MS Update for Week Ending 6/25/03

Best thing to do is push the boards to a 16+ rating rather than the current PG-13...

Ah...

Who cares, I don't swear a lot anyway..

 

Why do we need to swear?

UKS

 

We don't need to swear. Some people want to though. It's much the same as other things in real life too. Some people just use certain choice words because they are more colourful and carry across what may very well be an encompassing meaning that many people will understand.

It's downside is obviously that a lot of people feel differently about it and not everyone is likely to take the same language lightly.

It seems as though a policy of 'better-safe-than-sorry' is the most widely supported however.

Anyway ... carry on.

 

Well see that shouldn't be the reasoning behind deciding to ban a word or phrase. It shouldn't be "this word offends some people" it should just be, "this word is vulgar and we don't want it here". But I get your point.

Spike, I would like to agree with such a viewpoint, but you need to realise that not everyone would agree that this word is vulgar, mainly because for many of us from different cultures, the idea of a word being vulgar is absurd, if not laughable.

We are in this and many issues, catering to ensure the least amount of people are offended as possible, in accordance with the flavour of the Star Wars Mythos. If people are going to be concerned with WTF or WTH for that matter, the Administration is almost forced to err on the side of caution.

I spoke above about other cultures not finding it vulgar, and whilst that is true, I am also forced to realise as a Moderator that my culture and the way I percieve things may be a minority one, and those who frequent my forum most probably think differently. If to make the forum more friendly to them and to their sensabilities I have to censor things to a ridiculous degree, I'll do it, because in the end this isn't a board based on free speech, or a political discussion group: it is a board about Star Wars, and a Community of Fans.

We cater to them, and in turn, to the myriad minorities they represent. Be they American, Australian, Asian, European; be they atheist, religious or agnostic: we need to be mindful of what everyone believes and wishes, and cater to the status quo.

It's not a perfect world, it's not a perfect board: but it is the best that can be done in a world still learning to be multi-cultural.

 

Spike...
"...it should just be, "this word is vulgar and we don't want it here". But I get your point."

Well, that's even going further than is required. It doesn't even have to have any reason attached to it. All that's actually required is "We don't want it here."

Not everyone's going to understand the thought process of the administration, and as we've often seen that it's usually an exercise in futility to attempt to understand the thought process of the administration. And furthermore, even if someone did understand the thought process, not everyone who does so may agree with it.

But, that's alright. Swear words are arbitrary words, whether it be society-at-large who has determined them to be swears or an anonymous internet message board.

The administration has words here that it has determined to be swears. Why it has determined these particular words and/or their derivitives is of little importance in the grand scheme of things. And they're in no way more or less arbitrary than someone else's taboo word list.

Those are the words, and it would be greatly appreciated if people used them (or didn't use them) in accordance with our rules.

 

Great update Sape.

And might I add, what a nice animation.

 

well, just because they are as arbitrary as the next man's bad word list apparently is, doesn't mean to say we have to like it.......

i'd like to summarise what i see the pertinant points to be:

1. alot of people think this is an unreasonable, if not silly rule

2. apparrently there is a group of people, in addition to Josh who are deeply offended by such insinuations of swear words

3. an unreasonable or irrational rule is still an enforceable rule, as it is, in fact a rule, and rules are enforcable


4. its nice to debate such issues that we feel strongly about, even though we are assured often by some that it matters not what we say since we have no valid say in the matter




and now to lower the whole tone of the debate, and probably destroy any credibility i may have once had i shall in true internet style mention the Nazis..........would a german judge of the hitler era be justified in defending himself from attack by saying that while he didn't really approve of the petty/or discriminatory laws of the Hitlerites he did enforce them because they were the legitimate government and were doing good things in regards to stabilising the country and restoring the economy?

or perhaps he could say "if i didn't do it, someone else would have stepped forth and enforced the silly rule, it was best that i stayed within and tried to guide things in a better direction, while enforcing, sadly of course, the silly rule"....


both arguments of course stink and are in my opinion, and the opinion of the nurmeburg judges, and many scholars, not valid defences, now off to dinner for me

 

i don't think there has yet been a good solid arguement in support of this rule that wasn't predicated on 'because josh said so' or 'you should be able to obey his rule'. speaking of Teh Josh, why doesn't he come out and explain (convincingly) his adamant desire for this ridiculous, unreasonable, and unnecessary rule?

Good solid argument? The F in WTF stands for a word that is not allowed to be posted here. Therefore, WTF is meant to be read as having in it a word that is not allowed to be used here. Therefore, it?s not allowed. Whether you like the argument or not is irrelevant.

