Garthcune
04-02-2014, 08:03 AM
In response to some concerns that were expressed in another thread, there are a few things I feel the need to point out, regarding the site's censorship system:
The purpose of censorship is to protect viewers from exposure to words that are generally found to be offensive to the primary audience of the forum. The bulk of viewers to the SS forum reside in either the United States or Great Britain. Needless to say, the primary language spoken on this forum is English. Therefore, the scope of censorship for this forum is to ban words in the English language that are generally found to be offensive to viewers of US and British origin. As the content associated with this site is targeted towards young audiences, all discussion and site content is intended and expected to be family-friendly.
According to site usage statistics, less than 1% of all SS forum viewers reside in Germany, and less than half of these individuals actively speak German online. If I wanted to brainstorm lists of offensive words of foreign origin, I would worry about words commonly found to be offensive in countries such as Brazil, the Philippines, and India, before I would be concerned with words that are found to be offensive to German visitors.
I disagree with words such as "meow" or "rawr" being banned, because annoying words are distinctly different from offensive words. I cannot guarantee that you will not be annoyed by user discussions or content on this site, because preventing annoyances is not within the scope of censorship. Although some viewers may find these words annoying due to their frequent usage, this is only an opinion. Other viewers may argue that, in their opinion, such expressions are not annoying at all. For the primary audience of this site, the severity of a negative emotional response is much greater towards generally offensive words than towards words that are deemed annoying by popular opinion.
Claiming that an expression has become annoying due to its frequent use is similar to claiming that it is spam. There are already measures in place to prevent excessive spam. User spam is treated on a case-by-case basis, and preventative and disciplinary actions are taken accordingly.
The purpose of censorship is to protect viewers from exposure to words that are generally found to be offensive to the primary audience of the forum. The bulk of viewers to the SS forum reside in either the United States or Great Britain. Needless to say, the primary language spoken on this forum is English. Therefore, the scope of censorship for this forum is to ban words in the English language that are generally found to be offensive to viewers of US and British origin. As the content associated with this site is targeted towards young audiences, all discussion and site content is intended and expected to be family-friendly.
According to site usage statistics, less than 1% of all SS forum viewers reside in Germany, and less than half of these individuals actively speak German online. If I wanted to brainstorm lists of offensive words of foreign origin, I would worry about words commonly found to be offensive in countries such as Brazil, the Philippines, and India, before I would be concerned with words that are found to be offensive to German visitors.
I disagree with words such as "meow" or "rawr" being banned, because annoying words are distinctly different from offensive words. I cannot guarantee that you will not be annoyed by user discussions or content on this site, because preventing annoyances is not within the scope of censorship. Although some viewers may find these words annoying due to their frequent usage, this is only an opinion. Other viewers may argue that, in their opinion, such expressions are not annoying at all. For the primary audience of this site, the severity of a negative emotional response is much greater towards generally offensive words than towards words that are deemed annoying by popular opinion.
Claiming that an expression has become annoying due to its frequent use is similar to claiming that it is spam. There are already measures in place to prevent excessive spam. User spam is treated on a case-by-case basis, and preventative and disciplinary actions are taken accordingly.