Subject: bug#61325: 30.0.50; Jokes in GNUS manual

From: Ihor Radchenko <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 06 Feb 2023 16:38:44 +0000

Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]> writes:

>> I object jokes that make people feel uncomfortable.
>
> It's a losing battle, but: every joke makes someone uncomfortable.
> The only way of making no one uncomfortable is to never joke, and what
> a sad world would that be!  (Come to think about, the only way to
> never make someone uncomfortable is to say nothing at all.)

You are overgeneralizing.
Some jokes make larger fraction of people uncomfortable than others.
There should be a borderline.

Of course, drawing a line is tricky. However, the topics like sex and
bullying are considered uncomfortable by whole cultures, not just
individuals. I judge such jokes as over the border.

For comparison, AFAIU, joking around skin colour and race is considered
more insulting than joking around sex. In other cultures, the situation
is opposite. Would you accept joking around human races on Emacs
manuals?

>> Also, I fail to understand what "kill files" really refers to here. Also
>> some USA-specific context? Or is it Emacs killing concept? Deleting
>> files on file system?
>
> A "kill file" is a filter that discards posts you don't want to read,
> ever.  For whatever reasons.  See
>
>   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_file

Thanks for the reference. So, this sentence is not a joke. A footnote
would help for younger users, who haven't heard about Usenet. (I've
heard, but I am not familiar with English segment jargon).

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
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