The 'Scunthorpe Problem' Has Never Really Been Solved (vice.com) 382
dmoberhaus writes: Yesterday, a writer for SB Nation named Natalie Weiner posted a screenshot of a rejection form she received when she tried to sign up for a website. Her submission was rejected because a spam algorithm considered her last name "offensive." After she posted about this, hundreds of other people with similarly "offensive" last names sounded off about how they had experienced similar issues. As it turns out, this phenomenon is so widespread that it has a name among computer scientists. It's called the Scunthorpe problem and it's been a scourge of the internet since the beginning. Motherboard spoke to content moderation experts about its origins and why it's such a hard problem to solve 20 years later. A big reason why the problem has yet to be solved is "because creating effective obscenity filters depends on the filter's ability to understand a word in context," reports Motherboard. "Despite advances in [AI], this is something that even the most advanced machine-learning algorithms still struggle with today."
"This works both ways around," Michael Veale, a researcher studying responsible machine learning at University College London, told Motherboard. "Cock (a bird) and Dick (the given name) are both harmless in certain contexts, even in children's settings online, but in other cases parents might not want them used. Equally, those wanting to abuse a system can find ways around it."
"This works both ways around," Michael Veale, a researcher studying responsible machine learning at University College London, told Motherboard. "Cock (a bird) and Dick (the given name) are both harmless in certain contexts, even in children's settings online, but in other cases parents might not want them used. Equally, those wanting to abuse a system can find ways around it."
A sad reflection... (Score:4, Insightful)
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There you go, proving that it's not just "schoolyard snickering" which is rude.
Re:A sad reflection... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or maybe he's trying to say that a word is just a word, and that we shouldn't spend so much time policing them as we could choose instead to just grow up and stop caring which combination of letters someone chose to put side by side.
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Or maybe he's trying to say that a word is just a word, and that we shouldn't spend so much time policing them as we could choose instead to just grow up and stop caring which combination of letters someone chose to put side by side.
All words convey meaning, and offensive words convey offensive meaning.
Personally I think it's more childish to use those words, and then act like you're a martian that doesn't understand what language is or something, to dodge responsibility for conveying the very meaning that the words were fully intended to convey. .
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Not so.
Many politicians go to great lengths to ensure their words have no meaning.
If something is "offensive", GET A THERAPY. (Score:5, Insightful)
How is it, that supposedly grown-up people use childish concepts like being "offended" anyway? What are they? 13? Never left puberty?
A grown-up, mature person either is confident enough, to know that if somebody's statement is wrong, then he's the idiot, and there is no need to do much about it.
And if somebody's statement is wrong, he's able to handle that reality about him.
As soon as he starts defending himself, he shows everyone, that the offense clearly contained something that he considers such a valid criticism, that he thinks it needs to be countered. That is what gives it validity in the first place.
I don't expect a kid to know this, but definitely a grown-up!
The problem today is, that everyone has become such an insecure loser (who'd be the prime target of bullies in any school in the 70s/80s), that everything that might suggest they are not perfect little snowflakes, shatters their entire world and excuse for a confidence. And then they lash out and bully others with "OMGOFFENDED!". Yes, bully. Since this has become the prime form of bullying today. Because you do not even have to attack anyone. All it takes, is them imagining you might mean something in a discriminating/offensive way. And let me tell you, ... they can "find" something in EVERYTHING!
So what we need, is to stop raising our children without self-confidence. Without giving out trophies for participation. And with bullies, for the sole purpose of them growing from letting the bullies bounce off again and again. So they later, in the real world, don't have to become SJW terrorists.
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How is it, that supposedly grown-up people use childish concepts like being "offended" anyway?
I think that this syndrome is usually misunderstood. It's not really about people's "hurt feelings" - it's about their absolute need to control and dominate other people.
That's one of the primary human instincts, and no matter what laws, customs or conventions are devised, it will spring up right through them like bamboo shoots in a garden.
"Directly Man has his most elementary material wants, the first aspiration of his amiable heart is for the privilege of being able to look down on his neighbours".
