I've noticed a lot of projects in the past few years put a lot of stuff like this in their READMEs, with the (presumable) end goal of making their repository really "pop" on GitHub. That's perfectly fine! But sometimes it goes so far as to actively impede reading the README in a text editor, since it's now full of tables and Markdown abuse aimed at making it render correctly on GitHub. It also has a tendency to break other sites (think package management indices) that tend to consume READMEs, as they're now being fed all kinds of weird GitHub-specific Markdown. That leads to an overall worse user experience, e.g. when I'm selecting a package from PyPI or crates.io.
Given that projects are now using their READMEs as de-facto `index.html` pages, we really ought to just have an `INDEX.md` or similar convention for presenting all the cute stuff.
README or INSTALL (no extension) files should be plain text, folded at 72 columns. You should assume the people actually trying to build your software are working in a shell in a terminal and using less(1) or maybe vi or some other text editor to read the README file.
Even markdown is too much, though it's tolerable if named README.md so I at least can know to run it through a filter.
Including icons, emojis, animations in such a file is right out.
I don’t know about these restrictions — they feel pretty excessive in a world where every engineer I know uses a terminal that can render Unicode and (at least) 256 colors. Plus, they usually have more than 72 (or 80) columns available.
In my mind, the thing that makes Markdown a nice format (in contrast to something like ReST) is that it decomposes gracefully — the formatting indicators correspond pretty closely to the conventions that email and other plain-text mediums use. The fact that it converts to HTML is just a cherry on top.
The 72 (or 80) column standard is one that is guaranteed to be accessible in virtually any circumstances.
Such as, say, just for the sake of argument, when you've been awakened at 2 am by a pager, have travelled an hour to the colo, have a multi-switch KVM wired to a cabinet of otherwise headless boxen, several of which are embedded / dedicated devices with no package installation or updates possible, several of which support only serial terminal access (possibly given an equivalent access over TCP/IP or USB), and for which the output standard is an 80x24 terminal.
This might include ILOM, IPMI, or similar protocols.
There's too much RF in the colo itself to make a phone call, let alone support wireless or mobile data.
In such a circumstance, relying on anything but 7-bit ASCII text becomes really dicey.
Unicode has over 144,000 characters presently supported with more being added constantly. Systems without ongoing OS support (such as the six year old Android tablet I'm typing this on) simply won't have the new hawtness^Wcuteness installed, and I'll be looking at some variant of ▯▯▯▯▯▯▯▯. Which in context won't be especially useful.
Documentation in MS Word, DOCX, PDF, PS, or ePub will be simmilarly opaque.
Documentation in strict HTML ... without dependencies on images, CSS, or JS, may be useful, if I can aim w3m or lynx at it. (And I can always simply view the source.)
Documentation, like lifeboats, fire-extinguishers, and aircraft emergency slides, is intended for use in the least favourable, not most favourable conditions.
Your high-powered, graphical, UTF-8 / Unicode lastest-motherlovin-codeset Retina-display monitor should have no issues in taking 72-character-wrapped text and unfolding it to longer line lengths.
That 15 year old bit of embedded kit corporate's been too fucking cheap to replace or swap out when the universe is melting down, not so much.
72-column lines are important because the IBM 709 vacuum tube computer(1958) could only read 72 columns from an 80-column punch card. (Due to its 36-bit word size.) Thus, FORTRAN only used 72 columns and this became a standard. 60 years later, this limitation is still affecting people.
Ha thanks for the laugh. Today I was in term and full screened it in my curved widescreen monitor to review some lengthy iptable entries and logs. Couldn’t imagine only having 80
columns anymore.
No. "The arbitrary limitations that I have voluntarily put on myself and my system should be adhered to by everyone in the world, despite great detriment to anyone else who uses at rhis point decades old technology to its full capabilities." Are you hearing yourself?
There are so many other minorities out there that deserve being catered to a billion times more than you. People with real issues that they can't just turn off with a "startx" command.
72 character lines is very annoying in a modern world. My display is 3440px wide and can easily fit 120 chars if I split it in thirds, the rest is just wasted space. Every terminal and text editor has word wrap now, this isn't a problem anymore. Even on a 1080p screen split it half, 72chars is too few.
Just because you code like it's the 90s doesn't mean everyone else has to. But I'm pretty sure even in the 90s everyone had word-wrap, so the 72 columns thingy never really made sense for texts that don't have indentation.
