discussion about swearing/rules regarding swearing

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Uh-oh.

Sweariness.

Tequila said we were allowed to be sweary. Plus I broke no rules.

1) Hell is not a swearword here

2) I abbreviated the phrase and therefore did not say the whole word, hence the get out of jail free card

=p nah and nah =p

I never said you weren't allowed. The TOS did. The ones you agreed to when signing up. But the mods do not enforce them.

My views on swearing make me unpopular, but hey, this is the unpopular thread, right? I don't like reading swear words, which is why I made the Clean thread. I just popped into this thread to see what it was like but it's turned out to be sweary so I'll stick to the clean thread I suppose.

Tee hee! My iPhone keeps changing "sweary" to "sweaty."

Writing PITA instead of pain in the...is still swearing. So is writing F*** or feck instead of the real thing. Everyone knows what the writer means.

When I read, I hear the text being spoken in my mind, and I do not want to have my mind polluted by hearing the nasty words coming out of everybody else's. If somebody writes f*** my mind will be pronouncing something that rhymes with duck. It will not be pronouncing "Eff, asterisk, asterisk, asterisk." But hey, I don't own the website, and I'm not a mod, so just ignore meand carry on breaking the rules.

"Conduct:

The following activities are unacceptable on Wrong Planet:

1. Posting offensive language...

Unacceptable content includes swearing."

Thus, it's not about me imposing my preferences on others. I am not asking for special treatment.

It's about others imposing their foul and irritating rule-breaking language on ME.

Dear All-White, that is why I appreciate the Clean Thread so much.

Sylkat

All_White, I can understand the problems you have when people use swear words. I have problems with acronyms like 'pmsl' as I tend to visualise what words and phrases mean - not a pleasant image to have in your head!

I guess part of the problem is that some swear words seem to have become 'acceptable' and people use them without realising they may cause offence. Also, people seem to write as they would speak in these threads, so 'text talk', slang and swearing get used more often.

I also think that the question of what is or isn't classified as swearing can be a bit subjective and varies from person to person. Personally, I don't think the phrase 'what the hell...?' is meant to be swearing, it's a slightly stronger way of saying 'what on earth..?', which actually sounds pretty dated these days. That's just my opinion though

Nope, it's not "my" problem. It's Alex's problem. He wrote a set of rules for his website but they are being enforced selectively. The "no personal attacks" rule is always enforced. Someone was banned from here temporarily for just one personal attack. Yet the mods choose to ignore the no swearing rule, and people are effing and blinding all over the place, with no respect for the rules, with repeated offenders not getting even one infraction.

I agree some words are in a grey area. Different people may put the same word in a different category. There's also a difference between UK English and US. I was brought up to think that it's OK to say "crap"

*waits to see if forum software blanks that out or not*

and to me, that word is slang, not swearing. But one day a little girl was horrified when I said it, and told me in a shocked voice: "that's swearing!" From then on I've tried to remember not to use that word because although it's not offensive to me, it may be to others.

I don't know about enforcing site rules. It all seems quite subjective from where I'm sitting.

Some swear words are grey area, and they do vary from country to country. Here is isn't offensive to say hell or damn, but apparently that's different overseas.

As far as the no personal attacks rule, I have seen plenty of personal attacks where people weren't banned, or even warned. In fact, nobody pulled them up on their behaviour. So that's pretty subjective too it seems. In fact, I have seen some posters do this repeatedly, and to multiple members and they are still here.

I don't necessary like the fact that they are still here even though they attack other members but there's nothing I can do about it, I just have to put up with it.

I do find some swearwords offensive, but they are mainly those which are very strong and have certain historical / sexist meaning. The large majority of the grey area I just overlook.

I'm sorry if I've upset you, All_White, that wasn't my intention. Maybe problem wasn't the right word to use?

If a member finds something offensive, provocative etc, they can report it to the moderators for their consideration and action. The way I see it, moderators can only act if they are made aware of what has happened. I did this myself recently - I pm'd a moderator because I was very uncomfortable about some of the things another member was saying in the GAD. The moderator looked at it and decided to lock the thread and give the member a warning. I didn't enjoy reporting it, but felt I had to, and I'm glad I did.

No you did not upset me.

It's no use PMing the mods to report swearing. As already stated they do not enforce that particular rule. I PMd one of them about it ages ago and they claimed it was Alex's fault (can't see how that can be true; he's not a mod so unless he's expressly ordered them to ignore that rule for some weird reason, it's their fault, not his). They also said something like "oh, the software takes care of it" but that's not true. People blatantly flout the rules and cheat the software using leeting. F**k becomes feck. A*****e becomes a$$hole (I actually saw that one in a thread TITLE the other day and not a single thing is being done about it).
Minors visit this website. It's not just for adults. Both children and well-spoken adults alike should not be subjected to that kind of language (as per site rules stated above).

So that's why I started the Clean Chat thread.

As for simply "ignoring" the swear words: how exactly are you supposed to ignore something you've already read? It's too late; it's already penetrated your brain. If there were some kind of advance warning system saying: "the text below contains offensive language in violation of the express rules of this website.You may not wish to read on" then at least those of us who don't care to read profanities would have a choice, but at the moment we don't. People swear anywhere, any time, in any thread except the Clean Chat thread, without any warning. And even the Clean Chat thread was trolled with the F word the other day.

The day someone creates definitions of "swearword" or "offensive" which work across continents and cultures alike, and offend no-one through their implementation in rules of conversation - will be the day when rules about swearing or offensiveness make sense and become fully functional.

Until that happy day we either have the current (and unsatisfactory) automatic word filtering mechanism which at least goes part-way to providing a masking solution without expecting everyone to behave as if all of WP was a vicarage tea-party - or no rules on the matter at all.

Moderators attempt to steer a course which allows some degree of freedom in using words which may be considered adult language - but never to an extended or gratuitous use for the sake of using the words alone, or any use in areas designated specifically for children.

The Clean Chat thread operates under its own unofficial and undocumented rules - moderators will generally, as a courtesy, remove or edit posts containing words considered offensive by any of that thread's contributors.

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Don't give me that face!