Speaking of censors, I've been noticing a lot of "sh-t" and other dodging via omitting one letter. According to the rules, that's not censor-dodging? Isn't this a PG-13 (at most)-rated board? I've kept quiet for awhile 'cause I haven't had any convenient time to bring it up, but the way the language has turned on this board has really gone downhill.

I'll add more of my thoughts later, silly school. ^^;

~Shadowed Spirit Sage

This sounds like a solid idea to me. Though it wasn't just the single word behind Geo's ban, the term itself that he used which got so much attention surely isn't necessary in any chatroom situation that we need here. Or on the board for that matter.

I have also had concerns about the language. By the letter of the law, anyone using a single mark to bleep out a single letter of a cussword is breaking the rules. But unfortunately we have become entirely too tolerant of what is at best, a PATHETIC effort of users to "censor" their own bad language. If I say the F-word with a single * replacing the vowel, it's pretty darn obvious what I'm saying and I might as well have said the actual word. At least that way the chat or board censor can catch it.

Racist comments like "farm my crops" should probably be dropped too. I do not know how offensive it is to whoever that's aimed at, but racist slurs are against the rules. Obviously we can't censor whole phrases, but if someone says a slur to race or sexuality or whatever, it should be reported so the person can be held accountable for it.

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I have also had concerns about the language. By the letter of the law, anyone using a single mark to bleep out a single letter of a cussword is breaking the rules.

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mofo rules quote:

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Cursing - Don't dodge the censor by replacing only 1 or 2 letters of a swear with symbols that represent the letters being replaced.

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Currently the rules don't say that only using a single mark or bleep is censor dodging, only censor dodging is when it looks like the symbol, such as using s = $ or i = ! or 1

Also i don't understand the racial connotations of "farm my crops," ans i suspect that not many other people are offended by such sayings.

Well slurs are a whole different rule. The language rule is the one causing the drama. If a mod is present during the uttering of a slur they should take action, and if they don't they should be fired.

The thing at hand here is that a word which isn't on the censor list was the sole reason a person was banned, so to prevent more people from arguing and squabbling over it, add it (and anything else) to the censor list.

That way, they'll have to censor dodge to say that word. You and the staff can deal with the way that is to be dealt with, yourself, but this removes the gray area and stops people from getting angry at you for banning someone for no reason.

Incidentally, I have always agreed with the "one letter removed is still a swear" thing, but I also recall a mod telling me off a long time ago for telling someone not to do that.

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The best compramise I can think of is to have a set of innocent words the censor will switch things to which don't imply their nature at all. They don't even have to be actual words. They can be nonesense.

Then people can click on a link leading to censor context, so if they wish to be wised up on how to understand the F-bomb, they can.

That's compramise, mind you.

If you're unwilling to compramise, you'll need a moderator who cares passionately about this issue in the chatroom at all times, which is a very hard mission. You'll have to farm the 3 or 4 people on the board (or internet?) who hate bad language.

Either way, I wish you luck and hope that the world can be saved of it's sinlike nature. Good luck!

Sounds good to me, Craig.

Creo, if someone uses the F-word and only a single letter is replaced, it's pretty clear what they are saying whether the replacement mark is a * or a @ or a %. And especially when someone does that multiple times in a row (which fortunately only a very few people are silly enough to do), it's like, "Why are we enforcing a language rule if people are dodging it with only a single letter replacement?" If they really want to say the word, they should just spell it out and let the censor catch it - anyone aware of the censor will know what word they picked anyway, but it'll be entirely bleeped out.

As for slurs, I'd rather find out how offensive it is rather than find out how many people are offended. We've seen cases where a user will get offended over something that really isn't worth getting upset about. But there are some things that are by their very nature divisive and offensive, like racial slurs.

I've never actually understood the point of the censor to tell the truth... We all know what "scooter" means when it pops up in chat... is it really that less offensive than seeing the old f-bomb pop up?

I've got class right now, so I can't read you're arguments and responses... I'll be back later to add to this.

The rule on censor-dodging needs to be reworded. Granted, most people understand the implications, but as it stands that one line is far too open to loop-holes and rules lawyering. These are the entire rules on swearing:

"Severe cursing... [is] not allowed."

"Cursing - Don't dodge the censor by replacing only 1 or 2 letters of a swear with symbols that represent the letters being replaced."

"Keep posts at a G/PG rating"

The first and last bits are fine and don't need changing. They're pretty clear cut. It's the middle one that's the problem. By a literal interpretation of this rule (from here on out all swearing is coloured the same as the background - select to read it) S#IT and S#!T are not acceptable (one or two letters are replaced by similar looking symbols) but s*it and 5#!T are: no swear words are spelled in their entirety and the censor isn't being dodged by replacing one or two letters with similar symbols (instead we have one letter being replaced by a completely different symbol and three letters being replaced by similar symbols).