That would be ideal, yeah. But I don’t begrudge them for failing to do so: GitHub-flavored Markdown is a significantly more complicated beast than “common” Markdown, which is itself somewhat fragmented.
Being slightly cynical here, I'd presume that's not a bug, but rather the intended outcome, and this phenomenon with markdown is just a canary for M$'s impeding extinguish phase (after having embraced and extended git forges like github).
GFM (Github-flavored Markdown) - "In 2017, GitHub released a formal specification of their GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) that is based on CommonMark." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown)
Thank you for sharing! For those using this service, please keep in mind that screen readers are not able to access text in images. Since the markdown output does not contain `alt` text, use care when copypasting this into your `README.md`; someone who is visually impaired will not be able to perceive it.
I previously used something like that to add number of visitors on a repos Readme. Now it shows a broken image icon only because that service has been shut down.
Best option to use it continously is to host your own version and use that instead of the one you are providing.
The emojis in the "Hey, I'm Jellybear!" marquee line look more like "octopus-bear" (or "octobear", to compliment GitHub's "octocat"?). Not sure if there's a jellyfish emoji though...
Hey, could you give me a little more detail on what you're seeing (i.e. what browser are you using), would love to fix it so you can check it out. Thanks!
It seems to have improved now - I can scroll fine.
This is still the same browser session.
I'm on a laptop running FF 93.0, with Noscript and Adblocker Ultimate, both enabled. FF is running full-screen. It's Win10.
I didn't record what I saw earlier. Now, I see a number of clickable placeholder images, and a bunch of "Try me" buttons. My impression is that the site is for making marketing-friendly tags. That's cool, just not my thing. I didn't click.
One may choose to participate in normalizing terms that have origins that may offend. This happens frequently and often times we are unaware of the offensive origins of terms until it is pointed out. You may decide to continue to use the term and ignore them or you may choose to listen to their objections. Some may call this virtue signalling, or cancel culture or any other number of terms.
I am not the language police and I am not going to "cancel" this Show HN for the use of what I consider an offensive term. I am an investor and an advisor, so my advice is to not use that term. I feel that it is juvenile and shows a lack of concern. You may disagree and point towards normalizing behavior (MTV, evolving slang, etc.) as your justification.
My philosophy is why bother to offend if you can avoid it. I also will fight for your right to be offensive. But I won't invest in your startup or star your Github repo.
> My philosophy is why bother to offend if you can avoid it.
Implying saying something someone might find offensive requires active intent.
OP clearly isn't trying to be offensive. It's ethically wrong to imply, suggest, or act as if they are. The commenter doesn't like the word pimp, and wants others to feel the same distaste they're afflicted by. What the OP intended to do is irrelevant.
More directly why bother to offend if you cant help it. Because someone will happily take offense to anything. So to avoid it would mean not interacting at all. Which is exactly why we can't have nice things. OP is trying to be nice sharing something they feel is useful. Only to be be accosted with the accusation they're intentionally trying to be offensive. If you're going to make something someone will find useful, and it only costs some offense to someone trying to find a way to feel offensive, you then try to cause offence.
I am not sure I understand your point about intent. I do agree that the OP did not intend to offend. My input to the Show HN is that I found the term juvenile and offensive. The OP may choose to accept my advice or disregard it. I am not judging them, only providing some input.
Yes, people can choose to take offense at anything. There isn't much we can do about that. In my own interactions, there are certain words and phrases I choose not to use. This works for me, doesn't harm others and generally improves my quality of life.
We exist in a world of many intersecting values and beliefs. We navigate through them in differing ways. There is room for many differing points of view, although recent events make it seem like this is a less viable belief.
Back the the OP, this is a Show HN. My input is I think the name is lame.
I won't censor, down vote, blacklist or otherwise assign any other intent.
My response to yours was in the context of the original comment from redwoolf. I don't think you were virtue signaling, I do think redwoolf was. Your comments were very clear you're offering your view point. And I agree with you, it's a weak name that nearly any other option could improve. But you didn't go off on an unrelated tangent about an irrelevant separate context. The other commenter did go off on a tangent, and that's why they're catching flack. And why we're arguing about language instead of README's. The problem from my interpretation is 'blaming' OP for a context they're not trying to envoke.
Got it. I just wanted to make sure I didn't misunderstand you. This type of dialog is really valuable to me. As I stated elsewhere, something has happened in general that makes rational discussion difficult.
