I believe as this community is essentially a parliamentary session, any vulgar or obscene commentary should be strongly discouraged. Much like the speaker of the house, moderators should consistently remind those who break the above guideline to refrain. Repeat offenders / extreme examples should be subject to a temporary ban.
Thoughts?
edit: I wonder what people think is the purpose of downvotes? Do you not want to have the discussion?
I disagree. Is your point that it’s “uncivilized”? Personally, I don’t mind whatever language anyone uses in this community, unless they’re verbally attacking another user which I think should be handled by mods like any other forum.
Edit: calls to violence and bigotry should be handled by mods too
Edit2: Also, the word shit, one most would consider “vulgar”, is in the instance name, so it’s kinda ridiculous to want to ban such words from this community
Also, the word shit, one most would consider “vulgar”, is in the instance name, so it’s kinda ridiculous to want to ban such words from this community
Yes, I don’t care about vulgarity (hell I’m a repeat offender myself), but I agree with OP that overly obscene comments don’t have their place in this kind of “serious” community.
Where do we draw the line for “overly obscene”? And is this even a problem? Can I see a link to an example?
Where do we draw the line for “overly obscene”?
When it gets to the point that it elicits a strong emotional response and it derails the conversation I guess? But then it would amount to trolling, which is already discouraged on this community?
And is this even a problem?
Don’t think so, I was speaking in the abstract, but I guess it could become one if the instance becomes more popular.
Whose strong emotional response? If it were a rule that users should be civil to each other, or that we need to stay on topic for the post, I’d agree since those are I think more easy to delineate. But if I just use a word you don’t like, and it’s not a slur or targetting hate at you or anyone else, I don’t think it should be against the rules.
Rule number 1 for the instance is “Be respectful…” which I think covers most cases here.
It’s possible to be respectful while using “vulgar” language and vice versa etc.
a rule that users should be civil to each other, or that we need to stay on topic for the post
Yes that’s more or less what I meant, I’d be fine with that.
The problem here, as many have already stated, is that this is a very subjective proposal. And it is very hard to codify a rule based on a subjective. What you consider vulgar or obscene my not be close to crossing the line for me. Rules need to be objective in nature. They need to have the ability to have clear set guidelines that mean the same thing to everyone.
It is similar to the old argument about porn. What is porn? I’ve seen artistic photographs of nudity and I have seen porn. But where is that line drawn? That line is going to be somewhere different depending on the person. There are those that would say any photograph or video where the subject is nude is pornographic. Some would say only if there is a depiction of a sexual act, it is pornographic. And there are a lot of people that fall between those two and go further to the extremes in either direction. In that case, you cannot easily write an objective rule that everyone will interpret the same way. You could, say, write a rule about not having any depictions of nudity. That is more objective. Still not perfect…because what if it’s just one breast but the subject is otherwise clothed?
Anyway, this is getting way more wordy than I intended. The TL;DR is that trying to codify a subjective rule is both difficult and a really bad idea because no two people will interpret the rule in the same way. We need to focus on objective rules that leave little-to-no room for misinterpretation and solve or prevent actual problems.
But this is a great discussion on civility guidelines and I do think we need some of those. Though, again, they will likely have to be somewhat vague because of the subjectiveness of it all.
Yeah, I’m not sure I agree.
Definitely understand your point, but this is the internet after all. Will I be reprimanded if I use “fucking” or “shit” to really make a point I’m passionate about? Is it okay if the context is alright? Is it bad if I use 2 curse words but 1 is okay? Who’s to say?
Context will be big. Straight up vulgar, hateful speech is already not allowed, so I don’t think we need to add to it unnecessarily.
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I guess I assumed that if the instance has a general stance on hateful, bigoted speech then any community attached within it would have to follow suit. Especially one tied specifically to the progression of the instance’s community.
I don’t feel like additional restrictions on Agora with that already in place is needed, imo.
This makes sense to me. I have to wonder how fast this community will be sidetracked with pointless comments if people wander in thinking it’s the ‘main’ sub. My thinking was - if you shouldn’t say it in a parliamentary setting, it should not be said in the Agora. Aw but that’s not fun! one might think… again I would say take it to main street. just my opinion.
Nay, much too subjective
I think vulgarity / obscene language is a pretty objective category. As opposed to ‘keep things constructive’ which can be interpreted in a variety of ways.
I agree with you that keep things constructive is a great ethos, given the gist of the community. But shouldn’t the don’t be an asshole rule more or less cover any instances where obscene language would get in the way of constructiveness?
