In this thread, the OP asks how to play Real Media files…
In response, Mod Rico admonishes:
Well, i seemed to recall seeing “language like that” in GQ before, so i did a search in the GQ forum for the word “fuck,” and sure enough i maxed out the search feature, recording 750 threads where the word was used. A random click on a couple dozen or so of those threads revealed no mod warnings for language alone. There were warnings for politics or abuse or other violations of GQ policy, but not simply for bad language.
I did a search for “fuck” + “shit” in General Questions and got 102 hits, many of which were discussing language, but most of which were merely the words used by different posters in random usage.
Rico asked me about the language thing and I told him I though the specific instance that we’re discussing was a gratuitous overuse and deserved a note but not a warning. Rico did just that. And I still think that it was the right thing to do.
While we don’t want censorship on the board, we also would prefer to keep gratuitous profanity out of what should be a place to simply ask a General Question. If you are that incensed with a product, then we invented the PIT where you can rant and cuss til you’re blue in the face.
Pretend that GQ is your living room in your house, and you invite company in for a chat. I would think that you would prefer to NOT have your 16 year old brother come in, sit down, and talk to your guest the way he talks to his buddies on the playground.
But in the PIT, I don’t give a fucking rat’s ass what you do.
I consistently thumb my nose and lift my ass at whatever ‘tone-raising’ the mods and admins of thise place try to enforce, but I can’t get worked up over this. bouv’s comment was over the line and, quite frankly, flamebait. If I’d been a mod, I’d have probably warned bouv to cease trolling, but that’s just me.
This certainly doesn’t merit a Pit thread in any case.
As a frequent user of profanity in all the forums here, maybe I’m just more practiced in it, but dropping, “I can stand stand that fucking movie” in CS is a little different than
“I can’t stand that God-awful, fuck you in the ass, bloated, piece of shit movie.”
I’ve said the first one in front of Mom.
If you want to force the Mods’ hand, then it can only come down to a complete ban. Leave well enough alone.
Tomndebb holds pride of place in the first attributed use of “fuck” in GQ (Aug, 6 199). There are several earlier examples, here’s the first, but those date back to the time when everyone was an unnamed guest.
I get what the mods are going for here. bouv’s comment was just completely unnecessary. I know the mods have said that swearing isn’t just restricted to the Pit and that sometimes “shit” or “fuck” really is the only word, but it wasn’t so in this case, IMHO.
Me too. For me raising the tone in GQ would be to keep out the puns, Simpsons references and other assorted lame ass shit, usually by the same few fucking tools, that do nothing towards answering the question.
I realize it wasn’t an official warning, but it was a warning, or an admonition, nonetheless.
You’re perfectly entitled to that opinion, and i tend to agree; but i also agree with hajario that
Also, keeping out the folks who persist in giving legal advice or taking wild guesses when they don’t actually have a clue about the answer.
I tend to agree with this. But i think the admonition, if one was needed, should have been for the tone of the post, rather than the language. I’ve seen similar posts sent off the the Pit before, because the mod interpreted them as a thinly-disguised rant.
I guess i was simply wondering whether there had, in fact, been a decision to remove profanity altogether from GQ.
I’m on board with this, as well. And, I didn’t mean to imply that I thought all cussing ought to be proscribed in GQ, either–Og knows I’ve spouted the occasional “bullshit!” there myself. I took Rico’s admonition to be more directed at the overall tone of the post rather than the usage of the specific words, but YMMV.
