Members who repeat **** bombs have been banned, but I guess that's in the personal attacks or annoying domain. Circumventing the filter sometimes does the trick too. There's no way I consider this forum PG or even PG13 without anyone swearing. More like high school and over.
This would be a serious relinquishment for someone like Moes.... the board would just become boring without Moes' quality jokes/insults which require some profanity. I agree with having minor profanity... such words as ass and damn.... let's not get too G-Rated.
I realize the irony in this considering I just spent most of yesterday conjuring up some ridiculous vision of an "elite GARM", but this might be one of the strangest complaints I've seen on here in a while. This board is not intended for children nor should it be changed to allow for their absorption.
1. there isn't any swearing. the swear words are censored out. his point of contention is the allowance for the asterisks which convey the intention of swearing. the intent of an action does not amount to the equivalent of that action, at least not sufficiently to induce a shift in policy in also outlawing the intent. 2. no one said swearing was necessary. acceptability of an action does not require probative indispensability of that action.
I like how DaDakota is trying so hard to mold this BBS in his image, and when it doesn't conform, gives Clutch a back-handed compliment.
1. DD, does your proposed ban include people who circumvent the asterisks (with **** or bi+tch, etc.) ? 2. I don't understand you starting this thread on a moral, deep-seeded-paternalistic ground, and then immediately doing an about face with respect to the paternal authority of the board. You say "It's for the safety of my kids" and then seem to submit your staunch parental judgment to Clutch, saying it's "no biggie" if he doesn't think it's necessary. What gives?
He brings this up b/c he believes people are throwing around those curse words too often these days. Any time someone disagrees with someone else, you see a post with a "****". Its the fact that there are few real discussions and more disagreements in which people resort to cursing and name calling these days, and he just thinks it all needs to stop. I'm fine with him bringing this up, and whether I agree or disagree, its left up to Clutch as to whether he thinks its a problem or not. Though, I do agree that the board has taken an antagonistic tone recently, with a lot less real discussion and a lot more vitriol.
Aren't the asterisks the mods way, or Clutch's way, to ensure that cursing is not on the board? As somebody pointed out, all you see are asterisks and you don't know if a word was actually posted, what the word is if it was posted, or if the poster just decided to use asterisks. If it was really a big issue, then I think they could set something up that does not allow you to post anything with those words in and and when you would try to do so you would get a message telling you to edit your message before posting it.
If the complaint were supplanted on moral grounds, while I would still disagree, there would at least be some merit to the argument. But the fact that he's basing this on some want in safely inducting his 10 year old into the realm of the internetz is blatantly absurd and offends my sensibilities. this board is the intellectual playground of hundreds of 25-35 year old american males who would probably be masturbating at work out of sheer boredom were it not for the creative refuge it has provided. the GARM has gotten bad enough in recent years with the explosive infusion of teens. a call for child-proofing it as well is just silly.
I understand that view, my issue is that I completely agree that discourse has been replaced by discord throughout the board. So few posters understand the idea of "agree to disagree," and in turn, the amount of name calling and cursing does seem to have increased.
Agreed, but while the cursing is symptomatic of the idiocy you speak of, the two aren't restrictively inclusive. it's not really my style, but i do think the asterisk-expletives do have considerable emotive utility, especially in narrative form. if you are advocating a ban on expletive laden second person assaults (ie: "**** you"; "you are a ****ing idiot for your love of V-Span" etc.), i would be supportive of such a proposition and think this is probably already in effect. But an outright ban? Come on.
To my knowledge, the board has never had a policy against cursing (since curse words are already censored), except when included in unnessecarily vulgar posts, or personal attacks worthy of a ban. It has been the same since Clutchfans came to be, why bother changing it?
I'm not advocating anything, I'm just trying to give DD's side of the argument some love, b/c he's getting killed for it. I do agree about the utility of asterisk-expletives at times, but these days they are being used for nothing but show. But I agree, an outright ban is way to much. If a poster has an issue with the use of the expletive, the report a post button comes in quite handy.
I think DD is right in that the frequency of censored words on the BBS has increased quite noticeably in recent times. I don't know if this is directly correlated with the changing makeup of the poster body or just a general liberalization trend. While it is rather obvious that the overall quality of discussion in the GARM has fallen quite precipitously in the past couple of years, a case can probably be made that the Hangout, while a lot less insufferable, has also gotten a bit more liberal in language and content terms. I would also disagree with the notion of just banning people for cursing, but I am not opposed to some sort of automated punitive measure for chronic offenders (a "you've used 20 swear words in your last 25 posts. Timeout" sort of thing). This isn't a forum for kids (not even high school kids like Miguel07), but at the same time, frequent cursing does mean less intelligent output and lower quality material (and unfortunately, the cuss word filter doesn't work on people's brains). Class has always been a distinguishing feature of ClutchFans compared to other similar forums. That should not be allowed to rot away.
This is Clutch's board, and if he decideds it is ok, or has decided, then I will simply block the site for them in net nanny.... I just think cursing is unecessary. And Cabbage, this is not necessarily about the kids, it is more about people basically posting without respect for each other, and resorting to cursing which leads down a path of escalating posts of no value. You want to clean up the GARM....start with putting some guidelines in respect......because to me that is ground ZERO with where the GARM has gotten off track...people simply attack with curse words, and away you go... The dynamic has changed noticably in the last year or so....and it is getting worse. And where does it say that 25-35 year olds have to curse to make a point? IMO, it is uneccessary, disrespectful and classless. DD
Clamp down on the personal insults and the profanity problem would greatly improve. To me, it's the direct attacks which have gotten worse, and they're having a corrosive effect on GARM.
EXACTLY !!!!! And to me it is lead by cursing and name calling.....that is what I have noticed, anyway. Again, 100% correct. DD
