(Note that there is a lot of opposition to affirmative action, which is illegal in many countries and some US states. It's a stretch to assume that Evan has one opinion or the other on this matter.)

First, the atmostphere in this thread is perhaps already a bit heated.

Second, and more importantly, there could be users caring about the matter you bring up that did not pay attention to this thread, or stopped paying attention to it already.

Thank you.

I'm not personally a huge fan of soft big list questions, but many users of this site seem to enjoy them. A large number of people participated int he "colorful language" thread, and it seems rather inconsiderate to them to delete it completely from the site.

A collectively moderated site like MO doesn't work well if people adopt too rigid a standard for what is acceptable. We all should tolerate some differences between what we think MO would be like in an ideal world and what MO is actually like in the real world.

Note that I am NOT arguing that all or most soft big list questions should be allowed. I think it is important that they not be allowed to dominate the site. Closing some of them early, before they get started, is fine. But once a question and garnered a large amount of participation, I think it should be left on the site.

Sorry, to those who found the discussion it created annoying or unfortunate.

I cast the first vote to delete the "colorful language" thread.

It is, I think, perfectly reasonable to believe, either on the basis of systematic evidence or of casual observation (if that's all you've got) that short people are, on average, not as good at math as tall people. (It might also be perfectly reasonable for someone else to believe the opposite.)

I think much more often than not if in such contexts 'believes' are based on nothing but 'casual observation' they are more a (biased/flawed) confirmation of somehow pre-existing convictions (and this can well happen subconciously, even if one believes one is an objective observer) than believes based on any actual observation, and thus in general it is not reasonable(1) to have them, or at least one should not make any relevant decision based on them or voice them as (semi-)facts or believes based on observation. (Even for 'systematic evidence' I think one should be very careful to check for what one actually has evidence and for what not, and what one might infer from this in a given situation, but this seems rather in agreement with the conclusion of the preceeding comment.)

(1) Here by 'not reasonable' I mean that it is in general not some rational believe, so not something related to reason. Yet, essentially everybody will have some at least subconsious biases regarding one thing or another deriving from perhaps even impossible to trace sources. So, that it might be understandable to have it (like other imperfections of human nature), but it is not reasonable. And, as said, in particular one should not conciously base ones actions on it; this is IMO not understandable any more.

1. Foreign students, it might reasonably be surmised, are not on average as good at lecturing as American students, since they are not necessarily as fluent in the language. So the graduate director offers to help out the foreign students with their lectures.

2. There are studies that show that IQ is positively correlated with height, so one might reasonably surmise that tall people will on average be better at math than short people. So the graduate director offers to help out the short grad students with their comprehensive exams.

The crux of the issue is the question of why the graduate director would single out female students as ones to help with comprehensive exams, even if one believes that female students might tend to need more help than men: Why not just target specifically those students that actually need help?

In variant 1, there is a reason to target foreign students; namely, they might have difficulties speaking English if they did not grow up with it. In this scenario, there is a shared understanding of the causal mechanisms behind foriegn students being potentially poor lectureres. No one believes that the graduate director is suggesting that all foreign students are bad lectures; rather, he is merely offering to help them with their English skills. If I am a foreign student from an English-speaking country, I would certainly not be put off by the graduate director's offer, because I understand the specific purpose of the offer and how relevant it is to me (not very). I can take the graduate director's offer at face value.

Variant 2 shows the absurdity of trying to treat Chuck's story like variant 1. What can the graduate director do to specifically help short students with their comprehensive exams? (It is not clear to me, as you seem to imply in your post, that the kind of "help" the director was offering in Chuck's story was simply raising scores.) Why bother picking out a specific trait, like gender or height, that could be correlated with mathematical ability, rather than simply offering help to those who need it?

The explanation of why Chuck's story and others like it revolves around gender rather than height is, I think, obvious to just about anybody. Even if I'm a female student who knows that she's smarter than any of the male students in the room, I have no reason to believe that the graduate director's remark was not meant to apply to me. At best, it seems as though I am automatically being discounted because I am a woman, and at worst, the suggestion of help is downright hostile: A male in a position of power offering to "help out" specifically female subordinates carries some heavy connotations.

So even though the word "sexism" tends to get thrown around a lot, I think that, at least in this case, you're being far too dismissive. The way that gender continues to permeate our society, not just in informal social contexts but in more official capacities (marriage laws, child custody disputes, restrooms), has real potential for harm. As academics, we tend to think that we have moved beyond such things, but the reality is much different. The graduate director in Chuck's story was, among other things, being downright unprofessional, not because he had the belief that women were inferior to men or even because he expressed it, but because he expressed it to an audience that he should not have expressed it to, and he expressed it in a manner that was demeaning and threatening.

