Bad censoring

[Javster]

Could the forum people add an exception of the censorship of a certain four letter word which is used as a slang word for *ahem*, as it prevents people from writing the word c o c k p i t (the place where planes are controlled from)

EDIT: spacing seems to work, but it would be nice if it were changed...

Without spacing: pit

[The Fleet Master]

I never knew pit was censored, What the Fluffy Bunnies and Crumpets.

[vexx32]

I'll see if Sal or Kasper can add something to the censor whitelist.

EDIT: Testing.... "cockpit". Yep, works! (Thanks, Kasper!)

Edited July 6, 2014 by vexx32

[Red Iron Crown]

Has the censoring system changed from replacing the offending text with asterisks to deleting it entirely?

Testing:

Edit: It sure has!

This seems less desirable to me than replacing with asterisks. At least that gives a contextual clue that a word is missing, deleting makes a post incoherent at times.

[vexx32]

I'm guessing that was done precisely because simply censoring a word does not really hide it in a lot of cases; context clues allow you to use the number of asterisks and the surrounding words or surviving fragments to mentally figure out what the censor was trying to hide... which, really, defeats the purpose of the censor.

I, personally, am more in favour of changing curse words to outright silly alternatives, but... I'm not the one in charge of the censor.

[Red Iron Crown]

Meh, it's the textual equivalent of the "bleep" used in television and radio. I asked because in one of the "complain about squad" threads someone used the term equivalent to femaledogging which the censor shortened to just "ing", which was a bit confusing.

Love the idea of replacing the censored words with some PG equivalent terms. I volunteer to help come up with said terms if it ever happens.

[Laie]

Asterisks are preferable, IMO. As RedIronCrown said, it's the equivalent of a beep.

Also, they make false positives easier to deal with. If there's a number of asterisks in my posts, it's obvious that something happened; I can work around it or just check my spelling (oops, that was meant to be "count"). A missing word is far harder to spot and has a higher potential of leaving the reader confused.

[Kryten]

We also have issue with the censoring of the word s-e-x; simply because it's very difficult to discuss biological concepts without it. It isn't even replaced with something else so you can tell what it was; as far as I could tell from previewing this post, it's simply deleted entirely.

[Red Iron Crown]

Also can't call someone a grammar National Socialist in the shorter form. Which might be a good thing for me.

[Ravenchant]

I don't get why censorship of profanity is neccessary, anyway. Insults are still possible with inventive word use, and really, everyone knows approximately what was meant. Is it a cultural thing? Where I come from kids in elementary schools use [genitalia-based expletives]/[politically incorrect words] on a daily basis and usually nobody bats an eye. Why should someone be offended by a bunch of letters, on the internet no less?

[BudgetHedgehog]

I don't get why censorship of profanity is neccessary, anyway.

Meh, keeps the forum clean and readable by everyone. Yeah, kids nowadays might use such words in a daily basis, but at least the mods can say they didn't learn those words from here. Also, I just think it's nicer to read without swear words all over the place.

Though I'm totally in favour of PG replacements: drat, chuffing, scoundrel etc...

[EuSouONumero345]

Sometimes, a bunch of letters hurt more than a punch in the face.

[Red Iron Crown]

Sometimes, a bunch of letters hurt more than a punch in the face.

Censoring doesn't stop that, in my experience. The truly hurtful things are usually not profane.

Edit: 3000 posts!

Edited July 7, 2014 by Red Iron Crown

[pxi]

I would very much prefer the asterisks, rather than outright deleting the word. Honestly that goes more than far enough to protect my fragile little mind IMHO.

Also, if I'm trying to fill in the blank in my head, I can pretty much guarantee I'm coming up with something far worse than what the poster actually put there.

I don't suppose there's an option to disable the censor on an individual basis? (IE it would be on by default, but I could just disable it, and deal with the naughty words.)

Edited July 7, 2014 by pxi

[EuSouONumero345]

Censoring doesn't stop that, in my experience. The truly hurtful things are usually not profane.

Edit: 3000 posts!

Indeed, that is true. People can be really bad sometimes.

And I think I prefer the astherisks rather than the word being deleted, the phrase can loose context, and if the word is recognized as a profane word, it'll be pretty damn hard to understand it.

[Ravenchant]

Sometimes, a bunch of letters hurt more than a punch in the face.

That's the sad reality, but it mostly isn't profanity that hurts, as Red Iron Crown pointed out. People don't lay restlessly in bed and ponder whether they deserve to live because someome called them a .