Ridiculous? Not nearly so ridiculous as 100 posts of people complaining it?s unreasonable that they cannot use a profanity that has an allowed synonym on an Internet message board.

 

i am not sure you have understood the whole point of this argument.........no one is using the word, the swear word is not being used...to use a swear word involves saying it or typing it out..........what you are referring to is something that represents the offensive word but is not actually the bad word in question........the substituted phrase is not bad itself, that is in fact why it has been used in lieu of the word that is deemed offensive...........

the four letter word you dislike so much is the word with the offensive shock power, it is the swear word..........the three letter acronym is a substitute that does not have the same offensive power, it is not a swear word, it is a polite substitute, which is used in order not of offend others

however this seems to be a case of giving an inch and taking a mile.........people out of a genuine desire to please refrain from using an accepted (the key here is that it is commonly accepted, not an arbitrary decision) swear word, instead they use something else that is not a swear word, yet now it is deemed bad because it is a substitute for a bad word..........

 

Not nearly so ridiculous as 100 posts of people complaining it?s unreasonable that they cannot use a profanity that has an allowed synonym on an Internet message board.

Complaining? Kind of ignorant to say if you look back in the thread at the given arguements. Not a one was complaining, and all gave more valid answers than yours.

Sorry to "complain" again, but one last thing must be repeated, originally posted by royalguard96: The wtf abbreviation is by itself a form of censorship. So we're in effect censoring censorship.

 

"Ridiculous? Not nearly so ridiculous as 100 posts of people complaining it?s unreasonable"

What's worse? 100 posts in four days, 'complaining' in length about three letters (what really gets on everyone's nerves and creates tension) or 200 posts per day containing those three letters (what only one person really cares for)?


Compromise: They type wtf whenever they want to, you edit it into wth whenever you see it.

 

Have some of you people ever heard of a Dictionary before?

 

and it all boils down to, this is a privately owned board; the owners have their standards for it, and want it enforced. Users can comply with their rules or go to another board where such language is ok. To argue about it is moot, because the rule will not be amended or discarded, so save your fingers and temper level, and deal with it, or go have a glass of cold blue milk smoothies to cool you off.

 

[image=http://www.swmcmmj.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/banghead.gif]

 

I think I could have worded it better than saying "we're censoring censorship."

Using wt* is like this: Say you have a picture of a naked girl. Her body is blurred in the appropriate places. OK, that's fine, understandable. But then we take it a step further and just blur her entire body from the neck down so you can't even tell there's more than a head there.

The idea is reasonable, but the extent to which it's carried out just seems a bit extreme and unnecessary, in my opinion.

Ultimately, I don't see this rule being changed until Josh is no longer affiliated with the site.

 

*hopehopehope*

 

Humble...
"well, just because they are as arbitrary as the next man's bad word list apparently is, doesn't mean to say we have to like it..."

That's it in a nutshell. But, where the problem occurs is that in lieu of you not liking it and us accepting that you not like it, you end up bringing up all sorts of "Nazi" references which have absolutely no similarities to this issue, either in scope or in nature.

"would a german judge of the hitler era be justified in defending himself from attack by saying that while he didn't really approve of the petty/or discriminatory laws of the Hitlerites he did enforce them because they were the legitimate government and were doing good things in regards to stabilising the country and restoring the economy?"

However, german judges in the Hitler era also still enforced the basic laws which civilized society requires to run - laws against petty theft, etc.

You're mistake with this analogy is in personally believing that your opinion of the rules somehow being "petty," when in reality they may not be.

And you also resort to the fallacy of numbers. It doesn't matter how many people dislike something. If something's bad, then it's bad, regardless of how many may think otherwise.

"both arguments of course stink and are in my opinion, and the opinion of the nurmeburg judges..."

The nuremburg judges never commented on rules of conduct/taste governing private anonymous internet message boards.

We're talking about internet posting ettiquette wholly unrelated to matters of morality here, not morally-based rule of laws governing society and warfare which is what the Nuremburg court was trying to decide. We're talking matters of taste. Hopefully you don't believe that's all the Nuremburg judges were deciding.

Get some perspective, plz.

I agree with anyone who asserts that moral decisions and rules should be logical, based on the facts and should be based on acceptable moral principles.

However, our Rules of Conduct and Terms of Service have absolutely nothing to do with morality and/or moral codes of laws.

It has entirely to do with the personal preferences of this site's owners in what they want being shown through their site.

