I am perfectly alright with this.

Can't say I am. People should be free to use the language they wish.

The words that were offensive 200 years ago are laughable today. It's just such a superficial thing, almost arbitrarily deciding which words are 'sensitive' and which ones aren't, I cannot stand behind efforts to censor the world.

Once upon a time 'idiot' was the more common word for the mentally disabled. Has GitHub banned 'idiot,' too? Good long while ago people would've been pretty offended by that.

I get that we're more concerned with what people are offended by TODAY rather than 200 years ago; my point is that we SHOULDN'T be concerned.

People are free to use the language they wish. They are not necessarily free to host said language on other people's websites. This isn't a legal ban or something, GitHub is a private company and they have the right to limit what content they want on their website.

The words that were offensive 200 years ago are laughable today.

Even if we take this at face value, we are not living 200 years ago. We're here now, and your words can have impact beyond what you realize.

You're lucky that words don't affect you so. That's your good fortune. Some words evoke experiences and implications that can drive people to depression and suicide.

Basic. Civility. Is. Not. Unreasonable.

my point is that we SHOULDN'T be concerned.

Then you won't be concerned when I tell you your basic set of inalienable rights you take for granted has, by and large, been won on the backs of slaves and economic disparity for thousands of years. You are at the tip of a pyramid of privilege that expands backwards in time. Have some good grace about it and stop using useless and hurtful words just because you technically can.

Should we ban all these 'useless' words too? Like eggplant, spade, and oreo? After all, many people find them offensive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs_by_ethnic...

Would it actually bother you if you couldn't use those words in those contexts? You're arguing over a principle while dismissing the real harm people have suffered. The word that got banned has no meaning or use outside the most base kind of interactions.

It's not like you can no longer say the word "eggplant" at the supermarket to refer to a vegetable.

'Retard' has no meaning or use?

https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=retard&num=10

Also, please be careful how you use the word 'vegetable.' My aunt is in a coma, and many people find that offensive.

'Retard' has no meaning or use?

Homonyms are not the same word, you ridiculous caricature.

Praytell, what here do you think is being used as a homonym?

Where exactly do you think the word 'retard' as a noun comes from?

It's just such a superficial thing, almost arbitrarily deciding which words are 'sensitive' and which ones aren't

This cannot be further from the truth. Words that are deemed offensive are deemed so because of the attitude and the meaning behind using these words

The reason white people get yelled at for using n (don't know if I can post it on HN) is because it represents hundreds of years of oppression by white people that has basically continued. People who were "retarded" used to be thrown into asylums or abandoned as small children because they were just a pain to deal with

The thing about words is that they have context and actual loaded meanings, and trying to ignore that is to ignore how language works

Good Lord, I have heard so many different takes on 'what makes something offensive.' My favorite was a teenager telling me only one person has to find something offensive before we have to all consider it as such and stop saying it.

The fact that words "have context and actual loaded meanings" is besides the point. I am saying that these things come into fashion and then pass away.

I'm sure you know it was only in the past 70 years that 'gay' took on its new meaning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay#Shift_to_homosexual

Stop trying to lock words in place and ban them. Let people use them or avoid them as they will, and their meanings will shift, as they always have.

I am saying that these things come into fashion and then pass away.

If words can come INTO fashion for various reasons, then some must be allowed to LEAVE fashion for other reasons. Letting them pass out of empathy is probably one of the most noble and equitable reasons we could have to change our language.

Your argument is so strange. You argue that language is fluid then get angry, confused and dismissive when people use that fact to change the world around them.

Yes, I'm very angry and confused.

Have a nice look at this list and let me know if you'd like to ban all of these too. After all, they have context and actual loaded meanings, and in many cases represent hundreds of years of oppression.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs_by_ethnic...

It's as if we as humans have some kind of context-sensitive language recognition capability, and can tell when a word is being used as a slur or if it has entirely unrelated meanings. We're slightly smarter than regular expressions. And yes, I'd fully expect Github to ban those too.

I'm sorry, but I believe that allowing even one idea to be banned from discourse is the first step towards a system where someone like Edward Snowden has to find asylum in Russia.

I don't believe in censorship or hiding away what was really said or done. If anyone has a problem with this developer's language, they can boycott his repo.

Slurs aren't discourse, or even the start of discourse. And removing them has nothing to do with pervasive surveillance.

If anyone has a problem with this developer's language, they can boycott his repo.

Github did, and they did. And then someone decided to stir up trouble by posting it as though people should be offended by what Github did, rather than applauding them.

Github can do as they like on their own resources. If you don't like it, host your own, and welcome everyone who doesn't like to be decent to other people. See how it goes.

No matter what you do, you'll exclude people and silence ideas. Either you exclude hateful people, or you exclude people who don't enjoy hatefulness. Pick one.

Slurs are part of discourse.

Slurs are considered a problem because they're offensive. Banning them is the first step on the road to banning offensive content.

Who arbitrates what is offensive? Sure, we can agree on "The N-Word", but how about Idiot's Guide to Web Tools?

It's easy to go on the internet and virtue signal.

What sacrifice have you ever made toward the right of no race, person, or condition to not be offended?

What makes you so holier-than-thou, you can think it's ok to sit behind the keyboard like God and quash whatever idea runs contrary to your psyche?

There is a whole website called Twitter, where people act very pompous, very pious, but seldom have the fortitude to trouble themselves to help what they "fighting for". Kind of like how Occupy Wallstreet drank Coca Cola and brought iPhones to protests.

Yes, the developer had every right to say retard. 100% correct. And if they said it in front of me, I'd have every right to kick them, hard. Both of us will have paid a price, sure, but hey, freedom of speech wasn't violated.

You're free to call me a retard. I'm free to kick you for doing it. Everybody wins. But your calling me a retard isn't a divinely bestowed right to get away with it without a response just because you had the right to say it. GitHub chose to respond. The author chose to comply with the request. Done and done.

And if they said it in front of me, I'd have every right to kick them, hard.

Where do you live? In most countries, that would be assault, and is considered a crime.

Would it be alright, then, if it said, "WebM for Black People?"

It isn't important to quibble over what words we consider offensive in the past, present, or future. The real problem is speaking about a classification of human being as being less than fully human or using those classifications as shortcuts for "inferior."

A person with darker skin is no less human than one with lighter skin. Similarly, two people with differing sets of abilities are both also fully human. Just because someone else is made of slightly different stuff doesn't make those differences fair game for ridicule.

Normally, I don't argue with people on the internet. Tonight, I'm bored and I'm making an exception.

That being said, this isn't an argument about how we should treat people. This is an argument over whether we should be allowed to say what we wish and let others react how they will. If people don't want to use this individual's code because of his questionable mentality, let that be their choice. Instead we're now papering over it and making him perhaps look nicer than he is.

Would you also like to halt publication of Mein Kampf? It's available in bookstores near you, and I assure you there are many people who are offended by its content, myself included.

