Feedback on PF's Profanity Filter Needed

[chroot]

It has been brought to my attention that some pf members feel our profanity filter is inordinately restrictive. I'd like to hear some feedback about the filter -- please vote in the poll, or post your comments here.

One bit of clarification: I personally consider PF's goal to be: Bringing together people of all levels of scientific knowledge to engage in good-spirited, healthy, rational, and educational debate, and to disseminate scientific knowledge and logical skills to the public. If you would like to debate what PF's goal is, or should be, you are welcome to do so here.

Keep in mind that this goal includes educating children, and most people feel that children should not be exposed to profanity.

- Warren

 

[Integral]

Why is profanity of any kind needed to discuss physics? Of course it is rather disconcerting when you cannot even say Lip****z.

 

[holly]

If PF removes or weakens its profanity filter, it will likely eventually be harmed by this, as a number of minors are on the boards. They should not be exposed to profanity as part of a science forum! I don't care what it's like in the "real world," we are talking about a "place apart" here.

Euphemistic wording should be allowed (durn, crikes, bull, etc).

My two cents' worth.

 

[dduardo]

I think the profanity filter is just fine as it is. If we remove it how else would we write messages to other people in morse code.

*** ** *** * *** ** ***** ** ***

 

[The_Professional]

The profanity filter is fine the way it is. I disagree with the fifth option as it pretty much restricts freedom of speech greatly.

 

[holly]

I would like to note that flippant and irreverent use of invocations to God is considered profanity, and I see it on here from a "mentor," among others, frequently, and in a belittling manner that indicates it is not actually calling upon God.

The topic at hand is profanity. So I hope the filter can be touched up to remove this, since we are talking about profanity on PF and not merely vulgarisms, nor exclusively curses, correct? I would rather hear a vulgarism than a profane exclamation, but hopefully the filter can stop both.

 

[Nereid]

Our target audience is world-wide, and inappropriate language or content is ... inappropriate, and should be filtered out.

Is "profanity" inappropriate? Better simply say 'inappropriate'; no need for separate categories.

To keep us on track, I suggest that we take polls like this regularly.

Also, to Integral's point, is there anything we can do about that? It's quite annoying.

 

[Evo]

I believe it's best to keep profanity out. It doesn't bother me, I swear like a sailor, but in a professional or academic environment, you need to have respect for others.

There are a lot of children on PF. I think there need to be guidelines on content, obviously PF is not the place for porn and we all know how religious threads go.

I believe that the current policies in place are adequate. The mentors are doing an incredible job of keeping things going smoothly.

 

[Doc Al]

profanity filter? who knew?

One bit of clarification: I personally consider PF's goal to be: Bringing together people of all levels of scientific knowledge to engage in good-spirited, healthy, rational, and educational debate, and to disseminate scientific knowledge and logical skills to the public.

Very well said, Warren! I support that goal wholeheartedly.

Just to illustrate how pure and clean my own thoughts are, I didn't even know we had a profanity filter. While I have no problem with profanity in general (come to my office sometime!), it has no place here. I can't imagine any ##$(expletive deleted)$# point that I would want to make that couldn't be made better without profanity. (Leave that filter as is.)

 

[Njorl]

Hey! We're already censoring the sacred. If we censor the profane too, what is left?

 

[ShawnD]

As long as nobody is posting porn or twisted stuff like rotten.com would have, I don't really mind.

 

[chroot]

I apologize, I should have included the option to censor content, but not language, in the poll. I added the option.

- Warren

 

[Loren Booda]

You can imagine my surprise at the previous generation PF censor when I brought up the subject of my housemate's pussycat.

Much more often posters on uncensored sites use profanity to pathologically abuse others than to express exclamation.

 

[chroot]

Some good points so far:

1) Many more words could be considered offensive by at least some people than could ever be put into an automatic profanity filter.

2) Our site has a very good track record of quickly dealing with flame wars, and has never suffered from too much "pathological abuse," as Loren put it. I attribute the success to our excellent moderation staff.

The real decision comes down to manual versus automatic profanity censorship. Certainly, even if the automatic filter were turned out, our mentors would individually deal with rude, profane, or inappropriate posts -- something we already do every day.

