Which mods/admins were being Power Tripping Bastards?
Rimu
What sanction did they impose (e.g. community ban, instance ban, removed comment)?
Kicking from all Matrix PieFed rooms
Explain why you think its unfair and how you would like the situation to be remedied.
Rimu has been manufacturing non-stop drama for weeks. He ignores multiple offers from multiple parties to de-escalate, and now he bans someone for trying to promote non-discriminatory language. He has also now cut off a PieFed admin from any and all support and ability to contribute to the software.
Oh and the real kicker ? Rimu did all this after his big grand post about how he is stepping back from drama and hiding away from users.
They were looking at the code and noticed it? I don't think there is much more to it than that.
As of now, I can't see how. And if it did, it can be changed again. Its easy to revert as well. So why would an unlikely unknown factor in?
This one isn't exactly new.
Think about a word that 95% of people agree is a really terrible word. How far back until that same word would have 60% consider it bad. How far back do you go before its a word used and considered completely acceptable and appropriate language to use? How were things for the people that word was applied to?
Just saying, maybe the percentage doesn't matter too much. Maybe if its a change with only a net positive impact, then its not worth worrying about - now or some imaginary future where every adjective is banned. Maybe if just a few people are hurt by something, and the choice is between doing nothing (and them being hurt) and saying "no worries, send the change" and not hurting a few people, we can just... Not hurt them? Seems straightforward.
Again, I don't understand why a "line needs to be drawn" based on some imaginary attack on the English language. What's the threat here? That someone submits a change while saying the word "aardvark" is offensive? Just reject that pr and move on.
(Unless "aardvark" becomes some sort of racist slang or something, then, of course, accept it)
I think we agree more than we disagree, but are at different points on the spectrum. For example:
This isn't meant as a "gotcha", but in this paragraph about not drawing a line, you drew a line. You decided aardvark was obviously too far, and that that PR should be rejected. How you feel about aardvark is how most of us already feel about the word "stupid".
But more broadly:
I think most people (in this community, on this thread) are not pro hurting people. What I feel is more like: if you are hurt by the word "stupid", or self-identify as stupid, you should not. No one is using it as a slur against your people. There are slurs! They exist, it's just that this isn't one of them, in the way people mean it. And so I feel like, in this case, at this point in the spectrum, these people should heal themselves rather than change software / the culture / the world to suit their insecurities.
If course it's a squishy grey area, but if I found the word aardvark offensive because some kids called me aardvark at school growing up or something and bullied me, that's tragic, and it's very real for hypothetical me, but that's something I should work through in therapy, rather than something I should make the concern of everyone around me. In my opinion. And I feel like being triggered by the word "stupid" is in the same category, also in my opinion.
If anything, and I'm stepping in bees again, it feels kind of egocentric to see someone write "replies are stupid" in their own code, in response to presumably their opinion about a standard or spec or something, and to see they've written that and think "this is about me".
Furthering the point, it seems rimu banned me for my participation in this thread, along with a few dozen others.
It seems rimu would like to be the ultimate poster child for this community.
It was meant as a random word that there is no known issue around. One that there aren't years worth of discussions about, one that if you search you aren't going to get page after page of links discussing. Thats it.
I agree!
If someone is so impacted that they'd like to see a word not being used, I don't think "But you shouldn't feel that way" is helpful.
Completely individualized example, not broad usage, wouldn't really apply. That said - I would hope that the people around that hypothetical person would absolutely avoid the word "aardvark" if it was triggering for that person. Wouldn't you? Would you just say "aardvark" randomly to a person who was teased for years?
Its a function used in the identification of low effort posts, absolutely nothing to do with self identification and everything to do with identifying the comments of others as, in this case, "stupid". Its not about a spec or a standard. Its quite specifically and literally identifying user comments as "stupid".
And let's circle back to the main point here, which is pretty straightforward - is even discussing the idea of a word being offensive to some a reason to ban someone?
I would say quite obviously it isn't, and yet it is what rimu did here.