Allow Member Groups To Turn On and Off the Profanity Filter

[TDBF]

I think that each member groups should have the ability to turn on and off the profanity filter, rather than being a system wide configuration. This way, each member of that group or groups can decide for themselves whether or not to activate the filter.

I think that it should be the members choice to allow profanity rather than enforcing this from an administrators point of view. I have had many of my member complain about not having the choice to turn it off.

[Nathan Explosion]

Profanity filters are applied at content submission, not at display,  so it would also involve a change in that area so that the filter wasn't applied at all until display time....so if a setting to do this was provided then it wouldn't be retroactive.

This would also potentially expose the site to being able to be blocked in corporate environments where profanity isn't allowed, and the site potentially ending up on lists for adult content.

[TDBF]

7 hours ago, Nathan Explosion said:

Profanity filters are applied at content submission, not at display,  so it would also involve a change in that area so that the filter wasn't applied at all until display time....so if a setting to do this was provided then it wouldn't be retroactive.

This would also potentially expose the site to being able to be blocked in corporate environments where profanity isn't allowed, and the site potentially ending up on lists for adult content.

That is why you would have different layers to the profanity filter, one that was global, groups and also at a member level and each controlled via the ACP.

You are looking for problem that should be there if this was implemented correctly, I am a firm believer in that the end user should be given the choice whether or not to allow profanity (Just like in most MMO's) and not treat all adults like mere children who cannot decide for themselves. I personally believe this is what most non corporate forums would wish to see on their forums. In corporate cases, just do not individual members to change their profanity filter preferences.

[TDBF]

Sorry, the topic title is misleading, I should have stated individual members, not member groups.

[Nathan Explosion]

You're confusing corporate use here - I'm not talking about a corporate using IPS, and I've never connected the two.

I'm talking about a corporate (I've been employed by several who do this, and I work with several in my own day job who do this) implementing a proxy filtering system that allows their employees to access the internet, but restricts them from accessing sites that contain 'adult content'. You may think it's up to the user to dictate what they can or cannot see, but it's also up to the employer (or even ISP too) what they allow their employees to access.

I've got first hand experience of this - I'm an admin of a site who experimented with disabling the profanity filter entirely, many years ago, after people said they were old enough to handle it (they were)....so we turned it off. When people complained about the site not been accessible when they were at work, then we turned it back on again.

It took nearly a year for our site to be removed from the major 'adult content' filtering systems at that time.

Best of luck with your idea.

[TDBF]

30 minutes ago, Nathan Explosion said:

You're confusing corporate use here - I'm not talking about a corporate using IPS, and I've never connected the two.

I'm talking about a corporate (I've been employed by several who do this, and I work with several in my own day job who do this) implementing a proxy filtering system that allows their employees to access the internet, but restricts them from accessing sites that contain 'adult content'. You may think it's up to the user to dictate what they can or cannot see, but it's also up to the employer (or even ISP too) what they allow their employees to access.

I've got first hand experience of this - I'm an admin of a site who experimented with disabling the profanity filter entirely, many years ago, after people said they were old enough to handle it (they were)....so we turned it off. When people complained about the site not been accessible when they were at work, then we turned it back on again.

It took nearly a year for our site to be removed from the major 'adult content' filtering systems at that time.

Best of luck with your idea.

I'm not confusing the two here either, likewise I have worked for companies and universities that are on an intranet and we didn't allow adult content either, of any kind. So yes, been there done that too  And, in most cases these are filtered on a guest permissions.

I think it is YOU that is missing a point here,  and if you had read what I wrote, then you would understand that it would be the 'Administrator' of the site who would set global and local permissions on who get to set the profanity filter preferences. So, if an admin didn't want their end users to be able to change their profanity setting, it just would not happen.

I also never said anything about turning off the whole profanity filter, I wouldn't do this regardless of what site I was running or administrating and this would always be set on for guest groups. In my case, I would like my members to have a choice whether they want it on or not. 

Thanks

[Joel R]

At least to me, the profanity filter has never been about individual rights.  It's always been about community standards for common and acceptable language - to protect your other members from obscene or extreme language.

As such, I don't understand why you would ever allow members to individually turn off the profanity filter.  If you want to allow one member to turn off the profanity filter, you're exposing your entire community to his language.  In which case, just don't have a community filter to begin with ... and problem solved?

[TDBF]

8 hours ago, Joel R said:

At least to me, the profanity filter has never been about individual rights.  It's always been about community standards for common and acceptable language - to protect your other members from obscene or extreme language.

As such, I don't understand why you would ever allow members to individually turn off the profanity filter.  If you want to allow one member to turn off the profanity filter, you're exposing your entire community to his language.  In which case, just don't have a community filter to begin with ... and problem solved?

One word, Choice!

The fact that we would allow the profanity filter to be turned off and a user level, doesn't negate that they still have to follow our community guidelines. We don't mind the usage of mild swear words, but we do on sexually explicit vulgar words or swearing which is used to mount personal attacks.

As I said earlier, MMO's have done this for years, and you have the choice to turn it off and on at any time. The wording 'Nanny State' comes to mind when you have to protect grown men from a few swear words.

That is why we have moderators on our forums, to make sure our members follow our community guidelines, for which such language is not allowed. However, the use of mild swearing is generally allowed unless is is used in provocation or personal attacks. Generally, we follow the PEGI 12 rating as guidelines.

Regards,

[Neil Bridgeman]

I agree with @TDBF. We run a forum for grown adults and as such they should be trusted as to whether they wish to see swearing or not. 

[Andy Millne]

I'm confused. You can set the profanity filter to be bypassed by certain groups. If you trust members in that group just disable the filter. They can then choose whether they wish to use profanity or not. I'm not sure why there needs to be a setting for them to filter themselves.

Edit: Oh I see what you mean, sorry. You want the viewer to decide whether profanity is shown to them not whether they are allowed to post it.

I guess that makes sense although it would mean a major change in the way we parse post content. Currently profanity is parsed on save whereas doing this would require an additional step on display which is more resource intensive as it needs to be done on every view not just on save.