discussion about swearing/rules regarding swearing

Post Reply New Topic

It's a pizza discussion.

I want pineapple on my pizza please. And mushrooms. And onions and peppers and garlic and extra cheese.

I'd like ham and pineapple, please!

You've clearly made up your mind on this and there is to be no further discussion about adjusting your view.
Fair enough.

But next time you make observations such as these, please leave out the snide comments like this one, Ok?

This is a gross exaggeration, and its effectiveness relies on your ignoring everything myself and others have posted about swearing and offensiveness being grey areas in very many situations, and the subsequent difficulties in realistically enforcing those rules concerning them.
I've attempted to show how we try to make the best of a bad job, steering a line between nannying and allowing far too much - yet you say this?
I'm disappointed.



Oh, BTW: "hell" is "sweariness", which I took to mean you regard it as a swearword (along with PITA): http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp4590643.html#4590643
And "crap"? I stand corrected; you now regard it as possibly offensive to others as a result of a child's comment: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp4591732.html#4591732

DearCornflake, Since I mostly live in 'Random Discussion', I will admit to being ,usually, blithely unaware of the kinds of outrageous behavior that you mods have to cope with on a regular basis. Y'all must frequently feel like you are trying to bail out the Titanic with a teaspoon.
Occasionally visiting other areas is frequently a disappointing or annoying or distasteful experience to me.. This is not just because of many WP members' terminology, unkindness, or judgementalism, but rather that since WP is, as pointed out, THE resource (safe house) for us, we really don't have much of anywhere else to go for support and comfort and friendship.
The swearing, the contempt for others' beliefs, the personal criticisms hurt.
WP has become my social life and my sanctuary. This is the one place I can actually carry on a conversation. For the first time in my life, I know why I am different, and what is 'wrong' with me.
One year, in elementary school, I was placed in the 'ret*d' class. That was the legal term at the time. I remember clearly that certain others were also there only because they just did not fit, either.
Some members are younger or tougher or less sensitive, and and seem to be in the majority.
It just feels,sometimes, like being in a crowded elevator, and that guy tells a racist or woman-hating joke, that one there is passing gas, some kid is blowing his nose, that woman pulls out her breast and nurses with no attempt to cover up, those two in the corner are smoking, and anyone upset by any of it is the one with the problem.

Just sharing my feelings. I know y'all (mods) cannot fix the world and that with over 66,000 members, trying to enforce or even introduce courtesy or consideration is as possible as herding cats.

Sylkat

Last edited by Sylkat on 29 Apr 2012, 7:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Sylkat, thanks.
Rather than continuing to derail this thread I'll respond via PM if that's Ok.

Herding Cats?

As to the pizza order, you have to go with pepperoni and pineapple .
Far superior to the typical Canadian bacon or Ham and pineapple, IMHO

Last edited by perpetualconfusion on 29 Apr 2012, 6:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.

To Whom It May Concern, I Might try the pineapple, but mushrooms are obligatory.
And a THIN crust.

SylKat

Last edited by Sylkat on 29 Apr 2012, 7:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Thin crust, nice and crispy..yum!
Mushrooms Meh, but this particular combination is perfect, as it brings together the saltiness of the pepperoni and the sweetness of the pineapple. They play together quite well .

Dear Cornflake,

I agree with the above: "anyone upset by it is the one with the problem." I do not understand why you are treating me as a "baddy" and attacking me for merely voicing the fact that the swearing upsets me. It's like you think I'm not on your side any more. Why are you getting cross with me? The ones who are not on your side are the ones who fill up WP with profanities every day and make it a nastier place to be. I'm siding with the mods!
I was not posting any "snide comments" or "exaggerations." What on earth made you say that? Could you be confusing me with somebody else, or do you suffer from paranoia? (Again, no snideness here; I'm literally asking whether you do, as people on here have all sorts of issues, understandably). I am not a snide person. I am open and honest. I was making literal, earnest, rational observations. I'm an Aspie, remember? When I say it makes the mod team look daft to not enforce a rule, I mean it literally. I'm thinking of you. You're the good guys. If you make a rule and then never enforce it, the bad guys will perceive you as weak or having no power or desire to discipline anyone. This is just a literal musing. I am not intending to attack the mod team or make snide remarks in any way. I am very fond of you mods, especially certain ones. I am trying to make a helpful suggestion: either enforce your rules or scrap them. For some reason you don't seem to want to acknowledge the logic of what I am saying. You just keep dissecting my posts and trying to find objections to them, as though you're taking it personally or getting very emotional. This is not about you personally. Please don't feel that way.
As for quoting what I personally do or don't think of certain words: how is that relevant? I'm not a mod. My opinion on what a swear words is or isn't doesn't count. If it did, the whole forum would be squeaky clean by now. The point being made here is that it's the MODS who ought to be looking at all the sweary posts and deleting the ones that are definite swear words and using their own opinion/discretion to decide on grey areas, and have the last word and put their foot down as they do for other rules, but they are NOT DOING THAT. All I'm trying to ask is WHY. Has Alex told you not to, as TallyMan claimed? If so, why? Or is it lack of sufficient mods to get the job done? If so, I'm sure plenty of people would be happy to volunteer and help you start cracking down on this rule. If you're not going to, and the admin here does not view swearing as important, it honestly makes sense to update the rules and delete any that don't reflect the views of the current mod team (NOT a "snide remark"; just being logical. I am genuinely puzzled as to how that coukd possibly be interpreted as "snide).Please stop imagining things behind my words that simply are not there! I am not attacking you, Cornflake. I appreciate the hard work you do, so no need to start imagining snideness where there is none, or accusing me of emotion when I'm only trying to logically make a point.

