Swearing Rule Change (PS: Conversation about this in-game)
Hey there.
A part of the community thinks that the "no excessive swearing" rule should change to "no swearing." It has caused confusion among new players and our community as a whole doesn't really tolerate swearing. Aulu and I both feel this way.
I would be careful what we ask for. This is a question when we ban people. Shall we ban everyone for the first and any violation?
So the question is, what excessive is. If someone drops a swear word sometimes out of anger, I will not ban them for that. If someone swears repeatedly or obviously trolling by using swearwords frequently to annoy users, I will ban them.
I am reluctant to change the rules. If you feel that someone swears too much, you are free to make a ban request and then I will judge what is excessive.
I fully support Unc's reply.. that kind of thing can only be judged case by case.
In any case, even if you change the rule to "no swearing" then you still would have to define and judge what is swearing and what is not.
Examples:
- "Shoot! That zombie almost killed me!"
=> swearing or no swearing?
- "That bloody zombie almost killed me!"
=> swearing or no swearing?
- "Tabarnak! That zombie almost killed me!"
=> swearing or no swearing?
- "I swear that this zombie almost killed me!"
=> swearing or no swearing?
what they said ^^^
Further more, I do believe it is a little unreasonable to ban swearing altogether. The majority of the players on this particular server are adults. When you get a bunch of adults together, swearing is simply going to happen. That doesn't mean give everyone free range to cuss all they like, but know that a little swearing here and there is reasonable. It is honorable, indeed, to have personal conviction to not swear. However, it is a personal conviction, and shouldn't be something imposed on other respectable people who do not use it in excess.
When I was younger, I wasn't allowed to say or read content that contained words like "butt, stupid, dumb", much less words like "crap, crud, darn, geez". But now would any Master/Elder consider these swear words?
When we make a definite rule like this, the line of acceptability becomes more of a hassle to deal with.
And what about TS, would the "no swearing" rule apply there? It is much harder to catch swearing while speaking rather than typing them out.
But, I get where you are coming from. People of all ages use this server and we need to make it so people of all ages can enjoy it. If you see someone drop a swear in chat with a Master or Elder on though, I can almost guarantee that person ./msged them and told them to watch it. Even if someone like that isn't on, don't underestimate the power of a ./msg reminding them that this is an all ages server.
There's some great discussion going on in this thread. I feel that if there's a "soft" or "hard" limit on swearing, than either way it should be reflected consistently across the site. I'm a guest here, I just discovered this server today, and in combing through the site I've noticed some contradictory language on the rule.
On the "Rules" page, it says "No excessive swearing." On the "Suggested Code of Conduct Page" it says "no swearing." I'm very confused by this, and I think it's definitely affecting my performance on the Settler's quiz. Not that I'm asking for the answers to the settler's quiz, I just genuinely don't understand which words to take into account and which to ignore.
MsShaina, that difference that you see is the difference between what we enforce (i.e. Rules) and what we recommend ("suggested code...").
Rules state what will get you banned. Suggestions are what we would like to see. In the same spirit I would LIKE to see you build something amazing instead of something boring. But we won't ban you for building something boring. Build an eye-sore cobblestone 40-block high wall around your lot, you will get banned.
Further, the settler test explicitly asks you what behavior will get you banned. The suggested conduct does not even talk about that swearing will get you banned, also not "no swearing". It rather talks about what others should do in case someone is swearing, which is not banning them, but talking to them to make them understand that continuing to do so (i.e. excessive swearing) will get them banned. If it was forbidden 100%, they should be banned right away, not being talked to.
What I agree with however is that you should not be confused about this. I will add some explanation on top of the pages to make it clearer.
Oh, thank you so much Uncovery. That makes a lot more sense now. I'll keep this in mind while reading your site in the future.