I just wish people would grow up and get over the false "need" to swear to communicate. It's not needed, ever. Then again, I realize that the current population around here consists mostly of people half my age, so I'm speaking to brick walls on this for the most part.
I'm an adult. I have a job, bills to pay, a life of my own. I don't swear. It's not "adult" or "grown up" or "mature". It's ineffective and lazy, and for the most part, down right disgusting. Personally, I can't take anyone seriously when they use that language. It shows a lack of respect, civility, and decency, not to mention a severe lack of self discipline.
Just because you can be disgusting doesn't mean you should be.
Anyway, that's all I'll say. I could rant on this for hours on end. The false ideology of "they're just words, they're meaningless" doesn't work on me. Communication, verbal and written, means everything. Proper context means everything. Ineffective, lazy, detracting communication wastes time.
And I loathe having my time wasted. For crying out loud, you're not "censoring" yourself anymore so than you're not living your life your way by taking a shower so people can stand to be around you. You're conducting yourself in a proper manner that shows consideration and respect for those around you. Ugh...
If it isn't directly targeted to a member or the such, DEAL WITH IT.
We're tolerating any swearing if it isn't overused or targeted at a member. If you don't want it, change the community. Or just don't be here.
That's all.
Dude, thats just straight up rude. why would you even want to say something like that. I know i have a cursing problem but... really?
He already stated that their really wasn't an alternative, (read it for yourself) and i agree with that. The forum is an amazing source of knowledge.
Again, why?
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Quote from Bowserking64 »
Quote from Andeh6 »
What? So when pigs get hit by lighting, they suddenly develop into bipeds and receive brown leather skirts and golden swords from nowhere?
When we get new forum software would it be a possibility to have an optional swear filter? Something one can change on their profile that changes the common problem words to more innocent ones. Being optional it doesn't hurt the regular users and provides a bit of parental help for the youngin's. We just need word on the feasibility by the forum administrators.
I don't really mind swearing all that much, but I'm all for this if they're filtered into ridiculous nonsense words.
Quote from GoodOldGamer »
The false ideology of "they're just words, they're meaningless" doesn't work on me. Communication, verbal and written, means everything. Proper context means everything. Ineffective, lazy, detracting communication wastes time.
YES. Yes to this forever.
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Quote from Hotels »
Persevering businessmen like myself will not be dissuaded by such baseless criticism and naysaying.
Since this has already veered off-topic quite a bit...
Explain to me why "****" is worse than "crap", which is worse than "crud", etc.
I'm not trying to condone swearing in front of children, but I had absolutely no idea there were so many people personally uncomfortable with swearing. Is it a regional thing? Or maybe generational? These ideas seem almost foreign to me.
Does the most active and semi-official Minecraft forum really want to allow and not treat some of the bad language that is going on in here? Now even on thread titles?
As a father of two, and a Minecraft player, I do very much enjoy teaching and following my daughters progress in the game. But I cannot really agree to their presence in here with this type of language being allowed and slowly becoming a staple of these forums.
While not official, these forums have grown to a size that actually have an impact on people's perception of the game, the one behind it, and the ones playing it. I want to believe this is an oversight and will be remedied very soon.
That's nice.
You must be 13 or older to sign up on a forum, by law.
If you are younger, you should not be here.
If you are older, you shouldn't be making such a big deal about swearing.
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The National Socialist of minecraftforums, since 2010!
Since this has already veered off-topic quite a bit...
Explain to me why "****" is worse than "crap", which is worse than "crud", etc.
I'm not trying to condone swearing in front of children, but I had absolutely no idea there were so many people personally uncomfortable with swearing. Is it a regional thing? Or maybe generational? These ideas seem almost foreign to me.
If you don't understand the difference already, there is not much anyone can do to explain it to you. Maybe in a few years to come, when you are forced to use more formal language in your place of work, or when addressing other people in the street, on your local bank, when receiving visitors in your house, or going to somebody else's house, you'll come to realize there's a difference.
A difference that is not just about the words you use, but also (and mostly) the context in which they are being used.
Incidentally, crap and crude are not really swearing. And **** rarely is too. In dictionaries they are often considered vulgarity. Not swearing or obscenity.
