Forum - View topicBeing PC on ANN
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Snomaster1
 SubscriberPosts: 2798 |
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Recently,there was a story here about an animated commercial for McDonald's Japan. Although I didn't understand a word of what the characters said,mainly because I don't know Japanese and no one gave the commercial English subtitles,I thought it was a cute and sweet commercial that might be in the running for Japan's answer to the Clio Awards. And I think it might win it. One of the commenters,Harima decided to throw his or her two cents in. If he or she said "I don't like McDonald's food" or said something about the commercial,I wouldn't have thought anything about it.
Unfortunately,this person's comments sounded like his or her reading list might include "Das Kapital" or something by Vladimir Lenin. This person's rant largely attacked McDonald's because it was a corporation,not for anything it did or the product it made. He or she even linked to articles that attacked McDonald's in this person's first post. Harima's second post was similar to his or her first post,although this time,he or she threw the word "fascist" in there,probably without knowing or caring what it really meant. Now,I have no real grudge against McDonald's. I like their french fries and have enjoyed myself there a lot. This person may have well within his or her rights to say what he or she had said,but it had little to do with the topic at hand. Another person thought that Harima was an Shonen Jump Weekly,if you get what I mean. I agreed and wanted to write my opinion. The problem was that when I tried to use the Shonen Jump Weekly phrase,it came out as "Shonen Jump Weekly" instead of the phrase I intended to write. I deleted my first post and wrote a second one,with the same result. I deleted that one as well. I decided to send a PM to Tempest and waited a while. Unfortunately,I got no response. I wanted to know what was going on so I sent an e-mail to him. Some time later,I did get a response and it was in so many words "screwing around with bigots." I thought he included me in that category so I wrote a polite but firm response to him. I was informed that I wasn't included in that category,but he thought the Shonen Jump Weekly phrase I wanted to use was a pejorative one and he didn't like it. I sent another e-mail saying that I thought the phrase I wanted to use described what I thought Harima was being perfectly and I asked him to to help me find out what phrase I could use. Tempest replied back "Sorry,can't help you there." Then I thought to myself,"Oh boy,political correctness has come to Anime News Network." Now,I could understand if it was a racist or a sexist slur or something like that. But,I thought that this was ridiculous. No wonder a certain political candidate is so popular right now. In the words of one woman I saw on a cable news channel,"He's willing to call a spade a spade." I'll be blunt here. Before I tried to use the Shonen Jump Weekly phrase,someone else did and succeeded. Why did they have no problem with what this guy said but when I tried to use it,it came out as something else later? Political correctness has become a real problem. It can cause silly things like what I experienced to happen. Sadly,political correctness can cause real problems when it's taken to extremes. One example was a scandal that happened in the UK,but didn't get much coverage internationally. It took place in Rotherham,England and what happened there could have been ripped from an episode of "Inspector Morse" or any other British crime drama. There were rumors of sexual abuse going on in that town. The reason why there was little investigation by the local police was because many of them didn't want to be accused of being racist. Many of the alleged perpetrators were of Pakistani decent while many of the alleged victims were white. It continued for years until someone spoke out. It eventually developed into a major scandal and a huge black eye for the Rotherham police. Unnecessary political correctness helped destroy the lives of hundreds of innocent kids. An even worse example happened in this country a few months ago in San Bernadino. We've all heard about the horrific attack there in December,about a husband and wife team of terrorists who shot up a Christmas party at the office where they worked. What makes this even more tragic is that it could have been prevented. Some neighbors of the couple involved noticed some strange packages but since the recipients were Muslim,they didn't want to be known as Islamophobes and they didn't say anything. Sadly,their fear of being called bigots contributed to this tragedy. This should not be taken as a defense of bigotry. That's not what I'm saying at all. Bigotry is wrong and should be condemned. What I'm saying is that political correctness can be taken to extremes. It can cause silly,trivial annoyances like what I experienced recently. It can also cause major tragedies like what happened in Rotherham and San Bernadino. And that does no one any good. Last edited by Snomaster1 on Thu Mar 31, 2016 12:41 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Dessa
 Posts: 4438 |
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ANN is a private company. If the big boss doesn't like a word or a phrase, and doesn't want it on his website or forums, it's his choice. Politics has nothing to do with it.
