Proposal to delete post and closing questions asking whether social groups are mentally ill

Question

This question was ignited by Is homosexuality a mental disorder?

This post made it into the hot-questions list and people were, probably rightfully, offended by it. Being called mentally ill because of one's sexual preference is questionable at best.

In response to this post, 'revenge' posts were put in place asking whether transgenders and black people are mentally ill. These two posts were deleted pretty much instantaneously by the mod team, because of the aggressive, troll-like nature.

1. Short-term action on the above linked post
The linked post here is problematic and should, imho, be deleted as well. Admittedly, the wording of linked post could've been put more carefully. However, at this time people are still offended that their 'post' was deleted (the above mentioned revenge posts) and to close this matter once and for all, I'd recommend deleting the linked post.

Problem is:

• The linked question has a positive vote score. Note, however, that this question became hot & therefore the upvot tally is not a solid representation of its quality or scientific merit;
• The answers are pretty good;
• The current comment list is still of value for this community (can be put on meta or something?);

These bulleted considerations made me decide to not delete this post, for now. I flagged the other mods, but they have not logged in yet onto this site up until now and the storm is pretty much over (luckily!). (mods- I flagged away all this stuff, but have removed those and posted this question instead). However, the post therefore still stands and this is why I am opening this meta post, such that the other mods, and importantly, the community at large can participate. I propose that the mod team deletes this question.

2. Long-term action
I suggest that this community in the future

• Attempts to identify, close and preferably and delete questions asking whether specific social groups (gender-based, skin-color-based, religion and so forth) are mentally ill as soon as possible;
• The regular ground forces can, and imho should, start downvoting, flagging, and voting for putting it on hold / marking it for deletion;
• The mods should, imho, delete such questions quickly, perhaps after considering it on mod chat when in doubt.

The linked question resulted in a small in silico crisis and that is not what this site needs. Somehow our site attracts offensive gender-based and/or sexual-preference-based posts and I know of at least several users, including well-versed and knowledgeable folks, that left this site because of it and only because of it. Time for action.

Answer 1

First off: thanks for opening this discussion! I think this is a good thing to discuss.

For my 2 cents: I'm on the fence.

Section 1: The Actual Content

Offence

This is random and I don't have time to find great support for it (heres a quick article from Google), but I have always held that you can't make other people feel anything. I've always used the counter that I can become unbelievably offended because someone used the word "is" in a sentence. This is not the fault of anyone, etc. Nor does this imply that others should change their behavior to accommodate me. I get that an entire community getting offended is different than my mentioned case, but these lines can be pretty subtle. To help navigate these, I'll add one more thought:

The nature of good questions

I think that, at its core, a good question is seeking to learn something. Using this, I think that the OP's post was legit, while the "revenge" posts were clutter to be removed.

I also think that good questions are not written to offend. These also relate to the revenge posts, but primarily to the OPs post.

Finally, I think that good questions have an answer. This one is huge, as homosexuality has actually been classified as a disorder in the past. I think that this adds legitimacy to the question. Perhaps an incorrect question would be asking this about other people-groups that have never been classified as a disorder. In any case, this question could be answered relatively easily (and was).

Other Thoughts

I'll note that most of the top is judgement calls. A lot of judgement is being made about purpose, etc. Consider if the OP accepted Filippo's answer right away: I think the situation would have been much simpler. I wasn't privy to many of the comments that occurred, but it sounds like the OP was obviously pushing an agenda, which I believe is inappropriate on our forums. Note that this doesn't have to do with content, or offence, or anything other than: if I answer your question authoritatively and you don't like the answer and continue to argue it, you're being a bad community member.

All this being said, the OP did accept my answer (primary addition was ICD, secondary was a discussion of EDH (which was already mentioned by Chris)). It makes it tough to say if they were trolling, or perhaps were waiting for a reference from an international body (which agrees with the DSM about homosexuality), or perhaps something else.

Closing

In closing, I think that the actual content of the question was ok. The OPs attitude in comments would heavily affect this (and many may have gotten deleted), so I'm just going off of the information I have. If the question was asked innocently, because this has been classified as a disorder, with the OP seeking to learn something about diagnosis (which is answerable), then I think it is ok.

Section 2: The Response

Now for the nitty gritty: all of the above are my "shoulds". In this case, however, a lot of that went out the window. It sounds like there was some extremely negative comments made (most of which I missed), and people were getting offended, angry, etc. It also sounds like harrassment was going on (perhaps by the OP against some angry commenters, and perhaps by the commenters against the OP). For this reason, I completely agree with AliceD's decision to close the question. I really thought this question was interesting, and enjoyed reading some different answers to it. But if the community can't handle it responsibly, then it needs to be removed. In the same way that if ANY post devolves into name calling, insults, etc, it needs to go! It needs to go to protect our community, and to maintain a respectable level of content on a site that others may visit.

