discussion about swearing/rules regarding swearing

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Other way round.

I would have to agree.

Haha hey that was directed towards me!

I approve!

There are no bad words. Bad thoughts, bad intentions - and words. -George Carlin

I subscribe to the personal philosophy that swear words have a valid and genuine place in the English vocabulary. There are simply thoughts, feelings, and expressions that can't be described (or described thoroughly enough) without using swear words.

People who are offended by the use of a word itself, regardless of context, are merely playing a societal game for no particular reason. The sole exception to this being words that by their very nature provide their own context (racial slurs, for example).

The rules for swearing here apply the same theory as the FCC: swearing is against the rules, but since there aren't enough resources to police everyone, they just react to the instances where people are offended. Simple enough, really.

Let logic rule. Well said.

The truth is ephemeral
Only the history wrote large by the winners
Must be obeyed

I have noticed that with different mods, this rule does change because one word may be acceptable and then all of a sudden it isn't. I once got a warning for calling myself an a**hole and then under the new staff team that word was acceptable to use.

Makes things confusing and I don't mean to break the rules here if it happens.

It seems the rules are open to interpretation unfortunately.

I think the rules change because it depends on the staff and how they interpret the rules so therefore the rules change.

Filters are cool with me, they're just doing what I would do anyway if it's not allowed

Kinda handy, really

I try not to use profanity (even filtered) too much, or in the wrong subforum, sometimes I slip, but I agree with keeping the site (except adult subsections) as PG as possible because it's more use to kids that way. And this should be a place parents shouldn't be afraid to send their aspie kids, and a place where aspie kids can communicate with adults about issues - perhaps even their own parents. That should be possible.

personally, I think censorship of any kind is awful.

then you are on the wrong site (and perhaps in the wrong country, but that's neither here nor there)

It can be hard to know how the TOS are supposed to be enforced. Since we have an auto-filter, does that mean any attempt to swear is an offense, even if it comes out edited, or just swearing that isn't censored (usually because the poster successfully evades the censor)? When I first became a moderator, it was assumed that it was the former, but later Alex posted differently, ie let the auto-censor do its job and not spend time on those instances. Even though I am no longer a moderator, it is my understanding that the later is still the rule of the land. However, the TOS most definitely gives the moderators the authority to censor all attempts to evade the auto-censor, as it should, and to clear posts that contribute nothing of substance but are just rants full of auto-censored words. I wouldn't want to get rid of the rule just because there is an auto-censor, because there ARE times people get a little too creative working around the censor, or overly rely on the censor to basically vent out a storm.

As a parent, I do feel the auto-censor is fine for the words it covers; I can handle my kids seeing F&!@&! and the like. Very young kids don't know what the real word is and older kids get the message that while some adults use those words, they are not considered publicly acceptable. Kids are exposed to swearing quite a lot, no matter how hard you try to shelter them, so teaching them how to handle it and not adopt it is an important aspect of parenting.

Alex told me (around a year ago) that attempts to circumvent the swearing filters break the rules, though he was relaxed about minor swear words being used that aren't included in the filter.

There are plenty of comments that are attacking users or at least can easily be construed as such. It's difficult to know the nuances of speech when it's typed and not heard. Emoticons and bold/italics can only go so far.