Last edited by all_white on 30 Apr 2012, 1:58 am, edited 1 time in total.

*offers Cornlake a slice of pizza*



You know, when I complained to TallyMan about the swearing he merely acknowledged that it was a problem, amicably agreed with me that he disliked it himself, and lamented that Alex did not command that more be done about it. He did not turn around and start attacking me. He listened to what I had to say.

TallyMan was wise and emotionally detatched enough to perceive that what I was saying was not a personal attack on him, and humble enough to admit that it was true.

You might want to follow his lead on this instead of trying to make enemies out of innocent people who are only trying to help.

Word filters, just sayin'. Or are asterisks offensive to you too?

I feel I've made it perfectly clear how clamping down on offensiveness and swearwords to the extent you wish is unworkable, and I note that you have yet to provide a practical definition of "offensive" and "swearword". This should give some indication of the difficulties in enforcing any rules on this while refraining from nannying all members and treating them like children.
Yes, I know it's not your job - but just humour me and think on it for a while, Ok?

I expect it was the realisation of this basic inapplicability which caused Alex to tell us that the "no swearing" rule is pretty much irrelevant and he feels the auto-censor handles the situation well enough - but you already know his decision on this through your prior conversations with TallyMan, therefore your "why" question was answered some time ago and again here.
Of course, and as I previously indicated to you, activities such as deliberately avoiding the filter (forcing words to appear fully spelled out which would have otherwise been masked) or the gratuitous use of swearwords for the sake of it or swearwords in images will be - and are, regularly - dealt with.
Yes, I understand how the rules still reflect the original intention and the whole rule set really needs tidying up and clarifying - but we are moderators and as such are physically prevented from rewriting site policy: that is something only Alex can do.

For the record, I dislike swearwords too. I dislike the way their use blunts language. I dislike the aggression implicit in their use.
But I do recognise that they are also part of everyday language and to an extent, we must therefore allow their use here on WP.
There is a narrow and wavering line between outright censorship and maintaining an environment for reasonable discourse; the sole purpose of my responses here, despite what you imply, is to try to get you to understand that this cannot be a "one size fits all" checkbox solution that is fair for all members.

You've made it perfectly clear that the way we approach this situation is not acceptable and you want the "no swearing" rule applied literally, as-is, to every post in any area of WP.
We are trying to steer a course between conversational, adult usage and overt, gratuitous offensiveness in the belief that this is the fairest method applicable to the majority of members.
Some people swear. Some of them are, to one degree or another, Autistic. Why should we insist that one precludes the other when they visit WP?

You have a safe haven which we will rigorously defend for you: the Clean Chat thread. It's easily defended because for that thread alone, its contributors get to decide what is offensive. You make your own rules there.
For the rest of WP, we have to try and maintain an environment which allows for as many viewpoints as possible. This is largely impossible; someone, somewhere will always be offended by some aspect of the content and the best we can realistically manage is to limit the extent of this.



And while I'm greedily scoffing my pizza (ta!), I'll give you a simplified, throw-away example of the inapplicability of consistently policing just one word.
You've made it clear that a word such as "s**t" is not acceptable. I ask you: which word would? Poop? Droppings? Do-do? Ploppy-poo?
If you're being as logical as you claim then your answer would have to be "none of them" because they're all substitutes for the original word and the original meaning is still clear.
So we now have to scour every post for this word - and when it's found, what then?
How are we to rate its usage fairly in deciding what action to take?
Is that word "more Ok" when used to describe something of poor quality than if it was used to describe a person's actions?
Is one occurrence in a post sufficient to ban someone from accessing WP?
Or should we officially warn the member about using it - but what if they use it in two more posts afterwards?
Should we quietly replace all of the word with asterisks and say nothing?
Should we perhaps edit their post and rephrase it so the word is avoided altogether?

What would you do to actually apply the rule here?

Last edited by Cornflake on 30 Apr 2012, 6:22 am, edited 1 time in total.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8

International version (video quality is better as well ) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ0ur5GK ... re=related

Last edited by perpetualconfusion on 30 Apr 2012, 6:43 am, edited 2 times in total.

She already stated that we all know what the asterisks represent and that asterisks dont stop her mind from "seeing" the actual word.

Not sure what can we do about it considering that its a huge forum and there are plenty of new posts daily and its very hard to keep an eye on everything thats uploaded to the website.

The rule is there to make sure some members dont start abusing of curse words without a reason and there was some sort of intervention a few months ago(theres a thread on PPR about it, some of the members there were quite involved) on which we tried to keep curse words out of some threads that had gone out of hand.
If a member is occasionally cursing within some sort of reason(not throwing curse words out there randomly) the member wont ever be approached about it by us because if we were to do that we´d have to keep an eye on too many members and we wouldnt have time for other forum issues

I used to feel intelligent before I clicked "Watck Fis Fred"

Hello everyone!
I think I know what you mean syzygyish. I'm not sure what to say about the whole offensive word debate, other than I suppose no one is going to be happy with every aspect of any forum.