If somebody replies “fuck you” to one of my comments, I’m fine reporting it if I want to; or it’ll be removed by a mod for breaking the asshole rule. If somebody simply drops an f-bomb in the comments in a non-insulting way, I’m not sure it gets in the way of “keep things constructive.”
If someone is bothered by profanity in a way that makes them uncomfortable participating in an open-signup forum, they can choose to say so when it comes up. Pre-emptively codifying “correct” language is a little icky.
I have to agree with the others that this rule is unnecessary. @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works said it best:
The main rule should be civility, as in, criticize ideas, not people. If that’s effectively enforced, vulgarity shouldn’t really be an issue.
And besides, I want to be able to say “Ban that fucking Nazi piece of shit!” or “Send that fucking gulag loving tankie to Bantown!”
I would argue that the language you have just employed in your example is not appropriate for the Agora as it detracts from the purpose of the community. Take it to main street.
And in my over-exaggerated examples, you’d be right, since they fail the Be Civil rule.
But how about this one?
This user’s intent was to be an asshole and a troll, and we should adjust the rules to disallow that type of conduct.
I’m not sure what’s more subjective to judge a person’s intent or to judge their use of certain words. Anyways point well taken.
Rule of law should derive from main street. Not ivory towers, noble titles, or watery tarts handing out scimitars
I can see both sides of this one, but I’d lean towards a lighter touch that focuses on intent. Someone can have a civil conversation while also swearing a lot (me irl), but it’s a completely different story if they’re trying to be inflammatory.
We probably won’t need to codify this in the rules. Someone who would receive the hypothetical ban for this would probably be breaking other rules anyway.
Agreed. Intent and good/bad faith is a better indicator, but also harder to automate / more work.
There’s plenty of people who use nice words but aren’t there to have a discussion with you.
I’ve met at least one of them in the mod voting thread.
Joining up with the rest to say nay. I already feel pretty restricted in Agora when I speak cuz I gotta be all serious and shit, no need to add more restrictions. This is not a middle school forum but the Shit Just Works server where you can say “shit”.
This is one of these over moderation over serious things a lot of people didn’t like about reddit or online tryhard groups.
The admin has attempted to give us a serious role in this instance. The least we can do is elevate our language and tone while we are contributing.
I think it’s fine as long as we don’t insult each other and are respectable towards other peoples opinions.
What the fuck?
😉
I think this is a good discussion to have!
The main rule should be civility, as in, criticize ideas, not people. If that’s effectively enforced, vulgarity shouldn’t really be an issue.
Perhaps we could agree to a rule about keeping discussion relevant to the topic at hand, which would also help.
I don’t think a rule about vulgarity is necessary because it really shouldn’t be an issue if we’re all trying to be constructive to the issue at hand. So discourage off topic discussion (and enforce if necessary), and the vulgarity issue should solve itself.
I would agree with this statement.
To answer your question, I’ve been downvoting topics on agora when I think the discussion is premature or maybe even a bit troll-y. Probably yes people who are downvoting are doing so because they don’t like the idea and don’t want it discussed. FWIW I upvoted this one though.
As written, I’d be against this. Mostly because I don’t know what is meant by vulgar or obscene - are we just trying to police swearing? - but also because just policing the tone of posts doesn’t generally work to police the spirit of posts. People can make well-meaning points with swear words interspersed, just as people can essentially tell you to go fuck yourself with polite language.
Yeah, as charged as the f-word has become, there’s something a little fascist about rulemaking on a subjective line of good or bad manners. I get that OP probably just means good vibes only, but fuck parliamentary decorum.
Cheerio!
Absolutely not, lmao. This is the Agora, not The Karen
at the moment i’m not a fan of the idea.
…
but i love the mental image of some kind of John Bercow Bot shouting “ORDEEER!” at people if things get out of hand
this is required in the near future, IMO, if this community is to have any value at all!
I definitely think that we should strive to be civil and polite to each other in this forum to the best of our abilities but I also don’t want to try to enforce “civility politics” on someone speaking up about experiencing sexism, homophobia, racism, etc from another user.
I do not support this. The key points should really be:
a) Attack ideas, not people b) Do not engage in bigotry c) Participate in good faith d) Be civil towards people discussing the topic.
So long as these are adhered to, people should be able to use any word they damn well please.
With that said, cursing as a rhetorical device can backfire, making your arguments less effective in some cases. In other cases, it may bolster them by signaling incredulity or a passionate response about a given topic/relevant factor. Use your judgement with this in mind, but we don’t need a rule about it.