This argues in bad faith and is escalatory. No need to die on "pimp" hill.
The comment expressing dislike for the name didn't accuse or say anything about intentional offensiveness, only that they felt it wasn't appropriate in a professional setting. "Someone will happily take offense to anything" isn't true but many commenters have expressed dislike for this particular name. Nobody's coming for the words "bread" or "computer" anytime soon.
"Beautify my readme" or "glow up my readme" would convey the same meaning without the unnecessary sex trade connotation. That would let the work be shared in professional settings and put off fewer people, both positives! Charitably, the original author may not have considered negative connotations for the name. At least now they know it's not universally beloved.
I'm happy to die on "pimp" hill. Not because I care about the project name, or the word. I don't have strong feelings about either.
> The comment expressing dislike for the name didn't accuse or say anything about intentional offensiveness, only that they felt it wasn't appropriate in a professional setting.
Their comment includes a rant about sexual exploitation. By it's nature as a comment directed at the OP, implies it's relevant to the name of the project. The best interpretation I was able to come up with is they thought OP didn't know, and thought it was important to point out that the word pimp is 'bad in their opinion'. diskzero's reply is a perfect counter example, they're careful to speak to the reasons objectively. Observing vs complaining (admittedly what I read as complaining.)
> "Someone will happily take offense to anything" isn't true but many commenters have expressed dislike for this particular name. Nobody's coming for the words "bread" or "computer" anytime soon.
But it is true, I can cite plenty of examples of people not being allowed to do cool things because someone complained. It's great that no ones' coming for bread or computer. But I already have so few words, I'm not willing to let anyone "come for" any of them. not even the ones I think are stupid. Not now, and not after soon, however big soon is.
(to be clear I don't think that's what anyone is trying to do, only that It is a hill worth dying on)
Yeahhhh but the context doesn’t negate the fact that the word is a reference to exploitation. I’m with the parent comment on this one. If it was 2005 I probably wouldn’t have blinked but ya know, the world moves on.
There are just so many names to pick from! I find the choice very confusing. Too cringe-y for me to consider sharing or using personally, but I’m sure some will and I hope they enjoy it.
Words can have many different unrelated meanings, based on context. Going with sexual exploitation is beyond absurdity when Pimp my X is a well-known cultural reference
I’m pretty sympathetic in this case, but to point out the obvious: something being a “well-known cultural reference” isn’t itself a strong justification for using language or symbols that are known to be offensive.
An intuitive case for most people: we all recognize the car from The Dukes of Hazzard, but you probably shouldn’t put the confederate battle flag on your own car as a reference to it.
> language or symbols that are known to be offensive.
Known? It seems like many people are disagreeing with you. Who knows that it is offensive? Who decided? Can you tell me or did you just write it in this way to avoid saying directly that it is just your personal opinion that this word is offensive?
I’m not particularly offended by the word “pimp” (I’m not easily offended in general, thanks(?) to years of imageboard culture).
But that’s entirely separate from the question of whether the word “pimp” is, in fact, offensive. I think failing to acknowledge that it is a generally offensive word is more a testament to obstinacy than anything else.
Unironically, virtue signalling is offensive to me. What now? Who defines offensiveness?
>you probably shouldn’t put the confederate battle flag on your own car as a reference to it.
Who are you to define a cultural symbol for other people?
I think we need to recognize that offense is not given, it is taken; and it is up to the individual to recognize that context matters before taking offense. The alternative is effectively authoritarianism, dictation of culture and weaponization of victimhood.
In case it wasn’t clear, the offensiveness of the confederate battle flag is assumed: I don’t think there’s a counterposition that’s worth seriously entertaining. Put another way: it’s outside of the realm of serious conversation to dry to pull a fast one with relativism when the subject is something so cut-and-dry.
If you feel offended by other people saying that they are uncomfortable with things (which, again, doesn’t clearly translate to “virtue signaling” to me), then that sounds like a “you” problem. It’s worth introspecting on why others’ feelings affect yours that much, and why that comes out in such breathless language as “authoritarian,” “weaponization,” &c.
>In case it wasn’t clear, the offensiveness of the confederate battle flag is assumed: I don’t think there’s a counterposition that’s worth seriously entertaining. Put another way: it’s outside of the realm of serious conversation to dry to pull a fast one with relativism when the subject is something so cut-and-dry.
