Sad. I read This Post is Rated X and clicked on the links in the post and got a little excited that I might find some popular books with "motherf*cker" in the title, like maybe an Andy Rooney autobiography, Motherf*cking Piles: 30 Years on My Ass at 60 Minutes. But I didn't see anything that could make the bestseller list.
(Warning: the following paragraphs have the expletive masking turned off, since the "dirty words" are necessary, IMO.)
The point of the article is that some libraries don't want to enable comments in their online catalogs because they don't want to deal with the potential obscene language. It's funny how a new medium suddenly makes us all assholes. People don't walk through the library shouting fuck or motherfucker. But open up comments on a web site and the fucks appear like ants at a picnic. Like everyone forgets how to behave. And even if you shout fuck in the library, it doesn't linger by the check-out desk or echo tiny fucks throughout the day. But if you post a fuck on the library's catalog, it could be there annoying people for days before it's spotted and deleted.
And then you need to create all new policy for all those potential fucks. Who monitors for fucks? Are the fucks protected speech, even if the poster is anonymous?
So I can see why libraries don't want to deal with the headaches associated with allowing comments. I wonder what the free speech advocates will say if it becomes their job to moderate the comments: "Fuck."
