Swear filter question

[Buster's Uncle]

Not the first time I've noticed, but it doesn't come up often when you're in the habit of watching your public language (as we all should) - I used a casual vulgarity in a PM to Lefty Saturday, (nothing I'd judge offensive to the recipient) and it's a lucky thing I caught it having disappeared before I sent, because a double-space isn't much of a red flag when you hit preview, and the sentence would have been gibberish with the word missing and so little to indicate the omission.

...I understand the CFC policy is to gig members a minor infraction for (knowingly in the judgment of the staff?) tripping swear filter, at least in excess. -I believe I read it in the rules.- And I have a fuzzy impression/memory that CFC did the standard asterisks substitution six-years-ago-and-change when I was a new member. You know, there are surprises in any swear filter, and I do recall tripping it before when I noticed the name of a certain notorious -even in the mainstream news- image board -known for its trolls- had disappeared from a post, and I had to do an edit so the sentence made sense.

Fine, really - I had to make a post myself two days ago at AC2 asking my MP guys to police their own language when certain terms make it past our inadequate swear filter, and specifically pointing out some words that are allowed but very much frowned upon, at least in excess use. People of my generation and younger mostly think little of cussin' up a storm in private -I'm no better- but there are those who hold stricter standards, and we all have mothers to embarrass, and I certainly approve of trying to run a fairly -if NOT boringly so- clean place. And I can see the wisdom of avoiding attracting the attention of certain undesirable groups, so not being able to name that board scans well enough.

Now I'm guessing that there was some thinking that a line of **** was ugly in a post, and/or making triggering just invisible would reduce administrative overhead time for mods in a see-no-evil way. Fine - I don't want to get infracted for that and get mad and all that drama for typing a forbidden word that I either knew the filter would catch and prevent displaying -so no harm, in my book- or I just didn't know was forbidden. Fine.

BUT - it really bugs me that it's been made SO tricky to spot these incidents, and the possibility probability of having my beautiful prose rendered senseless (please hold your laughter till my big finish ) is not a happy one. Could we think of something better, possibly? Some of us are typo-prone and terrible spellers to begin with; a factor that tends to introduce (even) lower coherency to posts tends to reduce their value to our community, surely. One of the reasons I hang out with 4x gamers online is the high level of fluency in communications.

What I did at AC2 was to come up with bracketed translations substituting for whatever forbidden term - I think the [stuff]'s funny. What I'd suggest here at CFC, to preserve the disappearing intent a little, is substitute a period. It wouldn't ugly up the . posts, but would be (FAR) easier for the poster to spot and correct or at least the reader to know a word's missing and better make sense of the sentence. (Might require the staff to use some judgment/discretion at possible triggering, but isn't that still better than reduced-quality posts? . yes, I think so..)

 

[Petek]

I'll have to look up the history of why the auto-censor is configured the way it is. There have been several changes over the years.

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

Been a while, and I do not recall the details, but I believe that making it disappear rather than other symbols being substituted was an intentional choice since **** or ***** many contexts would immediately be recognized for what was removed, significantly degrading the purposes of the censor.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

That makes sense. A period would be that much less obvious, of course - certainly for lurkers.

I'll have to look up the history of why the auto-censor is configured the way it is. There have been several changes over the years.

Thankee kindly, sir.

 

[Camikaze]

The idea behind the change, as far as I can recall, is that by removing the word entirely and not leaving behind a string of asterisks, we wouldn't have to infract if someone tripped the censor. So if you type a censored word into a post and the autocensor completely removes it, you aren't going to be infracted. All that is left is a single blank space, so it cannot be said that the post contains inappropriate language. You're only infracted if you evade the autocensor, or if inappropriate language is clearly discernible from your post. Four asterisks will often make the intended word clearly discernible.

We get into tricky territory when an 'ing' is left behind or something, but I don't think I've ever seen that infracted.

So to be clear in relation to the concern that you might be infracted if you trip the filter and don't notice - you won't. Tripping the filter is not an infractible offence. The presence of inappropriate language in your post is, and tripping the filter largely removes this possibility.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Not the first time I've noticed, but it doesn't come up often when you're in the habit of watching your public language (as we all should) - I used a casual vulgarity in a PM to Lefty Saturday, (nothing I'd judge offensive to the recipient) and it's a lucky thing I caught it having disappeared before I sent, because a double-space isn't much of a red flag when you hit preview, and the sentence would have been gibberish with the word missing and so little to indicate the omission.

