Forum Censor Update - Feedback and Questions
Cursing is now being censored in the forums. I find this confusing as the official guidelines does allow it. There is no guideline about getting around the censor either.
Oddly the censor doesn't appear to apply to forum titles, where it is against the rules.
I also discovered that the censor does not pick up with editing. So I can say *** to my heart's content without the ***s if I do so via an edit. While I do think those of us on the forum team can be trusted to not abuse this, it also helps if we are aware if there are changes to the guidelines as we could accidentally do something we aren't supposed to otherwise.
@CheeryMango @Heather225
I did a test in a non-public area and immediately deleted just to confirm:
The censor does not work for titles where a curse word is not allowed according to guideliknes.
Ie. I posted *** (starting with an s) which will be censored here. I had tried for damn to be less offensive but the censor doesn't care about that. Does it care about dam ?
Tagging some partners in (potential) crime 😂
disappearing tags
@AffyAvo 😆 I had noticed this too but thought it was some new way to get round things. Hopefully now we are all aware we can work to improve things together.
p.s. do we wear a cape and mask ?
Listening - One Step At A Time!
@MistyMagic Haha Love this! Batman is the perfect superhero for this I think.
@AffyAvo If I remember right, we've had automatic word censoring in the forum for a long time. I remarked in November that we can't (easily) say "How are you?" in Dutch: "*** is het?"
I think the broader issue is that 7 Cups uses censorship to stigmatize posters, not to protect readers. It would be just as easy to allow posters to express themselves however they wish, and to filter the display for anyone who doesn't like to see words they have been taught to believe are bad. Posters would have no incentive to work around the censor and write "Hoe is het?"
Charlie
@RarelyCharlie I wish I had tested this out sooner, shows how little I actually pst any cursing! 😂
I guess since I do mod the titles I hadn't thought much about it.
Yes, and there are creative ways to get around the censor, which is, after all, a mere computer, whereas ingenious humans have been figuring out subversive communication due to centuries of oppression and are often quite good at it— thinking of how Solzhenitsyn smuggled out “Gulag Archipelago” on onionskin while in prison and it was published internationally.
One especially creative roundabout I can share, but since this forum is also open to 13 year olds, and younger if they know enough to be able to lie (a skill that usually appears in developmentally appropriate 5 year olds), I will refrain from sharing, but suffice it to say, it gave me a chuckle, not so much at the expression, but as to the creativity of the human spirit that yearns to express itself no matter what the hurdles.
@VioletVeritas Yeah, I find the censors tend to catch a lot of the innocent stuff while others get creative. Hopefully things won't get to the point of people writing on onion skins and posting pictures of it.
@AffyAvo
Hi Affy! 😊❤️ Thank you for this forum post as well as investigating what is allowed, what isn't, what get's censored and what does not and why. In the middle of December, I responded to a forum post, typed a word that was not a curse word and was totally innocent. 😳 The censor got me? My word came up in asterisks instead. 😳 dun dun dun!
I was like, well, guess I'll just have to *hang my head in shame*, let everyone's imagination run wild and be perceived to be quite naughty and not on Santa's "nice" list. lol 😊❤️😊
*hugs* ❤️
@SparkyGizmo I fully use naughty language, so no shaming from me! It's just not as frequent as I thought. Plus what comes out of my mouth isn't always what I type 😉
I guess if you want the word back in, that can be arranged.
@AffyAvo
❤️❤️❤️
Naughty hahah