- Lord
Re:A sad reflection... (Score:5, Interesting)
GerryGilmore lamented:
...on how silly/childish we still are by schoolyard snickering over "funny names". Apparently, we'll just never grow the fuck up.
Well - some of us don't.
Religious types, for instance.
I've been a customer of a certain online-warehouse music store for donkey's years, now (it rhymes with "Musician's Trend"). Naturally, they encourage customers to leave reviews of products we buy. So, a couple of years ago, I bought a Digitech RP1000 multi-effects pedal board from this operation. I was very pleased with it, and I succumbed to the urge to submit a review.
I swiftly discovered the site's nanny filter had some peculiar notions about what it considered objectionable language. First of all, it will let you use neither the terms "dollar" or "dollars," nor the "$" character. It also flagged and blocked words that are dirty only by dint of extreme mental contortion - like "muff" for instance. That came up in the context of discussing distortion models included in the device. The Maestro Big Muff is kind of the Ur-fuzzbox. (If you know the song American Woman by the Guess Who, that lead guitar tone is the perfect example of what it does to a guitar's sound.) The RP1000 does a great job of emulating it, as well as many other classic distortions, overdrives, and fuzzboxen - but the nanny filter wouldn't let me mention the Big Muff by name - even though this Musician's Blend-sounding retailer stocks many variants of that pedal and solicits reviews for them!
So, I don't bother posting reviews there, because the corporate pinheads who are responsible for emplacing that imbecilic thing in the first place refuse to treat their customers as adults - and I have zero interest in posting reviews about sophisticated digital electronic modeling gear for an audience of children ...
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Must have been quite a while ago, the RP1000 is about as old as my GNX3000.
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No contortion at all for muff to be deemed 'naughty'. It explicitly means vagina.
Sure, it's a tamer word than minge but if a site is censoring then it's a legitimate target.
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Ooooooohhhhhh... You said the fuck word... :D
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Putting bleeps over swear words on TV seems even more childish. I've seen comedians on Youtube who had several beeps in almost every sentence. You can still understand everything, so I guess it's more of a nostalgic tradition than being meant seriously. Otherwise, what's the point of this?
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Censoring the reality never makes sense.
If you have a problem with reality - then you may have to move to a secluded area with limited connection to the rest of the world. Maybe become Amish?
Most English profanities are quite bland anyway.
The real reason is... (Score:4, Insightful)
The real reason it's a problem is because programmers are lazy bastards, and web developers are stupid lazy bastards.
Yes, I'm a software developer. A disillusioned one.
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No, the real reason this is a problem is because for some reason people get offended by certain arbitrary strings of characters. That's the real root of the problem.
For some reason there's great outrage if someone uses a slang word to describe sex, or genetalia, both of which are perfectly natural parts of life.
Re:The real reason is... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the real reason this is a problem is because for some reason people get offended by certain arbitrary strings of characters.
No, it's not. I don't get offended by profanity (except in the sense of being bad writing), but I still don't want to communicate with people that only wish to get a rise out of me. For that purpose, blocking profanity (in some contexts) is useful beyond what does or does not offend me.
And don't forget that language is for description. An offensive concept will always have offensive words or phrases that describe it. (I don't expect humanity to mature to the point that nothing offends.)
Re:The real reason is... (Score:4, Funny)
I don't expect humanity to mature to the point that nothing offends.
That kind of implied 4chan is the pinnacle of humanity.
Re: The real reason is... (Score:4, Interesting)
And then there's Dungeons & Dragons Online, which blocked 'penetration' despite having an item suffix called "of Spell Penetration". Yes, every time an item with that got linked in chat the filter obscured it to 'of Spell #%&/(#&%'.
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Yes, that's the right solution. We used killfiles on Usenet and it worked great. Unfortunately, there are many places that do not have filters or blocking, for instance Slashdot. It would be nice to be able to filter ACs by keywords and put known trolls on an ignore list by their account name.
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No, the real reason this is a problem is because for some reason people get offended by certain arbitrary strings of characters. That's the real root of the problem.
