Fixed a typo in the post at the user's request.

Hi, folks. Nothing deleted, but please be cautious when responding to questions about people with disabilities; some of these answers are fairly aggressive in a way that can come across as dismissive or mean about someone with a disability.

One comment deleted. otherchaz, i assume you mean well, but that joke came across as pretty racist!

Made link in OP clickable.

Removed erroneous location and tags from post.

Fixed typo in this comment at user's request.

One answer deleted as inappropriate. "Do you have a religious faith? Can you become more involved in it?" is a reasonable potential answer, but you need to be careful about asserting that a specific faith will help; it comes across as an attempt to convert.

Fixed broken link in this comment.

Fixed link in this comment to be clickable.

One comment deleted at user's request.

Hey, folks, everything's going pretty okay in here so far; i just wanted to drop a note to ask you all to please exercise caution about (a) linking this to transness/trans-related issues (unless you yourself are trans) and (b) verging into body-shaming (including penis size shaming). Both of those things have an extremely high likelihood of causing this conversation to go completely off the rails, and i'd very much rather it didn't.

Fixed typo in this comment.

One deleted. Folks, even if you are answering the Asker's question it's very seldom that a question calls for rudeness to the Asker. I'm leaving some replies up for context.

Fixed a typo in this comment, at user's request, and deleted an extraneous comment about it.

Fixed link in original post (time scrubber was scrubbing to end).

Fixed link in this comment to be clickable.

Okay I think that got it!

One deleted for not really answering the question (and additionally being hinky).

One comment edited in consultation with the user. In general, folks: it's okay to discuss the possibility that Graham was a closeted gay man, and even to mention the fact that some people called him "Lady G" if you're careful, but directly calling him "Lady G" is not something that's okay here. I understand that this isn't true of everyone, but a whole lot of queer folks regard it as homophobic. (Full disclosure: i'm one of them.)

One deleted. Let’s keep comments focused on the thread’s topic and refrain from making digs at users.

Added Bali tag and removed erroneous location (I can't get the Location field to pick up the correct location, sorry!)

That said, please do not tell members to "shut your bitch ass up" even if you use an abbreviation for plausible deniability. That is emphatically against the guidelines. I'm not going to override the earlier decision by a different mod to let it stand, but please do better in future, folks.

plagued out moggies: "Looks like we’ve had some comments deleted without mod notes?" No comments have been manually removed by moderators in this thread; one comment was automatically deleted because the user in question wiped their account. That's not normally a thing we highlight publicly, but i understand that people were (justifiably) confused about a comment disappearing with no note (i was confused myself, unti i logged into this acccount!) and i thought it wise to head off any derails or grar about it.

Fixed typo in Jessie Gender's name in this comment.

krisjohn: ""How Flock Cameras Wrongly Tracked Me for Days Over ‘Stolen’ Plates and Sent Police After Me", or "The Day I Became a Girls' School In Iran"" This comment seems to have upset some folks, but I confess that I'm not sure i'm seeing what people think is wrong with it? It reads to me as a salient point about the world's embrace of computer-aided surveillance systems which are implicated in both atrocities (and many others!) I absolutely might be missing something, so if anyone would like to flag-with-note or MeMail me, I'm happy to revisit.

Added Substack tag.

flabdablet, you're taking up a lot of space in this thread; please let it breathe a little bit.

Fixed broken link in this comment.

Fixed this comment at user's request.

One deleted at user's request, and a second comment deleted as a reply to the deleted one.

Removed redundant "more inside" from FPP at user's request.

Fixed wording in the original post.

Deleted my own post because it came from the wrong account. Dammit, i KNEW that was gonna happen sooner or later!

One more removed. What we're not gonna do is rate the attractiveness of folks who died by suicide.

Fixed typo in post, at user's request.

One deleted at user's request.

Several deleted. Folks, regardless of whether you think the original joke was sexist or not, mocking another user for calling it sexist isn't great. Also, discussion about moderation needs to be taken to the Contact Form or to MeTa, not left in the thread, even when you're upset.

One comment removed. Please try to be sensitive to context. Dropping a “you'll eat anything if you're hungry enough” joke into a thread that’s about women’s autonomy, captivity narratives, and sex ends up reading as dehumanizing toward women, even if that wasn’t the intent. In this context it treats sexual access to women’s bodies as a kind of generic need, which is objectifying and dated humour. Let's try to drop the derail and keep the focus on the ideas and history in the linked article instead.

Three comments removed. "Panties in a bunch" is indeed a sexist idiom, whether you mean it that way or not; please refrain from that one, thanks.

One comment removed because the link (to a Reddit post) went dead and it was getting flagged.

One removed as noise.

Three comments removed. Folks, this post has gotten several flags and the conversation is going to some really ugly places. Please try to remember that your fellow community members, including the ones with suicidal ideation, are reading this. It's 100% fine to be angry at the guy, to be clear (i am too!), but jokes are definitely really fraught in this kind of situation and it would probably be better to Not.

Two comments removed, one for being really aggressive to another member and the other replying to that one. Other replies left up for context. Folks, please try to keep the temperature at a reasonable level in here.

Fixed typo in post title and URL.

I think i fixed all the rest of the broken links. Thanks, grandsham!

Also, corrected typo in this comment at poster's request. (It's me, i was the poster; it was a one-letter typo and it was driving me bugfuck.)