Granted, most people are smart enough not to try it and no mod would or should enforce the rule that literally but it's still sufficiently vague that people who want to kick up a fuss will can exploit it. Granted, a sufficiently determined rebel will find just about anything to exploit, but it doesn't hurt to limit their options as much as reasonably possible. What, then, is the solution? It's as trivial as adding two words and a punctuation mark. I propose this rewording of the censor dodging rule (changes in bold):

"Cursing - Don't dodge the censor, for example by replacing only 1 or 2 letters of a swear with symbols that represent the letters being replaced."

It's such a trivial change that I think I'm just gonna go ahead and edit in myself without waiting for approval.

Now onto the infinitely more important issues of the censor itself (I can't stress how much the following is much more of a concern than the above). I'm fully agreed with Craig and Terg than any words that the administration don't want said be added to the censor. That makes sense.

Moving on...

"Creo, if someone uses the F-word and only a single letter is replaced, it's pretty clear what they are saying whether the replacement mark is a * or a @ or a %."

The same could be said of virtually any censor whatsoever, which brings me delightfully on to my next point:

"I've never actually understood the point of the censor to tell the truth... We all know what "scooter" means when it pops up in chat... is it really that less offensive than seeing the old f-bomb pop up?"

That is exactly the point of a censor. Generally when a word - say foo - is censored, English is a sufficiently contextual language that anyone who knows what foo means and doesn't mind hearing/reading it can in most cases instantly work out that the censored word was foo. However, those unfamiliar with foo are not exposed to it unnecessarily and those who don't want to hear/read foo, well, don't.

Personally I think the whole concept of certain words being inherently offensive is brain-dead anyway, but then I think the same thing about polyamory being inherently immoral and timezones, so oh well.

Now, then, what form should the censor take?

Personally, I hate censors like the chat word filter (especially the really long ones like shit => pile of mr bigglesworth sprites) and the Something Awful forums' wordfilter (fuck becomes gently carres, shit becomes poo poo, etc). They're just silly and annoying. I think a far better type of censor is one that removes all semantic meaning by replacing offensive words by strings of asterisks or garbage symbols. It's basically the text equivalent of the beep censor on TV. A variation on this (and the one I use myself as I hate the chat censor) is replacing all but the first letter with asterisks: if it's good enough for newspapers (upon the purchasing of which I don't believe there's any age restriction), why not for us?

Question: besides the people complaining about censor dodging, does anyone really care? Its like the other topic on sexual language and what not. No one says anything in chat, and suddenly they need a massive topic on it? If it offends you so much, why not say something to a mod in chat rather then just letting it go and then after as long as its been going on make a topic about it?

Apparently my minor rules revision wasn't quite so water-tight as I'd hoped. I propose the following addendum to stop Creo being a tosser:

"Censor dodging is defined as any means of displaying an offensive, censored term such that it can be read clearly is not caught by the censor."

I really don't want to make a mountain out of speck of dirt here, so I will not be debating the issue of what constitutes censor-dodging further unless someone comes up with a damn good point and not just frivolous nitpicking. I won't put the definition in myself; I'll wait for someone else to approve it, but before I shut up I just want to point out what a trivial operation copying and pasting text from one post to another is.

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to stop Creo being a tosser

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I was about to tell you that angel is closed due to a person under the train, but scooter you =/

Also it should be noted that i hardly swear on the board or in the chat (normally caught by the censor), i was trying to ensure that all avenues of the mofo law were explored to ensure water tightness. But it appears that people are unable to clearly see this. *sigh*

Heh... What "PG-13" rating system are we going by?

In the MPAA's system, a PG-13 film can have a few instances of the f-bomb. It's when you get to Tarantino/ Scorsese type script writing where ever other sentence contains at least one swear word.

its G/PG not PG-13

I think the censor is stupid too, but obviously the ones who put it in place and havent yet taken it down dont.I think this board has always taken a great deal of user suggestion and put it into motion as evidenced by the continuing presence of topics like these, but lately I think they have been contended with by the staff.really i think it would just be good if the staff could come up with their policy on "rule lawyers" and put it somewhere so either these topics stop and the mods dont have them in their hair anymore or so these topics can persist and the staff doesnt treat them as unneeded annoyances

what im saying doesnt mainly apply to this topic but the trends im used to seeing.this just looks like the best place to get this off my chest<<

For the chat to be G/PG is dumb when you have to be 13 to register.

younger than 13 can fax a permission slip and unregistered users can read

Trans, how many people do you think are really honest about their age on the internet? Just because an adult site says "You must be 18 or older to enter", doesn't mean everyone who clicks is older than 18, for example :3

Also, a three year old can browse the forums without posting at all.

