Saturday, July 07, 2007

Whiney bitches speak up for censorship!

So, I took the entry, below, and posted it over on HCRealms, after spending nearly half an hour going through and taking out all the swear words, substituting other words, and typographical symbols (#@$%!!!) to preserve the general tone.

As a reward for my diligence, I got the following private message from Some Dick:

Hi,

Since you didn't get the message last time. Stop trying and bypassing the swear filters. They are there for a reason, and if you don't like them, you don't have to be a member of this site. We have them for a reason. You might not like the reason, but nonetheless, those are the site's rules.


To which I responded:

Last time? I can't remember ever getting a message from you prior to this.

As to the remainder of your message... while I can more or less understand, if not respect, suppressing people's free speech as regards actual profanity, this site's filters will not even allow people to use words like 'crap' and, as I've recently discovered, 'retarded'.

I realize that there can be little meeting of minds between those who adore censoring the speech of others and those who, well, don't, but even you must see how absolutely idiotic expanding your definition of 'obscenity' (or, as you so cogently put it, 'swears') to include words that aren't actually obscene, is.

Here's the thing -- keeping people from launching 'flames', i.e., personal attacks against each other, is fine. I believe in a civil discussion, too. But telling people "say, there's a list of words we will not allow you to publish on our site, and it's an entirely subjective list based on our own tiny minded little prejudices, and it doesn't matter what context you use these words in, we're still not going to let you use them, and we're not going to let you substitute other, similar words, or typographical symbols that represent the emotional feeling of swear words, and to top it all off, we're not even going to publish the list of forbidden words anywhere, either, we're just going to program it into our filters and when you stumble across one by accident THEN we'll send you snarky little notes telling you that if you won't censor yourself then you can't hang out with us cool kids"... well, at that point, you have lost your #@$$%!!! mind. And you can kiss my #@$$%!!!!. And if you want to toss me off the site, that's fine; if I feel like coming back to this lame @$$ place, I'll just do what everybody else does and create another account name.

Thank you for your time and attention. Now, go read a book.


And now, I get the following message when I try to access the site:

You have been banned for the following reason:
None

Date the ban will be lifted: 07/09/2007, 16:05


Isn't that sweet? You can be banned from HCRealms for no reason at all.

Bitchez rule!

Unfortunately.

Addendum:

And the entry I put up at HCRealms is gone, too, replaced with Idiot Boy's message to me. So now, all the replies regarding the entry seem pretty non-sequiteresque. But censors rarely worry about things making sense, as long as nobody is saying a bad word where their delicate ears could get singed by it, or something.

4 comments:

  1. Nobody puts Baby in the corner...heh. (Thanks to Opus for making this a catch phrase around our place right now.)

    A two day ban? I've never heard of something like that. Every day is another educational opportunity.

    ReplyDelete
  2. #$&#$%, this is actually true?

    Well, you know what they say about small minds.....small minds.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Actually, they have put Baby in the corner, which is to say, they've banned me forever, for being rude to a moderator. And if I'm going to set up another account, I'll need to do it from a different computer, as they're hip to my ISP numbers, too.

    Oh, well. Someday, when I'm a big game designer for WizKids, they'll be sorry. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Their position is indefensible. It is, however, their right to hold that position on their own site. So, while I agree with you that they are chuckleheads to an alarming, fascist, deeply disturbed degree, I have to reluctantly respect their right to be whiney shitheads so that my right to be a whiney shithead is not also trammeled upon.

    Hmm, you really CAN take your ball and go home, can't you? Just because all the other kids in the game will think you're a pussy for doing it, it is still your ball.

    For the record though: HCRealms is run by a buncha pussies.

    ReplyDelete

truth