Auto-censor in content forums

[Triprift]

Damn lemon my heads spinning just reading that.

Just have it to wear you can type swear words just when you post they come up and have * we can all speculate on what the words but will not know for sure.

 

[Kreij]

There are always going to be ways to subvert the filtering system.
I hope that TPU people are above that.

As far as grammar goes, there is no need to correct or filter that. That is something that the user should decide. It's not a reflection on TPU, but on the user.

If you are looking for help from someone on TPU, which reply would you perfer ?
#1 : It looks like you're having an overheating problem at those clock speeds.
#2 : ur oc is 2 hi.

Just posting that made me cringe. lol

 

[btarunr]

Oh noes. MailMan prolly brought this on...

Auto-censor? No.

Auto-warning? Yes. And it should apply to every post, not just in news and articles. The auto-warning would "spot" that the post had offensives, and rather than post immediately, would preview with the warning, "Our bot identifies possible offsensive words in your post, please re-read and correct before clicking the post button". This would allow members to self edit after a polite warning without the hand of AI rewriting or *ing their post. It will only raise more troubles otherwise... plus encourage people to swear so that their posts have lots of stars... etc. etc.

The mod view of the forum could always have a FLAG for the AI spotted posts allowing them to skim read the possible offensives.

That won't stop people who want to swear from swearing, and the point of this will be defeated.

As I explained earlier, the way I see this addon to work, it can't be toggled (or maybe there's such an addon that can), hence this discussion.

 

[btarunr]

If someone is going after someone else, I think that the mods better deal with that, that really isn't acceptable practice on any forum...

That they will. Swear at someone, and action is assured. But the talk is about using swear words in general statements, not at someone.

 

[btarunr]

Ah, OK, got it. So on original post entry, the post is scanned by the "AI" and identified words are marked automatically and masked e.g. [censor]bullshark[/censor]. Then the user toggle either shows ***** or the real text. Gotya.

Something like that, just that there's no way a person can show "fuck" without the automatic censorship, even if he wants to. And no, there's no "AI" as such. There's an addon, it holds a blacklist of words (which can be expanded), it parses text in your post each time you save a new post or edit an existing one (just like how it parses text for bbcode, smilies, etc.,) and replaces every character of the blacklisted word with a *. That is then written to the db (with **** instead of the swear word). So by design there's no way it can be 'toggled'. Again, unless a censorship addon does it differently, there are tons of addons out there.

 

[Triprift]

if it does get the go ahead you should have it on a news section on the front page so all of us know as it affects the whole forum. I say that because alot of the time W1zz has changes in a regular thread wich ppl may or may not see.

 

[btarunr]

A news post isn't needed, at least with this thread, the community is kept in the loop. It's not that we're on the way to implement this addon, but want the community's opinion (≠ consensus, which is why a poll wasn't originally there).

 

[Mussels]

i'm all for it in news, that section needs to be clean. not so sure about anywhere else - EG in reviews "that card has shit performance" - non offensive, makes sense in context


The problem is that as people have said, it tends to star out things it shouldnt

you also run into cultural differences, for example "fanny" to americans means arse... its the other side of a woman here. so we cant make everyone happy by filtering.

 

[Cold Storm]

i'm all for it in news, that section needs to be clean. not so sure about anywhere else - EG in reviews "that card has shit performance" - non offensive, makes sense in context


The problem is that as people have said, it tends to star out things it shouldnt

you also run into cultural differences, for example "fanny" to americans means arse... its the other side of a woman here. so we cant make everyone happy by filtering.

I remember when I first started here Mussels, you gave me a pm talk on "words an american shouldn't use on International forums"...

News and review is a good place for it..

 

[Kreij]

I'm pretty sure that "fanny" would not be whacked.

 

[EnergyFX]

I voted before I read. Sorry.

I prefer the current method of sound minded moderators editing "over the top" swearing and issuing a warning/infraction with it. But... after reading the first few posts I think auto-scrubbing the content sections is not such a bad thing. I'm against the idea if it leads to auto-scrubbing the entire forum. I like a little colorful language here and there. Our community seems to be pretty good about keeping it within decent boundaries and the mods do well at mopping up the occasional mess.