(Moderators: As Steve said, if this is too far off-topic, please delete.)

So the way in which it was quoted was (IMO) a positive one, as a opposed to a at least neutral, or balanced or critical one.

And in view of the fact that 'calls for deletion' are again mentioned, I would just like to point out that I cannot find that many calls for deletion. (And for example Scott C. who is on record as finding the quote offensive, did not delete it, while he could have; the quote if I remember well was not in the state of deletion when he made his comment). It was delted, so it seems to me, because Francois was of the opinion (and in my opinion this is a legitimate position) that this would be a simple solution. If one would like to continue on this censorship subject, one could equally well say that deletion was done to silence the debate on the subject and its ramifications. [This is meant for the sake of argument.]

Which leads to the question what is sexism. Here a dictionary definition is: a. attitudes or behaviour based on traditional sexual roles. b. discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex.

So short answer from my side, all three.

By the way, I also agree with Nilima's assessment that you quote. It's all about what "some degree" means. Like Angelo, I often see a counterproductive angst, rather than "some degree of political correctness".

As for the rest of the discussion, which seems to take on the issues of political correctness, there's not much to offer except anecdotes. As a bona-fide woman in mathematics, I'm actually grateful for some degree of 'political correctness' has crept into the seminar room, and professional interactions in general.

Can't say much more than: indeed.

I also tend to view censorship as political goons telling newspapers not to print stories about certain well-connected criminals, or redaction of letters being sent home by serving military personnel. In this case, by censorship do you mean the original deletion by Francois, or the hypothetical "censorship" that might have been used by BAMS editors to strike out that passage of his review? Because the latter isn't censorship, in my view, it's editing.

I can easily read Powell's "Rivers of blood" speech and see an honest man trying to raise the issue he thinks is important.

I am no expert on the political history of the time, and my knowledge of the Classics is paltry; but my recollection from discussion with more informed people is that Powell was positioning himself for a power-play within the party, and hence the speech was as much rabble-rousing as the plea of an honest Roman looking at the Tiber. And the rabble was definitely there to be roused.

I had started writing an overly emotive comment, but was called away from the computer just in time to realise that i was in danger of charging around MMO without trousers. (Yes, trousers, and the date is still 19/12/11, I don't care what the rest of this continent says ;) ) It may yet turn up as a blog post, since I feel rather strongly about these things as the years go by, and would like to use stronger --ing language than is -- ing accepted here, as Mr Tulip might --ing say.

That said? I also agree with Chuck, in all regards except perhaps his diagnosis

The consensus opinion by mathematicians in this thread -- that objecting to sexism amounts to "political correctness" and censorship

-- see Darij's clarification.

I see absolutely no hint of anyone here thinking that objecting to sexism is censorship: I surely don't. I don't have any problems distinguishing «quoting a passage» from «adhering to a passage» or «believing and/or propounding a passage as an ideal/normal way of expressing ideas», and I can quote a passage and simultaneously object to its content.

Also, I don't believe that deleting sexist remarks amounts to censorship—and I would most probably object to Bloch using this imagery in an MO answer—much as I would probably object that a speaking in a colloquium talk &c, but I would rather add a comment suggesting a rephrasing than flag it for deletion.

It seems that every of us has his favorite strawman to bash...

If you think this rule should be clarified, modified, edited, or changed in any way, then please send your suggestions to moderators@mathoverflow.org. (That works for anything else in the faq too.)

More seriously, I won't deny that as with virtually all things in life one can also overdo limitations on what one can say. Yet, the actual example brought up so far do not strike me as such that the problem is only noticeable with a particularly sensitive or sophisticated approach. But then this is perhaps relative.

But, fedja, the general idea afaik but you most likely too, is that one should change the language to change the society so to say. In this sense what you say seems backwards. One should avoid the metaphor first in order to achive, or contributing to achieve, some change. Personally I am really convinced that this has some significance. Perhaps slowly and in small amounts, but still.

This is quote-worthy. Then again, the total of fedja's post is, even though I disagree with some of his opinions on other matters. But... what is that panda story about?

EDIT: Ah. Google was my friend.

I do not find the metaphor problematic in the least. I do not see in what way that is relevant, though, just I do not see in what way others finding it problematic is relevant.

