[answered] How does A2K determine...?

To make one thing clear, we have lost advertisers because of vulgarity in the past. But I thought they were wrong in the case they mentioned (it was on a thread about sex) and for the most part the expletives that regular members have used were not objectionable.

But the gratuitous use has been rising (probably because the lack of a filter suggested to some that expletives were welcome, when they have never been and are merely tolerated) and teeny boppers are joining (no offense to teens but they are more prone to gratuitous vulgarity of the type we've always prohibited). Dealing with this on a case by case basis will soon not be an option.

So the filter will go on soon, and hopefully the gratuitous use of vulgarity will subside. I don't mind vulgarity, but avoiding gratuitous vulgarity is essential to the viability of this site.

Just as an aside, this is a CENSORED site. I tend to mention this ad nauseum because of some common misperceptions about it. Removing SPAM is censorship, for example. All US sites are required to censor some things and having a completely uncensored site is not possible on US soil.

Thing is, it's not specific words. What's prohibited is gratuitous use. The filter will cover specific words that are most commonly used gratuitously.

The criteria for the word filter (not what's forbidden) will be:

Frequent gratuitous use

AND

No legitimate non-expletive use

For example, roger's concern about Doo wop being censored will not be a reality. I think the list is at 5 words right now and they are selected not because they are the only objectionable ones but because they fit the above two criteria.

So the list will not be comprehensive. And it will not contain all the objectionable words.

Thing is, every expletive that exists has legitimate use and such legitimate use is allowed here. Gratuitous use (in a "we know it when we see it" definition) isn't.

To give an example, a member was banned (many times because he'd try to come back) for following female members around harassing them and referring to their bodies in a vulgar way.

A very good example was that he'd refer to their "meat curtains".

Neither word is forbidden but his use was such that he was banned.

The policy is the same, the only possible change to policy will be that no expletives will be allowed in topic titles at all (necause a cursory glance by guests at the titles could be misleading).

The policy remains that gratuitous and excessive use of vulgarity is forbidden. Legitimate uses aren't but since the case-by-case alone approach is becoming impossible technical means will supplement the continued case-by-case approach.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the policy isn't really changing, though the filter will inevitably not be able to detect context and function on a case by case basis.

I plan to create and implement a feature allowing each member to decide whether they want the filter on or off for the text they see. That would afford greater flexibility.

I went through the contact button at the bottom of the page when I wanted to know why a word was ******.

Seems to me there was no 'everyone else' involved. It's a piece of software that picks out the no-go words.