That's about all I have to add to this thread; Nuch covered everything I wanted to say while I was at school ^^ Thanks!

~Shadowed Spirit Sage

While I can agree that the censor is stupid in a way, it's simply in place so kids won't look at the board and see foul language and read any suggestive content (anything really sexually explicit, violence/gore, etc.), you know.
If it's supposed to be G-PG or PG-13 or whatever, then keep it as such.

That's all I've got to say on this. If you've got any problems with my comments, then PM me.

"Trans, how many people do you think are really honest about their age on the internet? Just because an adult site says "You must be 18 or older to enter", doesn't mean everyone who clicks is older than 18, for example :3"

I think that perpetuates the idea that the entire staff thinks it is inherently wrong for kids youngerr than 13 to be exposed to those things.on the flip side, if they were only out to please ezboard's ToS with their G/PG thing (ezboard itsself bans certain words), then I don't think the staff would care about people who lie about their age on forms.i dont think anyone knows which it is

The thing is thought, they shouldn't be on because of the language that can be used in chat. Hence why you have to be 13 to join. I think its wrong to try and accommodate those people. In fact, I think that encourages it.

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Also i don't understand the racial connotations of "farm my crops," ans i suspect that not many other people are offended by such sayings.

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Oh, the racial connotation is a reference to slavery/plantations OR it can be referring to immigrants (mainly from Mexico or the Caribean or Central/South America in general). In the US, it has a lot more meaning than it may have elsewhere.

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I think a far better type of censor is one that removes all semantic meaning by replacing offensive words by strings of asterisks or garbage symbols.

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That's how the censor for the chat will work whenever it ends up on my server. I don't believe in replacing words with other words either. I use "----" to replace censored words on Haven's MB as well.

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The thing is thought, they shouldn't be on because of the language that can be used in chat. Hence why you have to be 13 to join. I think its wrong to try and accommodate those people. In fact, I think that encourages it.

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Sonic = main attraction to this place
Sonic = all ages character
Therefore, site and all things connected to it should be as close to all ages as possible. That's my opinion and yes it carries a lot of weight with regards to site.

How about a filter that automatically rejects any vulgar message entirely, rather than merely censoring it? Instead of replacing the offensive word it could produce an error message encouraging the user to revise their message to be less offensive. Ideally, this should also keep the text of the offensive message, allowing users to quickly and easily censor the inappropriate bits.

You know, like those registration forms that won't let you submit them if there's an obvious error such as an invalid postal code or the password verification doesn't match the password? Same idea.

Just a thought.

Hey, I think Dirk's got something there. I like that. I would be perfectly happy with that.

Well, maybe happier if people just stopped swearing period so that this was a non-issue to begin with. But I'd be a ton happier with a censor like that.

I assume a method like that would require more effort and coding then just having all swears, etc censored to a fixed amount of asterixs ******, which doesn't necessarily have to reflect the word length. There are far more important things, such as trying to insure that flashchat doesn't get hit by more spambots, which could potentially cripple the chat of they ever manage to unleash their spamness.

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How about a filter that automatically rejects any vulgar message entirely, rather than merely censoring it? Instead of replacing the offensive word it could produce an error message encouraging the user to revise their message to be less offensive. Ideally, this should also keep the text of the offensive message, allowing users to quickly and easily censor the inappropriate bits.

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Perhaps this could work for the forum. But I think it might be too much of an inconvenience in the chat, and it would be a lot easier to simply edit the existing censor.

The only way it would work with the current ez forum would be via the use of java script, which again would need coding and such. Ezboard is quite inflexible when it comes to censors and such. With eb the important issue would be to get it working before making such modifications.

Indeed. It would be best to just use this system on EB, so Jonathan and Ksemanr don't have to worry about seeing bad words.

I think it'd be better to just have a rule on moderation. If a staff members ays you're overdoing it, you're overdoing it. Why can't people just have a common-sense rule?

However, the one thing I have to say, we really don't have a hge group of people below 13 (And while it's true they lie about age, c'mon, is anyone ever REALLY fooled?)

And I dn't really see a difference in "* you." and "F you." I mean, if you REALLY care about what the F implies, you're lying to yourself about how people read asterisks.

