h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sorry. Just had to get that off my chest there.

It'd be nice if there was a setting in the Preferences to turn the *s on or off, so we could see 'em if we wanted. I'm not usually offended by any such swearing, or 'racist' words. Also a setting to allow hidden posts to be viewed, but still marked that they are generally hidden, would be nice too. It's even more frustrating to get to a conversation and find people are talking about a post that you can't even see any more!

I agree. Swear filters are a ****ing waste of time and a ****ing pile of ****. If you're worried about your ****ing kids reading the words ****, ****, **** or ******, don't let them use the 'net unsupervised.

Oooh, that feels better.

Hey, if we use enough asterisks, we can say F**k off in morse!

If I ever have kids I'm going to teach them what swear words are and provide examples from an early age, so they get a more reasonable outlook on the whole thing. 'Course, I would tell them that many people are offended by such words too and they should probably avoid using them in many situations, but at least they'll know.

I don't see any benefit in hiding such things away from them, they'll find out sooner or later anyway.

When I was a civil servant I called someone's promotion "a shabby episode in the Department's history". Fifteen years on that phrase still annoys the hell out of them. You don't always have to swear to get your point across and sometimes the effect is greater if they are left out.

They are in some moments, especially I know what chris wanted to write - and there is no cursing about writing "witch"....

I'm worried about my son reading swearing on the internet, and he doesn't use the net unsupervised. However, he is no longer allowed to read h2g2 over my shoulder. Because while most people star out their own words, there are some that leave them in all their glory. So no, I don't find swear filters annoying, because it means that there are some sites that I can still read when he wants to hang around and see what I'm talking about.

You're completely right, as long as there is cursing around - but: Chris tried to write the word "witch", which is as far as I remember no curse at all, and got moderated by I don't know whom... Sometimes these filters are a bit paranoid, that's what I say.

Not filters, but filterers.

It's a filter on my local library's web facilitites, unfortunately - once I did a search on Harry Potter and it took me to a safe site because it had the word 'pot' in. Utterly inconsistent, and draconian.

No.
Does swearing really enrich your reading experience that much? if you know the word, your brain fills in the stars for you.
Swearwords are very useful for extreme language and making extreme points. Unnecessary, gratuitous swearing is the height of juvenility and it is not only children that shouldn't have to see it.
Occasionally someone will star out a perfectly fine word- earlier I saw 'b*tt', but whether that's them or the mods I d'know.

If there were a filter that let you *personally* see the words, go for it. Can't speak for the practicality of this, tho- Mina?

*g* The forum here in Germany which I'm joining has a kinda crazy way to moderate words. The words you think will be moderated aren't and perfectly harmless words are. Everbody wonders since more than 2 years now what they have in mind there... Then we started to fake moderation - i. e. we don't allow ourselves to say things like *whispers* work... so we put in the asterisks ourselves, saying w**k, and each and every newbie wonders what's getting moderated... Yes, I know, we are silly...

I have a friend who accesses the internet from work. Their filtering software moderates some of the WIERDEST words...Like 'auction'. That's just stupid.

I didn't know that he was complaining about the word witch. I don't think that's a swear filter though.

I think there is a suggestion on the feature list that says that Researchers could set something in their preferences so that they could see the swearing on site, or turn it off. Now that moderation is reactive, I can't see it working though, unless we use an auto-filter.

An auto filter?

Well bang goes my football entry on Arsenal v Scunthorpe United

"You don't always have to swear to get your point across..."

You are of course right - but when you shut your fingers in a car door "ouch" doesn't quite do the trick....believe me! And telling a particularly nasty drunken pervert to "go away" does not work half as well as "F*ck off"

I remember the first time I heard my mum swear - I was only an impressionable 23 year old! She dropped a knife in the kitchen and said bo***cks. It was a shock but my respect for her went up a couple of notches. She had held back swearing in front of her kids for soooo long. Mind you - I have never said f*ck in front of my parents - and probably never will.

LD (Leisure District) chat rooms have auto filters, sensors or whatever they are called. I was in LD chat room today, I had 2 messages rejected as being too offensive, 1 contained the word assume (ass offensive) the other had the word tart! These offensive?! Other words that don't get through include, weed, spade, peacock, spotted dick other LD users could tell you about loads more innocent words that are sensored. oh and last year I registered in LD as Santa Claus, but, couldn't say ho ho ho, that was considered offensive!!! so I had to use 0 (zero) instead of o

Foxy

See, that's where swearing is useful. It has a place, and that place is fine, otherwise it makes the user sound a little... lacking.
I prefer a good old loud-as-poss. all-purpose roar when in pain. Elicits more sympathy.

The only time I shut my thumb in a car door, it hurt so much that I couldn't even *think* of swearing. The pain turned my mind blank. I also dropped a drawer full of bakeware on my foot once, and all I said was 'Sh*t' - quietly. In both cases, Richard didn't realise that I'd hurt myself, because he hadn't heard me say anything.