# Announcement—in re: Overly Graphic Titles & Posts
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-in-re-overly-graphic-titles-posts/73067
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [July 19, 2001, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-in-re-overly-graphic-titles-posts/73067 "2001-07-19T16:51:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@miamouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miamouse)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2002, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-in-re-overly-graphic-titles-posts/73067/42 "2002-08-01T15:16:14Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by CrankyAsAnOldMan \*
> \*\*Dangit, Uncle Beer! I just got the film back from when I sneaked into your tent while you slept in Xploder’s backyard and gotta snap of you in the altogether. Since I knew I couldn’t post the image itself here, I figured I’d post an excrutiatingly detailed & graphic written description of the most explicit image, the one that captures that fascinating little…well, what _is_ that thing? a birthmark or a scar from an overenthusiastic fellator?
>
> oh well. _starts to rip up photo_ \*\*
Noooo! Don’t do that! We can sell copies to get a new set of hamsters! 😃
---
### Author:  [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2002, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-in-re-overly-graphic-titles-posts/73067/43 "2002-08-01T15:23:29Z")
Well this certainly confuses everything all to hell.
---
### Author:  [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2002, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-in-re-overly-graphic-titles-posts/73067/44 "2002-08-01T15:28:20Z")
With the current “tone” issue, I’m glad this was bumped.
---
### Author:  [@porcupine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/porcupine)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2002, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-in-re-overly-graphic-titles-posts/73067/45 "2002-08-01T15:42:23Z")
**Munch** , I agree; this does confuse things. I for one though this was a new thread until I looked at it carefully.
Hell, even Schylla posted in this year old thread that he didn’t really see the problem and that it was common sense, yet his thread getting locked is what caused the current brouhaha.
Not to mention that we still have active threads in MPSIMS with the following titles:
The worst farts come from…
Favorite pimple stories (maybe TMI)
I walked thru two farts today!
I don’t understand why these are acceptable but Scylla’s thread was not. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what the official word is.
---
### Author:  [@Justhink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justhink)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2002, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-in-re-overly-graphic-titles-posts/73067/46 "2002-08-01T16:25:26Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Munch \*
> \*\*Well this certainly confuses everything all to hell. \*\*
Heaven forbid the path to hell should be confusing 😃
-Justhink
---
### Author:  [@\_etalhea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_etalhea)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2002, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-in-re-overly-graphic-titles-posts/73067/47 "2002-08-01T20:24:13Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Weirddave \*
> \*\*
>
> Fine. Who gets to set the “decorum”, you? me? Jerry Faldwell? Marlin Manson? …\*\*
[hijack]
ummm, it’s Fallwell, and who the hell is Marlin Manson??? (lol) I’m picturing Marlin Perkins and Marilyn Manson had a kid, purple hair, pale, c-cup in a khaki hunting outfit and a cheetah skin hat romaing the African plain sodomizing lions and stuff!!
[/hijack]
---
### Author:  [@MannyL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MannyL)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2002, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-in-re-overly-graphic-titles-posts/73067/48 "2002-08-01T22:19:32Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by UncleBeer \*
> \*\*We have noticed that a greater number of thread titles, and more and more post content, tending to an overly graphic nature recently. We are asking you to exercise more restraint in regards to topics and posts of this nature. We have no wish to emulate Penthouse’s _Forum_, and frankly, I’d like to think you people are brighter and more creative than that; you’ve no need to resort to Howard Stern’s level of shock to entertain, inform and amuse. I’m certain, even in MPSIMS, you have better and more intelligent things to discuss. Also, please keep in mind that some members may be offended by the more lewd.
>
> Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
> _Corrected misspellings - UB_
>
> [Edited by UncleBeer on 07-19-2001 at 11:54 AM] \*\*
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. However this is the wrong forum to discuss it as it is not Mundane or Pointless although you have to share this information. Matters of this subject are better addressed on [About This Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=2) and I bet the thread titled [FAQ - guidelines for posting at the SDMB](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=106617) which discusses posting guidelines would be the best place to talk about this. I assume a modertator will move this shortly to the propper forum or you can just E-mail them and they will. Posting in the propper forum helps keep the small furry rodents that power the board happy so they run quickyl.
