Context: Yesterday a user created a Bluesky account using the N-word as their handle and, unsurprisingly, people were not happy and there was clamor for the Bluesky dev team to add a filter at the account creation level.
They're on the same level insofar as it's been deemed serious enough by someone to put on this list. Just funny to see it on a list filled with ethnic slurs and a couple disability slurs, looks very out of place to see an extremely-online insult alongside slurs with tons of historical baggage.
Does it really surprise you to see an extremely-online insult being included in a black list for an app for extremely-online people? I genuinely can't understand the confusion.
I don’t know why an array in source code would imply an ordering to you; it’s much more likely the author just picked a a list online.
Note that this list also contains several terms that are either reappropriations or contextual uses, and only applies to usernames. This is more or less what any social media network of a nontrivial size does.
They are missing the T word, the F word, the D word, the S word, and the M word. Now obviously only some of those are racial slurs but I think keeping this in the code base rather than a database is definitely asking for issues
> T word, the F word, the D word, the S word, and the M word
God, this is so childish. Perhaps you think that list should also only list words as "f-word" and have software interpret what it refers to so as not to offend anyone reading the code.
Funny anecdote about this: in the podcast "Blocked and Reported" one of the presenters tells a story she heard from a mother. Her child learned in school that "under no circumstance is it okay to say the n-word because it's the most vile, horrible, unforgivable thing anyone can say". The kid is 7 years old (or about that age) and has no idea what the n-word is so he asks the teacher. But the teacher refuses to say it because she's bound by her own logic of "under no circumstance" so kid is has no idea which of the many words beginning with n he's not supposed to say.
I also have a funny anecdote: I made a comment in Hacker News saying a list of slurs was incomplete and only mentioning the initial letters of a few slur words not everyone understood me.
The point of not mentioning a full word was because for a slur to be a slur it needs to be in a shared context. Otherwise maybe it's just a shortened version of Michael or an embankment used to prevent flooding. The child in your anecdote is a perfect example of that. Thank you.
Thanks, albeit I was tongue-in-cheek, I was thinking F-word woukd be fuck, and all the other blew over my head. I couldn't understand why they would censor fuck in a nickname.
Slur blacklists have a problem with different languages.
Was actually thinking Dyke, Seppo, and Mick to keep with the theme of slurs against groups of people. (Slut is obviously a slur as well but I think dick and motherfucker are just insults...
At least they don’t have Guido in it… yet. I have major problems signing up for services these days. There’s some list out there that programmers use that says that my name is a slur.
The name was so popular in Italy it ended up becoming a “slur” (though personally the only time I’ve ever heard someone called Guido is when that was their name). I wonder if that will ever happen with other languages and their common names, I’m Russian so I immediately think of “Sergey” as one of our ultra common names.
Some slurs have large organizations behind them telling people they need to be mad. Others don't, and people end up not caring. My background is split 50/50 and both of them have common slurs associated with them. Nobody in my family cares cares, including me.
You might want to actually read that wikipedia post.....
"The slang term Guido is used in American culture to refer derogatorily to an urban working-class Italian or Italian-American male who is overly aggressive or macho with a tendency for certain conspicuous behavior.[3] It may also be used as a more general ethnic slur for working-class urban Italian Americans.[4]"
Okay? Strawman much? I'm not arguing that anyone do anything about it. I'm just telling you objectively what it is. The Wikipedia article YOU cited disagrees with you...
I think that the reappropriation of slurs, like yankee, whig, tory, queer, etc., is a positive thing. But this practice serves to lock them in place, helping to insure that they remain slurs.
This is proof that vampires are real and they walk among us. You need to prune slurs more than two centuries old. Otherwise the mortals will catch on to you.
Let me be the first to bring Jung into this, "What you resist, persists", in trying to avoid the usage of slurs, you had to go and commit them to a public branch of source code to be saved in the arctic vault for eternity.
Funny enough I went to a Krautrock mini-festival a few weeks ago, here in Germany. Nobody I know cares about the term "kraut". At this point it is just outdated WW2 lingo that never caught on here.
I feel like "Kartoffel" is often used in a more offensive way. Although I've never really seen someone getting really offended.
I think that is one group of people where English-based slurs haven't stuck. But on the other hand the languages around Germany have still plenty of slurs for Germans, which funnily won't be caught by the bluesky filter.
