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

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.

Absolutely not, lmao. This is the Agora, not The Karen

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.

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.

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.

You will not be reprimanded for using bad language. But don’t engage in personal attacks.

Calling someone an idiot isn’t a useful way to have a conversation. Be respectful, super fucking respectful if you can manage it.

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.

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!”

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.

Nay because sometimes I like writing fuck and bullshit.

Half Nay.

Swearing’s great fun, so many cool words.

Though calling people certain names shouldn’t be allowed.

See, I got banned from beehaw for sharing my experience with being Rainbow. As an example of homophobia I’ve encountered, I used the British Cigarette word as that’s what I was called. This got me banned, even though it wasn’t directed at anyone.

And yeah, I think downvotes should be disabled. For Reddit it was to reduce spam, but with today’s tech, spam isn’t exactly that much of an issue.

What the fuck?

😉

Nay, much too subjective