The first sentence is your opinion, I happen to disagree quite strongly, but this is (of course) not the problem. My issue is with the second phrase. I do think that in general, and since your brought up the painting I am given to understand that you also mean this beyond the narrow context of this precise thread/answer, it is not common to disregard opinions entirely on such matters; in particular if it comes to uncritical presentation and/or if they are completely public (where I am not sure if I use uncritically in a correct way; as I elabortated what I mean is some explanatory commentary). There are to some extent also laws governing what can and cannot be displayed in what context for what audience, and laws are rules based on in some sense the general, for the context, opinion (at least in a democracy, typically, though often indirectly).

And since you mentioned a painting, there are also now controversies related to exhibitions of (nowadays mainly modern) art. I do not have a quotable example handy, but I know for a fact that it can happen that one or another piece of an exhibition is removed due to some criticism, which before evidently soembody found fitting to include and would also be fitting according to some abstract criteria.

Not that I typically support this, but it can happen in general, which is what we are discussing. But to me it also makes a difference if something is say in an exhibition (and in appropriate context) or presented in such a way that it is somehow unavoidable. So, in some sense I consider it as somewhat less of a problem that this quote is in the colorful language thread than that it was included of all places in a BAMS book review (this is really incomprehensible to me, and indeed what I complained about at first in my comment to the answer was this). By analogy I have little problem with most content in a novel, but I would find it problematic if the usermanual for some device would be written in a potentially controversial way. [Added clarfifcation: when I say 'I have no problem' this does not imply that I do not find it, personally, problematic. Yet, something not being 'problematic' is not the only criterion. However, the balance is considerably different depending on what a publication/medium is for.}

So, I think it is simply not true that opinions regarding what is or is not objectionable are completely disregarded when deciding what to display. Of course, not each and every objection will be reasonable, or one might disagree with some, but to just claim that as a matter of principle opinions in such matters are irrelevant is as said in my experience simply not common practise. Now, you might wish it were so, not sure about this, but this is still something else than to claim that this is like this. And of course you can also say that opinions considering the quote problematic are for some specific reason to be considered as irrelevant, but this is also something else. The only thing I do find problematic is that you claim that anybodies opinion here should as a matter of general principle be irrelevant, as this is typically like this in such a situation, because as I hope to have documented this is in my experience simply not the case.

The purpose of the thread we are talking about is to document non-standard writing occurring in mathematical texts. I think it is undeniable that Bloch's text fits that description. You and I and anyone may have whatever opinion about the content of the text, its appropriateness and what not, but I honestly do not think that has much relevance at all in the matter of deciding if the quote deserves inclusion as an answer to the question in question.

I am sure there exist people who find Courbet's L'Origine du monde objectionable, and their opinion counts just as anyone's, but their opinion is more or less irrelevant in deciding whether, say, to include the painting in a collection of paitings from its period.

[no longer relavant]

[no longer relevant]

It seems the originally phrasing was to provocative. I stll think there would be something interesting to discuss, but perhpas this is not the right place and time. Sorry, if it came of as an insult, it was (only) inteded as a somwhat provocative way to challenge your position.

Can I just say that I do not recognize this often dictatorial enforcement of political correctness? I fail to notice the jackboots at my door, the inspectors at my office, etc etc. What people inveigh against as "political correctness" sometimes seems more like an attempt, sometimes clumsy, to avoid language that is coarse towards others and entrenches discrimination or imbalances of power.

[I was going to reel off a list of terms that so-called "political correctness" has forced to the margins of acceptable language in Britain, but then decided it was enough to mention sewers without displaying their contents.]

And I stick by my original comment regarding the quote from Bloch, which mars an otherwise engaging review. The general metaphor seems patronizing but of its time; the closing sentence is just crass.

All that said, I am inclined to agree with Bill Johnson's take on this particular case as regards MO policy.

As a more general comment, not necessarily only related to the present discussion, I am very sure that the often dictatorial enforcement of mostly, let's say, strange rules of political correctness has not prevented a single case of discrimination against anyone. The fact that normal people brought up in a democratic society perceive of such enforcement as censorship should give those demanding it some food for thought.

@Mariano: I am not quite sure what you want to say. Do you, or don't you think that this specific metaphor is problematic in the first place? (Leaving aside the question whether it is a problem to repost it here.) It seems you do. But, then I do not understand why you consider it as incomprehensible that one sees the need to point out this fact to those that do not see this, like OP and, say, it seems Alex Bartel.

I would never write such a review, but the fact is, it was written. It was written by a notable mathematician, it was published in a noted publication, it was quoted in an infinitely on-topic way as an answer to a question which is—of course—rather not on topic on MO but which has become one of those non-on-topic-but-already-classical ones. I find most of this thread incomprehensible!

