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Why is the F word in a Freshly Pressed featured blog?

  1. kiwidutch
    Member

    Hi,
    Just a question please... why does the F-word feature in a Freshly Pressed article?

    I was on the Freshly pressed page and my 9 year old daughter was sitting next to me, she saw the cartoon on the top of this page and asked me to "click on that one"...

    http://rubytwoshoes.wordpress.com/2010/07/13/my-head-hurts/

    She saw the F-word before I did... :( ...and wanted to know why people were "using such bad words" in the post.
    (yep, a deep and meaningful damage control chat was in order)

    I thought that a requirement of making it to FP was that it was supposed to be fit for family viewing, and that profanity was not allowed???

    If this has changed then please let me know so that I can make sure I never go there when the kids are sitting next to me on the computer.

    The blog I need help with is kiwidutch.wordpress.com.

  2. kiwidutch
    Member

    Oh, and surely the Editor couldn't have missed that not
    only is it right in the top paragraph, but occurs more times in the
    article as well?

    Sorry I'm really fuming over this, since daughter has just discovered
    this word and decided to "air it" on several occasions in waaay
    less than appropriate situations lately ...
    ...testing reactions I suppose, so it's been the cause of a few
    recent heart-to-hearts on what we believe constitutes appropriate
    lanaguage and behaviour (or in this case NOT!) so this freshly pressed article
    raised all kinds of double-standard issues ...

  3. timethief
    Member

    Here's the contact information Joynmsu, Editorial Czar (email address munged to evade spam bot harvesting)
    editor [at] wordpress [dot] com

  4. raincoaster
    Member

    As far as I'm aware, there is no "fit for family viewing" clause in the Freshly Pressed selection criteria.

  5. kiwidutch
    Member

    Thanks TT...

    I'll contact them immediately.

    regards... kiwidutch

  6. timethief
    Member

    You're welcome.

  7. christopherlibbycdn
    Member

    I understand your confusion. Here is the editor-czarina's post on 5 ways to get yourself on FP. It does mention adult/mature content being one of the "bad things" that might cause them to not pick a post. http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/five-ways-to-get-featured-on-freshly-pressed/

    However, raincoaster is correct that strictly speaking, there is no 'family viewing' clause in the "rules". In fact, the editor-czarina makes it pretty clear that this entire operation is entirely subjective and there are no "rules".

    And BTW, congratulations if your 9 y/o is just now discovering the word "fart".

  8. kiwidutch
    Member

    Hi RC,
    Well when I read this article:
    http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/five-ways-to-get-featured-on-freshly-pressed/

    ... and saw the first point:
    "1. Write unique content that’s free of bad stuff.

    Each post that makes it to Freshly Pressed contains original content created by the WordPress user. Bad stuff includes (but isn’t limited to) plagiarism, hate speech, fear-mongering, adult/mature content, improperly used images that belong to someone else, spam or content that is primarily advertorial."

    Even on the first page of the comment Joy Victory makes it clear when replying to posters questions that swearing and sexual content is deemed as adult/mature content.

    See comments like this:
    ---
    "Eeeeh I’m never quite sure what constitutes as adult/mature."

    Joy Victory
    April 30th, 2010 at 3:33 am Well, for Freshly Pressed, keep in mind the audience: Anyone signing in to their blog. That includes minors.

    ---

    Forgive me if I'm wrong but I'd presonaly class the F-bomb as " adult/mature" and I never would have let my nine year old read any articles in FP had I thought otherwise...

  9. raincoaster
    Member

    The Adult/mature rating in WP.com is quite specific and does not include profanity.

  10. kiwidutch
    Member

    creadm67,

    Thanks! Luckily our kids are still very much "kids" and are not particularly streetwise in this respect ... they watch very little TV, love playing on their bikes and with friends in the park, old fashioned games, crafts, baking etc

    They will be adults for a long long time and keeping their childhood innocence for as long as possible (within normal reason of course) is not a bad thing in our book...

    Daughter still errupts in a fit of giggles at "fart" too LOL.

  11. kiwidutch
    Member

    RC... Thanks for the info...

    ...In that case I'm afraid I was rather misled
    about the "Five ways to get freshly pressed" article, as I
    really assumed that the F-bomb was concidered adult/mature.

    Daughter won't be seeing the FP page with me again in a hurry then.

  12. joynmsu
    Member

    Hi yep, profanity will sometimes appear in Freshly Pressed posts, though I do try to avoid it -- it's not always possible to avoid it at all costs. If a post is engaging enough, I'll still feature it. The post you mentioned was about coping with anxiety -- certainly a situation where profanity might be appropriate.

    So yes, going forward, you may want to exercise more caution if you really feel this is a big issue as this can and will happen again. It may help to know that WordPress Terms of Services state "the Website is available only to individuals who are at least 13 years old."

    http://en.wordpress.com/tos/

    I'm impressed that your daughter is at a reading level to enjoy Freshly Pressed, though.

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