On the matter of censorship

[Daan]

I find the censorship a restriction of free speech. Sure we need to keep it civil, but it also restricts expression. I feel we should ease up the current censorship to exclude common 'swear' words.

Censorship reminds me of a police state, and it's something we don't want to have, or we'll get American situations (beeping). Then again, I'm from a country where some might argue we have loose values, though we have our own pious 'Youth and Family' minister to remove our social liberties for us

[SpaceShipRat]

what's censored? apart from kisspopp... wait forget the question. The censor possibly comes with the forum, I agree it's unnecessary. Swearing should get the normal three strikes and out.

[Daan]

Even that is just plain unnecessary. The occasional swear word never hurt anybody as long as it's not meant in a demeaning way towards others. I just hate censorship.

[SpaceShipRat]

You're old enough not to be bothered me too but it's a matter of good manners, woud you let people swear in front of kids? and there's the matter of apprehensive parents and Net Nannies (argh.) Unless the forum is esplicitly not meant for kids everything above "damn" should be avoided. </opinion>

[Daan]

To be honest, people here swear in front of kids too. Not talk about everything with excessive swearing, but swearing and cursing nonetheless.

Maybe that's Dutch though.

[scorp]

dear god, swearing in front of kids old enough to be let on the internet unattended will not make their ears bleed. I'm all for removing word filters, mostly because 'reproducing' doesn't have quite the same ring to it as the word it's replacing.

or, you know, we could just start creatively dodging the filter.

[Daan]

The fact that your post got censored was my entire reason for anger. There's no reason to have censorship here. Now if this were some sort of racist or terrorist site, I could imagine why children are best to avoid that. Hell, most people would. But the fact is: it's not.

The current censorship blocks out words that add an extra 'umph' to what you're saying.

[Dreamnorn]

dear god, swearing in front of kids old enough to be let on the internet unattended will not make their ears bleed.

Actually, it feels like that to me. I'm twelve and I seriously hate swearing. I'd like a word filter for at least the REALLY bad words... the more milder ones I can see/hear without freaking out entirely.

The occasional swear word never hurt anybody as long as it's not meant in a demeaning way towards others.

I agree entirely with that, Daan.

[LordPsycho]

Daan, though I agree with your argument of free speech, we must not forget that this forum is an experiment in a Moderated Forum experience in the CC. Although it may be seen as restricting those who are quiet mature and "well behaved", the censorship is there to control those who are less mature, and would manipulate and exploit the lack of moderation. I'm not saying you can't write whatever you wish - I feel most of us are plenty smart enough to get what you are saying, word-replacement filter or not. I'm saying it's neccesary to prevent abuses of this forum.

[3kul]

As much as I hate censorship, I learnt a while back that on DP's forums, his word is law

Well, all jokes aside I'm actually of two minds on this, perhaps because of what's being censored. On the one hand, I don't like censorship like this, especially when it's restricting what you want to say, but on the other, I don't really like it when people feel that it's necessary to use swear words to emphasize what they're saying.

I'm not some kind of prude or anything, I just think it's kind of lame that people can't be bothered to get a little more creative with their vocabulary when the English language offers such a huge variety of much better words for them to choose from.

[scorp]

swear words are embellishments(as well as verbs, nouns and adjectives) that convey a lot of emotion.
compare:

'this program won't work!'
versus
'this fecking program won't work!'

the second example suggests I am rather more upset about the situation than the first. and that I'm irish, because nobody else seems to use feck as a slightly milder alternative to reproduce.

it's not that I don't know enough words to otherwise convey my disappointment(I am fond of 'thrice-bedamnèd' but it's a bit flowery and would get me laughed at in certain circles) but that nothing gets quite so much emotion across as a word considered 'obscene' by some people

personally I don't consider it 'censorship', rather 'over-delicate sensibilities on the part of some people'. it's easy enough to dodge a wordfilter after all.


and do bear in mind I come from a busy forum where you get more of a reaction if you deliberately avoid swearing by self-censorship. it's heavily moderated, admittedly, but only because it has 100,000 members rather than because people like to say 'gently caress'(the word censor that replaces reproduce if you're not logged in).

[Norn-mania]

Yeah. I'm all for swearing being frowned upon but I really don't think it's necessary to have it censored. Especially when we have a creativity section that might sometimes require swearing. If I was writing a story (which I have done and sort of am) and I wanted to post it here I couldn't. Even if swearing isn't that common in it. When it is used it'll look pathetic and ridiculous.

[3kul]

'this program won't work!'
versus
'this fecking program won't work!'

What about 'this confounded program refuses to function properly!'? Say it whilst twirling a lengthy mustache and you've got yourself the charm of an old-timey villain as a bonus

Every time I've wanted to swear in an RP (not terribly often, mind you), I've simply used an asterisk or two. It's about as well censored as a bleep, and whilst it's not exactly as toned down as it could be it's also not as offensive as it could be either.

So like, if I was to type something like 'q**lk' instead of the real word. Not horribly offensive, but you all get what I mean (or do you? ) - everybody wins

[Norn-mania]

No, it takes away form the atmosphere. Just so long as it's not there for the sake of it, I don't think it needs to be censored in an RP or story. Not that I think that it needs to be censored at all. But you get my point I hope. I've got to admit that was an awesome line though 3kul,

[Daan]

Cursing should never be for the sake of cursing. As others, me included, have said, it''s a way to strengthen emotion when needed.

