say...

"Well, I didn't mean you any harm, so if you're offended, that's YOUR problem."

That's just a way of shrugging something off.

I am a staunch believer in freedom of speech, and I'm against any form of censorship. It's possible to take that view and yet still recognize that words can cause people pain (even when no pain is intended). And it's also possible to speak freely without justifying the pain you cause. You have to give up on seeing yourself as a perfect person.

I speak freely. When I do so, I sometimes cause pain. I am responsible for causing that pain when I cause it. I don't like to cause pain, so when I have something to say that I know may cause pain, I'll think carefully before I say it. But even knowing that it might cause pain, I may say it anyway. If I do, and you blame me for causing you pain, I will have to accept the blame.
posted by grumblebee at 3:00 PM on November 24, 2007 [4 favorites]

EB's meMail campaign is just about the lamest thing I have ever seen. I'd call him a dick, a pussy, or an asshole, but those are gendered insults[...]

Which gender is asshole?

yeah, I pretty much walked into that one
posted by b1tr0t at 3:08 PM on November 24, 2007

Woo hoo! BINGO!

Dear Oulangi, I'm sorry I ever suggested that you should join Metafilter for the awesome discussions. My bad.
posted by FunkyHelix at 3:08 PM on November 24, 2007

Nope, I guess I'm not done talking about this yet. My above comment is still too vague.

The problem here is the lack of a durable reputation here in this community. Self-policing only works if and when there's a way of keeping track of who said what when and to whom. Melissa May's heavily favorited comment in the original thread is a darn good example of somebody holding somebody else to account for the stuff they've said, and assessing their authority accordingly. It was notable for its rarity, unfortunately.

If there were a way to efficiently recall other members on the site and to keep track of their posting history, these sorts of administrative interventions wouldn't be necessary. Alas, the community is probably too large for this, and a little yellow name below a nasty comment isn't enough to anchor a reputation.

So, again, I don't think that what's being reached for here is a community that is open and tolerant. Instead, it's one in which there isn't a durable record of the saying of nasty sexist things. Put alongside the implicit preservation of other nasty things, the overall character of the site is inevitably going to change.
posted by felix betachat at 3:10 PM on November 24, 2007

I suggest two new, equality based insults:

dickcunt ®

cockpussy ®


(race-neutral insults are left as an exercise to the reader)
posted by b1tr0t at 3:10 PM on November 24, 2007

Which gender is asshole?

It's masculine. The feminine of "asshole" is "bitch."

And neither are inherently sexist.
posted by dhammond at 3:11 PM on November 24, 2007

The offensiveness of your comment I can handle fine Kwantsar; it's the balls-aching dullness that's doing me in.
I too come from a culture where "cunt" is not loaded with sexist overtones, just straight-forward crudeness. But then I also learned of good manners and speaking with your audience in mind.
Only moral gnomes, piss-poor wannabe comics who'd be better shutting up and possibly a slavering woman-hater with Tourette's of the typing fingers could possibly have their speech restricted in any meaningful way by this.
posted by Abiezer at 3:16 PM on November 24, 2007 [4 favorites]

It's masculine. The feminine of "asshole" is "bitch."

Wrong. The feminine of asshole is... asshole. Bitch is a gendered insult.
posted by sugarfish at 3:16 PM on November 24, 2007

Yanno, gnfti, I cannot for the life of me understand defending a position that is essentially "I know this hurts you, but stop making me feel bad for doing it."
posted by headspace at 3:21 PM on November 24, 2007 [3 favorites]

Here's a personal example of what I was talking about: I'm a professional writer who uses "he" as a pronoun meaning -- to me -- "he and/or she." I'm very aware that many women feel hurt or not-included when I do that. Yet I do it anyway.

It would be wrong to say that I don't care about their feelings. I DO care. Yet I write that way anyway and plan on continuing to do so. It would be wrong to say I feel like it's their problem. It's not their problem. It's MY problem. Yet I don't plan to solve it.

I write that way, because I'm devoted to evocative writing. I think "he" evokes an image; "he/she" doesn't. And I'm not crazy about any of other alternatives that people suggest. I think it's impossible to envision a sexless person. So if you want to evoke an image of a person, you have to use either "he" or "she." I tend to use "he," because using "she" departs from convention, and when you depart from convention, THAT'S what you're writing about. You're suddenly not writing about your subject, you're writing about your subject AND Feminism. And that's gratuitous -- unless you happen to be writing about Feminism.

Maybe I'm wrong about all that stuff, but I believe it. Maybe I'm right, but compromising on this issue would cause so much good that I'm selfish not to compromise. I don't expect people to understand this, but I can't (or won't) compromise. I'd rather give up writing (which I'm unwilling to do). As petty as I'm sure it seems to many, for me to compromise on this issue would be like a painter agreeing not to use the color red.

Okay, so I'm going to be pig-headed and use "he." If I'm honest, I have to admit that I'm being pigheaded. It would be SO much easier to blame some of my readers for being "overly sensitive" and to say it's "their problem." But it's not. It's my problem. Or if it IS their problem, it's my problem too. (So what if they're overly sensitive. I can't do anything about that. But I COULD change my behavior. I'm just not willing to do so.) I'm making a choice that I KNOW causes pain. I don't do it to cause pain, but it does cause pain, and I know that.

I COULD justify or go into denial, which would make me comfortable. But I'd rather be a grownup and admit that I'm not a perfect person. I'm not a perfectly kind person. I'm not a perfectly selfless person. I am kind and selfless in many ways, but those ways don't make up for the ways in which I'm not kind. The good parts of me have no affect on the bad parts, and vice versa. Both are what they are.

Accepting this means that I feel a little TWINGE of ickyness whenever I write "he." I can't feel totally clean or blameless about it. I can't feel pure. I can't just "move on." Or rather, I can and I do, but not in a simple way. But that's the price of living in the world with my eyes open, realizing that there are other people out there and that my choices affect them.

And the little TWINGE means that, if you want to convince me that I'm wrong to use "he," you might have an opening. I doubt you WILL convince me, but it means that I haven't made a final decision for all time. It means that every time I write "he," I make the decision all over again.
posted by grumblebee at 3:21 PM on November 24, 2007 [4 favorites]

Technically, you are correct, sugarfish, but that speaks to nothing of the common usage. I have heard the expression "she's an asshole" exactly once in my entire life. When was the last time you heard it? Colloquially, it is infinitely more common to hear someone exchange "asshole" for "bitch" when speaking about a female.
posted by dhammond at 3:24 PM on November 24, 2007

Funky Helix!

FLAGGED AS MAGNIFICENT.
posted by thehmsbeagle at 3:24 PM on November 24, 2007

It's reasonable, given my lack-of-ill-intent, that I'll feel unfairly chided and constrained if you try to censor me.

Only if you consider "please stop saying that, it makes me feel bad" as "trying to censor." A lot of guys here seem to automatically equate those things, but I wouldn't expect it of you, grumblebee.
posted by languagehat at 3:26 PM on November 24, 2007

Frankly, that's how I use it, as does much of my social circle. Of course, I had to make the conscious choice to give up a gendered insult, but that's just me.
posted by sugarfish at 3:26 PM on November 24, 2007

Very far above, jacalata was talking about how to interject that some women honestly aren't bothered by this stuff. I'm responding to that question:

I think it's great and important to include that view, especially to break up the sense that Women are some monolithic entity who all think the same or whatever. (I don't think anybody on the side of "let's have less rape jokes" really believes that all women are the same, but it's easy to talk that way, and as we've been saying about the jokey throwaway comments, it matters what you actually said, not just what you meant. So - it's important to clarify and not assume that everyone's automatically on the same page.) Yeah - it's well worth bringing up that opinions vary, both opinions of men and opinions of women, on this stuff.