...I understand the CFC policy is to gig members a minor infraction for (knowingly in the judgment of the staff?) tripping swear filter, at least in excess. -I believe I read it in the rules.- And I have a fuzzy impression/memory that CFC did the standard asterisks substitution six-years-ago-and-change when I was a new member. You know, there are surprises in any swear filter, and I do recall tripping it before when I noticed the name of a certain notorious -even in the mainstream news- image board -known for its trolls- had disappeared from a post, and I had to do an edit so the sentence made sense.

Fine, really - I had to make a post myself two days ago at AC2 asking my MP guys to police their own language when certain terms make it past our inadequate swear filter, and specifically pointing out some words that are allowed but very much frowned upon, at least in excess use. People of my generation and younger mostly think little of cussin' up a storm in private -I'm no better- but there are those who hold stricter standards, and we all have mothers to embarrass, and I certainly approve of trying to run a fairly -if NOT boringly so- clean place. And I can see the wisdom of avoiding attracting the attention of certain undesirable groups, so not being able to name that board scans well enough.

Now I'm guessing that there was some thinking that a line of **** was ugly in a post, and/or making triggering just invisible would reduce administrative overhead time for mods in a see-no-evil way. Fine - I don't want to get infracted for that and get mad and all that drama for typing a forbidden word that I either knew the filter would catch and prevent displaying -so no harm, in my book- or I just didn't know was forbidden. Fine.

BUT - it really bugs me that it's been made SO tricky to spot these incidents, and the possibility probability of having my beautiful prose rendered senseless (please hold your laughter till my big finish ) is not a happy one. Could we think of something better, possibly? Some of us are typo-prone and terrible spellers to begin with; a factor that tends to introduce (even) lower coherency to posts tends to reduce their value to our community, surely. One of the reasons I hang out with 4x gamers online is the high level of fluency in communications.

What I did at AC2 was to come up with bracketed translations substituting for whatever forbidden term - I think the [stuff]'s funny. What I'd suggest here at CFC, to preserve the disappearing intent a little, is substitute a period. It wouldn't ugly up the . posts, but would be (FAR) easier for the poster to spot and correct or at least the reader to know a word's missing and better make sense of the sentence. (Might require the staff to use some judgment/discretion at possible triggering, but isn't that still better than reduced-quality posts? . yes, I think so..)

I happen to think that the current method of autocensoring things is ridiculous. As Buster's Uncle pointed out, typos happen, and some of us are vision-challenged and may not catch the barely-perceptible indication that a forbidden word has been used.

I would, however, suggest an asterisk instead of a period, as a period could result in unintended consequences if it happened to occur next to/within a hyperlink, for example.

While I wouldn't want CFC to go to the extent of one forum I recall that used a huge, ugly smiley to indicate that someone tripped the autocensor (a large, spinning green skull), I wouldn't object at all to restoring the asterisks. At the very least it would be a fairer way to indicate to those of us who do preview our posts that we've tripped the autocensor and we need to reword our sentence.

I'll have to look up the history of why the auto-censor is configured the way it is. There have been several changes over the years.

That would be appreciated.

And may there also be a review of which words are censored, please? It's ludicrous that a particular term used to talk about armoring or log-cabin building is forbidden, not to mention a certain kind of plant found along the banks of streams or ponds. It should be obvious which words I'm referring to, and it might be worth a trial experiment to remove those words from the autocensor and see if there are very many instances of people using them as racial/ethnic slurs or as offensive sexual terms. As far as these two words are concerned, it's the context and intended meaning that makes them rude, not the words themselves, since they have perfectly innocent, legitimate meanings as well.

Been a while, and I do not recall the details, but I believe that making it disappear rather than other symbols being substituted was an intentional choice since **** or ***** many contexts would immediately be recognized for what was removed, significantly degrading the purposes of the censor.

