Bad censoring

[Overfloater]

Speaking of idiotic censorship, I can no longer enter white text, because the code for the color says "F F F F F F F..."

[sal_vager]

That's just strange Overfloater, fixed.

But here's a thought not yet considered, having profanity on the KSP forums can harm Squads image as family friendly, and KSP's image as suitable for all ages.

[BudgetHedgehog]

That's just strange Overfloater, fixed.

Yay! I was wondering what was going wrong.. now my way of writing 10 characters when less than 10 is needed is back!

[sal_vager]

Yay! I was wondering what was going wrong.. now my way of writing 10 characters when less than 10 is needed is back!

You could have used a slightly different shade, the forum background is off-white by the way

[BudgetHedgehog]

Eh, it's enough to work at a glance and I usually just write "10 chars" not whole sentences

[Alshain]

Which brings us to another forum censorship oddity... why is there a 10 character limit if everyone just circumvents it anyway?

[BudgetHedgehog]

Which brings us to another forum censorship oddity... why is there a 10 character limit if everyone just circumvents it anyway?

I've only ever known it implemented to stop useless posts like 'lol' and 'ok' which doesn't work because as you said, people just say 'ok. 10 chars.' anyway. And sometimes, no more than 10 characters is needed. Someone asks a question ("Am I right in thinking this is how I do this thing?"), and the reply "yes" is every bit as useful as "yes, that is correct".

I'm not fond of character limits.

[EuSouONumero345]

Replacing profanity with other words is sadly not possible with vBulletin, and seeing **** everywhere is frankly rather ugly.

Yea, I agree with that, it's like the beeps, those damn beeps...

I mean, don't make an entire phrase made of curse words just so everyone will hear an annoying beep. It just bugs me.

Anyway true that if we don't use curse words, there will be no need for that censoring, but again, trolls/spammers, that makes it a bit harder.

[Camacha]

I've only ever known it implemented to stop useless posts like 'lol' and 'ok' which doesn't work because as you said, people just say 'ok. 10 chars.' anyway. And sometimes, no more than 10 characters is needed. Someone asks a question ("Am I right in thinking this is how I do this thing?"), and the reply "yes" is every bit as useful as "yes, that is correct".

I'm not fond of character limits.

Those 10char posts are annoying too. If it were up to me, those would be banned. There is a fair reason for the 10 character limit. If you cannot add anything substantial to the conversation, don't.

[vexx32]

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.

I think I've already mentioned the idea to Sal at least once. Can't remember what he said, but he didn't think it an optimal solution.

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

Yeah, that one was completely intentional, heh. Name calling is strictly forbidden.

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?

Because it's unnecessary. Generally speaking, the words are either used as 'filler' words and can be removed without even affecting the sentence, or are used as expletives and insults, neither of which are appropriate or necessary here. If you really want to insult someone, at least we can force you to be creative about it. We'll almost certainly still hand out infractions for attacking other users, though. Its aim is to discourage the use of curses, because English has enough words without them anyway.

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

That would be amusing, but functionally identical to asterisks. :/

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!"

There's no need to swear in that context, either. Emoticons, while a little goofy, are there to effectively express emotion. You don't need curse words, really. is a suitable enough emoticon to express irritation/anger without the unnecessary cursing.

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

Perhaps, but the game doesn't make you angry. It simply provides stimulus. Think of it as practice for controlling anger, so you don't end up seriously injuring someone in real life.

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.

I think Sal actually did some work on the censor so words like those you mentioned are entirely censored, though they were previously only partially censored.

Which brings us to another forum censorship oddity... why is there a 10 character limit if everyone just circumvents it anyway?

Those 10char posts are annoying too. If it were up to me, those would be banned. There is a fair reason for the 10 character limit. If you cannot add anything substantial to the conversation, don't.

10-char limit is primarily for reasons that have already been stated, however, there are some places on the forum and some situations which by their nature may require circumventing it. For example, there are Forum Games threads with things like 3-word stories, so if you're using short enough words, sometimes you'll need to circumvent the limit. You can always rephrase, of course, but in a case like that we generally won't hand out infractions over it.

If someone's doing it just so they can post a "+1" or something vaguely along those lines, particularly in forums where we encourage actual discussions (General Discussion, Suggestions, Support, etc., etc.) then we'll most often just delete the post. It's essentially spam at that point, really, and we'll treat it as such. The 10-character limit isn't so much as a hard limitation to prevent people from ever making a post under ten characters, it's more just a limitation imposed to make people think twice before submitting a post under ten characters, a kind of "is this really necessary to post?".

[Claw]

I think I agree with the level of censorship on the profanity side of things. As soon as it's allowed a little, some people feel obliged to show how crude they can be, simply for the sake of being crude. It really isn't about the one or two things that might pop up, but about the endless stream that might follow.

Afterall, if we're "all grown ups here," the why is it so hard to get along without it?

[KvickFlygarn87]

I think I agree with the level of censorship on the profanity side of things. As soon as it's allowed a little, some people feel obliged to show how crude they can be, simply for the sake of being crude. It really isn't about the one or two things that might pop up, but about the endless stream that might follow.

Afterall, if we're "all grown ups here," the why is it so hard to get along without it?

