Hi Guest, I don't want to pick a fight, but don't really understand. I don't see a direct line between the workplace and net forums, which you seem to imply--I more or less have to deal with the atmosphere at work but can come and go here, if something offends me here I can speak out--no-one is my boss, and if I'm bored or disgusted I can leave it. On the other hand, e-conversation lends itself to giving unintended offense. Why pick on jokes? Seems rather odd, since I encounter as much ugliness in plainspeak as in jokes, more, really. (I almost only tell 'group' jokes in the presence of members of that group, and usually have better ones about a group I'm filed in.) It all depends. I think these sorts of rules are maybe a well-intended substitute for something much better--learning how to communicate and relate to people nicely. It's too complicated for any set of rules, but in some situations, workplaces maybe, rules are the best we can do. Voluntary discussion forums seem to me a good place to try to do better than that, even if there's a price, which there probably has to be.

As for sex, smut, I personally don't mind it, except that it's usually predictable and boring, never any original observations, people don't really talk about sex--just a sub-language of cartoony, second-hand abstractions. Sure, it tends to define women in a grotesque caricature of their gender, sexuality, and identity, and I'd like to learn to understand more about these things, since I don't have the authority to make it either A. go away, or B. more genuinely interesting and funny. (I think it also makes men seem like cartoons, but then it's more a defensive lampoon, maybe, than offensive.) It's not enough for me when people say, for example, this or that sexual stuff "objectifies" women--seems more animal than object, really. More cartoony than either. It's hard, but helps to get one's objections right.

Again, I don't think rules are very helpful to open discussions. Making good points to people willing to listen, or who can be influenced by your p.o.v. is probably better. And there are plenty of other things that can be quite offensive, besides the obvious ones phd's are currently writing rules about. I can think of some that bother me, totally offend me, but there's no general recognition of any need for sensitivity about, most people don't get it. How do you counteract something offensive , without appointing yourself arbiter or invoking some authority? I don't know, but that'd be good to learn.