An attempt has been made to restructure the fortune database.  This has
included, of necessity, a concatenation and redivision of the offensive
and inoffensive fortunes.  In the process, some fortunes may have gotten
lost, and others may have moved from one category to another (or from
both categories to one or the other, more commonly).

The following were the criteria I used to make the division:
	Anything about sex is offensive.  Welcome to America.  *sigh*
	Insults based on religion or ethnicity are offensive.
	Generally, any criticism of anybody's religion is offensive.
	"He really said that?" quotes from politicians are offensive.
	Political bias is offensive.
	Limericks are offensive even if they aren't.
	Tastelessness is offensive (q.v. "The Snack").
	Misogyny and misandry for the sake of themselves are offensive.
	Vulgarity is offensive.
	Violence for the sake of humor is offensive.

Surprisingly, given this rather broad definition, there are still more
inoffensive quotations, quips, and quozzits than offensive ones.  A
peculiar, back-handed compliment to human nature (it surprised me).

In another file in this directory (Notes), the original author(s) of the
fortune distribution state that "racist, mysogynist [sic] (sexist), or
homophobic ideas" should never be included in the fortune database.

This was not the case when the database came into my possession, and I
began attempting to divide it thematically.  Misogyny and homophobia are
both pretty well-represented; it is thus only a minor relief that racism
isn't (nonetheless, it *is* a relief).  Faced with two unpalatable
alternatives, of including material that really deserves no wider
publication or of acting the censor, I choose to pass on the
responsibility, though I have attempted to make maintenance easier.
Misogyny is sequestered in the file "misogyny," homophobia in "hphobia,"
and racism in "racism" (see the file 'cookie-files' in this directory for
a discussion of the contents of the various files), all in the offensive
directory.  Those who respect women, gays, and people of color may prefer
to either remove the .dat file (which keeps the strings, but makes them
inaccessible via the fortune program), or to delete these files altogether.

I admit that I was strongly tempted to simply remove these fortunes, an
action that I might have justified by pointing to the Notes of the
original authors.  However, it appears that over the course of time there
have been those who find these sorts of prejudice amusing, and in
America, at least, even Nazi rhetoric is a protected form of speech.  So
I include them, and leave the decision to individual system administrators.

I will add, as a final note, that reading through the offensive fortunes
(I have been forced to read and reread every fortune in the database
several times, in order to assign things to their proper places) has left
me far less amused by fortune -o than previously.  It is easy to overdose
on insult.

Amy Lewis	alewis@email.unc.edu	September-October 1995.
