What do you consider "swear words"? What words should be "censored" and what words are fine to show?

I believe in censorship if you are speaking to a captive audience, for example in a classroom, where getting up and leaving might incur penalties. I wrote a book recently whose characters are mainly teenagers. They curse a lot, but I deliberately left out the F word and GD's because it would have offended my family.

I gave my sons rules for cursing. They couldn't use curse words around older people. They couldn't use curse words around girls unless they heard the girl using the word first.

If they hit their thumb with a hammer or something similar, all bets were off, and they would be forgiven. Mahalo should set its own rules and the people who come to this site should respect them.

Any of the words mentioned in this video: People Swearing silentwulf.com/flash/Swearing.swf.

We all should write like George Carlin- "You sixing, sevening monkey fiver. You think your one don't stink, well, three off, you threein' three!

I don't believe in censoring swear words, per se. However, I do respect that some people dislike them. When I'm in like-minded company, I use them as I feel like it.

On the other hand, around many people and in the Mahalo Answers Community, I wouldn't because I know many people wouldn't appreciate it, though, as you and Emmess said, in a certain context, it would be understandable. In short, I censor as the situation demands.

I do not believe in censorship. I can understand not having certain words in the main questions, but sometimes they are appropriate. For instance, what if someone were to ask about the etymological origins of a particular 'swear' word?

Or cultural reactions to it? Or foreign language translations? Etc.Etc.Etc.

Since there is already the NSFW category, perhaps there should be a category to include such things (or perhaps the NSFW category is already appropriate -- however, including a swear word is not the same as extreme sexual, etc.Content. ). However, it should also be easily possible for members to view ALL questions with no restrictions (perhaps there already is) when they bring up the main page if that is what they choose to do.

I know that's what I want to be able to do.

Though I generally don't have a problem with swear words I feel that in public forums like Mahalo Answers, the workplace, etc. People should always strive to be respectful and appropriate...even if it means censoring yourself a bit. This is the tried and true tactic I've used for years when having dinner with my very religious grandparents.

Great question Darcey! Personally I feel that when writing in a public forum like this, where most people are coming to gain knowledge or just learn something interesting, we should all be able to edit our comments to ensure that we are not using language that can offend some people. I am in the military and have absolutly no issues with the 4 letter language.

However, I also feel that I can articulate an intelligent response without using the language. Being a public forum where anyone can see our answers we should all take a second to edit a response that contains language that is generally associated as bad just so we don't offend the general community. There have been several times, especially some of my rants, that I have had to make sure I slowed down to avoid calling someone a moron because of some of their comments.

I have even managed to avoid that so as not to offend people in public that I would not hesitate to offend in person. As far as the sensoring of a word with the fill in the blank method I just find it immature. Like you said, I wasn't going to say fork.

If I intentionally edit it in that manner it just shows that I spent the time to think about it and couldn't come up with a more intelligent way to articulate my opinion.

As a mod I am probably pretty tolerant of the swearing (admittedly, I don't see that much of it) naturally, it comes up in the abuse reports more often then in my travels, so I tend to remove any swearing that has been reported. If it's enough to bug a user and is not constructive in the answer of conversation I have no problem removing it. Like some mentioned here, it's not a bad idea to be respectful to the community, swearing generally isn't needed but again always isn't meant to be harmful, so I decide on a case-by-case basis.As always, the abuse reports are the #1 way to deal with offensive swearing, I don't think top level censorship is necessary.

I have potty mouth. I'm not proud, but I do. With friends and family (where'd ya think I get it from?) I'm always dropping F-bombs left and right.

I'm pretty much never offended by words. But, like most people, I'm very respectful of the environment I'm in from moment to moment. F-bombs are a no-no with my business clients, and anywhere else they're frowned upon.

So, I don't know that I even have an opinion about what Mahalo should decide is offensive and what isn't. I'm bothered by none of them, so I couldn't help advise where to draw the line.It's tricky, because everything is offensive to someone! You'll never please them all.

I think that all words should be allowed. None of them should be censored. If an individual or a group wants to sensor words they should censor them individually.

Technically, it is possible to write a greasemonkey script to filter out any words that you don't think are appropriate. Many parental monitoring software packages also have this feature.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.