Swearing, cussing, blaspheming, and making Grandma blush.

[SliceOfDog]

This is not aimed at anyone in particular, and nor should it be seen as a telling off or a warning. I'm simply wanting to clarify the site's position on this issue.

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It has come to my attention that I have never really made clear what the site's position on swearing is. When I find the time I will be writing up more clear guidelines in the forum FAQ and Help and so on, but for now this post will have to do:

We are not going to censor swearing in RPs. It goes without saying that anything said by a character should be accepted as that of the character and not the author. Likewise swearing is acceptable in works of literary fiction posted on the site. For the moment I don't feel it is necessary to post a warning about swearing in these areas, although if the site expands and gains members who are not comfortable with it, we will kindly ask that you write in your first post that it will or may contain swearing. No such thing is in place yet though, and we have no current plans for it.

However, now we get to swearing as people, not characters.

We like to think of SciFiFur as a site that is welcoming to everyone. As such even if we have no personal problem with swearing (and I can't even say for certainty that no one on the staff does. I am speaking purely of myself here) we are still obligated to accept that others might be. As such, we ask that you refrain from using the big ones in common posts and OOC sections of the RP forum. You know the words I mean, I'm sure. If not, see bottom of page for some hints.

There are a few reasons for this. First, purely and simply, it looks bad, particularly from senior members. It may very well turn away new potentials, and make the site seem less welcoming on a whole. Secondly, they are often linked with anger or annoyance. Not the words themselves, but their use on this forum seems to tend that way. Many arguments could have petered out much sooner if the sides had been politer to one another instead of resorting to insults. Third, it sets a negative mood. In real life, people can swear while laughing, or sarcastically, and there's no problem. However, online the words are only read, and as such the reader has to make their own assumption as to what the connotation is. I tend to get a little down, especially when a post starts with something like a blunt "Sh*t".

In regards to our response to swearing, we will use personal judgement. If you are a serial offender, you will get a talking to, and the same if you drop the big ones unnecessarily. If you continue after that, then it will be an official warning and, after that, normal forum response to poor behaviour. However, that will only be for extreme cases. For most members, we're not about to become very harsh on the issue. The odd one may slide, and again: in character or in narrative all is a-ok.

Just try to keep normal conversation to a level that wouldn't give grandma a heart attack and we should be fine.

Thanks for reading, and I will soon make a more appropriate post covering more issues, that new members can familiarise themselves with.

Now F-off, the lot of you!

List of the big ones

F word.
C word.
N word (and by extension pretty much any racial slurs)

The marginally smaller big ones:
Sh*t, w*nker, tw*t, b*stard.
(Yes, some of those aren't necessarily bad/existent in the US, but we have to think of other countries)

Censored because it seemed silly not to, considering the post. If anyone has anything to add to the list of no-nos, please let me know!

[Rick Canaan]

Very good points, Slice. I would like to add to them that we are open to members as young as 13. In light of this, in addition to not wanting swearing, we don't want drug or alcohol use discussed or referred to. Nor do we don't want talk (or links) about sex.

We not only want a clean community, in other words, but we need to keep it clean for our younger members.

In addition to being about Sci-fi, we're a potential window into Furridom for people too young to get into the more mainstream Furry communities (where sex seems to be most common topic of interest). So we need to keep it clean. Squeaky clean.

Thanks for bringing this up, Slice. And thank you everyone, in advance, for helping us out with this.