Shall we reword the sections of the Bible chastising homosexual behavior?

Or do we only censor the little things?

GitHub is not the center of the world. They are not establishing law. You can publish Mein Kampf if everyone else decides not to. You can edit the bible if you wish.

Or you can try to foster the development of a professional community by taking steps to prohibit needlessly offensive language.

You can publish whatever you like on your personal website and link to it from anywhere. I don't see how this is an over-reach of censorship.

How about the "Idiot's Guide To WebM" or "WebM for Dummies". Are those OK? I guess I'm not seeing the difference..

The difference is that fewer people would get offended by those.

Fine with me. It's an offensive term and GitHub has every right to police their service and ban content like this.

Am I supposed to be concerned by this, and if so, why?

It's not as offensive as autistic.

Let's compile a list of things it's not as offensive as.

My brother is a retard. Your serve

So to explain myself a lot of people tell me my brother is 'autistic'

Well my brother is not autistic. My brother has issues with understanding language and expressing himself. That does make it had for him to relate to ordinary people. But it doesn't mean that he has issues with socialization and emotional attachment. He desperately wants to fit in with people and have meaningful relationships with people.

As such I find the term Autistic, which assumes that he doesn't care about human emotional attachments. And assumes that he's somehow 'sick' to be extremely insulting.

I'd much rather people use the term retard because at least that just generally says that a person has one or more learning deficits and picks certain tasks slower than normal.

And frankly you're never going to get off the euphemism treadmill. That said for the reasons above, the concept of 'retard' is better than autistic by a long shot.

They have every right to do it, but that doesn't make it productive. Is github really going to anoint itself word-police and comb through the source code of every project they host looking for words they [currently] consider potty-mouthed? Is that really where we have ended up? Do they have nothing better to do?

What if the word "fail" offended somebody at github? Should they take down projects that have that variable name in their source? (Not asking whether they have the right to do it--asking whether they SHOULD do it)

EDIT:

A couple more things to point out:

1. Think of yourself as an investor who has put money into GitHub. Someone drawing a salary using your money is sending out a message telling a developer not to use a potty-mouth word on the Internet. Do you feel they are putting your investment to the best possible use?

2. As a developer, I now have a new attribute to use to compare GitHub with competitors. I wonder if I have potty-mouth words in my source code. Maybe BitBucket wouldn't put my project in jeopardy because of it...

3. GitHub's own "remove sensitive data" link (referenced in the takedown E-mail) suggests their users use a tool called "BFG Repo-Cleaner". I'm sure they don't think BFG stands for Big Friendly Gun....

1) Yes, absolutely; they're creating a more friendly community, and that's a hard problem.

3) Profanity and derogatory language are not the same thing; the difference is critically important. Similarly, if you tell someone to FOAD, the FO isn't the most offensive part of that statement.

Because "retard" may not be the last time, but the first. A precedence would be set that a repository may be shut down due to an arbitrary(not the word I'd use here, but for the sake of argument) reason.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

The term was being used in the same context as "dummies" is in the "for dummies" books. Do you consider dummies an offensive term? If not, why not?

The noun "retard" is not considered profane. I don't think it would have to be bleeped over in broadcast television.

It's also a verb which means to slow down.

For example, it is necessary to retard the ignition timing of a gasoline engine, and more so at higher RPM, to prevent detonation.

Oh sure, but that's not the context it was being used here, and there's no indication that this was some sort of automated email that was sent purely because a use of the word was detected.

I don't think anyone's out there trying to ban the word "retard" for its non-derogatory usages. Seems like a weird straw-man to worry about.

Yes it is the context! "retard" is a short form of "mentally retarded". Which means slowed down developmentally. The spark plug gaps being a little too wide in the old noggin to fire reliably.

This is not like a completely separate context like "fag" (cigarette) versus "fag" (homosexual).

The long form "mentally retarded" isn't offensive, yet "mental retard" is so offensive that it violates terms of service and gets you a shutdown threat?

Absurd.

there's no indication that this was some sort of automated email that was sent purely because a use of the word was detected.

I would find the action less distasteful if it was such a bot. That would still leave open the possibility that the bot isn't expressing its author's intent.

The long form "mentally retarded" isn't offensive

I beg to differ. There's a reason the medical community doesn't use that term anymore.

Quac^H^H^H^HMedical professionals also don't use "stomach" to denote the abdomen. So what?

any more

I.e. they did! Lay people still do.

Anyway, what matters here is not the standard used by the medical community. I suspect that if a github project had some code that "assists the mentally retarded", it would not bring on the TOS violation police.

Quick biology lesson: stomachs and abdomens are different things. The stomach is an organ inside the abdomen, and the abdomen is a region of the body.

I.e. they did! Lay people still do.

As do rude people.

Here's what you can do: invent a time machine and go back to a time when the term wasn't offensive. Then your statement that the term isn't offensive will be true. Right now, it isn't.

Anyway, what matters here is not the standard used by the medical community

If you notice, what I said was "there is a reason [...]." My point, then, was about the reason, not the medical community. It doesn't matter what the medical standards are. What matters is that the term is offensive, a fact which prompted the medical community to stop using it.

Check this out:

http://www.wowktv.com/story/29652314/missing-mentally-retard...

The URL has "retarded" in it! And Google's index still has the original article text, which uses the term in the body. They changed it to "challenged".

"Officers are looking for a mentally retarded man they say walked away from a supervised group home where he was ordered to stay."

"Mentally retarded" isn't so offensive that a TV station in America wouldn't initially use the term in July 2015, only to be corrected by some PC people into changing it.

It's just kind of a very direct term for something that is delicate. There is (or should be) some range of separation between "insensitive" and "offensive".

I don't know, I guess I'm supposed to consider it censorship and be outraged or something?

Some people feel entitled to say what they want on any platform they choose and cry "censorship" when their offensive speech is removed.

My guess is GH doesn't actively monitor things like this, but someone complained. So they're removing it, and it's just a matter of time before we hear a thousand "slippery slope" arguments.

Is it offensive? Yes.

Does Github have the right to take it down? Yes.

Is it unethical for Github to take it down? Not at all.

But should they? I don't know, I don't think I would have. It's kind of scary to use cloud services where it's hard to tell if your content might be judged in violation of some rule and might suddenly disappear as a result. If the offensiveness were more extreme (say, a repo dedicated to making fun of the mentally disabled), then yes, remove it... but the actual case here looks pretty benign to me. A poor choice of words, but with no intended malice. Coming down hard in this case looks arbitrary and unexpected, and arbitrary and unexpected rule enforcement is scary.

Certainly, though, it's Github's choice what kind of rules they want to enforce and whether or not they care if this scares users.

Your first three questions/answers, summarized, is that "Github ethically and legally removed an offensive word"

Should they? Yes.

I feel slippery slope arguments get brought up way too much sometimes. Every issue is turning into a binary all-or-nothing ordeal, with no room for nuance or context.

