Comments on: Comments Policy

By: Feed me, Seymour! | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine

Feed me, Seymour! | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:01:53 +0000

[...] while I’m at it, please read my commenting policy, mmkay? I have noticed an uptick in people violating my one simple [...]

By: sooran

sooran — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:57:34 +0000

thancks
this post very very helped me !

Good Time

By: sooran

sooran — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:34:01 +0000

tancks
this post very very helped me !

Good Time

By: Hugo

Hugo — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 13:24:35 +0000

I got censored once. I used a word beginning with bull. In the mean time I have discovered the alternative word, thanks to Carl Sagan: baloney.

My suggestion: something near this leave-a-reply form that has info on this? A link to this post, maybe, if more info than just a link is impractical?

An idea… might help.

By: Will. M

Will. M — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 18:48:02 +0000

Phil’s old job site, Sonoma State U. in CA, once had a professor who wrote a series of books on profanity called Maledicta. These contained swear words, nasty graffitti, blue poetry and the like from sources all around the world. These were interesting in that virtually every country has such an underground vocabulary which deals with essentially the same topics, often in a very humorous way (see the sections on dirty limericks, e.g.). Profanity has its place in the histories of people all over the planet, it seems. Whether it should be part of this blog’s history is the blogmaster’s choice.

By: Mark Martin

Mark Martin — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 13:11:47 +0000

“This statement of yours is patently wrong. People are harmed all the time by what is being said about them on the Internet boards. It may be completely irrational, but it doesnâ€™t make it any less true.”

Yep, and my point still stands as true. Anyone who feels hurt by mere words on open forums (places, by the way, which by definition are not exclusively for polite discourse) is inflicting self-hurt. If Party-A is insulted by Party-B’s words, then so what? Party-A could be so disproportionately sensitive as to be beyond placability. Not all potential sensibilities can be simultaneously pandered to. Some can’t be at all, ever. If we’re to pander to everyone, then we’re saddled with what can be an authentic impossibility.

By: Elwood Herring

Elwood Herring — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 06:56:53 +0000

I think this is a good time to point out that there is a big difference between the use of “colourful language” and simply being abusive through use of such language, i.e. the difference between “That’s a f#@%ing amazing photo” and “you’re a f#@%ing idiot”.

I think Phil is basically objecting to the latter more than the former, although neither is really necessary on a blog such as this. Being abusive on someone else’s blog is offensive, childish and unnecessary. If you disagree with the subject matter then by all means say so, but do it eloquently and to the point, without getting personal.

Personally I’m all for keeping it nice and clean around here, so parents can have no qualms about their children learning some real facts about the universe as safely as if they were reading a book. I’ve got nothing against the use of “colourful language” in general, but it’s not really appropriate here.