My suggestion would be just to say "It doesn't bother me, although I acknowledge that a lot of perfectly sensible non-wimpy women are bothered by it." or something along those lines. Just that little acknowledgment can keep it from sounding as if you're saying "It doesn't bother me, so anybody who is bothered is a wimp and let's stop talking about it" or something along those lines. Or if you say it without the disclaimer and then someone gets their back up, you can retroactively make clear how you meant it. That's all.

Like so much of this, I think this is just an effort toward basic conversational good will. We can't assume, as gnfti wants to, that we are all close buddies with the same pure hearts and that our words will always be understood in that light. People, including people we like and want to keep around, will misconstrue our intentions. So we should think about how we'll be understood, and in cases where we're called out, react to that with calm clarification rather than defensive escalation. (I'm not saying that jacalata was defensively escalating, at all! It just happens a lot in the other kind of situation we're talking about - someone gets called out for a casually sexist or obnoxious remark, and rather than saying "sorry - didn't mean it that way" they say "you're a whiny bitch who should never leave the house" or whatever.)
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:26 PM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

On reading your last comment: jesus, grumblebee, you're starting to sound like EB.
posted by languagehat at 3:27 PM on November 24, 2007

Funky Helix, I wish I could favorite that ten thousand times.
posted by sugarfish at 3:27 PM on November 24, 2007

And the little TWINGE means that, if you want to convince me that I'm wrong to use "he," you might have an opening. I doubt you WILL convince me, but it means that I haven't made a final decision for all time. It means that every time I write "he," I make the decision all over again.

Over time and as the cultural climate changes, your insistence on "he" is going to ring equally specifically. People will read it as "he and not she" and the impact of your work will be lessened accordingly.

Me? I just vary generic "he" and "she" throughout my writing, aiming at a good 50% split.
posted by felix betachat at 3:28 PM on November 24, 2007

I put a link to the card in my user info. You know, in case anyone needs or wants to find it again.
posted by FunkyHelix at 3:29 PM on November 24, 2007

elpapacito: Yet if you delete the "offending" (in the legal sense) posts there is no way to get around the fact they are being censored, banninated, mufabukated. . . . I feel that when a post gets deleted, on whatever grounds, a similar form of censorship happens..no matter how crude and idiotic the comment may be. . . .

You're assuming that the changes (1. altered wording of the "offensive" flag, 2. addition of a "sexist" section to guidelines) equal deletion of posts (or by "posts" did you mean "posts and comments"?). Why?

Mathowie has already said: As has been stated numerous times, this isn't about increased moderation, we just tweaked an existing flag and are adding language to the guidelines. We'll act on flags like we always have (light touch moderation) but there's some raised awareness about the issue of sexism.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 3:37 PM on November 24, 2007

Only if you consider "please stop saying that, it makes me feel bad" as "trying to censor." A lot of guys here seem to automatically equate those things, but I wouldn't expect it of you, grumblebee.

No. I agree with you. That's not the same as censorship (though it might be a "chide.")

The "me" in that first post wasn't supposed to be me. I meant person A and person B (and I confusingly called them "me" and "you." sorry!).

I meant that it's reasonable for person A to feel constrained if person B is saying he's hurt by A's speech. Maybe censored is the wrong word. Whatever. If someone says, "the way you talk is hurting me," I think it's natural to feel -- what? -- constrained? chided? guilty? shamed? SOMETHING.

I am NOT saying that B is bad for saying A's speech is hurtful.

I am saying that there's no perfect solution. A PERFECT solution would allow A to say whatever he wants without feeling constrained or chided (or guilty or criticized or whatever) and -- at the same time -- for B to not feel hurt.

We live in a world in which there's no perfect solution, and yet people act as if there is one. People act as if the perfect solution is A or B shutting up (or A continuing to speak freely and B continuing to chide/complain/point out/whatever). One of those might be an imperfect, practical solution. But we should be mature enough to admit that such a solution is imperfect and to deal with the ways that it's imperfect -- to take responsibility for them.

Languagehat, IF you're reading into my post that I'm "siding" with A or B, you're misreading -- or (more likely) I'm being unclear.


On reading your last comment: jesus, grumblebee, you're starting to sound like EB.

I don't know what that means. Sorry.
posted by grumblebee at 3:38 PM on November 24, 2007

Over time and as the cultural climate changes, your insistence on "he" is going to ring equally specifically. People will read it as "he and not she" and the impact of your work will be lessened accordingly.

I think you may be right. Still, I haven't found a way of evoking a person without either gendering him or gratuitously adding political content to non-political writing.

(Yes, I realize that a non-political choice can still be a political choice. But it's impossible to make no choice at all. Unless you quit writing.)
posted by grumblebee at 3:41 PM on November 24, 2007

The offensiveness of your comment I can handle fine Kwantsar; it's the balls-aching dullness that's doing me in....
Only moral gnomes, piss-poor wannabe comics who'd be better shutting up and possibly a slavering woman-hater with Tourette's of the typing fingers could possibly have their speech restricted in any meaningful way by this.


Hrm. Well, with my comment I hadn't really gone down the road of determining what, exactly, would be excised from the site, so I can't really tell what you're talking about. But that's some classic you-have-nothing-to-worry-about-if-you-haven't-done-anything-wrong logic you're using-- especially with your use of "can't possibly" and "any meaningful way."

So when something trifling gets axed because it's ruffled the feathers of MeFi's progressive, neo-Puritan silent majority, we won't even need to have a conversation, because you've already done the heavy lifting for us. In fact, we ought to paraphrase your words on the New Post page for MeTa:

If your comment was disappeared and you are coming here to complain or discuss the deletion, please stop, because by the very virtue of said deletion it is clear that you are a moral gnome, a piss-poor wannabe comic who'd be better shutting up, or possibly a slavering woman-hater with Tourette's of the typing fingers.

Thank you,
Mgmt
posted by Kwantsar at 3:42 PM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

headspace: "Yanno, gnfti, I cannot for the life of me understand defending a position that is essentially "I know this hurts you, but stop making me feel bad for doing it.""

Well that makes two of us. Because that was not at all what I was saying, anywhere, and I can't really make any more of it than that.

LobsterMitten: "We can't assume, as gnfti wants to, that we are all close buddies with the same pure hearts and that our words will always be understood in that light. People, including people we like and want to keep around, will misconstrue our intentions. So we should think about how we'll be understood, and in cases where we're called out, react to that with calm clarification rather than defensive escalation."

Yes, that is what I would want in my deepest of desires, and I know full well that it just plain ain't gonna happen, as I believe I clearly stated. So yes, what LobsterMitten said, a brazillion times.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 3:42 PM on November 24, 2007

I put a link to the card in my user info. You know, in case anyone needs or wants to find it again.

