Talk: Offensive Terms Policy

Wrong links

The wiktionary links to the "n-word" and the "c-word" aren't even the proper ones. They link to the capitalized variations of these words. I can't modify the main page, so can please someone do it for me? Castlefania (talk) 08:32, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

I have modified those. Thanks for the heads up! –ReverieCode 10:46, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response. I have also noted a grammar mistake in the "r-word" paragraph. It should read "This also includes the word in its “-ed” form" instead of the "the words" with an -s. Oh, and you might also want to add a period after "women", after "three-letter variant" and after "disability", for consistency's sake. Sorry, I'm a little OCD. :) Castlefania (talk) 11:02, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

Censorship

• This is censorship —This unsigned comment is by PewDieLoserYT (wall • contribs). Please sign your comments by adding "~~~~" in the source editor.
  • It's not. TheOriginalImpostor (talk) 14:50, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
    • It literally is. Definition: "to examine in order to suppress (see suppress sense 2) or delete anything considered objectionable" ("censor", Merriam-Webster see: [Verb]). Agreeing with something doesn't make it not-censorship; disagreeing with something doesn't make it censorship. But this is censorship, whether or not you think it's a good or bad thing. Ricky J. (talk) 22:26, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Opinion: This is a bad policy, and the Bot makes it worse.

Why would Fandom implement this with a No-Slurs Bot? What advertisers threatened them this time for being an encyclopedia? Can you imagine if a dictionary refused to list the meanings of slurs or other negative words, because it would be unseemly and might be hurtful to dictionary-readers? We have games with quotes where the words are used, but we're not allowed to use them because??? Who is this for? The people reading wikis are those who (A) already play the games (or watch the shows or read the books); or (B) WANT to play the games (etc. etc.) and are mentally prepared to know more about it.

Fandom clearly doesn't trust the rest of us to use these words responsibly and to reverse/restrict/punish the editing of jerks who use these words irresponsibly. This policy is Fandom insulting their own audience, their own editors, and the authors of the games and other works that used words deliberately, and provide them the subjects for their free content. They're essentially saying, "We know better than all of you what words are and are not acceptable in EVERY context. You mere editors cannot possibly have enough intelligence to parse good faith word-usage from bad faith usage."

And if they weren't, it wouldn't be enforced with the stupidest version of a No-Slurs policy: the automated Slur-Spotting Bot.

I'm not even opposed to an Offensive Terms Policy, but this is the worst way to do it.

Get rid of the Bot, and get rid of this blanket "No Words EVER" policy. Just allow the different Wiki teams to enforce it, and step in and judge the situation when you get specific complaints.

As it is? This is unnecessary, it's hamfisted, and it's screwing with our ability to edit and create free value for Fandom, all for no good reason (besides, potentially, protecting Fandom from unhappy advertisers, in which case, we will see who Fandom values more if they keep this policy as-is).

Respectfully, Ricky J. (talk) 22:44, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

You hit the nail on the head. Context-less censorship is an offense to the authors editors try to quote. This is done so as not to miss any corporate money, having the secondary effects of treating the editors as if in need of a figure to police the "bad words", looking like a censorship-compliant company or people resorting to algospeaking and ending up on euphemism treadmills.--AzureKesil (talk) 04:08, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Lack of Clarity

There is a lack of clarity under 'terms not permitted' as they state the terms are banned when used in the specified way, which implies that homonyms are acceptable where the meaning is different, yet a staff member I have raised the issue with insists that all uses of the words are banned even when they are clearly inoffensive homonyms. My particular experience was having the first half of 'f-- ends' censored, even though cigarette ends are not homosexual and the word had been on the wiki for 12 years without causing offence. (I also see that another wiki had the same word censored although it was a Norwegian word having nothing to do with homosexuality.)

