Profanity in Thread Titles

I've been thinking a lot about this lately.  I don't know why, but it sort of bugs me when people use profanity in the titles of their threads.  I think it's one thing to allow a little cussing here and there, but it seems sort of extreme for users to take that freedom and go as far as making posts with the word "FUCK" in capital letters right in the title.  It just seems irresponsible to me...after all, I'm sure these posters could find a much more productive and less offensive way of expressing their opinions.  The way I look at it, every new thread on this forum is potentially the first one a new member will read, so I take that into account when replying to threads or creating my own.  It's just too bad that more people don't follow a similar ethic. 

Whenever I see a thread like I described above, I just sigh in bewilderment and move on.  In short, I think that just because you can do something, doesn't necessarily mean you should.  I'm not going so far as to say that profanity in post titles is going to be disallowed...far from it.  My position is that people should moderate themselves and just not do it, but you all know how that goes. 

What are your thoughts on this? 

Some can be very misleading, for example their was one forum entitle EA Fucks me EA Fucks me Hard

I don't mind it, but like everything, when it's exploited, it gets ruined and a lot of people are just swearing simply to get some attention. Personally, i'd like to see it cut down but if it's just used conversationally or something, then fine.

Yea I agree.  Whenever I see a post like that i sigh with disapprovalal but click on it anyways xd.  It jus makes me come into the topic feeling that the topic is just going to be be some joke topic or someones strongly fanboyish rant.

Discorsi - deleted your own post?  (That's an annoying bug by the way - when a user deletes their own post, it says "Deleted by the mods")

yes i did.  Also there seems to be another bug as I clicked delete by accident and i pressed Cancel.  However it deleted my post anyways >.>.  I'm on a Mac with Firefox 3

I dont see anything wrong when it's a thread like "Fuck yeah im going to an AC/DC concert" because it sounds like the creator is exited about something. But when it's something like Cartman's thread it gets really weird and uninviting

Well your a mod and you dont like, so do something about it and implament some rules.

I don't really care about profanity. It's just not something that bothers me, so seeing it in the thread title or in the ensuing posts, it's all the same to me.

"Some can be very misleading, for example their was one forum entitle EA Fucks me EA Fucks me Hard"

Please don't censor us anymore. Please?

"Please don't censor us anymore. Please?

Because first it's no spam, than it's no swearing in titles, then it's no swearing at all.

I can see where this is heading."

I can't say I've really seen that often, so no problems here.

"Please don't censor us anymore. Please?

Because first it's no spam, than it's no swearing in titles, then it's no swearing at all.

I can see where this is heading.

"

"Please don't censor us anymore. Please?

Because first it's no spam, than it's no swearing in titles, then it's no swearing at all.

I can see where this is heading.

"

"Please don't censor us anymore. Please?

Because first it's no spam, than it's no swearing in titles, then it's no swearing at all.

I can see where this is heading.

"

Yeah, I think we should attempt to show a little class when we are posting on the forums, but it's not too big of a deal for me to whine about it. There really shouldn't be any difference in having a topic with a swear word in the title or posting a reply with a swear word, but I feel like there is. If it is totally necessary to have 'Fuck' in your title, then it should be okay.

When I first opened this I honestly thought it was going to be a rule that you can't.......

"Robocop said:

"Some can be very misleading, for example their was one forum entitle EA Fucks me EA Fucks me Hard"

Robocop speaks the truth.

I mean is that kind of title really necessary?"

People only put swear words into their topic titles for one reason, to attract attention to themselves and their topics. Deny it all you want but when you see a topic with a swear word in it you get the urge to click and view it and see what its all about. I personally have nothing against swearing but i've never seen the point of putting swears in a topic title, it not only makes us all look negative to new users browsing the forums but its not needed really, is it?

Its even more annoying than people who censor their swear words with **** or %%%% etc...

"People only put swear words into their topic titles for one reason, to attract attention to themselves and their topics. Deny it all you want but when you see a topic with a swear word in it you get the urge to click and view it and see what its all about. I personally have nothing against swearing but i've never seen the point of putting swears in a topic title, it not only makes us all look negative to new users browsing the forums but its not needed really, is it?

Its even more annoying than people who censor their swear words with **** or %%%% etc..."

Agreed with this mate, it also looks bad for new members coming in.

"Please don't censor us anymore. Please?

Because first it's no spam, than it's no swearing in titles, then it's no swearing at all.

I can see where this is heading.

"

I welcome profanity everywhere, but it can be ridiculous at times. I don't see it as a big problem, though.