It's supposedly used by neighbor countries and foreigners to refer to Germans. But it's common to see people of other areas using potato-related slurs against Irish and Russians too.
Yes, but they're currently prefederation (can't run your own instance yet) and still making architectural decisions about how moderation will work.
they're balancing onboarding new users with keeping up with high expectations of their current userbase. I'm not sure how the federation story compares with mastadon, I've mostly heard talk of composite block lists (everyone you block is public on bluesky so you could have rules that say block everyone that x,y,z have blocked, minus people I follow)
Yes, but since they’re by far the largest instance right now and would prob degenerate with you, you’d need to be cool with the fact that only people on your instance and some small other ones would be able to see your posts.
Pretty much. To clarify, Bluesky is a client that uses the AT Protocol. The instance that Bluesky the client uses is bsky.app, but anyone can create their own instance that doesn't refer to this slur list when someone creates an account.
What'll happen though is that the bsky.app instance (which is the largest one and basically the flagship right now) will probably de-federate with instances that have usernames that include those slurs.
I hope they have fewer typos in their slur list than in their code comments :)
I started reading the list from the bottom up, and saw the N word written with a W a first letter. I first thought they were going to do a .replace("W", "N") to avoid spelling the word in plain text.
They'll have issues once github bans slurs from source code! ;)
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 173 ms ] threadMurder and tax evasion are both crimes, does that mean they're on the same level?
Note that this list also contains several terms that are either reappropriations or contextual uses, and only applies to usernames. This is more or less what any social media network of a nontrivial size does.
I think it’s “SoyBoy” for anyone clueless as me.
There goes the GYP project handle[0]. At least GNU Gimp is still safe :)
[0] https://gyp.gsrc.io/
Also, there are a lot more languages than English. Do you want to ban all acronyms that sound like a slur in one of them?
God, this is so childish. Perhaps you think that list should also only list words as "f-word" and have software interpret what it refers to so as not to offend anyone reading the code.
Funny anecdote about this: in the podcast "Blocked and Reported" one of the presenters tells a story she heard from a mother. Her child learned in school that "under no circumstance is it okay to say the n-word because it's the most vile, horrible, unforgivable thing anyone can say". The kid is 7 years old (or about that age) and has no idea what the n-word is so he asks the teacher. But the teacher refuses to say it because she's bound by her own logic of "under no circumstance" so kid is has no idea which of the many words beginning with n he's not supposed to say.
The point of not mentioning a full word was because for a slur to be a slur it needs to be in a shared context. Otherwise maybe it's just a shortened version of Michael or an embankment used to prevent flooding. The child in your anecdote is a perfect example of that. Thank you.
mind you, I only condone usage of the 3rd and 5th.
Slur blacklists have a problem with different languages.
WOP is another one, but again it's gets laughed off for the most part.
I always find it strange how some slurs get clung to like people don't want them to go away.
"The slang term Guido is used in American culture to refer derogatorily to an urban working-class Italian or Italian-American male who is overly aggressive or macho with a tendency for certain conspicuous behavior.[3] It may also be used as a more general ethnic slur for working-class urban Italian Americans.[4]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reappropriation
Let me be the first to bring Jung into this, "What you resist, persists", in trying to avoid the usage of slurs, you had to go and commit them to a public branch of source code to be saved in the arctic vault for eternity.
I feel like "Kartoffel" is often used in a more offensive way. Although I've never really seen someone getting really offended.
Also, I learned some new and interesting words today.
I should open a pull request to add "karen" to the list and see what happens.
they're balancing onboarding new users with keeping up with high expectations of their current userbase. I'm not sure how the federation story compares with mastadon, I've mostly heard talk of composite block lists (everyone you block is public on bluesky so you could have rules that say block everyone that x,y,z have blocked, minus people I follow)
What's stopping you?
https://atproto.com/blog/federation-developer-sandbox
What'll happen though is that the bsky.app instance (which is the largest one and basically the flagship right now) will probably de-federate with instances that have usernames that include those slurs.
I hope they have fewer typos in their slur list than in their code comments :)
I started reading the list from the bottom up, and saw the N word written with a W a first letter. I first thought they were going to do a .replace("W", "N") to avoid spelling the word in plain text.
They'll have issues once github bans slurs from source code! ;)