No, still wrong. It's because for some reason some "important" people, i.e. those in charge for what a company writes and what it let's people write on their digital premises, FEAR that people might get offended. While most people actually don't.
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No, the real reason this is a problem is because for some reason people get offended by certain arbitrary strings of characters. That's the real root of the problem.
For some reason there's great outrage if someone uses a slang word to describe sex, or genetalia, both of which are perfectly natural parts of life.
This is disingenuous.
All words are "arbitrary strings of characters" that convey meaning. Those that convey offensive meaning are used for that purpose; because they get attention, have that zing, make you feel naughty or adult, etc.
Offensive words are offensive, because words convey meaning and that is the meaning that offensive words convey.
As an analogy, try uttering public threats, and then tell the judge that people shouldn't get alarmed by arbitrary strings of characters. Words convey meaning, and
The Solution (Score:3)
Don't use fucking filters to filter out fucking offensive language.
Re:The real reason is... (Score:5, Interesting)
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I am honestly surprised there has been a problem in the first place because a lot of Irish surnames have one.
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Indeed.
Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names [kalzumeus.com]
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Curious. Efficient pattern matching minimising false positives isn't a computer science thing?
Sure as fuck isn't a software engineering problem.
It's called that because... (Score:5, Informative)
It's called the Scunthorpe problem because it has the word "cunt" in it, and that prevented the good people of Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, England from creating accounts with AOL back when that was relevant.
There, saved y'all a click, since that's probably the only thing you were interested in about this story anyway.
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No, you didn't save me a click, because I knew this already.
It would have been more informative had you listed more names with the same problem. England has lots of them.
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Don't forget Retardistan
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It's called the Scunthorpe problem because it has the word "cunt" in it, and that prevented the good people of Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, England from creating accounts with AOL back when that was relevant.
There, saved y'all a click, since that's probably the only thing you were interested in about this story anyway.
They were more fortunate than anyone living in Gropecunt Lane [wikipedia.org] .
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Is that where Trump is from?
I'm sorry, it was too good to pass up.
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Anywhere is Gropecunt Lane when you are famous. Apparently.
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Sad, but Tickle Cock bridge lives!
As does Twatt in the Shetland Islands, Bell End in Worcestershire, and of course Penistone, Yorkshire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:It's called that because... (Score:4, Funny)
It's called the Scunthorpe problem because it has the word "cunt" in it, and that prevented the good people of Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, England from creating accounts with AOL back when that was relevant.
There, saved y'all a click, since that's probably the only thing you were interested in about this story anyway.
No, now I want to know why Scunthorpe was named Scunthorpe!
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As Wikipedia notes, "The town appears in the Domesday Book (1086) as Escumesthorpe, which is Old Norse for "Skuma's homestead""
See about two thirds of the way down the left column:
http://opendomesday.org/book/l... [opendomesday.org]
Note that thorpe (and thorp) is a common suffix for a place name in that part (and others) of England, and generally means 'hamlet'. Scunny has grown a little since being named.
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It's called the Scunthorpe problem because it has the word "cunt" in it, and that prevented the good people of Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, England from creating accounts with AOL back when that was relevant.
There, saved y'all a click, since that's probably the only thing you were interested in about this story anyway.
No, now I want to know why Scunthorpe was named Scunthorpe!
From wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
The town appears in the Domesday Book (1086) as Escumesthorpe, which is Old Norse for "Skuma's homestead", a site which is believed to be in the town centre close to where the present-day Market Hill is located.
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Not sure, but it's not far from Peniston
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It's called the Scunthorpe problem because it has the word "cunt" in it, and that prevented the good people of Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, England from creating accounts with AOL back when that was relevant.
Thor reportedly had trouble getting an AOL account for this very same reason. (He had a summer home there.)
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Sure. Eliminate all slang and vulgarity.
What was that? Teenagers just brutally thrust the London Gherkin through the gaping pleasure passage of your suggestion, rendering a whole sentence worth of new words taboo?
