Where is the border between a hypothetical question and an insult of peoples or racism?

Question

I flagged two questions for being insulting to a whole people, one regarding Russia, the other one regarding Arabs. Both were declined, stating there was no evidence to support it.

a) What would do more to advance the status of women? The first one was describing "18th century Russia" as "a very backward, 'traditional,' unequal society" with subservient women. In the discussion the person who asked the question stated that adding Russia to specify the "backward society" was not his approach but a community edit. So due to his answer I can understand the rejection of the flag although I would like to see a change making it less offensive.

b) How to create a foreign legion? The second one which isn't at all related to the setting just using it as a arbitrary fun making background is based on a racist movie making fun of Arab societies and is asked from an insulting profile. You will find detailed reason in my comments to that question.

In a comment to another (kind of) related Meta question @monicacelio said it is borderline but doesn't violate the rules:

"it's pretty clearly a parody of the negative stereotypes of the Arab world. Now the Arab world has produced people who caused that stereotype, which is why I said 'borderline'. The question doesn't meet the definition of offensive that would warrant its removal; that said, I can see how people could be offended by it, so it would be better if the author could tone it down some. Not because it's violating the rules, but because it's polite to try to reduce unintended strife."

While I understand the first decline I do not understand the second. Especially as these stereotypes are not produced by the Arab people. Even the dictators were not as they are only able to stay in place because of military training, military supplys, weaponry and money provided by states of the European Union and the USA. The Arab Spring showed pretty well that these people did not want the dictators but failed in the end due to the strong (western supported) military.

So in short my question is - where is the border between a hypothetical question and an insult of a people or racism?

I'd be glad if you could especially explain what flaggable racism, rudeness or abusiveness means this forum.

I read somewhere in Meta that Worldbuilding is considered a worldwide forum. Worldwide includes Russians, Arabs, Indians, Chinese etc. I am aware of the the problem that the drawing of borders could result in alienating some persons. While I do not want that I would like to point out, that exactly those actions also alienate other people. So if in any of the two obvious possibillities people are alienated what do we do? This is not about good and evil. This is about how we are interacting considering it to be a forum of people from many different backgrounds and cultures, from many different parts of this world and with many different peculiarities.

Please forgive my spelling if there are errors.

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As a foundation about what we are talking here I would like to recommend the Wikipedia Article about Anti-Arabism, especially the part about Western Media: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Arabism#Western_media

Please note, that Anti-Arabism seems not to be an issue in Russia (I am open to differing sources though). Therefore I am focused on the Western involvement in North African / Middle Eastern politics and economies. Doesn't mean anyone else is not involved there or "we" Western people are the only source - just that we are an important part of the source.

Answer 1

I'm going to post this separately, because:

1. My existing answer was about one of the cases brought in the question, while this is a more forward-looking answer.

2. And therefore I don't want to confuse the voting, especially because people have already voted on that first answer.

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I don't think we want to restrict what real-world history, countries, or peoples questions can be related to. Questions, however, need to be asked in a constructive way, and the more sensitive the subject is, the more careful you need to be.

Historians, anthropologists, economists, and many others already study and analyze events of our world. Some of those events were (and are) unpleasant or worse to people directly or indirectly affected. Yet society as a whole has not said that studying or talking about those subjects is off-limits. Not studying them could even be the greater danger, trading discomfort now for lessons forgotten later.

Writers, game designers, and others sometimes set their works in current, historical, or alternate-timeline realities. And they need to be able to do research, so that a game or story placed in 19th-century Russia or 12th-century Persia or 1930s Germany or China during the Cultural Revolution feels right. We should not block off whole parts of Earthly reality merely because there is the potential for people to get upset.

But how you ask a question is really important. Historians and other analysts generally take a detached, clinical approach. While we're a creative bunch and creativity can be fun, asking a question "in persona" when the topic is sensitive can lead to trouble. I really don't want to see a question about the crusades that starts out "So, I'm Pope Urban II and it's far past time to reclaim the holy land from those (insert insults here)...", even if you think that's something he would have said. Feel free to write your story or your game module that way, but try to keep in mind that the audience here on Worldbuilding is really broad -- geographically, culturally, politically, and religiously.

In general, you should assume that the closer in time an event is to the present day, the more likely it is that somebody reading your question was directly affected by it. And even if it was more distant (like, say, slavery in 19th-century America), remember that ripples of major events are felt for generations after. If you were having dinner with an affected person instead of typing on the Internet, would you talk about the event in the same way?

Questions about sensitive matters are welcome. Try to ask them respectfully and sensitively. And if the sensitive point is actually tangential to your question (you just picked an example, but you could have picked others instead), then try to be flexible if somebody raises the issue or edits your question. Questions that are actually about sensitive matters are welcome, but don't use a hot-button topic to sensationalize your question.

Answer 2

Thank you for bringing your concern to meta. This is a conversation that should take place with the whole community and in more space than that afforded by flag text or comments. (That comment you quoted here? I had 0 characters left.)

FYI, two different moderators independently handled your two flags.

I handled the flag on the "Arab" question, and I was conflicted. The question is inspired by a movie (which I have not seen) which itself sounds like a nasty parody. That makes it hard to separate whether the question is offensive. I came down on the "no" side, but I thought about it for a while first. I don't like the question (and downvoted), but I couldn't see cause to remove it under our guidelines.

What decided it for me is that what the question seems to be parodying is the leader, not the whole people. And while the question is over the top, we have seen examples, including (but not exclusively) from the Arab world, of military leaders, rigged elections, a false sense of being "beloved" by the people, oppression of those same people, suppression and fear of foreign ideas and people, and tight control over every detail of people's lives.

