Autocensor Changes

[Valkrionn]

Before I quote anyone, let me give my own opinion... I am quite vehemently against this.

As others have said, we are not children. As others have said, the context of a word is important, and radically changes the meaning. No automated filter will pick up on that context, and thus any automated filter will be heavy handed.

I go out of my way to avoid cursing on this forum. Even when being actively flamed (which has happened several times in the past) I go out of my way to avoid it unless I feel I cannot make my point without it.

I still despise this change. When it was simply smileyed out, it could be ignored quite simply, leaving me able to post and the choice of infract or not up to the moderators. Now, it is thrown in your face; This alone makes it far more repugnant to me.

So yes, I most certainly would rather be allowed to make the post and then be infracted, than have it block my post. I have never been infracted in my history posting on this site (though admittedly came close); Context matters.

In my opinion, it would be far more desirable to approach the issue like adults and use a karma system as Afforress described, or simply have the choice of censorship be a personal option.

Blocking words does nothing. It does nothing. It can be bypassed, it can be ignored, it can be manipulated, or you can get creative and flame using entirely proper, but extremely insulting, language. This filter does nothing to improve the atmosphere of the site, never has, and never will; It is simply something to remind us that we are children.

It wouldn't make me happy. I don't see why a compromise should be reached. I don't see why I should have to simply ignore impolite posting rather than have it banned, anymore than I don't see why I should have to simply ignore racist posts, or flaming posts, or any other form of post that does not meet the standards of the forum, rather than having those things banned.

As I said, this filter does nothing to prevent impolite posting. I am quite capable of ripping into someone in an entirely polite manner, with a smile on my face. Capability does not mean I will do so, nor that I should, but this filter does nothing whatsoever to prevent this. It simply means flaming takes more creativity... And thus becomes more fun for those who do so regularly.

Having cursewords starred out does not make a post more impolite. Frankly, if I were to desire to curse and was unable to due to a filter of this sort, I would go out of my way to be as impolite as possible. Censorship of such a heavy handed nature is never a good solution.

Again, context is key. Context is always key. If a post with cursing had both the words starred out (for those with that option on) and was automatically sent to moderators, who could actually examine the context and tone and decide whether to infract or not, I'd be okay with it; I have no qualms about wanting to prevent flaming. My issues are when it is done in such a heavy handed manner.

Starring out words still leaves the implied meaning. Which still leaves the impoliteness. Removing the word altogether automatically makes a post less impolite.

Once again: The removal of curse words in no way increases the general politeness of posts, and may well prove detrimental to that effort. Anyone above the age of 12 should be quite capable of being as insulting as they wish without needing to rely on such words, while some of us use them in everyday speech without thinking twice (I am one such person, I simply have no desire to have that associated with my modding. ).


Honestly, the best solution is a karma system, or rating system, or however you want it. When posts can be rated up/down, reported to moderators (with false reports being infracted heavily, abuses of the rating being infracted, etc), you tend to find things become far more polite almost immediately.

 

[Camikaze]

The filter does prevent impolite posting. A proportion of users may circumvent it to post impolitely anyway, but not all will. And those that do are breaking the rules and will be punished as such. It's hardly a flaw in the autocensor that people are knowingly break the rules. "Why infract for trolling? People will do it anyway!" It does work under the assumption that people won't be deliberately impolite, and when people are deliberately impolite, the moderators will pick up the slack.

The idea of the system is not to remove impoliteness in its entirety from the forum. That cannot be done by the censor. But the censor can remove a degree of impoliteness from the forum. And the moderators can clean up the rest. It isn't a fault of the autocensor that people will deliberately break the rules. That is the fault of the poster in question, and will be a problem no matter what rules are in place.

 

[Valkrionn]

The filter does prevent impolite posting. A proportion of users may circumvent it to post impolitely anyway, but not all will. And those that do are breaking the rules and will be punished as such. It's hardly a flaw in the autocensor that people are knowingly break the rules. "Why infract for trolling? People will do it anyway!" It does work under the assumption that people won't be deliberately impolite, and when people are deliberately impolite, the moderators will pick up the slack.

