Thanks, Laura. It is indeed interesting.
While different terms do have different
levels of offensiveness to different groups, I find it curious though that their
use persists. As an Australian and thus possessing a fairly rich
vocabulary of swear words in my everyday speech, nonetheless I seem to be
capable of not using them when communicating with wider audiences. I generally
know quite well what words may be seen as offensive and simply don’t use
them. I think the only one that really took me by surprise was “darned”
with which I once offended someone from the USA southern states, who told me it
was a variant of “damned” (which didn’t really inform me as I
didn’t see the problem with “damned” either). But nonetheless
being an intelligent person capable of learning, I now avoid both of those
words too.
So, while I fully understand that a new
user might use an offensive term without intending or realising it, I find it
hard to understand why that user would continue to do so after it has been
pointed out. It would seem anyone who persists does so deliberately knowing it
causes offence and is probably delighted that it does so. Do we need such
people on Wikipedia? It’s difficult to imagine that such lack of respect
for others could make you an effective collaborator on content.
Of course, sometimes words are not written
with a cool head but in the heat of anger. This is where Wikipedia must take a
portion of blame. A communications medium that allows these words to be visible
to all and retained for all time is very different to angry words exchanged
between two people verbally. I think it is much easier for people to forgive
and forget the verbal lashout than it is to forgive and forget the User Talk
equivalent, in part because there is an audience. Not only has the person been
insulted, they’ve been insulted in front of others. I note that some
forums have a “rude word” filter and either warn or prevent the
user from posting the message. If nothing else, it ensures that any use of such
words is deliberate and therefore the user is liable of censure if used
inappropriately (noting that many of these words can have a literal and
appropriate use). Perhaps we need this on Talk pages?!
Kerry
From:
wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Laura Hale
Sent: Friday, 21 November 2014
2:28 AM
To: Research into Wikimedia
content and communities
Subject: [Wiki-research-l]
Communicating on Wikipedia while female
Hey,
I posted some new research to meta at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Communicating_on_Wikipedia_while_female
. It is titled: Communicating on Wikipedia while female A discursive
analysis of the use of the word cunt on English Wikipedia user talk
pages. Thought it might be of some interest to people on this list.
Sincerely,
Laura Hale
--
twitter: purplepopple