Save Dick!

This post is for all the Dicks in the world. Linden Lab have deemed you too hot to be quoted on the official forum, personally I find writing Dick easier than writing **bleep**. However it’s the attempt to wipe Dick off the face of the PG planet that is most disturbing about Linden Lab’s forum word filter.

Dick is a name, there are 338 results under people search for Dick, you can’t currently properly reference any of these 338 residents on the official Linden Lab forum. Trying to silence Dick in this way is quite frankly absurd, but it gets worse, what if anyone wants to talk of the famous Dicks through the ages, fictional and non fictional, you simply can’t.

If I’m complaining about getting a raw deal on the forums, I might say “Dick Turpin wore a mask“, ” **bleep** Turpin wore a mask” doesn’t quite cut it. Someone might want to talk of doing the story of Dick Whittington, quote references of the great work of uber Science Fiction author Philip K Dick. They may want to get political and cite Dick Cheney or they may want to talk about popular comic book character Dick Tracy.

Enid Blyton’s famous five are reduced to Julian,  Anne, Georgina  Timmy the dog and **bleep*. Moby Dick doesn’t seem quite so ominous when reduced to Moby **bleep**. However Linden Lab’s policy isn’t just nameist, it’s also sexist. In the UK Dick’s female counterpart would be Fanny, I can say Fanny on Linden Lab’s forum but not Dick. Like Dick, Fanny is a name, and like Dick, Fanny can mean something adult as well as being used as an insult, but Fanny is fine, poor old Dick isn’t. As an aside, does anyone use Fanny in the adult sense anymore? The response from Linden Lab so far on the Dick issue has been sweet Fanny Adams. However they do seem to have decided that “Damn” should be allowed.

The great music of Dick Dale, revived via Pulp Fiction is a no no to Linden Lab. The issue of course is context, when misused, Dick can be damaging, it can cause chaos, Dick needs to be handled with care but I think we all know that, we don’t want people getting overexcited with their use of Dick, but come on, it’s not a word that deserves to **bleeped** out of existence!

Come on Amanda, Lexie and Raymond Linden, do the decent thing here, stop teasing Dick and free Dick from captivity!