[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by pendragginp

In the first place, you're still assuming all kinds of bad things about a parent who may want to use this, including 'neglect'. There's no basis for that assumption at all. In fact, using an app like this can be could be another way for a parent to express his protection of his children from things he would consider harmful to them, while still expanding their exposure to books he might not otherwise be comfortable allowing them to read.

Au contraire.

Using the app IS the neglect. A responsible parent pays attention to the books his/her children read -- not hand over the responsibility to a frankly rather limited machine, which is doing a frankly rather half-assed job of making books kid-friendly.

In the second place I'm just astonished at the amount of scorn and bad intentions being heaped upon people who just don't like swearing in books. An awful lot of heat is being generated here, and for very little reason. We really don't need to control everyone, and it isn't a judgement on us if we think differently - so let's let them think differently too.

Um, okay, so why do you think that a book which is a bad book becomes a good book just because the naughty words are covered up? Are your kids too stupid to realize that there is swearing going on? I doubt it...

I would generally expect the books that have a swearing issue to have multiple *other* reasons why kids shouldn't be reading them.

Most bowdlerizers at least have the decency to work on the book and create a kid-frendly version that a) makes sense, b) actually conceals the existence of adult topics, instead of highlighting them.
There is actually a market for such books, one which is currently being served, and I wish them all the best of luck -- not that they need my wishes, they seem to be doing all right.

What I'm objecting to here is the lack of live and let live, and the assumptions of all kinds of bad things about people we don't even know. It's the opposite of liberal.

Oh, well, if that was all... I am fine with that. I'm not a liberal.
Best we avoid that line of thought, though -- unless you'd like to continue a dangerously political topic in the opt-in Politics and Religion subforum.