This is only true if you live in an urban bubble. The confederate flag represents more than racism and slavery to southerners, frankly, you are narrow minded. And your interpretation is, ironically, offensive to those who live in the south.
Herein lies the conundrum. You have no right to dictate, what is and is not cut and dry to other people.
>why that comes out in such breathless language as “authoritarian,” “weaponization,” &c.
Because inevitably those among us who are the loudest regarding political correctness use it as a tool to grab at power that more often than not is undeserved. They are aggressors in a culture war which is has long ago consumed academia and is rapidly spreading through industry; political correctness is literally thought control and as such forms a foundation for authoritarianism.
I repeat, you have no right to dictate what symbols mean to me - your culture does not supercede mine. All symbols must be considered alongside within the context of intent. I am not offended by people saying that they are uncomfortable, I am offended by such people telling me I am not allowed to use certain symbols or language, or have certain thoughts, under penalty of termination of employment or blacklisting, since ultimately this is a unilateral imposition of culture.
And in fact when such political correctness spreads to other countries, when westerners start insisting that, say, Japan is not diverse or LGBT friendly enough, this is modern cultural imperialism. I don't need it at home and it isn't right abroad either. This is about far more than pronouns and flags.
> Who are you to define a cultural symbol for other people?
I don't think they are. My impression was merely they're attempting to convey the general perception. Their's to be sure, but also what they believe to be the accepted consensus.
> This is only true if you live in an urban bubble. The confederate flag represents more than racism and slavery to southerners, frankly, you are narrow minded. And your interpretation is, ironically, offensive to those who live in the south.
This isn't the first time I, an urbanite have heard this. I thought it was stupid then, and I still do. I've never seen a single person wave the confederate flag that wasn't also in the best possible interpretation for them, at the very least, ok with with the confederacy generally. The amount of willful and intentional ignorance as to the reason the confederacy exists, itself is egregious enough. The confederacy exists to promote human slavery. Totems and emblems of it, are inexorable tied to slavery. To fly the confederate is to condone the one of the worst mistakes in American history. "But it doesn't mean racism to me!!!!" You're flying the flag, you should know why it exists. Why did the confederacy exist? "States rights!!!!" States rights, to... do... what? You can continue to lie to both yourself and to me, but that's my point about willful and intentional ignorance of reality.
But I'm more than willing to be convinced I'm wrong, or mistaken. What does the confederate flag mean that's so important, or so valuable that it's existence as a symbol of the group willing to kill to protect the ability to own human slaves should be ignored?
> All symbols must be considered alongside within the context of intent.
I completely agree with you, only I think the responsibility to consider the context and intent lies with both the listener, *and* the speaker. Se why are you willing to ignore the negative connotation or context of the culture?
> I am offended by such people telling me I am not allowed to use certain symbols or language
That's one interpretation of it... I'm not sure it's reasonable. I'd frame it more like: "I wouldn't let someone scream racist obscenities in my ear." Only I'm willing to go farther than that, I'm not willing to let someone display a symbol I believe to be in existence to promote racism at my coffee shop. If the owner agrees, good, if they disagree. Then it's really not my coffee shop. I'll go somewhere else. It just happens to be that there's more people unwilling to tolerate racism than there used to be. And those that are willing to tolerate it are now outnumbered.
> under penalty of termination of employment or blacklisting, since ultimately this is a unilateral imposition of culture.
No, it's the rejection of a harmful culture. I wouldn't willingly work with someone constantly threatening to harm someone. I wouldn't work with someone constantly exclaiming that I'm going to hell because I'm going to the wedding of my gay friend. And I won't willingly work for someone I know owns a slaves. The difference is that instead of me leaving the community, it's me refusing to allow someone spewing such toxicity from joining one I'm already a member of. I'm not saying you can't fly your symbol of racism. In fact I'm glad if you do fly it. Because it makes it easier to know where you stand on the importance of racism. It saves me the trouble of wondering how you feel about racism and slavery.
It isn’t apparent to me to me that this person has “virtue signaled” by expressing their opinion. Why dive immediately for sinister motivations when someone says that a particular piece of language makes them uncomfortable?
Their motives aren't necessarily sinister, but they are pearl-clutching bullshit without which the world would, in general, be a much better place.
Oh no, this noun if used in an entirely different context means something different! Oh my stars! I mean, give me a break. It is in the best case, bending over backward to avoid even the slightest offense or misunderstanding on something so basic it can safely be taken for granted even among non-native - likely even non-fluent - speakers who are much less familiar and comfortable with English idioms. It is in a slightly worse case, virtue signaling exactly as the GP suggests.
