(Discussion) Vulgar / obscene language shall be strongly discouraged in the Agora community

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?

jarek91,

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.

Difficult_Bit_1339,
@Difficult_Bit_1339@sh.itjust.works avatar

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.

Trekman10,
@Trekman10@sh.itjust.works avatar

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.

goat,

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.

Socsa,

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

HikerAdam,
@HikerAdam@sh.itjust.works avatar

"So this fucking stupid computer decided to do the thing..." -Nay, as it brings no harm to others.

"Fuck you, dude." -Aye, as that is not civil.

dismalnow,
dismalnow avatar

@HikerAdam

@sweetholymosiah

Good luck moderating that bullshit.

TendieMaster69,

Nay because sometimes I like writing fuck and bullshit.

agentshags,
@agentshags@sh.itjust.works avatar

What the fuck?

😉

nanoUFO,
@nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works avatar

This is one of these over moderation over serious things a lot of people didn't like about reddit or online tryhard groups.

sweetholymosiah,

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.

nanoUFO,
@nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works avatar

I think it's fine as long as we don't insult each other and are respectable towards other peoples opinions.

WheeGeetheCat,
@WheeGeetheCat@sh.itjust.works avatar

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.

sweetholymosiah,

Cheerio!

snakesnakewhale,

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.

BaldDude,
@BaldDude@sh.itjust.works avatar

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

sweetholymosiah,

this is required in the near future, IMO, if this community is to have any value at all!

LizardKing,

https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/4fecc847-2ce2-4509-ad82-e82fd7838bd6.mp4

god,
@god@sh.itjust.works avatar

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".

babelspace,
babelspace avatar

I agree with much of what other commentators have been saying. Discouraged I’m on board with, I think having a strict rule is premature in a new community that’s small in scale - we can afford to wait and see how conversations play out and reevaluate later. Civility is the principle that’s important.

Seraph089,

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.

InEnduringGrowStrong,
@InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works avatar

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.

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