# Making Crap Up: Rules? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [July 16, 2013, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-crap-up-rules/663691 "2013-07-16T19:37:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-crap-up-rules/663691/1 "2013-07-16T19:37:39Z")
In the “What is God” thread, Skald the Rhymer and Okieshowedem both seem to be engaging in making up things and presenting them as facts. Skald repeated (he’s done this before) tales about Athena and Zeus that have no basis in original myth. Okie claims the Sistine Chapel paintings were over-painted, a claim for which there seems to be no evidence whatever. Is this legit, per the SDMB rules? Can I just run around and say “Copper is an alloy” or “The Dead Sea Scrolls depict Jesus as a woman” or crap like that? If this kind of garbage is a violation of the rules, please consider this to be a report. If not… I dunno, but it sure bugs the snot out of me! ---
**Author:** ![Canadjun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/76d3ee/32.png) [@Canadjun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Canadjun)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-crap-up-rules/663691/2 "2013-07-16T19:43:24Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > In the “What is God” thread, Skald the Rhymer and Okieshowedem both seem to be engaging in making up things and presenting them as facts. Skald repeated (he’s done this before) tales about Athena and Zeus that have no basis in original myth. Okie claims the Sistine Chapel paintings were over-painted, a claim for which there seems to be no evidence whatever. > > Is this legit, per the SDMB rules? Can I just run around and say “Copper is an alloy” or “The Dead Sea Scrolls depict Jesus as a woman” or crap like that? If this kind of garbage is a violation of the rules, please consider this to be a report. If not… I dunno, but it sure bugs the snot out of me! Isn’t the standard SDMB answer to both of those “ **Cite?** ”? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-crap-up-rules/663691/3 "2013-07-16T19:51:13Z")
> [@Canadjun](#): > > Isn’t the standard SDMB answer to both of those “ **Cite?** ”? Yes. Anyway **Skald the Rhymer** appears to be making up stories rather than asserting them as facts. Who knows how **Okieshowedem** came by his information. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-crap-up-rules/663691/4 "2013-07-16T19:54:34Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > In the “What is God” thread, Skald the Rhymer and Okieshowedem both seem to be engaging in making up things and presenting them as facts. Skald repeated (he’s done this before) tales about Athena and Zeus that have no basis in original myth. Okie claims the Sistine Chapel paintings were over-painted, a claim for which there seems to be no evidence whatever. > > Is this legit, per the SDMB rules? Can I just run around and say “Copper is an alloy” or “The Dead Sea Scrolls depict Jesus as a woman” or crap like that? If this kind of garbage is a violation of the rules, please consider this to be a report. If not… I dunno, but it sure bugs the snot out of me! In the first place: I can’t speak for \*\*Okieshowedem \*\*, but I was engaging in parody. My point is that the Athena-ruler-of-Olympus story is no less ridiculous than the self-contradictory tales of the Christian Bible, and at least has the virtue of being about a smart, hot chick kicking ass. I’m in favor of those. I thought the parodistic nature of the tale was obvious. Why do you think I made a point of observing that Pallas hates puns? About the Eleventh Commandment being “Leave everybody the fuck alone!” Perhaps a smiley would have helped, but we don’t have one that seems to fit. In the second place, the original myths about Athena are more complex than you seem to think. [Check out the wikipedia entry for a little more detail](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athena#Name.2C_etymology.2C_and_origin). I’d say that most commonly known version of Athena’s conception and birth is an attempt to subordinate a goddess not already in the same pantheon with Zeus to him. The same may well be true of Apollo, Artemis, et cetera. It’s not unlike the way the early Christians assimilated pagan gods as saints (or sometimes demons), to make the new religion more palatable (or the old less so). In the third place, I wasn’t making up “crap.” I was making up _shit_. Completely different process. In the fourth place, that bitch Arachnae had it coming. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-crap-up-rules/663691/5 "2013-07-16T20:06:38Z")
I’m not keen on turning this board into another version of [FactCheck.org](http://FactCheck.org), since [FactCheck.org](http://FactCheck.org) killed my father. ---
**Author:** ![yanceylebeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yanceylebeef/32/12290_2.png) [@yanceylebeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yanceylebeef)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-crap-up-rules/663691/6 "2013-07-16T20:10:32Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I’m not keen on turning this board into another version of [FactCheck.org](http://FactCheck.org), since [FactCheck.org](http://FactCheck.org) killed my father. Cite? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-crap-up-rules/663691/7 "2013-07-16T20:20:10Z")
Which stories about deities are not made up? ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-crap-up-rules/663691/8 "2013-07-16T20:27:04Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I’m not keen on turning this board into another version of [FactCheck.org](http://FactCheck.org), since [FactCheck.org](http://FactCheck.org) killed my father. No, Bryan. [FactCheck.org](http://FactCheck.org) _is_ your father. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-crap-up-rules/663691/9 "2013-07-16T20:55:17Z")
