About the vulgarity automatic censor

Since I cannot write a comment to the Thread at www.abovetopsecret.com... I will have to open a new thread on the subject, since I do have an important remark to make!
(There is, however, a link to www.abovetopsecret.com... for the purpose of comments, but that page is closed!)

THERE IS ONE REALLY ABSURD CONSEQUENCE OF THIS VULGARITY FILTER THAT SIMPLY MUST BE CORRECTED!

I will first give an example. In a thread quite some time ago I wrote the HEBREW word "Beresh-i-t" (without the hyphens), and it became something like Bere# ...

The automatic censor reacted to four letters in that word THAT ARE NOT ENGLISH! So there was no reason whatsoever to censor that ...

The same can easily happen with other foreign-language words and with certain established geographical names, as well as with names of persons, etc., only because there are NON-ENGLISH letter combinations in them that the automatic censor mistakenly truncates.

An illustration:
The former Brazilian president's name is Lula. In Slovenian, these letters form a vulgar expression for urine. Imagine a Slovenian news page with such an automatic censor that writes something like "The Brazilian president # to day visited ... In his greeting speech, # mentioned that ...""

This can have some really ridiculous consequences and the problem certainly needs a decent solution. Maybe every time the censor wants to filter out a letter sequence, this will first have to pass approval by an administrator, who can let the word pass if the censor is about to make such a mistake.

#ake mushrooms.

Sometimes the censors do mess up! Mainly to try to circumvent the cirvumventions.

Originally posted by ~Lucidity
#ake mushrooms.

Sometimes the censors do mess up! Mainly to try to circumvent the cirvumventions.

I'm afraid the administrators can mess up things, too ...

Ah the wonder of censorship to keep our ears virgin.

I find them amusing especially with the s word because you can do it yesterday shat... but you can't do it today

And yet without censor bypassing the English language has has so many marvelous words that convey the same message puppy poop, diaper doodoods, bull crap etc... and what do people automatically think when they see the SHTF?

:shk:

utter sillyness

and you ever hear an Evangalist use the word Fornicate? sounds a whole lot worse than.... hockey puck

Ha yeah you were thinking it

This post will go poof in 5... 4... 3...

Hu-mons are funny animals

Zorgon always bringing the ha-ha's here...

Mainly the censors take out these words because, well, we are all reading and writing in English here. Most of the users of this site use English as their primary language.

The censors maintain a level of decorum here that is not present on other similar forums, we all know which one in particular, and other places such as the comments in youtube.

I, for one, appreciate the level of decorum that exists here, and their are time when I just want to tell someone to stfu or gth or etc etc, I am happy that the censors are able to do what I apparently forgot to do, maintain myself with civility and decorum!

reply to post by youdidntseeme


Decorum is also to be able to write with scientific terms and, being educated, quote in other languages, without getting behind the bars of ### …

Of course, this is utterly ridiculous. One word is “good” and another is “bad” according to the fashion of the day, and yet they mean exactly the same thing. Such nonsense as a vulgarity censor would (I hope) be unimaginable in Europe, where many languages are rich in spicy words. This is #, I mean #, no # – well, that didn’t work either, what a #. So what the # can I do? Better I go and do what most others do, but instead call it something else than #. Does it change what I’m doing? Shall we rewrite all the literature? Burn books and print new ones that instead of # have # – sorry, I don’t find a better word. How shall foreign pieces of good literature be translated to English, when people # and call it by a common and well known word in the original language? They do it anyway, and it doesn’t matter if I call it # or #. It is still the same #.

