I wish to add to the thread started in Staff report by Euty but which now must be continued here.
The offending passage is
My main point was/is, that Euty’s statement was gratuitous in the meaning that one would assume on a message board—not called for by the circumstances per Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.
Yes, we all make flippant remarks all over this board. Yes, they are mostly meant as a joke. Yes, I have done it time after time. Yes, Cecil does it all time. Yes, sometimes the Democrats gets skewered, sometimes the Republicans.
But, damn it, a column like Euty’s is perhaps the first contact point for a newbie on the SD. Why go out of your way to alienate a reader? Oh! It was meant as a joke! Guess what…a percentage of the readers probably didn’t see it that way.
Before you flame me for being humorless, I am a liberal Democrat, enjoy toasting ultra-rightwing-Republicans as much as anyone, and post remarks about other posters which border on the insulting. But I think the phrasing was out of place in an official SD posting.
Cecil can post what he damn-well pleases. He’s Cecil.
But mere mortals, posting as representatives of the SD should try to be funny without using gratuitous language.
(Should I have said fuck or asshole in this post? Not use to posting here).
This can’t possibly be a serious complaint. Fuck all the strife in the world. With just the microcosm of strife on these message boards - This is what you choose to complain about!
I do believe someone is being just a bit sensitive. I read research journals when I want a recitation of facts. I started reading SD because it is informative, enlightening, irreverent and damn funny.
We must not allow mere moderators to express any aspect of personality or opinion in their musings. Impartiality above interest, dammit! Only Cecil has earned the exalted status of making jokes with political, social, or humorous content.
:rolleyes:
Wow, the OP has such a “what about the children??” feel to it, it’s staggering.
If a new user finds the Straight Dope web page and gets offended by an offhand remark by one of the people running it before they’ve had a chance to properly scope things out, who gives a rat’s ass? It’s not like we’re so desperate for users that we must woo anyone we can get, no matter how sensitive or easily offended. Good riddance.
Personally, I like that the people running this board have opinions and personalities.
As are Cecil’s columns which you’ve established are acceptable even when they include such views.
I’d wager a rather small percentage. Individuals who intend to become regular readers of either Cecil’s columns or the SDMB had better learn pretty damn fast how to recognize such jokes or they’re going to be offended left and right.
A non-PC comment in an honest-to-gosh, real and true, bonafide “official SD posting”? Nooooo! I think non-PC comments are right at home in an “official” SD posting–more than PC comments are.
You have the right to your opinion on this but I don’t see where the comment was anything to get worked up about. Euty expressed his personality in his posting and I’m sure he will continue to do so with or without the approval of the PC squad.
But yes, I’ll agree it was gratuitous. Totally gratuitous. I live for gratutitousness. I reek gratuitousness. Gratuitous is our middle name! The original name of the column was “The Straight Gratuitous Dope.” Any column we submit without a gratuitous cheap shot is sent back to us for editing as a normal course of action.
In our Staff Report columns we attempt to emulate the master. Sure, it’s impossible to equal that kind of brilliance, but we give it our best shot. We try to add whatever little bits of humor we can to our writings, including puns, jokes, sometimes excessive verbiage and yes, cheap shots. That’s the nature of the beast. That’s the nature of this site. Godammit, that’s what we do here.
Hey, you say you’ve done it yourself. Good. You wanna start carping about what this site is supposed to be all about and how we should be ultra-careful about alientating newbies? Try doing this yourself. I dare say that any site which purports to be as all encompassing as ours without a certain snide sense of humor is going to be as dry as the Enyclopedia Brittanica. Would it not be more honest for newbies to see something like this at the outset rather than being tempted in and later finding out that, oh my GAWWD! These people have a rather bent sense of humor!!
In short, as others have already opined, you’re making a boulder out of a grain of sand. You’re swatting flies while the Cromwell’s troops are closing in.
You, Drummer Hoff, have fired it off.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s 4:12 in the morning and you’ve already wasted too much of my valuable masturbating time.
Looking at the Staff Report – yeah, I thought the first part, if any, to get hackles up would be the Bible Code thing.
But – Republican Dogma? Sheeesh.
Well, at least it’s only a matter of gratuitousness. If it was facetiousness – oh, man. Now that would be worth the stocks and a few rotten vegetables! Yessiree!
Can we have a dig next time against those who always do informal votes? And what about hanging chads?
I wanna thank Sam for starting this thread. Because of it, I finally had to go look up the Bible Code on Google. Ohhh, that Bible Code!! Light dawns.
I was absentmindedly assuming it was some obscure Fundie use of the phrase. But no, it’s the scrumpdiddlyicious “count three letters over and four letters down and it spells out Roswell” guy. Ohhh, him! I love that stuff!
