I am aware that it's not clear enough and have pointed that out using essentially your reasoning. Help us make it more clear. Unless you simply don't understand it at all, which seems within the realm of possibility.
I do not know a way to make your position, as I perceive it, more clear, except by saying, "Vulgarity is a purely OOC tool for policing OOC offensive language," except that such cases can be Magistrate cases anyways. And the vulgarity option is NOT available for OOC messages. Because any IC interpretation of vulgarity will boil down to, "Does my character view this as vulgar?"
If this is your belief then I think you've missed the point entirely. This isn't about literal definitions and the use of synonyms. It's about how you express ideas at a very basic level. It's about a rhetorical standard.
I do not understand this comment.
This game is about medieval nobles, and accordingly, people should try to communicate like them (or at least adhere to some relatively strong rhetorical standard), which precludes the use of obvious profanity, for example.
I wager medieval nobles cussed. See, I don't think we should use vulgarity to police things "nobles wouldn't do." That's SMA reports. We should use vulgarity to police things "nobles would look down upon." And if others don't rule with you, then it isn't generally frowned upon. But if they do, then it is. But once we start down this path (well, correction: "once we get to where we already are in actual practice"), it's obvious that the vulgarity feature becomes policing things "my character looks down upon."
For the record, it's entirely in keeping with the standards of medieval nobility to discuss intercourse using clever metaphors. That's exactly how they did it, when they did it, at least when they were trying to maintain any pretense of good breeding in the process. I would never consider a conversation such as you have roughly described as being vulgar unless you got a little too blunt or specific.
Yes, Medieval nobles would do it,
and it would be regarded as vulgar, crass, and offensive. They didn't smirk and say, "Well, your argument was clever, I guess there's nothing I can do." They yelled at the other guy, and probably drew swords and killed each other.
Reread the posted guidelines and ask yourself which of them justifies reporting a comment about religion simply because it is a comment about religion.
I did no such thing. I reported a comment that I, and other players, perceived to be espousing atheism, which no noble would do. Now maybe it wasn't actually espousing atheism and I was wrong; that seems to be the case.
Again, it's not about the idea being expressed, it's about how it is expressed.
And again, I'll reiterate that
I do not believe that is a meaningful distinction.Ultimately, the entire system relies on the judgment of players to make the right choice and be fair and considerate to each other. In my experience, very few messages I've seen should truly be considered vulgar, and I do not hesitate to say that if you find yourself using this feature a lot that you are probably not playing this game as you would a board game with friends.
I agree on all counts! Which is why I think the Magistrates should rule in my favor on all counts. I think, and maybe this is crazy, but I really think that we can basically trust players on this. The player body in general will produce results that all of us disagree with sometimes. But I think if we let players decide what is vulgar, they'll generally do a pretty good job.
And I think that there is no other enforcable option. You seem to have ignored my comments regarding the larger jurisprudential problems here. Here's another jurisprudential concern: every vulgarity ruling will be subject to Magistrates' review. In my opinion, the Magistrates should rule that Magistrates will not exercise oversight on vulgarity unless it can be demonstrated that some part of the IRs or SC is clearly violated (like in the spying case, or spamming the system, as above).
Do you constantly call your friends out on every little mistake they make and hold them rigidly to the letter of the rules in a game?
Absolutely.
Are you that guy who is always out to win no matter what and can't cut your friends any slack at all?
Not at all. I don't care if I win. I care that people follow the rules. I have not at any point been a jerk; rather, it seems to me I've been quite polite, and everyone else is freaking out and hurling insults. I don't understand why people are getting so angry about this and taking it personally.
Which leads me to ask you, what do you believe the intent of this feature is? How do you think it is supposed to be used?
I do not believe the function has intent. I believe it was implemented without a clear idea of what it would do, and I think this is clearly evinced by the jumbled IC and OOC language on the pages that describe it (it even says that BEHAVIOR can be vulgar! as in, roleplayed activities!) I do not think there is a coherent "supposed" to consider. I don't think Tom had an extremely firm idea of what role this feature would play. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't think that there's a definite intent here. I think it's a feature that got added in a fairly ad hoc manner.
I think it is acceptable to use it the way I have used it, but no, I don't think that's necessary The Perfect Intended Use. I'm not interested in having arguments about what Tom may or may not have intended.
