Excellent Answer to the question
Can someone explain why this answer with 80 votes was Deleted? I was planning on awarding a bounty on this! There may be one phrase which some might find offensive, but I think its a huge stretch and seems like an over reaction.
In my opinion, this needs to be unlocked, and restored.
If we really need to, we change the word Zealot to Fan.
UPDATE: I mod flagged this.
Why on earth was this excelent answer deleted?
Seems that it was flagged as offensive/spam and locked by Community.
IMHO, I agree that this is a valuable answer although it may feel like a splash of cold water.
I also think that changing that "controversial" word would solve the problem.
What worries me more is that users are giving more weight to a single word than the content and suggestions of the answer... sometimes the truth may be hard to swallow, and yes some users may sometimes use words to give emphasis to their answers, but deleting a post just because it has a single word I don't like is putting my wellbeing above the Community's
Update The post is now unlocked and open for votes to Undelete. I edited the Z word for "Fan" as the author said that was fine with him. Also did some further smoothing of the post to be more agreeable to a more sensitive audience.
This should be undeleted. One word, which isn't even a curse or particularly harsh does not justify deletion.
This is utter nonsense.
The answer was deleted by Community from flags, which of course also locks the post. A moderator in no way locked or deleted the post, this was done by the system here due to flags.
I have removed the lock, but as a moderator, I won't cast the undelete vote unilaterally. The community chose to flag it as offensive and caused a delete, so the community needs to vote to undelete it if they so choose. It's not up to the mods to determine if something should be undeleted once the community has deleted it through whatever means.
All we have done is remove the lock so that you each have the option to undelete assuming high enough rep.
If you feel that the answer could retain the valuable aspects but mitigate what was causing the offensive flags, then also consider editing. Otherwise we may go through a cycle of delete/undelete. Ad infinitum.
Only someone who just hatched and had their first peek into the world would find anything offensive in that post. Frankly they probably never visited a forum or discussion on the internet...or the schoolyard for that matter.
I'm not saying, I condone foul language or (actual) harassment / offensive speech. I do say however that it can't be that basically censorship happens automatically (!) if a few people flag something. Anyone can spam the flag button...
It is good to know that there is a procedure to remedy something like what happened to the poster. Since I'm new to this site I am kind of surprised and concerned though...
oh, and just some food for thought: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/zealot
zealot
a person who has very strong opinions about something, and tries to make other people have them too
This is NOT an offensive word nor does it cause offense.
They list as synonym: "Enthusiasts" for crying out loud
EDIT :
The approach one takes to "make other people have the same opinions" may be offensive, even violent. That might be perceived as giving the word "zealot" a negative connotation, mirroring the "zealots" obtrusive or violent behavior.
However that means the actions the "zealot" takes are questionable, dare I say offensive, NOT the word "zealot" itself !
Furthermore, the (mis)use of a word to demean in a condescending way for instance does not validate the words "offensiveness".
There is also the nuance of immediate and historical context and intent to consider.
Welcome to the real world.
... is condescending, since it implies the person you're talking to has been living in a fantasy world up to now and is ignorant to how the (real) world works (and it's entirely non-constructive, since just explaining how the world works already implies that they don't know how it works).
This may be less offensive if the asker is just entering the working world (which I didn't read in the question), in which case it may be more of an "maybe it sucks, but this first experience of yours is pretty common" (which is still not particularly constructive though, since that meaning may not be obvious and this point has been stated more explicitly later on - "that's not how the industry works" - and repeating oneself is generally also a bit condescending).
Sometimes you have to work with other people ...
... is so obvious that it's condescending.
If you're a Free Software zealot
... is (moderately) offensive, since "zealot" could be seen as having a negative connotation due to "zealots" commonly using offensive or violent means to further their cause.
Your entire post at the moment screams "high maintenance, unwilling to make reasonable compromises"
... is basically an insult (if you want to say some specific things, like refusing to provide a Word resume, is bad or would be seen as bad by someone, that could be good and useful advice, but calling everything someone said bad is just insulting and not constructive).
have a serious think
... is also (a bit) condescending, since simply noting the ultimate point of the comment ("this is not the attitude you want to project when looking for a job") or phrasing it in terms of a question ("is that the attitude you want to project when looking for a job?") would already lead to them thinking about it, so you're kind of saying they're not smart enough to think about if not told to think about it. Adding "serious" to that implies that they're not smart enough to figure out what deserves how much thought by themselves and need to be told that.
On the offensotometer, I'd give it a 3/10 - not that offensive, but not not offensive - probably fine for Reddit or Quora, but Stack Exchange should have higher standards, especially on a site where professionalism is our most used tag.