Many people succeed in self-censorship, or at least not do it for the sake of doing it.

[ElasticMuffin]

Just thought I would point this out, but every time someone links basic cursing "censorship" on a forum to police-state tactics I laugh heartily. No one is forcing you to be here.

Censorship implies that someone is actively working to deny you the right of free speech- no such right exists here. It is a privately-owned and run service, and is therefore governed by whatever rules the administrators wish to impose. Using it is a privilege, not a right. Do not confuse the two. As with any other online service, if you dislike the way it's set up you may complain, but unless you're paying them money under an agreement they have the right to ignore you completely. And accusing people of denying you the right of free speech is pretty off-the-wall.

Also, I would just throw this out there as my own opinion: Using curse words a lot makes you sound unintelligent.

[Dreamnorn]

I entirely agree with ElasticMuffin about the overly-swearing makes you seem stupid. On plenty of websites I've seen, though, people overuse swearing--and cursing, sometimes--on their posts. It drives me nuts!

[Spook]

I will invent my own swear words on an as-needed basis as I don't swear much anyway, and will not be bothered by any filter in place.
*salutes*

[3kul]

Curses! That blasted ElasticMuffin's splendiferous argument has surely foiled all those who oppose censorship here!

*twirls his mustache a few times for effect and then flees the thread*

[Pulppu]

Bwahaha! I can still use Finnish swearings! In the name of PERKELE!

edit: not actually swearing, but a "word of power", it's a name of ancient thunder god ^^

[Dreamnorn]

XD

[Danikat]

Hmm...this could be interesting.

The word filter isn't something that came with the forum. The system itself did but no words were altomatically filtered - that's something I did. Which might seem odd if I tell you I don't have anything against swearing and in fact frequently (sometimes too frequently) swear myself, both online and in real life.

But the filter isn't for me. It's also not, as many people seem to have assumed, for the benefit of children (or more precisely their parents, I've met very few children who were offended by swearing).
The filter is there because this forum is for everyone in the CC and over the years I've met many people, of all ages, who did not like swearing at all and would be put off joining a forum where people swore. In the interest of not excluding them I used the word filter.

In the interest of not excluding anyone from the other side of the argument I've kept it very basic - only 9 words are filtered (although 4 variations of one of those are filtered as a nod towards it's versatility) and then only the full, correct spellings.
If you feel the need to swear I recommend you take the advice of Spook, 3kul and others and make up your own curses to fufil the purpose. It's not actually against the forum rules to swear and if it's also funny then all the better.

But having said that I feel I should warn you there is one word on that list I personally have a zero tolerance policy on. If anyone ever feels the need to use it (or something with a similar meaning and conitations) I'd recommend you pray to whatever you feel appropriate that another staff member catches you first.

[Norn-mania]

Hmm...this could be interesting.

The word filter isn't something that came with the forum. The system itself did but no words were altomatically filtered - that's something I did. Which might seem odd if I tell you I don't have anything against swearing and in fact frequently (sometimes too frequently) swear myself, both online and in real life.

But the filter isn't for me. It's also not, as many people seem to have assumed, for the benefit of children (or more precisely their parents, I've met very few children who were offended by swearing).
The filter is there because this forum is for everyone in the CC and over the years I've met many people, of all ages, who did not like swearing at all and would be put off joining a forum where people swore. In the interest of not excluding them I used the word filter.

In the interest of not excluding anyone from the other side of the argument I've kept it very basic - only 9 words are filtered (although 4 variations of one of those are filtered as a nod towards it's versatility) and then only the full, correct spellings.
If you feel the need to swear I recommend you take the advice of Spook, 3kul and others and make up your own curses to fufil the purpose. It's not actually against the forum rules to swear and if it's also funny then all the better.

But having said that I feel I should warn you there is one word on that list I personally have a zero tolerance policy on. If anyone ever feels the need to use it (or something with a similar meaning and conitations) I'd recommend you pray to whatever you feel appropriate that another staff member catches you first.

Care to evaluate? Can't the censorship be an option? I don't know how much you can edit this software, so I really don't have a clue. But if that was possible the people who didn't want to see it wouldn't be bothered, the people that are against censorship (Me!) can and everyone's happy.

Freddie Mercury and Kurt Cobain swore kids, that means it's okay. :p

[scorp]

unfortunately PHPBB3's built-in word filter is an all-or-nothing job - it's either on for everyone or off entirely. personally I think if people are going to be precious about other people's choice of words they can install greasemonkey filters themselves instead of inconveniencing the rest of us who happen to enjoy the 'cruder' side of the english language.

out of interest dani, can you give us an idea of what this 'no-no' word is so nobody accidentally incurs your wrath?

[elthar]

...speaking of children's ears bleeding, to shild those children parents need to shut them in a room without internet (anything from porn to... erm anything), games (blood, gore and violence) and TV (SO much more blood, gore and violence), no TV at all ever!
until that it's simple useless

on that matter, i'm also rather angry at those idiots in magazines who wrote about "a shooter game made a mad monster out of a boy, so he killed everyone in his class" when there's so many things on TV that can made a mad monster out of anyone