Language/Cursing Filter

[kthulhu]

Sure, why not?

[trythil]

I look at it this way:

A per-user customizable language filter would add (IMHO) unnecessary complexity into the forum software. Simple substitution isn't hard, but filtering out individual posts (as someone in this thread suggested to do) is. Trust me, I've modded phpbb to do it, and there's no real elegant way to do it. The search tool, in particular, is a mess.

This is a tangent, but I also question the ability of the majority of the forum users to properly configure such a powerful filter.

I'm curious as to who is really doing all the cursing...I'd be willing to wager that it's those "innocent" 10 to 14-year-olds that this filter should be "protecting".

[kthulhu]

The gist of my suggestion can be summed up thusly:

If you can use the forum in anything other than the Lynx text browser, something's wrong (hey, it could appeal to trythil).

This would protect people from offensive images, and a server side text filter would protect them from offensive speech.

[Flint the Dwarf]

But some of our forum members indulge themselves in cursing randomly or even directly towards others.

What the fuck are you talking about, BT? God damnit.

[LightningCountX]

filtering cursing is a bad idea. I was cursing since i was 6, and kids nowadays are curising earlier. It doesnt really matter, they are just words, and the kid is gonna learn them sooner or later from friends, family, teachers, etc.

[Declan_Vee]

I'm curious as to who is really doing all the cursing...I'd be willing to wager that it's those "innocent" 10 to 14-year-olds that this filter should be "protecting".

I say Henry, I think he's got it!

[J-0080]

filtering cursing is a bad idea. I was cursing since i was 6, and kids nowadays are curising earlier. It doesnt really matter, they are just words, and the kid is gonna learn them sooner or later from friends, family, teachers, etc.

No, just because some kids are doing it is not a good excuse for anything.

[StarMasayume]

filtering cursing is a bad idea. I was cursing since i was 6, and kids nowadays are curising earlier. It doesnt really matter, they are just words, and the kid is gonna learn them sooner or later from friends, family, teachers, etc.

No, just because some kids are doing it is not a good excuse for anything.

Exactly what I was thinking >,<

I've been hanging out at the forums for about a week now, especially in general AMV, Software Help, and a few others and how have reflected how much F**** words there are. I can't even count how many I come across every time I'm surfing through this place.

It's not just children. Damn and all the mild ones are fine by me, but I feel like my skin's crawling when I run into posts that's F**** this and F**** that, even one's in which someone in the topic is specified as being pretty young (say 12). I think these forums are great. I find a lot of help, general information, and some good topics, so I'm taking it all with a dose of vinegar. I think the forum's have a lot to offer, and crude language is a sad reason to turn people away from it. I'm glad it's at least been suggested and talked about.

I think individual filtering is a good idea. Like I said, just the automatic idea for what age you are doesn't sound good to me, because I'm just about 18 but I'd prefer to filter out the language. Otherwise, even just having the standard filter for changing it to F*** astericks or something would be good.

Someone said there's no point in it since people would just find a way around it by changing the spelling, but really, it could crop out some of the lazy ones, and the ones that DO deliberate find ways around the filtering could get a warning from the forum's Mod.

As for the thing about the offensive sigs and stuff, a way to filter out that would be to have an option for members to tell it not to show any images or sigs like someone else suggested. Either way, the sig images don't bother me much. I barely glimpse at them because i'm usually focused on the content. If filterting out images or sigs is too hard, than a system of warnings to the person for offensive images is possible.

Just giving my opinions and what seems like the best ideas to me. Hope something is decided upon in the future.

[Arigatomina]

I've been hanging out at the forums for about a week now, especially in general AMV, Software Help, and a few others and how have reflected how much F**** words there are. I can't even count how many I come across every time I'm surfing through this place.

Can we get links to the excessive use that you've seen by two weeks of surfing? I haven't been as active lately, but I really don't remember that word being used that much in those sections. If you want to show that it's a problem, links would help.

and the ones that DO deliberate find ways around the filtering could get a warning from the forum's Mod.

This will not happen. Quitre frankly, the mods do not enforce the 'no personal attacks' rule. I cannot see them spending time to ban or warn people for using a fake word (purposely misspelled) just because someone looks at it and sees a curse word (which it wouldn't be since it would be a misspelling and thereby either a non-word or a new word).

Excessive cursing aside, excessive prohibitions on word usage is outright censorship and gets a bit...need I say excessive? Just put up an automatic rewrite for the horridly evil 'f' word like they did for the equally evil 't-girl' word, or the amv-dot-org automatic correction. Set up the filters if you must, but don't expect the mods to go around yelling at people for saying F4@& because you think it looks too much like the 'f' word. That' gets a little silly with the entire idea.

[I don't care myself since I tend to save the 'big-bad' words for mimicking others who use them frequently. As long as it doesn't start going overboard and banning all sorts of words that might possibly sound like something else and thereby offend someone.]

[azulmagia]

I think individual filtering is a good idea. Like I said, just the automatic idea for what age you are doesn't sound good to me, because I'm just about 18 but I'd prefer to filter out the language. Otherwise, even just having the standard filter for changing it to F*** astericks or something would be good.

Someone said there's no point in it since people would just find a way around it by changing the spelling, but really, it could crop out some of the lazy ones, and the ones that DO deliberate find ways around the filtering could get a warning from the forum's Mod.

I doubt that. It's like swearing being censored on American TV. If a person if going to be offended by the eff word, I fail to see how writing it f*** is going to make things better, as if nobody could tell the difference. And if it's blocked out to ****, people might imagine what is being censored is a worse word (like the c word for example) that what really got censored. This too happens on American TV and radio every now and then.

As far as finding ways around the spelling, that's only as good as the mods are. And there's always foreign languages if the merde hits the fan.