In some cases, a bad word or two is probably not a big deal, such as when they are used to denote emphasis.

At least one user has expressed that they would rather our staff manually deal with unncessarily profane posts, rather than filtering out bad words automatically.

- Warren

 

[cookiemonster]

There's a profanity filter? I really had no idea...

Guess I have a habit of automatically modifying my language to suit my audience.

cookiemonster

 

[Bystander]

Might be a bit more utility in a "troll list/banned user list" --- saves paying attention to "dead" threads. eg, there is no point in replying to Lifegazer, since LG is no longer welcome on PF. Dunno 'bout Nereid and Russ, but there's a thread in Astro that's kinda hanging --- Nomos Prime may, or may NOT, be an active member these days, and there's precious little indication from examining user profiles.

 

[Monique]

Some good points so far:

At least one user has expressed that they would rather our staff manually deal with unncessarily profane posts, rather than filtering out bad words automatically.

- Warren

Really, I don't know why this even needs discussion, not that it is a bad thing that it's being discussed.

Some words just don't have a place on a discussion forum and should be censored. There are cases though that a word doesn't have an offensive tone or are mistakingly censored, in which case a complaint can be made and the filter adjusted.

I remember the time we weren't allowed to say cockroach, now we can :) I've never had issues with the filter.. wasn't even sure it was still there :)

 

[Math Is Hard]

The only problem I ever had was trying to talk about ****ake mushrooms.

 

[lethe]

seems a lot of people here like the censorship that goes on here. personally, i feel that censorship has no place in an academic environment where the goal should be unrestricted flow of ideas (ideas relating to physics in particular, should be the goal here at physicsforums). a censorship filter has no place in such an environment.

if there are discussions which run counter to the goal of free flow of academic ideas relating to physics, then certainly they should be removed, but it is impossible for a computer to distinguish.

by installing a software filter here, the powers that be at this site have decided that certain words have no place in an academic discussion, regardless of context for those words.

the very idea of "powers that be" deciding what words can and cannot be used in an across the board ban is antithetical to the very atmosphere that fosters academic freedom.

who gets to decide which words? who decides why some words are bad? should it be based on american broadcasting standards? should the users have input? and what about children? should they be allowed to view words like f u c k? how about words like c r a p, or blasphemy like "god is dead". in some places, blasphemy is a worse crime than foul language. why should one be censored but not the other? if we decide on the most prurient set of rules for filtering out language that we deem "unacceptable regardless of context", so that we cannot possibly offend anyone, we may end up finding there are more things we cannot say than that we can.

of course, it doesn't seem like we are in danger of anything like that happening, but the principle of censorship is there. i think freedom of expression is a better principle than censorship.

i do not mean to imply by anything i say that i think that discourteous or infantile behaviour should be allowed. i just think that the internet is a place whose founding principle is freedom of expression, not restriction of expression. the internet gives me the ability to converse with a variety of people all over the globe, from many different societies with different morals. should the morals of one society be imposed on everyone here?

as it stands now, there are words that i cannot use here on physicsforums that i can use in the following places: while discussing physics with colleagues, while discussing physics with my advisor, while discussing physics on sci.physics.research, and while publishing a preprint on the arxiv. and in all cases, nothing inflammatory, rude, or infantile is implied.

it is worth noting that you can even, on occasion, find the moderators of spr themselves using the occasional curse word in a casual way that i think helps illuminate their points.

as it stands, physicsforums is BY FAR the least free place there is to discuss physics, whereas because of its nature of being an internet message board, it ought to be the most free place to discuss physics.

in short, my position is this: moderation = good, censorship = bad

 

[lethe]

Some words just don't have a place on a discussion forum and should be censored.

this is the very kind of thinking that upsets me

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

If by censoring foul language makes us less free then so be it. I think the few guidelines we have here is what sets us apart from the trash on the internet. I refuse to run a free-for-all cracker barrel. I for one haven't seen or heard anyone unable to express themselves by not being able to use foul language. SPR and others can use foul language, we're not them so I don't care.

