I certainly don’t think it’s the SDMB community’s responsibility to make sure that no boss passing by raises an eyebrow at an employee that’s on the Dope.
If your boss wouldn’t like you on a board such as this, and you choose to come here anyway, that’s no one’s problem but your own. It ain’t Cecil’s fault your boss saw “How many calories in the average male ejaculate?” on your screen.
There’s not a lot of limits on what we can and can’t do on these boards, and the limits we do have are for the greater good of the community (or to hinder the staff’s descent into insanity), and those I can respect. But to assist people in doing something they probably shouldn’t be doing anyway, by limiting what I can say, no matter how small a limit is hardly necessary, if not completely out of the question.
Implementing? No. Hearing it as a good-natured request, as by a downstairs neighbor to maye not practice the trombone after 11:00 pm but it’s OK if I *really * have to? Yeah. That’d be nice.
And I agree that there may be defenders of the right to use “naughty” words who are not themselves some sort of antisocial coporaphagic bottom-feeders.
I think this is a stupid idea. And even if everyone complied, what if your boss comes over when you have a thread open that has “cunt” in 72 point font?
The incident with the boss was just the one that led me, finally, to mention it. It’s always struck me as odd that a board that is pretty closely policed as to the appropriateness of thread contenct would turn a blind eye to the display of screaming obscenities on their welcome page. I’m generally much more considerate of others in real life than I am here, so my first instinct, whenever such a thread title pops up on the welcome page, is to imagine for a moment, say, some quiet, polite, doiley-crocheting grandmother* who visits the Dope to find a recipe for fudge, and on her way to Cafe Society is met with "My fucking cunt of a cocksucking boss can lick my shit encrusted anus (lame and long)!" The situation with my boss was just a storyline to hook the issue on, so making this about LISSENER’s surfing habits and LISSENER’s workplace is utterly beside the point.
Did or did you not, in your first post in this thread, specifically liken lissner’s suggestion to gun control legislation? Did or did you not specifically use the word “Prohibit” and refer to mod action on this issue? Do you or do you not believe that gun control legislation and mod action are more stringent guidelines than the request of the downstairs neighbor? Come now man, at least stand by what you said instead of pretending you didn’t say it.
In other words, you were making shit up so that your idea would seem more appealing to the masses than what you truly wish the administration of this board to do.
I think that’s called disingenuous. And dishonest. And unprincipled. Sounds like a tactic straight from the books of a gun “control” advocate. Whaddaya know, it is. Jerk.
I call strawman on this, he specifically said that he saw a thread title full of obscenities. There’s a huge difference between that title and “Hey, my gf swallows cum, is she gonna turn into a fat fucking cow from the fucking calories?” I see nothing in lissener’s OP that indicates he feels the above thread is inappropriate.
UncleBeer, based on this:
I don’t think he made the story up. I think he’s just trying to keep the issue from being about him and his boss specifically.
That’s kinda funny, 'cause whenever I see a thread title like that, I imagine it being posted by a quiet, polite, doiley-crocheting grandmother. But then, I’ve known a lot of foul-mouthed little old ladies.
Still, the objection still stands, wether applied to your boss or a hypothetical senior citizen. There are a lot of public places where bad language is inappropriate, but there are a few public places where bad language is appropriate. The Pit is one of those places, and considering how rare they are, I’d like to keep this one as it is. The easily offended little old ladies of the world still have Church and the public library for refuge.
I’m sorry you surf at work, and that they care about words like “fuck.” That’s all. Some people can’t even surf at work at all, even if it was the walt disney store.
If you know what forum you’re going to, don’t go to the main page. Isn’t that already a choice?
Certainly, as long as you’ll stand by what you read:
That “instead” business implies unacceptance of the OP’s solution, in spite of my disagreement with arguments posted by its detractors.
Back to the OP, I think the issue is not so much with thread titles themselves as much as it is with the possibility that the naughty ones sometimes end up in the message board “showcase” page where they can be seen even by people who’d like to avoid encountering that kind of language.
Perhaps a less ugly-provoking solution would be to eliminate the showcase bit and just have links to the forums (fora? forae?) themselves.
[ul]Obscenities in thread titles don’t bother me a bit, personally.
[li]I’ve always wondered, though, about people who felt differently about such things, and who might be offended.[/li][li]I’ve never mentioned it though, because I didn’t want someone like UncleBeer or Troy McClure to come into such a thread and tell me that I had no right to mention it because it didn’t affect me personally; to mind my own business, in other words.[/li][li]The one time it finally affected me personally, however, I felt I had the right to mention it.[/li][li]Inspiring people like UB and TM to jump in and say, “SINCE it only affects you personally (the boss-specific strawman), then shut the fuck up.”[/li][li]It’s a lose-lose situation. I have no right to mention it if if only affects myself, and I have no right to mention it if it only affects others. Good thing UncleBeen knows what “disingenuous” means, the lying fuck.[/li][li]Whatever. [/li][/ul]
Howbout this:
[ul]Those of us who consider it to be little or no inconvenience to consider the unpredictable expectations of others, including strangers visiting the boards for the first time, will take it upon ourselves to be considerate of others when titling our Pit threads.