That card trivializes instances of homophobia on Metafilter. Though you probably don't intend it, your attempt to be funny is somewhat offensive.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:45 PM on November 24, 2007

That's exactly what you're saying with your whole, gosh, just assume *I'm* not that way when I say these things argument, Mr. My Tranny Cunt is Neither Transphobic or Sexist.
posted by headspace at 3:49 PM on November 24, 2007

Yes, basically Kwantsar. Rubbish offensive jokes will go; they add nothing and restrict speech by others. More substantial things that may contain uncomfortable ideas won't be affected.
It's not actually censorship, it's free editing. Someone is going to save you the embarrassment of having stupid throwaway one-liners associated with your username. If you were actually really intent on making unfunny sexist offence the core of your contribution, then at least we'll be spared reading it.
I see no downside.
posted by Abiezer at 3:52 PM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

Lack of tolerance for LOLXIAN stuff is better known, I suspect.

After several years checking in regularly with mefi I basically gave up on it a few months back due to finally accepting the harsh reality that despite everything I like about mefi and many of the posters here, and despite the community's self-perception of liberal broad-mindedness, that there is a deep undercurrent of extreme intolerance from my point of view for people of faith.

On a semi-random whim I opted to check in today, expecting to spend no more than a minute finding evidence of its continuation and voila: a huge thread on civil behavior and with a reference to my own particular people-group near the end from one of the admins.

My real interest in mefi has always been the community itself and how people interact online, how they make themselves known, how their personalities shine through the medium, how ideas are expressed, understood or misunderstood and shaped and reformed in online discussion.

But again, my perception of a virulent underlying hatred of Christianity took it's toll on me personally to the point where I realized I had to give up a several-year reading habit. You reference intolerance for LOLXTIANS but this phenomenon isn't the problem. We can all use a little mocking or snark to keep us appropriately humble and to point out the more extreme examples of crazy behavior. There may be an intolerance for LOLXTIANS but from my perspective there's always been a tolerance for the relentlessly mean-spirited, small-minded, harsh, and hurtful. This helps me understand as a guy, what the anti-female stuff might look like to you and so I wish you well in your efforts and offer thanks for the object lesson.
posted by scheptech at 3:53 PM on November 24, 2007 [8 favorites]

As a Dutch women mefite, allow me to disagree with gnifti and jouke. Just like the word cunt is offensive to many American women, the word "kut" is offensive to many Dutch women. People in my social circle (late twenties, early thirties, married or living together) sometimes utter "kut" for example when they hurt themselves. It is a swear word. Everybody (at least every adult) I know would say sorry after uttering it in the presence of a woman, but we don't make to much of it, because everyone swears sometimes. However: calling someone a stupid cunt ("stomme kut") is just not acceptable. It is entirely comparable to the english variant. There is no cultural issue here. Of course gnifti and jouke may disagree, but it is not because they are Dutch and we Dutch people feel different about these things.

If anything, I agree with the sentiment that I would not have thought it necessarily to spell out that "she should be raped to death" is not acceptible here. I read mostly AskMe here, and I certainly skip the American-centric threads on Mefi so I guess my view of Mefi was different. Sometimes I read about delethed threads or comments on MeTa and the admins say that the comment in question got a lot of flags, and I sort of wonder why so many people cared about something that I did not think was that important. People flag debatable chatfilter, people flag and debate endlessly about newsfiltery links, but, apparently, at the same time nobody flagged the rape fantasies? I find that really hard to understand.

I am quite shocked by these threads. Shocked that metafilter apparently is such a sexist place, and shocked that quite a few people prefer it to be that way.
posted by davar at 3:53 PM on November 24, 2007 [3 favorites]

[bitch versus asshole] Frankly, that's how I use it, as does much of my social circle. Of course, I had to make the conscious choice to give up a gendered insult, but that's just me.

But you haven't given up a gendered insult. You still pronoun your noun. She is an asshole is equivalent to She is a bitch.

Unless, of course, you only make comments like "What an asshole that anonymous stranger is! He or she does things that offend me!"
posted by five fresh fish at 3:54 PM on November 24, 2007

I see no downside.

I don't either. And I dislike snark and crudeness, so I'll be happy to see all that stuff go (or at least a dent made in it), but...


It's not actually censorship, it's free editing.

It IS censorship. If someone writes something and you delete it, you're censoring. Editing is a form of censorship. We generally call it censorship when we dislike it and editing when we like it. (I generally like it when my editor censors my writing, because it makes the writing better).
posted by grumblebee at 3:56 PM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

That card trivializes instances of homophobia on Metafilter.

Yarr. (That was "Yep" in Talk-Like-An-Ass-Pirate.)

As did the waa-waa non-sexism victims breakdance quip upthread, and the spat of "Well, misogyny deserves a flag but homophobia doesn't, because the former happens much more often" in the main uberthread.

It may not have been intended as such, but it has the roughly the same effect (in terms of discouraging pointing it out when it happens) as telling women to quit bitching about 'cunt', etc.
posted by CKmtl at 3:59 PM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

I think you may be right. Still, I haven't found a way of evoking a person without either gendering him or gratuitously adding political content to non-political writing.

I presume you're talking about something along the lines of a travelogue, e.g., "If one were to mount the steps of Machu Picchu, he would shortly come to regret his decision, there being a crazy lot of them," etc. If this usage really gets to you (it doesn't me; you have to call your hypothetical person something), and "she" seems overly political, I humbly suggest the use of "you." Whether this is appropriate does depend on context, but I would think it acceptable in most situations. It's kind of off the table in straight-up, no-frills journalism, but I think it'd be fine for most kinds of non-fiction, and okay (and maybe even more involving for the reader) in fiction, if not currently trendy.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:00 PM on November 24, 2007

A lot of the problem will disappear if we quit being vulgar.

I'll try to cut it back myself.

We should have a swear jar. Matt'd make a small fortune.
posted by five fresh fish at 4:01 PM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

That's exactly what you're saying with your whole, gosh, just assume *I'm* not that way when I say these things argument, Mr. My Tranny Cunt is Neither Transphobic or Sexist.

I don't say those things — nor have I, to my memory, here on Metafilter or anywhere else. I'd ask you kindly to withhold that kind of accusation, thanks very much.

Given my original concern was expressed politely, your response — putting words into someone else's mouth, while ignoring the offending element of that card — is illuminating.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:01 PM on November 24, 2007

gnfti: You did state that you recognized it was wishful thinking to expect people to know that you are a post-sexist kind of dude, so you could be understood when you make jokey ironic comments that play with the notion of sexist tropes. But then you seemed to go on to defend just making the jokes anyway, as a hopeful gesture. It wasn't clear to me what you were ultimately in favor of, there.

The point, which I made a few times in the mega-thread, is that even if I have a sense of someone's personality around here so I know that their comment is ironic and jokey, it's still bad if ironic sexist remarks are the currency of the realm. Once a thread fills up with a note-perfect parody of that stuff its effect is indistinguishable from the effect of a threadful of non-ironic plain old sexist or misogynist stuff. It's wall-to-wall sexism as a shorthand for who's in the in-crowd (ironically intended, of course, all in good fun, just between us truly cool cats, but if you're not in on the joke and you protest the ironic sexism, you will get yelled at for not having a sense of humor). Awesome. Way to rise above the rest of the internet. And so the tone of the site goes in that direction, as new members join and get their sense of what kind of place it is from what stuff is written on the screen, rather than from knowing that secretly we're all just kidding. Suddenly it's "I'd hit it" and "observe my huge wang" and so on, thoughtless, not creative or funny, available fucking everywhere else online, and welcoming to exactly the wrong kind of user.
posted by LobsterMitten at 4:01 PM on November 24, 2007 [5 favorites]

Surely some more guys want to come in and do their little mock-whiny "what about so-and-so we're victims too do I get a flag" breakdance poses then run back to their mates for some high-fives

Um, well as an example of what I was talking about, there were several comments in the "boys lagging behind in education" thread, along the expected "well duh, boys are lazy" line that were obviously sexist, but not particularly offensive -- if only because I've heard them so often. But see, because I found them sexist but not offensive (to me), I'd rather call attention to them, which I did, to discuss them, rather than see them disappear down some hole.

