Is it time to get rid of the swear filter?

4zn76tysfajdxp

We're pretty much all adults here and swearing is big and clever, why not get rid of the bloomin' thing? Hardly likely to descend into complete swear fests.

osarusan

I like guessing what word might be behind the filter.

There are 5 asterisks, did they actually type a swear word or just type 5 asterisks? What 5-letter swearwords are there? Which one makes most sense there?

Second Toughest in_the Freshers

They should remove **** and **** from the filter, but leave ****,

GreatDefector

Second Toughest in_the Freshers wrote: »

They should remove **** and **** from the filter, but leave ****,

**** yeah

The Hill Billy

@Frada - There's been a few threads on the topic, including a fairly recent one. The search function will throw them up for you. Unless there's something new to be brought to the table I'd imagine this thread will be short-lived.

@Others - If you want to provide feedback - you are welcome to give it here. If you want to dick about - here is not the place.

tHB

Beasty

We are not actually adults here though. My 12yo daughter mentioned to me only yesterday that one of her school friends is on Boards. I realise the minimum age is supposed to be 13 but it was suggested in one of the recent threads on the topic that one of the requirements to classify a site as suitable for children of that age is to have the swear filter.

Cabaal

Def not all adults here on Boards.ie,
After all we have a Junior Cert forum, as already pointed out the website has plenty of people below 18 years of age

D

I actually like the swear filter in place. There are many location/forums where there is no filter and anything goes.

I feel that the sear filter, and the more stricter/established infraction system helps to set boards apart from the internet as a whole and serves to give boards a certain atmostphere, which I like.

KomradeBishop

The best swear filter I saw, was about a decade ago on a game server - if you said e.g. "You effing bastard.", it'd be replaced with something silly like "You lovely' darling'." - might be fun to see something like that on Boards, just for the humour value :pac:

I don't think kids being on Boards, is a valid reason to have a swear filter really - kids swear as much as, if not more than, most adults.
The only way I see a swear filter being useful with kids on Boards, is to just allow more troublesome kid members to darwin themselves, by running into a ban through excessive swearing - in general (not just with kids), that is about the only useful thing about a swear filter really.

4zn76tysfajdxp

Honestly, if 12-13 year olds are the youngest it gets here then I see no reason for the swear filter. I certainly remember doing my fair share of effin' and jeffin' at that age, can't imagine I was too shocked to read the odd four-letter word online then. If anything, I'd say kids are more likely to be exposed to way more traumatising flim flam elsewhere on Boards.

I can't think of a single reason to keep the swear filter, tbh.

Dav

We're not getting rid of the swear filter - the benefits far outweigh the negatives as far as I'm concerned.

OldGoat

I like the filter. The word f_uck is so ubiquitous in Ireland that it's become like wallpaper - unnoticeable where as **** stands out in a sentence doing the job of adding weight and emphasis to your statement.

4zn76tysfajdxp

Dav wrote: »

We're not getting rid of the swear filter - the benefits far outweigh the negatives as far as I'm concerned.

What benefits?

The Hill Billy

Probably that the majority of swear words are masked.

I swear like a docker myself, but to be honest I don't particularly like seeing it peppering text that I am reading day in day out.

Orion

Celia Thankful Cheek wrote: »

What benefits?

Without the swear filter many corporate firewalls would block the site for profanity. That would reduce traffic to the site.

4zn76tysfajdxp

Orion wrote: »

Without the swear filter many corporate firewalls would block the site for profanity. That would reduce traffic to the site.

Oh, that's a very good explanation. Thanks. Much better than the "I don't like swear words so nobody should be allowed swear" stuff you'd see normally.

Sad Professor

Keep the swear filter, I don't care. Just make an exception for words contained in urls.

I recently went to post a link to a news article that happened to have some minor expletive in the headline and also in the permalink. I couldn't for the life of me find a way to make the link work since Boards kept asterisks-ing out the swear word and screwing up the url.

GLaDOS

Sad Professor wrote: »

Keep the swear filter, I don't care. Just make an exception for words contained in urls.

I recently went to post a link to a news article that happened to have some minor expletive in the headline and also in the permalink. I couldn't for the life of me find a way to make the link work since Boards kept asterisks-ing out the swear word and screwing up the url.

You can use tinyURL to get round this, but I agree it's a pain. Similar with posting images with a swear word in the URL.

Sad Professor

ScienceNerd wrote: »

You can use tinyURL to get round this, but I agree it's a pain. Similar with posting images with a swear word in the URL.

<slaps forehead>

I never thought of this. Good idea, thanks.

Melodeon

Lots of people would be hesitant to follow tinyURL or similar anonymous links, as there's no way of knowing what they're pointing at.
It might be a good idea to post a little note explaining the use of the shortened link too, to help allay such fears.

Sad Professor

Melodeon wrote: »

Lots of people would be hesitant to follow tinyURL or similar anonymous links, as there's no way of knowing what they're pointing at.
It might be a good idea to post a little note explaining the use of the shortened link too, to help allay such fears.

Also, they aren't permanent. I come across so many broken short urls. Usually expired or because the service went bust.

They are a good short-term solution, but I would like to see urls excluded from the swear filter.

Dav

What Orion said - that and Google rankings too.

The tech doesn't allow us to exclude URLs from the filter, I'm not sure how big a job it'd be to do so, but it's edge case stuff, so the investment of time may not merit it. However, it's on the list, if we can do it easily, we will.

I don't like soccer, but you'd never see me try and ban that So "I don't like swear words" isn't an excuse you're going to see here.

Orion

Dav wrote: »

I don't like soccer, but you'd never see me try and ban that

How about changing all mentions of "soccer" to "round ball poncing" :pac:

Dav

Or "professional cheat ball."

Harry Palmr

bastard is okay of course as its a proper word so just 'bastard' a lot. Unless you are those dopes at The Weinstein Company

Cabaal

Celia Thankful Cheek wrote: »

I can't think of a single reason to keep the swear filter, tbh.

How about people making at least a little bit of effort to construct a sentence without resorting to swearing to get their point across? Not good enough?

osarusan

How does a poster manage to be exempt from the filter?

Here's an example. It's filtered when I quote it, but click on the link to the actual posts and you'll see it's not filtered there.

rubadub wrote: »

And you then wonder why you were called a ****.

rubadub wrote: »

The dogs copped on the white **** they were doing was not actually attractive to the opposite sex. They barked disapproval at their owners who were still spray painting it white.

rubadub wrote: »

Yeah, only 1 single doctor has ever said it... sweet ****ing jesus

****, ****, ****...nope, filtered here too.

Melodeon

That's odd!
Those posts employ the usual workaround for posting stuff the swear filter normally removes, and when I quote them (in the original thread) the workaround carries through and still works.
I've no idea why it's not working when you quote them.
I'm posting from the full desktop site though, are you using mobile/touch/beta by any chance? Perhaps they handle quoting content differently.

Melodeon

Here's that last one quoted complete:

rubadub wrote: »

Yeah, only 1 single doctor has ever said it... sweet fucking jesus

osarusan

Melodeon wrote: »

That's odd!
Those posts employ the usual workaround for posting stuff the swear filter normally removes

Do they? How?

Usually one letter is italicised or something like that, but I can't see anything out of the ordinary that looks like a workaround. Maybe I'm just not familiar with them though.

Melodeon wrote: »

I'm posting from the full desktop site though, are you using mobile/touch/beta by any chance? Perhaps they handle quoting content differently.

I'm on the full desktop site but still using the old VBulletin skin.

The Hill Billy

Folks - Let's keep this to feedback on the filter rather than finding ways to circumvent it.

Thanks,

tHB