In the Encarta dictionary "obscene" is defined as:
1. indecent: offensive to conventional standards of decency, especiall
+y by being sexually explicit
2. disgusting: disgusting and morally offensive, especially because of
+ showing total disregard for other people
I don't think "shit" is sexually explicit, nor morally offensive.
We should all try to avoid pushing our standards of decency unto others. If the signature offends you, I'm quite sure you will be able to cobble up a CSS to delete this particular sig. (Hey, there is some programming in this after all!)
CountZero
"If you have four groups working on a compiler, you'll get a 4-pass compiler." - Conway's Law
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Re: Re: Podmaster's Obscene Signature
by ysth (Canon) on Jan 05, 2004 at 21:13 UTC
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I think the word in question falls under the "offensive to conventional standards of decency" even if not "especially by being sexually explicit".
There are certainly different levels of decency appropriate in different situations. The word in question certainly would be inappropriate in e.g. a job interview with a suit.
Here at perlmonks things ought to be a little looser, but if there are genuine objections to a particular bit of looseness, even by one person, I think they ought to be heeded. (Though "heeded" may take the form of pointers to how to avoid seeing selected sigs.)
So, the interesting question here is not how this thread originated, but how situations like this should be resolved.
Assume for a moment that the problem is not with a sig, but with an individual repeatedly using profanity in the bodies of nodes. I hear others recommending
discuss with the poster by /msg
if that doesn't work, bring up the problem publicly but without specific names
Questions: Should publicly preferably be by chatterbox or meditation? Or is it up to the objector? What's the next step, assuming the public response validates the objection?
Update: I retract all the theoretical question. I doubt such a problem would arise, and if and when it does, then will be soon enough to deal with it. | [reply] |
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Regarding your struck comments: Actually such a situation _did_ occur, and actually with a somewhat prominent member of the perl community. After enough people /msgd about it, and he was borged a few times, and there were nodes edited etc, he got the point and stopped. He still visits occasionally, but the trouble went away. Peer pressure and the tools already availble are absolutley sufficient to deal with any such scenario, and have done so in the past.
I should mention though that I personally am disappointed that the person to whom I am refering chose not to continue hanging out here much. I feel despite the problems of sometimes being offense he was overall a positive and valuable contributor. I hope one day he returns.
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demerphq
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
-- Gandhi
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