What are the MLW rules on profanity?

BubberMiley · July 2, 2015

I haven't even gotten a kiss goodnight.

GostHacked · July 2, 2015

How about this? Ignore the profanity, edit it out yourselves and move on like it never existed:

That depends on your definition of profanity, since the definition of trolling seems to be quite ambiguous.

Bryan · July 2, 2015

That depends on your definition of profanity, since the definition of trolling seems to be quite ambiguous.

One man's profanity is another man's punctuation.

cybercoma · July 3, 2015

If Charles said the forum is blue and white, you people would argue with him that it's black and gold.

Topaz · July 3, 2015

Charles is the boss but we could always vote and majority wins and therefore, I think more would be against nasty words. Besides, the younger generations say it too much, I hear it all the time.

Bryan · July 3, 2015

If Charles said the forum is blue and white, you people would argue with him that it's black and gold.

I think you're just trying to dress up your argument.

cybercoma · July 3, 2015

Charles is the boss but we could always vote and majority wins

Why would you think it works that way here? There's no majority wins here. It's Greg's site and what he says goes.

Smallc · July 3, 2015

He ummmm, doesn't seem to say much.

Charles Anthony · July 3, 2015

If we do use profanity, should we/can we "bleep it out" like above?

Sure, you can do that but I encourage you to second guess your choice to use profanity. Profanity begets profanity. Do you really need it? Rarely does it add clarity to an expression.

It's an interesting balance this board tries to maintain, trying to keep this a place of scholarly, civil discussion while also keeping a high amount of free speech.

I think so too. As a reader, I appreciate the cordiality and discipline most of you display in how you express yourselves to eachother.

My mouth is a sewer and I could not do it. I do not enjoy this particular rule. It would be a lot more fun if you guys let it all loose but who are we trying to kid?

Foul-mouthed ninkompoops litter discussions everywhere else on the innerwebs. Rude language gets in the way of clever discussion and it is intimidating. That is not what Greg wants here.

There is a LOT of free speech here. As long as folks are polite and stay on topic, their discussions are fair game. The only people who get banned are those who are repeatedly and intentionally being disorderly.

People restrict their words on most online forums far more than they ever would in any of those situations, or just about any other real conversation

That is not my experience on the web. The vast majority of discussion groups I encounter and in which I participate are riddled with obscene language and trolling.

-- it's an artificial construct.

All forms of conversation and communication are artificial constructs. Why do you point it out?

Deleting posts and words is not criticism.

That would indeed be censorship.

We make no apologies in certain instances such as:

If the substance of a post is a personal attack or thread drift or anything distracting and there is no attempt to further the topic, we nix it.

Smallc · July 3, 2015

We make no apologies in certain instances such as:

If the substance of a post is a personal attack or thread drift or anything distracting and there is no attempt to further the topic, we nix it.

All I'm saying is this - sometimes profanity is necessary - a direct quote for example. I had one of those deleted before, and it really bothered me. I don't need to swear when getting my point across, but when I'm directly quoting someone or something, it's sometimes necessary.

cybercoma · July 3, 2015

He ummmm, doesn't seem to say much.

Not to you, but I'm sure he and Charles have an understanding.

Mighty AC · July 4, 2015

I generally receive warning points when I am trying to be funny at the expense of others. My first impulse is almost always anger, because the other side surely deserves the witty scorn. However, afterwards I usually realize that if I spent a few minutes considering the situation I could have made a civil and much wittier rebuttal. Don't look back in anger....at least not today.

Canada_First · July 4, 2015

I generally receive warning points when I am trying to be funny at the expense of others. My first impulse is almost always anger, because the other side surely deserves the witty scorn. However, afterwards I usually realize that if I spent a few minutes considering the situation I could have made a civil and much wittier rebuttal. Don't look back in anger....at least not today.

Doesn't getting angry on an internet forum seem like that person has some form of mental weakness? Seems silly to me. To get angry about some pixels on a screen. You're talking to people who largely do not care about the other people on here.

Mighty AC · July 4, 2015

Doesn't getting angry on an internet forum seem like that person has some form of mental weakness? Seems silly to me. To get angry about some pixels on a screen. You're talking to people who largely do not care about the other people on here.

At first sure...but you get to know the personalities of regular posters.

Smallc · July 4, 2015

I generally receive warning points when I am trying to be funny at the expense of others. My first impulse is almost always anger, because the other side surely deserves the witty scorn. However, afterwards I usually realize that if I spent a few minutes considering the situation I could have made a civil and much wittier rebuttal. Don't look back in anger....at least not today.

I agree with you 100%. I don't think though that a direct quote from someone should be censored.

Canada_First · July 4, 2015

At first sure...but you get to know the personalities of regular posters.

Yeah. I can understand that. Good point AC!

sharkman · July 13, 2015

Not sure what the rules are here, and I'm finding that the mods make it up as they so along. Yesterday I had a post in an update deleted where I jokingly claimed harassment and wondered where the damn mods are when you need one. I think when you've got 2 part time mods, both with PC agendas, things are going to be inconsistant. Just more more context, i've also been warned for calling a poster toots. Make of it what you will.

Michael Hardner · July 13, 2015

Not sure what the rules are here,

http://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums/topic/24670-what-are-the-mlw-rules-on-profanity/page-2?p=1068301#entry1068301

sharkman · July 13, 2015

Not sure why you bothered, Mike. It's obvious the rules get applied differently at times. It's also obvious there are times when no one is minding the store, and the rest of my post stands:

...and I'm finding that the mods make it up as they so along. Yesterday I had a post in an update deleted where I jokingly claimed harassment and wondered where the damn mods are when you need one. I think when you've got 2 part time mods, both with PC agendas, things are going to be inconsistant. Just more more context, i've also been warned for calling a poster toots. Make of it what you will.

Michael Hardner · July 13, 2015

Your post has nothing to do with profanity, though. It seems to be about trolling...

Smallc · July 13, 2015

If you think CA has a PC agenda you don't know CA.

sharkman · July 14, 2015

Your post has nothing to do with profanity, though. It seems to be about trolling...

I'd like to know about this profanity, with the context being consistency in applying the rules to posters. As I mentioned above, a simple post I made jokingly calling harassment( Waldo said "hey" to me) on the term "hey", and asked where were the damn mods when you need one; this post was deleted. This afternoon I saw a post where a poster used the phrase, "shove up your ass". I thought an experiment was in order and reported this.

You in your wisdom has seen fit to allow the profanity laced post to remain. You owe this forum an explanation.