You can now flag a discriminatory name

Nick Wilderwrote: Mountain Project will no longer tolerate names that are discriminatory in nature, including racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry.  We are committed to working towards being more inclusive, and one of our first steps is collecting discriminatory names.

At this point in time, we have made it possible to flag discriminatory names.  On any route or area page, you can flag the name as shown here in the "Improve This Page" link:

Once flagged, users will see this message under the route title:

The process of determining exactly what is discriminatory has not been finalized, but we want to start collecting data now. We have started working with some first ascensionists, many of whom are welcome to changes.  There will be several other steps or actions to take regarding these names, but this is a complicated process that will take a bit more time, and this issue will have many updates in the next weeks and months.

Many pages in, just a thank you, and a request?

As some have said, sure, flag away (and sorry you'll have a hefty percent of those just trolling).

It's reasonable to have the box on the routes in question. It's reasonable to update (yes, "update", that's a better word) these route names.

Our language has changed, and so have the community "standards".  Slang, by definition, is nonstandard and constantly changing. That's the tricky part of this. How much of this to keep, or how much to change? There has always been a shitload of 7th grade locker room humor on MP, and in climbing.

So? Because it's our shared history, and for simply practical reasons? Keep the old names in the database for search purposes, so people can find stuff. Eventually, those old names will fade away.

But before they do? Now is the time to attach stories to route names. Many have no story....but some do. That, is what I would hate for us to lose.

Best, Helen, aka Old* lady H

*who wore thongs for much of her childhood summers. It was glorious, that purchase of footware on the very first day after school was out, for the first trek to the swimming pool to purchase our season pass. Summer!

Language matters. It's how we remember our stories. Both hurtful and harmless. Neither should be forgotten.

Matthew Jaggers wrote:

?

I never respond to your troll posts, but I'll bite. I'm well aware of the evils of for profit prisons. By "general public", you must mean the Clinton's, and the rest of white America who were fearmongered into being scared of all the "superpredators" that "terrorized" society. Trying to paint me as a Fox news supporter just shows how dumb you really are.

Next time you have a point, how about you make it, instead of telling someone to go educate themselves.

Don't let facts trigger you son. Blaming Biden for the result of the crack epidemic is strait up FOX news propaganda.

Gloweringwrote: Rural places where climbing takes place unfortunately have a higher percentage of bigoted people. 

Seems like a harsh stereotype that doesn't help bring people together.

Mark Rolofsonwrote:

 This is not just changing a few very offensive, racist route names.  It looks like a huge blacklist of routes. 

Proof that you aren't Woke!  You used the term "blacklist".  

Gloweringwrote:  BigCountry · 7 hours ago · The High Countryfighting discrimination is not doing away with history. Cliche deflection there. Just a worn out right wing taking point.

making it about “woke” people and not discrimination is exactly what I’m talking about. People that discriminate are bigots.

I'm not shouting I’m trying to explain it so maybe some people will understand a different view point, but I know some people will never get it and convince themselves of whatever they need to believe.

1st off I'm not right wing. Voted Democrat till they ran hillary then I just didn't vote. So I guess education and wanting the children's to be educated is racist. As someone already said all you "woke" people are doing is further driving a wedge by calling out anyone who doesn't agree with your bandwagon movement. I'm perfectly comfortable with my beliefs and how I conduct myself. I've been waiting on my profile to get flagged just for my nickname smh. Maybe my accent makes me a racist smdh

Val wrote: This political correctness bullshit is going to create a generation of snowflakes (jk....it already did).

Humans will probably be burnt off the planet in some way or another pretty soon so we won't have to worry about getting along much longer.

Nick Wilderwrote: Yep, I’m a privileged white guy that took too long to address this. But I’m working hard on it now, and will ask for guidance from many groups in this community. That’s one reason this will take time.

@John, feel free to speculate about me all you want in your own topic. This subject is important to me and I will keep it on topic.

I respect the move Nick. 

A great follow up, in my humble opinion, would be to also hire fact checkers, and pay your contributors for the data they provide. I've seen some ideas floating around from Andrew Yang in the tech world, and maybe MP could be a leader in this.

Respectfully,
Luke 

Men & women and all the beautiful ethnicities of the MP forum interwebs....I ask you this. What do you think/believe/propose was the leading factor in causing such a rapid increase in people becoming so tender, so very fragile and....to be blunt, so f****ing stupid and unresilient that people can't handle a route name and deem it to be removed? Have the public schools of the U.S, whom BTW are mostly led by democrat/liberal leaning communities, caused this? Or have parents just not instilled a resilient mentality in their kids to not be so quickly offended by words alone?

75 years ago, kids of 17 & 18 years of age were storming beaches on Normandy and in the south pacific islands to fight the spread of communism. Now, all you "WOKE" sensitive people are now offended by the climbing names on a piece of rock? WTF happened North America? I'm genuinely curious. Because your censorship is closely infringing on the freedom of speech of the 1st amendment of the U.S constitution.