The rules need to be clarified. If homonyms are banned (and the use of a filter to prevent them being posted means that that will probably be the practical outcome), then say so. Don't say one thing in the rules and enforce something difference. Be consistent. DJ Tyrer (talk)

Just do not type slurs ever. Simple. -Kikimira3 (talk) 00:03, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Following the rule that we should assume good faith, I'm going to assume you don't know what a homonym is (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/homonym) and aren't accusing people referencing cigarettes or speaking Norwegian of being bigots because two words with different meanings sound the same. In these cases, no slur was typed and, under the stated policy, the non-slur shouldn't need to be censored. DJ Tyrer (talk)

I was simply saying that you can type other words that are the exact same thing as that word in context, but without spelling one that means a slur in a different context. -Kikimira3 (talk) 04:19, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

No. Just no. Castlefania (talk) 08:03, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

A bit difficult when it's the title of a poem written nearly 20 years ago, or, as happened with the other wiki I mentioned, it's in the title of a Norwegian book, and these are the things we're writing about. Without a time machine, we can't change the facts. Nobody was offended by these obscure pages, but people are definitely offended by this silly policy. DJ Tyrer (talk)

Good Policy

Ableist agenda will not be tolerated. Block all usage of the slurs and don't look back. Block it. Delete it. No more offensive remarks. No more toxicity. SpongeCame (talk) 06:18, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

No. Just no. Castlefania (talk) 08:02, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

Outdated inclusion (C-word)

As a queer person, I think it's outdated to forbid the c-word outright. That word is very commonly used by drag and LGBTQ+ communities, under a completely different, feminist meaning, especially since ~2021. This has had a notable effect on mainstream popular culture, being:

• Used as an acronym on RuPaul's Drag Race.
• Used in a song title by MARINA. This was a mainstream single that had a viral billboard at Coachella.
• Used in music by other popstars, including Beyoncé (twice).
• Broadly used as slang within pop music fandom.

I bring this up because the MARINA song in particular has been censored on Fandom, citing that "It doesn't matter that it's not used with intention to attack women, it is by it's nature attacking." — As I've shown, this is untrue and an outdated sentiment. Venomander (talk) 10:40, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Possible quotation problem

On one wiki, I am trying to update all pages that have any of the prohibited words. The FandomContentReview bot is rolling back some edits where I'm trying to strike a balance between compliance and somewhat maintaining a quote. Putting in a different word may not be appropriate in that situation.

For example, if the R word is in a quote with an "ed" at the end, my bot account (Ferbot) has been changing it to "r*****ed". FCR rolls it back and brings back the entire prohibited word, bringing the page back out of compliance. If I then manually put it back in with my primary account, it may then be accepted or could be rolled back again.

So, first, is this kind of change allowed, or does it have to be the first letter followed by how many asterisks it will take to be the same length only? If it's not allowed, I'll have my bot account go back through and re-update each page with the fully-masked version.

Second, is there a reason why FCR would roll it back the first time but not the second time? Is it more likely to happen because the first edit is being made by a bot account? ―RRabbit42 (talk) 04:30, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

Looks like the bot is messing up. Adding to this there should be a human reviewer behind the account to be able to edit. Pinged the responsible staff members about it so they can take a look. Tokina8937 (🌸) 05:12, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

RRabbit42 do you have a couple of examples of this happening? You can sent them via Special:Contact if you prefer to keep them private. This looks like human error rather than bot error (not you, the human reviewer), so I'd like to check exactly what went wrong. Thanks! -- Sannse (Discussions | wall) 14:14, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

Here's some of them, from the work on Tropedia:

• Black Sheep: Two updates and two reversions
• Blackadder/WMG: One update, one reversion, then another update with other fixes
• Showing the reversion to the update of Alphas/Funny that brought back the R word in three spots. (Not corrected again as of this moment.)
• F word being updated on the Appropriated Appellation page, reverted, then updated again.

Since you've explained this isn't a completely automated process but is something a person does with a bot account in the background, maybe make sure the bot filter is active when looking at the Recent Changes report to weed out edits made by other bot accounts? If someone has an account with the bot flag active, they generally make productive edits with it.

Or, maybe wait a couple of weeks before doing another review. At over 177,000 pages, it will take a while for Ferbot with AWB to process all of them. I typically put the bot timer at around 99 seconds when checking the initial edits, then drop it down to 30 once it looks good to go. This balances how quickly it retrieves each page to check them with saving any edits and avoids stressing the server, though AWB starts slowing way down on its own if you keep running it too long. ―RRabbit42 (talk) 14:00, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for those, that's a help. It looks like the human reviewer is seeing the censored word and marking it as a correct flagging. I've talked to the reviewer's lead, and he'll remind them to look at both halves of the diff to make their assessment.

I can't speak to the specifics of the bot side of the equation, that's not something I know about. I know that it's being fed edits as they are made, not doing a run over existing pages. Having it ignore bot-flagged edits is an interesting idea. That might cut out some work for the reviewers.

