Talk:Mactard

I sent the following letter to info-en@wiktionary.org on August 22, 2007 at 2:15 pm EDT regarding the defamatory nature of this made-up word, the bigotry and lack of professionalism it infers by its existence at Wiktionary. Ho hum. The computer warz apparently live on at Wiktionary. I'm disappointed.

Subject: Request: Deletion of the made-up defamatory word 'mactard'

Dear Wiktionary volunteers,

There is an issue of bigotry present in Wiktionary that I would like to address. My purpose is to wipe out references to what are traditionally called 'computer warz' from professional works. I hope you consider Wiktionary to be of professional quality, despite its volunteer status.

The words in question are Mactard and Wintard.

History:

2005-12-22 the user named 'SailorfromNH' created the entry for the word 'Mactard'. You can find the entry at:

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Mactard

Please read the entry. Clearly this is a made-up word. To quote Wiktionary policy:

"Made-up words do not meet our criteria for inclusion. Please add them only as protologisms."

It is also evident that this made-up word serves only one purpose: defamation of the character of users or advocates of Apple Macintosh computers. This attitude is not suitable for Wiktionary.

In the fall of 2006, at the Usenet Newsgroup comp.sys.mac.advocacy, a typical sadomasochistic troll taunted members with the existence of this made-up defamatory word in Wiktionary. In response, as an exercise in testing Wiktionary's attitude toward this word and with the purposed of adding a balanced perspective of defamation, I personally created an entry for the word 'wintard'. I based my entry on the language of the 'mactard' entry and provided even better documentation of the existence and use of the word 'wintard' than has ever been provided for the word 'mactard' at the Wiktionary site. Within an hour of my creating this entry it was put on your contention list with an allegation that made no sense whatsoever. I watched the entry over time to see what happened. Today I found that you had deleted 'wintard'. Meanwhile, the entry for 'mactard' has been further updated as recently as 2007-08-02 without it ever having been put on your contention list.

What else can one conclude from reading Wiktionary but that your staff as a whole are bigoted against Macintosh users. I hope this is not the case. Why it would be the case I cannot imagine, but it most certainly is a reasonable conclusion.

My Request:

Please delete the entry for the word 'mactard' just as you have deleted the entry for the word 'wintard'. Both words are invented, both have an equally long and documented history of usage for the purpose of defamation of specific computer users. Neither word is worthy of Wiktionary, nor are any other defamatory words targeting any specific group of people.

Please reply to my request within the next two weeks. If I have not heard from you within that time and the word 'mactard' has not been deleted, I will take this issue wherever necessary to bring it to the public eye so as to convince you of the importance of computer platform neutrality in professional works such as Wiktionary. Outside of professional environments, such as at any of the Usenet newsgroups, abuse of others is status quo. But Wiktionary and similar endeavors must rise above it.

I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your time.

Derek Currie


 * Note: The following is only my opinion. I do not represent anyone else, and certainly do not represent the Wikimedia Foundation (which runs Wiktionary).


 * You seem to be conflating two separate issues. One issue is whether Wiktionary should include unprofessional and/or potentially offensive terms. This is a resolved issue: there is consensus that yes, it should, provided these terms meet our criteria; hence nigger, kike, Jew down, gyp, feminazi, and countless other such entries. (Note that these entries don't advocate these terms; rather, they simply define the terms and indicate how they are used and how they are taken. Or at least, that's the goal; I daresay not all of those entries live up to it. Likewise, Mactard seems to bear improvement in this regard.) The other issue is whether Wiktionary should include "made up" terms. This is actually a false dichotomy, in that all words are "made up" in a very real sense, but obviously we neither can nor should include every word that anyone ever makes up. The current consensus is described at Criteria for inclusion, according to which this term does warrant inclusion. (I should note that in some regards Criteria for inclusion does not accurately reflect the current consensus on some topics, and I believe that there are some editors who do not feel that terms should be included solely on the basis of quotations from Usenet. If you wish our criteria for inclusion to be modified on this point, you might wish to bring this up at Beer parlour, where you can get input from other Wiktionarians.)


 * —Ruakh TALK 20:05, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely rubbish, you cannot request the removal of defamatory words just because you don't like them. Whether you agree with its use or not, Mactard is a word that is used very commonly nowadays on the internet (far more than Wintard in my opinion), and I don't see the harm in letting people know its meaning. The word itself may have a defamatory meaning, but Wiktionary is not advocating its use in an unacceptable way it is merely conveying the meaning of the word. (82.34.244.60 00:21, 5 February 2009 (UTC))

If 'mactard' then why NOT 'wintard'?
The thoroughly legalise reply Ruakh is interesting but doesn't do anything but divert attention away from the obvious point: Why would Wiktionary never at any time question the existence or references provided for 'mactard' while deleting the balancing word 'wintard' which was written with the exact same language as 'mactard' with far superior references?

