Where will you draw the line?

Question

_{related: Why is the f word still allowed in profiles? , Rules for Profiles , One user is putting another user in the pillory on his profile page. Is it really ok? , Can I link to my Male Enhancement Pills site on my profile?}

Today, I received the following message from the mods _{according to Cody Gray ♦, it was actually from CM mods/SE staff - not from user-elected SO voluntary mods}:

Hi, Vaxquis,

Could you please remove the it from your profile? It's snarky and somewhat rude, even offensive towards some people. I'd really appreciate it if you could.

Thank you.

(I got it on SO site, to be exact)

'The it' they are referring to is, as far as I understand, from this paraphrased Orwell quote:

No animal shall kill any other animal

except when it they didn't use valid pronouns.

I honestly fail to see how quoting (and paraphrasing, as far as the second part goes) Orwell in reference to recent SE events and/or using 'that pronoun they' in reference to an animal in my personal profile is, quote, "rude, even offensive towards some people", assuming the people are sane. I can agree it's snarky - it was intended to be. It's the only way to express the amount of stress and frustration the recent pronoun/Monica/Sarah/CC4.0/mod vacuum/nonapology/post-it-to-newspapers drama caused me.

I can understand that the n-word is a racial slur. I can understand that the f-word refers to a sexual act and thus is considered taboo (see the linked meta answer from Atwood about the possibility of usage in profile though). Still, if using that pronoun is now considered so rude/offensive in reference to a literal animal that usage in the profile page is verboten, what will be next?

FWIW, I don't care much about my fake internet points and virtual swag. I do still care about the freedom of self expression. Since I'm obviously "a troll" (as a mod themself put it about two weeks ago) I anticipated this action, and for this reason explicitly put

Blank me, ban me, delete me; be my guest.

in my profile already. What is sad that nobody bothered to comply with my request, instead spamming me with yet another "you're rude" mod message.

I guess I'm done, like the other people before me. I'm not a mod, not even a past one, I'm not a honcho with million rep, nobody will care and nobody will miss me. I've removed the offensive word from my profile. Still, I won't remove Orwell from my profile. If removed - I'll revert it. If suspended - I won't care, I'll do it again. If permabanned - I'll sigh with relief.

If I'm really a troll, if all my answers, rep, badges & time wasted are worth less than my "privilege", now revoked, to quote Orwell - so be it. I'm in no position to change anything. I can only complain.

The question that I want to leave to the community here - where will you draw the line?

Answer 1

It's kind of a hard question. Because resolving such cases depends on moderators’ opinions.

If we are talking about a message in your profile:

1. For me (as a member and as a moderator) it's obvious that there was no intent to offend someone. It looks like an attempt to show the absurdity of the whole current situation and a little bit like sarcasm.
2. It's a quote, basically.
3. If someone is offended by this non-offensive message in another member's profile, it's, actually, his/her/their/whatever problem. He/she/it/they just shouldn't open it. Moderators should not react on such flags.

So, my suggestion to you:

1. Reach a CM.
2. Don't change profile information. If a moderator changes it by himself/herself, use the contact form to reach a CM.

Answer 2

Personally, I like your paraphrased quote. It's sarcastic and smart, and there will always be people who are gonna be offended at sarcasm. Especially if people realize that they can exert power over others by being offended at something, that something will attract attention-seekers. Power attracts power-abusers. This is ultimately bad for LBGT.... people who merely want to be respected, but have the sense not to impose the usage of their made-up pronouns on others.

So this whole debate about neo-pronouns has been blown way out of proportion, constructive ideas were refused and even led to firing in case of Monica, giving the impression that SE Inc. is a dictatorship (where dissenters do in fact get killed), and I believe your paraphrased quote summed that up really nicely.

Answer 3

[...] even offensive towards some

I wonder if, for ten years or more, we have simply had the wrong approach to interpersonal offence.

Of course it is wrong for an individual to go out of their way to be intentionally offensive towards another.

Of course sometimes an individual writes something offensive, entirely unintentionally.

But we treat both these situations (and others) as if the offendee is both:

• the party which arbitrates what does and doesn't constitute offence
• has the right to not be offended

If we were to take this to the most absurd limits, everyone everywhere could censor and silence everyone else by claiming offence.

I think, on the contrary, while recommending that of course no individual should set out to be deliberately offensive towards any other individual, everyone, nevertheless would benefit from contemplating the idea that they possess:

The right to be offended.

Sometimes the correct response to: "I find that offensive!" is:

"Oh God, I'm really sorry, I wasn't thinking - I should never have said that, I take it back."

But sometimes, I'd like to suggest, the correct response to: "I find that offensive!" is:

"Yes. You're allowed to find it offensive."

Answer 4

Asking you to remove this is entirely unjustified.

You were using the pronoun "it" to refer to something that is not a person. It's ridiculous on its face to suggest that such usage is offensive. If it is, then the mod message itself - which also uses the pronoun "it" to refer to something that is not a person - is equally offensive. But this is a line of thought so daft I won't bother pursuing it. The word "it" exists in the English language and you used it correctly; complaining about it is so silly that I can only presume that its presence was not truly what motivated the staff message.

What could make the message in your profile offensive, then? Presumably, the implied political message - that disagreements over proper pronoun usage should not be considered serious enough issues to deliberately hurt other people. That Sara Chipps disagrees with that is clear enough from her liking and retweeting Tweets gloating about the fact that her policies have hurt people, so it's not surprising to see that at least some staff are willing to treat your viewpoint as offensive.