Good luck constructing sentences when your allowed language is down to three words.
Re:It's called that because... (Score:4, Insightful)
Offended? You are welcome to entertain the thought.
Right up until you think it obliges others.
DIdn't Know It Had A Name (Score:5, Interesting)
But I sure know the problem. I was once tasked with creating software that would flag objectionable content posted on-line. And the business types were worried about people using "banned terms" altered by look-alike characters a la Leetish (oops... 1337.sh), or spurious punctuation inserted, so I built a finite automaton matcher for database of banned terms, and applied filters during matching so that remapped characters and certain inserted punctuation would not prevent matching.
Totally useless. When such software is run against pages of normal text, with the suspected "banned terms" being high-lighted red, it is really surprising how often (or how many) buried obscenities pass under our eyes, and we are not sufficiently "little old ladyish" to notice.
Re:DIdn't Know It Had A Name (Score:5, Funny)
But I sure know the problem... it is really surprising how often (or how many) buried obscenities pass under our eyes
Tehehe! You said but. And ass.
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While I tend not to utter those words myself, I do think it's farcical that others allow them to exert such power.
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A really good example word is 'assassin'.
Because regexps are stupid. (Score:5, Interesting)
Simple searches are never going to solve the problem. They simply have no situational awareness. One of my favorite examples would be when 8chan was in the midst of the exodus from 4chan, and someone thought it would be funny to word filter all instances of "moot" into "cuck". I discovered this when one of myposts had the word "smooth" changed into the non-word "scuckh". I wasn't the only one to figure it out, and very quickly people were evading it by using a Cyrillic "o" instead of a Latin "o". This led to much hilarity as some people complained loudly that they were being filtered while others were not. It got to the point where people were putting a lookalike "moot" into posts simply to bait n00bs into thinking the filters no longer existed.
This was pretty harmless, but it demonstrated quite well why defining some regexps is never going to solve a social problem, and introduces many of its own.
Re:Because regexps are stupid. (Score:4, Funny)
Fuck Puritanism (Score:5, Interesting)
My health class had to coax us students to all say 'penis' and 'vagina' several times just to loosen up enough to talk about anatomy and sexual health. Genital shame feeds into our culture's sex negativity, and indirectly into bodily shame, all in a vicious circle. We would be much happier as a culture if we went out of our way to promote sex positivity and body acceptance. Unfortunately the Abrahamic religions are too invested in sex negativity, so I'm not hopeful that things will improve until secularism becomes more dominant.
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This is more of an American thing than a religious thing. Europeans mostly think Americans are terrible prudes.
Re:Fuck Puritanism (Score:5, Insightful)
Which Europeans? The religious ones or the atheist ones?
Sex negativity IS a religious thing and not just a Christian one. Look at muslims that need to have their women covered up from head to toe to avoid getting the urge to jump them any chance they get.
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Which Europeans? The religious ones or the atheist ones?
In either case the majority.
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Yes, because Europe exported most of its prudes to the USA (most of the early settlers left Europe because everyone there was tired with their attitude).
However, Europe also went backwards a lot. Greeks, Romans, Germanic tribes and Celtic tribes all had a much more relaxed attitude towards nudity, sex, homosexuality and every other related topic.
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I can honestly say that if I was a teacher, and had to do a sex ed class, I would very likely end up flushing my job down the toilet with endless substitutions. That is, after the first instances of penis, vagina, buttocks, anus, and breasts; I would then use a different slang each time the opportunity presented itself after. I would probably work taint in there as well.
I just would not be able to help it. :D
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My health class had to coax us students to all say 'penis' and 'vagina' several times just to loosen up enough to talk about anatomy and sexual health. Genital shame feeds into our culture's sex negativity, and indirectly into bodily shame, all in a vicious circle. We would be much happier as a culture if we went out of our way to promote sex positivity and body acceptance. Unfortunately the Abrahamic religions are too invested in sex negativity, so I'm not hopeful that things will improve until secularism becomes more dominant.
Meh. Hardly anybody is interested in censoring those words when used without offensive intent.
