I hear it’s contagious.
Ah, the sniveling condescension.
Nope-just a long memory and the ability to recognize patterns of posting.
Deliberately mischaracterizing Ed’s attempt to clean up Cecil’s message board is not the way to handle this.
I find it funny that despite the continued protests that the trouble last year “was never about saying ‘cunt’!” we keep on returning to the word. Whoever was at fault for returning to the subject, members or message board staff, I am so very weary of the continued manufactured drama on Cecil’s message board. I think it’s time for a sword to cut through the Gordian knot.
What would you suggest, though?
Because it seems to me that, of late, this has only really become a big issue when some moderator has misapplied the rules regarding the word in question. That was the case when twickster did it earlier this year, and it’s the case here. There has been no dramatic increase in the use of the word on the Boards overall, and i don’t think people have been violating the actual rule about applying it to other Board members.
In this case, had tomndebb not misapplied the rule, there would be no ATMB thread, and the whole thing would not be an issue.
I’d take sniveling condescension from tom if he’d adopt either a [long] memory or an ability to recognize patterns of posting. Both would be far too much to ask for.
Why is there such effort spent to defend the right to use vague connotations? It’s just the lazy person’s way to try to say something without actually knowing what to say. Oh, look at me! I’m shocking! I’m getting your attention! Mock people being unclear or pretending they understand what they are talking about. Don’t fight for the right to be vague! Stand up for … something.
If you must make analogies, refrain from cliches like “he’s as stubborn as a mule!”, “he’s as stupid as an ox!”, “he’s as slimy as a snake!”, “he’s as crafty as a fox!”. It’s remarks like that really get my goat! Why can’t we say “noble as a frog”? Why don’t we say “healthy as a hen”? True we say “devoted as a dog” - but what we should say is “chic as a giraffe!”, “pretty as a pig!”, eh? That’ll be the big day!
The last time I remember this coming up, Ed Zotti ruled that there was no prohibition against directing vulgar words (including the dreaded c-word) at off-board individuals:
(bolding mine)
In homage to this ruling, I’d like to point out that Spongebob Squarepants is a total cunt.
I was fairly certain that was the case, but in tom’s explanation and apology, he said he saw “Pit language” in GD. What “Pit language”? Cunt? We can say cunt, except not to other people.
While I’m here, I’d like to say that little red-haired lady who works for American Airlines at O’Hare is a total cunt. It’s too bad you can’t slap people at airports, or else they think you’re a terrorist.
The effort being spent is to educate a moderator about the actual rules of the board, rather than allowing him to continue to just make shit up as he goes along (repeatedly).
I think some of the effort being spent here is just more of the same-someone has a problem with a moderator decision, and the usual suspects come in to play “can you top this snipe” and/or “lets repeat the offending word as many times as we can ‘just to prove a point’”. Of course, if people were serious about discussing the situation they wouldn’t play these “I’m not touching you!” games, but there you are.
You’re right, some of it IS exactly that stuff. Do you guys not grow a skin against it at all?
And topping it off, the call was blown, but in apologizing, Tom blew the call AGAIN on review. So that just sets people off even more, because the next time this happens this episode can be used as precedent.
Actually, I Googled it–there has been a huge increase in the use since Ed made an issue of it.
Per a Google Search:
From Jan 1, 1999->Mar 1, 2009* (123 months), there were about 205 posts that had the c-word in them at least once.
From Mar 2, 2009->Today (19 months), there have been about 203 posts that had the c-word in them at least once.
(The search doesn’t count instances of the word, it counts posts that contain the word at least once.)
So this plan to clean up the board seems to have backfired spectacularly.
*roughly when Ed-Gate happened
Using the word repeatedly only because you are told not to speaks for the maturity of who, again?
Right.
What i should have said was that there has been no dramatic increase in its use in the regular back-and-forth of the boards. As before, the vast majority of threads do not contain the word at all.
But the banning of the insult, and subsequent debates over it, have, as you note, resulted in a dramatic upswing in its use on the Boards, even if that use is largely confined to the debates over the rule itself.
For example, see posts #68 and #69 in this thread, not to mention Vinyl Turnip’s over-the-top attempt to out do everyone else in post #55. The people in these posts aren’t even pretending any more that they are using the word to further the discussion.
Again - we haven’t been told to not use it, we’ve been told to stop using it against each other. That’s kind of the point that’s been repeatedly made in this thread.
I am not able to post what exactly I would do if given that metaphorical sword at this juncture. I can simply repeat that whatever or whoever the root cause of the seemingly perpetual controversies, I really want them to end. They lessen the Straight Dope and distract further from the work of Cecil and the Straight Dope Staff.
That it’s impossible to make that point without gratuitously using it as often as possible? Because that is exactly what I’m seeing in the examples I just gave.
I think one could argue that post #68 contributed far more substantively to the topic of the thread than posts #57, #60 or #63, even if it did include a joke at the end which made use of a naughty word.