Point in case:

Moderation = good, light censorship = less moderation

Now lethe, if you want to volunteer to scan all 700 avg daily posts for inappropriate and degrading language then I might just drop the filter

 

[ShawnD]

Now lethe, if you want to volunteer to scan all 700 avg daily posts for inappropriate and degrading language then I might just drop the filter

That's not hard at all. Just go to search and search all posts for the words you want to pick out.

 

[Integral]

Lethe,
Would you please explain to me why course language is necessary to convey physical concepts? If the inability to abuse fellow posters is a limitation in your free expression then so be it, please find one of the thousands of other forums which allow that form of expression and dish out all the abuse you want. We do not need it here.

 

[zebbler]

What are the goals of physicsforums.com, and who is overseeing their content and enforcement?
Does profanity interfere with these goals or help them or is neither?

 

[Evo]

I can't imagine when profanity would ever be a requirement in an academic discussion.

In my opinion, it's a sign of losing self control. It may feel good to the one shouting the expletive but I can't imagine how it could add value to the conversation.

 

[Monique]

in short, my position is this: moderation = good, censorship = bad

Moderation is a stronger censorship that a software filter. The software filter doesn't care who posts the message, everything gets treated equally. A moderator has their own values and the act of intervening is more close to a censor.

I really cannot understand how the profanity filter restricts the freedom of expression. It doesn't automatically filter out all the posts which say QM is bull****, you are still allowed to say that it is, but there are different ways of saying it. We've had anatomical discussions in the biology forum, and not once was there a problem with the filter.

As for the censorship of content, I don't think there should be unless there is a conflict of ideas unrelated to academia. I mean, at one point everyone thought the Earth was the center of the universe. Wasn't it for one person to go against it, we still would have thought that. The job of the moderator is to point out when a theory is not scientifically proven and to demand arguments for theories that go against mainstream thoughts.

 

[Janus]

One thing to be noted is that by maintaining the language filter we make PF available to some which it might not otherwise be available, namely K-12 students. Many ESDs (Education Service Districts) have content filters on their servers which block access to sites that contain certain content or words. Since there are still a fair number of students whose only access to the net is through the school computer, allowing 'profane' language could cut us of from a group that could benefit the most from this site.

 

[lethe]

Lethe,
Would you please explain to me why course language is necessary to convey physical concepts?

nowhere did i say that course language is necessary. what i did say is that freedom is necessary, and that censorship restricts freedom

If the inability to abuse fellow posters is a limitation in your free expression then so be it, please find one of the thousands of other forums which allow that form of expression and dish out all the abuse you want. We do not need it here.

yeah, Integral, that is exactly right, i am well aware that there are other forums, and currently, i prefer them over PF. your advice is exactly accurate. you do not need me here, and i do not agree with your policies here, so i have never really become a fulltime regular here, and i don't think i will.

it is promising that when i mention that i have issues with the policies here, you people are willing to discuss those issues openly. but for me, just talk is not enough.

 

[lethe]

If by censoring foul language makes us less free then so be it. I think the few guidelines we have here is what sets us apart from the trash on the internet. I refuse to run a free-for-all cracker barrel. I for one haven't seen or heard anyone unable to express themselves by not being able to use foul language. SPR and others can use foul language, we're not them so I don't care.

well, i guess i am glad to know you don't care. it makes my decision easier.

Point in case:

Moderation = good, light censorship = less moderation

great.

Now lethe, if you want to volunteer to scan all 700 avg daily posts for inappropriate and degrading language then I might just drop the filter

no thanks.

 

[jimmy p]

hands up who is going to miss him?

 

[lethe]

hands up who is going to miss him?

up yours, buddy

1. The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 10 characters.[/color]

 

[Dagenais]

Censorship is Unamerican.

- Comicbook Guy, Simpsons.

 

[jimmy p]

 

[thunderfvck]

**** that you ****ing ****.

 

[Cod]

Personally, I'd like to see all profanity filered out. Content is fine as long as the poster gives a fair warning of where a link leads.

 

[Phobos]

personally, i feel that censorship has no place in an academic environment where the goal should be unrestricted flow of ideas

Name one accredited university science program that allows free-for-all profanity & inappropriate content in the classrooms.

by installing a software filter here, the powers that be at this site have decided that certain words have no place in an academic discussion, regardless of context for those words.

