On 3/17/2014 12:03 AM, Walter Bright wrote:
> I'd hoped I'd never have to post this. There have been some locker room
> jokes that continued even after I asked it be stopped.
>

FWIW, either I completely missed the posts with the locker room jokes, or else the problem was that none of the authors of whatever posts are in question suspected their posts would be viewed as locker room jokes.

On Monday, 17 March 2014 at 10:47:07 UTC, Andrej Mitrovic wrote:
> On 3/17/14, Namespace <rswhite4@googlemail.com> wrote:
>> I think he means the "dlang.sexy" thread.
>
> I guess at a certain age people lose their sense of humor.

I don't think so. And I do agree to Walter.

On Monday, 17 March 2014 at 22:12:14 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> American broadcast standards have nothing to do with american culture, they're famously disconnected. That's the problem with them and (I assume) what Ola was pointing out: Try not to offend anyone (as the FCC implicitly forces broadcasters to

Sort of. The only shared knowledge foreigners have of US norms is what the see on TV. Unfortunately it affects culture too. Even here in Norway I see regressions related to the (naked) human body among some young people, which probably is caused by more TV series being american (cheaper production).

I personally take offence that someone would tell a woman that breastfeeding in public or at work would be unacceptable. It is completely natural and should be allowed anywhere. Babie's needs first. Yet, you'll find someone object to it, not because they personally find it offensive ( who would? ), but because of some odd unhealthy norm. The only way to move that norm is to actually breastfeed in public.

Who is the jerk? The woman breast feeding at work during lunch, or the person telling her that it is unprofessional and direct her to do it behind closed doors?

What is more politically correct?

> do), and you're automatically adopting the sub-culture of the craziest, biggest knee-jerkers in existence, no matter how uncommon and non-representative their "get offended any anything and everything" actually is.

I think it is OK to say that you are PERSONALLY offended. What is not OK is to censor others because some unknown entity might be offended. Deleting or closing the .sexy thread for being off-topic is quite ok though.

> Personally I'm offended by knee-jerk ethics (I'm not being coy about that, I really do find it highly offensive), which throws the whole idea of not offending anyone right out the window.

:-)

I was once told not to bring up politics (George Bush) in casual game chat by a US player, because it might be taken as offensive by someone. I found that shocking.

I was once told in game chat by a US player that I could not use the term "shit" because it was such an offensive word. I was surprised. In scandinavia the word is so mild it basically means "ouch", it can even have positive connotations "skitbra" == "shit good" (really good).

On 17 March 2014 21:01, Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail@erdani.org> wrote:
> On 3/17/14, 11:49 AM, John Colvin wrote:
>>
>> On Monday, 17 March 2014 at 18:18:34 UTC, Dicebot wrote:
>>>
>>> On Monday, 17 March 2014 at 18:09:29 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 3/17/2014 3:45 AM, sclytrack wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>    Seems like Walter wants it seriously
>>>>>    professional. No joking around about D.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Jokes are fine. I post plenty myself. Jokes are fine in a professional work environment. Inappropriate jokes are not. This shouldn't be a mystery.
>>>
>>>
>>> Appropriateness of a joke is purely defined by a culture and is completely subjective. It is perfectly fine to define your own rules on your forum. Trying to appeal to some common morale as a basis for that is not.
>>
>>
>> +1
>>
>> As I mentioned in my post below, almost anything is offensive to someone, somewhere.
>
>
> Heh, case in point - there was a gentleman going by "Ramon" at a point in this forum who flew off the handle taking offense at something I said (no idea what exactly that was).
>
>
>> You won't find a unified view of "Inappropriate" even among a very homogenous group of people, let alone an ad hoc group of collaborators and users spanning the entire globe, an age range of 60+ years and a wide variety of religious/cultural/political views and environments.
>
>
> One can argue that it's all relative but that's rather ineffective. The reality is I do work at Facebook with people from all over the globe and though cultural adaptation is on rare occasions an issue, it's never been considered inapproachable or even difficult.
>
> That said, I don't think it's time to establish community guidelines etc. although at some point larger participation might create a need.
>
>

+1

I haven't read any other comments in that thread apart from the response from Andrei, so I can't comment for any responses after, or the appropriateness of them.  But just incase you missed the original point entirely.  I was suggesting a marketing strategy for Andrei in the form of sarcasm.  For those who don't understand sarcasm, it's a traditionally British art-form, much like Blasphemy being a traditionally Italian - particularly around the region of Tuscany.