I tend to ignore threads like that, unless I look at the forum it's in; like the EA Fuck one and if it involves a game or concept I am interested in I'll take a peek, if it's a 'EA Fucks Me Hard' in the Madden 09 forum then I couldn't really care less.

I completely agree. I tend not to read a thread with bad language in the title because I know that the actual post will be just as immature and unimaginative as its title.

I agree for the most part. I think there might be proper ways to use profanity in thread tiles (not that I've seen one yet), but everytime I see a thread like Cartman's "EA Fucks Me, FUCKS ME HARD" thread it just annoys me. I can't even be bothered to check out a thread like that even if it possibly contained the greatest discussion ever found on an internet board.

My thread keeps being brough up so my question is:
Are you guys that discusted or offended with "EA Fucks Me....Fucks Me HARD"?
I dont see absolutely anything wrong with it.

Robocop said:

"Some can be very misleading, for example their was one forum entitle EA Fucks me EA Fucks me Hard"

I don't mind profanity so much as bad English. There are too many people here who can't take the time to capitalize their sentences, use proper punctuation, proper grammar, good sentence structure, spell correctly, and maybe even throw in an advanced vocabulary word or two.

I don't really see the difference between swearing in the thread title and swearing in the post itsself. As long as the user doesnt go overboard, I don't see it as a problem anywhere

i dont mind it.

I don't think there's anything wrong with it, as long as it's not "oh fuck this shit! this goddamn game sucks!". To bar swearing from thread titles would be an almost complete contradiction of the GiantBomb freedom creed, to me. Of course, I might be a little biased having an old thread called "fuck spiders"; but I didn't think there was anything wrong with that one o.0

I agree, although I thin k we should be free to say what we want to say on this site some people don't seem to quite know when their language crosses the border from casual to excessive. Perhaps some time in the future though the guys running the site will introduce a togglable sweat filter, not that I'm saying it should really be their responsibility.

I agree that the use of swear words could be much better substituted for other words, and people could better express themselves without resorting to profanity, but the fact of the matter is that people who use profanity like that generally communicate that way all the time. It's practically become ingrained whenever they speak, so asking someone to stop saying profanity is more difficult than it sounds.

Now the issue comes about, yes, there may be newcomers that come here and get a bad impression of the forums if they see profanity in a thread title. If they are going to be bothered by that though, wouldn't they also be bothered by posts with swear words anyway? I do think that more than one swear word in a title is excessive, though. I don't think swear words should be censored but it would be nice to see it a bit toned down in thread titles.

Profanity should be kept to a minimum. Especially on thread titles.

Well it does help me filter out stuff. If I see an all caps "... FUCK ..." and it's one of those users, I just don't click on it and move on. I've learned they're almost always a let down.

Like the hamburger topics, "rate the user" topics, and "this or that" topics, they're not really that bad if used in moderation, it's okay there's a title here and there with swear words. But I don't want the forums to be a place where every subject line is a caps swear fest or full of those "clever" innuendos, you know, "Boy that Madden game is HARD, how LONG will you be playing it?" The last time I laughed at something like that, my age wasn't in the teens yet. If overused, just about any word loses its meaning.

Also, have a reason to do so, I could see myself maybe doing it if Red Earth finally came to consoles, not announcing when the third Halo 4 expansion pack is out.

I post in plenty of forums that allow cursing, just not in thread titles, it helps make the forum more work safe.  It's a small favor to ask of the community.

its not a huge problem and there just words

"its not a huge problem and there just words"

I agree. The FUCK Crapcom thread always really bothered me. And it always seemed to appear near the top. Like you said, a new user could get the wrong impression about it. 

What about putting up a profanity filter that we can turn on and off, it worked for the Off-Topic forums?

"I dont see anything wrong when it's a thread like "Fuck yeah im going to an AC/DC concert" because it sounds like the creator is exited about something. But when it's something like Cartman's thread it gets really weird and uninviting"

Dont give me this "new users will be offended" BS
Because whats the difference than swearing in the title than in the text?

My thread keeps being brought up so my question is:
Are you guys that discusted or offended with "EA Fucks Me....Fucks Me HARD"?
I dont see anything wrong with it, but if it is, tell me ;)

"Dont give me this "new users will be offended" BS
Because whats the difference than swearing in the title than in the text?

My thread keeps being brought up so my question is:
Are you guys that discusted or offended with "EA Fucks Me....Fucks Me HARD"?
I dont see anything wrong with it, but if it is, tell me ;)

"

"I don't mind profanity so much as bad English. There are too many people here who can't take the time to capitalize their sentences, use proper punctuation, proper grammar, good sentence structure, spell correctly, and maybe even throw in an advanced vocabulary word or two."