[Haskell-cafe] Re: Haskell Weekly News: Issue 140 - November 22, 2009

Benjamin L.Russell DekuDekuplex at Yahoo.com
Mon Nov 23 22:13:08 EST 2009


On Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:50:22 -0500, Joe Fredette <jfredett at gmail.com>
wrote:

>I guess my view is that such a paper with an unintentionally foul- 
>mouthed name -- like Brainf*ck -- ought not be the reason for which  
>your paper is rejected from a journal or other publication source, but  
>rather it should be understood that it might be mildly censored (as I  
>did) if it is publish, in accordance with the intended audience of the 
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
>publication source.
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Aha, but therein lies the gist of the issue:  For example, if somebody
wrote a hypothetical Haskell library called (and properly censored,
according to your standards) "Monadam*: A library for translating
those dam* monads into non-monad-syntax form," and wanted to submit a
paper on the semantics of the library to a functional programming
journal, then for that intended audience of the publication source,
should the title be self-censored prior to submission, or left intact?

In addition (just to be pedantic, but this issue could conceivably
arise with certain library names in the future), if the library were
announced on, say, the main Haskell mailing list, then for that
intended audience of the publication source, should the subject line
of the announcement read "ANN: Monadam*: A Library for Translating
Those Dam* Monads into Non-monad-syntax Form," or would it be more
appropriate to leave the library name intact?

Normally, this issue does not arise, but with certain programming
language names that contain profane terms within, there is a
possibility that somebody could potentially name a library similarly,
leading to this referencing issue.

Presumably, the Library of Congress citation would include the full
name, regardless of any profane terms within; if the name were
censored to be politically correct, and then some researcher wanted to
look up the Library of Congress citation, couldn't the censoring
potentially lead to referencing difficulties?  For a researcher
potentially wishing to look up a publication, this could become an
issue.  How should this issue be resolved?

-- Benjamin L. Russell
-- 
Benjamin L. Russell  /   DekuDekuplex at Yahoo dot com
http://dekudekuplex.wordpress.com/
Translator/Interpreter / Mobile:  +011 81 80-3603-6725
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