Course then I read a comment like yours and wonder why the fuck I should even consider being civil to you.
posted by dreamsign at 4:04 PM on November 24, 2007

Sorry grumblebee - I do agree it's censorship - I was doing a bit of facetious exaggeration to make a point.
posted by Abiezer at 4:05 PM on November 24, 2007

metafilter: elephant gives birth to mouse after a week's labor

i'm glad we've renamed the offensive flag more appropriately - really

i'm glad we're going to encourage each other to be a bit nicer and less piggish to people - really

did we run out of plates and beans?
posted by pyramid termite at 4:06 PM on November 24, 2007

Blazecock Pileon, I wasn't talking to you.
posted by headspace at 4:07 PM on November 24, 2007

I think after a person establishes genderlessness by using the term "one" a couple of times, it would be acceptable to slip into the use of "you" to personalize the otherwise anonymous experience being described.

But ya gotta be careful of using "you" when describing intentions, emotions, morals, and such.
posted by five fresh fish at 4:09 PM on November 24, 2007

did we run out of plates and beans?

It has been determined that plates, given their association with housework and the traditional gendering of that, and beans, given their association with flatulence, are heretofore considered misogynist in their pairing. Further reference to "plate of beans" will be considered a flaggable offense, with or without overthinking.
posted by felix betachat at 4:10 PM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

It's common in legal writing for the generic he/she to be represented by a mix of he and she. Many lawyers (including male, female, liberal, conservative) write using the mix of pronouns. It does not come across as political, as far as I can tell. It's more just (increasingly) the norm.
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 4:13 PM on November 24, 2007

grumblebee, for a pronoun you can just use singular "they". It's really okay.

dreamsign: it seems clear to me that the flag should be used for offensive sexist comments about men as well. I think there are many, many fewer of them than there are about women, but still they should be flagged as warranted. Absolutely.
posted by LobsterMitten at 4:15 PM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

And sexism, FYI, isn't a one-way street, so we don't "need our own flag" thanks very much.
posted by dreamsign at 4:16 PM on November 24, 2007

My question, LobsterMitten, is when is "warranted"? They're clearly sexist comments, but as I said, I wasn't offended so much as I wanted to deal with them, and they were, in a sense, on topic. Should I only flag them if I find them offensive? But the new flagging system seems to invite flagging whether sexist, racist, or offensive. That's my only issue. I like the explicit reminder. Just not so sure about the particulars.
posted by dreamsign at 4:19 PM on November 24, 2007

We are not amused. Or actually We are - sort of. But mostly not. About any further references to either plates or beans. Let this be the last reference. We have spoken.
posted by scheptech at 4:26 PM on November 24, 2007

At the risk of making myself out to be MeFi's most hypersensitive, humorless, shrill ideologue, I am really curious about something that has come up in this thread.

There have been more than a couple of references to comments that are "racist and yet not offensive" or "sexist but not offensive." Can someone give me (or make up) an example of one of these instances? Because I honestly cannot formulate an instance of something that I would identify as either sexist or racist and not be offended by.

I mean, if it's racist, sexist, homophobic, then be definition, it's offensive... right?

(And if you're going to explain why no, it isn't, please do it with an example because I'm really out in the woods on this one.)
posted by DarlingBri at 4:26 PM on November 24, 2007

dreamsign: I think the flagging is only for comments that one thinks might merit action by the mods. So, not for inoffensive sexism, but yes for offensive sexism. When is it warranted? Judgment call, as with all the other flags. The mods will take a look and decide if it's really bad enough/contributing little enough to be deleted. Maybe if a user is crapping all over the place with that stuff, the mods will MeMail them and say "knock it off please".
posted by LobsterMitten at 4:29 PM on November 24, 2007

DarlingBri - I could imagine a sincere explanation by a member of a religious group who believes some higher power ordained the patriarchy. They may argue for sexist ideas like women should be subordinate to men in all things and concentrate on family and childbearing. Sexist as you like but not so much offensive as just wrong. And we could tell them so. Nor do I imagine it would be the kind of thing that puts women off commenting. The reverse, I'd imagine there'd be a fair few who'd have things to say on the matter.
posted by Abiezer at 4:30 PM on November 24, 2007

grumblebee, for a pronoun you can just use singular "they". It's really okay.

I don't expect everyone (anyone?) to agree with me, but "if you meet someone at a party, ask them their name" just doesn't have the specificity (or clear evocativeness) of "if you meet someone at a part, ask him his name."

(And I can't use "you," because I'm already talking about YOU meeting someone at a party.)
posted by grumblebee at 4:31 PM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

That card trivializes instances of homophobia on Metafilter. Though you probably don't intend it, your attempt to be funny is somewhat offensive.
posted by Blazecock Pileon

I don't see that. Can you walk me through it? It refers to homophobes, sure, but how is it a trivialisation?
posted by dash_slot- at 4:32 PM on November 24, 2007

davar: "As a Dutch women mefite, allow me to disagree with gnifti [...] Just like the word cunt is offensive to many American women, the word "kut" is offensive to many Dutch women. [...] There is no cultural issue here.

Thanks for weighing in, davar. I'm not celebrating Agree with Nothing Day here, I swear. I respect your sentiments and believe I understand them. What I was trying to illustrate was that (in Dutch) it's apparently significantly less of a big deal, a notion which I feel is echoed by your assertion that you may use the word yourself from time to time. This in light of the apparent position here that use of the word (its equivalent in English) is acceptable under no circumstances. If this sounds patronising, I by no means intend it that way but it's very thin ice here and I want to be as clear as I can be. And I believe we agree on everything else you said.

I would not have thought it necessarily to spell out that "she should be raped to death" is not acceptible here.
[...] I am quite shocked by these threads. Shocked that metafilter apparently is such a sexist place, and shocked that quite a few people prefer it to be that way."

headspace: "That's exactly what you're saying with your whole, gosh, just assume *I'm* not that way when I say these things argument, Mr. My Tranny Cunt is Neither Transphobic or Sexist."

Oh come on. I don't have a history of getting into fights on MeTa, and I don't plan to make a habit out of it. Reading back I have clearly made some comments which were either clumsily put or easily misinterpreted, or both. So in the interest of clarity and understanding I will try to spell out my position one more time.

-I take back the "tranny cunt" phrase. I used it as an example, in retrospect a very ill-advised one, lifted straight from the quote I referred to in my first comment. I wouldn't gladly use such a phrase, and I despise its use.

-However. I stand up for people's right to say vile, inappropriate, disgusting, ill-informed, ignorant and all-round bad, bad things, not because I like hearing them, au contraire, but because I truly believe that people should be able to say anything, anything they want - including all the stuff *I* don't like to hear, such as that truly horrid phrase spelled out for the nth time above.

