I had a post removed today for using the word "spook" in reference to government agents, a common usage that I see around the site, because it is a racial slur, although ive never seen it used with that intent (not that it matters), and it only gets removed maybe 10% of the time. In order to be consistent and not offend any comrades I would propose adding it to the word filter so its removal will be uniform and not open to mod interpretation.

  • Awoo [she/her]
    ·
    8 months ago

    I have never heard either spook or glowie used with any racial intent, literally ever. I know that's totally anecdotal so can anyone help me with examples of where it gets used that way?

    I will need to be able to explain it to libs at some point and if I can't understand it myself I can't explain it to libs.

    • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      Glowie is absolutely a racist term, it came from the guy that made his own operating system (Terry Davids and temple OS I think) and he used it with racial intent. The original term involved the n word as far as I remember.

      As for spook, I've never heard of it being used as a slur.

    • HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]
      ·
      8 months ago

      glowie is absolutely, unambiguously racist. maybe some people use it without racist intent because they don't know where it came from, but it was coined only recently because 4channers thought a mentally ill guy's racist delusions were really funny.

    • kleeon [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      8 months ago

      I think the only time i've heard it used as a racial slur was in american history x. Honestly, i don't think we should start declaring random words to be slurs just because they were used this way at some point

      • Smeagolicious [they/them]
        ·
        8 months ago

        Accurate pfp. Maybe I'm in the vast minority but I have heard it used as a slur IRL.

        declaring random words to be slurs just because they were used this way at some point

        Idk if I have any strong feelings about it getting filtered but that's a bad take

    • NewAcctWhoDis [any]
      ·
      8 months ago

      I don't think "glowie" has ever had racial intent, but some of it's earliest usages were "glowie-Nword". Usage has definitely spread beyond fascists and people trying to talk like them, though.

      • popcornlung [they/them]
        ·
        8 months ago

        The word spook was only racist for a very short period of history, I mean it’s still racist but it’s very archaic. Most people don’t know what it means, it’s best we censor it though.

        • NewAcctWhoDis [any]
          ·
          8 months ago

          Yeah, its unambiguously a slur in certain usages, might as well.

    • Wertheimer [any]
      ·
      8 months ago

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melvin_Tumin#Inspiration_for_The_Human_Stain

      • Awoo [she/her]
        ·
        edit-2
        8 months ago

        So is it actually used?

        Like I'm dead serious when I say does anyone have examples of actual usage? I have never seen anyone use it, not in fictional media/drama, not online, not anywhere.

        I mean this in entirely good faith. I am trying to properly understand and build the basis of how I would have this conversation with someone who is as oblivious to this as me. My assumption here is that this must be a regionally specific american thing or something hence my complete and total obliviousness to it.

        I think the bigger issue I will have with this is that it's going to be almost impossible for me to convince anyone in the UK to stop using it. It's definitely not used as a slur here and there was a very popular UK drama show called "Spooks".

        • NewAcctWhoDis [any]
          ·
          8 months ago

          Once a cousin of mine used it meaning a CIA agent, and another cousin said "you mean a black person?"

          That's my only experience with it off the top off my head (but I'm white)

        • Findom_DeLuise [she/her, they/them]
          ·
          edit-2
          8 months ago

          For some reason I vaguely remember it being used in the first Back to the Future when Biff's gang encounters the band playing the school dance, because of course Biff would be a racist on top of everything else.

          I'll see if I can find the timestamp and edit once I can confirm/deny.

          Edit 1: OK, yup, found the quote on IMDB while waiting for the damn movie to buffer [CW: old-timey racism]:
          https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088763/quotes/?item=qt0416348&ref_=ext_shr_lnk

          Edit 2: Timestamp is around 1:21:00, when Biff's henchmen are throwing Marty in the trunk of the car.

          • Awoo [she/her]
            ·
            edit-2
            8 months ago

            Edit 2: Timestamp is around 1:21:00, when Biff's henchmen are throwing Marty in the trunk of the car.