Thanks again, and I'm sorry for the problem! -- Sannse (Discussions | wall) 20:29, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

Context for a incorrectly-used word

While continuing the cleanup mentioned before, I came across another situation where a word might need to be adjusted: r*****ant. Either the filter was catching it or if I spotted it first.

It has a chemical meaning commonly used in firefighting situations: fire or flame r*****ant to reduce or slow chemical reactions. The situations where I was seeing it were in non-chemical contexts.

I don't know if there's an exception in the filter for it, but it would be easy for people to check the context and swap in a different word:

• If you have a similar context but it's for more than chemical reactions, use "suppressant", which refers to another physical substance doing that kind of job.
• For everything else, use "repellant". It's a catch-all word that can including non-physical situations like behaviors.

That might help others out, but now that I type this, I realize I used "suppressant" when I should have used "repellant". Time to fire up the bot again. —RRabbit42 (talk) 12:35, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Problems with implementation

There are multiple issues with this policy that are negatively affecting the reading and editing experience of users.

First of all, this policy undermines the encyclopaedic nature of Fandom wikis. For example, the South Park Wiki has been heavily affected, as pages like the one referring to Eric Cartman's alter-ego The C**n, have been heavily censored, only increasing unnecessary ambiguity. South Park is no stranger to slur usage, and a South Park fan knows this. If someone goes onto the South Park wiki, he or she is most likely a fan of the show, or knows enough about it not to be fazed by the inclusion of an offensive word. The slurs used on the South Park wiki are purely of encyclopaedic nature, making them contextually justified. This is just like how it would not be acceptable to draw male reproductive organs on someone's fence, buy it is perfectly acceptable in a book about human anatomy. By forcing users to censor words when the context fully justifies their uncensored precedent sets a bad precedent for the accuracy of information on this site. —This unsigned comment is by MINERALwater256 (wall • contribs). Please sign your comments by adding "~~~~" in the source editor.

Add the t-word

I'm outright shocked that you've dedicated so much time to protecting transgender folk from hate speech in all forms of media and the like, and yet you haven't added the t-slur? You don't wanna be called a bigoted website, do you? Also all slurs should be banned and the detection of one will automatically replaced them with "BLACKLISTED BY FANDOM" and ban the user permanently too. Just to prove that hate speech is the absolute biggest threat to people like me. —This unsigned comment is by ThatProudTransGirl (wall • contribs). Please sign your comments by adding "~~~~" in the source editor.

Hello, first off, sign any message you leave on talk pages. Secondly, I agree that the specific slur in question is harmful for those who are transgender or identify under the transgender umbrella. You should contact Fandom Staff on Zendesk with this suggestion, so they can add it to their filters.

However, I greatly disagree with your idea of a detection filter that bans any user forever on the platform. I hope you understand that there are millions of pages on over a thousand Wikis where they haven't been edited in years, and may still have the slur(s) sitting on the pages. If a user edits the page unaware of the slur sitting freely in the page, that same user will get banned by the action of a previous user, which is completely unjustified and may result in a lot of complaints and false positives. daler 20:48, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

“	Simply because a word doesn’t explicitly appear on this list does not mean we may not also use this policy to request material be changed on your community. We would refer editors to our Terms of Use, specifically the User Conduct section for more information about what material may qualify as objectionable.	”
	~ Offensive Terms Policy.

It reads to me that the four examples listed are just that examples. What all four share is they are relatively old and unlikely to be reclaimed in any context. Such words are easy to put blanket bans on because there are no good use of them so there are very few false positives by filters.

As to implementation there is likely a number of pre filters that won't allow anything with those words to be posted in the first place and if it is caught after it is posted (like because it can't because it is too context dependent or is intentionally misspelled to avoid the prefilters) the whole comment will likely be deleted rather editing it. Editing comments by mods or admins is usually reserved for cases of productive good faith content that is only a technical violation of a policy. Most violations of this policy wouldn't fall into that category.

also I can tell you from personal experience with gender wiki's Genderpunk page back when that 'p' was an 'f' that there are more pre filters then this page would lead you to believe. The t-word might already be in those filters but not listed here to keep from given bigots ideas. Miiohau (talk) 21:05, 30 November 2025 (UTC)