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Errinundra
Moderator
 Posts: 6528 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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I have no control over how the word filter/spelling corrector works but I will give a response, Snomaster1, as a moderator. When it comes to the use of person who cares about social justice there are two things at play: politics (which are unimportant on a site like ANN) and behaviour (which is).
But first, a personal disclaimer. In the past I have been heavily involved in politics. I was the secretary of a socialist left dominated branch of the Australian Labor Party and worked for four years as a staffer to a Labor member of the Victorian state parliament. Equality and justice are as precious concepts to me as freedom and privilege (  ) are to my political adversaries. But, as I said, politics aren't the core of the problem here. This is, after all, an anime site, so any political discussion is secondary to, and as a consequence of, any anime discussion.
As a moderator I try to apply the two simple principles that Tempest has laid out: politeness and respect. To often the purpose of the expressions person who cares about social justice and Personal Computer is to denigrate the target and to shut down discussion. They may be used belligerently or with a sense of aggrieved entitlement towards those whom the speaker disagrees with politically ( some more). The terms don't address the issues raised, but attack the person.
In the particular instance, TarsTarkas's argument is a more polite, respectful and meaningful response than two or three word political slogans. They made their point simply and cogently. Harima's posts might have led to the thread going off-topic and, had they continued, they could have been guilty of soapboxing (something that some people struggle to grasp) but they weren't impolite or disrespectful (though I'm not sure about their use of "fascist", though it wasn't directed at anyone here). In the end, though, if you disagree with Harima, provide arguments why they are wrong without resorting to name-calling. As I understand it the purpose of the filter is to encourage polite and respectful debate, not to impose a political ideology on forum users. By the way, I'm as intrigued as you are how Texas84 got around the filter. |
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Snomaster1
Subscriber Posts: 2798 |
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I'm glad I got some responses to my post and I'd like to respond to them. First,Dessa. I know that it's a private company. I just wanted to know what in the heck was going on and why it was happening. I didn't do this for political reasons. I was just amazed at what was going on and I had no idea why it was happening.
As for you,Errinundra,my politics are different than yours is. I'm a registered independent in my country,but I am pretty conservative. I'm also a proud American although I admit I have gone overboard here at times. I just thought that what Harima did was unnecessary. I thought that he or she was attempting to turn it into a political discussion,something I thought was way out of place here. I thought what this person was doing was wrong. I thought that whoever this was was attempting to turn the discussion into a political one in a place where it didn't belong. And I wanted to use that phrase because I thought that's what Harima was being that with his statements. I hope you and everyone else here understands what I was trying to do. I wasn't trying to be obnoxious. That's not what I was doing. What I was trying to do was call someone out who was trying to inject politics in to a place where it didn't really belong. I hope everyone understands what I was trying to do here. I'm not trying to impose my political beliefs on everyone here. That's not what I want to do here. I just wanted to say that what Harima did was unnecessary and that particular post was not the place for that type of discussion. |
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar  Posts: 16935 |
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Part of the reason that little 3 letter acronym is filtered is because the VAST majority of the time when that topic is brought up threads only go in one direction from then on. Down. It is primarily used by people making points that are more times than not off topic, used as flame bait, part of a soap boxing rant, simply make a bad situation worse, or just generally cause problems. In short, the term has on these forums simply become a problem and does not lead to any worthwhile discussion the vast majority of the time. So it is now filtered. As are as many variations of it as well to avoid people cognitively trying to get around the filter. Which IMO doing so only re-enforces the fact it should be filtered. I'm sure Zac can details his opinion on it more succinctly than I have, but the fact remains it is filtered and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
As for your attempt to "call someone out" you really should not be doing that regardless. That is why we have the report button. Calling people out or backseat moderating are frowned upon here. "Calling someone out" generally speaking is only going to cause more problems and make a bad situation worse. Now I will say politely disagreeing with someone or their opinion is one thing. "Calling them out" as you put it is entirely different. Personally I feel like many users can't seem to differentiate between the two. But that's a different topic for another time. |
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 7580 Location: Wales |
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This is just a modification (and expansion) of the "person I disagree with politically" filter which has long been in place. The reasons for the filters have already been covered, but as has been previously pointed out (by Zac IIRC, on Twitter if not here in the forums) is that these filters are applied equally to both sides of the coin (e.g. "gamergate" in agent noun form) but those words are thrown around as perjoratives a lot less so the substitutions are both seen and complained about less.