All words are just sounds that carry meaning in context, and part of the meaning of the offensive ones is that they are offensive (when used that way).
A certain kind of juvenile mind loves to use those words for that very reason (they get attention for being offensive), and then deny any such intent and argue semantics when called on it.
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Most of it comes from television:
No, it doesn't.
This stuff is much, much older than TV.
When the christians re-conquered Spain in the dark middle ages, the first thing they did was to close all public baths.
In ancient Greece, people did sports in the nude. The original Olympics were done by men and women (at the parallel Hera festival) in their best age, fit and trained, completely naked. It was certainly a lot more fun than today.
Christians turned Europe and by proxy America into the afraid-of-sex bullshit that it is today. Greeks, Romans,
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Ben Elton is the first person I heard saying the word cunt on British TV, so given the prevalence of that word in Australia your anecdote feels highly ironic.
WeightWatchers (Score:3)
Does it take a company as big as WeightWatchers to convince curators/censors to make an exception to the Scunthorpe problem? Like Scunthorpe, WeightWatchers has embedded sexual slang in the middle.
Re:WeightWatchers (Score:5, Funny)
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Then of course, Wang... There's a joke about them opening an office in Cologne (Germany), but no one wanted to work there because no one wanted to go to Wang Cologne.
But they did (so I'm told by an ex-employee) try to set up their global support programme. The region director for Europe had to explain to Dr. Wang personally why they'd changed the name from Wang Care.
I used to work with a guy called Paul Mycock (who also had a doctorate). Go look him up on linkedin for a list of other great names in the "peo
You don't even need a computer. (Score:5, Interesting)
Even without mindless string matching, there are pinhead bureaucrats who will equally mindlessly reject reasonable requests for harmless strings on similarly specious grounds. A few years back, seeing that it was (by some miracle, I thought) untaken, I tried to snag "YT-1300" as a personalized license place. Yes, I'm that nerdly. Also, nothing good with "1701" was available. Some pencil-pusher at the DMV actually denied the application on the claim that YT-1300 is a "gang-related" term. WTF?!?!? Yeah. I'm to believe that there're gangs of Star Wars fans out there somewhere doing drive-bys at Star Trek conventions, hoping to "pop a cap in the ass" of the Trekkies. Sure Mr. DMV person. And you wonder why we all hate you and your kind.
Okay. Disney may have had something to say on copyright or trademark grounds if I *HAD* gotten the plate. But still...
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This is not untypical.
In Germany, there are certain letter combinations disallowed on license plates. You know, things like "SS". Then, recently, there was a discussion to disallow "88", which, surprise, neo-nazis have used as a code to get around all the "SS" filters everywhere...
Humans are like the Internet. They will route around censorship.
Pecker (Score:5, Funny)
I bet there are a lot of websites having trouble with the name, "David Pecker". He's been in the news lately because he was running the National Enquirer and has a safe filled with information about Donald Trump potentially getting peed on and having sex with ladyboys and paying for abortions and who knows what else. He's also been given immunity by the Special Counsel and is currently cooperating, which means we're in good shape for entertaining news at least through the end of the year.
There have been so many jokes about David Pecker's name, that the Enquirer sent out a request to the news media to please stop snickering when talking about him. The request was written by the Enquirer's head of public relations, Fanny Goblincock.
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Whats funny about 'david' ?
I think you meant "Richard" (Score:3)
I thought his name was Richard Pecker?
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Well, before he changed it to David Pecker, he was known as "Dick Gazinya". He changed it because he couldn't take the teasing.
The Problem Never Really Existed (Score:4, Insightful)
The solution to the problem has always existed. Turn off the dumbass filter.
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No no, we're trying to keep the dumbasses OUT!
It is NOT hard. (Score:2, Informative)
why it's such a hard problem to solve
It is not a hard problem to solve. It is a very easy problem to solve. It is literally the Easiest problem to solve.
Stop trying to decide what's obscene and what isn't. Remove the filter. Boom, problem solved.
