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Jun 13, 1998, 8:12pm

Would you be willing to copy this over to wishlist, maybe even
worldbuilders where your most excellent idea would be more readily seen by
the more technologically "endowed" people? Especially try to talk to
Roland. USER control is absolutely the most sensible and amenable means of
dealing with what we, each individual, finds offensive.

In article <3582A01C.5D8E at constant.com>, marvin at constant.com says...
> Well, there are other positive side effects if this was implemented...
> one being the people that curse all the time would never be able to tell
> if the words they were using were filtered or not by the persons Browser
> they were talking to. Especially if the person they were talking to only
> responded with normal responses... like they did not notice anything out
> of the norm. It would take some of the fire out of the abuser....
>
> You just brought up another advantage to the method I described. It
> could be used to monitor/substitute for ANY character string of
> printable characters. Meaning any language. It would serve most peoples
> needs even if it was a very short list of words. It would make the
> abuser work much harder to get their jollies.
>
> It could also be designed to handle a set of characters that were
> embedded in a string of characters (harder on resources). It would be
> easy to make it where it did not care about mixed case (that is the easy
> way!). It could even be designed to watch a complete string of chat
> (character string anyway) and truncate or dump the string if it found
> any part of it that matched the strings it was watching for...
>
> Lots of ways to go here to get the most out of it....
>
> Later
>
> zer0

Jun 14, 1998, 11:11am

Yes sure, write to: roland at activeworlds.com
icey

[View Quote] > Would you be willing to copy this over to wishlist, maybe even
> worldbuilders where your most excellent idea would be more readily seen by
> the more technologically "endowed" people? Especially try to talk to
> Roland. USER control is absolutely the most sensible and amenable means of
> dealing with what we, each individual, finds offensive.
>
> In article <3582A01C.5D8E at constant.com>, marvin at constant.com says...

Jun 14, 1998, 2:13pm

I hate to be discouraging here, because I'm actually in the language processing
business. Filtering software is an interesting challenge, but it isn't
trivial. What is trivial, as others have pointed out, is figuring out a way to
outsmart the fuucking filters. This is much more of a social problem than a
technical one, and we already have some tools for dealing with nuisances--mute
and eject. Nobody can tell when they are being muted, so why would a silent
filtering method be useful? Are there cases where you want to prevent yourself
from hearing obscenities, but still listen to the rest of the content? Mute
the b*st*rd! If you created a filter that was clever enough to detect all
possible spelling permutations of obscene words, then you would probably have
it blowing holes in text all over the place. It just isn't as easy as you
think.

I once proposed an alternative to the eject mechanism--public mute. Individual
muting is only partially helpful, since not everyone agrees to mute nuisances.
What I've observed in such cases is that you end up hearing people that you
don't mute in argument with people that you do. So the miscreant gets to annoy
you by the proxy of your friends' behavior. Ejection is the only solution
right now, but it forcibly excludes the person. There are cases where you want
to quiet someone down--e.g. public meetings--but not necessarily exclude that
person from the world. Actually, a total public mute would be very helpful
during public events, since chat tends to get so chaotic when there are a lot
of avatars present. Anyway, I don't think that linguistic filtering is going
to be all that helpful in dealing with public nuisances.

[View Quote] > Would you be willing to copy this over to wishlist, maybe even
> worldbuilders where your most excellent idea would be more readily seen by
> the more technologically "endowed" people? Especially try to talk to
> Roland. USER control is absolutely the most sensible and amenable means of
> dealing with what we, each individual, finds offensive.
>
> In article <3582A01C.5D8E at constant.com>, marvin at constant.com says...

Jun 14, 1998, 2:16pm

While it is important to consider the addition of a filter, we need to keep
in mind also the fact that aside from insulating children from "reality" the
issue of "bad words" is just a barely significant piece of the bigger
problems of verbal abuse to other users, and percieved or intended
agression.

