The language where word gift means POISON has to be evil.

I'm sure it's been posted here before, but there is the old Google Translate chestnut:

[url=http://translate.google.com/#de|en|Meine%20Nachbarin%20hat%20Kohlmeisen%2C%20aber%20was%20macht%20ein%20Esel%20auf%20meinem%20Hahn%3F]Meine Nachbarin hat Kohlmeisen, aber was macht ein Esel auf meinem Hahn?[/url]

Edit: With link.

Nice, like how I won that round of poke-her with a sweet pair of asses...

I don't know if they still do, but a couple of years ago, the "Aktuelles Sport Studio" (the most popular German sports show in the evening, for Non-German readers) started to show its initials left to any caption that was displayed. So when a famous sportsman was interviewed, and his name was displayed, you'd see something like this:

ASS Lionel Messi.

I always found that hilarious.

I think we need to amend GOG's TOS to include our basic right to bear asses.

Shouldn't it be to bare asses?

Have to say I do think the whole conversation on here is funny -- well worth reading in fact.

But, as a writer, who lives in a country with some of the world's worst censorship (and I mean you can be put in JAIL for 20 years for saying something someone else thinks is offensive about the king here in Thailand), I am absolutely against censorship like this.

When it starts with stupid words like 'ass', (which is all over the internet so if Google decided to censor it you could kiss the asses goodbye of companies like Huffington Post, NPR, the BBC, the Independent and the Guardian and a whole host of other top websites) where does it end.

In Thailand, currently, unless I use a VPN, I can't access Steam, Gamers Gate or half the computer game websites I read daily. Why? Who the feck knows - but some words on there are showing as 'offensive' to the stupid Thai censors. I can't read any website that is offensive to certain Thai political parties (meaning with views they don't agree with) and even one of my own websites was inaccessible in Thailand for a while as the government censors blocked it. There are currently over 200,000 websites blocked in Thailand, mostly for stupid reasons. THIS is where censorship leads.

IAnd, in the worst case scenario, it can lead to decades in prison. Sorry GOG, but I would take my business elsewhere it that started to become prevalent on here - it's a gaming community for chrissake. Ass appears in half the games I've played.

My issue isn't with JudasIscariot, at all. I'm sure he thought he was doing the right thing and had the best of intentions. It was a mistake, they happen. The issue is that is wasn't reversed!

To cover their asses, they would have to censor or remove a whole load more stuff. What if Valve sued them for the topics saying Steam is crap?! What about the topics where people badmouth DRM. The people who make it could sue!

Once you start censoring one thing that might get you in trouble, you have to censor everything that will get you in trouble because you are explicitly taking responsibility for that content being there!

A whole lot of people think DRM isn't an issue. Or that women are second-class citizens isn't an issue. Just because you don't think it is an issue, doesn't make it a non-issue.

So? Close the topic if you don't like it, which I believe was, oh yes...your logic.

My logic, on the other hand, is you should come here and tell me what you think, what your views on the subject are so we can both learn each others point of view and, hopefully, come to a amicable resolution.

You're clearly demonstrating a complete lack of knowledge of who I am.

Perhaps you haven't noticed, I strongly oppose DRM. It's the reason I am here, it's the reason I buy a lot of things from GOG and a major reason why I buy things from GOG for other people. I also strongly oppose censorship. Do you really expect a different ferver in my support of DRM-free gaming (most of which I can't play, because I don't use Windows) and my disapproval of unwarranted censorship?

If I post links to pornographic materials in this forum and GOG deletes it, is that also censorship?

I wouldn't go there if i were you...

I wouldn't exactly call this censorship; or at any rate, this just as much censorship as TV shows that "bleep" out swear words. Annoying yes, but hardly a matter of oppression. (And the stupid over-the-top accusation of the Bioware forums as a "North Korean simulator" come to mind here.)

That being said...

Are there any Macross fans here? Did anyone else chuckle when they originally designated the SDF-1 Macross as "ASS-1" (Alien Space Ship 1)? Made perfect sense of course, but I couldn't stop laughing. Then there was Macross Frontier and the NUNS.

Except, you know, you are. The official would be JudasIscariot (and by extension, you) and the objectionable part was 'ass'.

Are you seriously saying GOG did not, in any way at all, suppress that word in that topic title?

xyem, sorry, but youre acting moronic.

First, nobody at GOG is an official.

Second, GOG forums are private property. The owner decides what can and what can't be said here. It's not censorship, it's ownership.

Please stop.

This.

You (and others, for that matter) might consider GOGs problem with donkeys being used in thread titles a tad petty, but it all boils down to this: their gaff, their rules.

With all due respect, I think you're being a little silly here. Believe it or not, "ass" is a word which is still controversial and/or offensive. It may not be for you, or for the country/culture you live in, but it sure is for others. Yes, it has benign meanings and connotations too - of course it does. But we've seen nothing but common sense from the people at GOG when it's come to handling this. I think they're clever enough to understand the distinction between the different meanings of the word "ass". Given that they didn't apply some massive site-wide filter and just changed the thread title, I think they struck a good balance between keeping the forums appropriately sanitized and "censorship".

Suppression implies that they're trying to stamp out any and all mention of the word on the forums, yet we're still seeing people bandy about the term unmolested. Is that really what you're going to charge them with doing?

And really, if you want to go to one extreme, how about another - would you want to see the GOG forums get turned into XBox Live?