How do we deal with potentially controversial (but not NSFW) content in questions?

Question

I want to start this discussion in light of a recent question, that triggered some debate and attempts at editing:

The question How to talk to my brother about a shared interest in pornographic furry material? led to a debate about removing pornographic furry in body, title and even answers and replace it with variants of very specific and usually socially indiscussible topic.
The edits were finally rolled back as neither expression is NSFW.

One of the concerns was, that the question could attract trolls. I don't know how much work it caused for the mods and feedback is certainly welcomed.
The question was posted on December 1st and has, as of now, about 3,800 views. So far, two answers were deleted - one was a non-answer by a furry fan, the other some kind of joke.

Question

So the topic of this discussion is how to deal with potentially controversial content in questions?

This is not about obviously unfit content (e. g. ads, swear words etc.), but just acceptable content.

Is it better to edit it out to keep discussions or even trolls at bay, or shall we leave it in?

Answer 1

I'm drawing on several policy guidelines we worked up on the now-closed "Sexuality" site which I'm going to echo here (outside of how the post above was handled specifically).

When hosting a site that might occasionally delve into frank and clinical discussions about human sexuality (or other potentially "uncomfortable" subjects) — to facilitate the most productive experience for the site as a whole, you have to consider the following points simultaneously:

1. First, Stack Exchange is primarily targeted at a professional audience working in an office setting, so we expect everyone to conduct themselves professionally. But avoiding "not safe for work" (NSFW) situations simply means (in part) that folks shouldn't have to guard against being hit in the face with unexpected and gratuitous (← that's important) F— bombs and T&A shots popping up on their screen while working among these subjects. But NSFW is also a matter of presentation and context.
2. Remember where you are. This is not a programming site, and the subjects covered here might not make the best office fare in every setting. At the same time, we're not here to test the fences to see what you can get away with, so if it looks like you're posting something simply to evoke a reaction, it will likely be removed or edited to a more clinical context.
3. Having said that, the ideas and topics discussed here are not expected to be watered down to be consumed by an 8-year-old. If someone's says "OMG-they-said-breasts", don't go around zealously replacing every instance with "secondary female mammary characteristics" (for example). For a site that potentially spans the sociological, biological, psychological, philosophical, anthropological, and other -icals… shrouding every word in child-safe euphemisms is both laughable and embarrassing.
4. And remember… people can touch your stuff. This is a crowd-sourced activity, so things can and do get edited and removed for reasons of community self- moderation. If you don't like people touching what you wrote, this may not be the place for you. While folks should not be changing the meaning of your post, if someone moves the naughty-bits from a title into the text, or changes a piece of slang or jargon into something more conventional, let it go. You can roll back edits you don't agree with, but we do not allow "rollback wars". If an edit gets reverted, you're better off either dropping it, or bringing it to meta so everyone can benefit from the conversation.

Folks shouldn't generally find themselves accidentally stumbling deep into a subject without being at least somewhat aware of what is being discussed. If you are not interested in the subjects being discussed in a thread — without pretense — kindly move on and find something better suited to your interests.

Answer 2

I would like to caution people against censorship in these cases.

Whether people want to acknowledge it, or not, we're starting down a very slippery slope when we start editing out content that may make us a little uncomfortable.

Once we set a standard that it's ok to start editing to suppress groups or issues that make us uncomfortable, it gets much harder to draw lines to say that it's ok to censor this and not that. Who gets to choose which subjects are too taboo to talk about here? And before someone suggests it, allowing the majority to oppress the minority isn't great; history shows that it doesn't go well...

Personally I find it interesting that furry question faced much less trolling and abuse than LGBT+ questions on this site usually do. People tried to edit out terms that triggered taboo reactions for them, but their wasn't the usual onslaught of abuse and all around nastiness. It seemed most of the trouble was caused by people who supposedly weren't bothered, but felt the need to step in to prevent trouble before it started. People essentially said:

I'm not offended, but someone might be, so I better sanitize this.

I would like to say don't edit to remove potentially controversial content. What's controversial to you is a fact of someone else's life. Often it's a fact that they've faced a lot of pain and discrimination over. Let's not be yet another community that shames people and tells them they can't be who they are, or that they better not dare talk about it in public.

Answer 3

Since 'interpersonal skills' will inevitably sometimes step into that delicate region where biology, psychology and libido intersect, such matters should broadly be considered acceptable here, and there really is no need in this day and age to cloak explicit language in innuendo or euphemism simply for fear that "potentially controversial" content might offend a reader's sensibilities. I absolutely agree with @apaul that censorship is generally undesirable on this website.

The best test of a post's quality is still to apply the criteria for closing/deletion. If a question can pass muster and remain open // if an answer is not low quality, rude or abusive // if a post does not violate the 'be nice' policy, then irrespective of content it can stand on its own as being asked or answered "in good faith" although any member can edit what they consider unacceptable language, provided OP accepts the edit.

If OP disputes the edit, what we don't seem to have at present is some community-voting-based mediation to resolve edit disputes. This does not apply to 'potentially controversial' content alone, but to editing in general, and is not unique to IPS.SE either. Bringing each edit dispute to meta or chat does not seem an ideal option. Therefore I expect a moderator to intervene quickly in such cases and give some clear ruling either for or against the edit, to prevent controversy and settle the dispute.

Answer 4

What exactly is the problem with those questions that needs to be dealt with?

Looking at the aftermath of the drama, I get the impression that the questions were handled pretty well. How to ask my female room mate to stop leaving her bikini in public space? is rightfully closed because its not clear what the OP's goals for the interaction are. How to talk to my brother about a shared interest in pornographic furry material? has gotten an answer that seems to have been helpful to the OP.

The fact that these questions are written from perspectives that might not be shared by everyone seems unrelated to how the questions should be handled, looking at the aftermath of the drama. Obviously, there's probably a lot of deleted comments that I'm not seeing. But at the end of the day, I think things turned out pretty well.

I guess my point here is I'm not really sure what problem you're trying to solve here. So far, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that these questions are posing problems that can't be solved with the tools at our disposal: deleting comments, closing questions, and so on.