Mail Bag
Mail Bag
| Thursday, October 30, 1997 |
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 20:41:53 -0500
From: loonyboi
Subject: What the hey...Here's one for the mailbag. :)
The recent events regarding Questgate's finger service have brought up the issue of profanity in the Quake community again, and I do think this is an issue that deserves addressing.
I have always done my best to keep any pages (related to games of course) that I work on to be free of profanity. This isn't because of censorship, it is simply because I acknowlage the fact that there are people out there who would prefer their children not to be subjected to that. It sounds silly, but it is an issue.
Paul Steed and others have stated that they felt this was an issue of censorship, and to a certain extent they are correct in that statement. I think it was a poor decision on the part of the folks at Questgate to censor the .plan files without contacting the boys at the offending companies (so to speak). A more tasteful move would have been to offer a PG and a PG-13 version of the site. I hope they consider this when they relaunch.
But again, there are people who would like these sites to be profanity-free. Now I will be the first to admit that I have a terribly dirty mouth (just listen to the QuakeCast for proof of that) but I understand that there are places where such language is not appropriate. Web pages which are commonly frequented by children is one such place in my opinion. And lest there be doubt, Quake pages (and particularly my Trespasser page, which has ties to young, Jurassic Park fans) are visited by a large number of children. The message board on my page has a request that people not make posts with excessive profanity out of respect, and as a result I have never had to censor anyone (nor would I).
My opinion of course is not law. I would never institute a policy on any page that wasn't my own, nor would I censor anyone else's work. Personally when it comes to writing, I feel that using profanity means that I cannot come up with a more...intelligent way to express my opinions. In conversation I don't have the option of debating each particular word, hence my special...color of sorts. Of course, the free-flowing nature of .plan files would go along with conversation. I seriously doubt that anyone really edits their own .plan files before posting them.
My basic point is this: I'm not asking anyone to change their writing on my (or anyone's) behalf, but perhaps some thought should be given to this issue.
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 11:03:49 -0600
From: Observer
Subject: staying out of the fire?Hey,
I noticed that you have not commented at all about the whole article thing from Andrew. just "here is a reaction to this" "there is a reaction to that" etc. etc. I didn't even see any comments from you in the Mailbag. Anyway, whats your opinion of the whole thing? Personally, I think Andrew was just having a rotten day when he wrote the article. ID has done ALOT for the quake community that other game developers probably haven't even considered before... i.e. releasing the QC source oh so long ago. oh well...