Word Filters

Amelia, would you mind considering getting rid of them? It's really a horribly crude and ineffective tool for moderating potentially sensitive subjects. Even if someone doesn't just use another word, or abbreviates or misspells it, it never stops the subject being discussed or the meaning being conveyed - it just makes whole discussions into comically unintelligible games of "Guess Which Controversial Word Fits The _____ !".

And do we really want to stop the related subjects being discussed? I mean, that doesn't make them less sensitive - moreso, probably, even - and it just conveys the point to us that we're assumed to be too immature or stupid to discuss them 'correctly', which I'm sure isn't your intention. So far, and to your credit, I've seen little enforcement of these presumably banned subjects beyond the automated antics of the word filter - but that just makes the whole thing seem more redundant.

One instance I can see it being vaguely useful is if you wanted to stop people whoring links to their <hugely popular online networking site and contemporary pop culture phenominon> profiles to get people to friend them (can't imagine this crowd being too horrible with it though), but in that case I think it'd be better achieved by including the .com bit so that we wouldn't have to deal with the silly strings of asterisks when the site name drops in general conversation.

****!

Not to mention that anyone that wants to can put their <hugely popular online networking site and contemporary pop culture phenominon> links in their profile and make it their homepage anyway...

Yes, people can go around them and our mods aren't super strict hardasses like some sites when it comes to bans and violations, but one of the main purposes of the censors is to keep those words from popping up on a search engine in conjunction with BB, as it's creators do not wish to be affiliated with such concepts. I'd say that it is effective on that level and it helps to keep shall we say, unwanted people away.

For the ones that are here and know what the site is about, I think that it's generally granted that they are capable of relevant discussion that does sometimes include those words- as I said before, it's not really a big deal and it's not geared so much at stopping discourse, rather at a simple and effective way to express the administrators position on those subjects.

At least that's been my take on it, I could be wrong.

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Originally Posted by Morning Glory

Yes, people can go around them and our mods aren't super strict hardasses like some sites when it comes to bans and violations, but one of the main purposes of the censors is to keep those words from popping up on a search engine in conjunction with BB, as it's creators do not wish to be affiliated with such concepts. I'd say that it is effective on that level and it helps to keep shall we say, unwanted people away.

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This seems like a very obscure use, especially considering how search engines nowadays mostly prioritise their results based on how often a site is linked to in the context of search term, rather than how often the term is present in the site itself. Makes it more difficult for sites that want traffic to add a bazillion hidden keywords to increase their rankings; this is why we're now seeing spambots posting something random about carpet cleaning with a site about it linked in their profile.

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Originally Posted by Morning Glory

For the ones that are here and know what the site is about, I think that it's generally granted that they are capable of relevant discussion that does sometimes include those words- as I said before, it's not really a big deal and it's not geared so much at stopping discourse, rather at a simple and effective way to express the administrators position on those subjects.

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I quite understand that. If you're managing a forum at some point you're going to stumble upon the word filter tool, which begs the obvious question: "Which words are the ones I would filter?". So you think of a few things you disapprove of and add them to the list... the question of whether applying a word filter to your forum is at all a useful or desirable way to express such disapproval isn't quite as obvious though, especially considering the forum management in question consists of able writers with a whole bunch of ways to present their opinions to the public right at their fingertips.

I think some of the filters are also in place to decrease some search engine traffic. Some search strings you really don't want those folks coming to visit I would imagine.

Raza- I think Amelia put the word filters here to counter specific situations the various words were creating. Rather than begging users to stop unwanted behavior, or enforcing draconian banning rules, she just eliminated the words. Quick, and expedient.

Maybe not the most philosophically satisfying solution, but an effective one so far.

Forrest, and Amelia are by far the most generous, and stable forum owners I've ever encountered. In the last 2 years I've either abandoned, or watched at least 4 boards implode when they couldn't reconcile their free speech ideals, with the massive problems they were encountering. This site has the smoothest operating I've seen so far, and I think that's mainly due to their level headedness.