Nooooooooooooooooo!!! ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-crap-up-rules/663691/10 "2013-07-16T21:01:13Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Which stories about deities are not made up? All of them are made up except for the ones about MY Deity, the Flying Spaghetti Monster. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-crap-up-rules/663691/11 "2013-07-16T21:03:56Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > In the first place . . . I was engaging in parody. My point is that the Athena-ruler-of-Olympus story is no less ridiculous than the self-contradictory tales of the Christian Bible, and at least has the virtue of being about a smart, hot chick kicking ass. I’m in favor of those. > > I thought the parodistic nature of the tale was obvious. Why do you think I made a point of observing that Pallas hates puns? . . . > > In the third place, I wasn’t making up “crap.” I was making up _shit_. Completely different process. > > In the fourth place, that bitch Arachnae had it coming. Okay, fair enough. At the risk of modifying an absolute, it wasn’t obvious enough. You stated it declaratively, as if it were an actual story from ancientry. And it isn’t entirely beyond the possibility of being an actual story one of the minor poets had written. Anyway, Poe’s law and all that. Re crap v. shit, grin! Fair enough. Re Arachne, no effing way. That was one of the ones where Athena choked. Even Homer nods, and even Athena sometimes has a wardrobe malfunction. The gods are notorious for anger-management problems. (And how about that Tiresias? If word got out, there won’t be a snake left alive on earth!) > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I’m not keen on turning this board into another version of [FactCheck.org](http://FactCheck.org), since [FactCheck.org](http://FactCheck.org) killed my father. I know what you mean. Jews for Jesus killed my cat. > [@TriPolar](#): > > Which stories about deities are not made up? Well, yeah. Hell, I’ve made up stories about Apollo and Diana and Hera. But I had the decency to publish them under my real name, in a format that made it clear it was modern myth, not ancient. **Skald** , bless his rhyming heart, didn’t make it clear enough. Also, although it was a specific example, my real question here was the general one: are there rules against making crap…shit…falsehoods up? Appears not, and, yeah, I can kind of see why, as it would put the mods to the burden of checking a lot of stuff. I’ll retreat to “Cite?” (“It’s the free market, and it works!”) ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-crap-up-rules/663691/12 "2013-07-16T21:12:12Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Okay, fair enough. At the risk of modifying an absolute, it wasn’t obvious enough. You stated it declaratively, as if it were an actual story from ancientry. And it isn’t entirely beyond the possibility of being an actual story one of the minor poets had written. I am the very model of a modern minor poet. > [@](#): > > Re Arachne, no effing way. That was one of the ones where Athena choked. Even Homer nods, and even Athena sometimes has a wardrobe malfunction. Take…that…back. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-crap-up-rules/663691/13 "2013-07-16T21:12:56Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Also, although it was a specific example, my real question here was the general one: are there rules against making crap…shit…falsehoods up? Appears not, and, yeah, I can kind of see why, as it would put the mods to the burden of checking a lot of stuff. I’ll retreat to “Cite?” (“It’s the free market, and it works!”) In Great Debates we primarily moderate for things like insults and tone and hijacks, not for non-factual statements. If it’s becoming a problem because someone is saying a bunch of wild stuff and won’t post a cite, we might tell that poster to start posting cites or cut the crap. In GQ they’d be stricter about that. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-crap-up-rules/663691/14 "2013-07-16T21:22:40Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I thought the parodistic nature of the tale was obvious. Why do you think I made a point of observing that Pallas hates puns? About the Eleventh Commandment being “Leave everybody the fuck alone!” Perhaps a smiley would have helped, but we don’t have one that seems to fit. Another argument to bring back the Hasidic Smiley. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-crap-up-rules/663691/15 "2013-07-16T21:25:09Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > Another argument to bring back the Hasidic Smiley. I was actually thinking about that, but I decided years back that Dex et al had the right to be offended by it, and while I have nothing against making up shit, I don’t believe in _stirring_ up shit unnecessarily. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-crap-up-rules/663691/16 "2013-07-17T00:53:07Z")
From the [registration agreement](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=650726): “You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use the SDMB to post any material that you know or should know is **false** and/or defamatory, **inaccurate** , abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, threatening, invasive of a person’s privacy, or in violation of U.S. law.” Emphasis added. FYI only, with regards to the OP’s general question, not the application thereof. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-crap-up-rules/663691/17 "2013-07-17T00:57:44Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > No, Bryan. [FactCheck.org](http://FactCheck.org) _is_ your father. That’s not true! That’s unverified! ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-crap-up-rules/663691/18 "2013-07-17T01:05:44Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > From the [registration agreement](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=650726): “You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use the SDMB to post any material that you know or should know is **false** and/or defamatory, **inaccurate** , abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, threatening, invasive of a person’s privacy, or in violation of U.S. law.” Emphasis added. FYI only, with regards to the OP’s general question, not the application thereof. Ban everyone who has posted a work of fiction then. I don’t think they’ll be happy over in CS. ---
**Author:** ![akennett](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ee59a6/32.png) [@akennett](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/akennett)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-crap-up-rules/663691/19 "2013-07-17T01:22:41Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Which stories about deities are not made up? And more to the point, why are old made-up stories any better than new made-up stories? > [@Trinopus](#): > > I know what you mean. Jews for Jesus killed my cat. It’s always the Jews. Even when they’re not really Jews, it’s the Jews. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-crap-up-rules/663691/20 "2013-07-17T02:04:40Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I am the very model of a modern minor poet. But you turn 18 next month, right? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-crap-up-rules/663691.md?page=2)