Very few words are filtered. All are easily replaced with other words, if context requires. The words are not pertinent to science-based discussions and they common usage is simply derogatory. I've yet to see a single discussion hindered by the filter.

who gets to decide which words?

In your house, it's your rules. In Greg's house, it's his rules. Your right to speech does not mean Greg is forced to give you a soapbox, as that would infringe on his rights.

Notice that we have not "censored" your profanity in this thread. It's not a big deal. We simply want quality discussions and we don't have the time or desire to proofread every post.

i do not mean to imply by anything i say that i think that discourteous or infantile behaviour should be allowed. i just think that the internet is a place whose founding principle is freedom of expression, not restriction of expression. the internet gives me the ability to converse with a variety of people all over the globe, from many different societies with different morals. should the morals of one society be imposed on everyone here?

So you agree that certain things are inappropriate and that a moderated forum should watch out for it. Nothing is being imposed. People agree to join this forum by their own choice.

Hey, ideally, we'd like no filter. But it is all too common on internet forums for some bad egg to come along and fill every thread with garbage just for the fun of irritating decent members such as yourself.

as it stands now, there are words that i cannot use here on physicsforums that i can use in the following places: while discussing physics with colleagues, while discussing physics with my advisor, while discussing physics on sci.physics.research, and while publishing a preprint on the arxiv. and in all cases, nothing inflammatory, rude, or infantile is implied.

If you have a valid use of a particular filtered word, feel free to use spaces or whatever to get around the filter. We'll have no complaints about it if it's an appropriate usage. If you're here to start flame wars, then yeah, we'll shut that down.

it is worth noting that you can even, on occasion, find the moderators of spr themselves using the occasional curse word in a casual way that i think helps illuminate their points.

of course
again, the filter is a quick & very non-restrictive fix for what would otherwise be a big problem

as it stands, physicsforums is BY FAR the least free place there is to discuss physics,

I find this very hard to believe. Especially since the words are not related to physics in the first place.

 

[lethe]

Name one accredited university science program that allows free-for-all profanity & inappropriate content in the classrooms.

My current uni (and all other unis i have been to) allows me to use profanity in the classroom. I often exercise this freedom, both as student, and as teacher.

i think you are turned around. i don't have to look to find an example that allows profanity. on the contrary, i think it would be hard to find any example that disallows it.

do you really need me to name my uni?

Very few words are filtered. All are easily replaced with other words, if context requires. The words are not pertinent to science-based discussions and they common usage is simply derogatory. I've yet to see a single discussion hindered by the filter.

well, as far as science discussion goes, it doesn't happen often. but if you have yet to see a single discussion that was hindered, then i guess you missed the thread where people recommended Lif****z as a QM textboook.

in fact, that problem was mentioned already here in this thread, so i don't know how you could be unaware.

In your house, it's your rules. In Greg's house, it's his rules. Your right to speech does not mean Greg is forced to give you a soapbox, as that would infringe on his rights.

Of course, greg rules here. however, chroot gave me the impression that the administration is open to changes in policy if people want it. they seem intent on making this a premier academic message board, and are willing to consider any changes that they think will move it in that direction.

Notice that we have not "censored" your profanity in this thread.

huh? what are you talking about? I noticed exactly the opposite: that you have censored me even in this thread.

It's not a big deal.

It's not a big deal to you. it is to me. apparently i am the only one who sees the censorship of profanity as a bad form of censorship.

We simply want quality discussions and we don't have the time or desire to proofread every post.

i don't think that the two goals (quality discussion without intense proofreading and lack of censorship) are mutually exclusive

So you agree that certain things are inappropriate and that a moderated forum should watch out for it. Nothing is being imposed. People agree to join this forum by their own choice.

Hey, ideally, we'd like no filter. But it is all too common on internet forums for some bad egg to come along and fill every thread with garbage just for the fun of irritating decent members such as yourself.

you say this, but i see no evidence of it. over at sciforums, for example, there is no censorship, and people occasionally say "oh s h i t, i forgot the constant of integration" or something like that, but they don't get swamped by foul language

they do sometimes have flame wars with MacM, and profanity comes in, and moderator intervention is required, but like i say below, the flamewars happen and would need intervention anyways. and it is the exception, not the rule.

can you provide me some evidence that if there were no filter, every thread would get filled with garbage? if you cannot, then you and i are in agreement that we would like no filter.

