Why some of these rules?
I’m curious who makes the rules for fluther and why.
I’ve noticed that lots of curse words and sexual content is allowed but no text speak, no posting without links, etc… It just seems odd, so I’m curious.
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Well. It’s a community of adults, or at least people who are able to act as if they were adult.
Sexuality is something we all deal with. “Blue” language is sometimes how we express ourselves.
The only real guidelines are: Write like a mature person and try not to flame-bait or attack somebody for their opinions.
That separates Fluther from other QA sites. Writing standards that force you to express yourself correctly and not give other people a headache trying to figure out what you mean.
The actual “rules” are clearly posted…. errr… somewhere.
Okay, I’ll try to find some of the ones I’ve been notified about or others have told me about, seems like an incomplete list for some harsh penalties (to some.)
It’s my understanding the original founders of Fluther wanted a higher quality site than what was then available and they made the rules.
Originally, no swear words were allowed, when I first joined that rule was enforced, but certain words were so commonly used the rule was relaxed.
@YARNLADY Wasn’t that the reason for the Social question category to be created and separated from General? I mean, in addition to members wanting to be allowed some freedom to go off-topic.
Then the Wis.dm attack came….
I don’t like the idea of calling them rules, more like guidelines, which are frequently relaxed…thank fuck :-)
@Ucme You can say “f” words and talk about licking arse but can’t use text speak, it’s kind of weird.
They don’t want a bunch of kids here is part of it. It’s kind of confusing, I agree. You can talk about those things but only if the sentences are properly written!
Licking arse is extremely weird…anal bleaching anyone?
That was disgusting. The last half of your post was written SO poorly!
@KNOWITALL I’m not sure how swearing and misspelling words can be considered qualitatively similar… I see them as very different things, so the different rules neither surprise nor disappoint me.
It’s kind of interesting to me, though, because one could correctly call bad spelling “vulgar”, but not in the same sense that @ucme‘s comment is “vulgar”. And his comment could be offensive to some, while others are offended by poor spelling and grammar. We have similar terminologies for these things, and yet the words do not really mean the same thing in each context.
@KNOWITALL Started it, with her arse licking antics…such a bad influence that one, so vulgar ;-}
Now, there’s nothing wrong with a good ol’ English arse-licking. I dare you to say otherwise.
Well I never, shocking behaviour, this place is going downhill fast…now really :-)
Here’s a simplified example of the Fluther guidelines:
Wrong:
Fuck u.
Fuck who?
Right:
Fuck you.
Fuck whom?
^^^ Truly! and you will be moderated for writing standards if you don’t write it right!
Edited for some odd reason.
@Blueroses
I’m sure that he’s honored, but please consider yourself lucky that he currently has no vacancies in his basement. ;-)
@uberbatman But the fact that you didn’t get modded isn’t proof that it wasn’t a moddable offense. It’s only proof that no one caught you. :P
You didn’t get caught on your spelling or grammar either. I guess you flew under the radar!
@glacial Here is a good example from Oct 16th 08 . If you scroll down a bit in that thread you’ll also see this. Oct 5th 08 most of the mods of the site were present there. Or there is May 7th 08 in a thread with Andrew. No, this site was never censored, its part of the reasons I’ve stuck around so long. :P
fireside
La_chica_gomela
jrpowell
DrasticDreamer
wundayatta…... :(
@Dutchess_III yaaaa I saw a ton of names going through those posts that I miss…
I’ve always thought it was odd that we could use curse words as well.
many of the above chose to leave.
It wasn’t always about rules or restrictions. They also come back with new names.
You never know, right, some of you?
wink… nudge…
I’ve wondered myself why the age limit is only 13… if we expect this site to be a community of adults. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to handle many of the discussions on here at the age of 13. And I’m not even talking about the NSFW questions.
What the fuck is wrong with cursing?
@Dutchess_III You could PM @fireside and tell him you miss him. Since he’s my hubby, I’ll tell him to log back on. He’s just been busy with life, which is a good thing.
We’re not interested in censoring speech; we are all about facilitating it. So cuss words aren’t important to our mission, but proper writing is. While we do allow people as young as 13 to sign up, it’s a self-selecting environment. Only a very mature 13 year old is likely to stick around. And let’s be honest…were any of us not already familiar with curse words by the time we were 13?
That said, there is a reason we ask people to keep the raunchy stuff confined to NSFW threads <cough, @ucme, cough>.
The founders made the rules in the beginning, but they originally didn’t have moderators to enforce the rules. When the site did get moderators, the enforcement was initially sort of lax. As the site grew, enforcement became more important and we got stricter about it.
@YARNLADY As @uberbatman mentioned, swearing has always been allowed.
I for one like the rules here. I can talk about licking rectums and swear, as long as I’m not flaming someone or just swearing for the sake of swearing or saying stupid shit for the sake of saying stupid shit.
And even a lot of the guidelines are often forgiven. For example, when trying to be funny, I often say stuff like j00 or i no rite and, to my knowledge, that stuff has never been modded. But that’s probably because I make it quite clear that I’m fooling around. You won’t see a serious answer of mine riddled with text speak and other stupid ass net abbreviations.
@Blueroses said it best as far as I understand the rules; people don’t need to undergo some university project in order to understand what you’re saying. I certainly appreciate the mass amount of freedom we’re granted with what we can say, and how we can say it.
rock on fooz!
Also, I don’t lick rectums.
Last time someone asked me to cough was at a medical…their hand was very cold.
Why have lurve if we lose people and it doesn’t gain you anything? Just trying to figure out some oddities.
Ya’ll about to give Auggie some baaaad ideas!
@KNOWITALL I’m not sure what the correlation is with having lurve and losing people, care to elaborate?
Lurve is like a pat on the back. Just meant to be a little acknowledgement and encouragement in a world that often offers too little.
As opposed to no lurve, which if it’s alone in this status in a thread bursting with lurve is much like being smacked in the face with a wet fish…i’d imagine :-(
I think a good thing to do is hang about Yahoo answers for a while. That gives a good idea of what could happen if some of the guidelines were relaxed.
@Uberbatman Lurve and manipulating it gets you extricated but if it’s love kinda seems odd. Figuring it out.
I think @LornaLove has an illuminating bead on the matter.
The rules are here to give the site a particular character, and distinguish it from the free-for-all that many other sites become.
The established boundaries are pretty simple, I like ‘em and the results, and there are always the several trash-heaps of discourse out there as alternatives if you want that.
But I haven’t seen anything else quite like Fluther.
@KNOWITALL : I guess that just like in real life, on Fluther you can’t buy love… Or you can do so for only so long, before people realize you are deceiving them…
@KNOWITALL Think of it this way: If one cheats to earn (or keep) love, they’d probably get the boot from their SO, too.
j00 can’t baaaah mah lurvaaae!!
Aren’t we overanalyzing this?
“Can’t buy me lurve! .... I give you diamond rings my friend if it makes you feel alright!”
What’s the psychological meaning behind my post, now @bob_?
@Dutchess_III I don’t know, but will you be a doll and make me some onion rings?
No, but you can have a bite of one of my jalapeno poppers.
I think you have an oral fixation.
YOU’RE the one who mentioned onion rings, not me.
Yeah, onion rings, not jalapeño poppers.
Just asking no offense, I do think this site is unique for sure.
@KNOWITALL We still love you. For your penance make @bob_ an onion ring sandwich.
@KNOWITALL kicks ass. That’s all. plus a sandwich for bobby boo
I always question authority, I can’t help myself, I hate rules…lol
No offense taken (on my part anyway.) Question authority! :)
[Comment deleted. Questioning Authority]
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