In the first case, we have the biggest of the problems, which is verbal
abuse. To intentionally hurt someone through the things you say does no
good for anyone, and yet enough people do it to make many people just plain
give up on finding someone nice to talk with. By blocking so called "bad
language" from the browsers of experienced users who have learned to operate
a (as of yet non-existant) new feature to block words of their choice, we
push aside the issue of abuse, and "may" actually allow the problem for new
users to get much worse while those who would otherwise speak up fail to
even notice it. Also, verbal abuse does not always contain text strings
that could readily be associated with "abusive language" or "bad words" and
in fact may look perfectly normal and harmless to even the most
sophisticated filter routines. For example, if you were told that the
photograph of yourself that you had hanging in your home looked like
something from a frightning movie, and that with your looks and your brains,
you would be best off to get a lobotomy and a face transplant, I doubt you
would be very happy with the person who said such things, and in fact may
leave feeling hurt and depressed... but it's unlikely that any filter would
save you from it, and even if one did, you would look pretty silly thanking
the person for such a nice compliment.

The second problem I wanted to address is that of percieved or intended
agression. Some people type in all lower case, and may think a person is
yelling at them if a single word is typed in all caps, while other people
feel that if they don't type in all caps, they won't be heard. Likewise,
some people feel that without the use of profanity, they sound as if they
don't "REALLY" mean what they're saying, while other people may percieve the
use of a single foul word as a direct and very personal attack.

In my opinion, the biggest part of the solution can only come one way.
Those of us who have been around Active Worlds long enough to recognize the
problem have to do our best to keep from adding to it, and to newbies what
they need to know in order to communicate effectively and cooperate
peacefully, as well as to teach each other, and learn from everyone. We
can't expect someone visiting Active Worlds for the first time to understand
why it's better to communicate a certain way, or even what ways are better.
For that matter, we can't even expect all of the "experienced" users to have
figured it out. What we can do, is pass on what we know in a friendly
manor, and listen carefully to the people around us so that each of us can
learn to get along better in this new section of reality we're all helping
to define... and it wouldn't hurt to apply that same principle to the
older, more familliar parts of reality too. After all, we ARE the future.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Jun 14, 1998, 3:09pm

Very well put, and as I believe I mentioned before (and should have if I
didn't) I do think that public mute idea is a very good one. Thankyou so
much for your insightful input. Lots of people (including myself) have
their little bits of encouragement (like I'm trying to do now) and other
things that add to the overall quality of what we read in here, but this
kind of input (which is common enough that I would be annoying if I thanked
the writer every time, but still unfortunately not the "majority" of posts)
can make a big difference... I hope.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Jun 14, 1998, 6:16pm

Well I am not a technician maybe Marvin's idea is difficult to carry out, I
don't know anyway ..I mean.. you're all talkative ...few words but good let's
start from there ..it's not all but some words out ..which ones? The most
popular.
icey:-)

[View Quote] > While it is important to consider the addition of a filter, we need to keep
> in mind also the fact that aside from insulating children from "reality" the
> issue of "bad words" is just a barely significant piece of the bigger
> problems of verbal abuse to other users, and percieved or intended
> agression.
>
> In the first case, we have the biggest of the problems, which is verbal
> abuse. To intentionally hurt someone through the things you say does no
> good for anyone, and yet enough people do it to make many people just plain
> give up on finding someone nice to talk with. By blocking so called "bad
> language" from the browsers of experienced users who have learned to operate
> a (as of yet non-existant) new feature to block words of their choice, we
> push aside the issue of abuse, and "may" actually allow the problem for new
> users to get much worse while those who would otherwise speak up fail to
> even notice it. Also, verbal abuse does not always contain text strings
> that could readily be associated with "abusive language" or "bad words" and
> in fact may look perfectly normal and harmless to even the most
> sophisticated filter routines. For example, if you were told that the
> photograph of yourself that you had hanging in your home looked like
> something from a frightning movie, and that with your looks and your brains,
> you would be best off to get a lobotomy and a face transplant, I doubt you
> would be very happy with the person who said such things, and in fact may
> leave feeling hurt and depressed... but it's unlikely that any filter would
> save you from it, and even if one did, you would look pretty silly thanking
> the person for such a nice compliment.
>
> The second problem I wanted to address is that of percieved or intended
> agression. Some people type in all lower case, and may think a person is
> yelling at them if a single word is typed in all caps, while other people
> feel that if they don't type in all caps, they won't be heard. Likewise,
> some people feel that without the use of profanity, they sound as if they
> don't "REALLY" mean what they're saying, while other people may percieve the
> use of a single foul word as a direct and very personal attack.
>
> In my opinion, the biggest part of the solution can only come one way.
> Those of us who have been around Active Worlds long enough to recognize the
> problem have to do our best to keep from adding to it, and to newbies what
> they need to know in order to communicate effectively and cooperate
> peacefully, as well as to teach each other, and learn from everyone. We
> can't expect someone visiting Active Worlds for the first time to understand
> why it's better to communicate a certain way, or even what ways are better.
> For that matter, we can't even expect all of the "experienced" users to have
> figured it out. What we can do, is pass on what we know in a friendly
> manor, and listen carefully to the people around us so that each of us can
> learn to get along better in this new section of reality we're all helping
> to define... and it wouldn't hurt to apply that same principle to the
> older, more familliar parts of reality too. After all, we ARE the future.
>
> TechnoZeus
>
[View Quote]