If you have a valid use of a particular filtered word, feel free to use spaces or whatever to get around the filter. We'll have no complaints about it if it's an appropriate usage. If you're here to start flame wars, then yeah, we'll shut that down.

if your goal is stopping flame wars, how does the filter help that? to stop a flame war requires moderator intervention, with or without the filter. i am not saying i am against moderation. i am for moderation. i am simply against censorship.

if you think stopping flamewars is the justification for the censorship, well i am sorry, but that is bull****. flamewars happen with or without bad language.

of course
again, the filter is a quick & very non-restrictive fix for what would otherwise be a big problem

the filter is quick, yes. you find it nonrestrictive, i find it excessively restrictive. is it a fix? i don't think so.

as it stands, physicsforums is BY FAR the least free place there is to discuss physics

I find this very hard to believe. Especially since the words are not related to physics in the first place.

you find this hard to believe? well let me see if i can convince you.

here is a list of the places that i can discuss physics:

1. in real life, with colleagues, advisors, etc. no censorship
2. USENET. no censorship
3. sciforums. no censorship (except the word "physicsforums")
4. physicsforums (profanity filter)
5. other forums, superstringtheory.com or advancephysics.com, also no censorship

now can you see that this is the most restrictive place to discuss physics?

edit: actually, i see that i already gave this list before. so i don't see what is hard to understand. this is the only place on the internet with this censorship. it is in fact OBVIOUS that this is the most restrictive

 

[Phobos]

Well, your concern is noted. Let's see how the poll turns out.

 

[lethe]

Well, your concern is noted. Let's see how the poll turns out.

i think it is safe to say the voting is more or less over. the two dozen or so people who voted on this poll seem to prefer the profanity filter.

 

[lethe]

OK, as i said in my post above, it seems that the people have more or less spoken. personally, i think the poll was rather ineffectual, with very few people voting, but it doesn't really matter. the forum admins of PF have made their opinions known: the censorship is here to stay.

so at this point, i feel like i should just explain a few more things. i have been a long time poster at sciforums, occasionally drawn over to PF for one reason or another. a few times, i have been asked to switch allegiances from sciforums to PF, and have considered doing it. in fact, i had probably already done it. sciforums does have a lot of noise, and there is more physics going on at PF.

i had for a long time known that PF practices censorship, and had chosen to overlook it.

as it turns out, sciforums also practices censorship, of a particularly vile nature. by that, i mean, their censorship is not meant to filter profanity, but is actually designed to restrict speech and exchange of ideas. in particular, one is not permitted to mention physicsforums over there.

when i discovered this, i resolved to leave sciforums. the only problem was, i could not justify to myself leaving sciforums on account of censorship and staying at physicsforums. admittedly, the forms of censorship are different, but i view this as simply a degree of difference, with the underlying principle being the same: one is not allowed to speak any way one wishes.

although i feel i owe chroot some gratitude for opening the matter up for debate, it seems that the admins of this forum seemed more or less unwilling to engage in any kind of healthy discussion over the issue. Phobos engaged briefly with some intelligently put forth (but badly misinformed) arguments, before falling back to a authoritative "well, you lost the vote, so discussion is pointless" standpoint.

aside from Phobos, it seemed to me that no other was even trying to see my point of view, and was simply walking the party line: "profanity is bad for children, therefore censorship is necessary"

the whole discussion left me frustrated and dissatisfied.

i have also explained in some detail my position in a thread on sciforums here

 

[Monique]

..one is not allowed to speak any way one wishes.

This is an issue of moral values. In some people homes when you enter, they ask you to take off your shoes. Moral values apply to the internet too, although some people totally disregard that and start spewing profanities. This thing is just so trivial, you can still walk without having your shoes on.. so just take them off..

 

[Loren Booda]

I would rather have children feel truly comfortable here than exercise a need to use profanity. Physics Forums is much to me like a casual yet professional venue for discussion; I don't cuss at work nor would I as a teacher.