The idea of the system is not to remove impoliteness in its entirety from the forum. That cannot be done by the censor. But the censor can remove a degree of impoliteness from the forum. And the moderators can clean up the rest. It isn't a fault of the autocensor that people will deliberately break the rules. That is the fault of the poster in question, and will be a problem no matter what rules are in place.

In my own experience, a heavy handed, insulting filter such as this does nothing whatsoever to prevent people from being impolite.

All it does is cause people to go out of their way to be impolite in ever more outrageous, ever more inventive ways. While entertaining, I highly doubt this is what is desired.

If the desire is to simply give people time to cool down... I doubt that would succeed at all. Having a forum treat you as a child while you are already angry does nothing but create more anger.

If the desire is to create a more polite atmosphere, there are far better, less insulting methods of doing so. Those should be looked into, rather than slapping people on the hand and treating them as children.


And one last thing... If you sincerely believe the moderators could clean up the rest of the impoliteness on the forum (and posts which would be considered flaming, yet do not use cursing, are heavily in the majority from everything I have experienced here), then why should the filter exist? It was already said it was added to lessen the load on moderators. If moderators cannot handle the smaller load, how can they be expected to handle the far larger one?

If you want a more polite atmosphere, do so in an adult manner. Do not behave like children yourself and refuse any attempt at compromise, refuse to acknowledge any complaint about the principle of the idea, instead insisting that anyone arguing against the change is obviously one of "those people" who curses frequently and thus isn't desirable, and instead simply claim that your position is innately, obviously superior, and the rights of anyone else to speak their mind are less than your own right to not have to be offended.


To reiterate...

Frankly, this system is extremely childish and does nothing productive.
Unfortunately, it aggravates many people. Those of us who wish to be treated as mature adults, at least.
Certainly cursing can be impolite. However, filters do nothing to prevent it.
Karma systems are far more robust, less repugnant, and flat out better. Something of this nature should be considered, rather than treating us as children. People can and will be creative.


Honestly, I'm not going to attempt to argue that cursing should be allowed, where inappropriate. I do not much care. However, there are far better, far more palatable, far more polite methods with which to approach this. A community-driven censorship mechanic (IE, a Karma system of some kind) reduces overhead on the moderators, reduces the frequency of impolite posts in general, and on the whole creates a far more polite atmosphere. Why this has been relegated to a few posts, and completely ignored by proponents of the current method (who instead resort to blind insistence that the filter has a purpose, or make incorrect assumptions as to the character of those arguing against the filter, or flatout refuse to see any other side of the argument) I have no earthly idea.


Edit: And yes, the above attempt to illustrate creativity in avoiding the censor is childish, but illustrates my point quite well. It was also rather entertaining, but that is beside the point. Filters do not prevent anyone from posting what they want, they are simply annoying. A karma system is not annoying, and actually DOES prevent (or rapidly eliminates) posts with banned material.

 

[pi-r8]

I know CFC goes out of it's way to be an "all ages" site that's safe for children, but I've always found that extremely odd, and this is just taking it to the extreme. How many children come to this site, anyway? Civ isn't really a game for children. Even if they do see a bad word, it won't kill them- I'm sure most kids have all the bad words figured out by the time they're 10, at the latest.

If the goal is not to protect children, but to have better posts overall, I think a better method would be to take a more aggressive policy of banning people who post nothing but garbage.

 

[Afforess]

I completely agree with Valkrionn. This system punishes everyone for the vices of a few. Collective punishment only will create more hostility - not your goal.

A karma reward system that rewards for correctly reporting poor behavior and not committing infractions and punishes for abuse and rule breaking would be ideal. The current system, all stick and no carrot leaves much to be desired.

Basically: If you treat us like children, don't be surprised if we act like children.

 

[Bill3000]

Eh, a karma system can and will be abused extremely quickly.

 

[Valkrionn]

I completely agree with Valkrionn. This system punishes everyone for the vices of a few. Collective punishment only will create more hostility - not your goal.

