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So there's already a system in place for flagging offensive posts and answers.

Some are obvious. There's vulgar language, racist language, and insults in posts in the past.

Others are not. Some people have flagged something as offensive simply because it disagreed with their way of thinking.

I proposed from here on in, if there's ANY doubt on the mod's mind, we let the built in functionality take care of it - I believe if a post or answer or comment receives 3 or more flags, things start to happen.

For example (and I've left it unapproved) someone has recently flagged the phrase 'silly European' for the moderators to look at. I can see why some may not like it - it's a group of people he's called silly, but in my opinion at least, it was in jest, albeit not necessary. Is it offensive? Not to me, but I'm not European. So I'd propose just leaving it, and if enough people get upset about it and flag it as offensive, the system will take care of it.

(Or alternatively we just edit it out quietly ;) - but it's just an example phrase which hopefully won't upset too many people)

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We either leave it for the community to vote and delete, or the mods discuss it among themselves in case of any doubt. That's the standard for any StackExchange site, and that's why the user privileges outside of whatever moderators have exist so that it shouldn't only be the moderators who decide. Anything which is hate speech of course will be deleted right away.

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  • Yep, naturally. I just figured it was worth clarifying on a meta, given that my mod post the other day even caused some debate as to what was offensive. – Mark Mayo♦ Aug 15 '12 at 17:26
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I just realised that flaging a post being offensive, is just the act I never did on travel.se. Did I just miss some, or are travelers kinder people?

Regarding the silly europeans example, being a European, I was not offended at all. If I recall, it was on the question trying to mimic hippietrails epic question, which in my opinion asks for "silly" responses.

So no offense at all, at least in my opinion.

But are there really responses so far?

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    You'd be surprised. But therein lies the problem - you're not offended by it, but someone else was (or claims they were). And if we remove it, then the poster likely gets offended. – Mark Mayo♦ Aug 15 '12 at 18:55
  • @MarkMayo: People would get offended if it gets removed too -- I know I wouldn't like removal of such comments if it's clear they are made for a laugh, not intended to offend somebody. We can do better than responding with a knee-jerk reaction to anything that hurts our sensitive nationalistic feelings. But I guess that's something you down-underers cannot understand :-) – mindcorrosive Aug 16 '12 at 13:12
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    If you are sensitve and or nationolastic, you are not a true traveler, alas no place for on a travelers forum – user141 Aug 16 '12 at 14:52
  • @mindcorrosive - uh, did you read my comment? I specifically said that the poster would likely get offended if their comment was removed. :) – Mark Mayo♦ Aug 16 '12 at 16:19

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