This software has a word censor in admin, right? So that means we can swear to our heart's content, right? If stuff is censored, it doesn't matter. Nobody who doesn't like shock horror naughty words has to read them. Anyone who actually prefers to see the swearing rather than whatever else can turn the censor off in their profile settings, yes?
This means everyone happy. No worries.
Don't tell me that some people don't like swearing. That's no more relevant than other people liking it a lot. It's no more relevant than other people getting tired of having to walk on eggshells because someone might flip out if they see a word they don't like.
It's particularly funny that said people only flip out because that is what they have programmed themselves to do. First they have to learn the word, then they have to make a decision that this word is something they are going to have to be offended by. The word itself is completely innocent. It doesn't do anything. The offense is caused entirely inside the mind of the person being offended. IOW these people are, in a very real sense, choosing to offend themselves.
Also, don't even try to claim that swearing is evidence of an inabilty to use language properly, or even an indication of lesser intelligence. It isn't. It's part of language and adds to the range of expression, like any other words. That's why it was invented. :P
So, how about testing out the word filter to make sure it's not borken before 1.0 goes out the door?
Test cases are no problem. I can easily and happily provide you with all the test cases you'll need. :D
Seriously? Giving you permission to use expletives? That word censor is CPU intensive, you would crash the website :P
I did add in a few choice words for easy gentle testing, but just the easy ones for the expletively challenged
I only have the best interests of the project at heart. If it can be demonstrated that Elkarte allows myself and the prissiest of Sunday school teachers to happily coexist on the same board, it will be obvious to the entire world that Elkarte is software of awesome power, and eminently suited to the nurturing and sustenance of vibrant and inclusive communities.
With a bit of lateral thinking, my penchant for profanity could be leveraged into a significant marketing advantage. (http://www.councilofexmuslims.com/Smileys/custom/afro.gif)
So I need to add in some Sunday School teacher => Fart Knocker words as well? I wonder if that will cause it to loop :P
ETA: Ah good the first filter worked :P
Ok, where's the gently caress "Turn off word censor CheezWhiz" option in profille?
ROFL. You didn't include those words. :D
For comprehensive testing, you'd need to allow the user option in admin. ;)
Well it kind of works if you don't have it disabled in your profile O:-)
I can't disable it in my profile. You've disallowed that in admin. Ergo, cannot test. :P
Well if you disable it, how would you know its working ?
The option is not visible in profile settings. Ergo, cannot enable or disable in profile settings. :P
Methinks this is because someone has not checked the little box in admin that allows people to enable or disable said censor in their profile settings.
If the box in admin is checked, you have an interface bug in profile.
But I went in to your profile and turned the "Leave words uncensored." option off after your first post, are you still seeing naughty bits?
Hey cool. We've found bugz. :D
Ok, the option always used to be under Look and Layout. I can't see it there. It's not turning up in my browser at all.
Also, I'm still seeing the censored version in the posts in this thread, so that would seem to be another bug.
Ah I see ... yes a few things in play, not sure how they are work.
There is a permissions "Disable word censor" which displays the option to turn on/off the word censor, its currently set to disallow so its not showing.
Then there is the Theme option "Allow users to turn off word censoring: " I'm not sure that is still used TBH, maybe it was moved to permissions and not removed from there, or both are needed or ? ? ?
IIRC, the first one is the basic on/off for the entire site and sets default site behaviour. The second is what allows users to chose whether or not the content they see will be censored.
If the first is enabled (censoring active) then the second has to be available in profile, and selected, to switch censoring off.
I've looked around in my profile pages, and can't see the second one anywhere.
Presumably, due to not requiring posts to be filtered, having that second option selected would reduce CPU load and speed up content delivery. That's a good argument for having it workable (not that I'm biased or anything :P).
Here's a shot of what I've got under Look and Layout.
I'm thinking that for ease of use from an admin's perspective, it probably makes the most sense if allowing the user-selectable filtering is set on the same page as the censoring itself. That would minimise head scratching and running around in circles, AFAICT.
Looks to be working as expected from what I can tell ....
The option was removed as a Theme option, so that old setting under Configuration -> Theme Settings -> Theme Options and Preferences has been removed .... meaning word censoring is no longer a per theme setting, but a general user setting. Not sure why its still shown in the theme section, but from what I can see in the code, it does nothing. Maybe
@emanuele remembers.
The setting was also moved to be permission based, of which right now you don't have permission to change its setting so you don't get to see it (or change it).
Ok. So it's now set in permissons profiles then. I can see the logic of that, but I can also see that it's more likely to lead to confusion.
Although it would be silly having it as a per theme option, it seems to me that requiring it to be set for each permission profile is more trouble than it's worth. I can see that leading to hiccups with multiple membergroups, especially if some are added later.
If it's (the user option) just set globally on the censor page itself, it'll be easy for admins to deal with. Realistically I can't see that finer-grained control will ever be necessary.
Thing is, you said that you had changed it in my profile, but that doesn't work either since the posts in this thread are still Bowdlerised in my browser. That means the permission profile is overriding direct action by an admin, which is a bit weird in itself.
