What can we do to keep this site civil / professional / work safe?

Question

I'm not really pleased to see things on the site that are not work-safe, such as this answer to the question about "nub" pointing sticks in keyboards that used a genitalia part name (not nipple). [Note: it originally showed an XKCD comic that is now linked instead.]

Hey, I'm all for humor, and I actually find that particular comic funny, and I may have even thought of the same thing—but thought of the same thing. I didn't plaster it on my screen and the screens of hundreds or thousands of unsuspecting visitors.

Does this community really want the site to be the kind that makes users hope no one looks over their shoulder while visiting? I don't work in, shall we say, an "understanding" environment, and unnecessary references to female genitalia part names in an eye-catching way is problematic for me.

What do you think?

Answer 1

This comes up on occasion, and our response has usually been the same. Jeff's post is still on point:

https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/22233/98786

Expletives are not acceptable behavior on meta or any other Stack Overflow site. If you can't effectively communicate what you need to say without resorting to lowest common denominator cursing, then keep it to yourself.

But this isn't about a "legal issue," per se. That's not the point. This is about maintaining a civil/professional and — oy, I hate this word — "work safe" atmosphere.

This isn't a statement about freedom of speech nor am I going going to try an enumerate what words can be said an what context they can be used. It's entirely possible that the occasional off-color expletive can be perfectly appropriate for the context. But let's err towards maintaining a professional environment that keeps us focused on the task at hand.

Sites should feel free to moderate for content while not getting into these freedom-of-speech arguments and edit wars. This isn't a legality thing. This is about saying when you don't want something posted because it does not add to the content of the site.

Answer 2

Are expletives allowed on SE sites? on Meta Stack Overflow is the closest we have to an official statement in this kind of area. And while it looks undecided do note that the top answer (there by a tiny margin) was placed by Jeff, who was one of the network founders, so in general the answer is roughly:

No, we don't accept expletives or offensive language (or other content types) on the site.

The problem is "offensive" is pretty hard to define universally and there are very different ideas of what constitutes offensive across the globe (and even within local communities) and therefore within our user base.

So as a rough guideline, I would suggest the following:

1. If you see something that you, personally, consider to be offensive then please go ahead and edit it out (or, if it can't be edited then please flag it for a moderator).

2. However, don't edit out something you're OK with but are concerned someone else might be offended by. This just starts a race to the bottom where any word with the slightness possible rude meaning could get purged.

3. If someone replaces any content your removed, then please just flag for a moderator and move on - don't go getting caught in edit wars.

Answer 3

In defence of the XKCD comic - context is everything. Whenever someone asks me what the trackpoint is called, that's actually what I link to them. I've not got one complaint about it being NSFW. Most people in addition, either call it the little red eraser thing, or mouse NWORD - so sanitising the question of the word may have made answering the question harder.

While the action taken was a suitable middle ground, I don't think it would be obvious to most people that the comic was NSFW. In addition, one of the two names (the one starting with n) is something I often came across working with auto mechanics - for example, I found greasing NWORDs on trailers, and it was not censored out.

I'd think that unless the actual intent was to post NSFW language maliciously, we really can't and shouldn't go overboard on PCness. In this case the use of the NWORD was necessary in establishing context, especially if you didn't know what a trackpoint was called - editing out after it was answered made it easier, I suppose, but if someone complained about the NWORD in the question, I would have found it odd.

All in all, I suspect that was actually an appropriate use of the NWORD and other body parts, and any reasonable individual not using a dumb word flter would have noticed. If so, it's not as much a problem of offensive language, as slightly bizzare workplace policies.

Edit: removed references to giggling uncontrollably - see edit log. Now read on.

More importantly, Safe for work (SFW) is variable. Anecdotally, apparently this is SFW for me. Hypothetically you obviously find it NSFW. Anecdotal things actually happen.

I'm saying context is what's important, and both of the 'offensive' terms used are common and customary terms for a on-keyboard pointing device. I personally prefer to call it the red eraser thing. More importantly, I do not think self-censorship with the intent of keeping a question or answer to fit in with a arbitrary value of work safeness is productive. Do we apply $cultural values of SFW? Do we ban the mention of buns because it would disturb discordians? Or do we do the sensible thing and actually read the over all context? This is an edge case and one where a significant portion of people who regularly use the site wouldn't have an issue with the original posts I suspect.

What would be the effect of reading XKCD at work? In a geeky environment, nothing at all. In one less so, maybe. On the other hand, in context there's very few situations where a comic would be a suitable answer to a question and this is one of them.