Board Thread:Wiki General Discussion/@comment-5428123-20130724094003/@comment-5428123-20130725083426

Thanks for the comments everyone. While swearing isn't a huge issue at the wiki, it does come up in user comments from time to time, so setting guidelines on it now would be a good thing before it becomes a problem.

I'm personally of the opinion that what matters more than curse words is the context in which they're found in. Playing a video game and uttering a few curse words in frustration is different than spouting profanity directly at another person in a threatening manner. That being said though, I'm perfectly aware of the fact that those of a younger crowd do come here.

I think the best thing would be to set a balanced policy on how the wiki deals with swearing. The Wiki's User Conduct page already states clearly that excessive swearing and abusive language is not allowed, which is a given.

But I'm still wondering whether some swearing should be allowed. After all, many people use swears as a natural part of their speech, and mean no harm by it. Perhaps more offensive terms should be filtered, with less harmful terms left alone. Or perhaps swearing should be left out of certain areas of the site, and restricted to certain places. Any more thoughts on this?