In any case, I don't see how discussing the semantics and morphology of swearing (or vulgarity) is of any importance. There's a very distinct difference between "****, I died!" and "Mother ****ing creeper ****ed up my ass!" that only a dishonest person will not want to see. It is obvious that this thread is about the later example. Not the first.
Quote from Avnas »
You must be 13 or older to sign up on a forum, by law.
I can understand you missed the relevant part on my previous posts when I made it clear they don't have accounts on this forum, they only visit it under my supervision, and only my older daughter, when she turns 14 next year, will be allowed to subscribe.
I can understand you missed that, because in their eagerness to make a point, people rarely try to see in previous posts if anything is being said there that will invalidate their reasoning. Finally, there's no law stopping my 10 year old daughter from joining this folder. It's obvious you are not aware of civil law in the USA and Europe?
Quote from Avnas »
If you are older, you shouldn't be making such a big deal about swearing.
Yes. That's a typical young-man reasoning. You will eventually understand it's exactly the other way around.
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I was trying to think of a signature and this is what came up.
Let me clarify this, because it's a false rumour that could quickly spread. I'm not an American, but I'm familiar with American Law as well as European Law, by consequence of my work.
There's no law under the EU that says you must be 13 or older to sign up for a forum. It's the same USA. No state can implement an age limit. The decision was reached in America by the United States Supreme Court (see below) and in Europe the issue was never put forth.
USA:
There was a 1998 bill called the Child Online Protection Act. This bill proposed to impose an age limit on access to online content. The age would be 13 (derived from Roman Law that placed the age of 14 as adulthood in those times) and website operators should enforce this law pretty much through similar mechanisms as those we see today on website's Terms or Service or when signing for a new online service/forum.
The bill was immediately contested by American courts and some civil liberties groups as unconstitutional and against free speech. Especially because it made no attempt to define what should be considered acceptable content and what not (neither it could ever possibly make such a distinction). The legal battle ended in 2008 when the USA Supreme Court refused to hear appeals and thus upheld the courts decision and killed the bill.
In 1998 two bills were actually passed. The second one was the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. This bill was never contested and is still being applied. This is the extent of legal child online protection in USA. This bill does not -- and is not intended to -- limit age groups to online content (an unconstitutional measure as we saw above). But rather to impose limites on website operators ability to store privacy information about children.
EU:
It was never attempted to limit age groups. EU countries never faced a EU Directive on that issue. There's a similar law to USA's on children online privacy though.
...
So to make this perfectly clear, For at least the USA and EU countries, there's no legal imposition on age to access online content. However, website operators are allowed, within a legal framework, to impose that limit themselves if they so wish. So, it is not illegal for a website operator to restrict their website to certain age groups. What is illegal is for that restriction to be imposed on website operators (pornography is the one exception).
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I was trying to think of a signature and this is what came up.
We don't take any personal information covered by that, so we should be fine. It applies to us (afaik) as we're based on the US (server wise) although the company is registered in the UK.
Indeed it does. And while I'm not a certified legal counselor and my word on this matter has only so much value, I can attest for your full compliance from everything I've seen in this forum, including but not limited to the data collected on the sign up form and the user control panel.
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I was trying to think of a signature and this is what came up.
Wow, I was -just- coming here to talk about those after I spotted them.
I think we should officially impose a swearing restriction on thread titles. This is ugly as hell.
At the very least, I'm changing those titles right now.
I would quote George Carlin on this and his entire skit, but I would most likely be banned for the 'bad words' inside of it. "The Seven Words You Can't Say on TV" and a few other skits of his. Look it up sometime. Brilliant man, if only it would have rubbed off on more people. >.>
Who made them bad words? Did you know in England the word 'pants' used to be a dirty/'bad' word?
Its what we turn the words into. Some of the words are bodily functions put into simple terms. Some of them are human organs. Some of them are the act of procreation. Its that people have been conditioned to think they are bad words, when in fact there are no bad words at all. No word is bad in of itself. Not that I use them, it just seems a bit silly that words can be bad. Just my thought and a lot of the world disagrees with me so.
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Irony: An outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected. Sarcasm: A sharply ironical taunt; sneering or cutting remark.