I'm 13, but grown up inside. I also find it silly that they block out cursewords and others. One even more odd is the word "six" but with an E. Why? It's perfectly natural and even so, it doesn't have to describe the act. It can also be used as an alternative to "gender". I would quite like an explanation there.

[vexx32]

I don't write the censor rules, but if I had to guess, it's because 'gender' is a perfectly acceptable term, and because the forum is strictly PG-13; no mentions of fornication are required.

[FEichinger]

Okay, after looking through the more recent posts here, the filter has become even more ridiculous than when I was on the team. Look, removing the word without leaving a trace is bad UX, there's absolutely no way around that. i don't even care how you're rationalizing that with "we just want it to disappear" - I don't give a damn. But stripping a word from a user's post without the user having any idea and feedback as to what happened, that is not okay whatsoever.

And then there's a part that always bothered me: For a long time, I've seen moderators hand out infractions for profanity ... after the profanity was filtered. I mean, I get it, "everyone knows what's behind the asterisk", but still. Are you now too lazy to even do that? And all of that at the expense of various valid uses for the phrases that are being filtered. Which brings me to the next point ... Are you kidding me? It seems as though you're absolutely afraid of anyone ever getting to see something that might somehow be interpreted as perhaps-profanity.

Not only is it impossible to filter out every bad word without seriously impairing the forums, it's also utterly pointless. As has been pointed out before, you don't need profanity to ruin the "image" of the forum, or "hurt the poor children". The filter does not help the image of the foru, proper moderation would. Rather than getting so utterly stuck up on moving threads to the right forum and harshly punishing anyone you happen to dislike, how about actually doing your damned job for once and being a little bit professional?

Edited July 8, 2014 by FEichinger

[WinkAllKerb'']

speaking of censorship, follow my 3 latest post, and edits how such blood image and video are allowed on ksp ?

avoid thoose blood bath here on kerbin

Edited July 8, 2014 by WinkAllKerb''

[Red Iron Crown]

I don't care all that much that swearing is off-limits; Vexx is right in saying that you can always choose other words to get your point across. Sometimes it's fun to come up with creative PG-compliant expletives, too (I would disagree with Vexx that expletives are never useful here, I think everyone has had a frustrating moment or two with KSP, whether from game bugs or player error). But I have to agree with FEichinger's comments about simply deleting censored words rather than replacing them with some filler characters being a poor solution. It makes some posts incoherent, and doesn't give clear feedback to the user that they've been censored and should edit.

[vexx32]

I dunno if it's possible, but maybe a "some words used triggered the censor; please remove these words from your post" popup might work okay.

[Javster]

What about saying effing or flipping or equivalent, is that acceptable? What about abbreviations which use swearing, like ST*U and GT*O?

cockpit (for testing)

Yeah, alternatives might be fun, like "KSP crashing all the time is a real discomfort in the posterior"

I dunno if it's possible, but maybe a "some words used triggered the censor; please remove these words from your post" popup might work okay.

That's the best way really, even better if it highlights them

Edited July 8, 2014 by Javster

[shynung]

I've got another phrase that might be unreasonably censored:

Fire ******ant. (guess what it is)

And to think that I now have to manually type asterisks, rather than be confused for mentioning a red-skinned ant that stings painfully...

[Red Iron Crown]

That's a perfectly useful word, though it is misused a lot. "You can use drogue chutes to r.etard your descent."

[Felsmak]

Sometimes it's fun to come up with creative PG-compliant expletives, too.

Like this?

My rocket designs are of a quality that would be described by most engineers as an equal to the functionally inhibited mind that they'd believe to have conceived them, and the Kerbals that find themselves trapped within will certainly experience several moments of sheer terror before the laws of physics ultimately show up to inflict some serious modifications upon their silhouettes by simply applying a particular obscene verb in a mostly upward direction.

Edited July 8, 2014 by Felsmak

[Javster]

That's a perfectly useful word, though it is misused a lot. "You can use drogue chutes to r.etard your descent."

Maybe there could be an exception if the word before is "a"? Or only allow it if you have "to" before it?

Also it's too easy to add a full stop in the middle of a swear word... What's the best way to prevent that?

[Red Iron Crown]

Maybe there could be an exception if the word before is "a"? Or only allow it if you have "to" before it?

Also it's too easy to add a full stop in the middle of a swear word... What's the best way to prevent that?

I don't think there's a practical way to stop it. The mods will police what they see and what's reported, but aside from that getting around the censor is happening all over the place here.

Word exceptions are tricky, too. Examples (imagine I'm using the above censored word instead of "duck"):

You're a duck

You're ducked

That's the most ducked thing I've ever heard

Duck your ship with chutes

Your ship is ducked by drag, causing aerobraking

It's not trivial to tell which uses are ok and which are not automatically.

I propose we replace all swearing with "duck".

[shynung]

Word exceptions are tricky, too. Examples (imagine I'm using the above censored word instead of "duck"):

You're a duck

You're ducked

That's the most ducked thing I've ever heard

Duck your ship with chutes

Your ship is ducked by drag, causing aerobraking

I propose we leave some useful censored words (like above) as it is, but automatically generate a report for the mods to see.

That way, contextually-relevant phrases which contain them does not become somewhat meaningless.

Note, this plan requires an active moderator at any one time, which I presume this forum has.

Edited July 8, 2014 by shynung

[Red Iron Crown]

Might be simpler to just stick to the ducking plan.