Control: package yasnippet Control: retitle -1 yasnippet: Some snippets contain puerile and unhelpful terms Control: severity -1 minor Control: thanks
I agree that this report describes a bug. However, I strongly disagree with the justification presented: On 11-Aug-2010, Freddie Witherden wrote: > The dov tag is non-standard and not part of any (X)HTML specification. That argues only that the snippet isn't “needed” in some sense; it is not grounds to remove the snippet. > In addition the expansion is potentially offensive containing the > expletive 'shit' several times. I am firmly opposed to – and offended by – the proposal that “potentially offensive” is ever sufficient to remove something from Debian. We should be unapolagetically in favour of non-harmful freedom of expression, and give no respect to complaints merely that some part of Debian might offend some person. There are always people who can, and demonstrably do, respond with offense to a great many innocuous expressions, and to a complaint merely of “offense”, without some positive harm, our response should never be to restrict anyone's expression. As I said, I am quite offended by the proposal. So if someone's offense is sufficient to prevent something, then this would be grounds to prevent the proposed removal. As I say, though, I think mere offense – mine, or anyone's – should not be sufficient for preventing an action in Debian. That's why I offer the justification, instead, that we should lean toward defense of free expression. If changing the expression is justified, it must IMO be justified independently based on tangible, practical problems with the expression. Any “potentially offensive” content that is subject to no other legitimate complaint should not, therefore, be altered for that reason alone. In this case I think there is sufficient justification to change the snippet: The file mentioned (and one other in the package) contains the term “shit” to refer vaguely to some thing, which is puerile and unhelpful to the purpose. It is unwelcoming because it uses vulgarity merely as emphasis. It can easily be improved by choosing a more descriptive, emotionally neutral term instead. On that basis, I think this bug report has merit and should be fixed. (I'm changing the severity to “minor”, though, because I don't see any functional problem caused by this bug.) Thanks to Freddie Witherden for reporting this bug. -- \ “When I was born I was so surprised I couldn't talk for a year | `\ and a half.” —Gracie Allen | _o__) | Ben Finney <b...@benfinney.id.au>
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