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Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

itcommunity.stanford.edu

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Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#61

Post by silvestrov »

gpderetta wrote: post #39
kkoncevicius wrote: post #7

I read though the suggestions. So "trigger warning" is now problematic and the proper alternative is "content note". And "Preferred pronouns" is hate speech, because you imply that pronouns are merely a preference, as if the person can choose their identity. Godspeed.

As the website doesn't work for me, I genuinely cannot tell if your examples are sarcasm or come from the website.

Quoted from site:

> Instead of: trigger warning

> Consider using: content note

> Context: The phrase can cause stress about what's to follow. Additionally, one can never know what may or may not trigger a particular person.

So the examples are not sarcasm, they are literal.

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#63

Post by superb-owl »

I'm going to take the minority position here (no pun intended), and say that I think these initiatives are in fact helpful and important.

I recently joined an engineering team where there's a cultural norm of not using the word "guys" to address a group. When I first heard this, I kinda rolled my eyes but got on board.

It took a tremendous amount of mental effort to weed that word out of my vocabulary, but it's had a tangible effect on my mentality. It has completely reaffirmed my belief in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis--our language influences how we think.

Intentionally changing the words and phrases we use is one of the most powerful tools we have for changing our behavior, and correcting both logical and social biases.

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#64

Post by cudgy »

gpderetta wrote: post #27
cperciva wrote: post #16

I wholeheartedly support the elimination of harmful languages. There's just no good reason these days for anyone to use C++.

We were always at war with C++

Violation. Using the term “we” implies agreement among all present.

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#66

Post by concinds »

All this stuff comes from "critical discourse analysis", a pseudointellectual and almost cult-like movement within academic research, which is receiving no pushback because no one knows about it. People are too busy focusing on the end-product (this Stanford webpage, or some politicians' tweets, or a Smithsonian exhibit) rather than the root cause.

Ridding academia of pseudoscience goes beyond fixing p-hacking. These academic fringes are intellectually defective and have large real-world influence. Academia tolerates pseudoscience far too much, and that should be addressed.

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#67

Post by spritefs »

> whitespace

> Assigns value connotations based on color (white = good), an act which is subconsciously racialized.

How exactly is whitespace good? It's like they pick out every word where "white" is used and say "but wait1!!!11! you can't use this because you're reinforcing the dynamic that white=good"

It's like they're telling people "don't think of the white elephant" with this white=good thing. Nobody was thinking about it before they brought it up, now we're thinking about it

In order for anyone to "get the message" of this and be able to create their own rules, they have to internalize the idea of white=good. Wasn't this the exact reason for creating the rules in the first place, that is to say not telling people white=good?

edit: I don't think the point of this is to come up with a system that makes sense, the point is to come up with a system that doesn't make sense. The point is to be as contradictory and annoying as possible in order to get as much attention as possible. If stupid people in academia want to be annoying and act like children, they should just be ignored and treated like the children they are. We're in the wrong here even giving these people attention to begin with

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#68

Post by flandish »

pannSun wrote: post #6

> Instead of "blind review", consider using "anonymous review". Context: Unintentionally perpetuates that disability is somehow abnormal or negative, furthering an ableist culture. But.. disability is abnormal and negative? How tortured of a definition of 'normal' must one use to make blindness normal? And I suspect if the author of that sentence were offered, say, $100,000 to undergo a painless but irreversible blin…

Also “anonymous” does not mean the same enough to replace “blind” - anon could mean “giver of test does not know subjects” or “subjects do not know what they are testing”.

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#69

Post by kgwgk »

I don’t think I had seen those before:

    tarball [use instead: tar archive] While the term refers to an archive that has been created with the tar command, it can be negatively associated with the pejorative term tarbaby.

    whitespace [use instead: empty space] Assigns value connotations based on color (white = good), an act which is subconsciously racialized.
Some of the “solutions” are funny:

    Hispanic [use instead: Latinx, use country of origin] Although widely used to describe people from Spanish-speaking countries outside of Spain, its roots lie in Spain's colonization of South American countries.
Where do they think that the roots of the usage of Latin lie?

    immigrant [use instead: person who has immigrated, non-citizen] Using person-first language helps to not define people by just one of their characteristics.
Saying “non-citizen” is still defining people by just one of their characteristics!
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