"Of all the strange "crimes" that human beings have legislated
out of nothing, "blasphemy" is the most amazing -- with
"obscenity" and "indecent exposure" fighting it out for second
and third place." - Robert Heinlein.
The closely related Site Registration Oopsie (Score:5, Funny)
When the old-line mail order purveyor of fine writing instruments Pen Island became aware of the potential of online commerce, it registered the obvious penisland.com . The company was totally unprepared for the porn avalanche that followed. Similar hilarity ensued when Experts Exchange came online.
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Penisland was probably my favourite. Though second placed goes ot an Italian company (PowerGen) who finding that powergen.com was already taken by a British company registered powergenitalia.com
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The latter is an urban legend, though.
Not that tricky to solve (Score:2)
I don't think you need an AI to screen names, especially on emails. Obscenity filters aren't going to pick up anything on the name of the sender that they won't find in the body of an email. If the body of the email isn't flashing red with signs of abuse, then chances are... that your sender's name is fine, even if it's a last name like Weiner (which would be an absolutely idiotic thing for an obscenity filter to pick up on in the first place).
Filters like this are designed to be gamed. If your users have a
Random Passcodes for Webkinz (Score:5, Funny)
SHAME! SHAME! (Score:2)
I am so very dissapoint.
Ode to Bob Blow (Score:3)
Way back in the day, I was affiliated with a BBS that had filters for "obviously fake" names. I wound up getting peripherally involved when a Mr. Bob Blow tried to sign up for an account, and kept getting an automated rejection accusing him of using a false name.
Some years later, with another BBS, it took two years before anyone suspected Mr. Mike Oxlarge was using a fake name. Everyone knew who this person was online -- it only came to light when someone said his name in the office one day after a tech support call.
Mind you, it wasn't a problem for Mr. Takeshita, although it probably should have been. An IBM system mandated a maximum of 8 characters username, and corporate policy was to just the persons last name, truncated to 8 characters. Oops.
Yaz
Whither, then, the Cock? (Score:2)
Sadly, my favourite pub in all of southern England, The Cock, does not sell t-shirts or mugs.
A splendid marketing opportunity...wasted.
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There was one of those near where I worked about 15 years ago, somewhere in Hertfordshire.
Just across the street and a few doors down, another pub: The Queen's Head.
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Years ago I heard a (probably) apocryphal story about the landlady at a similarly named pub in Hertfordshire. The pub in question, in the village of Tillet, was called the Black Cock, and the landlady's name was Lucy Likes.
Were one to address a letter to her the envelope would read:
Lucy Likes
The Black Cock
Tillet
Herts.
Overzealous filtering (Score:2)
At a former employer we had an internal collaboration system. This had a rude words filter but it was "turned up to 11" which meant that some day to day discussions were rendered completely pointless.
For example: "Press down hard on the cover and release the screw" became "Press down ********* and release the ******" which wasn't any help to anyone.
It ended up with posts either being strangely formatted (e.g. sc r ew) or [esp. when they were aimed at senior management] using convoluted phrases [attachment
The real Scunthorpe problem (Score:2)
The real Scunthorpe problem is that it's a shit-hole in the middle of nowhere.
Weiner vs. Wiener (Score:2)
The sausage is called Wiener after the Austrian capital Wien (Vienna).
And then there is the issue of pronunciation...
NULL (Score:2)
fsck no (Score:2)
Bunch of pussies.
Oooh memories of expense claims! (Score:2)
What do you do about Fanny ? (Score:2)
And then there are other languages in the world, after all. I remember my German colleagues giggling at an American stand at CeBIT in Hannover, whose company name was "Blast, Inc". Something to do with blowing,
wrong problem (Score:4, Insightful)
A big reason why the problem has yet to be solved is "because creating effective obscenity filters depends on the filter's ability to understand a word in context," reports Motherboard. "Despite advances in [AI], this is something that even the most advanced machine-learning algorithms still struggle with today."
The real reason why the problem exists at all is because we think that we need obscenity filters. Because your childs psyche is going to be irrepairable traumatized if it reads words like "cunt" or "penis", right?