On the other hand, swapping curses with silly words could be good... "scoundrel" indeed

Edited July 7, 2014 by KasperVld
cenorship in optima forma

[EuSouONumero345]

So um...what curse word you typed there? Just wonderin'

[FEichinger]

I always like the use of ♥ for censoring. You ♥♥♥♥ing ♥♥♥♥s.

[Red Iron Crown]

So um...what curse word you typed there? Just wonderin'

Something similar in syllables to "maggot-farmer", meaning one who engages in carnal relations with maternal ancestors.

[astropapi1]

I think the forum is a little too censored. I mean, you can be creative and call someone an anus instead of... you know, the other word. It really goes to what a moderator thinks is a bad word. I could probably bring someone down to tears without using a single bad word or attacking him directly.

Bad words aren't necessary for being agressive to another user, and people don't always use them for that purpose.

"That ****ing asteroid destroyed my ship!"

[Raven.]

I think the forum is a little too censored. I mean, you can be creative and call someone an anus instead of... you know, the other word. It really goes to what a moderator thinks is a bad word. I could probably bring someone down to tears without using a single bad word or attacking him directly.

Bad words aren't necessary for being agressive to another user, and people don't always use them for that purpose.

"That ****ing asteroid destroyed my ship!"

I disagree, I've seen and been on forums that were much more censored than the KSP forums. I've seen a forum that as soon as someone answered a question posted on the forum, a moderator was locking the thread with the text: "Question answered, thread locked."

With that being said, the better forum censors simply replaced the offending word with the text "[censored]" instead of a blank.

[sal_vager]

We try to only block actual offensive words here, words that don't really have a valid use, and while we all accidentally swear from time to time it takes a conscious effort to type a swear word, there really is no need for it.

Replacing profanity with other words is sadly not possible with vBulletin, and seeing **** everywhere is frankly rather ugly and again, there's no need for it, no one accidentally types profane words (yes I typed four asterisks).

We give notices and infractions for swearing and for attempts at bypassing the filter, astropapi I'm ignoring your offence on this occasion ,but we'd prefer not to have to.

The rule is simple, no profanity, either all members refrain from using profanity so there's no need for a filter or we keep the filter on.

Having the words just disappear means no **** and no infractions, after all, you don't need to swear

[Red Iron Crown]

There is a degree of irony in not being able to swear in the forum about the game that makes me swear so much.

[xrayfishx]

Deleting the word entirely is indeed a bad idea. Also I agree with the censoring being too tight. I mean, there are kids here, yes, but it's not Club Penguin. And I also think that it should indeed be possible to turn censoring off because if on these forums because if I'm still such an ♥♥♥hole that someone calls me a mother♥♥♥♥er, I want to know about it without trying to decypher that "motherer". Perhaps if not in the forums, then in PMs, at least.

A side note: I was always perfectly able to write cockpit, it didn't censor anything.

Edit: Replacing words with the heart symbol seems like a good idea.

Also, I got ninjad by at least two posts so I missed the mod's warning, but I will not rephrase everything just for that reason.

Edited July 7, 2014 by xrayfishx

[SolarLiner]

I for one don't like seeing asterisks everywhere, it is like on some TV shows where beeps are so frequents you get a headache from that. It is ugly and unnecessary, and replacing asterisks with hearts is like replacing beeps with, I don't know, bird tweets. True, it does sounds a bit cooler, but at the end you just curse yourself (pretty ironic, isn't it? ^^) over those censored sounds, whatever it is.

But, I also don't like censorship because we all know those forbidden words anyway, and I'm ironically like "ohh you fooled me, what's behind this censored part?". Plus kids already know those words too, and know are bad words already. It's like a bad habit that every single person has but everyone is trying to hide to others.

I'm going all personal opinion and things (ohh, a alternate way to say the s-h word) but 99% of bad words everyone says is the F word, which has actual no offensive meaning. Even the "mother" word is starting to loose its offensive meaning now (yeah, it's a little bit, and you have to go "special" places to hear everyone being nicknamed as this m word ^^)

As I was writing this, I was watching Vsauce's "Why are bad words Bad?"!

Meh, this conversation is so mental I can't even handle this [s word] right now

I know that you the moderators try to keep this forum as peaceful as possible, and I respect and like that, but I think that curse words are not used anymore to hurt others. You get to be so creative sometimes that speaking with the most politically correct language you can still bring your opponent to its knees. The F, S and other curse words are now mainly used as a quick way to say "oh I hate what happened and I'm actually quite angry about it".

I own a YouTube channel, but actually never gave a single [f word] about what curse words I say because it is part of me, part of my commentary, and I don't want to start to search for politically correct other words because 3 people will get mad at me because I said that. (I never actually checked what my channel rating is)

So yeah, TL;DR I don't like censorship very much, but I understand why it is here.