SDMB policy question for administrators

With respect to terms, phrases, or statements that can reasonably be construed as pejorative, disrespectful, or vulgar, toward others, which (if any) of the following are officially “fair game”?

[ul]
[li]Perceived races and ethnicities[/li]
[li]Sexual orientations and preferences[/li]
[li]Religious beliefs and deities[/li]
[li]SDMB staff[/li]
[/ul]

Dude that is so Coldfire.

(Hey! Put that clog down!)

Where have you been, Lib? Good to see you again. :slight_smile:

Libertarian - to which forum do you refer? Could you give an example in each category?

Greetings, Minty, and thank you. I’ve been around, but busy working and with posting at the Parlor.


Arnold

I’d like to know how it might apply in any forum. As I understand it, even the Pit is not a free-for-all anything-goes forum. I dread giving you examples, since each one that I give would personally distress me greatly. But I do understand your need for examples, and therefore I ask anyone who might be offended (and in my opinion, everyone should be offended by all of these), please forgive me.


Perceived races and ethnicities

I was tired of him Jewing me down on the price.

Sexual orientations and preferences

Man, that is so gay — get a life.

Religious beliefs and deities

Jesus Christ on a stick! I couldn’t believe my eyes!

SDMB staff

Do you have to be so Gauderish about my analogy?


Thank you, Arnold.

Well Libertarian I hope you realize that we have different rules in The BBQ Pit vs. other fora, so “in any forum” is a little too vague. When I read your examples, I don’t think I would tell anyone in Comments on Cecil’s Columns “You are forbidden to use that expression here” until they start abusing the expression. In any case the SDMB is often self-correcting - if someone uses a derogatory term other posters will let that person know about it and from the ensuing discussion a consensus will likely emerge.

Arnold

Thank you for your response. Now that you have seen my examples, could you please remove them? They make me sick.

Liberetarian - I don’t want to remove them because then people will be asking “what are the examples that Libertarian had, that you said were OK?” and the thread will become confusing.

That’s a good point, Arnold. Perhaps it is best that such obscenities be on display for our posterity. It is hard to imagine more insulting and disturbing phrases.

So Libertarian, in the interest of knowing the opinion of our posters, if you were a moderator of a forum at the SDMB, or a moderator of a forum at your own private message board, would you forbid the use of the expressions that you mentioned above? And if you did forbid them, would you remove them if someone posted them?

If I were a moderator of a forum at the SDMB, I would follow the policies and guidelines set forth by the SDMB administration, and leave them alone.

If, however, I were a moderator at my own private message board, I would admonish the poster and remind him of our policy that we do not use caricatures of people’s race, sex, sexual orientation, or religion to make points. I and my staff would be fair game.

I would replace the offensive remarks with bracketed paraphrases while retaining errors and misjudgments of grammar, in these cases like this:

[I was tired of him haggling me down the price.]

[Man, that is so weird — get a life.]

[Jesus Christ is believed by many to have died on a cross. I couldn’t believe my eyes.]

Hmmmm…

Tubalar

Diva-ine

Bodoniaceous

Dexterous

Ike-like

Arnoldoid

Matrixillated

Bucknerian

Corradoed

Beerish

Alphageneric

. . . this could be fun :smiley:

Those are great, Colibri! How would you use them in context?

I’ll have to think about that, but really I think this is a job for . . .

Fenris!

There goes the nieghborhood.:cool:

(of course I know how to spell it). I chose not to.:wink:

Oh, come now.

Modern language perfers the term “Ukelelean”.

:smiley:

I consider that very unIkely. I think you’re just being Arnoldoid.