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I don't have the text anymore (caching) so I can't quote it, but I know that the commentary already had some discussion from site-mods saying that it was acceptable, and quoting meta questions here.

So why was

Differences between slang words for breasts

closed? There surely needs to be an update to the meta here if this was an unacceptable question. The person was trying to track down slang and the appropriateness of it's use by asking people who have fluency and knowledge, and there were answers on there that were actually legitimate (of course mine included, since I'm inflamed that it was removed).

What gives? Why was it invalid?

Assistance from a diamond mod gives me these:

Seeing how this has collected two offensive flags within 50 minutes of being posted, I would like to remind everybody that this is a totally valid question for this site. (See meta question one, meta question two.) I do understand your frustration if you're browsing from a workplace where tits are not tolerated, but please take that up with the workplace and not with Sergey.

– RegDwight 3 hours ago (as of the time of collection for posting here)

The meta questions in reference are

1) Offensive/NSFW words: what are the boundaries?

2) Referencing the existence of words that may be offensive

I know there were other mods saying that it was marginal but perfectly acceptable.

EDIT: updated question title

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    I too would like to know why this was deleted!
    – Josh
    Commented Jan 19, 2011 at 19:28

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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The post received several flags in rapid succession so it was removed while we looked into the situation further and discussed.

The conclusion was that the question was asked within the context of an academic discussion on an English Language & Usage site. The answers bore out that the users are able to behave and act maturely; therefore, there was no cause to keep the question off the site.

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    I had considered whether the title portion of the question should be altered to say "Slang words for breasts", or something along those lines, so that people could decide whether they wanted to load a page that would probably say "boobs" and "tits" on it, rather than having the words on the front page. In terms of validity, I agree that it is completely on-topic for the site, language-wise.
    – Kosmonaut
    Commented Jan 19, 2011 at 20:18
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    I think changing the title is an excellent idea -- it lets people know what they're getting in to before they run afoul of their workplace (or home) internet usage guidelines.
    – J.T. Grimes
    Commented Jan 19, 2011 at 20:32
  • Ok thanks. What prompted me to notice was after I commented and saw it was on the hot list I wanted to comment it should likely be protected :/
    – jcolebrand
    Commented Jan 19, 2011 at 20:32
  • @Kosmo probably
    – jcolebrand
    Commented Jan 19, 2011 at 20:36
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    I have gone ahead and changed "tits and boobs" to "slang words for breasts" in the title portion only.
    – Kosmonaut
    Commented Jan 19, 2011 at 21:24
  • @RobertCartaino ~ I know you just want to move on, I just want to move on too, but I'm feeling like someone is attacking the question now for puritanical reasons, and while I understand the motivation, they're really attacking the SE philosophy. Can I get you to butt back in and check out the question and the collective downvotes? Are they legit or do they look to be collaborated for some reason? If it's time for this question to be removed, me to recalc my rep and to move on, tell me and I will. I'm on chat.mso and chat.SE/english if you need me
    – jcolebrand
    Commented Jan 19, 2011 at 21:36
  • @drachenstern: Collaboration in the form of sock puppet accounts would be flagged as "suspicious voting" and those votes would be removed automatically by a script that runs every 24 hours. But, beyond that, voting is anonymous. There is no function to determine who voted in individual question. Even if there was, how would I go about determining if someone's motivations for voting was "legit"? People vote based on whatever criteria they choose. I'm not going to legislate what people are allowed to like or not.
    – Robert Cartaino
    Commented Jan 19, 2011 at 21:50
  • @Robert I rather realized that and totally respect your point, I just feel the same petty against them as they are demonstrating against that particular question. Anyways, I'm gonna try and move on ;) .. ttyl
    – jcolebrand
    Commented Jan 19, 2011 at 21:55
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    @Kosmonaut: That title is less descriptive and that's counterproductive. I think it should be reverted to the more descriptive site.
    – Borror0
    Commented Jan 19, 2011 at 22:25
  • @Borror so you feel that way even in light of the fact that the old title was more controversial and was causing more grief on the site? So what are the repercussions of a controversial title and how should those be handled?
    – jcolebrand
    Commented Jan 19, 2011 at 22:41
  • @drachenstern: The problem is some people's low level of tolerance to some words, not the title. Thus, the solution is to create a tag (ex: NSFW) and tag those questions with it. If someone has a problem with those questions, he can add the tag to his ignored tags.
    – Borror0
    Commented Jan 19, 2011 at 22:47
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    @drachenstern: It's a compromise. We shouldn't let some people's sensitivity diminish the quality of the questions that are asked. As such, that's the best compromise we should offer to them.
    – Borror0
    Commented Jan 20, 2011 at 0:03
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    @Borror0: The words remain in the question, just not in the title. The question has been receiving many downvotes in spite of the fact that it has had a "vulgar" tag, suggesting a tag was not sufficient. It even got deleted by mods and was restored 45 minutes later. But look, if people think the title should go back to the original way it was, I am open to that. I thought it was a fair compromise and was still very descriptive.
    – Kosmonaut
    Commented Jan 20, 2011 at 0:32
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    @Kosmonaut: Also, I doubt it was deleted by mods. It probably got six flags and was thus automatically deleted.
    – Borror0
    Commented Jan 20, 2011 at 9:18
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    @Borror0: Well, you are wrong. It was deleted by one mod and reinstated by another mod 45 minutes later (neither of which were me).
    – Kosmonaut
    Commented Jan 20, 2011 at 19:46

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