But really, this seriously needs reconsideration. I mistype “suffockation” even worse, and then I am in the trap with suf#ation. A boxer gives another one a nosehit, and I miss the “e” and get no#. There are far better ways for spell checking! This actually is a good way for children to learn certain words, because they accidentally pop up in the laptop when spelling wrong, and then lead to a question: “What does ‘#’ mean, dad?” If he doesn’t explain it, the kids in the schoolyard will. The word then becomes so much more interesting! There is no way around it, they will all learn these words, and so much better than before, and old “bad” words will be replaced by new and possibly even worse that the automatic censor doesn’t know yet. Our use of language compensates automatically and we are back to zero (or even -1) with merely a new vocabulary, one word more “dirty” than the previous. So what the fornication was it all good for, then? Or you, for example, use Spanish words instead. With all the many good Hispanics in the US, very few will misunderstand. What follar does it matter? The Canadians often have at least some knowledge of French and hardly anyone misunderstands what a merde this whole thing is. What a bull excrement! And if the French-speaking (maybe in Quebec, in that case, but hardly in France) also introduce such a merde filter, you only need to misspell the name of the former Russian prime minister Putin in a way that the most French pronounce just the same, and to the automatic censor he becomes a hore, I mean a prostitute: Putain, now spelt #. See, one way to get around is to spell the “bad” word just a bit differently, and that will begin to develop now, promoted by the fickend (German word) filter. There are, by the way, some Yiddish words that this way may enrich English and make it more colorful. An author gets the Nobel literature prize for a book, writing as people do speak, and it cannot be properly translated. If then a sailor in the book speaks like a nobleman, is that a devaluation of his work? From the point of view of literature I think it is.

But even worse is the truncation of certain foreign words and names! They are really bad mistakes and obvious failures of the automatic censor … if I would only take time and energy for it, I could probably find a few scientific terms that in professional magazines would have a # in them after the filter has distorted them. And who, by the way, will maintain the filters and keep them up-to-date? They will have to be experts in “dirty” words and know many more than the average person …

Yep,
My brother owns a #-zu.
Oh, Spelled shih-tzu wrong.

The auto censor isn't to keep you from making a funny or the odd bad word. It's to keep the lunatics who like to go tourettes syndrome on other posters in check when they arent feeling adult enough to be courteous.

I'd rather have the occasional glitch than a vulgarian free-for-all like the rest of the internet has become.

If the automatic profanity filters are an issue with regards a legitimate, well-constructed, thought-out and/or salient thread start or reply ...

let us know


we'll do our best to accommodate and afford lenience to the same.


As definitive as the T&C are, there would still seem to remain considerations for or allowance of 'linguistic abhoritions' ... if you will.

*words otherwise 'known as' ... but not to be noted as or intended in the same or 'typically-considered' manner

If you're so thin skinned that you are offended by words, maybe you shouldn't be using the language to begin with. Grunting and groaning comes to mind as a replacement language, but I am sure the politically correct advocates will also censor those sounds due to them being sexually suggestive.

It is all about control and the freaks who have nothing better to do with their miserable existence than impose their phony self-righteous will on others. If you are an adult and need to be told how to write and speak, then you also need to be told how to think. Many challenged people prefer it that way, since it is a few less things to worry about.

Ha! Good thread. I was once on a forum which was so PC uptight that anything remotely considered to be at all derivative or relating to the "eff-word" was immediately filtered to "tomato" instead. Didn't alter the intent or meaning one bit, though. It just looked pretty stupid.

Originally posted by QueSeraSera
Ha! Good thread. I was once on a forum which was so PC uptight that anything remotely considered to be at all derivative or relating to the "eff-word" was immediately filtered to "tomato" instead. Didn't alter the intent or meaning one bit, though. It just looked pretty stupid.

Go tomato yourself.

Hmm... it's just not the same. I don't think I could manage that with a straight face in real life conversation.

reply to post by Dendro


Exactly...it was pretty weak.

Shiitake mushrooms are fine, if spelled correctly.

They're fine, even if not...

For those who might have missed it because you go to bed early...

A classic case of censoring oneself:



I see you driving round town with the girl I love
and I'm like 'Forget You"

Schlitz , mushrooms are tomatoing fine anyway I can get them , especially on a tomatoing pizza with pepperoni and italian sausage .

If you are going to have a "dirty mouth" do it the right way please....

Well if we are going in this direction... my personal favourite:

how come a thread about posting the word sh¡t gets many replies when there are lots of good threads out there that deserve to be discussed more.

reply to post by memyself


I've seen people's profanity here get replaced with the tag "snip" so I tend to use that when I want to swear (I might call someone's ideas batsnip crazy for instance ). I'm sure the mods would make an exception for a foreign word if you let them know. We like to keep language clean here on ATS but we're not snipping Nazis about it