Erik Reuter wrote:
>
> On Sun, Mar 31, 2002 at 07:31:45AM -0800, Doug wrote:
>
> > No one has said that you are not allowed to say anything and no one is
> > going to be expelled from the list for using any particular word.
>
> If that simple phrase were inserted in the guidelines, then most of this
> discussion would probably have been short-circuited. There was a strong
> request by a list owner not to use the "F-word" for 3 days. To me, that
> is a strengthening of the guideline against profanity, and since I
> already thought it was too strong, I needed to discuss the issue.
Look, it was a politely worded request, and I *specifically* stated that
I was not acting as listowner with this request, just someone who was
trying to relax with e-mail while breakfast was making. Most of the
people who have said anything about it weren't bothered by the request.
If you don't like the community standard, wait until everyone has had a
chance to calm down from reacting to your position, and then put forward
a proposal that doesn't look like a knee-jerk reaction and maybe more
rational discussion can take place.
Besides, the profanity item is in there for a specific reason. The only
person who has been barred from posting committed among other offenses
the offense of posting total non-signal streams of profanity, a whole
bunch of them one morning, and those who were drawing up guidelines
wanted to make sure that anyone who repeated that particular offense
would have been sufficiently informed that that sort of behavior could
lead to loss of posting priviledges. Neither of the posts I was
objecting to were anywhere *near* as bad (think about the distance of
Pluto from the Sun, as opposed to that of Mercury), but they weren't
civil.
As a reader of posts and a participant, I just wanted a little more
civility on-list. Is that too much to ask?
Julia