 

sok, luv your pounding head emoticon, but it still won't change anything. On tis board, we all hafta learn to live with clean language posting, or go elsewhere where other language can be used in posting. it's as simple as that. don't need to use bad language in front of kids and elders and those who don't use coarser language. My own language in RL gets very salty, specially when I'm caught in traffic, lots of road rage, but my fingers are not allowed to type those letters in this board; on other boards, yes, but not this board.

 

However, our Rules of Conduct and Terms of Service have absolutely nothing to do with morality and/or moral codes of laws.

It has entirely to do with the personal preferences of this site's owners in what they want being shown through their site.

I'm sorry Genghis, but those statements come across as incredibly naive.

Morals and morality play HUGE roles in determining the rules of a community, such as this one. We know what the site owner does for an occupation. The site's policy on fanfic slash and censorship of words clearly reflect that.

 

royalguard...
That's fine that one knows Josh's real life profession. But Josh's decision - the decision itself - to allow slash or not allow slash is in no way a moral or immoral decision.

It is an amoral decision. It's his personal preference which lies outside the sphere of morality.

And it doesn't matter that his personal preference is based on his ideas of morality or not.

His decision to allow or disallow it isn't related to morality. It's related to taste.

And the idea that anyone who moderates an anonymous internet message board according to such arbitrary tastes can somehow be equated to a Nazi war criminal is utterly ridiculous.

 

Heh Genghis, because morality and taste are so incredibly seperate?


<eyeroll.gif> I wonder if you even recognize the foolishness in what you just said.

Besides, Josh's 'explination' for slash is it might offend people and makes no mention of his own personal tastes.

Unless of course if by 'it might offend people' he means 'it offends me'.

Honestly Genghis, stick to engineering because your grasp of linguistics is lacking.

 

farraday...
There is substantial difference between taste and morality.

Discussing the merits of genocide is far different from discussing the merits of the worth of a wet T-shirt contest.

I would like to thank you in advance for educating yourself on the differences between morality and taste before posting on the topic again. thx.

 

I know this is off topic but I just have to point out the ridiculous oversight of history in Genghis's statement above.

"would a german judge of the hitler era be justified in defending himself from attack by saying that while he didn't really approve of the petty/or discriminatory laws of the Hitlerites he did enforce them because they were the legitimate government and were doing good things in regards to stabilising the country and restoring the economy?"

However, german judges in the Hitler era also still enforced the basic laws which civilized society requires to run - laws against petty theft, etc.

German judges in the Hitler era enforced basic laws against petty theft, etc... unless you were Jewish. Or Gypsy. Or gay. Or Communist. Or God knows what else.

 

<eyeroll.gif>

Genghis for someone who spends as much time as you do attempting to anally follow the rules to the very letter, you seem to make completely absurd analogies which defy the rules of logic.

Please, please, explain what the hell your last post had to do with anything?

Are you saying, for example, that we aren't allowed to discuss the merits of a wet t-shirt contest?

Please explain your obtuse and just plain odd frame of reference where you think that somehow was a complete answer or even an answer at all.

Morality and taste are linked, if you don't believe me please feel free to educate yourself, I'm sure you'll find time between memorizing the TOS and making long absurd statments concerning it's relative imporrtance.

 

farraday...
"Please explain your obtuse and just plain odd frame of reference where you think that somehow was a complete answer or even an answer at all."

I'll make this as simple as possible for you.

To argue that moderating the complete obscurring of "***" versus allowing the abbreviation to stand without censoring has anything to do with morality is wholly wrong.

Morality doesn't have anything to do with it.

This issue is an amoral one. Someone who uses profanity is not immoral. A policy which insists that profanity be blocked out is not immoral.

It is a matter of taste.

However, the act of genocide is an immoral act.

The issue of taste and the issue of morality are two entirely different animals.

In the same way Josh mandates that "***" be fully-obscured, he could mandate that the word "school" cannot be posted here.

He would not be immoral. Moderaters who edited and banned people for posting school would not be immoral. However, they would all be eccentric.

Which is yet a different matter entirely.

We know people don't like to have to use "***" in lieu of the actual letters. But no one ever required you to like it. And that's fine.

Strilo...
"German judges in the Hitler era enforced basic laws against petty theft, etc... unless you were Jewish. Or Gypsy. Or gay. Or Communist. Or God knows what else."

This actually just backs up my point that the hitler analogy is fundamentally flawed, since we happen to enforce our basic laws against petty offenses on everyone in our own little inconsistent manner.