Hell, they're even able to put up with me. ;)

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Originally Posted by Buster Friendly

Raza- I think Amelia put the word filters here to counter specific situations the various words were creating. Rather than begging users to stop unwanted behavior, or enforcing draconian banning rules, she just eliminated the words. Quick, and expedient.

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I'm not questioning its ease of use; merely whether any 'situation' involving only people talking at eachother required such an eyesore solution.

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Originally Posted by Buster Friendly

Maybe not the most philosophically satisfying solution, but an effective one so far.

Forrest, and Amelia are by far the most generous, and stable forum owners I've ever encountered. In the last 2 years I've either abandoned, or watched at least 4 boards implode when they couldn't reconcile their free speech ideals, with the massive problems they were encountering. This site has the smoothest operating I've seen so far, and I think that's mainly due to their level headedness.

Hell, they're even able to put up with me. ;)

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Oh I know, from what I've seen they're very likeable people and surprisingly reasonable forum management - just like you I've seen forums die, revolt and split off, or had them ban me for speaking out against their policies once too often, and this place seems a relative haven - and their reasons for not wanting to be too personally involved with playing authority are obvious, considering how they run a counterculture forum geared towards individuals invariably possessed of some kind of rebel tendencies. But that's exactly why I wonder why they should be involved with even indirect restrictions on something as inherently harmless as information, and why I expect they'll deal reasonably with being asked about it.

**** ********* http://www.************.com

*represses urge to post only stars*

~****~

In SSA, we don't have word filters, we ban people.

Just saying, it works...

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Originally Posted by Vexbeast

In SSA, we don't have word filters, we ban people.

Just saying, it works...

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I think banning people can really limit the ability to have discussions with varied viewpoints.

Would you actually like it better if people got banned for posting, for example, a site which doesn't allow promo of Blue Blood on it? It seems like just auto-starring that site's name is much less Draconian.

Additionally, there are certain delicate topics which I am totally fine with people discussing here, but I don't want yucky people coming to visit because they found their favorite grody search terms in a search on Yahoo or Google or AltaVista or Live or whatever. I think we are all grown-up enough to know when **** means **** in context.

You all ***** ******* *** ******* because **** ***** ****** ***. That's why I ******* **** ******* *** you all!

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Originally Posted by Amelia G

Additionally, there are certain delicate topics which I am totally fine with people discussing here, but I don't want yucky people coming to visit because they found their favorite grody search terms in a search on Yahoo or Google or AltaVista or Live or whatever. I think we are all grown-up enough to know when **** means **** in context.

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and there it is..........the perfect reason for filters

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Originally Posted by Amelia G

Would you actually like it better if people got banned for posting, for example, a site which doesn't allow promo of Blue Blood on it? It seems like just auto-starring that site's name is much less Draconian.

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Are we talking about meyespace here? I didn't know they did that, figured it was blocked just because it's annoying...

Then again, 'mature content' and '*******' just don't go together at all.


We don't ban for swearing or anything though, to be fair, me and our 'Rockwulf' are the only ones that do... <.<

I love my pet troll. He's great. :3

As for the people you don't want here, they're the ones you ban. I can see how word filters is less work though...

My Space disallows promotion of BB including BlueBlood.net? Or just the erotica sites in the network?

Assuming this isn't something more personal, I don't approve of blocking sexual content any more than any other kind of censorship, despite it being so common that one gets the urge to 'just accept it' - I think we'll see a small revolution here over the next few years as sites sharing a certain function like profile/networking or blog/journals develop the ability to interact rather than just replace each other and using a smaller site with preferable management becomes less purpose-defeating - but filtering ******* just cause they did it to you first still seems kinda childish. They're hampering their own usefulness as a networking site by placing restrictions on allowed content; hampering the forum's usefulness as a community medium by doing it 'back at them' doesn't seem like much of a riposte.


That said, as a proponent of zero-moderation forum management I'd rather see wordfilters in place than have people get banned, mostly because word filters don't really achieve much of anything.

I can understand why Rupert Murdoc doesn't want anyone to show titties, it might scare off the potential conservative party base and where would he be then?