Not this example specifically, but the world would be better with less of the general mindset. That is, the "hey if I bend over backwards and look for any possible way in which you can twist my words and take offense to them, I'm going to assume that's what you meant and start saying how 'problematic' it is." Let's remember we're talking about a weekend project web app that puts gifs and links in readme files that in all likelihood get read close to never. And the comment that started this jumps immediately to "sexual exploitation and sexual traficking (sic)" because of an extremely common idiom that's been around for at least 25 years or so.
I'm not 100% sure I agree that it's wokeness specifically but there are certainly some parallels at the very least.
The term for this is wokeness. It is typified by overly sensitive, agenda-pushing, irrational behavior that uses offense as a tool to further their political agenda, oppress those who oppose and exemplify eggregious levels of false moral-superiority (and virtue signal to their mob). As President Obama says [1], it is not activism.
This is, again, a lot of fear-laden and breathless language in response to a single person saying that they’re uncomfortable with a word. You don’t know anything about them, much less whether they have a political agenda or “eggregious (sic) levels of false moral-superiority.” What gives?
Because the inability or unwillingness of commenters to separate unrelated context from the matter at hand is frustrating and distracting. It does seem like virtue signaling to me because the original commenter goes off an unrelated tangent.
"this word you've used has reminded me of something I don't like and so I'm going to complain about it instead of discussing the actual topic."
Speaking personally it bothers me because it implies either the OP intended to be offensive, or that it was careless to use language that's not devoid of any other context. Neither are reasonable in this case, so it's feels needlessly intrusive, and distracting.
I probably wouldn't feel this way if they commenter attempted to show an assumption of good faith by asking if they considered the context others might have related to the word 'pimp'. Instead of asserting it's outright wrong to be willing to use it.
> I'm not a fan of it is this context. And I hate it in this other context. Obviously the word itself is always a bad word to use. Because the context I care about it clearly the most important.
Just to add my insignificant voice, I too was put off by the use of the word. I'm not familiar with the expression "pimp my ride" despite being American from birth. But I do know what a pimp is and it is a negatively, sexually charged word. I'm not asking you to change it, but I think it is to your benefit that you are aware that some subset of commenters here find it uncomfortable.
This is such an odd hill to fight for. I can only cite anecdotally that my circle of friends wouldn't even blink at the name, other than perhaps it's a rather dated reference.
The word "hysterical" has its Greek roots in the idea of hysteria, a sexist antiquated medical condition referring to the wombs tendency to wander. Should we refrain from using it?
I wish people could be a little more intelligent and consider the context in which so-called "offensive" language is employed.
I'm not a fan of the word "slave" when talking about databases. Slaves can be involved in slavery. Plus, I don't feel comfortable sharing this non-moneygrabbing project around my corporate overlords.
Sorry to be that guy but are we really going with "pimping" in 2021? After that master branch thing I thought we were trying to be less edgy with naming.
I think it does. There's a litany of information out now about how bad Facebook is - for everyone. The author is soliciting feedback, and to feature a Facebook icon as the social link on the demo doesn't take that into account. It's not a matter of liking it or not.
I don't think it does. And the mob of HN seems to agree with me (there's a scary thought). You also didn't answer why it's tone deaf. What tone do you think it strikes that is unwelcome? that's why your first comment is now dead. And why this responder asserts that it's not constructive to the discussion. You're asserting FB is bad, but not why. You don't make any claims, arguments, or suggestions you merely assert everyone should obviously be in agreement that the only reasonable response is to pretend FB doesn't exist, and/or has no value for sharing content. Because for what I'm left to assume is because it's "bad for everyone". I guess that's so obvious no one might disagree with you.
Given that projects are now using their READMEs as de-facto `index.html` pages, we really ought to just have an `INDEX.md` or similar convention for presenting all the cute stuff.
Even markdown is too much, though it's tolerable if named README.md so I at least can know to run it through a filter.
Including icons, emojis, animations in such a file is right out.
In my mind, the thing that makes Markdown a nice format (in contrast to something like ReST) is that it decomposes gracefully — the formatting indicators correspond pretty closely to the conventions that email and other plain-text mediums use. The fact that it converts to HTML is just a cherry on top.