As long as what Github did is 1. ethical (removing a generally accepted as offensive word), 2. legal, then I see no problem with it.

If, IF Github starts making more arbitrary calls, then I think its the time to be angry or worried.

It would also be ethical and legal to comb through their hosted content to remove any other words, but I'd argue it's a ret...er...wasteful use of their resources.

Also, I must have missed the memo when 'retarded' became "generally accepted as an offensive word". Are "stupid" "moronic" and "idiotic" also offensive? I guess I need to keep up with the times--as soon as I think I've figured out the list of everything that could possibly offend someone, we come up with something else.

If you direct it at a particular person, then your intent is to offend, and by all means it is offensive.

So not at all in the case of this repo?

I'm not making any slippery slope argument. I'm saying that if it's hard to predict what minor infractions might result in 24-hour ultimatums, then that's going to make users uncomfortable, and that a lot of users wouldn't have predicted that this particular case would lead to a 24-hour ultimatum.

If the ultimatum were, say, 30 days, then I think it's in the realm that I consider sensible. That's long enough to get back from vacation without finding all your stuff is gone. The file had been there over a year, so surely it wasn't that urgent.

Maybe they could have sent an auto-generated pull request to make things easier.

Is it offensive? Yes.

Can we stop saying this as a universal truth?

You find it offensive. I and millions other people don't. You deal with it.

You don't find it offensive. I and millions of other people do. You deal with it.

Why should one group of people acquiesce to another group of people's demands just because they claim offensiveness.

Should everyone live to the strictest thinkable standards because somewhere out there is a semi-large group of people who find your behavior offensive?

Such semi-large groups might be religions for example that take various kinds of behaviors you take for granted as offensive.

No, the people who run the website find it offensive, it's their house, so you deal with it or leave.

Is it offensive? Yes.

It depends. Maybe to you and maybe to me (it isn;t). But we are both english speakers. Github has a global presence. What if I am a french speaker and I want to say something is delayed or running a little slow?

https://translate.google.co.uk/#fr/en/retard

Yes, you should be. The problem is that people (perhaps you) are elevating something marginally offensive to something hateful and worth shutting down at all costs. The dragging down of minor offenses to serious offenses is a dangerous thing.

It's surprising how little intellectual honesty there is in modern society. It's even more surprising here that some people (perhaps you) are willing to abandon any rational thinking in favor of their feelings. You seemingly can't comprehend (or are willing to ignore) the logical conclusion to where we're headed.

It's ridiculous for GitHub to police the content on their site in this way. Where does it stop? Will they block commits with "trigger" words?

Oh wow -- this is actually a comment which IMO points out the real issue here.

This sort of censorship/filter/whatever-you-call-it is bad because it add way too much value to words. So it's not about what is actually said or the context but only about words.

By that logic it's completely PC if someone is actually offended but in such a way that no bad words are used. But as soon as a Bad Word (TM) is used -- bam.

This is really really dishonest, shallow, and disgusting.

Here's my concern. Let's say I forked a repo and started contributing to it. I built an app that depends on that repo. Suddenly that repo vanishes because GitHub found it some word in it offensive, and my fork and all my contributions vanish. All because of some line like:

var x = getX(); // this is retarded, needs fixing

I didn't write the said offensive code nor did I even know it was there, and GitHub possibly doesn't even tell me why the repo was deleted. At this point my trust with GitHub of keeping my code is safe is broken. When users lose trust in GitHub or feel they've gone big brother then users will jump to newer, emerging alternatives.

But, in this case, GitHub made an effort to get in contact with the repo owner and warn them of their violation of the TOS before taking action. Why do you believe they wouldn't do the same for you?

..but it's git. Github don't host your repo - they host a copy of it. You still have all your work in your local checkout. What are you concerned about?

Yes. It incentivizes loudly taking offense to things. Regardless of whether or not you care about the use of the word 'retard' being taken offense to, there are many things that you do care about. It's trivially easy to find examples - millions of Americans care deeply about violence in games and media. Should GitHub police the language a violent open-source video game uses to market itself? By setting itself up as the arbiter of what is and isn't acceptable language, GitHub will be petitioned by people who want to make things unacceptable to say.

Edit: Also, people can decide to find something to take offense over in order to attack a targeted individual. This should be very concerning to you - are you sure you've never committed anything that an uncharitable person could take offense to? Imagine a few dozen very angry people combing through your work, trying to find something to get outraged about.

Buy a $5 DO box and host it yourself. Use any language that you desire.

Pretty much every hosting provider has this in their TOS.

https://www.digitalocean.com/legal/terms/

3.2 You agree that you will not transmit, distribute, post, store, link, or otherwise traffic in Content, information, software, or materials on or through the Service that (i) is unlawful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, libelous, deceptive, fraudulent, invasive of another's privacy, tortious, offensive, profane, contains or depicts pornography that is unlawful, or is otherwise inappropriate as determined by us in our sole discretion, (ii) you know is false, misleading, untruthful or inaccurate, (iii) constitutes unauthorized or unsolicited advertising, (iv) impersonates any person or entity, including any of our employees or representatives, or (v) includes anyone’s identification documents or sensitive financial information. DigitalOcean may permit, in its sole discretion, adult websites that abide by state and federal law and regulation.

Is there a list of objectionable words/language that one is not supposed to use? A quick search on the f-work gives thousands of hits on github.

Interestingly, a search for "retard" in code on GitHub yields over 200,000 results:

https://github.com/search?q=retard&type=Code&utf8=%E2%9C%93

Not sure what made this particular case different.

Or, decidedly even more offensive: https://github.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=nigger&type=Code&...

Most of those are badwordlists.

I don't understand why they don't filter it on upload stage ("push"). "git push" > "sorry, can't push because of words: [list of words here]". Is it more difficult than later disable whole repo because of one stupid joke?

Because you may need to put those words in a repo in a non-offensive context. For example, a list of "bad" words to look for.

Those aren't typically derogatory descriptions of people, though. Profanity isn't necessarily an issue; derogatory language is. I'd expect Github to take down repositories containing slurs of any kind, while leaving up things like https://github.com/nvbn/thefuck/

It took me about 1 minute find other repositories using derogatory descriptions of people. I didn't even have to use my imagination.

Isn't the name "git" (and therefore "github") itself considered pejorative? IIRC, Linus did name the tool after the British slang word.

"Git is a mild pejorative with origins in British English for a silly, incompetent, stupid, annoying, senile, elderly or childish person. It is usually an insult, more severe than twit or idiot but less severe than wanker, arsehole or (redacted)."

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_(slang)

ps. Yes, I'm a prude. And yes, I redacted a word from the Wikipedia definition above.

Github is an American company and the use of the word "git" in American English is not at all common. They may not know.

That said, I find this whole thing to be silly. What can you possibly get out of choosing to be the word police?

