There’s also the possibility that devilsknew didn’t see the instructions. I am sure not every poster reads every single post, even in a thread they are following. I know that I don’t.
By the way, the word “cunt” has appeared in 240 Cafe Society threads since 2002.
It was used in twickster’s own thread about David Letterman.
And only a few months ago, twickster moved this thread from MPSIMS to Cafe Socety only two hours and a few posts after someone in the thread had referred to Jon Gosselin as a cunt.
If cunt is an unacceptable word in Cafe Society, why move a thread already containing two instances of the word to Cafe Society? And, more importantly, why is it only now that the word has suddenly become verboten?
But she did, at least in a de facto way. Here’s what she said:
Bolding mine.
How are we to interpret that except as an injunction that the word is forbidden in Cafe Society, at least as long as twickster is the person moderating?
And… cue.
Do we start calling them The Usual Suspects or The AntiMod Squad? 
Shocker. :rolleyes:
Next thing you know, Rick’s American Cafe will be shut down for gambling! (Your winnings, Sir)
Well, when it’s clear that the mod refuses to fix an obviously erroneous decision, what’s the harm?
While I’m laying off the invective now, I still am extremely disappointed. This is exactly the tyrannical crap I was worried about with the Marley/Sleeps decision. Rules don’t just exist to keep the ordinary citizens in line. They exist to keep those in charge from abusing their power.
I don’t know what else to say. Every rational argument has been made, and no rational defense. If that is insufficient to change your mind, then you are just acting in ignorance.
Oh, and Exapno: Ad hominems really shouldn’t matter. Just because someone always complains doesn’t mean their complaint isn’t valid. And, even if you buy that, look at the people who “normally don’t say anything” that have come out.
Finally, crap. To think I was starting to think that I was misguided.
The word cunt has sometimes been offensive to me. But now that I see that it can lead to censorship and even a warning just because it “bothers” some people, I am much more offended by the censorship, the on-the-fly rule change, and the resultant unfairness of the warning.
In grownup discussion forums, I would expect to be bothered by what some people say. That’s a good sign, not a bad one! But unless it’s blatantly against the rules, I don’t report it.
Screw moderator censorship!
So wait – someone can get in trouble for something that’s TOTALLY WITHIN THE RULES, if someone else reports it – because they’re “offended?”
:rolleyes:
That seems to be setting a tone of “if you don’t like something, report it – and said poster will get in trouble, even IF it’s within the rules.” I KNOW that’s not the case, but Twickster sure makes it look that way.
I find the word “cunt” offensive, and I completely disagree with this mod ruling. This is an adult site, and we use adult words sometimes, and I am perfectly okay with that. Over-sensitive types who can’t stand to see an adult word being used maybe shouldn’t be on this site.
I’m outraged by this. Or, okay, as outraged as I can get about a messageboard thing, but damn. Really? I very rarely pitch a fit about a mod decision, but I can see leaving here over something like this, and I would hope that a lot of other people would stand up to this as well. This needs to be settled in an honorable and fair way, or it really does set a bad precedent.
It’s not your job to prevent people from being offended or bothered. Anytime you start catering to the most sensitive common denominator, you’re causing a chilling effect, and no, chilling effect is not just some eyeroll worthy phrase that should be dismissed out of hand.
The standard of discourse should never be set at a level where no one is bothered.
You made up a rule, and you made up excuses for listening to a bunch of tattletales who need to grow up. The word cunt is offensive, yes. So are fuck, shit, bitch, piss, asshole, motherfucker, etc. I’m sure every single poster has a view that someone will find offensive. People’s repeated posting of jokes and WAGS in GQ is offensive to me, but I don’t want or expect a warning every time someone does it (although given the current mod climate, I’m not even sure that reminding people of GQ etiquette won’t get me banned out of hand).
There is simply no reason people should have to keep making threads in ATMB about these sorts of mod calls. There’s no reason to mollycoddle the most sensitive people on the boards. If your pride is so great that you can’t admit you made a bad call, you shouldn’t be a mod. If your goal is to control the discussion to make everyone happy, you shouldn’t be a mod. If you warn people for nonexistent rules, you shouldn’t be a mod.
Frankly, at this point I think the board would be better off without mods at all. These utterly juvenile warnings and bannings are the sort of thing I’d expect to see at a beauty pageant for toddlers, instead of a board that used to prize mature discussion instead of just catering to the hoi polloi.
Mod like adults, not like pre-school teachers. Stop being so hypersensitive. Quit trying to save threads from being “trainwrecks” (ie: people disagree). Step in when it’s actually necessary, not just when that poster you don’t like gives you an excuse, or when that PTA mom doesn’t like people discussing gay sex techniques.
