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Word filter suggestion/question




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Mad_Scientist
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 3:34 am Reply with quote
So, currently the abbreviation S - J - W, when typed normally, is filtered out. I approve of this actually and rather enjoyed when it used to be filtered out to "person I disagree with politically" or "Shounen Jump Weekly", though I know the latter sometimes caused confusion on the forums when people thought posters meant the ACTUAL Shounen Jump Weekly.

However, currently, it is filtered to [slur], which is the same thing the word filter does to actual slurs like the n word. This makes some posts seem way harsher than they actually are, and can cause confusion in some cases as well. To give two examples from like the last hour tonight:

First, someone posted "I can taste those salty [slur] tears." That was the entirety of their post. A short while later they edited it to "I can taste those salty ~S~J~W~ tears", getting around the word filter and making it clear what term they meant.

The post is off topic trolling regardless, but the original version makes it seem far worse. Because S - J - W, as annoying as I find it, is not a slur with the history of violence and oppression that words like the n word or t word have, and it is words like those that come to mind to me at least when I think of slurs.


To give another example, also tonight, someone posted "Ah, we've finally got to the 'Japan is a magic fantasy land completely disconnected from the rest of the world you imperialist [slur]'s trying to force your beliefs on it!' posts."

They were giving a somewhat sarcastic summary of certain arguments the poster found annoying. I agree those arguments are annoying, and I'm pretty sure that the "slur" they used was once again S - J - W. But the word filter would give people unfamiliar with it the impression this poster typed an actual slur. So even people who agree with them might be angered or report the post simply because they feel throwing around slurs even as an example is unacceptable.

So basically, my question is, can this be changed? I don't know why the word filter got changed from "Shounen Jump Weekly" to "[slur]", but unless my memory is wrong I think that until fairly recently actual slurs weren't filtered. So I wonder if maybe on the technical side, it's not possible for the forums to have the word filter replace different words with different things, ie turn one word into "[slur]" and another word into "Shounen Jump Weekly".

If that's the case, I'm not sure the best course of action. Maybe change the word filter from [slur] to [filtered word]? Perhaps I'm being too nitpicky here, but I just feel that the term slur isn't one that should be used lightly (maybe I'm sensitive because of stupid "TERF is a slur" or "racist is a slur" campaigns people have mounted) and as aggravating as I find S - J - W, I just don't think it has the weight of oppression and history behind it, yet at least, to qualify it as a true slur. I mean, the fact that I am violating the word filter multiple times in this post to type it out as part of my explanation I think shows that. I would never, ever, ever do that for something like the n word, and I'm pretty sure my post would be near instantly nuked by the mods if I did. But S - J - W just isn't the same.

On the other hand, if you CAN have the word filter treat S - J - W differently from other words affected by the word filter, might I suggest you change it back to "person I disagree with politically"?

Anyways, thank you for reading, sorry for my somewhat rambly post lol.
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2019 2:00 pm Reply with quote
I saw this post last week and didn't have time to reply. One of the staff changed a number of terms into "[SLUR]." It's easy and simpler that way, but I can see your point about why we don't want something that, depending on usage, may or may not be a slur to be labelled as such.

I'm not sure who made the word-filter edits (I have a pretty good guess, only a few of us can modify that), so I want to check with the other administrators and the moderators to get their points of view.

I would go back with having the initials go back to "Shonen Jump Weekly" myself, sometimes they are used in context of a manga conversation, so [slur] is very inappropriate, and in other situations, when used as a slur "Shonen Jump Weekly," is a good way to disarm the offender.

The attempts at evading the word filter (eg: S~J~W) would also need a good replacement other than "Shonen Jump Weekly," "[SLUR]" or "Person I disagree with." I'm open to suggestions on that one.

My personal vote would be "person who cares about social justice."
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Mad_Scientist
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2019 6:47 pm Reply with quote
Tempest wrote:
The attempts at evading the word filter (eg: S~J~W) would also need a good replacement other than "Shonen Jump Weekly," "[SLUR]" or "Person I disagree with." I'm open to suggestions on that one.

My personal vote would be "person who cares about social justice."


"Person who cares about social justice" seems like a good option for that.

EDIT: Also forgot to mention but yeah some people might use it just as an abbreviation for Shounen Jump Weekly, so it getting changed to [slur] in those cases will cause innocent posts to get weird. So I agree making it Shounen Jump Weekly is a good idea, as it won't change the meaning when it's used in that fashion.
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Mad_Scientist
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 24, 2019 7:07 pm Reply with quote
Okay, something else I noticed when the above changes to the filter was brought up in conversation I was having, someone asked if the anti gay f-slur still got filtered to "this is not 4chan."

Well, by using the preview button, I found out it isn't currently filtered at all, in either long or short forms.

I also checked, and the anti-trans t-slur (I mean the word that's ONLY a slur, not the one that also begins with t but has a super common non-slur unrelated meaning) is also not filtered to anything.

I'd suggest both of them get filtered to [slur]. The old "this is not 4chan" was amusing but that word does have a serious history of oppression and violence behind it, so it's probably best it be treated seriously like other slurs.
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