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Last edited by dtm42 on Fri Nov 23, 2012 8:55 pm; edited 1 time in total

So in a recent post I said clusterf**k and a Moderator edited the post to say "[expletive deleted]". However, the word in question is not actually filtered in the first place, so I thought it was okay to use. I wasn't even swearing at a person, but rather using the term to describe a notably bad show.

By the way, s**t and c**t are also not filtered; you think they would be. C**t especially is considered a very strong and vulgar swear from where I'm from.

I know the rules say that swearing is frowned on, yet the implication of having a filter is that if it isn't on the filter it is acceptable to use.

I think I clear message needs to be sent. If particular words are not okay they should be added to the swear-word filter. Obviously no-one's got the time to add every swear and bit of slang ever to the filter. However, that should not preclude the filter getting periodic updates to cover the worst candidates.

Put simply, I support the use of the filter but believe it needs an overhaul in order to be relevant.

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There is a related topic that I've been mulling over, that of people who get around the filter. There is no rule against it and I think it needs to be added. Of course, it needs to be made clear what "getting around the filter" actually entails. Obviously asterisking some letters out is getting around the filter and should be frowned on. But if you say "fudge" instead of the F-word as one prominent user does, are you deliberately evading the filter?

P.S. I have asterisked out the swears in this post only so that if they are added to the filter at a later date people can still tell what I was referring to.

dtm42 wrote:

the implication of having a filter is that if it isn't on the filter it is acceptable to use.

No it isn't.

The fact that something is not specifically precluded by the rules does not therefore make it OK. You seem to have a very difficult time with this concept, as you have demonstrated repeatedly over time.

You can't create a rule for every possible bad behavior. You can try, but it's ultimately futile. Not to mention the fact that if you attempt such a task, before long your list of rules would become so long and hard to manage that they would be more confusing than useful.

The alternative is to set some general guidelines for people to follow. The hope is that most people will be decent enough to follow the spirit of the rules in addition to the letter of the rules. For the vast majority of forum members this is enough.

Yes, this approach leaves gray areas, and people like you delight to no end in taking advantage of that fact by beating the staff here over the head with your attempts to justify your bad behavior because things you do aren't specifically forbidden down to the very situation in which you are doing them.

The fact that you clearly demonstrate in this very example that you know your behavior is wrong but do it anyway because there is not a specific prohibition just shows that you are capable of behaving acceptably even without a set of rules that somehow comprehensively covers every imaginable situation. You just choose not to do so.

I would suggest that instead of attempting to create an ungainly and unmanageable set of rules to govern the bad behavior of the handful of people here who choose to actively test the bounds of what they can get away with (even when they know what they are doing is wrong), that instead the staff here should handle those disruptive individuals directly. If repeated warnings about bad behavior continue to go unheeded, troublemakers need to be banned. If you can't play nice, and refuse to shape up after being warned over and over, I don't think it's any great loss to the community to see you go permanently.

And please stop making the argument that if it's not against the rules it's de facto OK. You know perfectly well that is spurious reasoning.

Last edited by dtm42 on Fri Nov 23, 2012 7:16 pm; edited 1 time in total

This isn't about me, it is about the swear-word filter, words that should be added to it, and what is not acceptable in circumventing the filter.

I'm looking at constructive feedback from intelligent users. Not bile from a mean-spirited user who has a bee in their bonnet.

If you want to rant at me to further your juvenile hate campaign then just send me a PM. Or send the Moderators a PM, whatever. But don't try and derail the thread.

By the way, according to your logic, there's no point in having any rules at all.

If there is a general rule against getting around the filter then the Mods can choose to police it as they see fit, same with every other rule. At the same time, having a rule tells all users that circumventing the filter is not acceptable and so it prevents confusion. Some Mods might allow "fudge", others might not, but at least users know that they're pushing their luck if they try.

LOL. Angry much?

dtm42 wrote:

By the way, according to your logic, there's no point in having any rules at all.

No, that's not the case at all and you know it. Once again you are trying to make everything black and white. The world doesn't work that way, as much as you might want it to.

My argument applies directly to your point about the language filter. If it upsets you that people here find your behavior in general to be offensive, perhaps you should change it.

ManOfRust wrote:

LOL. Angry much?

No. I'm simply exasperated that you are so incapable of letting one incident go that you'll soapbox about it in a thread which has nothing to do with it. Attempting to derail threads just to continue your vendetta against me is not cool and makes you look petty. If you have a problem with my behaviour then report my posts. If you still have a problem with Key's decision then PM him. There are plenty of legitimate and official avenues for you to follow.

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There's no harm in requesting for more words to be added to the swear-word filter, or asking what the rules are (or should be) for skirting the filter. Just because there are a lot of words that need to be added should not stop the most offensive and most commonly used swears from being added to the filter. If you're going to have a filter in the first place then you might as well use it. And adding a rule preventing people from deliberately avoiding the filter is not hard and would plug a gap.