Section 3: Overall

Overall I think the question should have been closed in the way that AliceD closed it. I am sorry and disappointed that we (as a community) couldn't have a higher level conversation. Though I think that the question was fine, and again, I liked reading the answers (as AliceD mentioned: they were pretty good!), I think that the community couldn't handle it.

On the other hand, I don't think that this question should have been immediately flagged (etc.). I think it was an interesting question, and the question comes from a strong historical basis. I think that if questions devolve into insults, etc, those questions should be flagged. But I don't think that this question was the only one with that potential. Reading the comments still left, it seems like (to me) much of the angst from this question came from the OPs attitude towards it (people felt the OP was looking for someone to say that homosexuality is a disorder). If this is true, this question could have had a very different impact with a different poster.

Answer 2

Most answers already address the concern that it should be possible on this site for questions on controversial topics to be asked. We should not silence scientific inquiry merely because it might offend. This is what true tolerance is about.

On the other hand, the intent of questions should never be to offend, but to learn something new.

Concretely I suggest to handle similar posts as follows in the future:

• If a post is borderline provocative but has an underlying question which is scientifically valid, close as off-topic and request the OP to remove any non-factual (unreferenced) statements and to frame the question in a more objective (non-leading) way.
• Alternatively, edit the question yourself to do exactly this.
• If a post starts attracting too much negative attention since it remains unedited, lock the question until the issue is resolved on meta, chat, or through further moderator intervention.

Answer 3

From a standpoint of someone in the field of psychotherapy, I feel that it is difficult to determine whether these posts should be deleted or not. To a degree, one part of me agrees with @RobinKramer that these questions should not be deleted due to the fact that although they may cause some offence, the premise of the question is something which is still prevalent in society, even though there has been a lot of effort to try and remove it from society. Removing these questions would remove the ability to challenge these viewpoints.

The other part of me is saying that these questions should be deleted due to the fact that

1. You cannot just single out specific answers from the standpoint that they may cause offence. This to me would have a horrible (for want of a better word) feel to it as it silences a section of society and creates a skewed view of society from a sociological standpoint.
2. Although the questions may cause offence, and there are excellent answers which try to show that these people are not suffering from some sort of mental disorder, the accepted answer which @RobinKramer pointed out could be seen to show that the field of psychology as a whole still sees these social groups as having some sort of mental disorder.

As someone who is bound by codes of ethics banning sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE, reparative, conversion or reorientation therapy) or similar therapies by other names (e.g. NCS Code of Ethics), the accepted answer has pointed out to me a contradiction of standpoints in the field which needs addressing and I have contacted relevant organisations in order to try and get these contradictions addressed.

Another thing from the wider viewpoint which may need to be looked at is how is CogSciSE, the cognitive science fields, and maybe even StackExchange going to be seen by the wider public? Are the wider public going to see us as being homophobic, racist, xenophobic... etc. as a result of this and other questions along with future questions left on the site without deletion?

I too will be interested to see the answers from others on this.

Edit after further thought

I think on balance after reading @mfloren's answer and @AliceD's comment after my answer I think I am going for deleting the questions overall. We don't want questions decending into abusive responses. However each case has to be viewed separately. The case of the homosexuality question leads to deletion in my view.

Answer 4

Short answer

Let me just start with saying that I completely disagree, to get that out of the way.

Long Answer

As I mentioned in the chat I find it very odd that one's feeling can get in the way of a scientific, unbiased question. In my experience, it feels like we cannot talk about facts anymore, just because someone is sad or mad about the topic. Say someone is offended by all the "Vaccines do not cause autism" research. Must we stop discussing it then? Must we accept one's views based on one's feelings? Well the answer is simple: Never!

However

This is the part where I will bring some nuance in my answer. As mentioned above, scientific and unbiased questions should never be deleted because someone's feelings got hurt.

In this specific situation, the question was not unbiased. It is rather clear that the OP hoped to confirm that homosexuality is indeed a disorder. This became especially clear when the answer was accepted that gave one minor hint of a disorder (the conflict between wanting to be homosexual or not vs. actually being homosexual or not). However, despite this bias, an overwhelming amount of arguments and proof was provided against. In other words, the truth came forth (which even corresponds with societal views). Why is that an issue?

Course of action

What should we do to prevent these kinds of question to explode like this? Simple: prevent them to be so biased-laden. We have closed quite some biased questions (Reference needed) and can (and should) do so still. This allows us to make the question less bias-laden, so that we can have an open, normal, objective discussion about it. Sensitive subjects are not unspeakable subject, and if we start censoring open discussions, we'll be living in 1984.

What should we do with this specific question about homosexuality? We need to improve the question: remove bias, possibly add credible hypotheses, etc. The question is an important for science (and for CogSci), and removing it cannot be justified to the answerers who put time and effort to write up such amazingly nice answers.

This question, and its result, is exactly why you guys started CogSci: multiple answers with different points of view and different sources, either competing or cooperating.