Regarding the new ruling on “no obscenities in thread titles”, I withheld comment earlier in order to see how enforcement would work out in practice. Based on the the evidence in this thread (see post 26 for the mod note), I’ve now decided that in practice it’s pretty silly.
Seriously, what is this supposed to accomplish?
Agreed. No one’s eyes pass over the characters “[f@#k]” and thinks something other then “fuck”. Enforce the rule, or drop it.
I’m willing to do it however works.
Ed did it a different way earlier: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10937441&postcount=83
I can do it that way or another way. Hunter Hawk and **Amblydoper **, what do you have in mind?
Gfactor
Moderator
My first inclination would be to simply do away with the rule against profanity in thread titles.
Barring that, my personal preference would be Ed’s method of removing the profanity.
I’ve shared this thread with Ed.
Thanks. I’m not lobbying for one way over the other, but I think I will wait for some more responses before I change it. I’ll check back in the morning.
Gfactor
Moderator
I think the appropriate action would be to remove the offending word, or replace it if nessecsary for comprehension. In this case, the phrase “fuck you money” should be replaced with “early retirement money,” or something similar. Perhaps the OP could be consulted for a modified thread title.
The problem is that there is no equivalent for fuck you money, nothing that conveys that precise sense. Thus disguising the word fuck is the least bad of the alternatives.
I’m not crazy about replacement by asterisks and what-have-you. Perhaps we could use Norman Mailer’s solution from The Naked and the Dead and use fug. It would be rather apt, it feels like we’re back in the 50s anyway.
I know that Ed has explained why we’re going down this road but I still find these substituted terms far more shocking and offensive than the originals. Even though they be used with the noblest of motives they still bear the reek of the censor’s blue pencil.
I could have changed it to “screw you money.” I was was trying to do the least violence to the original.
That works too.
That’s the pencil I’ve been handed. I’m trying to mark as lightly as I can.
What about “fock” or “fvck”? They are technically ok but even a 5-year old in a hurry would read them as what they really are. How much #*@-ization is adequate?
Oh boy. I get to jump into this now. (Is this topic bound to get everyone hating the “great master” ?)
My comment on this topic, for now at least, will be to the OP at hand.
I agree to 100% to point being made. It does not solve a problem, and it creates a secondary problem.
Leet Speak.
In much the same way, I am sure we all know what pr0n is. Internet filters insalled on some sites, forced this word into existance.
(If you don’t know what it is, you can make a guess, teenaged boys, and the internet in equal measure gave birth to this “term”.)
**Do we really want this board to turn the corner, and go backwards? **
It seems as if nothing truly productive (in the long term) is being created from limits on (As far as I can tell, 1/6th no wait, we now have worthless “The Barn” threads to wade through… 1/8th of the board.)
We held profanity to 1/8th of the board. It is now ironically moving on the second Eighth. Where and When will it stop?
I suggest that the SDMB is an intelligent enough place to reserve its speech and hold it’s tounge when needed. I believe that it knows when and when not to use four letter words.
At the same time, I strongly believe that there are times when a four letter word is the ONLY word that will suffice.
If only we had a measured place to use such words, with reserved sense of Intelligence to limit how we use it.
We already did.
My vote is firmly in the camp that theses added rules add nothing but heartburn and un-needed confusion.
-Meeko
A poster, who as far as he can tell, has NEVER (ok, apparently I have responded to the pit a total of 3 times. My point remains.) posted to the Pit, and is getting tired, quite frankly, of this debate in the first place.
If I had my druthers (where did I put those, anyway?) we’d jettison quite few rules, new and old. Assuming I don’t, do you have an opinion about how this one should be implemented?
Gfactor
Moderator
Sure. Get all of the mods to agree not to enforce the rule. ‘A bad law is not a law.’
Cybernannies can always be bypassed in creative ways, so I’d say that’s out.
One common method I see is to leave the first letter in place and replace the others with hyphens or an ellipsis. e.g. F— or F…, which leaves the meaning clear for most people, but usually fits a newspaper’s guidelines.
I decided to check my local newspaper’s guidelines, and here’s what the Los Angeles Times has to say (paraphrasing)
Obscenties, profanity etc. are not used in print or online unless they are “germane to the essence of the story”. Terms should be eliminated or paraphrased, but without using language that hints at the original, or removed and replaced with an ellipsis (…). Do not replace the offending word with “[expletive deleted]” or with hyphens.
And “fuck you” could be replaced with “f-you”.
Remove it or not. Don’t change it.
By the way that’s not one of the correct alternative spellings.
Hmm. I wonder how Fark.com coped with this challenge.
OK, having talked it over with Gfactor, I’m throwing in the towel on this one - too much trouble. We’ll go back to what we had before, which was basically: (a) Profanity is permitted in thread titles. (b) Don’t go nuts. © We reserve the right to do something about titles we think are over the top. This will of course dash our plans to market the Pit as the place to advertise Girl Scout cookies and flowers for mom, but we’ll think of something.
Thank you, Ed. As I said in another thread, I’m not one given to much profanity. (You can look it up.) Rolling back the changes will not change that.
I do not find any precision in the sentiment as expressed, with or without leetification; see below.
I disagree strongly. Profanity is never the only choice, and it is rarely, if ever, the best or most expressive choice. “Fuck you” conveys that 1) you are irritated, and 2) you wish to be insulting. It does not express the cause of your ire, and given the debasement of the term through promiscuous use it no longer even indicates whether you are slightly miffed or genuinely outraged. (And no, “screw you” isn’t any better.) Just saying “I don’t like you and I refuse to discuss this topic with you any more” (the use in which the phrase gets most often used around here) carries greater information content, with a much lesser chance of provoking reciprocal low-bandwith insults. The only thing the banned words have to offer that “clean” language doesn’t is the frisson of being gratuitously vulgar and offensive in public.
In the specific case of The Scrivener’s thread title, the term in question is usually meant to indicate the amount of wealth necessary to live a life of ease in perpetuity, which may possibly have been the sense intended, but “how much money would it take to get you off the air forever?” would be clearer and more direct.