But it shouldn't be offensive. A basic level of tolerance and liberalism is necessary for our community - or, indeed, any community - to function. If we truly reach the point where people are going to get punished for simply being the voice of moderation that says "you shouldn't go out of your way to hurt other people just because they disagree with you", then the site is doomed to become a cesspit of nastiness and hatred. Dishing out punishment and threats of punishment simply for advocating tolerance is wrong, and should not happen here.

Answer 5

While I personally feel that the request is unreasonable, under the current circumstances, for your own peace of mind, it might be wise to keep a professional (or blank) profile. In essence, there's no end to this line of thinking; if there's even a remote chance that your writing might come across as offensive or can be misconstrued as offensive, there are people who will take offense and complain. Stack Exchange has made it abundantly clear with their recent actions that they're willing to take responsibility for people's feelings. I'm afraid you don't have much recourse here.

Answer 6

Before considering where each individually will draw the line, there are at least three questions on a higher level of abstraction:

• Where is "the company" trying to draw the line?
• Will the mods accept where the line is supposed to be drawn?
• Will the community accept where the line will be drawn?
• (Followed by your question: Where does each one individually draw the line?)

The important part is that the consequences that are drawn from the answers of these questions differ wildly.

The first one refers to what the company is trying to achieve, and which measures and policies they are using to achieve that. This is still independent of whether the goals are "right" or "wrong", or whether the policies will help to achieve the proposed goals, or whether they might even have the opposite effect.

The second one refers to whether the mods will continue to voluntarily act as tools for the company, and enforce the policies, even when they don't fully agree with it. That's a decision that they only have to align with their own conscience.

The third one refers to cases like yours and the associated question: Does the community think that the actions are "right" or "wrong" or "justified"? This is difficult, obviously. A few weeks ago, nobody would have bat an eye on the statement in your profile. But what has been discussed in the past few weeks has caused a certain (over?) sensitivity when it comes to pronouns. We could now ("as a community") try to figure out where to draw the line for this particular case, but even if this issue could be resolved, one could start to argue to codify other rules, with a similar level of detail as the pronouns, for other cases - namely the ones that you listed as "related" on top of your question. Even after a short glance at the discussions there, it should be clear: This cannot be codified in all detail.

Therefore, I'd say that the most important thing for each individually is to accept: There is no line!

To illustrate it: When "averaging over a (large) community", it's not like this:

But rather like this:

(Of course, this does not help each individual mod with the decision: "Should I allow this or not?". But the attempt to codify "the line", even for one specific issue, as in the current "Code of Conduct" update, has created nothing but a huge clusterintercourse)

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^{To answer the last question, which aimed at each one individually: Shortly after the proposed CoC update, I updated my profile to say that my preferred pronoun was something like ~"Most gracious majesty". A form of satire, expressing my disagreement with the decisions that have been made by the authorities, and not a "hostility towards minorities", not by any stretch of the imagination. This statement was removed (without notice). Now I changed it, saying that my preferred pronouns are "er/ihn/ihm/seiner" (which are German pronouns). I wonder whether this will also be removed. If not, we know that "the authorities" draw "the line" somewhere between ~"majesty" and "pronouns in a different language". Again, this is a form of satire, pointing out the shortcomings of the CoC and the futility of the attempt to codify "the line" when dealing with a large community.}

Answer 7

I would say that the line should enclose 'as little as possible'.

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What is happening in this question is a nice example of the opposite. This change of style in moderation that the new CoC introduces is working counterproductive (more specifically the attached FAQ rulebook).

So what is the result now? It is interesting to note that on 24 October you only had 127 views (for the profile on meta) and now this is 500+ views (via a cached version of your profile). So, the result for this particular case is mostly that now there is only more attention (for your meta profile) while it was rather pointless (low impact) to moderate it.

In addition now there is also lots of additional meta-meta talk (including this post). Touching this festering wound with dirty fingers makes it grow further (if we wait too long we will need to amputate).

We could have a peaceful area. That area may have possibly some dust here and there, that should not be a problem. But SE/SO has decided to use a noisy leaf blower to clean it up and the result is that the dust is all over the space now.

Answer 8

I think the moderator has made a reasonable request.

While it may not be intended, the wording carries an implication that you would rather call non-binary users "it", as you would an animal. As you can imagine, having someone call you "it" unprompted can be deeply hurtful to members of the community, regardless of intent.

Jaydle's excellent answer to a similar question applies here.

The good news is that all of us sometimes accidentally say or post things we don't know are hurtful. All we can expect of each other is that once we learn, we adjust our actions going forward.

Answer 9

There may be two interpretations of the quote.

The first being that the subject did not use the requested pronoun either intentionally or unintentionally.

The second being that the subject is the person requesting a pronoun other than he/she is the person not using a valid pronoun.

Using ‘it’ in the second case, although not the biggest issue with the scenario, could be the issue the mod is trying to deal with as referring to someone as ‘it’ when they request a different pronoun is potentially against the CoC.

Answer 10

Someone overreacted.

As you did by putting this on your profile.

The wise decision would have been to not react - both of you. Updating your profile like this is yet another opinion/statement that is not a positive contribution. Show some restraint instead of putting fuel on the fire.

BTW It's still not too late to take responsibility for your part in this, and remove the 'quote'.

Answer 11

You have a fairly new account, and your protest was indistinguishable from trolling.

Satire isn't satire unless it's somehow different to the thing it is satirising.

With little account history and a recent influx of trolls to the site the mod made the only reasonable decision that they could.