            Would be genuinely useful to find a clip of that online, or get it clipped and posted on youtube with a title like the gran torino one. Entertainment media including it is the easiest example for libs. It'll be popular with racists but it'll also be valuable for libs.

  • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    I wanna second this but the word is also a verb. As in "I'll spook ya" and that's a very innocent use of the word. The adjective "spooked" is also innocent.

    The slur for a person I heard all the time growing up in the south. My parents would use it and so I do feel a particular animosity towards it. The filter would have to know when the word is being used as a noun for a person.

    • NewAcctWhoDis [any]
      ·
      8 months ago

      The filter would have to know when the word is being used as a noun for a person.

      The current filter doesn't even detect when a word is used within another word, this will never happen.

  • Moonworm [any]
    ·
    8 months ago

    I kinda just wonder what this actually accomplishes. Like no one here ever uses it as a slur, it's incredibly antiquated, and whenever people use it to refer to feds, it gets admonished regardless of anything else. Plus spooky and spook as adjective and verb are pretty common and I really don't think we need to excise those expressions.

    • Assian_Candor [comrade/them]
      hexagon
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      This is exactly the point in my making this post, if I had a post removed for it that means it bothered at least one person enough to report it or remove it, so we should err on the side of caution and just add it to the word filter so we won't have to have debates over which racial slurs are ok to use and in which context. Spook as a verb can be replaced by scared and spooky can be replaced by scary. It will be annoying for all of a week until people get used to it.

  • Skeleton_Erisma [they/them, any]
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    I personally don't mind as an endeavor to be inclusive to any comrades

    But man oh man is Stirner gonna cry when he awakens from his deep sleep and finds out that word is a slur now.

    stirner-shocked

  • ReadFanon [any, any]
    ·
    8 months ago

    I recently learned that "glowie" is also really closely associated with a racial slur so I think that should be added too, if it isn't already.

    • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
      ·
      8 months ago

      Anyone who says glowie is either an internet fascist or trying to ironically mimic their language. Both cases are annoying and should be removed.

  • TRexBear
    ·
    8 months ago

    deleted by creator

  • Angel [any]
    ·
    8 months ago

    As a black person, I approve of this. It's better to not have any cracks to slip through, period.

  • AlicePraxis
    ·
    edit-2
    6 months ago

    deleted by creator

    • SerLava [he/him]
      ·
      8 months ago

      Could filter it when followed by a space, comma, period, exclamation point, hyphen etc

  • TRexBear
    ·
    8 months ago

    deleted by creator

  • bleepbloopbop [they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    problem is then you get spooky > removedy

    there might be some regex trickery to avoid that though

    • Assian_Candor [comrade/them]
      hexagon
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      We already get that with "refutation"

      Edit: not anymore apparently so it can be fixed

      • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        8 months ago

        Does the word paremovedo still get mangled? The Japanese game that's like a slot machine with little metal balls falling down pins.

        Edit: yes it does

        • ReadFanon [any, any]
          ·
          edit-2
          8 months ago

          I have tried to write the name of the dish pasta e fāgioli here and it took me forever to figure out why it was getting caught in the filter lol

          I guess it's nice to be so far removed from that slur that it didn't even register for me without spending way too long pondering it.

          Btw this phenomenon is known as the Sremovedhorpe Problem.

          Lol the link got got. It's the Scūnthorpe Problem and Wikipedia has an entry on it. Super interesting if you like nerding out over this stuff.

  • CloutAtlas [he/him]
    ·
    8 months ago

    I always thought it was more like "celestial", a term so antiquated it's easier to ban people who do use it the bad way rather than to filter it.

  • jimmyjohnsandwichfive
    ·
    8 months ago

    I'm a bit shocked people still use that word, I for some reason thought it got replaced with just saying Phantom instead

    • Rx_Hawk [he/him]
      ·
      8 months ago

      Uhh no I think that has certain connotations as well