It's in GitHub's TOS that they maintain the ability to remove content they find offensive. So they asked a user to remove something that GitHub found offensive.

Yeah, when you host all your code with a 3rd party, and you run all your services with a 3rd party, and you depend on another 3rd party for significant chunks of your functionality, you will find that starting up is a lot easier, as long as you don't mind giving up a very significant chunk of your independence and freedom to do as you wish.

I don't understand the obsession with github, google, amazon and the like. Well, I understand it, but I don't understand why people fall for it. Hosting is dirt cheap these days, really very easy, and you can set up pretty much any environment you need in less than a day, for very little money.

Are you serious?

Maintaining things is hard. Even for relatively simple stuff, things fall over all the time and suddenly your job is "make sure your mail server is up" instead of "accomplish your core business task". I don't have that sort of free time anymore.

For git, literally all you need is a server with Git and SSH installed.

Case in point: Ran update && upgrade on my server that runs a mailinabox container. Whoops, something broke and now the container doesn't recognize any of the owners or groups. Your family mail server is down while your wife is waiting on replies to job applications. Thankfully, it was fixed within a day, but I've had stressful weeks where I've considered just moving to fastmail instead of spending my limited time at home pounding on config files.

Are you really trying to make this about "a very significant chunk of your independence and freedom"? Yes, when you host with people who have standards of conduct and civility, you have to respect those standards. Get over it, or host derogatory content on your own dime.

In the case of github, they can and have taken down/blocked repos that foreign govt have found objectionable. So its not the odd offensive word here and there. Luckily, git makes it easy to have multiple copies of a repo lying around all over the place.

Github asks users to obey local law. Some local law is set by oppressive regimes and is thus unacceptable to decent people.

What should Github do? Ignore rule of law? Not offer service in countries with oppressive regimes? Provide tools to avoid censorship?

I assume this project is 90% for 4chan, 8chan, etc. posters, so the name is nothing out of the ordinary for its users.

If someone was interested in moving their content off of GitHub, how would they go about doing so? Doesn't popcorn time use something else? Asking for a friend, of course... :3

Edit: Looks like they're running GitLab Community Edition https://about.gitlab.com/downloads/

A honest question, why are most people here okay with this, but they’re not okay with for example Facebook censoring certain content?

Probably because facebook is by design a mechanism of human communication. Github is a mechanism for sharing code. The words used and then rejected were useless, and substituting them did not affect the communication in any meaningful way.

Calling vocabulary subs like this "censorship" greatly glorifies the users of said language, as unless they're deliberately trying to be offensive there is always an equally useful word at hand.

I personally feel that offensive language should be censored because they’re intended to be offensive and hurtful to people, while OTOH if its obviously not purposely offensive but just a method of expression, it should be given a pass. Leave that to self-censorship / the readers / users.

Also, given the semi-monopoly that these sites have, I think that they have some sort of responsibility to not exploit network effects and alienate users just because they can.

Probably because facebook is by design a mechanism of human communication. Github is a mechanism for sharing code.

Is code not a mechanism of human communication?

For people who don't see what's wrong here. The issue is not about whether the word 'retard' is or is not offensive to anyone. You need to consider that GitHub currently hosts a large percentage of the web's open source repositories. This is censorship plain and simple, something that IMO has no place in open source. The issue is that there are plenty of things some people might find offensive on GitHub but you dont see them threatening everyone with takedown notices. It is the selective censorship of certain reasonable uses of free speech that is concerning here. Retarded is off limits, but cursing is okay (maybe?). Who decides what is and is not appropriate?

They can do whatever they want, that is the market at work. If enough people find it offensive, they will produce/migrate to an alternative.

sure, they're legally entitled to do whatever they want, but you're failing to consider the most important point:

You need to consider that GitHub currently hosts a large percentage of the web's open source repositories

would you be happy if google abused its position as the leading search engine to favor right leaning websites over left leaning websites? what about censoring websites that are "offensive" to muslims?

Or what about if your comment were mass-downvoted on HN? Would you be happy?

The censorship card ultimately falls into a relativistic trap - it's always okay to broadcast hate if it's the speech of you or your friends, because you and I can protest ignorance, humor, or lack of wrongdoing, and your more overtly bigoted friends "are good guys when you get to know them." Criticism of such speech, on the other hand, is never okay, and is "the real censorship". You don't even have to invoke a specific ideological dialogue - it is an everyday occurrence in your homes, schools, and bars.

Now, you can go out there and fight and "win" by making your preferred flavor of speech dominant in your spaces, but that just exposes a different facet of this "gem of truthiness" - it doesn't reveal the whole thing, because you still get the same problem, no matter which side you take.

The typical modern response to this is nihilistic or fanatical, but if you really feel challenged by a hostile environment, why not follow the path of the ancients and turn your speech into a puzzle or parable that hides its true intention? If your ideas are good, they will survive the transition and reach the readers who put in the effort to care and figure it out. OTOH if the whole premise is to police the surface aspects of the dialogue and Be Right, then you're speaking politically, not intellectually, and political speech comes with Consequences regardless of the legal environment.

You don't think standards of professionalism have a place in open source, or on GitHub?

"standards of professionalism" are used as a device of exclusion. It has a fairly narrow definition now, but that will change, just like the words "racist", "sexist" and "homophobic". You used to have to perform an action of actual malice to be accused of those things. Now, all you have to do is make an honest mistake and the entire internet's on you like jackals.

When are you referring to? Of course nobody jumped on you like jackals before you had a global platform to offend people. You used to have to look someone in the face to offend them. Then we invented writing and the world changed.

"standards of professionalism" are used as a device of exclusion

Indeed. You exclude the behavior that doesn't mesh well with your goals. Every law, standard, and community that has ever existed has been used as a device of exclusion. Hacker News is a device of exclusion. That's not a bad thing.

When are you referring to?

Do you use twitter at all? And nobody here jumps on me like jackals because they use downvotes to do that for them.

Hacker News is a device of exclusion. That's not a bad thing.

You can't claim to be for free and open source software for all humanity, except for those people. Those people aren't ideologically pure, they can't participate. That mindset is why GNU is a footnote in programming history, but everybody knows what linux is.

Code quality, not political ideology.

No, I don't use Twitter. Any communication medium that severely limits the amount of text you can send is going to be prone to miscommunication, aggression, and triteness.

Anyway, nobody is forcing you to not write free and open source software. GitHub doesn't have a problem with the software. Nor are they preventing anyone from getting it or using it. They've erected what I would call a rather trivial obstacle for the developers: use a different term.

I mean, if that's too hard to accept -- if that is what has causes the downfall of GNU -- then we are doomed to fail from the start.

Code quality, not political ideology.

The world is not black and white. You can have good code quality while making politically favorable decisions.

No, I don't use Twitter.

You should pay attention to what's happening over there. It's a good preview for what's coming.

Nor are they preventing anyone from getting it or using it.