Most of us are no longer underage children, Lefty. While I'm not fond of gratuitous swearing, definitely not in favor of malicious swearing used for the purpose of trolling or flaming other members or for hate speech, nor in favor of allowing certain words that are offensive in any context, the fact is that it's unreasonable to expect people to have their "Sunday/company manners" on 100% of the time. And these 'extra space and missing word' indicators serve the same function as a "bleep" does on TV. Someone observant will notice it anyway, or someone else may read the sentence, realize it doesn't make sense, and start asking questions. Sometimes this kind of censorship raises more questions and fuss than the original method of dealing with this would have.

It really is annoying to discover that you've posted a sentence that has a word missing and the sentence doesn't make any sense as a result. Yes, we have an edit feature, but how many people use that, or realize that something is wrong because this extra space just isn't noticeable enough?

We get into tricky territory when an 'ing' is left behind or something, but I don't think I've ever seen that infracted.

So add the full word to the autocensor. That option does exist, for any form of the word you want to add.


I seem to recall a longer thread on this topic from some time back...

 

[leif erikson]

Most of us are no longer underage children, Lefty.

Just because you are no longer an underaged child does not mean they do not exist on this forum.

 

[Ryika]

Just because you are no longer an underaged child does not mean they do not exist on this forum.

But if a child can recognize the word that has been censored out anyway, what exactly is it protected from? It obviously already knows the word and its meaning.

I, too, find it confusing when words just vanish. Maybe instead of just leaving an empty space something like <word removed> would be a compromise as it has no indication of the length of the original word.

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

Most of us are no longer underage children, Lefty.

Yeah, and some of us started in a gaming (in person wargaming) culture where all colorful and vulgar language, as well as trolling, flaming, and describing the deficiencies of each others ancestry was de rigueur and great fun. But, that is not the ambiance of Thunderfall's house. My house would likely be different.

 

[Petek]

But if a child can recognize the word that has been censored out anyway, what exactly is it protected from? It obviously already knows the word and its meaning.

I, too, find it confusing when words just vanish. Maybe instead of just leaving an empty space something like <word removed> would be a compromise as it has no indication of the length of the original word.

Our forum software can't replace a banned word or phrase with another word or phrase. All it can do is to replace each letter with a designated character (or a blank, as is currently the case). For example, if cat is autocensored and * is the designated replacement, then cat will be displayed as ***. A few minor variations are possible, but nothing such as your suggestion.

We originally used * as the replacement character, then switched for a short time to a smiley face. I still haven't found the discussion of why we now use a blank. The reason is probably what was stated by Camikazi.

 

[Mise]

Personally I think that removing the offending word entirely is much better than the other * etc solutions. IIRC you can't have it be a single character, so something like "." won't work as it will come up as "...." . This will still convey nearly the same meaning as a swear, so it's not effective enough IMO. But multiple spaces get removed and trimmed down into a single space by the forum software, so replacing a four-letter word with spaces actually just removes it entirely. I think this is a really great and clever solution.

Yeah, I sometimes accidentally fall foul of this for entirely innocent reasons (and some less so of course). But the fact that it renders the sentence meaningless or stupid-looking is exactly why it's so effective: it forces you to go back and edit in a less offensive word. If the **** stayed in the sentence, you could simply leave it there, as the meaning (though not its offensiveness or strength) is still conveyed. Over time, this changes behaviours. Indeed, there is FAR less swearing now than there used to be in the past, when we used "*" or smiley faces, and the swearing that does occur is much less offensive or gratuitous. It's been a huge improvement IMO.

So I think it's worth the minor inconvenience of having to edit my sentences when I do accidentally trigger the autocensor, to have an autocensor that not only removes swear words, but forces people to edit their posts to put a less offensive word in instead.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

I, too, find it confusing when words just vanish. Maybe instead of just leaving an empty space something like <word removed> would be a compromise as it has no indication of the length of the original word.

...Or just <> or ^ as code quickly clear to members, if not which term, thus not undermining the whole point, as Lefty said. This may be a better balance between the need for clarity and the need for a classy place...

-Which is a real need. Aeson had trouble about ads in Apolyton OT because, among other things, there's not much in the swear filter anymore, and advertisers don't like that, so big trouble for an owner looking to cover the server bills.

