Flagging a comment or post for profanity can be controversial, so I'd like the community's input. I'll take this as not a 1 time answer, but use it to sculpt my behavior going forward.
This answer Received a comment with profanity. The same idea could have been expressed euphemistically or otherwise. Should that comment be flagged?
It was gratuitous vulgarity (not a discussion about language), and the only connection I can see to the OP's post is that it had to do with an airline. As Andrew Leach clearly stated in his post about flagging comments:
it doesn’t need to be mentioned at all if it’s not relevant to the question or its answers.
While Andrew was discussing a 'worldview', the same can be said about offensive comments. The question was 'which is better, "I loved flying with American Airlines" or "I loved flying on American Airlines"? To have a long anecdote ending with "I'm Cathy; Fuck me" is not only offensive (as was the ad campaign - please feel free to search for accounts of the harassment stewardesses had to put up with after that campaign, to which they were vocally opposed), it's completely unnecessary. It doesn't add anything of value, doesn't clarify anything, is there just to exemplify one person's story-telling prowess.
This is your site as much as it is anyone else's. Yours is just one small voice in a sea of thousands. If users feel quite free to post such crap, you should certainly feel free to flag it if you so desire as not constructive, too chatty, or even offensive. It's your prerogative, it's silent, it hurts no one (there is no penalty, if I'm not mistaken, to not constructive or too chatty flags, and the penalty for offensive is small), and it might serve to make this site actually more about the English Language.
Edited to add: A comment was removed which explained the primary reason for my use of the word: if the comment were to be deleted (a perfectly reasonable assumption, since it was), the post would leave some to wonder what was the offensive language referred to in the OP's question. Though I grant that many commenters used the word, comments disappear.
I agree that it was gratuitously crude. I don’t think it was necessary, but as it is a mention case not a use case, it is wrong to forbid and difficult to condemn outright.
Some may find it needlessly offensive, and apparently have. But I don’t know if that suffices for flagging purposes.
So I’m sorry but I don’t know that it’s worth flagging: I don’t wish to saddle our moderators with more work than they already have.
But at least it was in a comment, which are non-searchable ephemeral artifacts subject to deletion without notice.
needlessly If someone finds it offensive it's offensive to them, that is sufficient for them to flag it.
I'm sorry that you felt the need to ask. The comment didn't add anything to the discussion. Had the profanity been replaced with more tactful language, it was still a candidate for removal. I would have deleted it without a second thought.
To address your question, the fact that the comment contained profanity was not in itself reason to flag it. If the comment were contextually appropriate, the existence of the word fuck would not necessarily qualify it for flagging. The commenter's word choice was intended to provoke a particular, graphic reaction to demonstrate the crudeness of the innuendo. Because the commenter was explaining what the sexual innuendo was in an illustrative way, it is in the decidedly grey area of use-mention.
In this case, I would recommend that if it bothers you, flag it with the 'other' flag and ask a mod to review the wording to determine if it can be amended in such a way as to preserve the original information without using crass or vulgar language.
In response to some of the extended commentary here, I want to put to rest the notion that you should even care about how much work this creates for the moderation team. For one thing, if enough of the community agrees with you that something is offensive, the comment will be automatically deleted and we won't even see the flag. For the other thing, it is one of our responsibilities to handle flags. That's part of what we do, and that's why we just had an election to bring on more mods.
We won't know what the community finds offensive unless you flag it for us. If there is a lot of offensive content, we need to know about it, regardless of the amount of work it creates for us. That said, tread lightly with the offensive flag. Use-mention can be a sticky wicket. If you aren't sure, you can use the 'other' flag to write us a note.
Did you find it rude or offensive? That's the only determiner.
If you find it rude or offensive (or any other option) then flag it as such, if you don't, then don't flag it.
If you need other people's opinions to determine if you feel offended then you weren't offended. Of course, you could be offended after being told you should be.
I saw the comment and thought to myself ... that'll offend someone but it's not my place to flag it just for thinking that someone might be offended, the offended have to take matters into their own hands and declare themselves as offended. There's a good example here Repwhore comment from KitFox I didn't flag it as I'm not offended by it but I can imagine some people could be.
I don't think I've had anything flagged so I don't know what happens but I don't think there's anything in the way of controversy about it. Moderators see the flags and act on them in the way they think they should.
