[Mikushi]

>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.

[ectoplasm]

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

Fortunately, you don't own GitHub.

[DanBC]

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

The hypocrisy is weird.

[palmer_eldritch]

Downvoting isn't equal to censorship. The content remains available for anyone with an account.

The commit history of this project remains available too... however, they forbid the authors to use the word in the live version if they want their project to be hosted on github. Now, I guess it's their prerogative to set the rules for people using their service. But I think it's also fair to say that being the facebook of programming it feels like they're kind of bullying the authors into compliance...

I'm pretty sure it's a really a non-story. Someone at github overreacted when a complaint was received. Big deal. If they started blocking accounts for reasons like this on a regular basis, many people would move somewhere else. It's not like they don't have competitors with equally good solutions. Their only advantage is their large userbase.

[morganvachon]

> Downvoting isn't equal to censorship.

Except when it is. Given sufficient downvotes, a post will fade to the same color as the background, making it easy to scroll past and not see it. Whether you want to admit it or not, brigading happens here too, and once in a while a perfectly valid, thoughtful, and reasoned response is silenced because it doesn't fit in with the group mentality here.

The only solution for this issue would be for everyone to adopt a personal policy of only downvoting trolls, intentionally misleading comments, off topic comments, spam, and "me too!" style comments that don't contribute to the discussion. Unfortunately we're only human, and instead of rebutting a comment one disagrees with, many of the users here take the lazy path and downvote. There's no easy fix for that, so the brigading continues, as does the censorship of valid but controversial ideas.

As for the topic at hand; while I agree with most people that the word "retard" is offensive and derogatory towards a specific group of people, I find it hilarious that its use is being questioned by people running a site/service named after an equally offensive and derogatory word.

[palmer_eldritch]

> Except when it is. Given sufficient downvotes, a post will fade to the same color as the background, making it easy to scroll past and not see it.

It doesn't change anything. The content is still available for anyone to see if they want to.

Censorship is about making content unavailable. Not giving the exact same visibility to everything out there isn't censorship. Or upvoting is also a form of censorship, since it moves content above less-upvoted comments making less-upvoted comments more likely to be missed by people who won't scroll to the end of the page.

And for anyone used to HN's way of doing things, it's not hard to spot faded comments and highlight them if they seem of interest given the context around them.

[morganvachon]

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. For me, attempting to whitewash something you don't agree with is censorship, and Merriam-Webster agrees with me, given their definition of "censor" means to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable (emphasis mine):

"Full Definition of CENSOR transitive verb : to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable <censor the news>"[1]

[1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censoring

[DanBC]

Git is not equivalent to retard. Git is an everyday word. You can definitely get away with calling a pal a grumpy git. You're not going to get away with calling peoe retards unless you know them very well. And don't do so in public.

At least, this is the case for the UK.

[morganvachon]

And 100 years ago you could get away with calling someone who was mentally impaired a "retard". That's the wonderful thing about language, it's always evolving.

Personally, if someone called me a "git" or a "retard" I would take it exactly the same way, since they are both connotations for "idiot" or "slow thinker".

[DanBC]

> Downvoting isn't equal to censorship.

In every thread about downvoting ever you have people who strongly feel that downvoting anything other than flagrant rule-breaking posts is censorship - it makes the content less available.

> The content remains available for anyone with an account.

Github are not magically destroying content. They're just removing it from their servers. Since they own those servers it seems reasonable that they are allowed to chose what goes onto them. We can disagree about where they draw the line, but some people in this thread seem to think that Github does not have the right to draw that line anywhere.

[marrs]

    Downvoting isn't equal to censorship

Downvoting obscures the post being downvoted, so it kind of is.

[jazzyk]

Down-voting can be used as censorship, if not used properly. As in downvoting because you don't agree with the opinion, rather than because the post is irrelevant, ad-hominem, or content-free. If you don't agree, post a rebuttal.

[DanBC]

> I'm pretty sure it's a really a non-story.

I agree. In this thead I'm assuming that the email is real.

[jazzyk]

>"Fortunately, you don't own GitHub."

The above comment was downvoted (not by me) because it does not contribute anything to the discussion (everyone knows he does not own Github)