And I've had a couple of boy wonder members at AC2 whom I wouldn't have wanted to miss. Both are rather stern moralists at heart, much as I was well into my teens, and in a group that's frankly leaning to a bunch of middle aged white doodz, if international, I want all the women and teens and really old retired people and whatever diversity I can get, provided they're cool. Life's more entertaining that way, people who agree on everything aren't as educational to be around and entertaining to talk to, and a forum with standards of decorum is more attractive to savages than one with no standards is to people with limits on what coarse public speech they'll choose to be around.

As Camikaze confirmed my surmise, save the proviso that I'd only get gigged for, say, typing that he's a g*od guy (if good was a word in the filter - everybody knows that trick, so not an unreasonable policy), I'd say all that was really at issue here was the best balance between propriety and user utility. Some mark not an asterisk -it's so standard that every soccer mom cruising the net looking to start a Terry Rakolta-esque crusade should recognize- should constitute a reasonable compromise.

I had a few members over a year ago at AC2 make a rather insistent push against having a swear filter at all, which I had to be boringly authoritarian about. I happened to have coincidentally later that month stumbled over an option in the SMF software we run to allow members to turn off the filter for their own display (lurkers and members not availing themselves see the usual as before). I thought about it for a few days first, but I enabled and announced, which pleased those members very much. The only downside is that those members can't see when the filter fails to insert my comedy bracketed translations, so more work for me, maybe - but that's no grounds upon which to make policy detrimental to member happiness. (I have to keep the filter on for my view for obvious reasons.)

I note with ironic amusement the same effect I've observed in PDMA threads - this is a subject that is tricky to discuss without abusing the policy in question.

[triple-ninja'd while multitasking]

I haven't moderated in vBulletin software in years and never had access to the swear filter, (though I did have access to the smilie filter -which works much the same way- [and even got permission to, briefly, play a joke on Metaliturtle with it; you couldn't say his name for a few hours without a smilie replacing]) but wonder if some sort of invisible character is possible. Even as much as "_" -the underline keyboard character- would be lower impact than asterisks and still alert the poster to possibly edit. As Valka said, some of us can't see as well as we used to, and I'm sure quite a few have gotten past me against my will as a citizen who wants to play by the rules, but also wants to make sense.

Again - I want my posts to make sense and my disappeared words are hard to spot, Mise, so this is a real problem. Let's think of something better the software will allow.

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

...Or just <> or ^ as code quickly clear to members, if not which term, thus not undermining the whole point, as Lefty said. This may be a better balance between the need for clarity and the need for a classy place...

That balance would work from perspective. but Petek says above that is not technically available with the software.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

I probably wasn't clear enough in my formatting -of the final remarks after I saw on preview that Petek had pointed that out- that I suggested the keyboard underline (_)character.

Wouldn't the censor, in using that character, run them together into a solid line? Thus, if I called you a dirty ____________ in a post (a ____ is a better example), it's pretty tough to work out if that's four or five (or 12) letters or what, thus the point of the censor is less undermined, propriety and the making-sense of the sentence is better preserved, and I don't have any trouble spotting that I've triggered and have to decide whether to edit.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

...It's also a lot prettier -or less ugly- fwiw...

 

[Mise]

Yeah, but the point is, the person on the other end still gets called "a dirty <something that triggers the autocensor>". I.e. the other person still gets the force (diminished though it is) of the insult, because they know that they've been called something so offensive that triggers the autocensor. OTOH, if the word is simply missing, then most of the time it looks as though the swearer just accidentally a word, got distracted and forgot to finish the sentence, didn't proof read properly, or simply has poor grammar. It appears to the person receiving the insult as a simple mistake, rather than an offensive, insulting and hurtful remark. The impact on the person receiving the insult is therefore greatly diminished. This makes the forum far more pleasant to use for everybody, and minimises the risk that some horrible person will ruin your day by insulting you.

Additionally, it encourages better behaviour, because the person making the insult is forced to use a less offensive, less insulting, and less hurtful word than the ones that are filtered by the forum. Otherwise their post no longer makes any sense. If there was an indication that a swear word was used in position X in a sentence, then they wouldn't really need to replace it with another word, because everybody knows and understands that some swear word was used. Yes, this would be diminished slightly if the precise swear could no longer be divined from the length of its replacement, but the person receiving the swear (and everyone else) would still be aware that they were called "a dirty <something that triggers the swear>". This (partially) achieves the goal for the swearer, because it still conveys some level of hurt and offence to its target.