You have an odd view of banning. Yes, that does prevent anyone from getting it or using it. That's like saying banning a book doesn't prevent anyone from getting it or reading it. People will find a way, but that doesn't mean we should encourage banning books.

You can have good code quality while making politically favorable decisions.

You can also have good code quality while making politically unfavorable decisions. You can also have good code quality while eating an all cucumber diet. The ridiculousness you would feel about being required to eat a cucumber sandwich before being allowed to commit code to github is exactly how I feel about being required to think politically correct thoughts before being allowed to commit code to github.

I don't need to use Twitter. Every time something interesting happens through twitter, people flock to forums and blogs to talk about it. Because Twitter is not a platform for mature, reasonable discussions. It's for self-promotion and advertising.

Yes, that does prevent anyone from getting it or using it. That's like saying banning a book doesn't prevent anyone from getting it or reading it.

GitHub didn't ban anything. It edited it. In fact, it edited a part that you yourself said doesn't matter. "Code quality, not political ideology." Remember?

The ridiculousness you would feel about being required to eat a cucumber sandwich before being allowed to commit code to github is exactly how I feel about being required to think politically correct thoughts before being allowed to commit code to github.

Or someone asking you to take your shoes off in their private home. It's so ridiculous. You should have a right to be rude in people's private spaces.

Being offended by words is no sign of professionalism.

It is the selective censorship of certain reasonable uses of free speech that is concerning here.

Free speech laws don't apply to corporate or private censorship.

Who decides what is and is not appropriate?

The owners of the property. Can I come over to your place and say offensive things?

Depends, is his place a known haven for sharing information, specifically designed to encourage and promote openness?

Free speech laws don't apply to corporate or private censorship.

Nobody's suggesting we sue or otherwise bring criminal charges against Github. Your response is a non-sequitur at best.

The owners of the property. Can I come over to your place and say offensive things?

Legally? Yes, you can.

And legally you can eject him from your property if he does that.

Yes. What's your point?

OP used the term "free speech" which is a legal term that in the US refers to 1st amendment protections around expression.

Well, free speech laws don't apply to me on your property. It is legal for you to tell me to shut up or get out.

Yes. Now, imagine you're in OP's grocery store. It's still private property, but he provides a public service out of it. Can he still prevent you from shouting at him? Do free speech laws cover privately owned public spaces?

Yes, you can eject someone from a store for being rude.

Your ISP is not allowed to censor content (as far as I know) because it is a common carrier. Google is not a common carrier, they can do what they want. If Google can do it, GitHub can do it.

Note that I don't necessarily think censorship is good. I just get annoyed when people mistakenly think they have a constitutional right to not be censored.

Free speech isn't just a legality. It's a valuable principal that's stood the test of time of being one of the few core features of functional societies.

Free speech is a value that we should all uphold regardless whether it legally applies or not. So stop making excuses for bad corporate behaviour.

"Free Speech" isn't a blank check to say and do whatever you want. Even SCOTUS says that direct threats of violence aren't protected by the first amendment.

I'm tired of reading people nebulously defining "free speech philosophies" online to act as a shield to justify nefarious behavior on private property.

Free speech exists as a protection from government censorship, and it doesn't protect you for acting like a dick on someone else's website. This sums it up pretty well: https://xkcd.com/1357/

Free speech as a concept isn't just about the first amendment and isn't just about the law. Free speech can be defended on any number of grounds, and many of them apply equally to privately enforced speech restrictions. For example, consider John Stuart Mill, one of the founding figures of modern liberal thought. In On Liberty, his spirited defense of free speech, he argued that shunning or widespread ostracism for expression of particular views was a danger, and would ultimately harm a society that engaged in it, even if the views being suppressed were obviously wrong.

"Free speech is only first amendment" is a shallow and ignorant view of the intellectual tradition of free expression.

What privately-owned properties do you know of where the owner allows guests or customers to speak as freely as if they were on the sidewalk, without fear of recrimination from the owner in the form of censorship or ejection? I can think of 4chan, maybe some IRC channels.

That's willful ignorance of the real issue. This is not an isolated incident. Society is increasingly rejecting any and all "offensive" language and behavior.

Should we all be nice and respectful to each other? Yes, of course. Are people that way? No. Can we police ourselves fairly and achieve a society that is not offensive? Absolutely not.

Can we police ourselves fairly and achieve a society that is not offensive? Absolutely not.

Hacker News is a pretty nice place.

This thread, and almost any thread about social issues in technology, demonstrates that it has both nice and awful people hanging out on it.

A private company choosing not to allow content for whatever reason is not censorship. People who choose to use the word "retard" are not a protected class, Github can ban this word as they see fit.

Well, in the literal sense it is censorship, being the suppression of materials deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds. A bit like a (likely American) TV censor might "bleep" a word they don't want to expose people's delicate sensibilities to.

I mean, that doesn't make it "evil", but a lot of people might say that censorship of any sort is a bit of a grey area. That whole "I disagree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it" thing.

"I disagree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it"

When it comes down to it, no one would really do this.

You don't think that people would defend to the death one of the basic principles of human rights?

To be clear, I'm not saying that Github censoring "retarded" is a human rights issue, but as long as we've gone off the rails let's see where the train comes to a stop.

You don't think that people would defend to the death one of the basic principles of human rights?

A progressive making that claim would never take a bullet so that someone could fly the Confederate flag, for example. It's just not going to happen.

They may fight to defend the 1st Amendment, but that's easy because it's a proxy behind which exists all the specific instances of speech they would find horrible along with the speech they hold dear.

People making the claim probably mean the latter, but the wording implies something more specific, presumably for effect.

Ah, it looks like the train didn't make it very far, did it.

Charlie Hebdo did.

They did not.

Charlie Hebdo did not publish, then get attacked for, content they themselves found offensive.

No, they know it's offensive and their fight was exactly about freedom of speech.

Yes, they knew it was offensive - to others. There is no indication that it actually offended them. Which, unless it did, it's not the same thing.

So if a restaurant asks you to leave because you're shouting ethnic slurs, that's censorship? Come on. GitHub is not the entirety of your expressive domain. If you were disallowed by law from saying "retard" I would be sympathetic to this case. As is this entire thread reads like a series of entitled children whinging that their mums told them not to be nasty at school. If you dislike what GitHub has done, host your repo at one of the other free sites that provide this service, and stop insulting people in legitimately oppressive states by equating your churlish valley bigotry with legitimately repressed speech.

Hey, if you want to argue with the dictionary be my guest. I'm afraid my name isn't Oxford, though, and I'm not really sure how to reach him. Sorry about that.

In that case - since you're merely quoting the dictionary without voicing an opinion - I invite you to refrain from further diluting the present discussion with your vacuous commentary. I assure you that the entirety of HN readership can avail itself of word definition services.

If you're going to ask me to put away the dictionary you could try it without dragging out the thesaurus.

