How is this offensive?

I know that "88" is used as a surrogate for "Heil Hitler" in neo nazi circles (H is the 8th letter of the alphabet), but "Realist" doesn't ring any bell.

You answered your own question. It's offensive because of '88'.

Wow, I see lots of people born in 1988 using the screename (name)88, and I don't think any knows that :P

I hope 81 isn't some kind of code either :)

As long as you don't combine it with other words you should be fine. In my example, Realist referred to "racial realism". I chose a relatively subtle example because many of them I find repulsive to even type, but a less subtle username I've seen about the place is "ChuckSpears". That's the kind of thing I'm talking about.

That one also seems completely fine by itself? And it's not like they generally block names that advertise you being a bad person.

ChuckSpears is a direct reference to a racist insult, "Spear Chucker". They don't generally block names like this but I often wonder where the line is.

In human-moderated systems like XBox Live I've seen some relatively 'sophisticated' offensive names get called out and banned by the moderators.

I was wondering how username-blacklist systems worked, and how they deal with names which are obviously offensive to anyone who's dealt with the likes of Stormfront et al. before, but could theoretically be chosen by a totally innocent unfortunate.

> In human-moderated systems like XBox Live I've seen some relatively 'sophisticated' offensive names get called out and banned by the moderators.

For anyone who wants examples, reading a couple of pages of http://whywasibanned.com/category/gamertag/ should give you some examples

I see what you're getting at and agree it could be offensive but it could also be Charles Spears. At the same time someone could name an account CharlesSpears and probably no one would find it offensive.

It is interesting to think about where the line should be drawn. Especially in human moderated cases.

Yeah I figured out what the insult was, I just have no idea what group it is applied too. If you need to know about it beforehand it's not a very strong insult.

Not only "88" but "Realist" is used as shorthand for "Racial Realist", a common euphemism contemporary racists use.

I can't answer your question, but in this example, it's the context, not that name, that is offensive. I doubt it's even linguistically possible to make a reliable classifier.