I don’t know about Alicorn, but when I say I find something offensive as opposed to being offended, it’s not that it has no effect on me. Whether you take it as a personal offence or not, being unthinkingly excluded from a group (/being thought of as a non-person by the group, etc) is not something that makes you want to remain or become part of it. It’s a logical next step to suggest that what puts me off, as a long-time reader of OB, seems to have a reasonable chance of entirely putting off other women who stumble across LW, but even if you’d rather not take that step, the fact is that real, non-hypothetical people are put off by this stuff even if they aren’t personally offended.
I agree that tabooing “offensive” might be a good idea.
Edited because I thought of a possibly-useful way of extending what Jack said. I do a bit of work as an editor/proofreader for another site. It quite often happens that I come across a sentence with tangled syntax or something that momentarily puzzles me. I have to go back and read it again or concentrate for a moment in order to understand what the author is saying. When I point this out and perhaps suggest an improvement, I occasionally get the response: “But you obviously figured out exactly what I meant; it must be understandable.” Well, sure. I did figure it out. But you could give me an easier reading experience, avoid a potential stumbling block for others, and make your message a bit clearer by fixing up that sentence a little.
Similarly, I may have got over the moment of feeling excluded or whatever with no harm done. But what’s the point in obscuring your message with little things like that, even if it probably won’t affect all of your audience, when alternatives are just as good?
Similarly, I may have got over the moment of feeling excluded or whatever with no harm done. But what’s the point in obscuring your message with little things like that, even if it probably won’t affect all of your audience, when alternatives are just as good?
You don’t usually get flame wars over bad writing. That needs to be explained, and the cause resolved.
I see your point, but I think it’s fairly easily explicable and works in both ways. No one feels specifically excluded by poor syntax! In the other direction: pointing out that someone has written a sentence with twisted syntax can be perceived as an attack on their writing skills, but pointing out that someone has written a sentence that might be exclusionary to certain people can be perceived as an attack on their character. The impulse to be more defensive over the latter is understandable.
I don’t know about Alicorn, but when I say I find something offensive as opposed to being offended, it’s not that it has no effect on me. Whether you take it as a personal offence or not, being unthinkingly excluded from a group (/being thought of as a non-person by the group, etc) is not something that makes you want to remain or become part of it. It’s a logical next step to suggest that what puts me off, as a long-time reader of OB, seems to have a reasonable chance of entirely putting off other women who stumble across LW, but even if you’d rather not take that step, the fact is that real, non-hypothetical people are put off by this stuff even if they aren’t personally offended.
I agree that tabooing “offensive” might be a good idea.
Edited because I thought of a possibly-useful way of extending what Jack said. I do a bit of work as an editor/proofreader for another site. It quite often happens that I come across a sentence with tangled syntax or something that momentarily puzzles me. I have to go back and read it again or concentrate for a moment in order to understand what the author is saying. When I point this out and perhaps suggest an improvement, I occasionally get the response: “But you obviously figured out exactly what I meant; it must be understandable.” Well, sure. I did figure it out. But you could give me an easier reading experience, avoid a potential stumbling block for others, and make your message a bit clearer by fixing up that sentence a little.
Similarly, I may have got over the moment of feeling excluded or whatever with no harm done. But what’s the point in obscuring your message with little things like that, even if it probably won’t affect all of your audience, when alternatives are just as good?
You don’t usually get flame wars over bad writing. That needs to be explained, and the cause resolved.
You clearly haven’t done much editing! :)
I see your point, but I think it’s fairly easily explicable and works in both ways. No one feels specifically excluded by poor syntax! In the other direction: pointing out that someone has written a sentence with twisted syntax can be perceived as an attack on their writing skills, but pointing out that someone has written a sentence that might be exclusionary to certain people can be perceived as an attack on their character. The impulse to be more defensive over the latter is understandable.
Which could lead to interesting arguments if it wasn’t intended as an attack on their character.
I wonder if that’s some of what was going on here?
Exactly.