This suggestion was not spontaneous, inspired in fact by the impression he gives off when he goes on about publicising D.

A recent example, set a few days *after* dlang.sexy. I made him aware that GDC has started (fingers cross) doing regular binary build releases for Linux native and ARM cross compilers.

The Response was:  "We need a README, a Blog Post, a Public Announcement, and Glamorous TV Adverts!"

OK - I made that last bit up.  But given my ineptitude towards social media, I see all forms of social media advertisement as tedious forms of alluring appeal.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my suggestion Andrei. :)

On Mon, 17 Mar 2014 14:26:08 -0400, Walter Bright <newshound2@digitalmars.com> wrote:

> On 3/17/2014 10:03 AM, Graham Fawcett wrote:
>> I agree that this community doesn't seem unhealthy; and also that, in general,
>> sex jokes aren't necessarily a sign of sexism. But I also think it's smart to
>> establish a wide margin on community practice. Correcting small, potentially
>> harmful behaviours sets a boundary, and avoids having to deal with larger,
>> certainly-harmful behaviours later on.
>>
>> There are plenty of appropriate forums for sex jokes on the Internet, we can
>> surely live without them here.
>
> My sentiments exactly. Thanks for posting this.
>
> We (I'm presuming "we" :-) ) want D to succeed with professionals, and coming with that are the same standards of discourse one would expect in a professional work environment.
>
> And this community has been very professional by default, and I've been extremely pleased and proud at the high quality of the discussions here.

If this guy comes back, you may want to have a talk with him, then. He might have got the wrong impression from you.

http://forum.dlang.org/post/gnc2ml$14ch$1@digitalmars.com

-Steve

On 3/18/2014 2:59 AM, "Ola Fosheim Grøstad" <ola.fosheim.grostad+dlang@gmail.com>" wrote:
>
> I was once told not to bring up politics (George Bush) in casual game
> chat by a US player, because it might be taken as offensive by someone.
> I found that shocking.
>

I think the issue there probably isn't so much "offense", but the fact that american discussion of politics is notoriously volatile, and in a mixed-group is pretty much guaranteed to erupt in a flame war.

> I was once told in game chat by a US player that I could not use the
> term "shit" because it was such an offensive word. I was surprised. In
> scandinavia the word is so mild it basically means "ouch", it can even
> have positive connotations "skitbra" == "shit good" (really good).
>

That mildness of "shit" is true of probably around half of americans, too. Especially among the "Gen X" generation and younger (and of course there's varying regional tendencies, too). For a LOT of us it's just seen as a more normal and less Disney-ish way to say "ouch", "oops" or "stuff". But then, the US was also home to Puritanism way back when, so there's still a lot of those intolerance-disguised-as-ethics attitudes too.

Considering "shit" to be offensive enough to be banned is fairly uncommon in the US, except for grade school/high school employees and certain specific regional pockets known for being extremely conservative.

An example of the US's extreme duality with ethics:

When the Super Bowl had that Janet Jackson "incident", it's true that a sizable chunk of the country went into a crazed puritanical "the sky is falling" frenzy. But there were also just as many americans who were pretty much with the rest of the world: "Uhh, what's the big deal?" Personally, I think it's positively bonkers to worry about kids being scarred by seeing something they themselves used to suck on, but whatever.

On 3/18/2014 9:05 AM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> On 3/18/2014 2:59 AM, "Ola Fosheim Grøstad"
> <ola.fosheim.grostad+dlang@gmail.com>" wrote:
>>
>> I was once told in game chat by a US player that I could not use the
>> term "shit" because it was such an offensive word. I was surprised. In
>> scandinavia the word is so mild it basically means "ouch", it can even
>> have positive connotations "skitbra" == "shit good" (really good).
>>
>
> That mildness of "shit" is true of probably around half of americans,
> too. Especially among the "Gen X" generation and younger (and of course
> there's varying regional tendencies, too). For a LOT of us it's just
> seen as a more normal and less Disney-ish way to say "ouch", "oops" or
> "stuff". But then, the US was also home to Puritanism way back when, so
> there's still a lot of those intolerance-disguised-as-ethics attitudes too.
>

Oh, yea, and "shit" can have positive connotations here in the US, too, particularly in informal speech: "Oh, MAN that burger was some good shit!"