"Come on baby, don't fear the reaper." - Blue Oyster Cult
Celticwolf, it's not that swearing is inherently bad, there are times when swearing is appropriate and "okay", it's that the majority of users feel it's a requirement that their posts be filled with expletives and it's lame. Sure "****" every now and again won't end the world, but when every post -- as Enjay just showed -- contains an unreasonable amount of swearing it just becomes tiresome.
An ideal situation IMO is where anything is allowed and we don't need rules, where we could trust users to be sensible with what they do and say, but unfortunately that isn't possible.
Celticwolf, it's not that swearing is inherently bad, there are times when swearing is appropriate and "okay", it's that the majority of users feel it's a requirement that their posts be filled with expletives and it's lame. Sure "****" every now and again won't end the world, but when every post -- as Enjay just showed -- contains an unreasonable amount of swearing it just becomes tiresome.
An ideal situation IMO is where anything is allowed and we don't need rules, where we could trust users to be sensible with what they do and say, but unfortunately that isn't possible.
I do agree with that, I just wanted to put it out there that the words are not 'bad'. People tend to feel the need to make every other word a 'bad' word and that puts the rest of us over the barrel.
Quote from Enjay »
Quote from Celticwolf1990 »
I would quote George Carlin...[discussion of bad words]
If you look at my post about mid-way down this page, I shared my thoughts on the topic too. To me, it is very important that we have "bad words" because being "bad" gives them something. It's their very "badness" that makes them the absolutely best words to use in certain situations and removing that "badness" would completely neuter them and make the language far less rich. George Carlin himself was a master craftsman at using "bad words" to great effect. It was, in part, his use of "bad words" that gave his shows and the things he said such power and strength at times.
And Enjay, I partly agree, its the taboo that gives them so much power. But that is not the point, senseless/needless swearing is not appropriate. Carlin danced on a fine line, and sometimes would cross over it, though rarely in my opinion. He knew when to use them and when not to, most of the people on here are, like I said, every other word.
I am not advocating for or against, I am just putting my thoughts out there.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Irony: An outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected. Sarcasm: A sharply ironical taunt; sneering or cutting remark.
"Come on baby, don't fear the reaper." - Blue Oyster Cult
How about enforcing a "semi-rule" (better word needed) that allows mild swearing, such as damn, crap, etc. but moderators have the right to penalize the user if one has gone overboard?
Thats what we currently have, actually...
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Quote from Bowserking64 »
Quote from Andeh6 »
What? So when pigs get hit by lighting, they suddenly develop into bipeds and receive brown leather skirts and golden swords from nowhere?
Personally I'd like to have an understanding where users don't swear because they understand it's inappropriate and when they do (which would be rare) we don't have to do anything, because it's warranted. However, that's a pipe dream... and if we tried you'd get hundreds harping on about "oh my free speech!" and worst case a lot of spam, just to "prove a point".
Failing the possibility of enforcing a rule (for reasons that were discussed on the previous page of this thread), the solution is not rule at all. But with one snag: Moderators are given discretionary rule over swearing and users must know this. I understand this is how it works right now, but users must be made fully aware swearing, while tolerated, is not endorsed and moderators will go out of their way to close or edit threads (up to banning on extreme cases) if they feel like it and when they feel like it, without users having any say about it. No refunds allowed.
Quote from Neodymius »
I've had to agree with the vast majority of what's been said in this thread, although I still hold the opinion that if you are offended by something that wasn't at all intended to be insulting or degrading, it's your own fault. The problem, as has been addressed, is that the language (although not in itself bad) is being thrown around without care of offending. Perhaps I was wrong in my previous posts to suggest I was too much in favour of swearing, I merely meant that giving people their "freedom" makes things easier on you, if you can put up with it.
This is unfortunately not so linear as that. You must remember this thread started not because I feel personally offended by insults directed at me or that swearing bothers me personally in a way that I find intolerable.