Oops I see you are a mod, so please ignore my suggestions on where to put your request and appreciate the humor in which it was written.
---
### Author:  [@joyofdiscord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joyofdiscord)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2002, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-in-re-overly-graphic-titles-posts/73067/49 "2002-08-02T06:38:36Z")
I have been watching this drama unfold with quite some interest. As we all have certainly noticed, the attempts to enforce this new code of conduct via thread-closing has resulted in many complaints of hypocrisy, by pointing out equally unsavory threads that didn’t get closed. This is a process that can go on forever, since there will probably always be an abundance of such threads concerning poopoo and peepee and genitals and bodily functions in general. However, that’s one of the things that I’ve always liked about the board, that the people here generally seem to accept that the whole thing is a matter of subjective taste, and that poopoo and peepee and genitals and such are, from an objective standpoint, equally valid topics of discussion as favorite movies, pop culture, food preferences, and other MPSIMS fare. (I’ve been reading the board for a long long time, but only started posting recently, and don’t post much anyway, so I feel confident in touting it as such.)
Hmmm, I’m not really sure if I’m expressing myself clearly. Okay, take food, for example. Food is something that goes into your body. Feces is something that comes out of your body. What real difference exists between discussion of those two things? I’m sure there are interesting things to be learned in both fields. I’ve learned some handy tips about cooking on the board. I’ve also learned a thing or two about sphincter-wiping. However, one of those two topics is somehow lowbrow, indelicate, and impolite. One of those two might offend someone. But why should it? Simply because we’ve been raised and taught that that’s just the way it is. You can talk about food, but not about feces. You can talk about the color of your eyes or the shape of your hands, but not the shape of your labia (if you have one; I don’t. Substitute “scrotum” for me, I guess).
You talk about shock value and about Howard Stern, but consider this: polite society _created_ Howard Stern. Without people to be shocked, Howard Stern is simply… blah. Indelicate topics derive their shock value from their objectively abitrary classification as impolite. By closing topics deemed “gross” or “lowbrow” or whatever, you give them their power to shock; you legitimize them.
It is my opinion, and only my opinion–others may disagree–that the SDMB should not be a place where people go intending be insulated from the realities of life in this world in which we live. I can produce plenty of folks who would be very offended by the acceptance of “evil-ution” here :rolleyes:, but the fact that their somewhat ridiculous sensibilities would be offended doesn’t seem to be to be a good reason to shy away from the topic. It’s science, after all. Feces is biology, and it’s certainly discussed from a scientific standpoint, and no one is criticizing that, but it is also discussed from an experential standpoint, and I don’t see why that’s anything especially giggle-worthy (by itself, certainly there are funny feces-related situations, just as there are funny food-related situations), nor do I think it’s worth being offended over. And once again, I don’t think the risk that others might be offended validates taking away the simply awesome freedom we have here in discussing perfectly valid topics amongst intelligent individuals.
Let’s face it, if it’s doing its job, the SDMB should make people uncomfortable. It should shake up people’s world. It should challenge their ignorance, their prejudices, make them take a step back from their socially-defined codes of conduct, and really examine the world on its own terms. Whether that takes the shape of demonstrating that race does not exist, whether it means showing the changing, evolving nature of the world in which we live, whether it means accepting that gays and straights really only differ in that one characteristic and the ways the world (with all its delicate sensibilities and ideas of appropriateness) treats them because of that characteristic, or whether it means demonstrating by example that intelligent people can discuss poopoo or vaginal appearance or male sexual frustriation, and it doesn’t hurt anyone, all of that has value. I think it would be a damn shame if the SDMB lost any of that.
---
### Author:  [@d12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/d12)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2002, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-in-re-overly-graphic-titles-posts/73067/50 "2002-08-02T09:50:26Z")
4 words: It’s all my fault
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-in-re-overly-graphic-titles-posts/73067.md?page=2)