Hi!
Wow, the discussion is moving fast.
Father_Alexander: The difference there is that the playing with feces is most strongly and nearly exclusively linked to immaturity in popular culture, which, like it or not, does do a lot for shaping our connotations. Extreme violence is not only found in things like Tom and Jerry, but also in anti-war movies and other things. Thus, the explicit depiction of violence is not in and of itself considered immature in our days. However, usage of feces in popular media which are not designed to create cheap laughter are very, very rare (they do exist, I would assume, when dealing with hospital environments, but that is about it). On the other hand, immature usage of feces is an entire subgenre of manga for (little) boys. And it is about as crude as you can get there. So, the only association it really raises is the laughter of Beavis and Butthead. At least that is the way I perceive it.
General: I am not too worried about calling it feces or excreta or any proper term, but I would strongly object to terms like "poop", "poo", and the like, which would place it quite strongly into the corner of children and immature behavior. Besides strengthening the unwanted association on a personal level, it also seems like a big red sign "Come here to get your turds on a stick!" actively encouraging immature behavior. Of course, I am also not opposed against sensible euphemisms like terms using "waste" in them.
Personally, I also think that mismanagement should have dire consequences for the fortress (contamination of water sources, of beverages, of food, resulting in serious epidemics). However, I am not so optimistic that the prospect of drowning the elves in "poop" once and then losing your fortress to disease would really dissuade people - remember, losing is fun (^_^;;
Given that it seems that Toady One is basically open to the proposition provided a good solution is presented, I think this thread here is kind of besides the point actually. What needs to be worked one would really be the idea for an implementation that answers to most of the concerns people have expressed and fit in with the mechanisms of the game.
To add a bit of humor as a last statement: I ought to support feces, especially for animals, for it would provide yet another example for the inferiority of dogs :) :) :) :)
Deathworks