Speaking as someone with coding experience but not someone who's looked extensively at EliteBoard, implementing the style of censor that Dirk suggests shouldn't be too hard given that the bulk of the work is already done: we already have a mechanism for picking up on bad language and we already have a mechanism that throws you back to the edit screen with your message in tact, namely the preview button. It should just be a matter of combining those two things, which shouldn't be too hard of a problem, particularly if Vec's been using an object-oriented paradigm and sticking rigorously to it, but I don't know that's the case.

I don't support a Dirk-style censor on the chat, though, for the reasons stated. It's just a hassle, particularly if the chat is very active. It doesn't help that the chat censor is overzealous to the point that it even catches scunthorpe. :O

Do we really have dumbdumbs are in here really trying to get us to allow them to curse. There's no point in it, if you wanna cuss go do it somewhere where people think it's cool to talk like that. We don't.

As to the censor question. I prefer the censor that makes the word silly. That way instead of looking like a vulgar brat they just look like silly. Of course I wouldn't be adverse to it just rejecting the message/post entirely. Lord knows I've hit boards that do that and had it spit the "Stop cussing" message back at me for stuff. I thought that was a rather interesting way to avert it.

~Tobe

The current chat censor is ok for, say, an April Fools' joke. But it gets old quickly, and it can easily make conversations more confusing. I really don't see a reason why replacing the entire word with asterisks isn't good enough.

The point of the censor is to make you not cuss, and from that, you know, sound intelligent. If the censor makes people that spew vulgarity like sailors hard to understand then it's doing it's job nicely. No change needed.

~Tobe

I wish I could generate this kind of commotion every time i got banned. I'd make Anna Nicole look like joe sixpack.

So can I no longer say "farm my crops"? IIRC I used that term to call others racists years ago, but now it just expresses general discontent.

If nothing else, at least don't say it when I'm around in the chat. Then I won't have to make a judgment call on whether I need to warn you on it or not.

I can see the logic in Rico's reasoning here; I've noticed usually that there isn't that much actual swearing and typically only the people who for some reason cannot go without swearing (heaven forbid they should try to use a more intelligent form of communication!) are the ones who use bypasses with one or two asterisks. Swearing is a bad habit in real life; why should we encourage it here on what is meant to be an all-ages board?

I still like Dirk's idea though as well, because then it would give even better incentive not to swear; when a bad habit becomes inconvenient, then it's a lot easier to stop than when it remains convenient.

Either way, I still think at least censoring most if not all of a swear word with **** is a heck of a lot better than a puny *. A swearer doesn't need to take much effort for a * and still gets the effect they want, while effectively bypassing the point of the censor we have in place. Yes, anybody with a brain will probably realize that **** is a bad word, but it takes a lot less intelligence to realize that the F-word with a single * is actually the F-word. Ideally, people would be finding better ways to express their discontent in the first place.

When you're swearing up a storm, confident that the censor will catch it and turn it into asterisks, you're still swearing, and you're probably saying something unnecessarily rude or crass, even with the censor. The reason I suggested that type of censor is that not only would it eliminate curses from posts, but also encourage those posters to actually think twice about their posts (something they should be doing anyway, but many people simply don't).

That method of censoring sounds like it would cause more issues than prevent. It would mean significant code changes to the chat plus there's no guarantee it would save what you said after this error pops up. If it were to catch something that's not particularly a swear, obviously frustrations would mount even more.

There will probably be significant code changes to the chat anyway when it moves for a variety of reasons. What scripting language does the chat use? I've never coded in saving stuff in scripts I've written because I'm lazy, but it's not that hard to do.

Almost all censors either catch things that aren't swears (particularly words from other languages, i.e. Japanese) or miss things. That all boils down to how well the regular expressions are made.

It's not definitely going to be a pressing code change, but it's a possibility.

the filter in PSO was so sensative that we couldn't say 'saturday' or 'shoe'.. so speaking from experiance, it does create some issues.

i can never remember which swearwords are 'allowed', so have more or less given up trying to enforce that rule unless it's really obvious. it would be nice if people could express themselves without swearing, but that's just how it goes.

I hope nobody minds me just putting a quick viewpoint...

There was talk earlier in the topic as to wether anybody on the board actually cares about swearing and the censor etc on the board/chat. I can redilly assure all that there are...I'm one of them.

People will know that I visit the chat less than once in a blue moon, and stay there on average for mere minutes. Unfortunately the reason for this is that pretty much every time I have gone in there, something has come up that I was not keen on, be it swearing, censor dodging, or more often sexual innuendo. It is this same reason that is the primary reason why I didn't often visit forums on the board other than the RP Guild during my more active period here, as this attitude seemed to be rather prevelant throughout the forum as well from my standpoint.