Small children don't care. The worst that will happen is that they ask you to explain what that word means.
By the time they care, they already know what it means.
Not to even mention that this is the one area where humanity has managed to turn half the dictionary into synonyms for the words you are trying to filter out. Good luck filtering that.
What's the purpose of fig leaf profanity filters? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, spam filters make sense because they spare you to deal with a text you don't want to read anyway (and even then you have to check the spam box every once in a while), but those are far more sophisticated now.
But "profanity filters", especially those that replace "fuck" by "f..k" and are easily circumvented by "f*ck" don't help at all. Everyone knows what it's supposed to mean and just replaces "f..k" with "fuck" in their own head. The stupid beeping in TV-shows is even worse. Not only is it annoying as hell, it also nicely highlights all the swearwords, and everyone just replaces it in their own head anyway.
Language is there to convey meaning, when "f..k" conveys the same meaning as "fuck", then what difference does it make. To try to keep the meaning intact and at the same time censor it doesn't work.
It's not about "protecting" kids either. They're usually pretty quick to figure such things out and have enough peers who'll tell them anyway. They will learn about swearing and foul language anyway. They should learn that such language is inappropriate for them to use, or for adults to use in their presence, just like they learn that it's inappropriate for them e.g. to drink alcohol or for an adult to offer them alcohol.
So who is more offended by "fuck" than by "f..k", when both mean the same thing and both make you think the same word?
Whoever uses "f..k" want's you to replace it with "fuck" in your own head but at the same time claim not to use "foul language".
Now that i find offensive.
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Have were learned nothing from George Carlin?
One thing we did learn from Carlin is that context matters.
It's OK to say [baseball star] Roberto Clemente has two balls on him. But you can't say 'I think he hurt his balls on that play.' -- George Carlin
TFA makes the same point.
Re:Why are we banning words? (Score:5, Funny)
You can prick your finger; but don't finger your prick.
Re:Stop whining (Score:5, Interesting)
And remove all filters already. Kids will only benefit in developing strong psyche if exposed from an early age. If you expose them later to these "bad" words you are creating snow flakes.
It's hard to avoid exposing children to bad words. But you shouldn't encourage children to use those words until they have the maturity to know what they mean and when it's okay to use them. Developing a strong psyche is about regulating and mastering your emotions, not giving them unfettered voice in a stream of potty-mouth expletives.
There's a reason it's called adult language.
Get them used to the words from an early age and in a couple of generations the worlds will stop being offensive, duh!
Society's tolerance of offensive words evolves, perhaps until they lose their power to offend. But children still need to learn what it means to offend, and how and when not to do it. They should be discouraged from using offensive words until they understand how their words affect others.
kids use "adult" language far more than adults... (Score:5, Interesting)
Basically let the children have those words, and once it is out of their system using it at school over and over and lose its lustre... Then you are fine.
"regulating and mastering your emotions" wrong by the way. Becoming adult is accepting that you do not get what you want and that every action has a responsibility. The "mastering emotion" is bullshit which lead to people repressing their emotion, depression, suicide, social isolation and pain of all sorts (not counting the same similar bullshit as "men do not cry"). It is better to show your emotion than pretend you are a master of it and stuff it in your psyche where it can fester all nicely.
Re: (Score:2)
But children still need to learn what it means to offend, and how and when not to do it.
We as a society should learn to offend properly. Which means you should be offended by the content of what I say, not the words I choose to say it.
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Luckily it is still in wide use in other countries, luckily because it is a variation of my first name.
Re: (Score:2)
That's a novel use of SJW. OTOH it seems to always mean "things I don't agree with".
Re: (Score:2)
Entry #2 in the Urban Dictionary?
Must admit, seems a bit of a fetch to me.
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...just trying having a last name of Null. The havoc that wreaks on web apps. Not sure why, but enterprisy stuff seems fine with it, it breaks web apps left and right...
Then try opening a joint account with Mr Void and cashing a cheque!