PA's Profanity Filter

There's a been a lengthy discussion about this on the forum. I figured a poll would be a good way to quantify peoples' opinions on the issue.

Edited by Anthony H. - October 22 2011 at 20:36

Optional

I'm all for freedom of expression, but I can understand why filters are in place.  Even if children are not involved, there's a lot of places, like many workplaces, that will block any site that has any profanity on it.  (I know, I know, you shouldn't be on the net at work....)

At least have a little fun with the filters.  There was a site I used to post on that, for example, changed the f-word to "drat" and a common 3-word retort referencing oral sex to "I like pretty pretty flowers!"

The optional option doesn't seem to fit with the rest of your choices.

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ

great title

zappaholic wrote: I'm all for freedom of expression, but I can understand why filters are in place.  Even if children are not involved, there's a lot of places, like many workplaces, that will block any site that has any profanity on it.  (I know, I know, you shouldn't be on the net at work....)

ExittheLemming wrote: I think PA is pretty relaxed about the swearing issue and although I do baulk at the hypocrisy of me having to type something like 'crude little runts' instead of erm.....I think we do have a duty of care to the wider community to be seen to have control measures in place such as the profanity filter, moderators and admin team etc. This transcript of a response from Philip Pullman to a question posed by a Christian who was offended at the title of one of the former's books (The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ) pretty much sums up my own stance on censorship: Yes. It was a shocking thing to say, and I knew it was a shocking thing to say. But no one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the right to spend their life without being offended. Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if they open it and read it, they don’t have to like it. And if you read it and dislike it, you don’t have to remain silent about it. You can write to me — You can complain about it. You can write to the publisher. You can write to the paper. You can write your own book. You can do all those things, but there your rights stop. No one has the right to stop me from writing this book. No one has the right to stop it being published, or sold, or bought, or read. And that’s all I have to say on that subject.

Also, I'm not trying to make any sort of statement with this poll. I'm just curious about gauging peoples' opinions.

I don't care

Turning off the auto-censor or making it optional would not permit anyone to swear. The "no profanity" rule would remain, it would still be against site rules to swear and more people would be reprimanded for using swear words on the site. Everyone using a swear word without self-censoring would be breaking site rules and liable for punishment of some kind, of which we only have two: demotion and/or suspension - under some circumstances (lesser swear words perhaps) we may give people the choice, other times we may dole out both just for the fun of it.

Dean wrote: Turning off the auto-censor or making it optional would not permit anyone to swear. The "no profanity" rule would remain, it would still be against site rules to swear and more people would be reprimanded for using swear words on the site. Everyone using a swear word without self-censoring would be breaking site rules and liable for punishment of some kind, of which we only have two: demotion and/or suspension - under some circumstances (lesser swear words perhaps) we may give people the choice, other times we may dole out both just for the fun of it.   And then there would be the accusations that Admins were spiteful and vindictive for punishing those who swear, and in retaliation we would have to permaban more people because we are spiteful and vindictive and don't like people making more work for us than is necessary.