datlas 

Although I understand the need for the censor to prevent possibly inflammatory or offensive words, can you please fix it so I can type/post *****gitis?? Men-in-gitis. I can’t see how m-e-n-i-n is offensive at least in American English and a google search for offensive slang does not suggest a problem.

Rollfast

You're spoiling all it's fun, you know.

unterhausen

that's a weird one. Not sure who fixes these now that Siu is gone

datlas 

That’s what my kids tell me too.

Side note, I actually wish there would be no censor. I have been on other forums without one and 99.9% of the time it’s not an issue and if some French Shower uses truly inflammatory language inappropriately they are dealt with individually.

BTW word for shower in French, ******, is also censored. Sigh.

datlas 

Siu gone?? I was not aware. I hope nothing bad happened to her.

IBJoel

No, nothing bad. Just wanted some time away. I'll change this, because that's a weird word to censor.

EDIT: meningitis

datlas 

Thanks!

unterhausen

If we had a huge number of paid moderators that could assess every post and bleep out improper uses of words, then we wouldn't need a censor. As it is, it works fine.

CliffordK

The odd thing about the filter on this site is how it picks up partial words.

That may be helpful in some senses to pick out words with different suffixes, without going through and specifying each one, but makes errors unless one is very careful with what is put into the filter.

There are two types of filters, and perhaps they should be kept separate. One is to block spammers. It is tricky so depending on a website, a "Passport" could have both legitimate and illegitimate uses. Block some foreign words?

The other use is to block inflammatory words. That can be culturally specific, and perhaps time specific.

I always find it annoying that one can discuss primitive species... Neanderthals... but not our own species H*** Sapiens. Yet, even with that, I have to wonder if a cultural shift has brought about a difference in interpretation of the word over the last 40 years or so. While the word might have been inflammatory when I was in school, greater social acceptance has allowed one to rationally discuss our species, H*** Sapiens... or, I would hope it is less used as insults today.

There are words, of course, that might be flagged as either a poster that is mal-adapted to the forum in general, or a topic that might fit better under P&R. And, thus, while moderately labor intensive, flagging for review might be better than blocking.

unterhausen

there is one thing that I know of in the censor to trap spammers. It's the name of a popular forum that doesn't seem to care that spammers use it to host movies. I can't remember the last time I saw a "free movie" spam on here and it used to be a couple a day.

You would be surprised how cretinous that certain BF members can be. I wouldn't assume that if we too bigoted slurs out of the censor that they wouldn't be used. And some things are in the censor because they were overused as slurs in P&R. But P&R isn't going anywhere, so that isn't changing.

CliffordK

I think there is some RED... forum that gets trapped. I think that was the one... that has a fair amount of useful content, but spam filters don't seem to like it.

https://www.******.com/

I don't think I've encountered any other "useful" website that is blocked, but I imagine blocking fraud and spam websites is a moving target.

datlas 

I don’t agree that it works fine. It’s flawed. It may be necessary from the authorities’ perspective but it has its downside. I even had a YouTube link *’d out because it contained 3 letters in a row that, by themselves, could be considered offensive.

There are are other, possibly better, ways to deal with people who post blatantly offensive comments, but as you implied that would require more effort.

That said, I am pleased that at least now I can talk about meningitis even if I can’t discuss **** sapiens.

ThermionicScott 

The thing that bugs me about the censor we have now is that it bleeps out the words in old threads and doesn't restore the original letters if the sequence gets taken off the naughty list. So harmless content from before the new software is now corrupted and people will forever scratch their heads why **** keeps showing up in innocuous text.

Rollfast

If the censor really worked then Let's Talk Dirty In Hawaiian by Jimmy Buffett and Lady Marmalade would get blocked.

IBJoel

Guys, every piece of software is going to have drawbacks, just like letting things go through human verification will.

To what degree are anthropology and evolutionary biology being discussed on a cycling forum? If you work in one of those fields, yes, you might be bringing them up a lot because they're at the top of your mind, but the vast majority of users are not.

If there is a word that seems to have been added in error, we will remove it. But when the issue of how it might be abused is obvious, it will remain in the censor database.

Rollfast

That's because they R Such Narty Kids. Their goal is to vert the sub.

unterhausen

we don't usually block website names, but the amount of spam we got including links to ****** was ridiculous. And reporting abuse on there is worthless. I have no idea what they are thinking. I know the burden of deleting spam there is vast, but I'm a little surprised they aren't on blacklists. I have no idea how meningitis got in there, probably some malfeasance on the part of the P&R folks. There are made up insults in the censor because of them

Nightdiver

Not sure if I should have started a new thread for this, but a recent post of mine had a manufacturer's name censored. Not sure why since it isn't an offensive word in any way that I can tell. It's Bab boe (without the space between those two words). Any ideas?

BillyD

But you have lost sight of where you are . . . where else but BF can cyclists go and be the tough guy? This is why we have the filter, because cyclists are ruffians. (By the way, she prefers to be called "filter", the term "censor" has such ugly connotations).

BillyD

B****e? No ideas, sorry!

datlas 

Google suggests it’s a derogatory word for an aboriginal in Australia.

It means nothing to the rest of us, though.

So at least the censor filter is worldly wise.

BillyD

It's also the name of a Benedictine monk who was present at the siege of Paris by the Vikings in 1885/86, proving that the filter is very well read.

CliffordK

A new technology company has popped up as a leader in Coronavirus research: A B B O T T

'A game changer': FDA authorizes ****tt Labs' portable, 5-minute coronavirus test the size of a toaster

Hmmm...
Apparently short for Aboriginal Australian. (??? spelling).

Rollfast

The Anti-Costello Company.