The fact that it is hard to tell that a swear word has been used at all is precisely why this is such a good way of dealing with offensive, insulting and hurtful swear words. I understand that this slightly inconveniences some people some of the time, but it's such a rare occurrence that the benefits are absolutely worth it. This forum is a much more pleasant place since we started deleting swears completely.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

Okay, both my examples were bad, if for only being flaming - and I'm trying to play by the rules.

I agree with your ideas about encouraging better expression, but sometimes I'm just going to want to crudely say that that ____ don't wash in my punchbowl for emphasis, or need to come up with a synonym when I tell Lefty in private I'm not asking for a _______ and a birthday cake. -Neither being flames, and rudeness being highly contextual, and I almost didn't catch that last.

Flaming is bad and rightly against the rules, and beside my point.

 

[Mise]

I understand that the way the swear filter is set up (and the forum rules on swearing) prevents you from saying those things. I'm saying that it's a small price to pay for a generally much more pleasant forum. If you replace swear words with _ or * or . or any other character, it makes the forum a much less pleasant place all round, because it encourages flaming and increases the potential for trolls and flamers to hurt people with their posts. So, yeah, I'm sorry that you can't say stuff like that (sincerely - I wish I could say stuff like that too), but that's the price we pay for having a much friendlier and more pleasant forum.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Yeah, and some of us started in a gaming (in person wargaming) culture where all colorful and vulgar language, as well as trolling, flaming, and describing the deficiencies of each others ancestry was de rigueur and great fun. But, that is not the ambiance of Thunderfall's house. My house would likely be different.

I'm not asking for unreasonable concessions here, just a relaxation of the rules for a couple of words (because their prohibition does affect peoples' ability to discuss certain topics in a coherent way) and a different way to indicate that the autocensor has been tripped.

Our forum software can't replace a banned word or phrase with another word or phrase. All it can do is to replace each letter with a designated character (or a blank, as is currently the case). For example, if cat is autocensored and * is the designated replacement, then cat will be displayed as ***. A few minor variations are possible, but nothing such as your suggestion.

We originally used * as the replacement character, then switched for a short time to a smiley face. I still haven't found the discussion of why we now use a blank. The reason is probably what was stated by Camikazi.

How interesting that Invision boards are apparently more advanced than vBulletin, then. I just tested this on one of my forums, and was able to substitute one word for another, with no problem whatsoever.

Let's see what the vBulletin manual actually says about this (this information is freely available online, so this is not information limited to CFC):

https://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/vboptions_group_censor

The implication here is that a single character can be used. But when I checked out the actual page where the admin decides whether or not to enable the filters and decide what substitutions to use, this is what comes up (again, freely available online):



Note that the manual doesn't say that only a single character can be used. It says "character (or characters)." Plural. So that means that more than one character can be used. And if you used to use a smiley face, that does require more than one character.

Did anyone do a test of this to see if it works? It seems downright ridiculous that this would be something other kinds of forum software can do but vBulletin can't... because how else could that other forum I mentioned previously use a smiley image in place of banned words? That's a vBulletin forum, and all they had to do was make the substitute word the same code for that particular smiley. That required seven different characters.

 

[Camikaze]

If a single blank space were to be replaced with, say, __________, then it's likely there'd be a rise in the number of inappropriate language infractions - there'd be more posts with clearly implied inappropriate language, and tripping the autocensor would still leave you liable to infraction. If you were to re-read your posts it'd be easier to pick up that a word has been taken out, but that luxury is bought at the risk of infraction - if a moderator got to it first they'd see the clearly implied inappropriate language and infract accordingly.

The reason why this doesn't happen with a single blank space is because there's no evidence that inappropriate language has been used. There is no ****** or ___________ or or ........... to indicate that something inappropriate has been said (from which it's usually possible to discern the intended inappropriate language). So the very reason why the single blank space is effective would be negated by replacing it with any marker or visible sign that the autocensor has been tripped. Even a single * for an inappropriate word would signal that an inappropriate word is meant to fill the gap, and context usually provides the answer for what that word is. A single blank space doesn't do that, however, because there's no indication to the average observer that there's a deliberate gap to be filled.