ETA: And anyway, to see if it's all working as expected I'd still have to have the option enabled for at least one of my membergroups.
It seems like a poor idea to make word censor enabling a permissions option. Despite agreeing with Ant's OP, there are still going to be some people who freak out over profane words. Having the word censor off by default, and removing someone's ability to enable it, is going to cause more problems than it solves.
My suggestion is for the word censor to be a special permission. Everyone should have the ability to turn it on, if it isn't on globally. Disabling, however, can still be a permissions-based option.
So, for example, if I join a forum with the word censor turned on globally, and I do not have permission to disable it, I see nothing and posts are censored.
If I join a forum with the word censor turned on globally, and I have permission to disable it, I see an option to disable the word censor and posts can be uncensored.
If I join a forum with the word censor turned off globally, I see an option to turn on the word censor and posts can be censored.
mmm.... I have no idea... lol
Looking at git history, it was done when code was still in SVN, then not touched that much. If the option is still present in the themes settings page of the admin panel looks like a bug.
I'd say (and I'm scared by myself) I tend to agree with Ant: theme setting is silly, permission (and any kind of combination and special case) seems overkill.
@ET: That would be best, yes. SMF always had the first two, but not the third.
Easiest way out of it: the censoring interface page sets all of this in one place.
For best performance, censoring is disabled by default on installation.
If censoring is set for the whole site, admin can also choose to allow anyone (regardless of membergroup or permissions) to disable censoring in their browser.
The third option would be nice in theory, but frankly admins who don't care about censoring will probably not care about providing this option either. Keeping up with who is offended by what is a PITA, and there will always be new cases. At some point the answer is probably going to be along the lines of "gently caress off, princess".
ETA: Third option is also a performance hit, which is another reason admins may not bother.
Come to think of it, why is the admin option allowed to override the user's choice of censoring anyway? Presumably censoring is provided for people who don't want to see profanity. There's no obvious need for an admin to decide that people who want posts uncensored shouldn't be able to have it that way, and like I said before this is actually better for performance.
So, having an admin option to disallow users choosing uncensored posts makes no sense whatsoever, either from the perspective of preventing conniption fits or from the perspective of performance. It's pure bonkers. It'd make far more sense to remove that setting entirely.
If I'm reading your post correctly, your suggestion is that admins should never be allowed to restrict users from
removing the word censor?
I can actually think of situations where you'd want to do just that. An admin may be running a site with a specific culture, or catering to a specific group, who aren't fans of profanity. Or, it's possible that the board is being used for an official purpose, like for a public school, where using appropriate language is enforced. This can occur in a professional setting as well, where an employer would prefer to restrict such language from the discourse. Lastly, it's possible that a specific group of users might be under age, and thus the stipulation for their participation is a certain caliber of language. Honestly, it's no different than stopping users from linking to porn sites, if that's the culture the admin wishes to enforce.
That's not counting that the word censor can be used for non-profane words as well. There are a myriad of situations where an admin might use the word censor to replace words. They may use it to explain acronyms, restrict content or have a low-tech trigger word for certain situations.
I'm not sure that a vendetta against the word censor is a wise course.
In which case there would be nothing forcing those people to disable censoring, so how would it be a problem? Note that I'm assuming that if site-wide censoring is enabled, users would have to turn it off deliberately. I'm not assuming that if site-wide censoring is enabled, users would also have to turn it on.
Same applies. The thing about trying to enforce censorship is that if you ban one incarnation of a word, someone will come up with another (like phuk or fukn, which are both in common use). So, if you really want to banish naughty words you have to constantly police the boards anyway, lest someobody come up with a variation to get around your settings.
Ok,
now you're making a solid argument.
Oh hey, here's a genuine bug in the current code. So, to do the job thoroughly, the censor should be re-coded to also handle equals stuffz in BBC tags.
(I noitced this coz the quotes were saying AntiKynarzse instead of
@Fart Knocker)
You know, I've lost track of what anyone wants. That being the case I'll do what I want, if thats anything at all :P
It's ok the way it is for 1.0, but could be improved a bit for 1.1.
ETA: Oh, apart from the bug with BBC tags content. That should probably be addressed for 1.0.
Simple. Keep the Word Censor.
If possible, allow users to always
enable the Word Censor, but leave
disabling as a permission or option or whatever you want to do.
I believe thats how its now (with pending PR), but that is one of those messy areas. If it needs further refining (assuming I did not break anything), it can wait for 1.1
And that makes me think that the two should really be two different functions, working the same way, but two different config pages and two different options. I think.
That means more ways to get lost in admin. ;)
You could have some way of categorising and ordering items if you wanted to get fancy, but it should all be on the same page IMO.
Stop me. :P
Put your time into fixing the censor so it copes with the content of BBC tags that use equals stuffz. :P
Oh it does. I must have just used words that Spuds hadn't censored then. Cool. Let's play "Make life difficult for Spuds". :D
Wait, we weren't already?!
We can always up our game. 8)