A karma reward system that rewards for correctly reporting poor behavior and not committing infractions and punishes for abuse and rule breaking would be ideal. The current system, all stick and no carrot leaves much to be desired.

Basically: If you treat us like children, don't be surprised if we act like children.

As I admittedly did, quite intentionally, to illustrate my point.

 

[Afforess]

Eh, a karma system can and will be abused extremely quickly.

I completely submit to your superior intellect, based on the massive amount of facts, anecdotes, and other sources you used to support your original claim.

 

[Camikaze]

Edit: Multi-cross-post @Valkrionn

You're working under the false assumption that everyone will actively go out of their way to circumvent the autocensor. That everyone will actively go out of their way to break the forum rules. That is not the case. I would think that if people tripped the autocensor, they would, for the most part, rephrase. There is always going to be a minority who is willing to break the rules, and this change to the autocensor is doing more to actively prevent them from posting. Now, there is something actually stopping that minority from posting in a particular way.

So a lot of them will circumvent it? How is a system meant to fully guard against people willing to break the rules? No matter what system you put in place, these people are still going to be willing to break the rules. The autocensor isn't going to stop these people, no, but it is going to stop those that are willing to rephrase, which I would hazard is a lot of people.

You say that it's not good that moderators treat people like children. The simply solution to this is to stop swearing. The only people treated like children are those that swear, and that is due to the judgement made that those that swear are acting in a child-like manner. By posting impolitely, you (generic you) bring being treated like a child upon yourself. Any insult felt by being treating like a child in this situation is only brought about by your own actions.

And don't worry, I'm not trying to ignore your points. If it seems I am, it's probably because I just don't get them.

 

[Valkrionn]

Eh, a karma system can and will be abused extremely quickly.

Not if the moderators actually moderate the system. If abuses are monitored and actively infracted, they will be rare. While on the other hand, you have a system that is self-correcting for flaming, cursing, and generally impolite behavior.

Any negatives are far outweighed by the positives, and the extreme negatives of the current system.

 

[DaveShack]

Neither, the question is invalid. If you are censoring what I post, then you have no valid reason to give infractions for it too. it's one or the other. If the rules state that swear words are banned, that's your choice, but then I reserve the right to post my swear words in censored form according to the censorship tools you have provided.

I think you misunderstand the purpose of the autocensor. It is protecting the readers from seeing things that TF does not want them to see. It's also keeping those terms out of Google search related to the site, and preventing certain kinds of advertising from being posted.

The words and terms that are censored are prohibited in all forms. Putting in a space to break up the word, typing $%#*&, changing letters, and any other method of evading the censor are prohibited and can result in infractions. We won't necessarily get them all, but any use of these terms carries that risk.

 

[Camikaze]

Basically: If you treat us like children, don't be surprised if we act like children.

The more correct way of looking at it wold be "If you act like children, don't be surprised to be treated like one". After all, it is an individual's action in swearing that brings about the use of the autocensor. Without that act by the poster, there would be no such treatment.

I don't think I quite understand the karma system you propose. What would be different between the it and the current system, other than reporting posts being discouraged by the threat of an infraction for doing so incorrectly?

 

[Bill3000]

I completely submit to your superior intellect, based on the massive amount of facts, anecdotes, and other sources you used to support your original claim.

I know the people who would abuse it, specifically by coordinating their reporting toward people they don't like.

 

[Valkrionn]

Edit: Multi-cross-post @Valkrionn

You're working under the false assumption that everyone will actively go out of their way to circumvent the autocensor. That everyone will actively go out of their way to break the forum rules. That is not the case. I would think that if people tripped the autocensor, they would, for the most part, rephrase. There is always going to be a minority who is willing to break the rules, and this change to the autocensor is doing more to actively prevent them from posting. Now, there is something actually stopping that minority from posting in a particular way.

So a lot of them will circumvent it? How is a system meant to fully guard against people willing to break the rules? No matter what system you put in place, these people are still going to be willing to break the rules. The autocensor isn't going to stop these people, no, but it is going to stop those that are willing to rephrase, which I would hazard is a lot of people.

