Curious to know what people here think about the “unusual causes” tag.
This comes across to me as a bit deprecating so I was thinking that perhaps the name should be changed to something a bit more neutral. Perhaps ‘non-standard-causes’. Or even something that might be biased the other way like ‘underdiscussed-causes’.
Aaron Gertler gave the answer that
In my experience, “unusual” when applied to anything other than a person is a quite neutral term. I’d think of “non-standard” as worse, since “standard” implies quality in a way I don’t think “usual” does.
So I’d take his view over mine, since I’m not a native english speaker. Still, interested in what you think and what other alternatives are there.
Generally, I think that this tag could be very important for the discovery of new causes so I think that an appropriate name might be important
I’m also not a native English speaker; to my ears, “unusual causes” feels similar in connotation to “non-standard causes”. What about simply “other causes”?
This feels good to me. One problem that may have (but I’m not sure about it) is that it might not capture new causes that are contained in another meta-cause. So for instance, the post about M-Risk is related to policy or x-risk, but is clearly a new cause by itself and yet it may feel inappropriate to vote on it as “other causes”.
I’m a native English speaker, and to me “unusual causes” and “non-standard causes” feel similar in connotation, and neither strikes me as feeling deprecating. Though I can see how “unusual” could imply the cause is weird, whereas really we just want to say it’s not usually discussed. “Non-standard” avoids that, but seems like an uncommon phrase.
I’m against “under-discussed”, as that bakes in the judgement that this should be more discussed. I’d say the same about “Overlooked” or “Neglected”. “Less discussed causes” or “Less commonly discussed causes” avoids that, but is perhaps a little long (though the former is only as long as “Under-discussed causes”).
I’m a bit against “other causes”, though I’m less sure why. Maybe “other” actually feels more deprecating to me, which is maybe in turn because I’ve been exposed to the term “The Other” in some social science courses.
Curious to know what people here think about the “unusual causes” tag.
This comes across to me as a bit deprecating so I was thinking that perhaps the name should be changed to something a bit more neutral. Perhaps ‘non-standard-causes’. Or even something that might be biased the other way like ‘underdiscussed-causes’.
Aaron Gertler gave the answer that
So I’d take his view over mine, since I’m not a native english speaker. Still, interested in what you think and what other alternatives are there.
Generally, I think that this tag could be very important for the discovery of new causes so I think that an appropriate name might be important
I’m also not a native English speaker; to my ears, “unusual causes” feels similar in connotation to “non-standard causes”. What about simply “other causes”?
This feels good to me. One problem that may have (but I’m not sure about it) is that it might not capture new causes that are contained in another meta-cause. So for instance, the post about M-Risk is related to policy or x-risk, but is clearly a new cause by itself and yet it may feel inappropriate to vote on it as “other causes”.
I’m a native English speaker, and to me “unusual causes” and “non-standard causes” feel similar in connotation, and neither strikes me as feeling deprecating. Though I can see how “unusual” could imply the cause is weird, whereas really we just want to say it’s not usually discussed. “Non-standard” avoids that, but seems like an uncommon phrase.
I’m against “under-discussed”, as that bakes in the judgement that this should be more discussed. I’d say the same about “Overlooked” or “Neglected”. “Less discussed causes” or “Less commonly discussed causes” avoids that, but is perhaps a little long (though the former is only as long as “Under-discussed causes”).
I’m a bit against “other causes”, though I’m less sure why. Maybe “other” actually feels more deprecating to me, which is maybe in turn because I’ve been exposed to the term “The Other” in some social science courses.
My vote might be for “Less discussed causes”.