Board Thread:Community Announcements and Events/@comment-4799587-20140909072622/@comment-24590102-20140909150435

The only people scandalised by the use of "sensitive terms" or "offensive language" are either the brand of racist who seek to have all words of Germanic origin barred from use in the English Language (after all, offensive language words are only the Germanic ones while their non-Germanic synonyms are always non-offensive) and then there are those despicably dishonest people who would even corrupt standards of communication to facilitate their censorship of all who they disagree with - and so "sensitive terms" are born. People who want to censor what they disagree with *are* acting like Nazis because, in point of fact, that is exactly how the Nazis behaved and it is dishonest to even insinuate that they didn't. And "raping the last boss on legendary difficulty"? Surely everyone here knows there's a mod that allows your avatar to do that (if that's what floats your boat in Skyrim)? To say "that is so gay" is just a whole other can of worms. Gay means light-hearted and carefree or brightly coloured. It is only in colloquial usage that it varies from this. Why? Because there's a bunch of people out there wanting to make the tail wag the dog by corrupting our language with their politics. It's not like it's the first time that's happened. Just look at all the synonyms for "malefactor" which once referred to various categories of unlanded or "vulgar" people (i.e. "commoners") such as villains, rogues and miscreants.

If anything, the issue is when someone attacks the person or character of someone who has said something they disagree with. This is always intended to change the subject and censor the discussion of the inconvenient fact or idea. It's a clever psychological trick employed by folks working for politicians and is the kind of trolling which is most destructive because it alienates and marginalises people for daring to have their own opinion and, may I point out, that this kind of subtle class-vilification is nearly always politically sponsored. If you want to clean house, you need to identify the politically-motivated fraudsters by their use of sophistry (i.e. logical fallacies) instead of persecuting folk for using the dialect and expression of the people they hold near and dear - irrespective of what you're personal prejudices about such people may be. And, with respect to judgements and appeals, sophistry is factually identifiable and verifiable based on the meaning of the expression employed in the text whereas "offensive" elements are totally arbitrary and vary from person to person. One set of standards allows clear-cut enforcement with the potential to esclude a large amount of political interference while the other set of standards is guaranteed to set people (and moderators) of different cultures against one-another whenever one culture is vilified through its language by another.

Food for thought. Bon appétit!