Overzealous profanity filters

[HYHYBT]

All right. I understand not wanting people to use genuine cuss words. We all know pretty much what they are, and there are very few conversations that cannot easily be had without them.

But I just left a news site which, though it did at least say what was going on and let me edit my post, took forever to find the problem. Because I don't use that kind of language anyway. It turned out that the word causing trouble was 'gay.' Now how was I supposed to know that? That's bad enough, but it's especially galling when it's under an article which uses the same word they claim is profane at least a dozen times. Because it was an editorial about gay people getting married. Of course that word's going to come up! Would it really kill them, if they're going to be so ridiculous, at least to let people know where the offense lies?

Worse is another site, which normally is not moderated but which has a software doohickey that holds comments it doesn't like... and there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to what it will hold, except that if you try to reword it to say the same thing it almost always blocks that one too. Worse, they often aren't released for several days or even weeks, by which time the conversation is over anyway... and when they are released, they're dated when they were typed and appear way up the thread as if they'd always been there.

If this post bothers anyone, I'm sorry. I'm tired and can't sleep, it's about to start getting light outside, and I'm frustrated, so I complain. But if anyone has a reason for *having* such restrictive systems that truly outweighs the benefits of being a bit freer (or at least letting people know what you're blocking), please do share.

[Andara Bledin]

I can do you one better...

There's an online golf game which is pretty popular (and pretty good, too). Well, they won't let you use the word "hole." Yeah, let's see how far you can get in a golf game without using the word "hole."

And, no, there's no real reason beyond laziness, really, that results in these overly-strict filters. The site picks up some one-size-fits-all solution and then just slaps it in without any adjustments or tweaks to make it actually fit their purpose.

^-.-^

[Lace Neil Singer]

One site I go on censors the words "weed" "crack" "chink" and "grass". Yes, I know they are offensive words in one context, but surely it can be safely left to the moderators to work out whether they are being used in that context?

[aurelemsrealm]

Wow, and to think that I wouldn't even bat an eye at hearing any of the censored words mentioned in the above posts. I think censoring profanity on most sites is overkill anyway. I don't excessively use profanity, but it doesn't really bother me as long as people aren't going overboard. I do know some people who go way overboard because profanity seems to be their entire vocabulary. However, I just attribute that kind of behavior to ignorance and stupidity.

I could see the point of censors being put in place for select audiences like a site geared toward children. The point is the target audience should determine what kind of censoring, if any, is required. I know I'm perfectly capable of disregarding what I consider irrelevant or offensive. That's just my opinion.

[Rageaholic]

The funniest are the ones at something awful.

Rape = Surprise sex.
Fuck = gently caress
Asshole = rear end in a top hat
Shit = poo poo

It makes lurking the board 10 times funnier.

[insertNameHere]

Lets not forget the ones that allow a$$ to be used. I REALLY wish those fucking filters would highlight the whole sentence that is in question so you can fix it because doing just the word itself would make it too easy to sub it out. Of course doing just bad words is nice to I can find out the world is completely fucked and if I'm using the phrase "She was a cum guzzling cock whore who loved to fuck and make me a ham sandwich after intercourse in brothel" there is nothing more annoying then finding out of all those words.... sandwich is the culprit for not posting

[MadMike]

We used to have a swear filter on CS, but I think we stopped using it for pretty much the same reasons. It's easy to block certain words that don't have other meanings, but it gets a bit tricky with the ones that can mean perfectly innocent things. I remember one time someone tried to post something about Dick van Dyke, and got censored twice. I had to laugh when, years later, I saw the same sort of thing on Family Guy. "It's the BLEEP van BLEEP show! Starring BLEEP van BLEEP!"

[Ginger Tea]

Well in the early days of the net over here, we accidentally banned the whole of Scunthorpe.

[Nekojin]

I remember the early days of one of the big MMOs - I think it was EverQuest, but I'm not sure - that had an overly-aggressive filter, such that it would block your text even if it contained words-within-words that were bad - ideally, to block things like "shitbag". That resulted in the word "assassin" being blocked, even though it was a valid term.

And then there was World of Warcraft, that had a rare cosmetic pet, a cat called the Main Coon. But you couldn't discuss getting it with your friends, because "coon" was blocked. Rather than roll back the ridiculous filter, they changed the name of the cat to the Grey Tabby.

[Ginger Tea]

See you next tuesday as a subsitute for something else, one time a girl at work said that to me, well she said "could I not say see you next tuesday" and I was totally lost, I thought, when was I discussing the porno in American werewolf in london? But that was See you next Wednesday.

[fireheart17]

When I was younger, I played Habbo Hotel...well about as much as you can "play" on it.

They had what was known as a "bobba" filter, which basically replaced swear words with "bobba" (then *****). Doesn't sound so bad right? Well, they were that overzealous that not only did they block certain words within words (assassin being one example, which became bobbabobbain), they also blocked most attempts to get around the filter, so using assassin again, things like "a-s-s-a-s-s-i-n", "@$$@$$1N" and so on were also blocked.

Few years ago they finally allowed people over sixteen to drop the filter, but they weren't allowed to report offensive language if they did (certain words in a bullying context were still OK: things like "nigga", "cunt" and so on).

[Lachrymose]

I'm playing Bobbabobbain's Creed right now!

[HYHYBT]

How about "asessin"?

I remember the (really) old CS filter, because it would replace four-letter words with five #'s. As in "##### that."

Never seen that anywhere else.

(And now I have a different annoyance: last night, I commented on two sites which send anyone who posts an email every time there's a new comment on that thread. Normally I like this feature; it makes actual conversations work, where otherwise, you ask someone a question and they never come back to see it. But *both* of those unrelated articles on unrelated sites developed both a genuine, on-topic conversation AND a... not exactly flame war, but incredibly stupid, long-running argument. My inbox is stressed... but the delete key isn't worn out yet. And it's still better than wha the McDonald's computer would pull every time we were closed for a day (so, twice a year): it would send every user two messages every ten minutes the entire time complaining. You couldn't see anything sent before that until those were deleted because it would only show the newest 99 messages, and the only way to delete a message was to open it, press escape, tell it you don't want to reply, and then yes you want to delete. Nearly three hundred times. Per user. And I counted as two.)

[Racket_Man]

We used to have a swear filter on CS, but I think we stopped using it for pretty much the same reasons. It's easy to block certain words that don't have other meanings, but it gets a bit tricky with the ones that can mean perfectly innocent things. I remember one time someone tried to post something about Dick van Dyke, and got censored twice. I had to laugh when, years later, I saw the same sort of thing on Family Guy. "It's the BLEEP van BLEEP show! Starring BLEEP van BLEEP!"

the POS at my pizza place does EXACTLY that except it just replaces the "naughty word" with blanks

it is real fun when you have legitimate business like Dick's Sporting Goods (a large big box spoting goods store), or a local business or even a persons name that begins with Dick.

I get why they did that (so the pizza place employees could not enter swear words in a customer name to describe said customer ans we would if we could get away with it ) but when we get internet orders that filter is not there.

[NorthernZel]

I once used to frequent a forum which changed "risky" words into other casual words. For instance, the word "dick" got automatically changed into "pencil".

Hilarity ensues when one wants to discuss Dickens' novels, or Bruce Dickinson's music...

Oh, and also:

it is real fun when you have legitimate business like Dick's Sporting Goods (a large big box spoting goods store), or a local business or even a persons name that begins with Dick.

It reminds me of the infamous shop once mentioned in The Simpsons: "Sneed's Feed and Seed (formerly Chuck's)"