-Obviously, on Metafilter this will be limited by the guidelines, moderators' judgment and MeTa mob justice - but that's where the buck stops, not at some a priori notion of what we can and can't say.

-The sky is not falling. Cries of "censorship!" have sounded time and again before in the halls of MeTa, and I don't quite think this latest development is at all a sign of impending Censorgeddon. But I do believe there is value in standing up for this given the occasion - "First they came for those who say 'Danny Blunt'", and all that.

-I do in all sincerity apologise to anyone I may have offended with my gung-ho phrasing upthread. I did read the other threads, so I should have been more sensitive in understanding I was walking on rhetorical egg shells, but apparently I didn't, or not enough.

But please, please do not paint me as the gosh, just assume *I'm* not that way when I say these things [...] Mr. My Tranny Cunt is Neither Transphobic or Sexist guy - not because it's a mischaracterisation that makes me look bad (which I can live with), but because it's a disservice to any standard of discourse we have on Metafilter.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 4:33 PM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

DarlingBri, Even though I don't find sexist or racist stuff funny (no matter which group, minority or majority, it's directed against), I sympathize with the worry some people have that this kind of concern could be used to stifle all joking around. Just to be clear: I think that worry is totally unfounded here. But I sympathize with the thought that there are degrees of badness. There are things that are in context pretty clearly meant as jokes or just absurdist wordplay or something, which are sexist but to me aren't necessarily offensive. I sometimes find them funny, sometimes find them lame as hell, but I don't get the same feeling of "whoa, what the hell is that doing here? Way over the line!" that I do with some of the Ann Coulter rape stuff or whatever. I think the point of emphasizing that there are degrees is that deleting the Ann Coulter rape stuff needn't entail deleting the silly wordplay or similar.
posted by LobsterMitten at 4:37 PM on November 24, 2007

Seconding singular they. There's no need for anything fiddlier than that.

Also, "dick" is German for fat. You can get two constituencies with that, if it's the sort of thing you want to do.
posted by Grangousier at 4:40 PM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

gnfti, for what it's worth I think what happened is that you ended a paragraph with "I like to think, in my heart of hearts, that we're all post-sexism and everyone knows I don't mean it if I say stuff like that, because of course nobody could seriously mean that". What you intended was "I like to think that but of course I know it's not true." but it was easy to take away the wrong impression, just because of the way the comment was laid out.
posted by LobsterMitten at 4:42 PM on November 24, 2007

And LobsterMitten, again, I'm totally with you, and you seem to voice much clearer what I've been trying to get at today.

The "ironic sexism as currency of the realm" thing is a perfect description of how it is, and it's a horrible state of affairs. In fact, it ties in quite neatly with the whole "New Sincerity" movement: if we're being ironic all the time, how do we know when we really mean something?

I say let's not ban the idiots (as I was getting at with my entire song and dance), but confront them.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 4:42 PM on November 24, 2007

I think the flagging is only for comments that one thinks might merit action by the mods.

K, if that's the mods' stance, that makes perfect sense to me. It was the strange construction of the flag that made me unsure, along with suggestions of data collection (?), which seemed to indicate that we should flag everything sexist and let the mods decide if it is offensive.

I think there are many, many fewer of them than there are about women, but still they should be flagged as warranted. Absolutely.

Frankly, as a guy, I hear sexist stuff all the time that I'm supposed to ignore because it doesn't "count". And if the bar is high for women trying to seem tough and like one of the boys, it takes a pretty small amount of complaining for a guy to be shot down here as "whining".

But anyway, I'm clearer on the intention of the flag now. Thanks.
posted by dreamsign at 4:43 PM on November 24, 2007

(referring to your previous comment)
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 4:44 PM on November 24, 2007

I mean, if it's racist, sexist, homophobic, then be definition, it's offensive... right?

I can only speak for myself. So, bearing that in mind...

'Fag' & 'queer' can be used homophobically, but I don't think every single instance of their use is homophobic. I use them myself with gay friends, and some of my close straight friends use them in my presence and I don't mind them. I've seen them used a couple times on MeFi too, and they didn't ruffle my feathers. So long as there's no venom behind their use, that is. A close friend of mine once used it angrily during an argument, and I didn't talk to him or otherwise acknowledge his existence for a semester (the length of time it took for him to clue in and apologize) because it pissed me off so much.

Personally, I think tone matters. It's a bit hard to suss that out online, but when I don't think there's a homophobic tone behind the words, I'm not offended. YMMV, and I'm not saying to grow some balls if the words themselves offend.

What bothers me more, and what I'd be more likely to flag^* and address, is the homophobic stuff that doesn't involve those words yet has huge homophobic underpinnings.

^*For the record, I'm "meh" about having a 'Homophobic' flag for the time being. I'll be less hesitant to use the 'Offensive/etc' flag for it when I feel the need, as I too used to hover over it and internally debate whether or not to flag as offensive. Don't count my "meh" vote as negating pro- votes, it's more of an abstaining thing.
posted by CKmtl at 4:44 PM on November 24, 2007

"However. I stand up for people's right to say vile, inappropriate, disgusting, ill-informed, ignorant and all-round bad, bad things, not because I like hearing them, au contraire, but because I truly believe that people should be able to say anything, anything they want - including all the stuff *I* don't like to hear, such as that truly horrid phrase spelled out for the nth time above."

The problem I have with that is that I do sort of conceptualize MeFi as a barroom conversation, and there's some vile shit that should get you kicked out of the bar just in order to keep the rest of the regulars coming back. I don't want to be drinking at the place that gives the skinheads a lectern because, y'know, sometimes I just wanna hang out and not have to have a head-on with the bootboys over their oi oi oi bullshit.

Same reason we don't like the links to Stormfront.
posted by klangklangston at 4:48 PM on November 24, 2007 [6 favorites]

I say let's not ban the idiots (as I was getting at with my entire song and dance), but confront them.

Surely individual differences will settle this out. In the thread I mentioned, I wasn't offended, though I thought the comments were sexist, so I wanted to talk about them. Someone else might be offended, but also want them to stand. A third person may be so offended that they want those comments gone. Enough of that third type and they go. Isn't that the way it should be? I can't really feel like, not being personally offended, I can dictate to those who are, what should and shouldn't be part of the conversation.
posted by dreamsign at 4:49 PM on November 24, 2007

That card trivializes instances of homophobia on Metafilter.

Yarr. (That was "Yep" in Talk-Like-An-Ass-Pirate.)

I'm in the pirate family, but I read it as making fun of bad faith rhetorical dodges like "but dearest mods, it is clearly wrong to try to fix something when people can claim other things are also wrong" from people who are actually just opposed to the issue at hand, not as a dismissal of people who genuinely care about homophobia or rudeness towards fat people. And towards people with cats who do or don't declaw them.
posted by Your Time Machine Sucks at 4:51 PM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

dash_slot: I don't see that. Can you walk me through it? It refers to homophobes, sure, but how is it a trivialisation?

All the entries on the Anti-Sexism bingo card have this smarmy attitude to them, like a wink-wink-nudge-nudge for feminists in a "They always say this, don't they?" way.