I see the benefit within the content forums so make my "No" vote count as a "Yes". Just please don't expand it to the rest of the forums.

 

[Mussels]

i voted no - merely because the poll says news and reviews, and i think it only appropriate in news

 

[SummerDays]

I think we should start ****** random words. We could save on bandwidth, and studies have shown the ****** is quite able to fill in the blanks.

 

[Kreij]

I think we should start ****** random words. We could save on bandwidth, and studies have shown the ****** is quite able to fill in the blanks.

Well, then it's decided.

 

[Triprift]

Give that person a medal

 

[phanbuey]

TPU peeps are above the filtering system... we are not in kindergarden, although i like filtering out the language with an ad-lib system... that would be [bananas] funny.

 

[MohawkAngel]

Before trying to clean the future posts lets begin by cleraning the older posts. Delete closed threads, useless for sale or trade section post, and useless more the 1 year old that no one post on it anymore. It could clean up the place first then begin with a new system of filtration.

 

[Kreij]

Before trying to clean the future posts lets begin by cleraning the older posts. Delete closed threads, useless for sale or trade section post, and useless more the 1 year old that no one post on it anymore. It could clean up the place first then begin with a new system of filtration.

The problem with that is there are many threads that are no longer active, but are very useful as references. I've used old posts in the P&W section many times for code reference.

 

[imperialreign]

Just an idea, which kinda spawned from lemonade's post . . .

The filter could contain an array on non-acceptable words, which would be used for filtering . . . but leave the ability to add new words and/or spelling to the list as well, so as to incorporate general spelling mistakes, or trying to get around the filter (you know users will try).

But, instead of immediately filtering a questionable post, perhaps instead such posts could be flagged for review by the mods/admins, and they can manually add words to the filter, if there's anything questionably inappropriate.

I don't think, though, that filtered words should immediately be replaced with *** - instead, replace them with more acceptable words. There are countless resources available (thesaurus) that could offer up more appropriate words in place . . .


As well, I don't believe we should focus on any of the more "acceptable" profanity, nor words that are only unacceptable to certain cultural regions . . . instead, focusing only on those that accepted across cultures as being "profane."

 

[Mussels]

my concern is that like other forums i've been to, two things will happen

1. words that shouldnt get filtered, will. Nazi would be a blacklisted word on some forums, yet "grammar nazi" is acceptable here.

2. People would go to great lengths to get around the filter, while crapping on about "its not a real word, so its not against the rules" - causing us more trouble as moderators, giving us more work to clean up after them

 

[kid41212003]

The website would look professional without swear words on the news, and reviews.

Posts contain them should get deleted automatically. No filters needed.

 

[Mussels]

The website would look professional without swear words on the news, and reviews.

Posts contain them should get deleted automatically. No filters needed.

or better yet, the posts arent allowed to be submitted.


"this post has been detected as containing an unsuitable amount of profanity - please edit the post to remove these words. (highlight profanity in red in post)"

If you believe this is in error, hit the "report post" button stating why you believe it was in error (giving mods/admins access to the problematic words, allowing them to be whitelisted if neccesary)

 

[phanbuey]

The higher up you go professionally, the more those people swear. Its only the receptionists that have to play REALLY nice no matter what.

 

[kid41212003]

or better yet, the posts arent allowed to be submitted.


"this post has been detected as containing an unsuitable amount of profanity - please edit the post to remove these words. (highlight profanity in red in post)"

If you believe this is in error, hit the "report post" button stating why you believe it was in error (giving mods/admins access to the problematic words, allowing them to be whitelisted if neccesary)

Good idea.

 

[DaveK]

I strongly agree with the point about the News & reviews section being censored, but the rest not.

Though the problem I see is the words themselves. Some words are offensive, some aren't, some aren't even swears but someone will find offensive. We should keep it simple like the F word and the N bomb, but not words like crap, damn, bloody etc. and please for the love of God, don't censor genitals. The other forum I use bleeps words like vagina and penis. They should not be offensive to anyone ffs it's about offensive as hand or leg...

Another forum I'm on uses a filter, and pretty much EVERY word that is even slightly offensive is filtered along with variations and different characters like @, $ or úíó etc. Another example is feck, a lot of Irish people say it and some consider it a swear even though it's not.