Censoring words in this forum
Please can we stop it with the random censoring of words in this forum? I am now finding posts where I can't understand exactly what the poster wanted to say because one of their words was replaced with asterisks. As I have had this happen to one of my own posts, I know that the poster was given no warning that this would happen - it seemingly successfully posted but words were randomly replaced.
Moreover, a couple of weeks ago I posted something completely innocuous which the forum decided had to be sent to the mods for approval; they approved it, thus demonstrating that it was indeed innocuous, and now that same post (which was intact when it first appeared) has an important word replaced by asterisks. The word in question was a common Unix command which is used to terminate a process.
To my mind this is much worse than randomly sending posts to be approved by moderators, although that in itself was a bit silly because the mechanism was very trigger-happy.
Comments
@NianticCasey With this new profanity filter and people no longer getting warnings over them, can those of us who did got warnings during the first month for using of "profanity" have our warnings appealed?
Honestly, whoever implemented this profanity filter should have first been made to read up on the concept of the Scunthorpe Problem (also known in some circles as the "Clbuttic Mistake"; I'm sure you can figure out why).
...Yes, that's an actual thing: it occurs when a web filter censors or blocks innocuous words/websites because the text contains a string that resembles something profane or otherwise objectionable; the most famous example involves the British town of Scunthorpe, which was hilariously censored by America Online way back when (for reasons that should be obvious if you look closely at the town's name), but various other filters have made similar errors, which often results in a mixture of frustration and amusement on the part of those affected.
i just read the article. Apparently the system is only programmed to recognize words and not the context that words are used in. For some reason you can use words like poop **** **** and barf.
And
Why are p.e.e and f.a.r.t censored but not poop?
Can i say ****?
Apparently not.
(Though I can see it when I quote it. Which is kind of weird.)
Hey, I wonder if George Carlin's "Seven Dirty Words" are censored...
The one that confused me right now is legitimate uses of the word ki11. “I had to ki11 the process” for example now looks like “I had to **** the process”.
You can still spell the words out. For example “I was playing ingress in the park when I stepped on dog p.o.o.p”
Or the game softlocked and I had to k.i.l.l the app
Yes. See also: https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/comment/46817/#Comment_46817
(and at the bottom of the thread for more banned words)
The interesting thing is you can search on the words in question, and the search results come up with the asterisks highlighted.
The moderators already said somewhere that their hands are tied on this matter but this system is WAY better than having it go through moderation. At least now we know what word is the problem and can go in and modify.
Hi folks,
Thanks for raising this discussion, as @Kliffington mentioned, we have some very strict requirements from our legal team to moderate content to keep it safe and friendly for our users. This feature, while it's not perfect, is intended to reduce the number of posts that only feature bad words (not racially charged or violent language) that are queued for moderation.
It's a work in progress, and we're refining the list as time goes on, but it's my hope that this improves your moderation experience in the Community.
I have three main issues with the way it is currently implemented.
There are now two censored words in the admin -made community guidelines.
Under item III, "Treat others with respect,"
The third paragraph reads "never defame, abuse, ****, harm, ****, or threaten another player.
Sure wish I knew what I agreed not to do to another player. I like to keep my options open and all, but....
https://us.v-cdn.net/6031689/uploads/413/CJ6H2VFL1XSN.jpg🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
That post says it all about the over zealous nature of how its currently working, love it
Maybe once Niantic figures out how to not "****" their players, they'll be able to check the censoring issue.
NIA has stumbled with this also in their other games, see example:
Probably because the word "butterfly" contains the word "b u t t".
A classic example of the Scunthorpe Problem, that.
Butterfly cannot possibly be censored... Can it?
Edit: thankfully no, it is not,.
No, but apparently in PoGo it is :|
My favorite example is the censoring of words that are nearly completely innocuous, except for outdated epithets. I mentally "ok boomer"ed the filter when I saw slippery **** censored in a post the other day.
Haha yep - still censored.
Actual pokemon names such as Butterfree, Shellder, and Lickitung have the same problem. Can't use those.
Anyway, I've ran into some weird censoring on this forum. Such as **** bars (playground equipment), and idioms like 'giving it an another shot'.
Why is m.a.t.e censored??
When you want to **** for the stars, and end up just being starred out. One day, you might want to speak about your **** that also plays Ingress, but again, all you see is stars.
Odd, after I edit the post, the text appears to show up. Maybe I should try to refresh the page after I save the edit? So I can **** for the stars!
Dangit, never mind, starred after the refresh. so simply don't s h o o t for the stars or talk about your m a t e either.
Seems odd that the "legal team" has words blocked here. Yet so many other forums, I'm part of, I don't see this. Gaming forums, software discussion forums, webhosting forums. Odd.
They seem to have censored a lot of random 4 letter words. Let's see if there are others.
Ache. Aids. Airy. Ball. Bats. Book. Calf. Cite. Cook. Cull. Daft. Dart. Dear. Deck. Deer. Dine. Dock. Dune. Eggs. Eons. Ends. Eire. Fact. Face. ****. Fall. Fern. Feen. Fire.
In a moment of crowning glory, they censored the URL of the decoding challenge when first posted today, so no one could load it.
Man, I can't even post an image in this thread to show what I can't post, @NianticCasey. The filters are getting absurd.
@NianticCasey - This post is being 'moderated' which is to say, never going live. Can you tell me what on earth is wrong with it?
@Perringaiden, there were a few changes made on the backend that have made image posting more difficult. I'm in the middle of updating the Community to not only account for those but make it even easier to post images in the future. Sorry for the inconvenience!