I think the point was to allow it within creative works, not within general discussion.

this has always seemed like a red herring argument to me. those two statements are qualitatively different in many more ways than their use of profanity. they're not even taking the same stance. but more generally, profanity has never been the limiting factor here. I can say "the writing for BvS was terrible" and that's just as lazy as your last sentence. in fact, possibly lazier. other useful non-profane phrases include "so bad", "mind-numbingly awful", and "really dumb". heck, given that the profanity filter puts out a set of asterisks and everyone knows what they mean, "**** awful" is still an option for communicating my point. not being able to say **** has not stopped me from writing an utterly banal critique, nor has it encouraged me to avoid doing so. the problem comes in my lack of interest in providing a complex, nuanced analysis, not in the set of linguistic tools available to me.

which one? there's two uncensored ones. anyway, Carlin's list is and has always been pointless. using it as a barometer for word acceptability is silly.

Because piss and tits aren't profanity.

There was another one that hadn't been censored. I'm guessing the mods got to it before anyone else saw it, which I hoped would be the case.


Which is why I said that I understand a lot of the nuance comes down to the individual, but I'd still rather a lot of lazy "it's so bad" rather than a bunch of profanity.

then it's not about uncreative language, it's about specific words. which is fair (that's why we have the filter in the first place, after all.) but it bugs me when people try to dress up objections to profanity in arguments about the beauty of language and creativity and whatnot, because it really has nothing to do with that. profanity doesn't make a piece of writing any more or less lazy, it just makes it more profane.

The other thing is people seem to assume that if my story is allowed to circumvent the filter, somehow everyone on this forum will start swearing all the time. That's sort of the very definition of a slippery slope fallacy. I personally feel like profanity is integral to my character Orida Vise, and I think she, as a character, is weakened by the forum's filter. But it's not an issue I'm particularly interested in pushing, either. If Luna, our archivist, is against it, I'm perfect fine acquiescing. I just figured it was worth asking.

I am just not given to trust very quickly, and have heard more of communities that, even if they haven't fallen apart, have become less penetrable for newcomers from a lack of filter than I've heard good stories from the same. Again, I curse rather frequently in the meat (and over text messages or chats), but I like to think that I'm at least trying to look at it from the outside, as if I was a fresh-faced teenager again just trying to find a community where I can talk to and meet people. I'm likely failing miserably at that aspect, but I hope I'm gaining something in the search for objectivity.

Vulgar language makes me uncomfortable, but not in the context of a story.

Vulgar language is the only language that makes me comfortable.

PP being comfortable makes me uncomfortable.

And finally, the long-awaited reply. Sorry it took so long, but we basically ended up restarting the mod discussion from scratch, since our roster had changed so significantly since last time.

So! Raven, after a fairly lengthy discussion among the moderators, we've decided against allowing you to circumvent the filter for your story. There absolutely can be merit in the artistic use of profanity, but we feel that the artistic benefit gained from allowing it to be posted directly to the site, as opposed to behind a properly-labeled link as current policy would dictate, is minimal, and therefore outweighed by concerns about the negative effects the presence and use of profanity tends to incur on online communities.

Ah fock

Okay, that's fair enough. Thanks.

Thank you for making my point illegible.

Raven,

Late to the party, I know, but this has relevance and should solve problems both for the board AND creativity.

Use curse words that are not curse words. For instance, Jim Butcher uses terms and phrases, "Holy Night", "Hell's Bells", and such for his characters. While maybe not having the same impact you were originally thinking, phrases you utilize in your writings could acquire that same feeling and weight-of-power within their story.

Another book to look at is Hope and Red, where the author created different words and phrases, including cursing, that made his world more unique and special.

Anyways, I'd still run it by the Mods, if you went that way, but I don't see it breaking the rules if done correctly, from my viewpoint.

Kryder out...

Nor do I. As long as the words you're using are swears and they aren't masked versions of swears, I don't see why the moderation team would have an issue.

OBVIOUS DISCLAIMER: You're all very clever people, I'm sure you can come up with plenty of things that don't meet that definition but are still inappropriate. Please don't. You know what I meant.

Yeah, I did this, too. I mean, she says the F word a lot, and other such terms, but she also says "Ghostdamn," which is a stand-in for our world's G-D curse word, because "spirits" held a high degree of reverence for her people, and calling them "ghosts" is offensive, and that word more so.

Like I said, I'm not overly concerned. Judging from the comments I get, my stuff's read by about six people anyway, and I can always link to another site, like Luna suggested. It just would have been simpler, that's all.

Thanks for the suggestion!