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My Opinion:
Swearing in a post simply degrades the quality of the post. It shows that the person posting it is unable to contain their feelings from the surface of their skin, and basically cannot participate successfully in a society that is not based upon emotional exchanges. (Although some may consider map making emotional, I do not.) Not only does it show the emotions of the person posting, it is most likely simply used to incure emotions in those that read it. This provokative aspect of the use of swears directs attention away from whatever the person is actually trying to say (If they are saying anything at all) and people will focus more upon the poignant points in the post.

Overall I have a very negative outlook on swearing, and am wondering if it could be possible to avoid many conflicts by simply making swearwords a warnable offence. (I mean we already censor them and such.)

Your thoughts anyone?

I'm not against swearing at all. Who are the people who say some words are "swears" anyways? Wait... now you can't say "gun" on the radio? WTFZ0RZ? <<-- hey... a swear (unintentional too).

It's one of those things that assuming people were responsible would be good for expressing extreme emotions, but usually just gets turned into a generic way to add emphasis to things over time. I agree it shouldn't be made a conversational habit: Not because it degrades discussion quality, but because if everyone uses it regularily then it won't be able to have the same effect when used for what its intended to be used for.

Here's an idea: Maybe you could "buy" a swear filter remover or something. That is, you get to see the swearing in posts instead of the cheasy substitutes normals and regulars get stuck with. That way, to some effect, you have to "earn" the right to use swear words in the first place.


Just a silly idea.

In certain cases words like "damn", "bloody" or for example "crap" strengthen the post.

Thx god bloody part of it, because i sometimes say bloody hell or something because part of my slang in australia. Really swearing is something ya cant stop everyone does it once n awhile in posts but i dont see it too often.

I don't think people using swear words is a problem.
At least, not the source of the problem you're trying to solve.

QUOTED FOR MOTHERFUCKING TRUTH! Mapping should not be emotional by any stretch.

Also, I agree with IP and DTBK. There's nothing wrong with swearing as adjectives (see above line.) Altough using a swear as a verb is pretty much offensive to everyone. We don't need, "I'm going to go take a damn big bloody shit. G'day" We should remove the filters and have over-abusing that fact a punishable offense.

No change is necessary.

We should also have a rule that forbinds to rabbit about mapmaking if you don't make maps yourself.

I really hate people who doesn't make maps but posts stuff like "Map protection is useless" or "Map making is this, map making is that..".

The only reason why I wouldn't remove filters is because gay little programs like websense would block us and people would have trouble accessing SEN from school and the such. I do believe it's happened before...

I expected a response such as this. I for one do realize that swearing does a job of evoking a response better then most other forms of speech, and there are times that it can be used in a good way, but even so, there are other forms of gaining peoples attention. I wasn't really expecting any change to be had from this topic, but I just see swearing as one degrading factor in humanity. (Of course it all depends on the use, but generally the use on internet is not one to enforce positive expressions.)
That right there is partially my problem with them. They draw attntion to posts that cannot draw attention to themselves.

For instance, take the following theoretical posts:
"Hamburgers you need two freaking hands to hold them, they suck. Taco's only need one. Jeez, its so much more economical, you eat your god damn taco and drink with the other hand. Tacos pwn your crapty Hamburgers" (This wouldn't be a real argument as you can hold hamburgers in one hand too, so his actual point is useless, but it would provoke responsiveness in those reading it due to the language portrayed in it.)

"Taco's are wonderful foods! They express a part of a rich cultural heratige, as well as offer a variety of flavors for many different people. Depending on where you go you can try many different styles of mexican style food. This goes beyond simply the hard shell/soft shell catagorization, but you can get spicy, or sweet, and experience a variety of flavors in between. Hamburgers, on the other hand usually come in one of two varieties, greasy, or homestyle. Greasy burgers usually look similar, with a somewhat limp sad feel to them. Homestyle, although picking up from this appearance, does not have quite thevariety that tacos do. Hamburgers also generally come with a side of fries, which have no variety whatsoever, but tacos are known to come with several side dishes, like corn chips, salsa, tater tots, cinnomon twists (yes I'm basing this off of taco bell) among many others.

Overall, tacos hold much more variety, and freedom than hamburgers do." (This one, although it leaves out information about the variety of hamburgers, where you can get chicken burgers and such other things, gives examples of the variety of taco flavors. It actually contained some evidence of a supporting statement.)

The posts following the second statement would most likely have a better conversation then the first post. Going on the fact that the second did not use provokative language, in an attempt to evoke a response from the audience.

I must mention that the form in which a presnter posts in a topic, has a cascading effect on those who read the post and post afterwards. This is one reson why flamewars tend to happen, the emotion shown in one post flows over into the latter posters.

Again I think this topic will not really have any effect on anyones decision. As there is a good side to evoking a responce from people, as it is the basis of a conversation, but I would simply like to see more dignified conversations happening in the world.

How about... 'This water smells like s h i t' portrays the smell a lot more than it smells like "poopy".

You could as well forbid use of any emotions here.

I used to make maps.

I believe that swear words does catch more attention, but it's not needed.

Of course there's a big difference when saying someone is a f or saying this pie is f'in good.

I believe that, while the second would attract more thoughtful arguments, it's more because you simply chose a longer, more thought out argument to compare against an immature, short argument that's completely unrelated to swearing except for two words.

'Cusses' don't necesarily express anger, which I see as one of the most common paths to flaming, the next being, well, anger on the part of a different person, which can't very well be avoided anyways, and plain immaturity or stupidity. I doubt most people would even notice a cuss in a post as long as your second example.

EDIT:
In fact, I believe that, if not for Isolated_Purity's reason, and probably a couple others, though I can think of none at the moment, it would be good for us to simply nto care in any way about swearing in particular, and treat it as anything else ( if necesary, the rule about making readable posts would be employed, if someone uses them so much it's hard to read ) . I believe that the only reason these words mean anything more than any other word is because we arbitrarilly still apply more value to them -- thus, people overuse them, get attention, causing more people to overuse them, causing them to gain even more attention as people try to stop it, etc. etc...