[anti-abuse-wg] Language on List

On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 09:34:50AM -0500, Jeffrey Race wrote:
>On Tue, 31 Jan 2017 11:08:44 +0200, ox wrote:
>>then again, I may be very wrong - so help me out :)
>
>The universal rule of ladies and gentlemen is to avoid giving
>offense.  So one does not discuss or use references
>(unless in a professional context e.g. doctor) to excretion or
>sexual behavior.   One avoids any negative references to
>other persons and to political or religious beliefs.

One might if one were a particularly sanctimonious protocol
droid. 
Also, another rule is to avoid *taking* offence at the slightest
provocation.
As long as those above-mentioned references are not to any
participant's digestive or sexual behaviour, swear away.

>Those are good practices for this list.   So excluding crap
>and merde which are offensive words.

What century is this?

>doesn't occur in most of the world and it never occurred
>when I was growing up in 1950s America; then

This is not the 1950 and certainly not America. (The United
States of, I doubt Latin America has such a hang up about
swearing...)

>unknown in much of the world.  It's repugnant to refined
>sensibilities.   Behaving this way doesn't betoken one's
>"modernity" -- it betoken's one's personal coarseness.

Arguably, if one's sensibilities are so refined, one should take
care to avoid AAWG... This, and by extension, the other RIPE MLs
are lists for operators, not linguists or philosophers (no
offence to any ops who are also philosophers and/or linguists,
one should never assume). 
We do, on the whole, though, call a crap a crap when we see a
crap.

For the avoidance of doubt, personal attacks are, of course, out
of order; no matter *which* characteristic of the attacked they
intend to impugn. 

cheers,
Sascha Luck

>
>Jeffrey Race
>
>