I'm glad to have helped bring the point across. :) I see the misunderstanding between us clearly now, and also (I think) between you and François, who also seems to have interpreted your flagging as a "please delete this" rather than a "please discuss this" signal.

Also, while I don't share Bill's desire to delete the whole question with all its answers and I don't believe he will get the votes he needs to do that (there are some highlights among the answers), his motion to do so is a valid one, as it does not lead to a chilling effect on marginal opinions, but only signalizes that MO is a place for mathematical Q&A rather than for trivia and jokes.

Now my understanding of the further situation is that François is of the opinion that the simplest solution in such a case is to delete it (on the grounds that some find it offensive/problematic while it is actually tangential to the purpose of MO). Which I think is a solid pragmatic/efficient point of view. And also seems generalizable since the situation where some answer is in the scope of MO in the narrow math-research sense and still needs to be sexist, racist,... is a bit hard to imagine.

Yet, I can also follow and have some sympathy for the more puristic line of reasoning of Bill Johnson and you that this is in some sense problematic to delte it, because after all it is an example of published colorful math writing and so it is not clear why it cannot/should not be in this thread, if this thread exist at all.

So, what I learned from this discussion is that some participants have a very strong opinion against deletions. While relatively strong criticism of problematic content seems to be quite universally accepted. This is useful information to have for me as it was not clear.

For the moment I left it at that. But then perhaps an hour later thought perhaps this is actually not sufficient. (One would have had a relatively high voted answer and some almost ignored comments; perhaps this is not a good message.) And in fact thought about just adding some commentary to the answer itself. However, then I was also not sure whether this was consider as alright. And in view of the fact that this question comes up occassionaly (though rarely) for me, I thought I will ask about this on meta.

And after some consideration, actually I had a draft for this request which gave more space to the current issue, decided for various reasons to make it rather a general request. Because I think/thought one could legitimately have different opinions on the general course of action.

I spelled out three options that I thought one could consider in principle (and indeed meanwhile for each of them somebody expressed that it would be good), and one 'open one'. One the one hand to structure the discussion, on the other hand, in view of the fact that just with asking what should/could be done, one would run the risk of getting some half-witty comments to the extent one could do this, this, or this...what are you asking about.

Now the first suggestion given was to inform the moderators, which is a good suggestion since in principle it would avoid that specific public attention is drawn to the problem which in some cases can be advantageous. One informs them, and then they can decide what to do. (So in some sense I would be willing to accept the image of calling/informing the police/an authority; but then this is not something which I consider as particularly negative, at least as long as one is in a context where these authorities are reasonable, which is the case here on MO) In particular, the suggestion was to err on the save side.

In general, flagging for moderator attention means to me what it says, bringing something to the awareness of the moderators. [Flagging as spam or offensive are very different, as they would have an immideate effect if done by a couple of people.] I do this on occassion for reasons that have nothing to do with deletion, in particular I do this (as recently mentioned) to ask for turning something into CW mode. Such a flag is accompanied by a message (max 140 char) I cannot recall what exactly I wrote, but something like that I consider this answer as it is as highly problematic, with an add on that in a different context it might not be so bad. In particular, I would also like to point out that I said here in my second comment indirectly that I do not consider the matter as urgent. As on the one hand the thing was around for almost a week already, and on the other hand it is not something which I think has a potentially instant emotionally damaging/disturbing effect (as opposed to perhaps say a highly inappropriate picture). (cont)

I think it appropriate that the moderators, who have super powers, are now standing aside.

• throwing into the debate the option of deleting the post,

and in post #3,

• actively proposing to delete the post (by flagging it).

From the beginning on I had nothing against a critical comment in the answer. That's not censorship. Deleting the post is censorship.

NB: We might be having a disagreement about what flagging implies. I believe that flagging a post means requesting the authorities to delete it. If I just want to put a critical comment in a community-wiki post, there is no point for me in flagging it; I'd just make the comment (if I am sure of myself and don't want anyone else's opinion) or open a meta discussion (if I do want others' opinions, what is more reasonable in this context) as a result of which I'd either make the comment or leave the post be but NOT flag it as inappropriate. It might be that your understanding of what flagging is is different. I am not saying tht any of us is wrong here. Flagging on MO is done so infrequently that each of us has a good right to have no idea how it works and what it brings.