As to the question of wether people would sit by and watch this going on without saying anything...yes, this definitely does happen, as I did it myself. I did this for two reasons: 1. Because attempting to say anything in public usually resulted in personal insults and occasionally outright flaming, and 2. Because, unfortunately, the majority of times when this did happen, the Mods of the board did nothing to prevent it, or even were involved themselves. I am not refaring to all the Mods here, some of them were genuine in their attempts to stop this kind of behavior, however sad to say as far as I could see these were in the minority.

And as a final point, it is deeply unfotunate to say that, as far as I can see, this problem of swearing, lewd innuendo and lax rule enforcement is getting worse as time goes on, and at an alarming rate. I saw this happening even during my more active days, as it's increase steadily forced me to retreat further and further into the RP Guild, the only place on the board free of such problems, and when the Guild dropped into it's slumber, I really had no more reason to come here, and so I became a very infrequent lurker who merely pops back occasionally to see if the problems that drove me away have been sorted out, which, unfortunately, as yet they have not.

Please understand, I'm not making a condemnation of the board itself or anybody in particular on it here...I am merely making an observation from my own personal viewpoint that the current state of affairs is indeed driving some away from coming here. Perhaps I am somewhat "old school" and "over the top" in my views...people are free to think such of me and I would not hold it against them...however surely it is better to aire on the side of caution in these matters and risk being too tough, than end up being too lax and forcing people off the board?

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the filter in PSO was so sensative that we couldn't say 'saturday' or 'shoe'..

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What the @#%$?

The chat uses PHP and flash action scripting.

saturday contains the word 'turd'. this was filtered out and so the entire word would be cencored.
other words contained words that were offensive in other languages, so those were filtered out as well.

so i doubt we could come up with a filter quite as evil.

What about "damn" or "hell"? I don't even consider them cuss words. Just curious as to what we're talking about censoring.

I wouldn't censor those words. Hell, I use them all the time. I mean, damn, I dunno what I'd do without them... Heck? Dang?

Crap you bastards, this might mean we have to lay down our own damn rules of which stupid words are cuss words.

[just pointing out the words that we do tolerate now that some might find offensive, and the fact that you admins just need to go huddle and throw down the acceptable and unacceptable words... Don't worry about people getting piss that they can't use the terms... This isn't a democracy]

So... no more "OH SHI-" to express realization of impending disaster? Because I'm fine with it if people consider it vulgar.

It's just... it amused me.

I leave home for a few days, and look what happens.

I dont know if this thread is still going or whatever, but I just wanna say I find it bloody hilarious. I just spent half an hour (half of the time I have on here) reading it, and it seems entirely pointless. We have the, for lack of a better term, liberal crowd, of which I myself am placed, who dont care for censorship - I, for one, would have lived without a censor even when i first joined - i was...12 at the time. Possibly eleven, I cant be bothered to work it out. Then we have the strict side, who basically just want a clampdown on everything. Essentially? The entire arguments pointless. No one has raised an uproar before, why now? I was there for the initial catalyst, and to be perfectly honest, no offence to the man here, but I think Terg may possibly be the only person who would have acted in that instance - it was entirely by accident that he came across it anyway. Considering it was a mistake, its fun to see the whole uproar its caused.

I dont know where i was going with this post, just the whole situation is funny. That is aaaall. May come back later if this is still going when i get home.

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No one has raised an uproar before, why now?

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I was ultimately responsible for shutting down the chatroom (when we were using the ezchat) due to issues over language used as well as the RPers vs. chatters stuff. Uproar over language came up at least a couple times a year though most of it started being handled behind "closed doors" and not brought up in EVC after I made it pretty clear that if I kept hearing about chat issues that the chat would go permanently "bye-bye" when I was still adminning the board.

If it weren't for the fact that I'm probably going to be hosting the flash chat, I wouldn't even be in this topic. I just want it to be known that the flash chat on my server won't be exactly the same as it currently is now.

Why are we accomodating the forum for an age group that shouldn't even be here? An age group I have yet to see?

EZbread ate my message, which was longer and better.

Anywho. The target demographic are always going to come here, and they're always going to be welcome here.

In all honesty, we shouldn't be here, we're too old. The games are still aimed at young teens, the forum is still aimed at young teens.

Changing the rules to make the oldbies feel welcome will alienate newbies, and that is the opposite of what we want to achieve here, so the only options are accept it and respect it, or naturally progress on to a Sonic board which fits your older age group.

The forum hasn't ever changed, it's just we're older than we were when we joined.