More Impt: Tell us what you think

It all just seems odd to me because I have never encountered a single person who has found the usage of 'God' or 'God damn it' offensive. It's a common expression and I have a few friends who are very strong believers who are not offended by its usage. It's not really used to offend anybody unless you say 'Damn you', which it's not really used on these boards unless it's jokingly (from my understanding).

Using the words 'gay' or 'retarded' has been found to really offend some people. Yeah, it may not offend every homosexual or every person who knows someone who is mentally challenged, but it seems to offend more people than 'God' or 'God damn it' offends strong believers in God or Jesus Christ. There's also the fact that the usage of 'gay' and 'retarded' has been solely used nowadays as ways to offend those people. 'God' or 'God damn it' isn't really used to offend anybody. That's why the other words are often restricted and these words aren't.

And honestly, people who have been arguing the whole usage of 'God' and stuff...how come you haven't spoken out against people who use it before (unless I haven't been around long enough or haven't looked around well enough)? It seems to me that you're bringing this up just for the sake of the argument.

If you honestly, honestly feel that the usage of 'God' or 'God damn it' was really offensive, it should have been brought up *ages* ago. Bringing it up now really does not help your argument.

I'm not trying to offend anybody, I just look at this argument that people are having and I'm becoming baffled by the reasoning.

 

I see where you're coming from, dude.

And it's not that we love the rule. It's the fact that so many people have been warned by it, and have even been banned because of it. One reason to keep this rule would be simply the lack of fairness in removing it after so many people have broken it and been banned because of that.

Secondly, these rules come about because something has happened to provoke that rule being instated. The fact is that a lot of these rules don't come about unless they have been encountered either in the history of these message boards or on other message boards where they resulted in mild to serious problems.

The administrators and staff put these rules into place for the safety and stability of these forums. Obviously, the usage of 'gay' or 'retarded' has either put the forums in some way at risk, or it has ruined other forums credibility, leaving the staff to prevent that from happening here.

I understand that, perhaps where you come from, the usage of those words doesn't offend anybody. And nobody can blame you. Some people are simply indifferent to them and don't care. That's okay. That's who they are and we have no right to attack that. However, where you come from isn't the entirety of these forums, and although it may not seem like it, there are plenty of people who might be offended by them.

If the usage of 'God' or 'God damn it' offends you, I can understand that. And I don't want to be someone to offend you because you seem like a nice person and you don't deserve that sort of crap. However, because it hasn't threatened the safety or the stability of these forums, and because it hasn't offended somebody who made that offense public, their usage has not been restricted.

The truth of it is, there's only so much you can restrict before you make this forum a completely uninteresting bland community. Increasing censorship limits what people have to say. From my understanding, swear words used to be restricted for some time before they were finally allowed. It hasn't affected the LPA's stability so you can see why the swear words are still in use.

Also, the restricting of the use of 'gay' or 'retarded' prevents ignorance from coming onto these forums. It's common that people who use those words frequently and use them to mean 'lame' or 'stupid' (respectively) are people who are not only ignorant, but completely unaware and inconsiderate. I'm sure there are people in this world who use them in that way, but by no means intend on offending homosexuals or mentally challenged people, but the former is far more common. That is also probably another reason. It's going to prevent people like that from coming onto these boards, just like the 'no teenie comments' rule prevents immature fans from coming on and ravaging the boards like they have the official Linkin Park forums.

It's all about stability, to pack it all into a box for you. It's about stability. If the usage of 'God' or 'God damn it' affected this forum's safety and stability, it would be removed from usage too. I can almost guarantee that. However, since it does not do that (or at least, it has been shown to not do that) and since 'gay' or 'retarded' has apparently been a past issue (it must have been otherwise it wouldn't be a rule), it's probably not going to be restricted.

Just for the record, I'm still not attacking anybody with this. This is just what I think.