In a current thread in GQ, someone says:
(They wrote “F*ck”)
I’ve been here a while and I don’t remember a “board preference” against just writing out “fuck”.
I have no need or desire to do so but I’m curious, is there a rule about it?
There’s no general rule. We do ask posters to recognize that some people read the board from work, and it’s considerate to avoid putting NSFW words in thread titles in most forums. (If you’re reading the Pit at work, you’re on your own.;))
Even so, in the thread in question, I would have let “Fuck” stand in the title, since it was integral to the question. (Writing “F*ck” doesn’t make much difference.) On the other hand, I recently edited “motherfucking” out of a thread title because it was completely gratuitous and had nothing to do with the question. So it’s a bit of a judgement call. I would advise keeping obscenities out of thread titles unless there’s a good reason for it.
Likewise, we don’t require posts to be suitable for Sunday school. On the other hand, obscenity filled rants should be confined to the Pit.
Yeah! Listen up, Motherfuckers!
Ah, that makes sense. Thanks.
I’d prefer to avoid it in Great Debates and Politics & Elections but I’m not dogmatic about it. Even Captain America started cussing, after all.
My reasoning is more ‘best foot forward’ than bluenose. God knows I cuss and I don’t generally feel a need to intervene when others do. But I think in the fora I moderate, in theory we’re supposed to be a bit high brow (I know, I know, work with me here) and I’d like to think we can at least make the impression that we’re trying to do it properly.
But I can’t imagine sanctioning someone for it provided it’s not gratuitous or somehow occurring regularly.
I remember years ago starting a threadabout placenames and product names that sound funny in other languages. I gave it the name Fucking and Windpassing, these being the names of two villages in Austria. (There are actually several places in Austria and Germany called Windpassing). It was changed, much to my disappointment.
That was in 2005, by a mod who has since retired. Since that I count 14 instances of “fuck” or “fucking” in threads titles in GQ that were not edited out. There are plenty of instances in other non-Pit forums as well.
IIRC, back when Ed was going insane there was a crack-down on language usage in thread titles. Haven’t seen much evidence of it since he went away.
You remember wrong. I was a mod at the time, and although Ed imposed language restrictions in the Pit there weren’t any for thread titles elsewhere. There isn’t evidence for any change in the use of “fuck/fucking” in titles in GQ either after the Pit changes, or after Ed left.
As you will. My memory is Swiss cheese anyway. But I do recall someone objecting to the word “Fuck” in thread titles and quite a bit of discussion and such about it.
I find no such discussion in ATMB. There was complaint by a (now banned) poster about a moderator telling people to “Knock it the fuck off,” and other threads were closed for gratuitous use of the word in the title. On the other hand, a poster told a mod to “lighten the fuck up” in a thread title in ATMB after Ed’s Pit restrictions, and that was allowed to stand. So I suspect that your “recall” is actually some kind of conflation of unrelated discussions.
HAH! I knew I didn’t kill that many brain cells!
Thanks for the link. However, that discussion took place two years before Ed’s Pit restrictions, and the upshot of the discussion was that no change needed to be made in restricting language outside the Pit.
In other words, the policy decided on then was the same as I’ve described here. Those words are not prohibited, but they shouldn’t be used gratuitously.
I’ll grant that you remembered that such a discussion took place, but not the reason for it, the outcome, or the resulting board policy.
Close enough!
Am I wrong in remembering there is a blanket ban on saying “fuck you” anywhere including the pit?
There was once an elaborate set of rules about which naughty words were OK and which were. I can’t be bothered to keep abreast of that kind of petty rules-mongering, so I just generally avoid the most egregious ones. But I remember “fuck you” was over the line at one point.
There used to be one. It was introduced several years ago. Everyone thought it was a bad idea. Then the rule was abolished.
Specifically, once Ed was out of the picture - we love Ed, trust me - the moderation staff held a discussion about the rule and relaxed it leading to Miller’s epic sticky thread in The BBQ Pit.
IIRC it was considered over the line when I got pitted. Then all of the sudden it was “Oooh, is he going to retaliate?”