Question About Code of Conduct.

[Grey]

First off, I want to say that I am NOT angry about this incident, and do not bear any ill will to anyone in the thread. I'm just kind of left scratching my head, wondering what people are thinking.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=280231

This is the thread in question, where I referred to Firefox as being unreliable, and used a couple of colourful similes to emphasize that it was behaving in a fairly undignified manner. In short, I think that it's about as reliable as a Sony Laptop Battery manufactured by an Islamic extremist for a Jewish politician. Obviously, I am also quite unapologetic for the whole thing. ;)

Anyways, I was rather surprised that no less than 3 people told me that my language was unacceptable. And I'm just wondering what I said that was wrong.

http://www.ubuntu.com/community/conduct

That's a link to the Ubuntu code of conduct. In essence, it's Ubuntu. Treat others well, and don't be an ***. They are really good guidelines IMO. They basically state that you should not be waging personal attacks on people, and try to be constructive.

Now, as I mentioned, my post was directed at the problem of Firefox crashing. Often. It irritates me to no end. You might say that my patience has run out. My post was short and simple. It stated that it was a known problem for me in Edgy, and the single biggest annoyance. I suppose I should have included more information, but it's a nightmare to troubleshoot, given that you don't even need to be doing anything to crash firefox, other than to leave it open for a random amount of time. At no point did I wage a personal attack on anyone, and I wasn't posting flamebait. I was just stating my biggest issue with Edgy.

Now the responses I got were interesting. I got a mod telling me to use nicer words, and I got a couple of responses with varying degrees of hostility.

So I'm just wondering. If such language is unacceptable, then why isn't it listed in the Code of Conduct? And I posted in the thread that I've seen harsher language in the newspaper. I should mention that I am Canadian. I am an atheist. I do not live in a Fundamentalist Country.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1124045138762_25/?hub=Canada

http://www.chiprowe.com/articles/swear.html

Furthermore, I did not swear, as I know that these are dominantly American boards, and Americans often take swearing as a personal attack for some reason. So I did in fact tone my language down to a level that's fit for American TV.

http://www.rcfp.org/news/2004/0322fileno.html

Anyways, can someone explain this to me? Why I can't mention prostitutes or drunken airline pilots on acid? And specifically what about them makes them so objectionable?

[matthew]

The content of your statements immediately puts people on the defensive. Whether intended or not phrases like "drunken airline pilots on acid" come off as insulting. Even if it makes people laugh, saying Firefox "goes down faster a crack-addicted Vietnamese prostitute" is rude (what does being Vietnamese have to do with it?).

Did you break the code of conduct? Probably not in terms of the letter of the code. However, your choice of phrasing doens't come across as whimsical and amusing but rather harsh and maybe even a tad bitter. I'm guessing that's where the warnings came from.

[maniacmusician]

what he said^. also, it takes a sense of self-awareness to be able to laugh at something like that. It's humorous and witty, but not something easily appreciated.

[Grey]

The content of your statements immediately puts people on the defensive. Whether intended or not phrases like "drunken airline pilots on acid" come off as insulting. Even if it makes people laugh, saying Firefox "goes down faster a crack-addicted Vietnamese prostitute" is rude (what does being Vietnamese have to do with it?).

Did you break the code of conduct? Probably not in terms of the letter of the code. However, your choice of phrasing doens't come across as whimsical and amusing but rather harsh and maybe even a tad bitter. I'm guessing that's where the warnings came from.

Vietnamese hookers are the best. :) When they go down, they REALLY go down. Being crack addicted would make the hooker inclined to go down a whole lot.

As for it being insulting, I really don't get it. I would have to say that anyone insulted by such things should really move out of their parent's house. :P (Okay, that one was a bit insulting).

[KiwiNZ]

Enough.
This thread ends here.I am moving it to the resolution centre

[KiwiNZ]

Grey your coments are not appropriate and in breach of the forums rules and the spirit of the Code of conduct