Coming Soon: Censor List Update!
Hi, everyone!
Thanks to ongoing research, we have been able to update the censor lists to be more robust and capture more graphic language and phrases.
If you would like to submit an item to be reviewed, you can submit your suggestions here!
Our goal is to continue to make 7 Cups a safe place for all users to interact! We realize that these changes might take some getting used to, and we thank you for your patience and support!
Automated censors always have unanticipated failure modes, and are rarely effective at censoring out individual words because people are so creative at finding ways to communicate (e.g. clever intentional misspellings). 20 years ago I was a regular on a discussion forum with an automated censor that was so "good" at its task that it ignored whitespace in order to try to defeat some of these evasions, with the result that it brought to everyone's attention "dirty words" in innocent messages that nobody would have otherwise noticed.
Basically, in chat rooms there is no substitute for good moderation, and in 1-on-1, for trust in the listener.
@JBlue
Can I just mention, a "less important" issue with the censor but still one none-the-less. Regarding the part of the censor when swear words are censored so F word becomes ****....
I can understand certain words becoming censored into stars but the list has grown so long it has even started to censor very minor "swear" words or very minor words in general, which makes conversations seem more aggressive and provokative than they really are.
Take for example:
Person 1: Guess what!? My Cat knocked a vase off the table today and it smashed everywhere!
Person 2: ****!! That little ****
See how the censor caught some words with Person 2. What kinda things are you imagining Person 2 is saying? It sounds quite aggressive right?
But because the censor is now censoring even little minor words, it lumps them into the same category as more provokative and aggressive swear words. So those little words, when censored, feel like big naughty cuss words, and the person looks aggressive.
In reality.... This is what was actually said: (Highlight to see the text, I've made the front white)
Person 1: Guess what!? My Cat knocked a vase off the table today and it smashed everywhere!
Person 2: Omfg! That little bugger.
The censor list has become so sensitive to minor words that its perpetuating the very problem that it was intended to prevent -- When minor words are censored, it makes it all sound way more aggressive than it really is.
I've have this issue alot.
I've never heard one person who complains that the censor should have protected them. The censor is not the issue here. Actually the opposite, I constantly hear people complain about how sensitive the censor is on minor words that they feel don't need to be censored. People are actually shocked at some of the words they can't say and can't understand it. Try asking around in chatrooms for personal opinions on the minor words. Go by experience -- Don't go by theory and then just impliment. Experience and feedback will tell you that there is no value in making the censor so so very sensitive, to minor words of which people are not hurt by or damaged by in the first place. The thing I wrote there was just an example but there are far far more examples that are even more mind-bogglingly counter-intuitive and over-protective.
Thanks,
RedMeeko
@RedMeeko Yes. And further complicating matters is the global nature of the site, where the perception of how offensive the same word is varies immensely even from one English-speaking country to another. I ran into some trouble with that decades ago on an email list I ran; it's hard to imagine any automated system sorting out those issues properly. And yes, those strings of asterisks do make the imagination run wild!