Is the string "f.cking" considered unappropriate on HN? What about "f.,.ing" or "f'ing"?
Edit: replaced the asterisks with "." and "," for formatdoc
Edit: has been changed to "Heroku Fucking Console" at 19:02Z. I approve!
The problem is that this American morality is enforced to everyone internationally, as such a high portion of high-traffic websites are American. And it's not just about cursewords, it's this sick censorship of women's breasts, nudity and sex in general.
Communication on the internet is switching to a small number of mostly American social media websites like Facebook. If Facebook bans certain expression of thought or certain types of media/pictures, then that decision has pretty widespread effects. Even worse, when exposed to this kind of thinking, other countries will slowly start to adopt it.
On the other hand, other countries would enforce a different kind of morals more (like censorship related to racism and religion).
I love it when some sites make exceptions, like Tumblr (or Reddit in the past).
It's not that the words are bad, but some people take it too far. Especially on the internet, where some people erroneously believe in the anonymity of pseudonyms
Anyway, a lot of people object to the overuse of the word "fucking" simply because they've grown out of it. I'm all for artfully dropping it in from time to time for well-placed effect, but it can easily become a crutch used by those too lazy to consult their inner thesaurus. It's sort of shorthand for "I really mean it, which makes it more true!" Although it's arguably true that this particular tool takes it around the bend enough that it starts becoming funny again. Wait, I mean it's FUCKING true. :-)
"According to Paul Fussell's Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, aversion to profanity is a middle class thing. The upper class[1] do not use euphemisms for profanity or obscenity. Fussell wrote that Jilly Cooper reported "I once overheard my son regaling his friends: 'Mummy says pardon is a much worse word than fuck.'"
I doubt that many members of the upper class (see Fussell's book for a definition of upper class, it is roughly the tastes of "old money" but not dependent upon actual wealth) read Hacker News. It is likely that those who do not object to obscenities such as the word "fuck" are more socially liberal freethinkers who dislike formality. Those who do object are likely to be members of the middle class who believe (foolishly) that in censoring profanities and vulgarities, they are emulating the upper class."
If the f word had to be edited out, why not something like "Heroku [curse word] console"
http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=f*cking&sortby=points+desc