You say that it's not good that moderators treat people like children. The simply solution to this is to stop swearing. The only people treated like children are those that swear, and that is due to the judgement made that those that swear are acting in a child-like manner. By posting impolitely, you (generic you) bring being treated like a child upon yourself. Any insult felt by being treating like a child in this situation is only brought about by your own actions.

And don't worry, I'm not trying to ignore your points. If it seems I am, it's probably because I just don't get them.

There is no "Going out of your way" when all it takes is a single space to render a curse uncensored. All it does is aggravate people.

I am of the opinion that if a person is already choosing to curse, on a public forum where you would expect cursing to be prohibited (This is not an anonymous board, therefore, a modicum of decency should be expected), then (gasp) they will curse regardless of any ineffectual, aggravating filter. I do not care if I ever trip this filter; I dislike the very concept of it.

And there is no need to treat anyone like children. A public moderation system would rapidly remove rude posts, while doing so in a way that shows your peers will not allow it; This is being treated as an adult, not a child being slapped by a parent.


Let me reiterate once more, in plain language: If there is a choice between something that insults many people who have a clean record of avoiding such language, and a system that accommodates both the desires of the moderators and the rights we all have to speak our mind and be treated as adults, how is this even a choice?

 

[Afforess]

I know the people who would abuse it, specifically by coordinating their karma toward people they don't like.

And if they get caught abusing it, moderators would step in, and correct it. By golly, that's what they are for. Moderators are meant to stop rule-breaking, not nanny us.

 

[Afforess]

The more correct way of looking at it wold be "If you act like children, don't be surprised to be treated like one". After all, it is an individual's action in swearing that brings about the use of the autocensor. Without that act by the poster, there would be no such treatment.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
(I'll give you a hint - the rule against swearing was created before anyone had swore on the forums)

I don't think I quite understand the karma system you propose. What would be different between the it and the current system, other than reporting posts being discouraged by the threat of an infraction for doing so incorrectly?

Good Karma leads to rewards, like larger avatar, more PM space, less wait between posting, etc. Bad Karma leads to no avatar, less PM space, more time between posting, etc. Eventually, if your Karma becomes too terrible, you get banned. How is this complicated?

 

[Valkrionn]

The more correct way of looking at it wold be "If you act like children, don't be surprised to be treated like one". After all, it is an individual's action in swearing that brings about the use of the autocensor. Without that act by the poster, there would be no such treatment.

I don't think I quite understand the karma system you propose. What would be different between the it and the current system, other than reporting posts being discouraged by the threat of an infraction for doing so incorrectly?

That's quite simple.

It is the difference between a child being slapped by the parent, and an adult being sentenced by their peers.

As it is now, the system is thrown in our face. Whether I trip it or not does not matter; I find it repugnant. The other method is just as much in your face, but does not carry the same heavy-handed, negative connotations.

I know the people who would abuse it, specifically by coordinating their reporting toward people they don't like.

And that, frankly, is what moderators are for, is it not? If you feel you are being targeted, you inform a moderator. They check it out. If it turns out that you are in fact being targeted, the bad ratings are removed and the perpetrators penalized heavily.

 

[JFR]

The fact that you think it is your place to correct him and straight out go against his wishes for his site, is a pretty good indicator of your actual maturity. But human judgment is still underdeveloped until the mid twenties, so there is hope for you yet.

This kind of abusive argument is more troubling to me than use of swear words. Whether one objects to censorship does not necessarily have anything to do with one's maturity. Does TF like this type of posting, particularly from a moderator?

 

[Afforess]

I know the people who would abuse it, specifically by coordinating their reporting toward people they don't like.

Following that logic, kitchen knives, your cellphone, and even the computer are using should be banned and made illegal. THEY COULD ALL BE ABUSED TO HURT PEOPLE!!1!One! Oh NOES!

 

[Valkrionn]

This kind of abusive argument is more troubling to me than use of swear words. Whether one objects to censorship does not necessarily have anything to do with one's maturity. Does TF like this type of posting, particularly from a moderator?

Yet that is one of the most common arguments amongst the proponents for the filter; Those arguing against it are obviously immature and thus their opinion is of no merrit.