Jun 15, 1998, 12:45am

It would have to be totally user defined icey... you have or don't have
your list. I have or don't have my list. :)

[View Quote]

Jun 15, 1998, 2:00am

I agree, TZ. While filters would minimize some of the offensive language
and at the very least give each individual user some control over the
content to which they care to be exposed, they aren't the perfect answer.
But neither can I embrace the idea of being monitored by my fellow
customers in a program we've all paid to use, most especially if these
people haven't had any particular training or experience in public
relations and crowd management. It's an inequity which sullies the dignity
of all responsible users, children and adults alike, just as much as those
who engage in deliberately offensive, irresponsible behavior sully their
own dignities.

Frankly, I don't believe there is a perfect or even ideal answer to these
problems. We're exposed to vulgarity, rudeness, hatred, cruelty and
prejudice at the turn of each corner: on the net, in all other
entertainment media, and most deplorable and saddest of all, in real life.
Only we, each conscientious human being can strive to improve ourselves and
set good examples for others.

I still hope that a filter will be seriously considered, though, as
minimally effective as it may be, if only to grant all who choose to employ
it an individual choice in what they may be exposed to and have to endure.
I still believe it would be an improvement.

In article <3583f6a8.0 at homer>, TechnoZeus at uplogon.com says...
> In my opinion, the biggest part of the solution can only come one way.
> Those of us who have been around Active Worlds long enough to recognize the
> problem have to do our best to keep from adding to it, and to newbies what
> they need to know in order to communicate effectively and cooperate
> peacefully, as well as to teach each other, and learn from everyone. We
> can't expect someone visiting Active Worlds for the first time to understand
> why it's better to communicate a certain way, or even what ways are better.
> For that matter, we can't even expect all of the "experienced" users to have
> figured it out. What we can do, is pass on what we know in a friendly
> manor, and listen carefully to the people around us so that each of us can
> learn to get along better in this new section of reality we're all helping
> to define... and it wouldn't hurt to apply that same principle to the
> older, more familliar parts of reality too. After all, we ARE the future.
>
> TechnoZeus
>

Jun 16, 1998, 12:28am

Well, after talking to a number of people in the know (Protag included)
it appears I might have gotten myself over excited about the usefullness
of this feature. It might be a good idea, but in general most agree it
will only help to hide a problem that will not go away.

So be it! :)

zer0


[View Quote]

Jun 17, 1998, 8:29am

That's why I was saying earlier... If a routine was added, to recognize
substrings so that they could be highlighted, or cause a sound effect, or in
some other way, brought to the user's attention, it would take very littly
"extra" programming to add filtering as an alternative to highlighting...
just set the "filtered" words to match the background color, or to maybe
even be replaced with a symbol like ~اØ~ or something like that, to
represent that it had been "sensored". That way, the small benifit would
be matched by the small amount of additional work to add it, and the main
features of the text string recognition would be useful to everyone, and
therefore would justify the majority of the programming necessary to
facilitate the filter.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Jun 17, 1998, 9:33am

I just want my bot to bite them in the ħ§~ ... ehhh, never mind.

w ô¿ô w

[View Quote]

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