I actually agree with him. There is a filter to auto-censor objectionable language. Given that it's quite easy to use wildcards to indicate more than just the f word to be censored, and it's not, and commonly used objectionable words like the examples in the first post are not on the list, does seem to imply that there is no problem using those words. I have experience with phpBB2's word filter, it's quite easy to use, there's no excuse for some un-filtered words not to be on it, unless they are allowed.

I'm inclined to agree. I've always found ANN's policy on swearing to be a bit vague and the filter is highly inconsistent. I mean, what does "frowned upon" mean? If it is against the rules then just make it against the rules. If all swearing (or certain words) are strictly NOT allowed under any circumstances then it would make sense to simply add them to the filter.

Or, if it is allowed in some cases (which would be my preference) then there's really no cause to "frown" on it (or filter it) in those cases. Of course, I understand if you don't want to say it's always okay. But even if it is more of a grey area though and we're allowed to use our discretion so long as we don't overdo it or cuss at anyone in particular then I'd like to see that stuff taken off the filter.

Also, in any case, it would be really nice too if the filter just changed things to [expletive] so it is clear that it has been filtered. Changing f**k to fudge is really just annoying.

dtm42 wrote:

Attempting to derail threads just to continue your vendetta against me is not cool and makes you look petty.

LOL. Paranoid much?

My point, which appears to have gone over your head, is that suggestions like this one are easy to make but nearly impossible to implement, and that unless people are actively looking to behave in ways they already know are wrong, shouldn't be all that necessary. In that case, the real problem is not the way the rules (in this case the language filter) are implemented, but rather the behavior of the person who is knowingly circumventing the obvious intent of those rules.

Dessa, to your comment that it's easy to add stuff to the filters, let's say they add more words to the filter. OK, so you've captured a couple more objectionable terms, but no matter what you do people are going to find ways to circumvent the filter and still use those words just as dtm demonstrated in his opening post. Saying that you know full well using a certain word is not OK but because the filter doesn't specifically edit it, but that you think it's OK to use the same word formatted in a way the filter can't catch or a word you know is similarly offensive is absurd.

Most everyone here knows all sorts of bad words in the English language and they also know they are bad and that their use is rude. The existence of the filter in the first place sends a clear message that offensive language is not welcome in the forums. When the filter was set up the obvious examples were added to it.

At this point, adding a larger assortment of words just to automatically edit people who are already doing something they know is wrong will only get you so far. The root of the problem is not that the rules are not restrictive or specific enough. The root of the problem is people behaving badly when they know full well they are behaving badly yet they continue to do it anyway.

Thanks ikillchicken and Dessa for your replies.

ikillchicken wrote:

so long as we don't overdo it or cuss at anyone in particular

This is what confused me about "clusterf**k". It wasn't filtered, I didn't aim it at a real person, a character or even the idea of a person or character. I used it to describe a show which has so many things wrong with it it more than meets the definition (warning; NSFW language on that page) of the term.

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I guess my main point was that if you're going to go through the trouble of having a filter it should be kept updated and relevant. Maybe encourage users to PM a particular Admin if they want a word added to the list?

And the thing is, a filter isn't actually needed. As the rule stands:

Rule #4 of "Teh Rules" wrote:

Swearing is frowned upon. If you disagree with a poster, disagree respectfully, or do not disagree at all.

We don't need a filter, because swearing is already frowned upon. Not banned, you'll notice, but of course the Mods are free to decide on a case-by-case if the swear is acceptable.

ManOfRust, what you missed is that by having a filter in the first place it takes upon it a certain significance; it tells people what the ANN considers unacceptable to use. If something is not on the filter then the implication is that the ANN community does not consider it a swear that should be frowned on, because it is not banned. For example, some people think that s**t or b***h or c**t (none of which are filtered) are not swears, and they use one or more of them in everyday life when discussing things with their friends. In New Zealand, until a certain ad came out thirteen years ago you couldn't say "bugger" on television, and now it is so acceptable here that people use it as a term of endearment. For example, saying in a live televised interview, "It seems to me that most blokes consider him an honest, bloody good bugger." But other people are highly offended by any swear including any and all of those words, even if they are considered acceptable by other parts of society or other cultures.

What the filter does is essentially say, "The following words may be acceptable to you and your friends but they will not be tolerated on ANN's forums." That's what I meant by having an implication. If a filter exists and a word isn't on it then I contend that it implies that the word has not been deemed to be a swear by ANN. Now, obviously I'm not going to go around calling people c**ts because I know better, but what if it was a questionable word that gets used in the podcasts and is more socially acceptable? The implication is there for words to be acceptable if they aren't on the list, because people might genuinely not know that the word is bad.

The reasoning goes that if c**t was as bad as the f-word (and many people including myself believe it is even worse) then why has it not been added? It's not like the term is obscure; 157,000,000 results on Google and a Wikipedia page that describes it as "widely considered to be vulgar". Germaine Greer called it, "It is one of the few remaining words in the English language with a genuine power to shock." And yet why can't someone at ANN take a few seconds to censor it out? I would love for it to be filtered.

