Profanity removed from flavor text?

[raz]

I was just checking the recent changes on the wiki, as I tend to do from time to time. I noticed that profanity was removed from in-character flavor text descriptions, which has always been tolerated. I highly object to this policy change and will ask, for the sake of this post making sense on this board, why it has occurred.

 

[Koenig808]

I can understand if this is an attempt to make the site more friendly and less intimidating to newcomers, but the effect will be that current members will be more likely to leave if their intellectual work is subject to these sorts of changes without their permission.

 

[Revolver]

Maybe the active members who oversee these pages should've been asked to change it. Or make some sort of announcement that we're changing to some PG-13 bullshit. At the very least the changes were labelled and not wholly "stealth" changes.

 

[Kokuten]

Or make some sort of announcement that we're changing to some PG-13 bullshit.

A woo-woo, you said a bad word.

----

But really, what's all the concern of curse words, anyway? Even the Harry Potter books have cursing in them, and those books are for children. All our work should just be left as is, according to Rowling.

 

[Fian]

Even the Harry Potter books have cursing in them

Abracadabra!

 

[Wes]

Star Army does not have a "family friendly" policy but the rules do prohibit unnecessary OOC vulgarity...because SARP's got class. Brian and I worked on editing the wiki last night to "clean up" things, but we made sure all changes were made in a way that preserved the meaning of the text without it being offensive.

 

[raz]

Star Army does not have a "family friendly" policy but the rules do prohibit unnecessary OOC vulgarity...because SARP's got class.

As somebody in business of printing words, editing and watering down somebody's work when they use the f-word is the opposite of class--it looks childish. But whatevs, your site. You can censor anything you want. I just wanted to know and now I have my answer.

Thanks.

 

[Wes]

SARPers are intelligent enough to be able to write their wiki entries in a way that doesn't create a hostile environment for our more sensitive members and for the children on the site (we are not adults only). The edits we made strike a between censorship and freedom of speech:

- Profanities were blanked ( S--- ) but in a way that you could still tell what they were. This way no meaning was lost.

- When another phase equally conveyed the meaning sometimes we opted to use the equivalent phase instead (eg "angered" instead of "pissed off"). Again the essence of the writing was not altered and nothing was deleted.

- Only the words most likely to be considered offensive (the S and F words) were affected.

- No members were restricted or punished.

- No characters were watered down or made into fluffy care bears.

Part of being mature is being being able to conform to community standards and being able to express oneself in a way that typically does not offend others. You are allowed to use profanity in character for flavoring purposes, but when it comes to OOC writing (to include the wiki articles) usually it's just better not to, or to blank it out.