**@#ing filters

This thread started because a new writer ( me ) was miffed at his wondrous words disappearing into the bowels of the site without the chance of being picked up by others from the "last 10 entered" list. I have no problem with the fact that the site operates a filter or an age rating system. The beauty of ABC ( for me anyway ) is the variety of work posted here. It has given me an opportunity to read styles and subjects which I would otherwise not have tried. I don't think that the variety would be here if readers and writers were concerned about offensive material ( e.g. racist slogans ) being published alongside their work. Swearing in a story can evoke humour, passion, anger, and sometimes boredom. I think it's an essential part of the language. Now I understand the system, and the reasons for it, a little better, I'm happy for my occasional effing and blinding to be rated. I'd be less than happy to see it removed. I hope the system can be improved in the manner suggested by Andrew Pack, that a pieces position in last 10 entered is when it is cleared by the swear filter, either electronically or by the editor rating it. And what about a filter which removes other offensive references e.g. the Queen Mother, Manchester United, low alcohol beer, Emmerdale, Dairylea cheese and mobile f*^$ing phones ?

You weren't writing about Scunthorp were you? Mark

i hate the swear filter and wish it didn't exist. the ignorant little s.h.i.t picks up anything it doesn't recognise, thus it kept holding up my last poem because it contained the word 'Nietzchean'. i don't see why my work has to be screened by an illiterate. now i know that Andrew has been spitting in thoughtcafe's soup and, knowing what a twisted bloke he is, probably p.i.s.s.i.n.g in it too in the kitchen when he thinks no one's looking, but their method of letting pieces go straight to site is a much happier one for me. in point of fact, i think the swear filter touches on a fundamental dichotomy in abc's nature. on the one hand, it wants to be a bit of a family site - grab your kids and get writing, lots of fun for all the family. on the other, it wants to be a vehicle for people serious about writing to try out their work. the problem with the family site thing, is that it breeds a kind of 'don't offend anyone, let's all be healthy and happy with our bourgeois values' attitude, which is contrary to the serious writer's aims, one of which is surely to provoke. i suppose a family site does ensure more people come to the site, more hits, hence, more money etc. and, of course, i know some sponsors object to swear words. that's why i strongly advocate that abc links up with porn sites for sponsorship - they surely won't object to swear words, and the links will be a lot more used than the current ones (even by families, though probably accessed individually, and very late at night, rather than altogether at tea-time). what i say is, let's have a disclaimer on the front of the site, no swear filters in the forums or wired into the story/poem uploaders, and serious financial sponsorship from porn sites. who's with me?!

it's a well argued case chant, and there is some force in it...

Hi youngABCtales.com is an opportunity for under 16s to get their work published and for them to read work by other young writers. We want them to feel ownership of the site and therefore don't include the work of older writers on the site. I think that adults writing FOR kids is a different area from kids writing for themselves and each other. I agree that there is lots of amazing work on the adult site that is directed at children and the reason for having age ratings is to guide readers as to the pieces which may be less suitable for younger readers. In the research and development stage of the site we learnt that children feel much more confident about expressing their ideas in a kid's only zone and while they may learn from reading adult's stories, they may also feel either slightly daunted or overshadowed by the inclusion of such. Hope this doesn't sound snotty- it's not meant to be! jane

Yep, I'm not keen either (dunno about the porn though). I don't think I've ever uploaded anything that HASN'T been nobbled by poobum. I've just uploaded another stoy, and guess what? You've got it! Snaffled again! See you at no 367...

I'm with you chant. when I don't agree with a law, I try and find ways to break it. When I don't agree with taxation, I'll evade it. I know lots of REALLY naughty words and phrases which bypass the forum filter and am working on writing the most filthy piece and passing it through the poobum filter with a U just to prove a point. Anarchist Jude

Ok Em, I won't *goes and stands in corner as she's been told off by teacher* but something needs to be done...

alright then, can we have a new category on abctales entitled stories/poems for children, and a disclaimer on the front page saying that other categories may contain adult material which is unsuitable for children.

alright then, can we have a new category on abctales entitled stories/poems for children, and a disclaimer on the front page saying that other categories may contain adult material which is unsuitable for children?

Please don't Judith!!!

There is one chant, at http://www.abctales.com/abcplex/browse.cgi?gt=public&b=genre&g=Children's&n=20 - reason for no disclaimer is that the work in the children's area of ABCtales goes through our normal filter rather than the work on youngABCtales which is *all* read by a real person so we wouldn't want to guarantee it was all appropriate for children even within that genre. Judith, I;m not Jane - she's our ace editor of *young*ABCtales :-)

Hey Judith Emily wants me to let everyone know that i am in fact the nasty teacher who won't let adults on the young site so don't feel told off by her, I take the blame. I think I met you at the ABCtales night- I was sitting at the table by the door when people came in Jane ( actually very nice teacher who lets some small kids stay in her room if they don't want to do P.E. because they get picked on/ don't have the right kit )

me too chant. youngabc has its own area - let the swear filter flex its muscles over there....

so what's the problem then? keep the language filter for the children's poems and stories and scrap it for the rest of the site.

Quite right, Liana. Off to check the last 1000 entered...

Good plan...and marmite (prepares to be lynched by the 50% of people on this site who will no doubt love the evil substance)

But what about people who don't want to read about stuff which includes swearing and sex and so forth- i.e. the grannies who might have been grabbed over christmas, gaily meandering through the site-looking at a 'U' might come across something they find really offensive. I want my old Mum to be able to look at some stories on the site- if there was no language filter there might be a few hair-raising moments and she would feel excluded. Granted there will be ways of getting around the filter if someone has the patience and art to do so, but the best thing about the language filter is that it filters sexist and racist and homophobic terms which as publishers we have a duty to guard against. I know it's a bit of a pain to wait for your stories to go up but we've got to have some kind of filter otherwise people could just write hate campaigns and send them out on our server. know wot I mean?

