C&C's support[edit]

  1. Strong support – Great content creator that can be trusted with the tools. I want to add on the subject of the n-word (and I find it offensive to our principles that I have to censor myself in saying this and I do it as a courtesy to L293D, to not derail his RfA). As a black person who grew up in the US, I do not in any way consider the editor's use of the term offensive. There is a major difference between calling another user "a n*****" and saying "we have an entire article on n*****" (quote censored). If we cannot freely and openly discuss a subject without fear, how can we expect to cover the world without bias and without censorship. The term "**** Flu" is notable and there is nothing wrong with L293D accepting it at AfC. If I had known about the AfD, I would have loudly and strongly advocated for keeping it. IMO, redirecting it was the wrong decision. A lot of ink has been spilled on the subject, enough to clearly show that it passes GNG. Maybe it should be a section in a larger article, but the fact that the word is barely covered in List of incidents of xenophobia and racism related to the COVID-19 pandemic is an indication that we have failed to give it its due weight. What is offensive is such censorship. We need to stop being so f***ing sensitive. There is another word that should not be censored. Because it is a f***ing great word for indicating emphasis. If a user tells you to "go f*** yourself", block them immediately. If they say, that is "f***ing hilarious" or "F***" needs to be promoted to FA, leave that user the damn alone and do not CENSOR them. Again, I hate that I had to censor myself. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 21:56, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Coffeeandcrumbs, just a note here, Kung Flu was a disambiguation page, not an article. Notability wasn't the question at hand, but rather its usefulness and appropriateness as a navigation tool. signed, Rosguill talk 22:08, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    It should have been turned into an article then. I do not have the tools so I cannot see what it said. An alternative to deletion should have been found. Deleting it was the wrong decision. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 22:16, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The AfD was from March; while you're probably right about being able to establish notability today, I'm not sure that was the case back then. Anyway, to better fill you in, the content itself didn't include anything all that inflammatory: it was worded like a neutral disambiguation page. The concern raised at the AfD (which I did not participate in) was that having a disambiguation page that presents the phrase without commentary as a reasonable search term is effectively endorsing the phrase's use, and editors also raised concerns that none of the listed articles on the page met WP:DABMENTION, making it deletion-worthy regardless of whether it's racist or not. I don't think that accepting the dab page was an unforgivable error, but I do think it was an error, and that L293D's response at the AfD of invoking actual articles about slurs was a response suggested a more serious misunderstanding of why it may be a problem to have a dab page for a xenophobic term that we do not cover encyclopedically. If this were an issue brought to ANI, I think that L293D's apologies were sufficient and I see no reason to consider him to be anything other than an editor in good standing in the community. But the original response to Q6 is both a poor characterization of what occurred at that AfD and suggests a lack of understanding of the issue that other editors have with his statements, which go beyond spelling out slurs. At this point he's walked that back to a vague mea culpa and saying that he needs to be more careful in choosing his words, which is an improvement over the original response but still doesn't really allay concerns. signed, Rosguill talk 22:50, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    @Coffeeandcrumbs: To understand where the opposition comes from, I think it's helpful to consider the difference between what we can do and what we should do. Policy allows administrators a lot of discretion, but the community needs to trust that administrators will pick when and when not to use tools based upon what is sensible in the situation. My understanding of the oppose concerns (which I share) is that while L293D is allowed to use the n-word in that way and context, it probably wasn't a choice that would deescalate the situation and given the cultural context that should have been obvious. Slurs are an interesting case where the use-mention distinction begins to break down. While L293D did not use the n-word, the mere mention of slurs is sufficient to provoke responses we wouldn't see for other common nouns. It's obviously not possible to avoid all mention---which is why we have NOTCENSORED---but in many cases like the AFD incident, spelling out a slur can and probably should be avoided. We should expect admins to have some grasp of that because if not we may have to deal with routine AN threads where this fight will get rehashed over and over again until the disruption gets so bad it goes to arbcom. I'm not saying that's what I expect to happen here, but I understand the concerns raised and hope you give the question deeper consideration. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:14, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I found the personal attacks in response to L293D's use of the word more offensive than their use of the word. Praxidicae wrote: Just because you can, doesn't mean you should be running around dropping racial epithets to make a point like some 4chan edgelord. As if that was what the user was doing. Drmies wrote: Don't y'all think that this is just some white privilege surfacing? Why does it often seem as if such conversations are really just a good excuse to use some racist term? These are personal attacks that have nothing to do with what was being discussed. It derails the AfD and makes it about the user behavior and not the subject at hand. I have seen white privilege operate on Wikipedia, in article space, and have been trying to point it out. But at the mere mention of race, people see red.
    The mere mention of a word should not invoke all loss of assuming good faith. When discussing censorship, it is necessary to mention other examples. A user cannot truly demonstrate their point without explicit examples. Saying "we have an entire article on n-word, the other n-word, or the ch-word" is nowhere near as convincing an argument as saying "we have an entire article on n*****, n****, or ch****" (see I cannot even demonstrate my point clearly). Many editors do not even realize how many articles we have about taboo subjects. It is necessary to point this out, explicitly, so there is no confusion.