Again, what is anyone left to believe but that, no matter how one tangles one's brain around the rule book, there is nothing supporting the existence of 'mactard' but not 'wintard' in Wiktionary but plain old blatant bigotry and the wish to defame the character of Macintosh users and advocates.

Ladies and gentlemen, please do not again skirt the subject at hand with divergent language. Stick to the point. Either Wiktionary restores the entry for 'wintard', and you might as well add further defamatory words such as 'lintard', or you get rid of all defamatory computer user terms all together. Certainly, if I were to follow Ruakh's comments, every defamatory word used for any platform of computer user should be listed in Wiktionary. Considering the superior references I provided for 'wintard' there is no excuse whatsoever, except bigotry among Wiktionary staff, for it having been ever questioned or deleted.


 * FYI when it comes to Linux, for the most part I have seen them called FOSS Bolsheviks, and FSF Humpers, I don't recall the term Lintard ever being used in my memory, but if you can cite examples, I see no reason not to add it. (82.34.244.60 00:21, 5 February 2009 (UTC))

I think it is time to save face Wiktionary and sort out this problem you have created for yourselves.

Days go by. I am waiting for a formal decision within the two weeks I specified before I make this issue public. If you would like more time to prepare an intelligent decision, please let me know.

Derek Currie 2007-08-27


 * I'll be honest: I'm very irked now to discover that your above arguments were apparently a total blind, as it seems that you do support the inclusion of wintard. If you wish to convince anyone of anything, please do your best to express your opinions clearly and honestly.


 * The reason wintard was deleted was that it did not have three durably archived uses of the term. If you'd like to add durably archived quotations, please let me know and I will un-delete the entry for you so you can do so.


 * —Ruakh TALK 07:47, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * In the interests of balance I have restored wintard. Introducing the protologism, durably archived, into the discussion has not been helpful.  Artificial exclusionary criteria such as this should only be resorted to when there is serious doubt about the word's validity. Eclecticology 11:27, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Quotes that do not support the intent of WT:CFI
The quotations do not appear to meet the intent of WT:CFI.

From :
 * Lyle is a fucktard.
 * >b. problems with formatting (I run Mac, QFAC PC and there were
 * >formatting problems in the conversion that I had to make corrections on
 * >after I got back into town and sent her the corrections).
 * Lyle is also a Mactard who should have learned his lesson from the
 * last book.
 * last book.

The problem with that quotation is that no reader would ever be confused about that "Mactard" means, because the words "fucktard" and "Mac" appear shortly before an insult using the word "Mactard".

From :
 * >> Why would they go after KaZaA users when people are posting whole CDs
 * >> on the usenet?
 * > Because any 'tard can manage to download stuff off of Kazaa.
 * Except us Mactards.

As with the previous quote, the word 'tard appears shortly before "Mactard" in a context about choice of software placeforms.

From :
 * BTW, you Mactards keep claiming Mac is a Unix (which it isn't), so....when
 * will you Unix guys settle on one "distro"? I mean, that's what you and
 * Oxtard are telling us Linux guys to do isn't it? So, when will you guys do
 * that?

Here, the word "Mac" is used in the same insulting sentence as "Mactard". No reader would wonder what "Mactard" means. Rod (A. Smith) 21:10, 30 August 2007 (UTC)


 * You might be right about nos. 1 and 3, but I definitely disagree about no. 2; it's kind of a weird pun, and even knowing what "Mactard" means it takes me a second to process it. —Ruakh TALK 21:54, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

My tuppenceworth...
In my experience here in the North of the UK, Mactard is an actual word in common usage amongst a certain set of people, regardless of how it may have been created or invented. I have never come across the Word Wintard in usage; it seems just to be a vexatious response from a certain group of Mac users who it seems won't have a word said against their choice of IT platform or allow anyone to express an opinion other than their own.

I think Mactard has to stay, derogatory though it is, as it is a word in use. It's up to the Mac community whether it can get the word Wintard into such common usage, and if they can, then at that point that word will also deserve a place here.

Agreed, most Mactards that I have came across usually slag off the Windows product itself, but usually the derogatory term I see used most often is Microsoft Humpers.

A far better synonym…
…is ; however, I can't find any citations of it. Anyone else? — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 17:38, 31 August 2010 (UTC)