Gandalf_of_the_Shire posted:
I disagree with this entirely. 100% philosophically against this.
My proof? Check the Darktide boards.
We've known that cussing isn't bannable for years now. In fact, they had been more lenient with us because of the sheer pushback we'd given over the years. Do you see us cussing all the time? Go count the threads with cuss words in their titles. One. Two maybe? In ten pages? Now count the actual cuss words among the threads. Not many.
Why? Because people don't just cuss to get a reaction. We did that when we were eight years old, and only because we were told we weren't allowed to cuss. Would you get a shitstorm out of the gates? Yes, of course. You'd have people cussing just to cuss, just to flip the bird to you and the people who didn't allow them to cuss ever.
For a while.
Then it would go away, and turn into what our Darktide boards are today. We're the rowdiest bunch on VN, and we're very tame. Most of us are grown adults now.
You're wrong about keep that under wraps.
Nope, disagree 100% and the history here of the action and reaction proved that right. If I could go back to 2008, I would do it all exactly the same UNLESS IGN dropped the Profanity Rule entirely, which is what I wanted. Re-read what I said above about having to balance this out in order to be able to do what I did.
Dark Tide was a total different scenario. We've "ignored" DT forever except for some clean up campaigns which I have said were stupid. When AA was on that board, all I told him to do was delete profanity and porn and that is all he did. The other guy who worked there last year (Asheron?) had the same directive actually. I could dig up the PM but it would take too long. IGN had written off the Darktide Boards actually, but they didn't want the rest of VN filled with profanity.
You say you guys "swear a bit", which is the problem. DT is a hidden away community with about 5% of the remaining posters on it. "Swearing a bit" on Darktide does not scale well to "swearing a bit" on the rest of the boards. It becomes "swearing a lot".
Being transparent about it on ACF, Outpost and the rest of the boards in general would have resulted in a lot of profanity use and then IGN would have told me "nope" and then the rule would have come back down.
IF I had been transparent about it, and I was wrong, it could of been a big disaster. The way I did it, nobody got hurt, but yes, it DID leave people wondering WTF but that was something I was willing to accept.
Lets put it this way, I don't regret my decision. It worked perfectly fine and the end result of allowing you guys to swear without being banned AND keeping the boards clean was met.
If I had to do it again with TODAY'S board situation, I would tell you all straight out because you are all used to it and I think would respect it. Back in 2008? No way.
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I survived to the end and got nothing out of it, but hey.