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SamuraiNinjaDragon
 Posts: 76 |
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Sorry to sound stupid (and sorry for being a bit off topic) but why was the Shonen Jump Weekly phrase even created and why are people using a real company's name as an insult? By the way some of you are talking, you make it sound like ANN and Shonen Jump Weekly are rivals, but they are totally different companies for completely different reasons that do completely different things, so there's no way ANN and Shonen Jump Weekly could be rivals. I say this due to some of you making it sound like our lovely always awesome ANN staff hate Shonen Jump Weekly or something (even though I know pretty much everyone on here has read at least one manga series from Shonen Jump one time or another).
Sorry, but a lot of this isn't making sense. If any of you could explain this, that would be great. I've seen the Shonen Jump Weekly term used numerous times throughout the forum and never knew what it meant, and kept wondering why they were using a real company's name as an insult. That's like using a completely innocent word like pizza and using it as an insult. (bad at examples, sorry >____<;;;; ) EDIT: Just realized that ANN filtered the actual phrase into the full real company name. Does this mean those two things were unrelated? Now I am really confused. O_o |
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Saffire
 Posts: 1256 Location: Iowa, USA |
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SamuraiNinjaDragon
Posts: 76 |
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Yes, indeed I have
 I shall do that. Thanks 
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18194 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Yeah, Shonen Jump Weekly being the auto-replace for that particular acronym is someone's idea of a joke, and I think it's a pretty funny one. The acronym actually stands for something that's more commonly than not used for an insult (and not just here).
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Touma
 Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
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Maybe the action of the filter could be made more obvious, even blatant and intrusive.
If I understand correctly what it is doing is replacing words with other words that are more acceptable, and less inflammatory. So a person ends up posting "Shonen Jump Weekly" or "fudge" when he typed something very different. This can be confusing to the poster and to the people reading the post, if the poster does not correct it. Perhaps instead of just substituting words the filter could insert something like <WORD_PROHIBITED>. Even if the poster is unaware of the filter that should tell him that he needs to change the word. It would not need to be that blatant. Just something to give a positive indication of the filtering. I guess that ideally the filter should be completely unobtrusive and nobody should ever realize that it is there, but for that to happen it needs to use some different words, preferably words that have the same meaning but are not offensive or inflammatory. The forum software probably does not support this, but it would be nice if the filtered words were highlighted in the editor when the post is written. Sort of like a spell checker. This is just a thought that I had when reading this thread. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9844 Location: Virginia |
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I prefer the system this way. It only messes with someone who is intentionally trying to be obnoxious. The English language is rich and flexible enough that it wouldn't work on someone that really wanted to trade in insults. Fortunately most people have only a small repertoire of words that they use.
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DuelGundam2099
 Posts: 533 |
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Here is a question: Why not filter other words that are supposedly inflammatory? If it proves that effective it would make life at least a shred easier for mods in theory. Why limit it to the essay j dubs term?
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Touma
Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
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Not necessarily. I only recently became aware that the S[jay]W term was considered to be offensive. I knew that it could be used in a derogatory way, which is true of almost any word, but did not know that the term itself was offensive. My point is that some people may not know that a word or term is considered to be offensive because they never use it that way themselves. I think that it would be good to have a positive indication of the filtering, rather than have people think that their computer has been infected by some strange virus that turns some phrases into manga magazines.
Some other words are being filtered. There was a discussion about it here in this forum. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9844 Location: Virginia |
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Because each word would have to be individually added to the filter. There are enough such words in English that it would be a monumental task. Instead they play a version of whack a mole adding individual words or phrases as they become problematic. The Shonen Jump Weekly addition was fairly recent. I can remember some threads in the last year where that set them on fire. Zac got involved and banns were made. @Touma Having seen it in use, I find it hard to imagine a thread where that phrase or even the initials could be used in a manner that was not derogatory. The same goes for most of the filtered words. To use them the poster has to be either attempting to be crude, insulting or very seriously naïve. |
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