Such as, say, just for the sake of argument, when you've been awakened at 2 am by a pager, have travelled an hour to the colo, have a multi-switch KVM wired to a cabinet of otherwise headless boxen, several of which are embedded / dedicated devices with no package installation or updates possible, several of which support only serial terminal access (possibly given an equivalent access over TCP/IP or USB), and for which the output standard is an 80x24 terminal.
This might include ILOM, IPMI, or similar protocols.
There's too much RF in the colo itself to make a phone call, let alone support wireless or mobile data.
In such a circumstance, relying on anything but 7-bit ASCII text becomes really dicey.
Unicode has over 144,000 characters presently supported with more being added constantly. Systems without ongoing OS support (such as the six year old Android tablet I'm typing this on) simply won't have the new hawtness^Wcuteness installed, and I'll be looking at some variant of ▯▯▯▯▯▯▯▯. Which in context won't be especially useful.
Documentation in MS Word, DOCX, PDF, PS, or ePub will be simmilarly opaque.
Documentation in strict HTML ... without dependencies on images, CSS, or JS, may be useful, if I can aim w3m or lynx at it. (And I can always simply view the source.)
Documentation, like lifeboats, fire-extinguishers, and aircraft emergency slides, is intended for use in the least favourable, not most favourable conditions.
Your high-powered, graphical, UTF-8 / Unicode lastest-motherlovin-codeset Retina-display monitor should have no issues in taking 72-character-wrapped text and unfolding it to longer line lengths.
That 15 year old bit of embedded kit corporate's been too fucking cheap to replace or swap out when the universe is melting down, not so much.
There are so many other minorities out there that deserve being catered to a billion times more than you. People with real issues that they can't just turn off with a "startx" command.
For example, w3m renders this project's README cleanly - https://ibb.co/WPDDL0d
GFM (Github-flavored Markdown) - "In 2017, GitHub released a formal specification of their GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) that is based on CommonMark." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown)
Microsoft acquired Github in 2018.
Further reading: https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/H37.html
This is an open source project so if you want to contribute just add your component and put up a PR. Thanks for your feedback!
GitHub repo here: https://github.com/joshdsouza8/pimp-my-readme
However, I like a more subdued and less "pimped" look. I am a fan of https://shields.io/, e.g. my github profile: https://github.com/phaedryx/
Best option to use it continously is to host your own version and use that instead of the one you are providing.
There’s also the option to just clone the repo, run, and host the server on your own as well, up to you.
Also project is open source as well so if you have any ideas, you can open an issue for it (which I will get to) or just add it in whenever you can :)
This is still the same browser session.
I'm on a laptop running FF 93.0, with Noscript and Adblocker Ultimate, both enabled. FF is running full-screen. It's Win10.
I didn't record what I saw earlier. Now, I see a number of clickable placeholder images, and a bunch of "Try me" buttons. My impression is that the site is for making marketing-friendly tags. That's cool, just not my thing. I didn't click.
In this context it means "to adapt or embellish in an ostentatious manner".
I am not the language police and I am not going to "cancel" this Show HN for the use of what I consider an offensive term. I am an investor and an advisor, so my advice is to not use that term. I feel that it is juvenile and shows a lack of concern. You may disagree and point towards normalizing behavior (MTV, evolving slang, etc.) as your justification.
My philosophy is why bother to offend if you can avoid it. I also will fight for your right to be offensive. But I won't invest in your startup or star your Github repo.
Implying saying something someone might find offensive requires active intent.
OP clearly isn't trying to be offensive. It's ethically wrong to imply, suggest, or act as if they are. The commenter doesn't like the word pimp, and wants others to feel the same distaste they're afflicted by. What the OP intended to do is irrelevant.
More directly why bother to offend if you cant help it. Because someone will happily take offense to anything. So to avoid it would mean not interacting at all. Which is exactly why we can't have nice things. OP is trying to be nice sharing something they feel is useful. Only to be be accosted with the accusation they're intentionally trying to be offensive. If you're going to make something someone will find useful, and it only costs some offense to someone trying to find a way to feel offensive, you then try to cause offence.
Yes, people can choose to take offense at anything. There isn't much we can do about that. In my own interactions, there are certain words and phrases I choose not to use. This works for me, doesn't harm others and generally improves my quality of life.
We exist in a world of many intersecting values and beliefs. We navigate through them in differing ways. There is room for many differing points of view, although recent events make it seem like this is a less viable belief.