Nothing like that. I'm pretty much insult-proof and swearing has no effect on me, other than the fact it will often change or shape the perception I have of the person doing the swearing (negatively, of course). Two problems exist however that are outside anyone's control. And they have been the focus of this thread:
- Minors presence on a forum, forcing parents like myself to adopt measures to stop them from registering or even visiting them. On the case of swearing and certain posters attitude, when it comes to my children being exposed to it, it's not my fault if I become offended by it. It's in fact my obligation I do. Filtering minecraftforum.net from them is thus something I'm unfortunately forced to do to avoid exactly that problem. The freedom of speech of certain users got in the way of my children freedom to access these forums. And you know what they say about freedom: You are free up and until it interferes with someone else freedom.
- As official forums for the game, swearing can (if abused) impact on the perception people have of the game, and the company behind it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I was trying to think of a signature and this is what came up.
I'm an adult. I have a job, bills to pay, a life of my own. I don't swear. It's not "adult" or "grown up" or "mature". It's ineffective and lazy, and for the most part, down right disgusting. Personally, I can't take anyone seriously when they use that language. It shows a lack of respect, civility, and decency, not to mention a severe lack of self discipline.
Just because you can be disgusting doesn't mean you should be.
Anyway, that's all I'll say. I could rant on this for hours on end. The false ideology of "they're just words, they're meaningless" doesn't work on me. Communication, verbal and written, means everything. Proper context means everything. Ineffective, lazy, detracting communication wastes time.
And I loathe having my time wasted. For crying out loud, you're not "censoring" yourself anymore so than you're not living your life your way by taking a shower so people can stand to be around you. You're conducting yourself in a proper manner that shows consideration and respect for those around you. Ugh...
Must... stop... the rant... now...
My humble LPs can be found here.
Dude, thats just straight up rude. why would you even want to say something like that. I know i have a cursing problem but... really?
He already stated that their really wasn't an alternative, (read it for yourself) and i agree with that. The forum is an amazing source of knowledge.
Again, why?
I don't really mind swearing all that much, but I'm all for this if they're filtered into ridiculous nonsense words.
YES. Yes to this forever.
Explain to me why "****" is worse than "crap", which is worse than "crud", etc.
I'm not trying to condone swearing in front of children, but I had absolutely no idea there were so many people personally uncomfortable with swearing. Is it a regional thing? Or maybe generational? These ideas seem almost foreign to me.
That's nice.
You must be 13 or older to sign up on a forum, by law.
If you are younger, you should not be here.
If you are older, you shouldn't be making such a big deal about swearing.
The National Socialist of minecraftforums, since 2010!
... Yup. Opinions should never be posted on forums. That's just downright silly!
(Sarcasm FTW!)
My humble LPs can be found here.
If you don't understand the difference already, there is not much anyone can do to explain it to you. Maybe in a few years to come, when you are forced to use more formal language in your place of work, or when addressing other people in the street, on your local bank, when receiving visitors in your house, or going to somebody else's house, you'll come to realize there's a difference.
A difference that is not just about the words you use, but also (and mostly) the context in which they are being used.
Incidentally, crap and crude are not really swearing. And **** rarely is too. In dictionaries they are often considered vulgarity. Not swearing or obscenity.
In any case, I don't see how discussing the semantics and morphology of swearing (or vulgarity) is of any importance. There's a very distinct difference between "****, I died!" and "Mother ****ing creeper ****ed up my ass!" that only a dishonest person will not want to see. It is obvious that this thread is about the later example. Not the first.
I can understand you missed the relevant part on my previous posts when I made it clear they don't have accounts on this forum, they only visit it under my supervision, and only my older daughter, when she turns 14 next year, will be allowed to subscribe.
I can understand you missed that, because in their eagerness to make a point, people rarely try to see in previous posts if anything is being said there that will invalidate their reasoning. Finally, there's no law stopping my 10 year old daughter from joining this folder. It's obvious you are not aware of civil law in the USA and Europe?
Yes. That's a typical young-man reasoning. You will eventually understand it's exactly the other way around.
For some reason this thread continued to get posts, and I'm just addressing those posts. I'm not after a change of heart in your part.
Yes, in order to use forum software you must be 13 or older.
The National Socialist of minecraftforums, since 2010!
There's no law under the EU that says you must be 13 or older to sign up for a forum. It's the same USA. No state can implement an age limit. The decision was reached in America by the United States Supreme Court (see below) and in Europe the issue was never put forth.
