As was discussed in the 尺　A better primitive? thread, different people are going to find different stuff offensive.

It reminds me of a time in a video store when a kid I knew had picked a porn off the top shelf and was checking out the ladies, a middle aged woman came up to him and said, "Do you mind? Some of us don't want to see things like that."

He replied, "Just coz you don't have a body like that!"

Still amuses me 20 years later

Anyway, as most of us probably wouldn't show our mums the South Park Aristocrats joke, we should probably try to avoid any Imperial entanglements and show more discretion in the stories we make public.

N.B. If easily offended, don't watch the South Park clip!

radical_tyro,
oh so ur here in ithaca? its funny to have a RTK buddy so close. and yes its fucken cold out recently. cant wait to go back to japan.

There are ways of making a story memorable without giving offense. Also, I am aware that some people are hyper-sensitive to any mention of a beautiful woman (or man) and grimace at the words "buxom" and "zaftig." I think such squeamishness is overly-puritannical.

The fact remains, however, that some truly offensive stories have been posted for some of the characters: I just saw a particularly bad one for RUB. Users who cannot do without such stories ought to keep them to themselves. It is possible to post them for private use, without sharing them. To make them public without considering the sensibilities of other users shows a childish lack of restraint.

PParisi Wrote:There are ways of making a story memorable without giving offense. Also, I am aware that some people are hyper-sensitive to any mention of a beautiful woman (or man) and grimace at the words "buxom" and "zaftig." I think such squeamishness is overly-puritannical.

The fact remains, however, that some truly offensive stories have been posted for some of the characters: I just saw a particularly bad one for RUB. Users who cannot do without such stories ought to keep them to themselves. It is possible to post them for private use, without sharing them. To make them public without considering the sensibilities of other users shows a childish lack of restraint.

yeah that one for rub is stupid. i was thinking though, that there should be some sort of notification a user should get if their story gets reported. that way, they can see that people do not like their story and can be nice and remove it.

7 people reported the story but 14 people starred it. (right now anyway)

How many reports does it take to justify unsharing the story? 1? 7?

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That last exemple with "rub" is a good example of something that could have simply be suggested, and written with more style (what's the "extremely long" have to do with the keyword I wonder). At the same time I don't find it offensive, but it's no surprise that some people will be bothered due to their religion, beliefs and whatnot.

I agree that filtering and tagging "sensible" stories could be a good solution.

How about simple guidelines.
e.g. stories should not target a particular, religion, race, disability, etc.. Personally, I am not offended by sexual content. I suppose I'd draw the line at violent sexual content. BTW this site is blocked by the filter at one of my work locations.

I actually had a story flagged as offensive (for Masses, using an image of bloodied masses of foreigners coming to America, offensive I guess because of the American perspective) so I just removed it. I just think the diversity of the site's users is greater than most of us realize.

As an aside, has anyone found they've used too many perverted stories? Not that your mind has exploded from an overload of genitalia, but just that the pervertedly memorable images became less memorable because there were so many?

billyclyde Wrote:As an aside, has anyone found they've used too many perverted stories? Not that your mind has exploded from an overload of genitalia, but just that the pervertedly memorable images became less memorable because there were so many?

No problem here, and I used sexual themes whenever convenient for all of RTK1. I'd say these are more memorable than others.

For what it counts, one of the first primitives introduced in RTKIII is "streetwalker." Make of that what you will.

Actually, Megaqwerty, I'm pretty offended by the complexity of that kanji in your tag. Where on earth did you dig up that monster?

i remember once having seen a chinese kanji for some kind of noodle that has over 100 strokes

Laura Wrote:How about simple guidelines.
e.g. stories should not target a particular, religion, race, disability, etc.. Personally, I am not offended by sexual content. I suppose I'd draw the line at violent sexual content. BTW this site is blocked by the filter at one of my work locations.

I disagree.. religion stories are the best(because all religion is false lol plz don't flame me). and race/disability, etc also have a place sometimes as long as they are not completely irrelevant. for example, if a story used a blind person and said they were dumb in that story, that would not make sense. but it would be ok if they were talking about the blind person not being able to see (because thats a fact, blind people cant see, but it most certainly is not the case that all blind people are "dumb")

maybe this site is blocked so people don't study kanzi when they should be working =)

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OFFTOPIC

Floatingweed5 Wrote:Where on earth did you dig up that monster?

Haha, I have been surprised too by the number of complex kanji that people have been digging up with the "kanji avatar" feature. It's really cool to look at when you browse the forum

I agree that some of the stories can be offensive for some people, but they are there because someone found them helpful to remember a kanji. Thus, they shared them. If you are offended by them, you have the right not to read them, but do you have the right to prevent other people who don't get offended by them -or who do get offended and use this feeling to help the mnemonic stick- from using an information which can help them immensely in their studies?

Maybe a filter could be implemented, so that:

* If you believe your story can be offensive, you can mark it as "mature content". People who have their filter on can't see it.
* You have the choice to add other people's stories to your personal filter, so you can't see them any more. This wouldn't affect other people, and the idea is that not everybody feel the same about the same things.

