Puzzled: Is calling a mixed-race person a mongrel really a matter of opinion?

Question

Can "mongrel" be used to refer to people is on hold as primarily opinion-based.

It is, of course true, that in the opinion of some people it is OK, even required, to hurl any epithet, insult, obscenity or unkind word at a person different from themselves. Is this why the use of mongrel to refer to mixed race people was deemed a matter of opinion? And the context in which it might be OK? There are plenty of references which give guidance.

If someone had asked the same question about the n-word, would it have been closed as a matter of opinion? Closing the question as asking for writing advice might have been just barely understandable; closing it as a matter of opinion is inexplicable.

Answer 1

I agree with you that the close reason is not well chosen. It seems highly likely to me that the first close voter selected "primarily opinion based" because it was the prefab close reason that came closest to the actual reason the voter had for wanting to close the question. If the voter had taken the time to write a custom close reason, it probably would have said something along the lines of "I am voting to close this question as off topic because it is a request for writing advice."

The bigger issue that your Meta post raises is whether using the closest multiple-choice close reason when none really fits is a sound practice. Obviously the benefit to the close voter is that it helps move an objectionable question nearer to being closed with a minimum of effort on the close voter’s part. The harm is primarily to the person who posted the question, but also to EL&U's goal of generating better questions. After all, the theory behind identifying a reason for closure (as I understand it) is to educate the person who posted the faulty question—and others—as to what is wrong with it. If that weren’t the point, Stack Exchange might as well permit unexplained, drive-by close voting, just as it does unexplained, drive-by downvoting.

If someone posts an answer that is objectionable because it is green, and the multiple-choice close reasons available are red, yellow, blue, orange, and purple, a close voter might argue that selecting “I am voting to close this question because it is blue” or “I am voting to close this question because it is yellow” is the most reasonable choice—but that rationale ignores the option of writing a customized answer that identifies what is actually wrong with the question. And of course, if you don't accurately explain a question’s failings, you don’t enlighten the person who posted the question about the question’s real defects.

This leads to a second problem with choosing an inaccurate prefab close reason: stringing the questioner along. I see this happen most often with the “show research” close reason. Someone asks a writing advice question or a homework question or too-localized-to-be-of-interest-to-anyone-else question, and close voters respond by voting to close on grounds that the questioner didn’t show any results of personal research. Every now and then, in response to such a closure, a questioner will go back and say “I looked in reference books and couldn’t find an answer to my question” and ask that the question be reopened—and then one of two things happens: reviewers in the Reopen Votes queue decline to reopen the question because they implicitly recognize that the actual defectiveness of the original question was not cured by showing research, or they reopen the question and then they or other reviewers vote to reclose the question on other grounds.

Far too often, we review-queue voters are sloppy, inaccurate, and lazy in our application of close reasons. We would show more respect for everyone concerned if we held ourselves to the standard of identifying what is actually wrong with a faulty question, rather than taking the easy route of selecting the most nearly applicable multiple-choice option, even when it isn’t particularly near. At the very least, close voters who don’t want to bother with providing an on-point justification for their close vote might consider selecting ‘off-topic because...’ > ‘Other (add a comment explaining what is wrong)’ > ‘I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it’s bad.’ They’ll spend only slightly more time voting to close in this way than they do now, and they won’t mislead OPs with spurious nearest-prefab-choice close reasons.

Answer 2

I'm translating a fantasy novel into English. In the story there are a bunch of races

I would cast my vote to close the question a second time, if the question is reopened (which seems likely) because

1. it's a work of pure fiction and as such an author is free to choose any word that he or she feels is most appropriate. This feels more like writing advice to me.

would it [mongrels] be awkward for humans? I picked this word intentionally to bring a bad connotation to mind.

2. The OP clearly knows that the term is often used derogatorily for dogs/animals, it follows that some readers will object but others will just roll with it because the story is fantasy/science fiction. If the OP were translating an essay on anthropology or a sociology paper, EL&U users could provide more culturally sensitive and scientifically appropriate alternatives. As such, the OP is basically asking

"What do you think of the term mongrel to describe an inhabitant of mixed race living on an imaginary planet?"

~ You already know mongrel has derogatory connotations. It's your story/translation, no one can tell you what to write.

Answer 3

This metaphoric meaning of the word is so well known that it is mentioned in every dictionary of recent repute. I would have preferred for this particular question to be closed as general reference, especially since the most highly voted upon answer is exactly the sort of thing the general reference standard was originally implemented to prevent. A dictionary definition should be furnished to demonstrate that this answer is not satisfactory, and an explanation regarding why this answer is not satisfactory should then be provided to make the source of confusion clear to necessitate the provision of more useful answers than what was already readily available.

However, despite the fact that primarily opinion based and general reference typically act in opposition, there are also opinion based considerations which may aply: First when you read What Kinds of Questions Should I Avoid Asking? on most if not all Stack Exchange websites, you will notice that it is a standard form that seems to delimit the subjectivity standards of the website, and one of the provisions is to not make a rant in disguise, and because the answer is so readily available and well known, it is not difficult to interpret this question as an attempt to suggest that mongrel should not be used to describe humans because it more literally refers to dogs.

Now this question may be asked in earnest, but regardless of that, there are a few ways to interpret the question. What does the questioner mean by awkward, for instance? Given the reference to the primary definition of the word, I think the best way to interpret it is "Will describing people as mongrels be confusing to my readers because of the other meaning?" and that is not entirely answerable without a sample of a potentially confusing context. Granted, normally I assume it would not be confusing. The very point of the insult is to act as a metaphor that compares the person to the very sort of dog described, but a sentence such as Look at that mongrel over there, rummaging through the trash for food might be confusing. Even then, we can not really speak on the behalf of specific groups or individuals with much certainty, and especially not a purely hypothetical readership.

Finally, you suggest that it might be somewhat understandable for this to be considered a writing advice question. If we posit that it is writing advice, then what better closure reason is there for writing advice other than Primarily Opinion Based? Despite the fact that writing advice is expressly outside of our scope, we do not have a standard closure reason for it because we are limited to three local closure reasons, which we already used for proofreading, inadequate research and incomplete Single Word Requests, plus whatever closure reasons apply across the entire Stack Exchange Network. Perhaps a custom write-in reason could be applied, but outside of the comment would just mark the question as outside of the scope described in the help center with an explanation in a potentially transient comment. Now, I think it is safe to say that our writing advice concerns are more over the fact that they are more opinion based than anything else, so if nothing else is read, the P.O.B. closure reason is more likely to address the problems a writing advice question may have than any other closure reason. This is important for helping the questioner understand what sort of edits need to be applied for the question to be salvaged if that is possible, or helping other members to understand why it is closed if not, especially in the long run.