USA:
There was a 1998 bill called the Child Online Protection Act. This bill proposed to impose an age limit on access to online content. The age would be 13 (derived from Roman Law that placed the age of 14 as adulthood in those times) and website operators should enforce this law pretty much through similar mechanisms as those we see today on website's Terms or Service or when signing for a new online service/forum.
The bill was immediately contested by American courts and some civil liberties groups as unconstitutional and against free speech. Especially because it made no attempt to define what should be considered acceptable content and what not (neither it could ever possibly make such a distinction). The legal battle ended in 2008 when the USA Supreme Court refused to hear appeals and thus upheld the courts decision and killed the bill.
In 1998 two bills were actually passed. The second one was the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. This bill was never contested and is still being applied. This is the extent of legal child online protection in USA. This bill does not -- and is not intended to -- limit age groups to online content (an unconstitutional measure as we saw above). But rather to impose limites on website operators ability to store privacy information about children.
EU:
It was never attempted to limit age groups. EU countries never faced a EU Directive on that issue. There's a similar law to USA's on children online privacy though.
...
So to make this perfectly clear, For at least the USA and EU countries, there's no legal imposition on age to access online content. However, website operators are allowed, within a legal framework, to impose that limit themselves if they so wish. So, it is not illegal for a website operator to restrict their website to certain age groups. What is illegal is for that restriction to be imposed on website operators (pornography is the one exception).
We don't take any personal information covered by that, so we should be fine. It applies to us (afaik) as we're based on the US (server wise) although the company is registered in the UK.
I think we should officially impose a swearing restriction on thread titles. This is ugly as hell.
At the very least, I'm changing those titles right now.
Who made them bad words? Did you know in England the word 'pants' used to be a dirty/'bad' word?
Its what we turn the words into. Some of the words are bodily functions put into simple terms. Some of them are human organs. Some of them are the act of procreation. Its that people have been conditioned to think they are bad words, when in fact there are no bad words at all. No word is bad in of itself. Not that I use them, it just seems a bit silly that words can be bad. Just my thought and a lot of the world disagrees with me so.
Sarcasm: A sharply ironical taunt; sneering or cutting remark.
An ideal situation IMO is where anything is allowed and we don't need rules, where we could trust users to be sensible with what they do and say, but unfortunately that isn't possible.
I do agree with that, I just wanted to put it out there that the words are not 'bad'. People tend to feel the need to make every other word a 'bad' word and that puts the rest of us over the barrel.
And Enjay, I partly agree, its the taboo that gives them so much power. But that is not the point, senseless/needless swearing is not appropriate. Carlin danced on a fine line, and sometimes would cross over it, though rarely in my opinion. He knew when to use them and when not to, most of the people on here are, like I said, every other word.
I am not advocating for or against, I am just putting my thoughts out there.
Sarcasm: A sharply ironical taunt; sneering or cutting remark.
Thats what we currently have, actually...
Failing the possibility of enforcing a rule (for reasons that were discussed on the previous page of this thread), the solution is not rule at all. But with one snag: Moderators are given discretionary rule over swearing and users must know this. I understand this is how it works right now, but users must be made fully aware swearing, while tolerated, is not endorsed and moderators will go out of their way to close or edit threads (up to banning on extreme cases) if they feel like it and when they feel like it, without users having any say about it. No refunds allowed.
This is unfortunately not so linear as that. You must remember this thread started not because I feel personally offended by insults directed at me or that swearing bothers me personally in a way that I find intolerable.
Nothing like that. I'm pretty much insult-proof and swearing has no effect on me, other than the fact it will often change or shape the perception I have of the person doing the swearing (negatively, of course). Two problems exist however that are outside anyone's control. And they have been the focus of this thread:
- Minors presence on a forum, forcing parents like myself to adopt measures to stop them from registering or even visiting them. On the case of swearing and certain posters attitude, when it comes to my children being exposed to it, it's not my fault if I become offended by it. It's in fact my obligation I do. Filtering minecraftforum.net from them is thus something I'm unfortunately forced to do to avoid exactly that problem. The freedom of speech of certain users got in the way of my children freedom to access these forums. And you know what they say about freedom: You are free up and until it interferes with someone else freedom.
- As official forums for the game, swearing can (if abused) impact on the perception people have of the game, and the company behind it.