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Comment by 18pfsmt | Hacker News Reader

Being offended by words deemed arbitrarily offensive by society doesn't seem logical to me. I realize that within professional circles this might be an issue, but I can't find a reason within personal circles unless we are talking about when interacting with children. I apologize, but your comment comes off as quite prudish, and I think getting hung up on a name is shortsighted.

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From a logical standpoint it still doesn't make any sense. Do the pictures have anything to do with fucking? No, they don't. Is there anything particularly curse-worthy or even startling about them? Nope. They're a bunch of random boring places.

Putting "fuck" in the domain name adds nothing and it makes me less likely to share links with some people who's sensibilities matter to me. My grandmother is one such person. She's one of the few people I'm close to that would really appreciate the functionality of this site, but it's just not the kind of domain name she'd be comfortable going to.

I understand your issue with sharing such a link with your grandmother, and that would have been an issue for me as well (if I had a living grandmother). I respect my grandmother and I would always honor her values because of her accomplishments (esp. b/c I directly benefited from them), but I don't agree with many of the beliefs she held that caused her to take issue with 'curse' words.

I'm hoping someone will help me out and correct my logic because that would be most helpful.

Hammock: So, if my logic is socially naive, that makes it incorrect?

Of course not. But are you seriously going to make "people should not be offended by curse words" a principle for which you're willing to sacrifice customers? There are ideals more deserving of your time, I think.

It's not that you're wrong, it's that being right wins you no prizes here.

Your "logic" is socially naive.

The word fuck doesn't always refer to fucking, it's a generic adjective that adds emphasis to anything and is common language for a huge part of the population. Most people don't even realize when they curse because words are words. You're being prude!

You're being prude!

You're being obtuse.

The taboo around certain words in certain contexts is a consensus that serves a purpose. You can use them and receive certain extra attention, but also lose other people to distraction.

Like others, I have no problem with using this myself, but wouldn't pass it on to a general audience. If I were to do so, I would signal that I am careless and casual with the use of the word 'fuck', when it is too important of a word to devalue so.

If the creator's goal is to limit adoption to a certain audience, the use of 'fuck' is a good idea. If they want wider adoption, it isn't. Both are valid choices.

> The taboo around certain words in certain contexts is a consensus that serves a purpose. You can use them and receive certain extra attention, but also lose other people to distraction.

Sure, and in this case, good riddance to them. Anyone who avoids sharing this app because of the word fuck has zero sense of humor and isn't the target audience. Anyone who critiques it for the word fuck, isn't the fucking target audience. There is nothing wrong with the word fuck in non fucking formal circumstances, even to a general audience. There are times not to use the word fuck; this isn't fucking one of them.

You view the word 'fuck' as common; I view it as special. I respect it too much to wear it out promoting a photo-location-discussion-service. Perhaps someday you will love the word 'fuck' like others do! But for now, you're treating her like a trashy throwaway whore.

It is common, so common most people use it many many times daily. She's not a princess to be put on a pedestal and brought out on special occasions. In fact, it's the opposite, she's to be hidden on special occasion's when you're fancying it up, and there's nothing fancy about a photo location service that would require censoring common language.

'common' and 'special' aren't antonyms.

There are generally legitimate reasons for various words to be regarded as crude or offensive. Often enough that is the very intention behind a word. Not being offended by them, or at least claiming so, is not a mark of enlightenment. Nor is being offended by them something for which to be shamed.

I'm with the OP, domains with foul language don't hit my sharing feeds and I'm not likely to make it a habit of frequenting the site.

I'm with the OP, domains with foul language don't hit my sharing feeds and I'm not likely to make it a habit of frequenting the site.

While that may be true for you, my point is that I believe that to be a shortsighted view. It will almost certainly reduce your chances of finding some interesting material. Maybe the trade-off doesn't matter to you, and I certainly can appreciate that, but a trade-off is being made.

I'm not offended, but I do find it crude and unprofessional.

And it really doesn't matter if it is logical. It is reality and if you want users, you have to work the existing system.

I also dislike the use of curse words in some contexts, and that is a context where I find it inappropriate.

Sorry if it sounds illogical to you, but you must accept people's sensitivity might be different from yours.

I guess my point was that the response appears emotional (as can be seen from the mentioning of sensitivity; sensitivity is emotional in nature by definition, I believe). and not logical. When I was about 11 years old in the 80s, my brother and I invented words to use as our own 'bad' words with similar phonetics to popular 'bad' words because our father had such an issue with our usage of such vocabulary.

While nostalgic at this point, it seems like a waste of time to spend any effort on such a thing in retrospect.

Edit: Grammar and clarity.

My comment does say something about me, but part of the problem is not just what I think, but what I predict my friends would think. I would not share something on Facebook if I expected it to offend 20-30% of my friends.

There are plenty of uses of the f-word that I find funny, witty, or appropriate, but this is simply not one of them. (NSFW humor: http://justin.justnet.com.au/rudestuff/uses-of-the-word-fuck...)

So, your point is that your decisions are driven by what your friends might think, rather than what _you_ think?

When it comes to sharing things with my friends en masse? Definitely.

Yes, since the entire point of sharing something with them would be that I think it's something they might enjoy.

It would be completely valid in this case to consider what they might think.

Interesting. My perspective is that I share things my friends and family might find useful, but potential for enjoyment is not a factor.

Logic has nothing to do with it. People have emotional responses to certain words. Arguing that it's not a "logical" reaction misses the point.

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