Back the the OP, this is a Show HN. My input is I think the name is lame. I won't censor, down vote, blacklist or otherwise assign any other intent.
The comment expressing dislike for the name didn't accuse or say anything about intentional offensiveness, only that they felt it wasn't appropriate in a professional setting. "Someone will happily take offense to anything" isn't true but many commenters have expressed dislike for this particular name. Nobody's coming for the words "bread" or "computer" anytime soon.
"Beautify my readme" or "glow up my readme" would convey the same meaning without the unnecessary sex trade connotation. That would let the work be shared in professional settings and put off fewer people, both positives! Charitably, the original author may not have considered negative connotations for the name. At least now they know it's not universally beloved.
> The comment expressing dislike for the name didn't accuse or say anything about intentional offensiveness, only that they felt it wasn't appropriate in a professional setting.
Their comment includes a rant about sexual exploitation. By it's nature as a comment directed at the OP, implies it's relevant to the name of the project. The best interpretation I was able to come up with is they thought OP didn't know, and thought it was important to point out that the word pimp is 'bad in their opinion'. diskzero's reply is a perfect counter example, they're careful to speak to the reasons objectively. Observing vs complaining (admittedly what I read as complaining.)
> "Someone will happily take offense to anything" isn't true but many commenters have expressed dislike for this particular name. Nobody's coming for the words "bread" or "computer" anytime soon.
But it is true, I can cite plenty of examples of people not being allowed to do cool things because someone complained. It's great that no ones' coming for bread or computer. But I already have so few words, I'm not willing to let anyone "come for" any of them. not even the ones I think are stupid. Not now, and not after soon, however big soon is.
(to be clear I don't think that's what anyone is trying to do, only that It is a hill worth dying on)
Disagree, as clearly did the author.
Your philosophy is sensible, but policing vocabulary at this point is premature optimisation.
There are just so many names to pick from! I find the choice very confusing. Too cringe-y for me to consider sharing or using personally, but I’m sure some will and I hope they enjoy it.
An intuitive case for most people: we all recognize the car from The Dukes of Hazzard, but you probably shouldn’t put the confederate battle flag on your own car as a reference to it.
Known? It seems like many people are disagreeing with you. Who knows that it is offensive? Who decided? Can you tell me or did you just write it in this way to avoid saying directly that it is just your personal opinion that this word is offensive?
But that’s entirely separate from the question of whether the word “pimp” is, in fact, offensive. I think failing to acknowledge that it is a generally offensive word is more a testament to obstinacy than anything else.
Unironically, virtue signalling is offensive to me. What now? Who defines offensiveness?
>you probably shouldn’t put the confederate battle flag on your own car as a reference to it.
Who are you to define a cultural symbol for other people?
I think we need to recognize that offense is not given, it is taken; and it is up to the individual to recognize that context matters before taking offense. The alternative is effectively authoritarianism, dictation of culture and weaponization of victimhood.
If you feel offended by other people saying that they are uncomfortable with things (which, again, doesn’t clearly translate to “virtue signaling” to me), then that sounds like a “you” problem. It’s worth introspecting on why others’ feelings affect yours that much, and why that comes out in such breathless language as “authoritarian,” “weaponization,” &c.
This is only true if you live in an urban bubble. The confederate flag represents more than racism and slavery to southerners, frankly, you are narrow minded. And your interpretation is, ironically, offensive to those who live in the south.
Herein lies the conundrum. You have no right to dictate, what is and is not cut and dry to other people.
>why that comes out in such breathless language as “authoritarian,” “weaponization,” &c. Because inevitably those among us who are the loudest regarding political correctness use it as a tool to grab at power that more often than not is undeserved. They are aggressors in a culture war which is has long ago consumed academia and is rapidly spreading through industry; political correctness is literally thought control and as such forms a foundation for authoritarianism.
I repeat, you have no right to dictate what symbols mean to me - your culture does not supercede mine. All symbols must be considered alongside within the context of intent. I am not offended by people saying that they are uncomfortable, I am offended by such people telling me I am not allowed to use certain symbols or language, or have certain thoughts, under penalty of termination of employment or blacklisting, since ultimately this is a unilateral imposition of culture.
And in fact when such political correctness spreads to other countries, when westerners start insisting that, say, Japan is not diverse or LGBT friendly enough, this is modern cultural imperialism. I don't need it at home and it isn't right abroad either. This is about far more than pronouns and flags.
