Automatic moderators.....interesting

Kodiak PA

Kodiak PA

Gold Member
Joined
Dec 3, 1998
Messages
2,447
I was responding to a post and used a word that in itself would sound inappropriate but combined with another word would be as inocent as the day Vampire Gerbil was born...the word was slang for cat. I was using the word with "foot" attached; as in using something delicately. P***yfoot was going to be the word.

When I posted there were these ***** automatically loaded. Now James and Bob don't have to work as hard moderating the forum.

I'm not necessarily against this...I just didn't know about it and found it interesting.

Sincerely,

------------------
~Greg Mete~
Kodiak Alaska
 
Yeah, I've had that same nine-letter word, which is not at all an offensive word, censored too. Computers, aren't they great?

Overall, the idea of automatically censoring selected words is important if we're to keep a forum where responses are posted instantly and yet, at the same time, keep the site reasonably "family friendly".

Certain words will land you on the out list with some of the content filtering products that some of our members surf behind, so we don't want to do that.

It's funny, though, to see the mistakes that these things make.

If you've ever wondered about the wisdom of zero-tolerance laws and policies, well here's a good example. Here at bladeforums.com, we have zero-tolerance for that slang term for feline. It is enforced blindly, without temperance, wisdom, or thought. And, as you can see, mistakes get made.

Fortunately, when the honor-students here a bladeforums.com carelessly use that offending word, we don't get expelled or sent off to a reform forum.

You can also see the other result of this blindly-enforced zero-tolerance policy: The "bad boys" all end up learning how to feline-foot around the rules
wink.gif


------------------
Chuck
Balisongs -- because it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!
http://www.balisongcollector.com

[This message has been edited by Gollnick (edited 07-12-2000).]
 
We've got about 7 or 8 dirty words on the auto-censor (which is what replaces the words with ****), so yeah, sometimes the software does make mistakes. Sometimes you have to make exceptions.

For example, let's look at the word assembly. Or assemble. Or Large mouth Bass. Notice the common word ass in all of these - if we censored that, there'd be all kinds of screwed up sentences.

You get the picture.

The idea is to keep BladeForums.com a fun, family-safe place where adults can have rational discussion. Swearing isn't needed for that. By and large it isn't even a problem.

Spark

------------------
Kevin Jon Schlossberg
SysOp and Administrator for BladeForums.com

Insert witty quip here
 
****, ****, ****, *****, damn! Oops, I mean Darn
wink.gif


[This message has been edited by Paracelsus (edited 07-12-2000).]
 
If this was a Torah-study forum, we'd have a problem, because the Hebrew name for the Book of Genesis (in Roman alphabet) is Bere****, normally pronounced "bear-a-sheet."


------------------
- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001
 
With all respect, I always found (auto-)censoring of swearwords ridiculous and somewhat of a hypocrisy. Think about family friendly: You got parts of your forum where the sometimes gory details of defending oneself with a knife are discussed (me participating, of course
smile.gif
), yet make a fuss about the mentioning of horrible words like S H I T . (Oh ****, did I say **** ?!)
Again, I respect your way of running the forums, but I cannot help but find censorship in any form a little unnecessary.

------------------
"Peace is not without conflict; it is the ability to cope with conflict" - Leo Giron
 
Give me a ****ing break...

Strong words do have a time and a place. Not always, not even often. But sometimes, yes. And I do think that anyone who is going to read about hacking off attackers limbs or other such fun activities really shouldn't be offended by a well-placed swear word. I think this worrying of these forums being "family-friendly" is, in the light of the context of some of the threads, quite typically American and ridiculous. I'm sorry if my opinion offends someone, but there it is. (That said, I do think I can live with the automatic cencorship if you wish to continue it. I just needed to raise my voice and object to it as a matter of princible. Thank you for your patience. Rant ends.)

------------------
Tony S.

Why be normal?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top