Gosh, how excited everyone has become about this. I don't know where to start really. I'm quite happy to replace the humorous replacement words with asterisks if that's what people want but as my fellow moderators have made plain, the filter stays. I agree with wangi that in a serious topic, such as the Bigley one, humour is inappropriate which is why I replaced that particular word with asterisks yesterday evening.
There does seem to be a little confusion among some people about how the filter works. It is simply a database of words considered to be likely to cause offence. Any instance of such a word is automatically recognised and replaced with an alternative. Of course there are perfectly legitimate uses of some words such as b-astard to denote a child born out of wedlock and it is unfortunate that the filter is not clever enough to consider context, but this seems a very small price to pay in exchange for the otherwise very efficient job it does of preventing people from using language that others may consider to be offensive.
I feel as strongly as anyone else here about freedom of speech, but I can't get too excited about freedom to swear and I think this has all become rather silly.
It's simple. If you don't intend to use the words in question then the filter won't affect you, other than on the very rare occasion when it misunderstands the context, in which case you just use another word from your rich vocabulary. So what's the problem? If, on the other hand, you do want to use words that we disallow then you just have to accept that you may not do so on this particular forum.
As moderators we have a responsibility to ensure that the posting guidelines are adhered to and, as Marya has pointed out, the filter is a useful tool, blunt as it may appear at times.
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Sha g ged Me (1999) Question
Bob three questions;Bob wrote: I feel as strongly as anyone else here about freedom of speech, but I can't get too excited about freedom to swear and I think this has all become rather silly
1) Who is asking for freedom to swear?
2) Do we have a profanity filter due to previous abuse of the forum?
3) Will you consider the severe restriction of words in the profanity database?
Its become a monster. In my view, at the most it should contain The F word and derivations of the F word. Similar for the C word and nothing much else.
Asteriks are not much better either, for example; I could playfully call someone a T wat . Using asteriks could lead some people to assume I meant a C***.
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Guest
Let me try to answer your questions.
1. It would seem that a small number of members, including yourself, would like to be able to use some of the words that are currently disallowed. I flippantly referred to this as 'freedom to swear'.
2. I do not record instances of profanity. I just let the filter do its work. We have had a filter from day one. The fact that some people have just noticed it may indicate that there have been more instances recently, but more likely that it was drawn to their attention by the recent posting regarding circumvention of the filter. The profanity filter exists to filter profanity. If there is none it does nothing and you wouldn't know it existed.
3. I think it's more likely that we might add the odd one that we hadn't considered, especially if you bring it to our attention.
1. It would seem that a small number of members, including yourself, would like to be able to use some of the words that are currently disallowed. I flippantly referred to this as 'freedom to swear'.
2. I do not record instances of profanity. I just let the filter do its work. We have had a filter from day one. The fact that some people have just noticed it may indicate that there have been more instances recently, but more likely that it was drawn to their attention by the recent posting regarding circumvention of the filter. The profanity filter exists to filter profanity. If there is none it does nothing and you wouldn't know it existed.
3. I think it's more likely that we might add the odd one that we hadn't considered, especially if you bring it to our attention.
Firstly, thanks for taking the time to answer.
So no-one has asked for freedom to swear.Bob wrote:Let me try to answer your questions.
1. It would seem that a small number of members, including yourself, would like to be able to use some of the words that are currently disallowed. I flippantly referred to this as 'freedom to swear'.
It would be unreasonable to expect you to have kept a tally but not unreasonable to ask you to recall any major or significant incidences. A simple Yes or No would have done. Im sure if you could have said yes you would have. I therefore conclude the answer to be No. The increase in incidences is likely to have far more to do with the inclusion of non-profane words in the database.Bob wrote:2. I do not record instances of profanity. I just let the filter do its work. We have had a filter from day one. The fact that some people have just noticed it may indicate that there have been more instances recently, but more likely that it was drawn to their attention by the recent posting regarding circumvention of the filter. The profanity filter exists to filter profanity. If there is none it does nothing and you wouldn't know it existed.
My fears on further restriction of freedom of speech are obvioulsy well grounded.Bob wrote:3. I think it's more likely that we might add the odd one that we hadn't considered, especially if you bring it to our attention.
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Guest
Well, I tried. I'm going to have to tag one of my fellow moderators at this point because I have a roast chicken to deal with and then I'm off to the gym.
I expect you to have it all amicably resolved before I return. We're talking about a handful of words here btw, not the eleventh edition of Newspeak.
I expect you to have it all amicably resolved before I return. We're talking about a handful of words here btw, not the eleventh edition of Newspeak.
I appreciate you trying, your difficulty is justification. As far as I am concerned its not about a handful of words, its about the majority or perhaps everyone being restricted without cause or reason.Bob wrote:Well, I tried. . We're talking about a handful of words here btw, not the eleventh edition of Newspeak.
I have a bee in my bonnet about this due to a conversation I had with an occassional lurker. He expressed disdain at why a community forum needed to be policed for profanity? What sort of people used it?
I suippose its akin to Portobello promoting itself as a great community but we have armed police on the streets, not because there's any trouble you understand, its just that we can't trust the locals.
In The Guardian today:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/byelecti ... 22,00.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/byelecti ... 22,00.html
Of course they are perfectly willing to publish this word in the English language as-is.The shadow defence secretary, Nicholas Soames, today described the Tories' fourth place in the Hartlepool byelection as "a f.....g awful result".
The UK Independence party beat the Conservatives to come third, with Labour holding off the Liberal Democrat challenge to win.
Mr Soames said: "It's a f.....g awful result. It's a disastrous result, but it's only a byelection. I don't regard it as a step forward and I don't regard it as a step back."
Last edited by wangi on 01 Oct 2004, 16:58, edited 1 time in total.
And its 100% non offended support over in the S hit thread.wangi wrote:In The Guardian today:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/byelecti ... 22,00.htmlOf course they are perfectly willing to publish this word in the English language as-is.The shadow defence secretary, Nicholas Soames, today described the Tories' fourth place in the Hartlepool byelection as "a f*ck!ng awful result".
The UK Independence party beat the Conservatives to come third, with Labour holding off the Liberal Democrat challenge to win.
Mr Soames said: "It's a f*ck!ng awful result. It's a disastrous result, but it's only a byelection. I don't regard it as a step forward and I don't regard it as a step back."