GitHub threatens to shut down a repository for using the word 'retard'

2) A person uses an "offensive" word to make somebody else feel bad by directing their language at their victim.

I feel these two are in fact different uses of the word and I don't have sympathy for the "victim" in the first scenario. In the second scenario there is clear intent to hurt an individual. In the first scenario something like "Library for retards" is doing what exactly? The retarded reader sees the word retarded, remembers that they are retarded, and then feels sad because they are in fact retarded? Insulted by proxy. It, unfortunately, clearly implies that being retarded is bad. Lets be honest though. How many people here would switch their current level of cognitive abilities for that of somebody who is mentally disabled? Nobody. It is a terrible state of human suffering (I would say). But then again I am biased in thinking that life is "better" on the right end of most bell curves.

- If somebody is actively trying to hurt another person physically this needs to stop. Full stop.

- If somebody is trying to emotionally hurt another person because of who they are that should stop. So calling somebody retarded to their face? Not a good thing.

- If somebody is trying to emotionally hurt another person by calling them names arbitrary names ("you fag" when the person is in fact hetero etc) is not a good thing.

The above are based on intent and are targeted towards a victim.

- If somebody tries to insult another persons beliefs or ideas? Perfectly ok. This, of course, isn't what is happening in this case on github, but since this thread seems to be talking a bit about slippery slopes, I would rather not see our society fall so far at to make criticism a punishable "offense".

At the end of the day changing one single word is just fine, but I wish it had happened in a more positive way rather than github using the heavy hand of their "policy" (an undefinable totally subjective ambiguity that isn't applied uniformly to the whole site).

By the way, I am looking forward to the day when an "offensive word" registry is kept that bans language from use on the internet. If a word is found to be offensive by 10,000 or more individuals anywhere in the world, we have to be sure to purge it from everyday usage (good luck keeping up with malicious grade school kids) /s ...It is a stupid idea.

"Sticks and stones will break my bones and words will most certainly kill me." The new mantra.

For instance:

https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/941

The individuals who threw their childish temper tantrums and caused the explosive issue will:

1) Never be back other than to "report" the original offender if they ever catch him violating the COC that they so proudly forced on an otherwise harmless community.

2) Never have and never will contribute anything to the code base. Ever! Talk about entitlement.

It is the worst type of third-party drive-by policing ever.

In every thread about downvoting ever you have people who strongly feel that downvoting anything other than flagrant rule-breaking posts is censorship - it makes the content less available.

> The content remains available for anyone with an account.

Github are not magically destroying content. They're just removing it from their servers. Since they own those servers it seems reasonable that they are allowed to chose what goes onto them. We can disagree about where they draw the line, but some people in this thread seem to think that Github does not have the right to draw that line anywhere.

Perhaps this is a cultural issue, especially for people who do not speak English as a first language and especially if they watch US media where the word is more used.

Retard does not mean "dumb". If you want to call someone dumb use dumb, stupid, idiotic, etc. Avoid retard. Because retard is not much of an insult to the person you're using it for, but it is to people with LD or their carers. By using the word retard you're not particularly insulting your target, but you are insulting a wide range of people who you probably don't mean to be insulting.

Retard historically means person with a learning disability. It will continue to mean that for a while, although the use is gradually changing, and it's not officially used apart from one narrow situation (A US user group).

Hate incidents based on disability are very common.

https://www.mencap.org.uk/blog/four-things-you-probably-didn...

The UK crime survey is part of UK national statistics. This means they use robust methods and that the numbers are reliable.

> The number of disability hate incidents (not all necessarily crimes) is higher than the number of homophobic hate incidents and religious-based hate incidents. The Crime Survey for England and Wales – the most authoritative picture of crime in the country - estimated that there were 124,000 disability hate incidents in the past two years alone.

MENCAP, a charity working for people with learning disabilities did some survey work in 2000.

> Almost 9 in 10 people with a learning disability surveyed had experienced bullying or harassment in the past year - an incredible 88%

> Of these, two thirds (66%) of people were victims regularly and one third (32%) were being bullied on a daily or weekly basis Three quarters (73%) of people had experienced bullying or harassment in a public place

> Half (47%) of the people surveyed had suffered verbal abuse, and a quarter (23%) had been physically assaulted.

The "Living in Fear" report is here: https://www.mencap.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/2009...

By then I'll probably fall into total submission already, so I'll most likely just trust their judgment that there must be something wrong with me.