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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

#391

Post by derbOac »

kgwgk wrote: post #69

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: Lat…

Interestingly, I've seen a lot of pushback against "Latinx" as a term from DEI circles themselves, that it's seen as too purely academic and detached from real-world use by individuals that the label would apply to. So there's something odd to me about that suggestion only because it seems to be replacing one term with an equally or more problematic term.

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

#392

Post by hedora »

akomtu wrote: post #204
rendall wrote: post #47

I heard a theory that woke is actually a class marker of manners, indicating that someone has the time and privilege to track the constantly shifting, baroque signals of what is and is not acceptable to say during any given season. If someone were to make that case, this could be evidence in favor.

You know, we should introduce woke battles: they are a mix of public debates and rap battles. Participants take turns to berate each other and demonstrate wokeness. The jury watch the debate closely and try to get offended.

Nah. Each round should have the other side of the rap battle explain how they've been personally discriminated against by the elevated wokeness of the previous response.

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

#393

Post by c4ptnjack »

It's unfortunate how this conflates a lot of confounding things with sensible ideas.

"People first" language is a concept I'm actually a fan of; here it's used arbitrarily in the most ridiculous ways.

This type of thing just sets back progress towards an actually inclusive culture. And ignores the reality of how language and the meanings of words change over time.

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

#394

Post by jrmg »

cipheredStones wrote: post #332

It's pretty remarkable that this conflates: - Well-known slurs like "Jewed" - Outdated, now-offensive terms like "hermaphrodite" - Touchy metaphorical language like "slave replica" - Gendered terms that if you're being assiduous you probably want to avoid, like "manpower" - Words that have long since lost any stigmatizing meaning by virtue of the original use being so ancient ("lame", "dumb", "stupid") - Words that,…

It’s very obviously not intended to imply that all the terms are equally offensive or inaccurate.

Why _wouldn’t_ I want to avoid using any but your last category?

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

#395

Post by erosenbe0 »

photochemsyn wrote: post #349
cipheredStones wrote: post #332

It's pretty remarkable that this conflates: - Well-known slurs like "Jewed" - Outdated, now-offensive terms like "hermaphrodite" - Touchy metaphorical language like "slave replica" - Gendered terms that if you're being assiduous you probably want to avoid, like "manpower" - Words that have long since lost any stigmatizing meaning by virtue of the original use being so ancient ("lame", "dumb", "stupid") - Words that,…

I can think of a few more! "register" - might indicate that someone has to register as a second-class citizen, enemy alien, etc. "bit" - might imply that someone is only a 'bit player', leading to feelings of inferiority. "tool" - an obviously offensive word meaning that someone is only fit to be used by others. "terminal" - we need to be sensitive about words that bring up the concept of death, to avoid triggering e…

"Stanford" - may refer to noted racist and Asian-exclusionist Leland Stanford. Also may refer to related location formed originally as a whites-only educational enclave on indigenous lands.

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

#396

Post by hbrn »

cipheredStones wrote: post #332

It's pretty remarkable that this conflates: - Well-known slurs like "Jewed" - Outdated, now-offensive terms like "hermaphrodite" - Touchy metaphorical language like "slave replica" - Gendered terms that if you're being assiduous you probably want to avoid, like "manpower" - Words that have long since lost any stigmatizing meaning by virtue of the original use being so ancient ("lame", "dumb", "stupid") - Words that,…

Basically anything that can make anybody[1] offended. If a term doesn't seem offensive right away, see if you can make it offensive through mental gymnastics.

[1] This, of course, excludes people like me, who are offended by the very existence of such lists.

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

#397

Post by bloppe »

"Moron" was once considered a technical term for mental disability. Then, kids starting using it, and it became offensive.

It was replaced by "mental retardation". We all know how that term evolved in kind.

Many people now use "disabled" (including this list's suggestions), but that is now often seen replaced by "differently abled". If I were a betting man, I'd say that in 5 years even "differently abled" will be co-opted by the crude and become offensive.

It is an endless treadmill.

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

#399

Post by Sirened »

throwaway0x7E6 wrote: post #328
richbell wrote: post #137

> Grandfather: This term has its roots in the "grandfather clause" adopted by Southern states to deny voting rights to Blacks. > Red team: "Red" is often used disparagingly to refer to Indigenous peoples, so its use in this context could be offensive to some groups. > Blackbox: Assigns negative connotations to the color black, racializing the term. > Brave (do not use): This term perpetuates the stereotype of the "no…

>This is the pseudo-intellectual equivalent banning any word that contains "ass" because "ass" is a bad word. there's some game whose word filter censors the "ass" in the name "Nasser" the result is "N***er"

remind me of a couple of different crumby """anti-cross-site-scripting""" filters you used to be able to find. They claimed that they'd remove dangerous input so that it would never hit your backend. They did this by deleting any harmful looking input, which had the fun consequence of turning this invalid input:

     >alert("hax")>
into this:

     alert("hax")
which now is an actual hazard. Always amusing when things which were meant to make things better recreate the same problem just in a worse and harder to deal with way :)

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

#400

Post by Sniffnoy »

PopePompus wrote: post #378

I got yelled at by a female graduate student for using the term "rule of thumb". The Standford page says: "Although no written record exists today, this phrase is attributed to an old British law that allowed men to beat their wives with sticks no wider than their thumb.", which I translate as "this is bullshit, but some people have decided to be offended by it".

To be clear, this supposed etymology is absolutely false. Wikipedia has an entire page about this myth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thumb
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