It's very much a wildcard word, really. Like "smurf" ;)

On 3/18/2014 7:53 AM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>
> If this guy comes back, you may want to have a talk with him, then. He
> might have got the wrong impression from you.
>
> http://forum.dlang.org/post/gnc2ml$14ch$1@digitalmars.com
>

Heh, oh man. I don't know about anyone else, but it was the leet-speak more than anything else that got under my skin :) Sometimes he'd have something real to say, but you'd have to decode it first.

On Tuesday, 18 March 2014 at 13:05:31 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> I think the issue there probably isn't so much "offense", but the fact that american discussion of politics is notoriously volatile, and in a mixed-group is pretty much guaranteed to erupt in a flame war.

Well, it was right after his re-election and the person who told me not to talk about it agreed with my sentiments, and nobody complained about it either. This was on closed guild chat. It was a case of "somebody might be upset" where nobody actually was upset.

> That mildness of "shit" is true of probably around half of americans, too.

Yes, again nobody was upset, it was a case of "somebody might get upset".  I actually don't consider "shit" to be cussing at all. :-)

I keep reading comments from people on the net claiming that Linus Thorvalds is acting like a jerk, but I've never seen a comment from anyone from northern Europe suggesting it.

> Disney-ish way to say "ouch", "oops" or "stuff". But then, the US was also home to Puritanism way back when, so there's still a lot of those intolerance-disguised-as-ethics attitudes too.

Yes, but it goes deeper I think. Because we are getting more of it in my country after we got  immigrants (a fairly recent phenomon). E.g. the neutral term for a black person in Africa was "neger" (no negative connotations, but a bit exotic and interesting), while the insulting version was "svarting" (blackish). Then the immigrants took offence at the neutral term because they associated it with "nigger" and didn't want to be associated with tribal Africa, so now the neutral version is taboo and many children books have to be scrapped (books that are describing tribal Africa in terms that aren't racist).

So, with more "sensitive issues" beneath the surface you get more of the superficial politeness. In the US that has been going on since the early days when various religious groups fled from Europe. BUT, some people in the US that has not really been much outside the US thinks that this level of surface-level politeness is meant to be universal and global.

However, I am upset about the widespread US term "caucasian", not because it is a bad word, but because of the Aryan connotations that has some seriously bad vibes to it after 2WW and the nazi worship of "scandinavian genes".

The term "caucasian" is incredibly bad taste, and I find it offensive. I cringe when I cross off "caucasian" on US papers. It is if I am forced to declare myself Aryan.

> the world: "Uhh, what's the big deal?" Personally, I think it's positively bonkers to worry about kids being scarred by seeing something they themselves used to suck on, but whatever.

Actually kids are more scarred by being told that such things are taboo. Being relaxed about the human body of others is a good path to feeling good about your own body.

What is worse: higher rape rate is tied to cultures that make sex and nudity taboo than cultures that are more relaxed... (rape becomes a more potent source of power and control if sex and nudity is a big deal).

(Again, just about all american I've met has expressed that they have no problems with nudity themselves, and I believe them. But I've been told that I cannot go swimming in my boxer shorts that look like swimming trunks because they are underwear and I could get into trouble over that… i.e. someone MIGHT be offended. Which is kinds of odd, cause in my own country I can go swimming naked and basically nobody would be offended, if spotted they might be amused, but not offended.)

Ola.

On 3/17/14, 16:50, "Ola Fosheim Grøstad" <ola.fosheim.grostad+dlang@gmail.com>" wrote:
> On Monday, 17 March 2014 at 21:14:34 UTC, Dicebot wrote:
>> You come to country, you accept its culture. It is expected attitude.
>
> I don't see your point. That only work on a very superficial level.
>
> You cannot expect a chinese girl to appreciate being kissed on the
> street by her boyfriend, even if she moves to Europe.
>
>
>
>


No, but you can expect her not to freak out if other people are doing it.