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by dividedbyzero 1484 days ago
Frequently this has to be mandated to some degree, otherwise you get people who feel using male pronouns and names exclusively is fine even if the target audience is overwhelmingly female or that "shit" is a perfectly fine synonym for "stuff" in official documents or that terms that are considered brutally racist by everyone but the very far right are fine for public release because they are technically correct in an extremely narrow way. It saves everyone a lot of time and breath if there is a mandatory set of guidelines to point to; adhere to them or this will not get released. If those guidelines are done well, it's hardly ever an issue except for those special types that are on some kind of crusade or whatever.
1 comments
blep_ 1484 days ago
> terms that are considered brutally racist by everyone but the very far right

Are you talking about "master"? There are plenty of people outside the very far right who agree that slavery is bad but think that particular rule desperately needs some context-sensitivity.

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dividedbyzero 1484 days ago
No, not "master", I don't think that would fit the "anyone but the far right" and it's perceived as a mostly US-centric issue here (we have other radioactive terms made so by local history), so mandating that probably wouldn't have helped us with a local audience anyway. The actual term wasn't English and was pejoratively descriptive of a visual characteristic associated with a certain racial background. I can't think of a similar term in English (there must be a bunch, though) but it was an obvious racial slur and really not something you'd expect anyone could seriously want to use unless on the very far right fringe or something like that.

The only people I remember with whom things like that had to be brought up were either apparently trying to use the brand for political leverage (which really isn't an option, can't do that) or had difficulty "getting" subtext and nuances in general paired with strong opinions on how they thought people parse language.

That's what I mean by "done well", only mandate what really would cause damage otherwise and be conservative about that, most people will try to minimize damage anyway and will be fine, but some people won't or can't and having that written down and declared mandatory helps clear up such situations.

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