The difference being that there are no network effects in restaurants and usually there is another one just around the corner.

Github can ban this word as they see fit.

And people can discuss whether that is or is not appropriate as they see fit. If enough people feel differently, that's when alternative services start to appear.

No, it is censorship. The idea that private companies can't engage in censorship is incorrect, and in conflict with the definition of the word.

Doesn't make it bad, necessarily, but it is censorship.

Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication or other information

The argument is it isn't suppression because as a private company, people can still choose to engage in that speech elsewhere. The government can actually make laws to stop people from saying certain things in any context.

When a private company does it, they can only do it in the medium they control and for people who choose to use that medium.

From the same wiki article you're quoting from -

"Governments, private organizations and individuals may engage in censorship"

It's simply incorrect to say that private companies cannot engage in censorship.

This is the internet, where retarded people redefine the words and their world view as they see fit.

Most comments and up/down votes are about what people like/dislike not about what's either right, interesting or insightful.

Yeah there was this bakery I think that didn't want to make a cake for a gay wedding. That's ok too right? Or should we burn down their business?

Their refusal did not constitute censorship, if that's what you're asking.

False. When Trey Parker and Matt Stone wished to show Muhammad in South Park Comedy Central overruled them and placed a big black censored box over Muhammad in the cartoon. If you want to say that a black box with the word censored doesn't qualify as censorship then you're retarded.

You are ever correct that GitHub can ban the word if they want. They're fully within their legal right to do so.

If you want to say that a black box with the word censored doesn't qualify as censorship then you're regarded.

This is a definition of censorship that removes any useful descriptive meaning from the word. It's not censorship when I refuse to listen to offensive things or refuse to repeat them to others or allow you to graffiti it on the side of my house. Similarly, it's not censorship when a private company declines to let you use its private resources to say whatever you want.

The difference between these types of "censorship" and scary, actual government censorship is that GitHub doesn't have the authority to hold a gun to your head and compel you to be quiet. You can take your repo and host it privately and say whatever you want. Comedy Central didn't have the authority to compel Trey Parker and Matt Stone to be quiet. Parker and Stone could have terminated their contracts and posted a Mohammed cartoon through some other channel.

You rob censorship of its depth of meaning -- compulsory silencing by force -- when you apply it to private actors choosing not to use their private resources to promote others' speech.

Github is not a public service; they're a private company.

Who decides what is and is not appropriate?

Github does. That's how that works.

If you prefer you could try and lobby your government to set up some sort of national source code repo. Maybe you'd find the rules on such a thing more to your liking. (Note: You really, really wouldn't.)

Alternatively, you could host your own source code repos, and then you can set the rules.

Edit: More generally, you seem to suggest that a place where a lot of people from different backgrounds come together to try and collaborate and work should be a place with no rules, norms, or even an expectation of basic politeness. Offhand, I'd think the opposite should be true.

You're also conflating something like, eg, efforts to get around the Chinese firewall with people who want to use slurs. People have, in my view, in intrinsic right to do both, but these are still not equivalent actions, and you're not going to reach a sensible conclusion until you abandon that moral relativism. Free speech is valuable, but not all speech is equally valuable.

Github is not a public service; they're a private company.

They're both. They're a private company that offers a public service. As such, they can't do whatever they want. For example, if they wanted to ban all repos written by black men, that would be illegal.

Nobody is suggesting that banning a repo for using a bad word is illegal. A breach of trust, a breach of ethics and a breach of reliability[0], but not illegal.

[0]: if I were a company, I would be thinking twice about trusting any of my business to Github. If a British employee commits a word that is commonplace in Britain but very offensive in America (like 'fag'), does that mean my repo goes away? Could I mess with another company by purposefully taking one of their commits out of context and creating an internet controversy over it on twitter?

fag

Are you talking about cigarettes or gay men? It's pretty easy for github.

the context would be obvious. your hypothetical is a silly fiction

1. This isn't censorship of the type that is illegal or not allowed. It is a private company deciding a word was inappropriate.

2. It seems like most in this comment thread agree that this action, as a singular act, is a good thing. The word was offensive. Github asked the repo to change it. They did. The end.

3. As for the larger context, the problem with the frequent use of slippery slope arguments and cries of "censorship" is that people are choosing to die on some pretty ridiculous hills.

4. If or when Github actually does something truly abusive of their power to censor, then I'll worry.

By the time #4 on your list happens, what makes you think anybody will be listening?

what kind of doomsday scenario are you imagining? all the open source repos in the world slowly die as github starts censoring increasingly larger portions of the english language?

The worst that would happen is what's happening in GamerGate right now: a split along ideological lines. Those who want to judge the merit of a work based on its code and those who want to judge the merit of a work based on the political opinions of the author.

I don't see that split happening right now and I often browse /r/kotakuinaction, which is one of the central gamergater hubs.

Also user Snesker, you have been hell-banned.

I'm imagining a nightmare scenario where, by some vauge unwritten and immature consensus mechanism, we rationalize even a slight amount of censorship as being OK.

The actual nightmare scenario is that people with learning disability are killed by doctors because those doctors think "retards have no quality of life". When people toss around the word retard they contribute to a culture that doesn't care about the high levels of violent hate crime experienced by people with a learning disability.

And most posts seem to miss the point: their servers, their rules. No one is stopping you from having an open source project that uses the word retard, they're just stopping you from using Github. There's a bunch of other censorship that Github does.

You may not use the Service for any illegal or unauthorized purpose. You must not, in the use of the Service, violate any laws in your jurisdiction (including but not limited to copyright or trademark laws).

This, in particular, is restrictive.

(Also: we're all assuming the screenshot is genuine.)

The actual nightmare scenario is that people with learning disability are killed by doctors because those doctors think "retards have no quality of life".

Woah, that escalated quickly. How the hell did we go from offensive words to hospitals as state run eugenics labs in one sentence?

Welcome to HN. The new motto around here is "we're actually worse than reddit."

So now graffiti removal is a nightmare scenario.

Actually, mature consensus on some graffiti is that it is art and should be treasured in the moment it exits. Banksy, for example. People are totally OK with removal for aesthetics, instead of the previously mentioned censorship.

First they came for the cussers and swearers, but I didn't speak out because I don't cuss or swear.

Then they came for the homophobes and cisgendered bigots, and I cheered them on, because I value diversity.

Then they came for the conspiracy theorists, and I didn't speak out because I don't believe the reptoids are evil.

Then they came for me, and there was none left to speak out.

the original poem is about how germans systematically eradicated entire racial and political groups.

you're comparing it to a website that won't let you save certain content onto their servers.

A website that, at the moment, retains a significant percentage of the entire free and open source software ecosystem. No, it's not quite as bad as genocide, but we're not suggesting putting anybody to death as a result either.

It's not a government, it doesn't have a monopoly on violence or information. People use it freely, and they can easily get most of their information out (wikis and issues no, but it's obvious that they are not part of the repo when you start to use it).