Chant, I didn't realise it picked up on unrecognisable words; so thats why bepbop a lula and shang-alang-a-ding-dong caused offence. Or maybe it was just dong?

Emily, That's an idea to consider, isn't it? Linking up with a porn site. Any suggestions?

About 10% of what I clear off the swear filter is garbled HTML code, where the piece has come through like this :- I saw the best (1.9558) minds of my generation

... Now, in my pre-editor days, if I'd read a piece like that cold, I wouldn't have been hanging around to read more by the same writer. The swear filter snaffles that up, and lets the author submit a readable copy before anyone else reads it and in a Pavlovian reaction recoils every time they see that writers name again.

you are a bad, bad man ;-)

what is this porn thing they talk about emily? Are you into chess? Is there a dark side of the game that i am unaware of? answers on an e-card ( preferably withfullonvideo - whatever that means?) to porny_petrel@chestboard.castlesinthesky

This really is a question that keeps coming up. The solution, as has been said a number of times is, that when a piece gets snaffled by the swear filter, that it then goes up to the Top of the Last 10 entered. It is not the delay that bothers people (at least I hope it isn't - otherwise they need to exercise a bit of patience), it is the fact that it disappears into 50 or 60. That's a bigger problem for everyone now that the site gets so many new entries a day - in fact, swear filter or not, your piece doesn't stay in the last 10 entered for very long. Two suggestions then (and bearing in mind I don't know technical feasbility of either) :- a) A pieces position in last 10 entered is when it is cleared by the swear filter, either electronically or by the editor rating it. b) instead of/in addition to last 10 entered, we have "Pieces Submitted Today" I know the swear filter irks people, but Judith's idea is not a good one. Tess and I read everything and if someone puts swear words into a U-rated poem, I will delete it. I've explained time and again the purpose of the swear filter and that would expose the site to the risks and criticism that it's there to avoid. The difficulty of saying, make it an adult only site is that we then exclude anyone who wants to write for children/teenagers and is not one themselves (indirectly because there's no audience for them). The whole point of the site is to give people the opportunity to write and put their work up - doesn't seem right to me to exclude people from writing in a particular genre.

hm, but given that the editors read everything, anyone embarking on a hate campaign would be thrown off the site pretty quickly. and given that we've a diligent posse of editors, most stuff gets read as soon as it goes live. and then other regular members of the site tend to bring anything unsavoury to the attention of Emily, or post a comment on the forums pretty quickly. if grannies can't cope with reading stories which contain swearing and sex, it's probably about time they grew up. life contains sex. life contains swearing. if you don't like what you're reading, you can click on a button and change it, just like on the TV. if your old mum/granny only wants to read 'nice' stories, then a programme of re-education is clearly required. this bourgeois cult of 'niceness' which really just involves sweeping what you don't like to see under the carpet, has to end here. in point of fact, i suspect that grannies are a lot more switched on to sex than you seem to be making out. get them reading one of Marcus's erotica stories and they'll probably think they've never had it so good! it's not the time-lag before stories go up i'm complaining about, it's the principle behind this screening of expletives. swear words are important words, words we use to express extreme emotion, such that when you put up screenings, it's our extreme emotions and feelings you seem to be screening. now, given that extreme emotions aren't really permissable in polite society, writing is the only outlet we have for these emotions. so when you tell us that we can't even use this outlet without it being subject to more 'polite society' pawing, well, that's something i'm pretty uncomfortable with. and then, of course, sometimes swear words are not important. sometimes, particularly in street-speak they merely function as particles, like Greek 'yap', 'men', 'de'. in which case, it's as pointless to screen them as it would be to screen for words and phrases like 'for', 'on the one hand', 'on the other hand'. it's up to you, of course. it all depends who you're aiming the site at. if you want it to be 'lots of fun for all the family,' then that's fine. but in doing so, you are, in my view, taking a step towards forcing the next William Burroughs back underground. at the least, you are saying that the general public needs to be 'protected' from his work. merde a la bourgeoisie! Rimbaud

yes hox ... it happens a lot ... when it does we all chew our desks ... the filter picks up all sorts of words and parts of words and also certain types of lettuce ... there isn't any way round it other than to write squeaky cleanly (like me) ... it is an old subject for those of us who have been around for a long time but there seem to be loads of new people so it will be of interest ... (was lovely to meet you at the letters acadamy by the way)

why not create a new category on children's abc for adults writing for children? that way their work's being put up in the right place - where children can read it, and maybe learn from it as writers too.

We don't generally get rid of the swearing though - just make sure that the piece is appropriately rated. I agree that swearing can be important - Mark Thomas did a brilliant sketch on how certain things are impossible to say without swearing - certain politician's names for example... However, if someone uses sexist, racist or homophobic words then we need to make sure that they aren't used in a way to incite hatred or we would be irresponsible publishers. Cheers Em

and where do the forums come into it em? mr wiggin's soft porn for example might upset some innocent grannies ... after all Childhood Loves sounds like a sweet thread ...

It's really no big deal. At least it assures that someone will read your work straight away. You'll find it will be up on the site within a few hours.

They've got a separate system and we're currently deciding what to do. That's why we read every post and have deleted things on occasion. Cheers Em