Also, it groups lolfatties and homophobes together with cat-declawers... trivializing both people who are put off by lolfatass remarks and homophobia by associating them with shrill people who are against declawing cats. "If you speak out against homophobia, you're acting like one of those rabid anti-declawers" seems to be the message.

And it's mere inclusion on the "anti"-sexism card makes it out like those who mentioned they'd like a homophobia flag are somehow saying it as a protest against the sexism flag. Which, as far as I can see, they aren't.

Thus trivialized.
posted by CKmtl at 4:56 PM on November 24, 2007 [4 favorites]

Y'know if this cuts down on in-thread brawls where people wind up saying things to eachother that spawn unneccessary grudges, then I'm fine with it.
posted by jonmc at 4:59 PM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

You know, I'd just like to pop in to say that I absolutely do agree with all those who are saying that homophobic bigotry is equally as disturbing and unwarranted as misogynistic/anti-female sentiment - because I'd actually been meaning to do so back in the other threads.

In real life people are harrassed, beaten up, raped, and murdered for no other reason than their gender or sexual preference; socially and online, people actually make jokes about this, and think it's pretty funny - and culturally, it's all backed up constantly in every kind of media with reinforcing imagery, humor and story lines.

Words descriptive of these two groups are regularly used as belittling insults, and both groups are seen as not being a part of the mainstream, but instead "special interest" groups whose demands for equal treatment constitute an unfair burden on the "regular" people. Both are expected to "go along" with the "joking" and realize that it's all in good fun, and not take it personally. All the same descriptives and spectres of censorship are invoked when they don't: "PC police", "shrill", "humorless", "whiny", "hysterical", "delicate flowers", "special snowflakes".

So, as far as I'm concerned the two issues are pretty much lockstep in terms of importance. I also believe that most straight men on metafilter don't consciously want to exclude either group, but often do so unthinkingly. So this is all about the thinking. Not the overthinking, or anything about beans. Just some basic reflective thought... which, it seems like a lot of people are trying to give to these issues. Thanks to all of you who are. It's a good thing.
posted by taz at 5:01 PM on November 24, 2007 [13 favorites]

Oh, many people objected to say that there is a point, but I didn't see anyone calling into question the idea that
sexist automatically = offensive

I did.
posted by desuetude at 5:03 PM on November 24, 2007

YTMS: Yeah, I get the attempted humour behind it. But I didn't see anyone here making those bad faith rhetorical dodges when they brought up a hypothetical homophobia flag.

I don't think FunkyHelix should be strung up by her toes or anything... It's just not great timing.
posted by CKmtl at 5:03 PM on November 24, 2007

Here's where real life and misinterpretations of language collide with poor results: don't use the word noose.
posted by five fresh fish at 5:12 PM on November 24, 2007

Late, late getting back to this party. A few responses.

A week ago, flags were only used to decide whether to delete comments or posts. If it got enough flags and the mods agreed, it was nuked. Now there's talk about how this particular flag won't really be used for that any more, and that's it's just for "data collection". That no one's going to be deleting anything... That seems like a bigger change than just the wording of a flag to be more and/or less inclusive.

You're misinterpreting, if that's what you see. We're right where we were a week ago, mostly—Jess's point about 'data collection' was, I think, a response to someone speculating that we were going to suddenly start deleting anything that was flagged as sexist. Not the case. It's business as usual with an eye toward what sort of things may come to light with a newfound bit of focus on this issue.

Related, regarding 'data collection' versus the single vs. separate flags: we aren't running a stats analysis on flagged sexism, so the worry about the flag not being broken out by type isn't founded in that sense. We'll be reading the stuff that gets flagged and thinking about it; fuzzy, qualitative observation here. I love running numbers for numbers' sakes, but that's not really the goal here.

So, I would also like to think the mods might clue frequent button-pushers or asshats in on their behavior modification needs, even if their comments aren't each and every one across the line for removal.

As we have often done, and will continue to do.

This is the crux of the problem: if, in a lengthy and articulate comment, a writer uses an insulting word or phrase, will that comment be deleted?

It's pretty much always been a matter of degree and compromise: how awful is the awful thing spoiling the otherwise good comment? How good is the comment otherwise spoiled by the awful thing? What's the context of the thread?

I hate nixing something good that has a kernel of Fucked Up in it. There's no fixed policy there, and it makes for some complicated decisions now and then. I'll tend to leave something if the response it is getting is productive instead of a flamewar, and not so much if not, but it's hard to summarize it beyond that and every case is different.

There's a pretty strident atheist contingent here and their aggression and derision often wind up silencing people who have faith commitments or who take faith commitments seriously. Are the mods willing to extend their flagging system to make these members of the community feel respected and valued? If not, why not?

If the question is "will we add an 'antitheism' flag", I'd slot that in with the question of a homophobia/sizism/bigotry-in-general flag: I kind of expect this stuff will continue to evolve a little over time, and I consider the explicit-and-incomplete current tweak not optimal in the long run but a good experiment for the moment.

If the question is "do we consider that stuff to be, flag labels notwithstanding, actionably shitty/offensive behavior", that's a yes, as Jessamyn said. I try to call out stupidly antireligious snark when I see it and have the chance, and don't think it's any less deserving of consideration and response than anything else in here, particularly.

If it's shitty and bigoted, flag it. Use the offensive/etc flag. We'll understand from context, be it sexism or racism or homophobia or antitheism or something else entirely.

This helps me understand as a guy, what the anti-female stuff might look like to you and so I wish you well in your efforts and offer thanks for the object lesson.

Heya, scheptech. Stick around, if you can.
posted by cortex at 5:12 PM on November 24, 2007

I don't expect everyone (anyone?) to agree with me, but "if you meet someone at a party, ask them their name" just doesn't have the specificity (or clear evocativeness) of "if you meet someone at a part, ask him his name."

Of course it doesn't have the specificity; there's nothing to be specific about! If you talk about meeting John at a party, you ask him his name, no problem. If you meet "someone," there's no gender, so you use the ungendered pronoun, them. Your "specificity" is a pseudo-specificity that implies "even though I don't know the gender of the person, I'll treat them as male, because men are the basic template of humanity and automatically count as representative." I can't believe you haven't heard this argument before, because it's Feminism 101 and has been promulgated widely for at least the last 35 years. Yet you write as though feminism had never been invented and the idea that "he" doesn't include women is some bizarre invention. I strongly suspect that your resistance to obvious solutions like them or alternating he and she is based on a discomfort that in turn is based on internalized male privilege; your discomfort is not some personal quirk, it's something that every male exposed to this issue has had to wrestle with. I too clung to he for a while; it seemed so familiar and obvious and time-honored. But eventually it sank in that it really did exclude women and that women, including women I loved, really did dislike it, so I gave it up, and what do you know, I don't miss it one bit.

I don't know what that means. Sorry.

It means that when you say "Okay, so I'm going to be pig-headed and use 'he.' If I'm honest, I have to admit that I'm being pigheaded. ... I COULD justify or go into denial, which would make me comfortable. But I'd rather be a grownup and admit that I'm not a perfect person," you sound much like EB when he was saying he realized that saying he'd be thrilled if Ann Coulter was raped with a butcher knife was offensive, but he was going to do it anyway. (Not, obviously, that I'm equating use of he with knife-rape.) I thought of him as somebody who would prefer to be inclusive to women rather than indulge their irrational urges, and I think of you the same way. (Also, you're both a tad long-winded...)
posted by languagehat at 5:17 PM on November 24, 2007 [7 favorites]

ike a wink-wink-nudge-nudge for feminists in a "They always say this, don't they?"