I don't mind the "dirty" content because it helped me remember several kanji and that's what we are here to do after all, however this community may be a useful resource for children too, so it would be nice to have some kind of mature filter for children and others who may get offended.

I don't find perverted stories particularly shocking, myself; although, that might be because I'm a long-time denizen of the 'net. Unless you can give me the highest quality perversion, don't bother. Any pubescent can talk about touching himself. Why would I remember that?

Juvenile stories just degrade the quality of this site. If you're going to be perverted, stand out above the crowd and make something worth remembering! Otherwise, keep it in your closet -- who cares?

It's the same with any story.


But you'll never get people to stop submitting poor stories. That's why you build in mechanisms like voting.

If your audience is everyone, though, and everyone ranks the content, you'll just select for the things that everyone has in common, i.e. the stuff of our basest natures. If there's no down-voting, you'll also get things that appeal a lot to a vocal minority.

One way to avoid this might be to serve different people different content. That's why everyone says filter, filter, filter.



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OFFTOPIC:

ivoSF Wrote:i remember once having seen a chinese kanji for some kind of noodle that has over 100 strokes

I thought someone might be wanting that one, so I made this avatar a while back:



My first avatar was the rarest, most complex kanji I could find (龗), but then Megaqwerty beat me out with that monster the next day, so I went for simplicity instead (丫).

Terhorst Wrote:OFFTOPIC:

ivoSF Wrote:i remember once having seen a chinese kanji for some kind of noodle that has over 100 strokes

I thought someone might be wanting that one, so I made this avatar a while back:

http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/7812/biangvm6.png

Ooof! 目が痛い！

Regarding obscenity, my last post: Rules rarely help and I doubt they would be useful here. Some people, evidently, are helped by these stories and not everyone is bothered by the same things. "STREETWALKER" does not bother me, for instance, and I won't need an offensive story to help me remember it.

On the other hand, I must--with all respect--point out that a person doesn't have to be at all religious or a prude to be offended by references to the size of one's penis and enjoyment of masturbation. Ask yourselves how you would speak in front of a stranger or at work or at a family gathering: does that sentence fit in any of these situations? The story is not even very imaginative: any fan of auto-eroticism, presented with those primitives, would certainly have composed the same story. No one else would have wanted it. So who is helped by its inclusion on the site?

At any rate, I just wanted to register my opinion of that sort of story. Their presence will not stop me from using that part of the site, since there are so many other very useful stories.

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PParisi Wrote:Ask yourselves how you would speak in front of a stranger or at work or at a family gathering: does that sentence fit in any of these situations?

I agree and one more thing to consider, which I think most feel concerned about, is how to benefit more people with the RtK technique. There is enough resistance to the mnemonic techniques making use of mental imagery; I don't want to turn away people who are trying to get a grasp at the method and browsing the stories.

It's not so easy for people who don't want perverted content to simply not look at those stories: Unfortunately for them, new stories pop up at the top of the list, so until the stories settle towards the bottom they are effectively "in your face."

Floatingweed5 Wrote:Where on earth did you dig up that monster?

I just looked at kanji list by stroke count, went to the bottom, and picked the thing that looked the most complex.

I was thinking about this today and had this stopgap idea: the stories are currently divided into two sections, new and old. Why not add a section at the bottom of the old stories for any stories tagged perverted? And then just add a flag to the stars/warnings for perversion that would move said stories down there.

I don't design websites, but if this is truly a problem, that shouldn't be that hard to implement while providing a quick temporary solution: if you don't want to see the trash, don't look into the gutter.

Terhorst, that kanji is insane. It deserves its own thread, so I just started one.

I agree that the dirty stories do stay in the mind, but I'm actually afraid of the long term consequences it may have on me... I mean, I'm not the type of person who likes to or tends to think on those lines. I would find it disturbing for myself if every time picking up a book or magazine written in kanji means also having to remember something really perverted... ick...

The simplest solution I can think of is this:

1. By default hide all reported stories.

2. Put an option to show reported stories in the profile (or to set a threshold).


But there'd have to be a way to monitor and un-report stories, as some stories will be incorrectly or unfairly reported.


This allows a family-friendly site, but those who feel they'd benefit from perverted stories could still use them.

The meaning of the report button would change somewhat, but I think it would change to closer match what people think when they see the word, "report." It can still be used to report stories taken from Heisig -- they get hidden from the general public while they are evaluated, which seems reasonable.

dsamari Wrote:I agree that the dirty stories do stay in the mind, but I'm actually afraid of the long term consequences it may have on me... I mean, I'm not the type of person who likes to or tends to think on those lines. I would find it disturbing for myself if every time picking up a book or magazine written in kanji means also having to remember something really perverted... ick...

Except, by the nature of the method the stories become less significant over time!
And don't worry, if you don't already think of common household objects in sexual ways, you won't change from a few dirty stories. :O