    Not talking about racism does not make it go away. Not discussing it contributes to even more bias. If we relegate certain subjects as unmentionable, we make it more difficult to write the article about the subject that explains how and why it is taboo. See for example Talk:Nigger#Merge_request, how do you expect people to have a discussion without mentioning the word. How is "N*gga" or "N****" any less offensive that "Nigga". How do you expect an FA discussion for n***** to even occur under these conditions. Yes OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not a good argument at AfD, but the deletion nomination was specifically started and argued on the basis that the page should be deleted because it is racist and for no other basis up to that point. The racial element was not a good reason for deletion. Editors on the AfD lost their perspective.
    I cannot help but note that people have failed to realize that both the users mentioned in L293D's answer to Barkeep49 question personally attacked L293D. I am happy with the L293D's original answer, "when commenting on politically charged subjects, people will often mischaracterize your arguments and rarely assume good faith". True, that is exactly what happened but I would have said "misunderstand" and "fail to assume good faith". They continue: "which means that I will have to be much more careful in the future if taking part in this kind of discussion.. Their point on the AfD is correct, the page is not an attack, unlike Obama bin Laden, which is an attack on a living person.
    Apologies for the wall of text. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 00:31, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, it shouldn't, but we're real people with real lives and emotions, not robots. I also find the attacks inappropriate, but that doesn't mean L293D is absolved of all possible scrutiny. Levivich has pointed out that L293D's response in that thread shows a level-headedness in response to conflict, and I agree. However that doesn't mean I think the original comment was wise. My point is that the responses are unsurprising given common sense about how people react to slurs, particularly in a discussion about concerns of NPOV. It is simply unhelpful to pretend that people only react in purely logical ways to slurs.
    I encourage you to read my comment again, because I did not say we shouldn't talk about racism, slurs, or bowlderize every discussion ever; I said quite the opposite: It's obviously not possible to avoid all mention---which is why we have NOTCENSORED---but in many cases like the AFD incident, spelling out a slur can and probably should be avoided. Unlike the examples you bring up, at no point was the term "Nigger" the subject of that AFD; it was brought up independently by the candidate and that reflects on him, his thought process, and his judgment. We do not need to enumerate every slur to make the point that we have articles on slurs. We have Category:Ethnic and religious slurs or List of ethnic slurs, both of which are more comprehensive and less prone to start a flame war when compared to listing slurs yourself. This is easy to say with hindsight, but it is simply not true that the only options were spell out slur, bowlderize, or keep silent.
    The concerns here in this RFA, are not about whether the AFD had the right outcome or whether L293D's overarching point was correct. My understanding reading the original comment and the opposes here is that the concerns are: why did the candidate feel comfortable listing a bunch of slurs in a contentious AFD and does that reflect the appropriate level of clue we want in our administrators? The opposition came to one conclusion, and you seem to disagree---I'm still thinking it over myself. What I am sure of is that this RfA will quickly get out of hand if people continue to talk past each other.
    As a black person in the US myself, I've been the target of slurs, been privy to intracommunity discussion about reclamation, and considered my place in that debate. I have friends who abhor even hearing "nigga" and others who use "nigger" politically to discomfort white people in discussions of race and positionality. As a linguist I've discussed their properties with colleagues who study them, and we frequently have discussions about how to have these academic conversations in a way that is both rigorous and conscientious. I am trying to point out that there are a wide range of opinions on this topic, many of which have already shown up in this RfA, and we cannot simply dismiss them out of hand. If this RfA continues to focus on the AFD incident, we need to be very deliberate about understanding each other, and I hope you take this and my previous comment as an attempt to clarify the dispute rather than berate you. — Wug·a·po·des​ 01:57, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I fear the slow chipping away at NOTCENSORED. The death by a thousand cuts. Re: why did the candidate feel comfortable listing a bunch of slurs in a contentious AFD? Because they believed like I do that no word is too taboo to discuss or at least mention. That the best way to illustrate the fact that even more taboo words are accepted as topics of coverage on Wikipedia is to list some of the most notable examples. We cannot expect editors to adhere to the principle of least astonishment anywhere on Wikipedia.
    Comparison is a common mode of argumentation used in discussion when deciding what to do about a novel issue. As long as it is not used for fun, I think editors should expect to see some objectionable words mentioned when going to a page discussing an objectionable word. I think it is an overreaction to personally attack someone for saying the sentence "nigger is more offensive than Kung Flu" instead of "the n-word is more offensive than Kung Flu". Because it is only when the word is cited that the argument truly registers in the human mind. It is the one doing the attacking we should blame. Because it is not the word that is harmful, it is how it is used that is harmful. Words are just words.The malicious intent is the problem. Compare this edit to the very next one and consider which one shows more mal-intent.
    It is easy to harm with civilized words. Avoidance of certain words should not be confused with civility, good faith, and good intent. I have come to realize that some of my "nicest" white friends are actually some of the worst. It is what is in their mind that is more harmful than what words they choose. I remind you of the microaggressions at Talk:Kiev. About how we should only consider the use of the English language by native speakers. I found that to be the most offensive thing I have ever read on a talk page but not a single objectionable word was used in that comment. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 08:28, 17 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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