The Bingo Card is fucking hilarious if you imagine Kathleen Hanna screaming it at you.
posted by dhammond at 5:18 PM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree – a couple expressions of concern I've seen in this thread struck a patently bogus note with me, so that when I saw that square I immediately read it in that light and laughed. But it can't be proven without sophisticated mind-reading equipment.
posted by Your Time Machine Sucks at 5:20 PM on November 24, 2007

Me? I just vary generic "he" and "she" throughout my writing, aiming at a good 50% split.

I wrote my thesis in college on this very issue. The research seems to indicate that whatever you intend by saying "he" and meaning to refer to everyone, most people hear it as masculine. There were some fascinating studies done on the whole business in the mid-90s. This has to do in part with the difference between form words and function words, at least in English. Repurposing words that mainly function on reference to other words (pronouns, articles, etc) is pretty much impossible, at least on purpose. I wrote some awesome diagrams in Montague grammar for the whole thing. Knowing that, you can decide how you want to use them. I love singular they.
posted by jessamyn at 5:20 PM on November 24, 2007 [4 favorites]

I wrote some awesome diagrams in Montague grammar for the whole thing.

Pix or it didn't happen. And word up on they.
posted by cortex at 5:26 PM on November 24, 2007

My bad, desuetude. And better said.
posted by dreamsign at 5:28 PM on November 24, 2007

Hmm, non-offensive sexist-racist -- there might be some a silly thread about not much at all, in which someone started joking about the image of a milkmaid. I don't know, a milkmaid fetish, or that someone's actions made them look like a all-innocent eye-batting pale-faced wimp-ish milkmaid. (Golly, examples are hard.) It might be technically "sexist" or "racist" in that it uses a gendered image of a white innocent girl. But it might not be offensive.

Or -- there's all the stuff that is culturally self-referential, as in "math is hard," from talking Barbie fame, posted by a mefi-grrl, to make fun of sexism. But I'm assuming you don't mean those.
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 5:30 PM on November 24, 2007

Thank you for the clarification, CKmtl, Lobstermitten, and Abiezer.

LobsterMitten, the most benign sexist comment I could come up with when thinking about this is "she runs like a girl." I know it wouldn't make most people blink, but is sexist, and I do actually find it offensive. That said, I'm certainly no so far up my own arse that I'd flag it. Because, as you say we have a spectrum, both of offence and of reaction. On one end we have runs like a girl = grr and on the other should be raped to death = WTFF. And, possibly more importantly for the purposes of this conversation, it certainly isn't a comment I expect the mods to do anything about.
posted by DarlingBri at 5:31 PM on November 24, 2007

The Bingo Card is fucking hilarious if you imagine Kathleen Hanna screaming it at you.

Perhaps, if I had the foggiest idea who Kathleen Hanna is.

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree

Alright then. Your grog, or mine?
posted by CKmtl at 5:34 PM on November 24, 2007

Yarrs of course!
posted by Your Time Machine Sucks at 5:37 PM on November 24, 2007

DarlingBri wrote...
I mean, if it's racist, sexist, homophobic, then by definition, it's offensive... right?

(And if you're going to explain why no, it isn't, please do it with an example because I'm really out in the woods on this one.)

Okay, I'll bite:

"Men tend to like watching professional football more than women do."

Sexist? Absolutely. There's stereotypes for both genders there.

Offensive? Only if you really try. You could certainly argue with the premise (pull out all sorts of statistics, etc.), and you could even feel the need to reassure people that you are a) a male who doesn't watch football, or b) a woman who does. But if you felt that statement created such a chilling atmosphere that you didn't want to contribute to the conversation then either you or I would have to go find a new on-line community to take part in.

Racism is massively contextual. For example:

"Asians are on average shorter than Caucasians."
vs.
"Asians are on average smarter than Caucasians."

The first one would be addressed as a matter of fact (true or false) and not seen as offensively racist, whereas the second one is big time racist fighting words.

Homophobia is tougher, as the word itself implies a measure of intangible fear and hatred. You could certainly make heteroist/homoist statements like the above, but I think homophobic statements are pretty much going to be offensive.

You could take the position that all stereotypes are by their nature offensive (I.E to say that there are "Asians" and "Caucasians" and they have identifiable differences is offensive), but if you removed them I think you would find your ability to converse about the larger world severely limited.
posted by tkolar at 5:37 PM on November 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

Yet you write as though feminism had never been invented and the idea that "he" doesn't include women is some bizarre invention.

If I lead you to believe I meant that, I was horribly unclear. Sorry.

I know that idea well. I'm a child of the 60s/70s who grew up in a liberal town. It was impossible to be unaware of Feminism and its contributions.

I'm saying that I DO understand the "he" idea and that I DO think it has great validity -- and yet I still write "he." I do it because I'm committed to a particular aesthetic.

I don't think I'm right to be committed to this aesthetic. I think I would be a better person if I gave up on it and followed some less sexist practices. But I don't.

It's odd, I know, to say "there's a way that I'm know I'm being a bad person, but I'm not ready to stop," but if I don't say that, I'm less than honest. I think there's this fiction that descent people are only bad when they're unaware of it. As-soon-as they become aware that they're being sexist/racist (whatever), they stop, or at least they try VERY hard to stop.

In general, I'm like that, but I'm not ALWAYS like that. Sometimes I'm aware that something I'm doing is bad. And I'm not the callous sort of person who says, "and I don't care." I DO care. I care deeply. I don't want to cause pain. And yet sometimes -- despite ALL of that -- I am bad anyway. And maybe I'm alone (or damaged) because of that, but I don't think that's true. Still, even if it is true ... it's true.

The problem, languagehat, is that I strongly disagree with your writing aesthetic. I think it's ALWAYS better to be specific. That's my fundamental rule of writing. If I'm not evoking a specific image, I'm not doing my job as a writer. If I have to write about something abstract, I need to use concrete, specific metaphors to do so.

I totally respect your right to disagree, but (even if I'm deluded or nuts or wrong), I do believe what I believe. So -- given my beliefs -- I'm left with this choice: write poorly (at least in one way) or write in a sexist way. (Which is also a poor choice, but in another way.)

So far, my selfish devotion to an aesthetic keeps me writing in a sexist way. I am fully aware that it's selfish. I am fully aware that selfishness is bad. I am fully aware that it's a bit odd to admit to choosing bad actions.

I am also aware of the (Feminist and other) arguments about "he." It's actually a very fraught issue for me. I can't write the word without a huge inner debate. I make a choice each time I write it.

Languagehat, I get the feeling that, in many ways, the world is a cut-and-dried place for you. I envy you that. I can't be that way. For me, most things -- including my own motivations -- are gray.
posted by grumblebee at 5:40 PM on November 24, 2007

"Your thoughts on current and future changes to make Metafilter more woman friendly."

*reads threads, pounds head on desk*

tho I'm aware that this has been brought up repeatedly elsewhere, I don't particularly care to have MeFi "sanitised" for my delicate little sensibilities, thanks all the same.