You can argue that it's bad, but for fuck's sake, don't compare it to a totalitarian regime that killed tens of millions of people. Please.

You can argue that it's bad, but for fuck's sake, don't compare it to a totalitarian regime that killed tens of millions of people. Please.

Why not? Before it became official government policy to discriminate against jews in Germany, it was considered socially acceptable to do so. Those people voted in the totalitarian regime. Recognizing this as a first step towards greater atrocities is not out of line.

Your first line is wrong. This is not about swearing, it's about using a word that causes harm.

Then they came for me, and there was none left to speak out.

...apart from the vast majority of people, because most people don't feel the need to use words like nigger or retard in their open source projects.

So why should you be able to say nigger and retard on hacker news? Why stop at open source repos? Why not extend it to all forums and social media?

You have to be careful in the way you use nigger or retard on HN. Calling other people a those will probably result in a comment killed by user flags. Repeated use will result in a shadow ban. Casual use of the word retard (not in the context of mechanisms) might see a few downvotes to poke people into more creative insults.

Most people don't want to use such words and are glad they aren't used in normal conversation. They don't miss cross-burnings; they don't miss similarly violent words.

This is probably a cultural thing. I live in the UK which does not have a free press and which does not have freedom of speech. Most UK citizens find the US position to be extreme. Most UK citizens don't worry about banning Westboro Baptist Church from protesting funerals.

(And, again, this is assuming that Github has actually done something. They might not have; they might be ignoring all reports about the retard word and this is all a troll who faked an email.)

it's about using a word that causes harm

Words do not cause harm. It's a slippery slope to total censorship and thought policing to think otherwise.

Imagine you're a parent who happens upon a repo that uses the word "retard" as a replacement for "stupid person" or "idiot". You also happen to have a mentally disabled child.

Perhaps you would have contributed to that repository and now you won't. That seems materially harmful to me, to reduce the sum total of people contributing to open source.

Compare that to the potential of falling down a slippery slope to "total censorship" and I think there's a reasonable case, in a utilitarian sense, for Github's actions here.

Elsewhere in this thread you can find a comment from a brother of a mentally handicapped person who explains why he'd prefer the term 'retard'. So it's not that simple. I suspect that rational people (i.e., worthy contributors) won't take offence that easy.

Compare that to the potential of falling down a slippery slope to "total censorship"

This is not a "potential". We're already rolling down that path with a very little chance to ever stop. Brendan Eich, Orson Scott Card, Matt Taylor, Tim Hunt - among the most high profile victims, with countless numbers under the radar.

The only intolerance society should promote is the intolerance of intolerant beliefs. Bucketing people off as "rational people" and "worthy contributors" because they disagree with your beliefs is an unfortunate way of dismissing conversation, probably something that you dislike when people that oppose your beliefs do it. That is, I'd say that claiming that all "rational people" would agree with you is minimally different than when "SJWs" cry "homophobe" to "polarize" discussion.

Also, how does the partial social ostracizing of the people you've listed amount to censorship? In the case of the first two, I'd say that their beliefs amount to censorship of another group of people. Don't want to allow a certain segment of the population to do the same thing that other segments already do? Sounds like censorship to me. For the latter two, I would say that those are probably unfortunate cases of a trigger-happy outrage-seeking media machine, that hones in on soundbites and screenshots. I do think that people can choose their words/attire/actions more carefully to be more inclusive of all, but I don't think we should crucify people when they fail to do that.

Imagine you're a person who hates women who happens upon a repo that uses "she" as the universal gender. Perhaps you would have contributed to that repository and now you won't. Is it therefore "harmful" to use "she" as universal gender?

"People with biases might not like it" gives basically everyone a heckler's veto. Now I recognize that you don't actually plan to give everyone with a bias such a veto - only the people you agree with - but your stated principle is not a good one.

This is a valid point. I don't really have a response to it other than, I know people like the one I asked y'all to imagine, but I'm having trouble thinking of anyone I know who might fit your imaginary person's description.

You're probably right that this betrays a bias of mine. And you're also probably right that this isn't a great guiding principle for decision-making in the future.

Still, if I'm interested in increasing the total number of people contributing to open source projects, I would give an issue like the use of the word "retard" a fighter's chance.

Maybe it's not worth bending on free speech in some specific cases, but there is a point where it is worth it, ie, if there are enough people in the offended audience that the chance of losing a potential contributor is nontrivial.

You do know "stupid person" and "idiot" are equally offensive, right? I mean the three are pretty much synonymous with each other.

Bit tricky if you include "dyslexic" (higher incidence of high IQ) in your definition of LD.

See how your ignorance of the topic misled you?

Words do cause harm. It's a failure of imagination to think otherwise.

When you use the word retard you dehumanise people with LD. You contribute to a culture where it's okay to deny those people work; to segregate them in specialist housing; to deny them medical treatment; to kill them with lack of medical treatment.

It's a slippery slope to eugenics and genocide to think otherwise.

When you use the word retard you dehumanise people with LD.

No. When I use the word "retard" I'm pointing out on a lack of mental ability demonstrated by a particular person. And I do not even want to discuss anything that contains the SJW newspeak like "dehumanise", "empower", "exclude" and all that crap.

You contribute to a culture where it's okay to deny those people work; to segregate them in specialist housing; to deny them medical treatment; to kill them with lack of medical treatment.

Your imagination is likely boosted by an illegal substances abuse.

It's a slippery slope to eugenics

Yes, another victim of the early SJWs. There is nothing wrong with the idea of eugenics per se, problems arise with its potential uses. I admire the eugenics efforts of Singapore, for example, and will be delighted to see where it all goes.

and genocide to think otherwise.

It's a bullshit scaremongering to put these two words in one sentence.

People with learning disability have been the target of eugenics in various forms. They've been subjected to sterilisation sometimes without their knowledge and sometimes against their will. They've been interned in segregated care homes. They've been murdered - either directly killed because they have LD or allowed to die by doctors refusing to provide medical care or placing DNR notices without the patient's (or their family's) knowledge and consent. They've been shot and killed by police who lack skills to work woth people with LD. People with LD were used as subjects of medical experimentation against their will and without their knowledge. They were told they were being innoculated against hepititus when they were being infected with hepititus. (This was in the 1970s, a long time after Nürnburg Code and after Helsinki agreement). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willowbrook_State_School

Hundreds of thousands of learning disabled people have been killed purely because they have a learning disability. I stand by the genocide claim.

You guys may be thinking about two different contexts:

1. calling someone with a disability a retard (which I would never, ever do)

2. using the word "retarded" in a generic sense. For example: I may have called my kids retarded, in exasperation, for doing something nonsensical. Not elegant, but has been used as a figure of speech, of sorts, for ever.

