Overactive Censorship Code

I have opened a thread to discuss recent riots in Nigeria.

However, there seems to be some kind of profanity screening software running that prevents links to the article from displaying properly...because the name of the country contains a character string that, were it to stand alone, is an uncomplimentary reference to a racial group.

nigeria

See?

Any way to solve this little glitch?

reply to post by mobiusmale



Nigeria. Nigeria.
There are riots in Nigeria.
What if we do it uncapitalised? nigeria.

This is an article about Nigeria:
articles.cnn.com...:WORLD

This is the same article as named link

Another:
www.independent.co.uk...

Here is a wikipedia article on Nigeria:
secure.wikimedia.org...

Here it is as a named link


Hmmmm...seems you are right. In SOME links: Seems it is the ones with the word "Nigeria" in the middle of the link (as opposed to the end).
Talk about over-active censorship .


But seriously, I wish ATS would overhaul and fix it's link parsing system. It really causes many problems (even aside from this).

Test:

Nigeria

Edit: Just capitalize it and it's OK.

reply to post by intrepid


I think his problem is with posting links with the word in it. See what happened to the post above you.

Test 2:

nigeriaworld.com...

Edit: Working for me.

Yeah, it's been "magically" fixed now.

Even been applied retroactively. I'd suggest that the OP can start his thread now.

Originally posted by babloyi
Yeah, it's been "magically"

fixed now.

It's the power of The Wolverine.

reply to post by intrepid


Thanks for this fast and magical fix!

Originally posted by mobiusmale
reply to post by intrepid

 

Thanks for this fast and magical fix!

I was just joking. I didn't do anything. No tech here. I wouldn't even know where to start. Glad it's all good though.

Seems the forum elves have been at it again.

Rumor has it they hail from Nigeria.

Seems like a prety out of date pattern matching problem. Who would have thought this site would be without the latest heuristsic scanning technology.

S#horp is a town in England - which always had this problem. I'll bet that gets hashed out too. Cheapo technology people! Vey unimpressed. This type of pproblem was fixed 10 years ago lol

I used to have family holidays in S#horp.

ETA:

HA HA - I was right - it edited the name of the town! lol

Pathetic!

Censory Perception

reply to post by Shamatt

That seems a bit harsh. After all, the # does a great job of #.

Not to mention the incredible # we all face from #, which can only be prevented by careful # and, most importantly, #.

So as you can see, the # works perfectly.

Originally posted by Majic
Censory Perception

reply to post by Shamatt

 

That seems a bit harsh. After all, the # does a great job of #.

Not to mention the incredible # we all face from #, which can only be prevented by careful # and, most importantly, #.

So as you can see, the # works perfectly.

LOL, well, I'll be #'d! I see what you #.

Could we offer a prize to anyone not in the UK who can guess the name of the sea side town I mentioned?

reply to post by Shamatt

One way to get round the problem is cautious mis-spelling.
In a Biblical discussion, I was obliged to invent a place in Palestine called Shiittim. This evades the letter of censorship, but not, I think, the spirit.

Down And Dirty

Originally posted by DISRAELI
This evades the letter of censordhip, but not, I think, the spirit.

Agreed. As I understand it, a major reason for the profanity filters is to avoid having our site as a whole filtered by "net nannies" and the like which cut off access to obscene content and can be triggered by profanity. Denying access to ATS for some members because other members can't be bothered to stifle the potty mouth is unfair and contrary to what ATS stands for.

Another reason is that ATS isn't a restroom wall, our members span a wide age range and it is discourteous to the community to inject profanity into discussions.

Something else to consider is that we have been asked to start cracking down on the use of symbols and altered spellings to bypass the profanity filters. That has always been against the rules, and we have usually made edits in the past to "snip" problem words, but will be more likely to completely remove offending posts and post ban members who can't be convinced to knock it off.

Hmm, that reminds me, I really should write up a Public Service Announcement thread for that.

reply to post by Majic


I understand why it is done, I was just having a giggle at the rather old patern matching being used

So what is the advice? Sometimes when quoting people we may need to write a bad word. Should we just write it in full and let the system deal with it, or is it best to do the "He called me a b*****d" type thing, which would be understood?

Censory Overload

Well, it's a mild hassle, but one way to get names like "Shittim" and "Scunthorp" past the filters is to drop BBcode tags into them. If you quote my post, you can see how I do it.

Doing that to display proper names shouldn't be a problem. **

Of course, using that technique to get "dirty" words past the filters (or using *, @ and the like to modify their spelling for the same reason) is another thing entirely, and not recommended.



** Although if Beavis and Butthead are reading, they may start giggling.