I don't think they are. My impression was merely they're attempting to convey the general perception. Their's to be sure, but also what they believe to be the accepted consensus.
> This is only true if you live in an urban bubble. The confederate flag represents more than racism and slavery to southerners, frankly, you are narrow minded. And your interpretation is, ironically, offensive to those who live in the south.
This isn't the first time I, an urbanite have heard this. I thought it was stupid then, and I still do. I've never seen a single person wave the confederate flag that wasn't also in the best possible interpretation for them, at the very least, ok with with the confederacy generally. The amount of willful and intentional ignorance as to the reason the confederacy exists, itself is egregious enough. The confederacy exists to promote human slavery. Totems and emblems of it, are inexorable tied to slavery. To fly the confederate is to condone the one of the worst mistakes in American history. "But it doesn't mean racism to me!!!!" You're flying the flag, you should know why it exists. Why did the confederacy exist? "States rights!!!!" States rights, to... do... what? You can continue to lie to both yourself and to me, but that's my point about willful and intentional ignorance of reality.
But I'm more than willing to be convinced I'm wrong, or mistaken. What does the confederate flag mean that's so important, or so valuable that it's existence as a symbol of the group willing to kill to protect the ability to own human slaves should be ignored?
> All symbols must be considered alongside within the context of intent.
I completely agree with you, only I think the responsibility to consider the context and intent lies with both the listener, *and* the speaker. Se why are you willing to ignore the negative connotation or context of the culture?
> I am offended by such people telling me I am not allowed to use certain symbols or language
That's one interpretation of it... I'm not sure it's reasonable. I'd frame it more like: "I wouldn't let someone scream racist obscenities in my ear." Only I'm willing to go farther than that, I'm not willing to let someone display a symbol I believe to be in existence to promote racism at my coffee shop. If the owner agrees, good, if they disagree. Then it's really not my coffee shop. I'll go somewhere else. It just happens to be that there's more people unwilling to tolerate racism than there used to be. And those that are willing to tolerate it are now outnumbered.
> under penalty of termination of employment or blacklisting, since ultimately this is a unilateral imposition of culture.
No, it's the rejection of a harmful culture. I wouldn't willingly work with someone constantly threatening to harm someone. I wouldn't work with someone constantly exclaiming that I'm going to hell because I'm going to the wedding of my gay friend. And I won't willingly work for someone I know owns a slaves. The difference is that instead of me leaving the community, it's me refusing to allow someone spewing such toxicity from joining one I'm already a member of. I'm not saying you can't fly your symbol of racism. In fact I'm glad if you do fly it. Because it makes it easier to know where you stand on the importance of racism. It saves me the trouble of wondering how you feel about racism and slavery.
The endless virtue signalling is so tiresome.
Oh no, this noun if used in an entirely different context means something different! Oh my stars! I mean, give me a break. It is in the best case, bending over backward to avoid even the slightest offense or misunderstanding on something so basic it can safely be taken for granted even among non-native - likely even non-fluent - speakers who are much less familiar and comfortable with English idioms. It is in a slightly worse case, virtue signaling exactly as the GP suggests.
Pearl-clutching aside, I genuinely struggle to see how that’s true. To my mind, the world would be just about the same.
I'm not 100% sure I agree that it's wokeness specifically but there are certainly some parallels at the very least.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaHLd8de6nM
"this word you've used has reminded me of something I don't like and so I'm going to complain about it instead of discussing the actual topic."
Speaking personally it bothers me because it implies either the OP intended to be offensive, or that it was careless to use language that's not devoid of any other context. Neither are reasonable in this case, so it's feels needlessly intrusive, and distracting.
I probably wouldn't feel this way if they commenter attempted to show an assumption of good faith by asking if they considered the context others might have related to the word 'pimp'. Instead of asserting it's outright wrong to be willing to use it.
> I'm not a fan of it is this context. And I hate it in this other context. Obviously the word itself is always a bad word to use. Because the context I care about it clearly the most important.
And yet you felt the need to signal your tribe while trying to shut down someone's speech.
The word "hysterical" has its Greek roots in the idea of hysteria, a sexist antiquated medical condition referring to the wombs tendency to wander. Should we refrain from using it?
I wish people could be a little more intelligent and consider the context in which so-called "offensive" language is employed.
I suspect the common observation people would make is similar to "Because you don't like it, other's shouldn't like it as well?"