Is it that important for folk to be able to swear on the forum?
As on MyBB, I swear as I would normally. The only difference is that on MyBB it has an active profanity filter which masks "curse words."
As for "importance" ... I just can't abide by censorship. Draw the line at hate-speech, personal attacks and harassment. But swearwords?
As Graal says, swearwords just vehicles used to convey expression whether that expression is humour, anger or simply an "um"... I don't fathom the need to get upset or offended by it.
It's like choosing to be upset because someone phrased a sentence with a word you don't like. Like "moist." At which point do we begin covering our ankles in the name of modesty?
As this is the internet, at the end of the day it boils down to what kind of community you want to be a part of and, honestly, one that thrives on censorship and catering to the ridiculous sensibilities of religious, conservative or the easily offended is not a community I want to be a part of.
I like jokes, whether they take the mickey out of race, sexuality, gender, hair colour or some other preposterous stereotype. And yet those are each subjects any number of people take offence at. Why should overt sensibilities dictate what the rest of us find funny? Or how the rest of us choose to express ourselves?
How does a joke harm someone unless they choose to allow it to offend them? How does a swearword offend someone unless they allow it to offend them?
We don't live in some sanitised puritan age where we're all expected to dress in beige, black and white any longer. We have to tolerate each other, we have to accept each other's differences. And that is the point at which stigma against off-colour jokes, race, gender, religion and the different ways in which we express ourselves (choice of words, manner in which we dress, religious caricatures, etc) are meant to fall away and we're supposed to realise that "offence" is something that we place onto things we simply don't like and is NOT, necessarily, something that is harmful, dangerous or otherwise worth getting upset about.
So if you ask me whether or not I feel it's important that folks are allowed to swear on a forum? If that forum is open to the public and caters to a demographic that is generally open-minded, uses swearwords fairly liberally and expects that demographic to be themselves then... yes, I feel it's important.
Oh well, at least there'll always be NeoGAF.