The question does not, to me, read as a slam on the Arab people, or even every Arab leader throughout history. It doesn't even read to me as a slam on a specific person (where we might then consider whether it's a personal attack, which isn't ok); the combination of details doesn't (AFAIK) work for any one country or person.

But I'm a white western Jewish woman, so maybe it's there and I can't see it. I hope the community will provide feedback.

Answer 3

I don't think there should be borders. Perhaps we don't like a particular person's spin on things or their underlying opinions come through and then perhaps we would like to be able to ban them on this principle. However whenever you create a generalised restrictive ban like this there are always others who might want to create a commentary on such a world to make a point.

Whenever you draw a hard line you cut off some people with valid ideas$^\dagger$. You have to ask yourself whether that line is worth drawing. As it is none of us are terribly offended and disagreement can be shown without starting an argument by downvoting.

$^\dagger$ Not valid ideas about racism but a valid story idea - a commentary on equality by building a world so ridiculously not equal. Sometimes a caricature of an idea or misconception can show us its ridiculousness by the emphasis. I'm not saying that was the case in the ones you pointed out, only that it is a possibility.

Answer 4

The way I understand it this forum is about making fantasy verisimilar. I am sorry that you believe that fantasy must have boundaries; please take into consideration that the questions are not the complete works of art, and you really should not judge a work from an individual detail. For beauty may well arise from the imitation of ugliness: when you ask to set boundaries you implicitly forbid any kind of distopy and of satire, and indeed any complex story, because they must, by their nature, describe that which is ugly, unjust, unfair or undesirable; limiting fantasy to what is beautiful, just, fair and desirable makes for dull (and most likely perishable) stories.

There is no border between acceptable fantasy and unacceptable fantasy, for in the dark and unforeseen recesses of such a border is born the division between goodthink and crimethink; we must strive to preserve the freedom of thought. Die Gedanken sind frei: "Thoughts are free, who can guess them? They fly by like nocturnal shadows. No man can know them, no hunter can shoot them with powder and lead: Thoughts are free!" (Translation from Wikipedia of the lyrics of a famous anti-totalitarian song.)

Answer 5

In my opinion, you have concatenated multiple questions into one.

Questions are:

What edits to questions/answers of other users are allowed?

your actual question:

Where is the border between a hypothetical question and an insult?

tangential:

Can facts be considered an insult?

and finally:

When fact stops being fact?

As you pointed out, "Russia" was added, and it was not part of original phrasing. While Tsarist Russia WAS generally backwards compared to western Europe (feudalism and absolute monarchy were feeling well under Tsars, ideas of Enlightenment had harder time taking ground for various reasons) it actually wasn't in the field of woman rights. Tsarist Russia was European par of the course in this regards.

Personally, I heavily dislike entire concept of editing questions and answers of other people just like that, without necessity of approval of >>original author<<. It doesn't matter how much reputation you have, you are different person and you will have different lines of thinking.

Facts should never be considered insults, if someone is offended by truth, it's his/hers problem.

However in this case situation is different. Calling Tsarist Russia backwards in this context is a manipulation, this claim latches onto fact that Russia was feudal longer than rest of Europe to push false statement. AS such, this edit should have never been made for 2 different reasons - it changes context to something author didn't say, and it's false.

As for your main question, I don't know. It is a fact that phrasing insult as a question is a very effective move, but I'm not sure this is a case on this site. This is mostly a debating move used to win over audience by publicly insulting opponent while keeping ability to deny having insulted anyone. I don't think it applies here because there is no clear "opponent" to be attacked.

Answer 6

#2

The question has nothing to do with who caused what issue, or who is a hypocrite, or how country x would be a paradise if not for those bad y people. The discussion should be about if the question is offensive, why, and if it is acceptable. Anything else is too many degrees away, and ultimately useless.

Is the Aladeen persona relevant to the question?

If you want to ask a question couching it in a specific world is useful, picking a parodic world like Aladeen's keeps it based in a real like world, but in a hypothetical country. Asking from a fictional character itself may avoid issues caused by asking as a real person such as Gaddafi, Hussein, Castro, Hitler, Pol Pot, etc.

Something of note, is that Aladeen is the head of a resource dictatorship.
While resource dictatorships have existed in many different locations, many of them have fallen into the areas under Muslim influence. (The Caliphate expanded Islam to a large area, which just happens to contain a lot of mines and wells).

You could contrast this against the various Caribbean dictatorships, but then that would obviously take a Caribbean style. You could take an African Warlord or Dictator, and that would obviously have African influences.

So having him be the leader of a perceived Middle Eastern country should not be an issue for just portraying such a country. He does not go out of his way to meander out of character and sticks mostly to topic.

The question itself is a legitimate governorship question given from a character in the vein of The Glorious Leader or El Presidente.

Should Questions from bad people (Persona of questioner not the actual SO user) be banned?

Do we really want to ban questions just because it comes from a distasteful persona. A Ghenghis Khan, Hitler, Napoleon type persona?

Just because a question is voiced by Hitler, I do not believe we should ban it. Unless he is explicitly asking how the best way to fit people into cattle cars to ship off, it shouldn't be an issue.

Do you want to ban something for simply being distasteful?

Controversial should not overly limit creativity. As an example, murder is viewed as bad by most societies and religions, and glorifying it should not be desired. Yet, just because a story contains it, should not be the sole criteria for throwing it out.

Asking a question of how a Jack the Ripper character may fit into a world should be fine. Asking questions as Jack the Ripper, should mostly be fine (Something along the lines of how to avoid a pre-industrial police force or something). Writing a detailed narrative of how he eviscerates and/or rapes his victims is not desired.