I know this board is just some thing made up for a newspaper column, but the values of free speech and non-censorship and the exchange of ideas shouldn’t be the sort of thing we reserve for government forums; it’s an essential facet of any community that wishes to sponsor discussions instead of the circle jerks you are apparently looking to create.
And another thing I forgot to ask: do you even pay attention to these threads? Do you think the 40+ pages of discussion over the last week or so are something you should ignore? How can you see these threads, read the complaints about stupid and irrational rules and dumb mod warnings and then go and do something like this?
It’s incredibly insulting. It’s just over the top, and says that you either don’t give a shit about what the posters think (you know, they are the people that keep the board going), or that you don’t even get it. I’m not sure which is worse.
How to cut shit like this out in one easy step:
Put in a language filter so that whichever naughty words give you a case of the vapours show up as ****.
You’re welcome.
My consultancy fee is £500. Have Mr. Zotti contact me for Paypal details.
Okay, tell you what. Let us chat about this in the mod loop and shoot for some kind of consensus instead of all of us (mods and admins, that is) going our own directions.
Personally, I’m of two minds on this. As I’ve said many times before, I don’t understand the kerfluffle. If people are offended by the word “nigger,” I won’t say it around them. If they’re offended by “cunt,” I don’t use it around them. But there seems to be a core group of people who demand the right to any offensive words they wish any time they wish. I don’t get it, and don’t think I ever will, but that’s the way you feel and you certainly have a right to feel that way.
You have a valid point that we need to be consistent on this stuff. Please give the staff a bit of time to chat about it and decide what we’re going to do, and then all of us will do it consistently.
NOTE: Deciding that the word “cunt” is fine and acceptable would NOT change our desire that thread titles outside the Pit be kept SFW, and would not change rules on personal insults, threadshitting, being a jerk, etc.
That’s not what this is about at all.
Well, you can’t ask for fairer than that.
But I do want to comment on:
This is a messageboard. It’s not a real-life conversation. Someone could read my post an hour, a day, or a week later, then decide oh my god I’m so offended. In this medium, there’s no way to not use certain words around certain people except never to use them at all.
I think you are confusing “set a bad precedent” with “follow a time honored tradition”.
Then make it a rule and sticky it. This has been discussed several times and I agree with the general idea but I don’t think it has been enshrined in law. This is the kind of stuff that even the most goody two shoes could easily trip on. You don’t need to be a troll to feel like saying shit every once in a while.
Or maybe it is a rule and I haven’t been paying attention. Is it?
As Lord Ashtar said, this isn’t what this is about.
Decide what you’re gong to do about the word “cunt”, or decide what you’re gong to do about moderators making up rules on the fly and issuing warnings based on them?
It is NOT about this at all and I wish the modmins around here would stop misrepresenting the posting body in this way.
This is and ALWAYS HAS BEEN about constantly shifting the goalposts.
It has been pointed out several times before by Fenris and other posters (and often enough that I can’t be fucked looking it up yet again) that before the Great Prohibition was handed down, the word “Cunt” was used on these boards less than a handful of times a year, and when it was used it was used against predominantly off-board targets, with usage against other posters being even rarer. Then someone got a hair up their ass, and all of a sudden it was too rude a word to direct at other posters. Fine. It’s Ed’s board, he gets to make the rules.
But the only written rule about where it cannot be used is directly against other posters. If you all want to make a rule about cunt being completely prohibited, then make the fucking rule already. But when it is not against the rule to use the word, especially when the poster was not aiming it at another poster and was thus abiding by the rules of the forum, a moderator jumping up and going “I don’t like this word, so you need to stop using it” and then going “You aren’t listening to my earlier warning so now you get an official warning mister!” is a fucking dick move. At the very least any official warnings to the sort should be downgraded to mod notes and stricken off the record until such point as the rule actually exists and is in place.
I don’t normally comment on the rules, I’m more of the “if you don’t like it you can shut up or go elsewhere” mind regarding voluntary participation in a message board.
But this one is bad. Creating a rule out of whole cloth, over something as subjective as the offensiveness of a word, and then using the made-up rule as the basis of an official warning is bogus. The warning should be immediately retracted. And if there are to be additional rules regarding appropriateness of language, advertise and sticky them properly. We can then decide if we wish to play by the rules or go elsewhere.
Note, this isn’t a threat or a call for boycott or something equally juvenile. It is only a recognition that all participation here is voluntary.
I could have used profanity, but I didn’t because it would only be a distraction from the real message.