If someone uses such a word I don't want to have to report its usage if the filter could have easily been programmed to exclude it. If the filter isn't doing the job it was designed for then there's little point having it ad we'd be better off just using the Mods like we do with all other areas. I'll bring up the caveat again; just because not every swear cannot be caught should not preclude us from stopping the most commonly-used and most offensive ones.

I'm still waiting for Zac to carry out his promise to change the swear filter for f**k from fudge to Fencedude! After all, I don't think any user on this forum drops more f-bombs than he does.

dragon695 wrote:

I'm still waiting for Zac to carry out his promise to change the swear filter for f**k from fudge to Fencedude!

Zac said he'd probably get in trouble with his boss (tempest) which is why he didn't do it, and was almost certainly joking anyway. Well, I hope he was joking.

dragon695 wrote:

After all, I don't think any user on this forum drops more f-bombs than he does.

To be fair to Fencedude5609, he has since toned down on using the f-word.

dtm42 wrote:

ManOfRust, what you missed is that by having a filter in the first place it takes upon it a certain significance; it tells people what the ANN considers unacceptable to use.

No, I didn't miss your point, I just don't agree with it. Or rather, I do agree that the existence of the filter has significance, but I don't agree with the conclusion you draw from that fact.

Quote:

If something is not on the filter then the implication is that the ANN community does not consider it a swear that should be frowned on, because it is not banned.

I appreciate that you, Dessa, and ikill seem to feel that way, but I don't agree with you. You can't create good behavior just by piling on more and more rules. At some point, people either get it and behave, don't get and there needs to be some intervention, or do get it and continue to behave poorly anyway. Even if you chose a list of 50 more words you think should be added to the filter today, you're going to either miss something, or someone is just going to find a way to circumvent the filter. If someone wants to engage in bad behavior they are going to do it, and the remedy is not going to be found by adding more and more rules.

Quote:

In New Zealand, until a certain ad came out thirteen years ago you couldn't say "bugger" on television, and now it is so acceptable here that people use it as a term of endearment.

This argument works both ways, though. The very fact that over time meanings and nuances of words change just makes it that much more difficult to come up with a filter list that is complete. A black and white world would be much easier to understand, but things don't work that way.

Quote:

That's what I meant by having an implication. If a filter exists and a word isn't on it then I contend that it implies that the word has not been deemed to be a swear by ANN.

This is the point you make that I disagree with the strongest. I don't really have a problem if there are a handful of specific examples people want added to the filters. It won't hurt anything, though I don't think it will ultimately help either. This assertion that unless you are specifically told something is wrong it must therefore be OK is just not a workable way to view the world unless you want the result to be complete chaos. You can set forth ground rules and expectations for good behavior, but at some point people's judgment has to come into play. If people continue to display poor judgment after having their bad behavior pointed out to them repeatedly, sooner or later there has to be consequences. There's no way to think up every example and situation of rudeness and poor behavior before they occur. You can certainly try, but all you will end up with is a gargantuan mess of rules which eventually lose all practical meaning. The line of reasoning you are employing right now is the kind of thinking that leads to things like this.

ManOfRust is right. Just because something is not in the filter does not imply that the word is acceptable. All it implies is that we didn't think to include it.

I would also like to remind everyone (including the moderators) that "Swearing is frowned upon," not forbidden.

If someone uses a cussword in a relatively innocent manner, it's not a big deal.

-t

tempest wrote:

ManOfRust is right. Just because something is not in the filter does not imply that the word is acceptable. All it implies is that we didn't think to include it.

Are you open to suggestions of what words to add to the filter?

tempest wrote:

ManOfRust is right. Just because something is not in the filter does not imply that the word is acceptable. All it implies is that we didn't think to include it.

I would also like to remind everyone (including the moderators) that "Swearing is frowned upon," not forbidden.

If someone uses a cussword in a relatively innocent manner, it's not a big deal.

-t

This reminds me of Chris Rock's bit on curse words and how it's often not the word but the CONTEXT in which the word is spoken. I mean you can take a perfectly innocuous words and turn it into an obvious insult against someone based on the context and how it's typed/spoken. Personally I find this topic to be more of a common sense issue. If you're obviously arguing with someone, being condescending, a topic is heated, etc and you start cursing you know you shouldn't. It's rather common sense at that point cursing is just going to derail the issue more. Sure some people are thin skinned or just don't like cursing at all period but 99% of the time here at ANN I think it's really common sense given a situation if cursing is ok or not. And what words are ok given different situations. Perhaps words can be added to the filter but honestly I don't think it's really that necessary provided people think for a few seconds first before posting a bunch of swears. Another thing I'd point out is if a poster has a history of cursing alot/being warned for it I think when they curse they are more likely to be given a closer view under the microscope. Seen it before with a small handful of users.

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