I don't see this as an issue of gender unfriendliness, sexism, racism, that MeFi is a "boyzone" or accepting of intolerant behaviour of any species (because it is SO NOT... god, I mean I have SEEN the pileons that occur for being an asshole) or whatever. I see this as the ever-popular tendency for a few shrill offensensitive rules-lawyer types to keep their pwecious widdle feelings from ever getting hurt.

Real life isn't like that, unfortunately. Personally I'd prefer to confront bigots, racists, chauvinists, and assholes of all stripes in an open manner that says it's NOT OKAY to do that. I mean what's wrong with the tried-and-true public shaming method for confirmed assholes?

Flagging and/or deleting offensive comments (unless the mods are willing to follow up each and every every deletion with a "dear asshat..." email) really does nothing to confront the issue or teach the offender better manners, imo.

and on preview - yea ClaudiaCenter, that speaks directly to the issue I have with creating a specific sort of flavour of "offensive" tag. I just know the more humourless prats on this site would get their panties all in a knot and flag the everloving shit out of something that inane -- so then where does that leave the mods? I mean in a perfect world one would hope common sense would prevail, but I dunno.
posted by lonefrontranger at 5:42 PM on November 24, 2007 [2 favorites]

sugarfish writes "I very, very rarely participate in the blue any more because I'm sick of this shit. Things like the comic about the video game producer and bukkake, this thread about the teenaged pole vaulter who didn't like being objectified, and a million 'I'd hit its' like I give a rat's ass who'd you deign to let touch your magical cock of mystical powers. "

I'm a little sad to hear that regarding the video game producer thread. I was one of the big proponents that the comic was not ipso facto sexist, but the specific circumstances surrounding it were. Yet I'm also in favour of this change regarding the flagging, in favour of pruning sexist and racist comments, and in favour of improving the FAQ to make it more explicit that sexism and racism are not permitted.

The difference, as I see it, is kind of meta. I would count a comment which is in itself sexist to be flaggable. I would count a comment which is saying "I don't think X is sexist" as non-flaggable. I don't remember the pole vaulter thread much. I totally agree that the "I'd hit it"s need to go. But while there may have been some sexist comments in the video game producer thread, for the most parts I think the comments were not sexist. I don't think saying "I don't consider the contents of the link to be sexist" is in itself a sexist comment. So I don't think that these changes would decrease your sickness about "this shit".

Maybe I'm wrong, and the entire discussion about whether something is or isn't sexist would itself become verboten, because if person A thinks thing X is sexist, and person B doesn't, person A would find person B's defense of X to thus be sexist. If that's the case, then I wholeheartedly oppose the changes proposed here. But, judging from the American Apparel thread underway, that doesn't seem to be the case.
posted by bugbread at 5:46 PM on November 24, 2007

I thought of him as somebody who would prefer to be inclusive to women rather than indulge their irrational urges,

This is what I mean by the cut-and-dried thing. It's VERY important to me to be inclusive to women. It's VERY important to me that people not use offensive speech here. It's also VERY important to me that we not censor offensive speech. It's VERY important to me that I'm inclusive when I write. It's also VERY important to me (for my own quixotic -- but yet vital to me reasons) to use "he."

I am capable of making a decision and abiding by it. I do it all the time. I just can't feel as clean about it as you (apparently) do. I also think that justifications tend to simplify the world into something less honest than looking reality square in the face.

Look, at times I've given up on the "he" thing. It's just too sexist for me. I use "they" and "she" (as a neutral term) and (God forgive me) "he/she." I do it, and I feel better about myself as a fair-minded, non-sexist person and worse about myself as a stylist. Or I do what I'm doing now and feel worse about myself as a Feminist and better about myself as a stylist.

Which is why I believe that there's no perfect answer.

There IS a perfect answer if you're like many people in this thread. There are the people who say, "I'm going to write the way I write and the 'overs-sensitive' people need to get over it." And there's a perfect answer to the people who feel like all sexist speech is 100% bad in every way.

Not all of us can fall neatly into either of those camps.

And I'm don't believe that males should be privileged. But, of course, I can't prove anything about my inner thoughts.
posted by grumblebee at 5:49 PM on November 24, 2007

PugAchev writes "you can't go from very little moderation of CRAP comments to 'supposed' heavy moderation and not expect people to be upset about the change that is implied."

I would be very, very surprised if jessamyn, cortex, or mathowie didn't expect people to be upset.

People at MeFi are upset at every and all change in the site. Sometimes those changes are good, sometimes they're bad, but the fact is that Change = AngryMeFites. So I really don't think this reaction was something they didn't expect.
posted by bugbread at 5:50 PM on November 24, 2007

Homophobia is tougher, as the word itself implies a measure of intangible fear and hatred. You could certainly make heteroist/homoist statements like the above, but I think homophobic statements are pretty much going to be offensive.

The first maybe viable example of a 'non-offensive homophobic' comment that came to mind as I thought about this is an earnest comment from a non-loony, non-activist guy expressing discomfort with being hit on by another dude.

Maybe he argues that he doesn't care what people do behind closed doors, believes in equal rights, has no moral objection to homosexuality—but still, he finds the idea of being approached by a gay man really gross, finds the idea of sexual contact with a gay man—even contact that wouldn't involve anything he wouldn't do with a woman—squicky or repulsive?^*

Is there an essential element of homophobia there? Sure—why should getting hit on by a dude be any different from being hit on by a woman you're explicitly not interested in being hit on by? So there's some social weirdness inextricably tied to the question of heteronormativity.

But is that offensive like "god hates fags"? Or even like "that's so fucking gay", or "Don't be a faggot"? It's offensive if anything that is evidenced as a sign of homophobia is offensive, but it's such a personal, self-contained position, presumably presented civilly by our hypothetical dude, that it's hard to see it as being taken as an offense like the other examples in this paragraph.

^*Lifted wholesale from an (informal) debate defense in middle school; an anti-gay-rights measure was on the books in Oregon that year (yeah, that narrows it down a lot, I know) so it was one of the topics the teacher threw into the ring.

Guy was a good guy, as far as I can recall.
posted by cortex at 5:54 PM on November 24, 2007

dash_slot: The lumping in of homophia with declawing cats trivializes the former, I think.

I think the active and ultimately successful moderation of LOLXTIAN-type behavior actually reinforces my previous comment that these changes, while laudable, are more beneficial for those who feel marginalized rather than serving as an effective solution for the issue at hand. Empowerment's a good thing, but it's only half of the issue.

This is still in the early days of course, so time will tell, I guess.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 5:57 PM on November 24, 2007

If I chimed in with 'hey, I'm a chick, and I am TOTALLY UNOFFENDED by comments about Ann Coulter being a 'tranny cunt' and the barrage of thinly-veiled rape jokes' would I get a toaster or something?

Because I need a toaster, and I can't help but wonder if there's some sort of prize being given out for some of the comments I've been seeing in these threads.

On the other hand, I don't think I need a toaster so badly that I am willing to ignore the fact that it's really unpleasant to feel like I have to ignore comments about Ann Coulter being a 'tranny cunt' and the barrage of thinly-veiled rape jokes or I'll get fifty comments calling me out for being a delicate flower. I guess I'll have to buy my own toaster. Curses.

I really appreciate the effort by the moderators to address this issue, and I am grateful that MeFi is willing to discuss the issue instead of playing the 'what sexism? I don't see any sexism!' game.
posted by winna at 6:00 PM on November 24, 2007 [10 favorites]