Seriously, when the players are more interested in debating the rules than playing the game, something is very wrong.
i’d like to look at that curbstiles thread again- where is it?
To really really drive the point home, take a look at how many messages there were over the last week. Even though the interesting topic of that woman having sex on video came up… there have been only a handful of posts on the open forum.
The supression of speech that Angst has found offensive, has suppressed speech generally.
Oriented is now simply a glorified classified section.
No fun. 
:x
You know what is even more pathetic than a moderated forum with fewer threads? People like wolf and dbbowman. Whiny whiny little men. Rather than create interesting topics themselves, topics which are useful to the oriented audience however large or small, they instead, take the time to post on a message board that they d i s l i k e about how much they d i s l i k e them.
Perhaps the problem is not that the boards aren’t being used as much because of heavy handed moderators but rather that they are being used by people like wolf and dbbbowman. Anyone ever wonder if fewer people are using the boards because of them? I for one am one of those people. Whiny whiny little men who refuse to save us the agony of their negativity should be banned!
Why don’t the two of them start http://www.WolfandDbbowman.com and see how many people post there? We can have a contest and see who is more popular, oriented, wolf, or dbbowman, as the point seems to have digressed away from whether or not these boards are meaningful to how much they are used.
Oriented is what people make of it. If you have 2000 registered users, 90 percent of whom seldom visit or contribute to the site, that will leave a few hundred potential active participants, many of whom might not have anything interesting to say or ask, or simply don’t care. Other people are turned off when their opinions get trashed, sometimes quite rudely; they learn their lesson and don’t like to post after that. That leaves maybe 50-100 willing active participants.
Don’t blame the moderators – they certainly cannot make people register or post insightful questions or opinions. I honestly think they have tried their best at making this an interesting site to visit. The only thing that is holding them back from becoming an active forum on the lines of about.com is the small potential audience, which seems to consist of Taiwan-based expatriates, overseas Chinese, and Taiwanese citizens interested in improving their English or seeing what foreigners think of their country.
What are the odds that opp, an unregistered poster, is actually a disgruntled moderator? :o
Wasn’t me. I’m gruntled!
[quote]I realize that some posters wouldn’t have a clue what letter goes there (“Is it a vowel?”), but for those of us whose knuckles don’t drag on the ground it’s pretty clear.
Who does this censorship fool, really? Is there some legal issue here, because it is certainly not protecting the identity of the expression. Why bother?[/quote]
It’s a “u”, you twit, as in “fuck”
you whiny pathetic little man 
Dear Angst,
I’ve noticed you have polls on Oriented now. Is it possible to set one up so we can “vote someone off our island”?
For instance, take wolf. Please. Get him outta here already.
If the great majority of his writing is whiny drivel, offering little value by way of insight, perspective or advice, then why allow him to clutter up space. He wastes people’s time, especially for those of us who consider these forums a helpful place to check for questions and answers (like me)
Now I for one would not like to have your job and read all 160-odd ramblings of a twit like wolf (he slf censors hmslf nd hs the udcity to btch bout censorshp. aftr 160-dd postngs, you’d thnk he would hve figred out tht fuck is splled w*th ‘u’).
I agree with others here, if wolf and dbbbowman were not assholes, I’d probably come to this open forum more often.
Teacher, I think you misunderstand. The twit is me. I was fucking with Wolf. 
(Please no bestiality jokes!) :mrgreen: The fact is sometimes I’ll delete or edit the naughty words, especially if it is one poster cussing out another. I don’t want the Open Forum to deteriorate into a no-holds-barred free-for-all.
Wolf, you have my unreserved apology, and for what it’s worth, I have restored the missing vowel. 
Now, regarding who “belongs” here and who doesn’t, well that’s not the purpose of Open Forum. This isn’t a personal website, but a community forum. I agree that some people are more annoying than others, but that’s life.
Wolf and DB are frequent contributors to Open Forum, and their input is valued, even if they do rip me to shreds on a weekly basis. Keeps me humble. 
Happy New Year, everybody!
What happened to the autocensor then. Was it turned off. Or did someone recently manually censor ‘s******’ because there was a bad word hidden behind that s. People stick in an * or leave out a letter because they don’t want their words to get autocensored.
As for ‘teacher’ if you’re too stupid to realise why, then you shouldn’t attack other people until you know what you’re talking about, otherwise it’s you who looks like a fuckwit.
Bri
That’s sn1gger by the way. Looks like some words are still censored and others aren’t. Could we have a list? I wonder about ****** and ****.
Bri
Looks like it’s more insulting to call someone a h0nkey than to call them a fuckwit.
I consider myself a h0nkey, it’s convenient and I’m not sure everyone will understand palangi or pakeha.
Bri
Why are you so focused on Wolf and Dbbowman? What have YOU contributed? Or are you really Dummy-my-poo-poo in disguise?
If you don’t like their posts, skip over them. Lighten up.
Ouch! Teacher, that hurt!
I do like to complain, but thought the censorship of the forum issue was worthy. However, it seems like Angst has reached a happy medium point now. I am happier.
The “H” word was specifically requested to be removed.
Here’s how we add words to the autocensor:
-
Someone in the community takes issue with a word and writes in to tell us why
If their reasoning isn’t immediately clear or agreeable to us, we (the founders and moderators) discuss a bit about whether the term ought to be included in the autocensor.
We come to a consensus. Uh, well, usually (hopefully? ) we do
Our basic rule is to autocensor terms that cannot be used in any meaningful way other than being a slur.
There is a basic assumption we make: the vast majority of the visitors at ORIENTED have neither the time nor the interest to screw around with the autocensor. For those who do, the moderator(s) of each forum are expected to follow their own censorship rules.
Take “fuckwit” for example. This is a colorful term – from Down Under, I guess. Although I don’t know what it exactly means, I think I understand the impact it’s trying to communicate.
Now, the fact that “snigger” was blotted out is not intended. I will try to correct this. Thanks.
Personally, I have little desire to lengthen the autocensor list. Happily, I can tell you that it’s a small list.
We’re all adults (I guess). Why censor any words?
H0nkey is not a slur. I’m a h0nkey.
Fuckwit is definitely a slur.
That reasoning hardly seems to have been applied.
There’s always reasons to use the words other than as slur. You might want to say that using a certain Taiwanese word to describe a foreigner is like calling an African American a n1gger. Nothing insulting about that.
Once again. Why censor anything?
Bri
I have to agree with dbbowman as a co-target for unregistered somebody or other; things are better. There seems to have been a sensible airing of the issues and I too feel the stricture has loosened
And did you see where GW Bush is defending having called those from Pakistan “Pakis”?
Ya gotta love the linguistically-challenged.
Thanks for weighing in on this, Bri.
It would be wonderful if the policies and choices we make in administering ORIENTED satisfy everyone. We do not have such illusions, however.
As it stands, we do try to come to consensus among ourselves at least. I, personally, find the moderators and partners of ORIENTED to be a pretty reasonable and open minded lot. So shrinking, or even closing out, the autocensor is always possible
To directly answer your question, “why censor?”: becuase some people have a problem with these terms and we agree.
g.