Hi, folks! Just a note that in general posts like this (where it's basically an organic advertisement) are borderline at best, and they get a lot of flags. The conversation here seems to be going well and i'm going to leave this up, but please don't take it as license to go full-on Pepsi Blue in future.

Hi there, folks. Some housekeeping:

• Compact Mag is horrible, their editorial slant is mega-transphobic, and Michael Tracey specifically is a right-wing rape-apologist goon, so this single-link post really doesn't qualify as Best Of The Web.
• However, the conversation in here is lively and i'm pretty hesitant to nuke the whole thing. If it'd been nuked when there were three comments, that'd be one thing, but there are now over 40, including a lot of pushback on the gross aspects of Compact, Tracey, and the post, and i don't really want to memory-hole it all now?
• On the third hand, i invite someone to start a MeTa to discuss this, because i do think there are site policy issues implicated here!

One deleted for noise. Let’s keep comments helpful and intended to answer OP’s question.

Fixed spelling of "Philippine" in post

Fixed a broken link in the post.

Added "USPolitics" tag at a user's request (not the OP's)

Two deleted for not even trying to answer the question. Folks, it's really chatty in here; please tread carefully and make sure you have some kind of answer (or at least a clarifying question) in addition to commentary!

Fixed the spelling of Rhiannon Giddens' name in the OP.

I've updated the link in this comment (there's a redirect issue with the https:// version of the link; i've edited it to the http:// version, which will then correctly redirect to https:// ). I've also removed two comments that were entirely about this issue.

Two deleted; a few other replies left up for context. runsrealgood: you are fine, but the form of your pushback was making it personal about another member in a way that was likely to cause more problems. yoz420: you need to take a break from this thread, and from one-note allegations about antisemitism/blood libel in general. If you cannot, the next steps will include timeouts. I strongly encourage you, instead of doing that, to take your concerns to [email protected] or the MOC. Also, because i consider it likely that at least one person will be extra mad that i, specifically, am the mod actioning this particular issue, i want to make it very clear that while we are actively in the process of revamping mod policies and procedures, this kind of thing is not going to be acceptable to any other mod, either.

One comment deleted at the user's request.

Full disclosure: my (non-moderator) comment above has been flagged. As i try very hard to avoid moderating my own comments, i am leaving the flag up for the next mod on shift to make a decision. I will avoid commenting further in this thread in my personal capacity until after that happens; speaking in my official capacity, it would be good if the thread didn't get derailed by it.

Fixed the link in the OP; thanks for catching that, pwnguin!

I'm leaving the comments related to the mistake.

Folks, everyone is on edge and this whole fireworks thing is bullshit, but please try not to snipe at other users? Thanks!

Fixed URL

Fixed link in this comment to be clickable.

Another comment deleted as noise. Folks, this is still Ask, and your comments must answer the Asker's question in some way.

Fixed link in this comment to be clickable (and to clear tracking params).

Fixed a typo in the post.

One deleted for arguing about moderation. Please send an email via the Contact Form or refer it to the MOC if you have an issue!

One deleted as noise. Folks, i get that some things invite jokes but you gotta be really careful in Ask; if you're gonna put a joke in you have to also put an actual answer in.

One deleted for arguing with the premise of the question (and in the process failing to answer it).

Fixed spelling of GeneWolfe tag

Fixed link in post and deleted correction comment by Asker

Fixed typo in post title and url

Please avoid using “derp” in this discussion. It has been widely used as a slur or mockery of people with intellectual disabilities, and even when someone intends it casually, it can still read as ableist and demeaning. We ask that comments use plain, non-stigmatizing language instead.

One deleted for not answering the question.

Fixed link in this comment to be clickable.

Double comment and one comment about it it deleted.

Two deleted, one as noise and one for chastising other commenters (and not answering the question).

Folks, i hate leaving big holes in the conversation, but several comments have been deleted. Jane the Brown, your comment was read by multiple people as equating folks' use of pronoun labeling/sharing on forums with bullying and physical violence. I'm not assuming that it was intentional transphobia, but at best it was extremely unclear, it upset several people, and it was continuing to be a distraction. I can send you the full text if you'd like to try rewriting that bit and reposting; just let me know.

Everyone else: sorry for the delays getting this handled. If your comment also got deleted, it was because it was part of the derail, and you'refine.]

One deleted as a duplicate.

...sorry, i have been corrected, having misread the reason the comment was flagged. One therefore deleted as noise.

Folks, this MeTa post was obviously born out of a generous impulse (and ngl, i adore Lyn Never and am connected to her elseweb!) But posts about specific users who have buttoned make folks nervous (it's already picked up some flags), so i wanted to be very clear up front: sending good wishes and saying nice things is fine! But we do need to respect folks' privacy and autonomy, too, and in particular it's not great when these sorts of posts turn into rehashing the reasons a user buttoned. So please be mindful and keep things on rails!

Added tags for AI and LLM.

One deleted at user's request.

Fixed the misspelling of Cory Doctorow's name in the post title (and slug).

Edited post to fix typos and add another link from the user.

Folks: predictably, a number of comments in this thread have gotten flagged. I think the thread is overall doing alright, and things that needed pushback are getting pushback, so i'm disinclined at this point to leave holes in the conversation. We are keeping an eye on the thread, but please help us out by keeping it on the rails, thanks.

Link to obituary updated in post.

Just a note to please stop name-calling/insulting people’s intelligence. Thanks!