And at the moment the new server doesn’t have the upgrade to phpBB3 on it yet, and may not have it before it goes live. Right now I’m more concerned with getting the webstore and TD/A working on the new server.
These are the infamous “Seven Dirty Words” made famous by George Carlin:
Shit
Piss
Fuck
Cunt
Cocksucker
Motherfucker
Tits
Please note the the word Jen used in her fine book, “Bitch”, is NOT included!
Later, Carlin referred to three additional auxiliary words:
Fart
Turd
Twat
Please note that, once again, “Bitch” is not among them…
And your point is?
I agree. Couldn’t have said it better.
I have never before considered the question of profanity on this web site. So, I now just gotta ask how censorish is the site (and its computer program)? Would/will it censor a word that is contracted or not fully spelled out? For instance will it allow the word B*tch, as in the book “Chess Bisch”? 
Larry S. Cohen
It’s not censorship if everyone knows damn well what you meant.
In the meantime, the feelings of “younger and more sensitive viewers” have been respected.
Sounds like a win-win to me.
Topics like this are always fun. The general gist of this so far is “I’m not offended by these words, so everyone should be subjected to them.” It’s amusing, but hardly something practicable.
Other threads will detail the number of lawsuits floating around the USCF. How long do you think it would be before yet another half-dozen or so showed up, if there was no attempt (no matter how silly it might be) to control the level of discussion here? Six months? Three? Remember this membership is the same membership that forced me to sit in a Publications workshop and listen to serious complaints over the fact that an issue of the magazine dealing with the results of the Foxwoods Open HAD A POKER CHIP ON THE COVER!
Yes, it’s silly. But that’s not the real point. The real point is that when people are offended, they leave. Probably not the USCF, but at least the forums. Insisting on using adolescent verbiage which does nothing at all to advance the points under discussion simply because you can, and by doing so driving people away from the forums is also a form of censorship.
Is there a better way? Certainly. The best way is to make sure each and every message is read by someone who understands the language to the point where it can be determined if the term in question is being used for its meaning, or simply for shock value, or worse, as mere punctuation (which is how most people use profanity these days). Which, given the volume of postings here, would mean an average of 2-3 days between when the message is written and when it’s published. This is certainly possible, but hardly desirable.
So compromises are made. When you sign up for the forum, you agree to acceptable usage guidelines. If you don’t like the guidelines, don’t sign up. This also is a form of censorship, I agree. But since no decision is perfect, we have to select a lesser of evils, and the decision to encourage those who like profanity laced discussions to take it elsewhere is a lesser evil, since forums like that currently exist.
Your argument that the members own the forums is valid, but I’m not sure if you’ve thought it out completely. It means all the members, not just you. And the mechanism that all the members have selected to implement this forum is to delegate the work to the current forum crew, as appointed by the elected officials of the USCF. You should feel free to go through the system and change this if you feel the membership is being ill served by the currently established mechanism, and see if there’s enough support to get it changed to another mechanism. Go ahead. It can be done. Heck, you may come up with some other mechanism that’s superb and I’ll join in (you’ve already seen me call the “banned word list system” silly, after all) along with everyone else, and change will occur.
But it takes action. Simply posting messages complaining about it is rather futile.
And all of those working on these are volunteers. It is not a great job but someone has to do it.
Or shut the boards down.