My problem with censoring words (and political correctness in general) is that it is an overly simplistic intent to make the world a gentler place - even if you forbid people from saying/writing certain words, you will not change how they think/behave.

Nobody dares to use the n... word, but there are still a lot of racists (and reverse-racists, it needs to be said) out there. The only way to fix it is education and culture - no other way around it.

Your child is eating something. You ask if you can try a bit. They laughingly say "no way! These are mine!"

Do you then continue the joke? "stop being such a Jew! Give me a chip!"

Are you saying it's fine to use that word because it's just a joke? It's not a serious insult?

a lot of racists (and reverse-racists, it needs to be said)

No such thing as reverse racists, it's all just racism and racists.

Do you support banning all github projects that use the word "insane"? I assume you must, to be consistent in your morals.

Your words caused harm to me, could you delete your comment? I am very offended.

Hi. I've lived my life with a closeted gender because of words spoken by my parents, friends, and incredulous members of the LGBT community. It lead to depression, frustration, and many wasted opportunities. Now that I am no longer concealing this I still receive regular discouragement that is extremely frustrating.

The idea that "words do not cause harm" is so ludicrous. What if I started a rumor that cost you your job? What if I planted drawings (no one harmed) of child pornography on your computer? What if I reveal you perjured yourself in court?

All these things are just words. All these things could lead to consequences in your life, of varying types.

Of course semantics can hurt, obviously. But the choice of synonyms does not, and anyone claiming otherwise must try really hart to prove such an outrageous claim.

"idiot" is not a synonym for the word in question here. This is similar to saying that "t*ny" and "transsexual" are synonyms. They're not.

Let me give you an example of how referring to you in an insulting way can change your attitudes and discourage conversation.

1. Words have a lesser impact on you because you've [a lucky person] who doesn't live a life were they have been used to deny you opportunity and basic humanity constantly.

2. Words have a lesser impact on you because you're [a white male] who doesn't live a life where they have been used to deny you opportunity and basic humanity constantly.

Looking around the internet, #2 certainly seems more contentious. But let's be honest here, the overlap of case 1 and case 2 is much more likely in most of the western world than other ethnicity and gender and sexual orientation we could put in there.

You're right. This is just like the Holocaust.

Github is itself using an offensive term...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_(slang)

They also gladly index and help you find brainfuck repos.

I can't say fuck on TV, but it's ok on Github.

I can't say retard on Github, but it's ok on TV.

I'm glad we've accomplished something here.

Doesn't that reassure you?

Assuming this letter is true: they're not stopping you from using offensive words, they're stopping you from using a very small set of words because those words contribute to a culture that cause actual harm.

TV is a poor example: it's fine to make jokes about male rape on TV, but everyone loses their shit when an obscured nipple is shown.

Assuming this letter is true: they're not stopping you from using offensive words, they're stopping you from using a very small set of words because those words contribute to a culture that cause actual harm.

Says who? What you are describing is textbook censorship.

You're offended? So what. Not my problem, step away from the computer.

You're offended? So what. Not my problem, step away from the computer.

Fortunately, you don't own GitHub.

The cognitive dissonance of people downvoting comments when they are complaining about censorship is baffling.

The hypocrisy is weird.

because those words contribute to a culture that cause actual harm.

No it doesn't. Where's your proof?

Plenty of people have said plenty of nasty things throughout the years, and no one died.

Yet our empire uses remote control drones to bomb small children, and that's totally OK. (Now there's a real "culture that causes actual harm")

What is really harmful, and what isn't? Take a good, hard look around.

Sticks and stones (and bombs) will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

Try it. Go on. Call me whatever you want. And watch me not give two fucks what you think.

Sticks and stones (and bombs) will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

I guess you've never experienced school.

'retarded' in it's current usage is not offensive. It means "very foolish or stupid."

'retarded' in it's dated usage is offensive, but it wasn't being used in that sense in the repo in question. This dated usage has fortunately fallen pretty much completely out of common usage.

If I tell you "my brother is retarded" you know exactly what I mean because if I had wanted to tell you that my brother has a learning disability I would have used a different word than 'retarded'.

So like how "lame" used to mean crippled or physically disabled but now generally doesn't in an informal context?

I can't say fuck on TV, but it's ok on Github.

'Fuck' is frequently used on TV.

No it's not. It's one of the "seven dirty words": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_dirty_words

You can get fined a lot of money if you say it over the air. The FCC doesn't regulate cable, however. But those companies set their own standards, as do advertisers, and do limit or ban cuss words.

Typically cuss words will be bleeped if it is used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleep_censor . However people are so used to bleeps that their mind often fills in the cuss word.

'Seven Dirty Words' is from 1972, and includes 'piss' and 'shit'. It's hardly a canonical reference for 2015. I recall Grampa Simpson using 'piss' in the mid-90s, for example...

To add to that

5. Github as a commercial entity is pretty unlikely to abuse their (indeed worrying, but not scary yet) ability to censor unless some suits decide that they are big enough to not worry about the very community that made them big (IOW, I won't worry until they do a reddit).

"This isn't censorship of the type that is illegal or not allowed. It is a private company deciding a word was inappropriate."

As a Github user, that kind of thinking worries me. Google Code went away, and Sourceforge started packaging adware and spyware with other people's projects. They could do this because "they were a private company". Now Github's management is starting to throw their weight around. We now need to think about a backup plan in case Github management gets out of line. All their value, after all, is created by others.

We now need to think about a backup plan in case Github management gets out of line.

This is a distributed source control system. Keep a clone of the repo somewhere. Your source code is now no longer bound to Github.

That's not the only reason people use Github. It's the Facebook of programmers in some sense and it's got a critical mass that switching to something else is not practicable (not without some serious momentum).

"It's the Facebook of programmers"

Business Insider agrees.[1] Github, Inc. is now valued at $2 billion.

Right. Which means we have to worry about Github's management starting to think like Zuckerberg: "All your life is belong to us."

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/github-raises-200-million-wor...

I think this is an unfair jump because they do have a legitimate business model with enterprise revenue - they don't need to start owning your life to continue to exist.

Advertising is a higher margin business.

What about your issues, pull requests, visiblity of forks?

You mean like https://gitlab.com/ or http://gogs.io/ or http://getgitorious.com/ or any of the other open source git servers that you can install on your own machine?

Not to say that Github couldn't close down some of their API endpoints in the future (like reading issues/comments), but they're one of the web services I use that I _don't_ actually fear lock-in on.

If I want to migrate to any of platforms, how difficult is it to get everything of of github (including tickets, etc) and set up a redirect on github?

I know gitlab has an option to log into your github account and I believe you can copy everything down.

I use gitlab pretty much exclusively and I prefer it to github by a large margin.

I do maintain a "public"(you likely won't come across it unless you know about it) gitlab server and host a few people's repos including my own. I mean you have to trust me instead of github, but the server is always up to date, and I won't take down anything that isn't illegal. If anyone is interested, feel free to shoot me an email.