And those of us who equate blowing cigarette smoke in a stranger’s face with a cry for the freedom of oppressed peoples everywhere will continue to strike a blow for the First Amendment by proudly typing the battle cry “FUCK!” into every possible thread title.[/ul]
“How many calories in the average male ejaculate?” on your screen.
Well, if a boss is going to be upset at one and not the other, I can’t really prepare a reasoned argument. The idea that certain combination of letters, without any particularly offensive meaning unto itself, is offensive is not something I believe. I see both of those titles as equally offensive. To be exact, not at all.
Where did I say you have every right to mention it? I emphatically believe you should mention it, if you so desire. Wouldn’t make much sense if I’m arguing against the censoring of my post titles, but arguing for censorship of your ideas. I’d much rather titles be censored than ideas be censored.
However, I reserve the right to argue against your idea, to present my opinion on the matter, and to speak my mind as openly as I expect you to.
Howbout this: we continue the status quo of the board, which has had very little problem in this regard, and let everyone take responsibility for what they see and where they go on the Internet. Please don’t warp my arguments again.
Sorry Troy, but you’re the one who’s warping the arguments here. I assume it’s an oversight and not a deliberate falsification. I’ve already made it clear that this is not about my boss; that was just the incident that led me finally to mention it. I never mentioned it before because up to then it had been pure theory, and simply went against my instinct to be polite to strangers.
To make this issue about ME and ME alone is to miss the point entirely.
Now I wish I HAD mentioned it before it affected me personally, because for me the central issue is the face that the SDMB presents to the world. I meant only to offer my situation as a possible example, not as the *only conceivable situation * in which the front-page obscenity might give a less-than-flattering first impression to the casual surfer.
Since I’ve mentioned it so many times, despite my initial unclarity I assume that by now I’ve made it very clear that LISSENER’s surfing permissions at work are NOT the issue I meant to raise for discussion. Assuming this, I will not address this point again, but will instead assume that anyone who continues to beat that straw man is either not paying attention or is not arguing in good faith.
How so? True, your argument is not solely based on your experience at work, but it’s a perfectly valid (and probably the most common) situation that is relevant to the discussion at hand. I doubt anyone who likes these boards are truly offended by a few bad words, so the most logical argument (I think) for censoring of certain words would be to prevent non-Dopers (ie my boss) from seeing it. (Or, we wanted to invite those younger than 13 to join, but that ain’t gonna happen.) We can’t just ignore it.
And no one has said you did. You presented an opinion you think would improve the SDMB experience. Some agree, and are saying why. Some disagree, and are saying why. We are not The Man. No one is trying to quash your speech. We are presenting arguments in an attempt to share what we think will improve the SDMB experience.
And that would not be true. As I mentioned above, it is a perfectly valid discussion point. You have no obligation to continue arguing the point either way, but accusing us who do is silly. And more offensive than any swear word.
Then why not let those who actually are bothered by the profanities fight this battle?
Oh, lay off the martyr act. You made a proposal, now people are debating your proposal. Excepting UncleBeer (who, admittedly, is an ass), everyone’s been perfectly polite, Troy McClure especially. How about engaging us in debate, instead of just huffing
like a teenager?
Well, the problem is those unpredicatable expectations. Some people object to “fuck.” Personally, I find the term “coprophagic” to be far more offensive than “fuck.” Should that be banned because I don’t think saying “shit-eater” in Latin is any less offensive than saying it in English? Liberal’s been bucking for a while now to get blasphemy outlawed under the board’s “No hate speech” rule. Should saying “Jesus!” in a thread title be similarly out of bounds? We had a troll last week who was outraged that anyone would dare to say anything less than flattering about Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Should we worry about offending that guy, too? Better, I think, to say what we want, and deal with anyone who is offended on a case-by-case situation, when they feel moved to speak up, rather than self-edit everything we say on the off-hand chance someone, somewhere, might be offended by our language.
If you care to do a search for threads I’ve started, you’ll note that I’ve started precisely one thread with a swear word in the title in the last two years. Same with Troy McClure, and UncleBeer and Mtgman don’t even have the one. Which I believe is the bulk of the posters disagreeing with your basic premise in here. You, on the other hand, have brought us such gems as Manhattan is a fuckwad and MicroSoft can suck my dick, Paul Verhoeven can kiss Robert Heinlein’s entire ass, and Homophobes can suck my dick (posted, apropos of nothing, on my birthday). Obviously, I don’t have a problem with any of those titles, and they are a tiny percentage of the total number of threads you’ve started. Nevertheless, if you want to go pointing fingers at anyone else for what they’re putting in their thread titles, you should take a good hard look at your own posting habits first. The people who disagree with you on this have, by and large, been far more circumspect in titling their threads than you have, so please spare us that particular strawman.