What might also have happened is that François' alarmist post (#2) prompted you to flag without thinking. François' alarmism, in turn, probably came from the unclarity what you were referring to (if somebody talks of sexism without getting more concrete, people usually expect something much more sinister than the matter at hand). So it was all in all a big misunderstanding: everybody wanted to play safe, and as a result the thing escalated. If this is so, can we now settle the matter? François could undelete the post, quid could add a critical comment, everybody else could vote up/down and we would stop talking about censorship?

@Darij: it seems we have the same opinion on what should be done, adding a comment in the answer. So I am not sure why you insist that I called for censorship, or are you calling for it too? And that this is about my opinion was clear from the start as I stressed that the problem is that it is quoted in an uncritical way.

I note that in two days I can vote to delete the thread.

Afterwards, if you also vote to close the thread, you can, if you want, cast the first vote to delete if you beat me to the punch (since I have moved from the "not opposed to deleting" camp to the "favor deleting" camp due to the distraction from the main purpose of MO the thread has caused).

Well, I can undelete it but I would rather not do so until there is a different proposal to resolve this commotion.

Space is not an issue for MO, but as far as Mein Kampf is concerned, IMO any library that does not have a copy cannot have a reasonable politics section. I cannot imagine a serious library removing Mein Kampf "to make place for something better".

I would agree with you that a critical comment in the answer would be a good way to go. It's community wiki, so every of us can do that on his own, and I think of this as fair game if the comment is sufficiently clearly marked as an edit by somebody else than the original answerer.

The site is considered at least by some (incidentally also by the seminar-room rule you quote) as a somewhat professional context

Ha-ha. :D

and writing a review for BAMS is also more part of the job than leisurely activity.

I am not defending the publishing of that quote in a review, not even the posting of it on MathOverflow (to say the least it is not representative of the review it is taken from). I just think that censorship (which it still is in my opinion) is much worse.

Daniel's example of Hall's marriage theorem is not exactly comparable, because it is usually formulated in that "fancy" version for n boys and n girls, and there is no objectivization of any of the sexes ("pursue") or provocation of the audience ("private parts") involved (most of the time; once I have seen an instructor prove it using the spreading of a sexual disease...). I tend to avoid this marriage metaphor not for any provocational or sexist content, but because it means telling one and the same joke to the same people (combinatorialists) over and over.

@Michael Greinecker: As for me, I am opposed to the "in case of doubt, delete" trend here, but this trend has for now been restricted mostly to questions that were not sufficiently clearly posed and did not receive good answers, not to opinions. Also I find the tendency of some question askers to delete their questions together with others' answers a scandal, but as long as we cannot change the software we cannot do anything against that here.

I am NOT opposed to deleting the entire thread as being not relevant. If the question is acceptable, so is the answer, which quoted a published review.

I do not like either the question or the deleted answer, BTW, but I opposed to censorship, which is very, very different from keeping material off MO that is not relevant for MO. I cannot undelete the answer, but I did vote to close the thread, and, if it gets closed, I will vote to delete it.

Here is the thread:

François, do you also want to edit Mark Twain's books?

So I am not quite sure what to do. Are critical comments sufficient? (They typically appear.) Or should there be something critical in the body of the answer? Or should it go entirely? Or still something else.

It seems to me the most one can infer from this is that I consider only critical comments as potentially insufficient. As the visbility is not quite symmertic in particular in such an overcrowed answer thread. However, what I, personally, would find a good option in this case, is actually the middle one. That is to supplement the quote by some critical commentary (and by critical I do not mean a purely negative comment, but some discussion, like, that this is a in some sense well-written text and certainly qualifies as colorful, yet that for this and this reason it is also problematic).

To my question I then receieved rapidly an answer from François saying among others:

Or, at the very least, flag for moderator attention.

So, then I (of course) followed up on this and flagged (for moderator attention as requested, not offensive or spam).

Thus, neither did I directly propose to delete it, I merely listed deletion of one of several options one could consider, nor did I use any flag that automatically leads to deletion.

Some other points. You say 'All in all I don't see much reason for a "professional" code of conduct for mathematicians outside of their job.' I am not sure what you mean here/how this applies here. The site is considered at least by some (incidentally also by the seminar-room rule you quote) as a somewhat professional context, and writing a review for BAMS is also more part of the job than leisurely activity.
And, IMO, one should not tell an analog of this review in a seminar room or lecture hall (except under special circumstances).

Why I mentioned censorship and internet police? Because quid proposed "Or should it go entirely?".

Let me remark that I find critical comments perfectly fair game and well-deserved. And if the critical comment receives more upvotes than the question, that's legitimate and representative. If the answerer decides to remove his answer for that reason, that's again perfectly okay. But I don't like the proposal that we should delete it, and that's what quid attempted by flagging the question.