WoodyWwrote: Men & women and all the beautiful ethnicities of the MP forum interwebs....I ask you this. What do you think/believe/propose was the leading factor in causing such a rapid increase in people becoming so tender, so very fragile and....to be blunt, so f****ing stupid and unresilient that people can't handle a route name and deem it to be removed? Have the public schools of the U.S, whom BTW are mostly led by democrat/liberal leaning communities, cause this? Have parents not instilled a resilient mentality in their kids?

75 years ago, kids of 17 & 18 years of age were storming beaches on Normandy and in the south pacific islands to fight the spread of communism. Now, all you "WOKE" sensitive people are now offended by the climbing names on a piece of rock? WTF happened North America? I'm genuinely curious. Because your censorship is closely infringing on the freedom of speech of the 1st amendment of the U.S constitution.

75 years ago there were colored and whites drinking fountains in my mom's hometown.

50 years ago, my classmates were being drafted to fight in Vietnam...and couldn't vote because they were only 18.

Times change. Thank god and lots and lots of people making tiny changes that add up.

Like me, voting in every dumbass election since.

And no longer having a box of Crayola's with an insipid pink that is called "flesh". 

Best, OLH

Cut out all the BS and distractions and it comes down to are you okay with discrimination or do you think we should try to reduce it.

Ian F wrote: I think 4 chan is leaking. Just lock this fucking thread already.

WoodyWwrote: 
75 years ago, kids of 17 & 18 years of age were storming beaches on Normandy and in the south pacific islands to fight the spread of communism....

I agree with your sentiment to a point. It is good to stand up for yourselves and others, just not to the point where you start to imagine slights and take ones own limited understanding of word usage as a sign of that someone is attacking you. You do need to open your history books back up though. You seem to be getting WW2, the Korean and Vietnam wars all mixed up.

Gloweringwrote: Cut out all the BS and distractions and it comes down to are you okay with discrimination or do you think we should try to reduce it.

Most of the arguing is defining where the discrimination line is, if using certain words actually is defacto discrimination and to what degree does it outweigh protecting people's free self expression. 

Nick Wilderwrote: Mountain Project will no longer tolerate names that are discriminatory in nature, including racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry.  We are committed to working towards being more inclusive, and one of our first steps is collecting discriminatory names.

At this point in time, we have made it possible to flag discriminatory names.  On any route or area page, you can flag the name as shown here in the "Improve This Page" link:

Once flagged, users will see this message under the route title:

The process of determining exactly what is discriminatory has not been finalized, but we want to start collecting data now. We have started working with some first ascensionists, many of whom are welcome to changes.  There will be several other steps or actions to take regarding these names, but this is a complicated process that will take a bit more time, and this issue will have many updates in the next weeks and months.

Appreciate this step to address discriminatory names. Care to explain this email a friend received from one of your admins?

“Hi (Name removed)

Thanks for your recent suggestion to improve Everybody’s Slave. I didn’t change the routes name. I didn’t name the route. That is the name given by the person who put it up. I just put it on the website. Your quest to change historical names because you think they may have an offensive word in them is dumb. You are hypersensitive and one of the problems with society.

You should switch your time to something productive like climbing. Or you can maintain course and contact Webster dictionaryand have them remove all ‘potentially’ offensive words in the English language so no one can ever potentially be offended by anything.”

​Working towards being more inclusive should involve retraining or removing admins like this. 

D Wwrote:

Appreciate this step to address discriminatory names. Care to explain this email a friend received from one of your admins?

“Hi (Name removed)

Thanks for your recent suggestion to improve Everybody’s Slave. I didn’t change the routes name. I didn’t name the route. That is the name given by the person who put it up. I just put it on the website. Your quest to change historical names because you think they may have an offensive word in them is dumb. You are hypersensitive and one of the problems with society.

You should switch your time to something productive like climbing. Or you can maintain course and contact Webster dictionaryand have them remove all ‘potentially’ offensive words in the English language so no one can ever potentially be offended by anything.”

Working towards being more inclusive should involve retraining or removing admins like this. 

This almost for sure didn't happen. 

Robert Rowsamwrote:

This almost for sure didn't happen. 

there was a screenshot posted earlier in this or one of the other threads, man.

PWZwrote: there was a screenshot posted earlier in this or one of the other threads, man.

Must have missed that. My bad. Should have avoided this thread all together. 

Robert Rowsamwrote:

This almost for sure didn't happen. 

This has been explained in several other threads. This message was not from an admin. This PM came from whomever submitted the route to MP, who was not an admin. When submitting requests to edit a route it does necessary  not go to an admin, it goes to who ever submitted the route. Hence, the response from that person.

Robert Rowsamwrote:

This almost for sure didn't happen. 

It did, but the response wasn't from an admin. It was from the user who submitted the route. If you contribute a route to the MP database, you have the ability to edite the details of that route. If someone submits a suggestion via the "improve this route" feature, you're the first one to receive that suggestion. If you don't respond and mark that suggestion as complete, then the regional admin for that area also has the ability to make changes.

is it ok to use the word slave anymore?