Why is BB censoring words?

Makes sense. I wouldn’t expect any of the regular denizens to use it unironically, unless in a discussion of how the word is used.

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You are welcome to call shenanigans. There are words and discussions that almost always result in deleted posts, and some are more common here than others. BBS posts have been linked as “examples of Boing Boing’s quality of discussion” in the past and there are simply terms we don’t want associated with Boing Boing. The list is not complete and will be adjusted based on how frequently I need to delete certain phrases from the BBS.

Boing Boing represents the livelihoods of several people and we have enemies that would love to link to BBS posts as weapons. This is one of many tools to combat that.

That’s it. End of story.

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And I assume this list is secret? It might be nice to know what topics and phrases are forbidden here.

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I’m a big fan of baby as pejorative, because let’s be real babies aren’t otherized by their baby status

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Clearly we just need some nastier minds to investigate further. Honestly I think I possess the technical requirements but no need to follow through.

Edit: officially having phone problems.

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I sent myself a PM and experimented some. I couldn’t trip the filter with any other words.

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what about ■■■■■ ?

I would also like any of Sinbad’s comedy shtick from the late spring of 1998 stricken, as well.

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You think that I don’t even mean
a single word I say?

It’s only words,
and words are all I have
to take your heart away.

You asked two different questions. “Why is BB censoring words?” is what I am dealing with. Your second of “What else is deemed inappropriate?” I will leave to others.

Whether or not BB censorship is or should be based upon practices versus some ideal “bad word” seems relevant to the discussion. I dispute that any words are “overtly” anything. Abusive posts need to be dealt with, but that is based upon the context of whether those posts actually attack anybody, rather than a simplistic criterion. I explained that the content of which words one filters for is less relevant than the process of why one does it, which is precisely what you say you are asking about. My observation does not need to be shunted aside simply because it was not the answer you wanted. Take it or leave it.

Rather than a mere abstract philosophy, it is part of my praxis for interaction, and how I evaluate whether trying to converse with a given group might be productive, or a waste of my time and effort. This means discussion about protocol.

I’m fine with this. I take responsibility for my words, and I’m usually aware when I’m at the line…

Part of my thing about absolutist free speech is this idea that it also means you face no consequences from it. Bite me, honestly! If you think you can walk up to anyone and say whatever you damn well please and not get fuckin corrected, you have lived an extremely sheltered life.

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It’s true that words do depend on context for power and meaning, but I’ve yet to hear or read a discussion that was improved by (or even left undiminished by) the inclusion of the word in question. Their house, their rules. And as censorship goes this is pretty darn mild.

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This was largely rhetorical (since I fully expect this list to remain secret), not a call to the community to debate whether something is offensive.

I think I agree largely with what you’re saying. However the larger points you clearly appear to want to discuss should probably go in a separate thread. I ask that you respect this.

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Yes I think we can’t all agree with this but it still left a bad taste in my mouth that something like this is bad while and number of things I consider far worse are not.

Either way I think this thread has outlived its usefulness and I’d like to ask that @orenwolf lock it.

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we have enemies that would love to link to BBS posts as weapons

I’m trying to imagine the scenario where someone could weaponize my use of the word “cuck” in a message against anyone. I’m afraid that I am not imaginative enough.

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This had me scratching my head too. I guess we’re not as creative at trolling as channers.

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If we are going to conduct ourselves with the civil protocol of “their house, their rules” I think that it does sort of beg the question how much right BB has to keep such a list secret - IF they want it to be complied with. It is kind of a cheap authoritarian tactic to expect people to abide some code or criteria while being deliberately obscure about it. (If that is indeed what is happening) If people are serious about their codes of conduct, then they can be explicit.

My remarks about pejoration-in-general were only one part of the issue, and not an indication that the entire discussion should go that way. Much of what else I have had to say seemed to address your questions.

If I had it wrong, maybe you can clarify for all concerned what angle of this topic you prefer to discuss. That’s more informative than being asked to take my opinions elsewhere. What exactly are you trying to engage with here?

From 2007-2013, the era of blog comments (moderated by TNH and Antinous) there were three explicitly forbidden words, beginning n, c and f. It was not enforced by machine, though, and flexibility was permitted when context made their use reasonable or unavoidable.

Since the move to Discourse/BBS, we’ve had no explicitly forbidden words, instead opting for a shorter, sharper set of guidelines. This worked well, I think.

At some point, the word “c​uck” was added to the Discourse censor list. I don’t know why – perhaps just to test to see if it worked using a funny example. It was the only word on it when I last saw it, as I recall, but the N word was added at some point too, presumably recently.

I went to remove “c​uck” on the presumption that it didn’t need automatically censoring, but decided instead to add the word “m​oist” so that we have a nice set of three banned words.

Obviously this only affects the HTML-ignorant. We’re all grown up enough to know our zero-width space codes.

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It’s worth mentioning that we have a “watched words” feature in the works for 1.9 (current beta) where based on the presence of a word in a post:

  • post could be auto-blocked
  • post could be auto-flagged
  • post could require mod approval
  • word could be censored

(pick one, obviously)

Mostly this is because I tend to agree that the presence of certain words in a discussion is practically a guarantee that things are going wrong in that discussion. We could debate what those words are, and we absolutely should, but… I am confident we can all come up with a few words that we know (and have personally experienced) cause discussions to have a very high probability of going wrong.

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This sounds awesome, @codinghorror, I look forward to playing with it.

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