Inappropriate tone on this mailing list and requirement for governance

[Lisi Reisz]

On Wednesday 06 May 2009 20:36:58 David Fox wrote:
> On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 12:25 PM, Barry Smith <bnsmith001 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > One point to think about -- if "ass" in in the badword list, should it
> > also match A.s.S. or any substring created after punctuation is
> > removed?  Moderation, and automated scanning, should include the full
>
> A precedent exists that makes this filtering stuff undesirable. There
> was a time when Prodigy was in vogue (anyone remember them) and one
> person in particular got really upset because he couldn't tell people
> on Prodigy that his family member graduated "magna cum laude" from a
> university -- because the posting had the word "cum" in it. Sheesh.

In England we have counties (administrative districts) called Middlesex, Essex 
and Sussex.  (Wessex is now obsolete.)  Woe betide any schoolchild who is 
trying to use the Internet for his or her homework if the subject is the 
geography (or history or sport) of the Saxon area of England. The usual 
solution is to let the child use the (unprotected) parental computer. ;-)  
(The north Saxons called themselves the north folk rather than the north 
Saxons, so Norfolk slips under the net.)

So I am not in favour of using that type of screening software on this list!

Lisi