Language filter?

[angeldaae]

Hello lovely moderators. Do you know if the board has an available language filter that users can elect to turn on if desired?

I have begun having an issue at work due to the overuse of "adult" language. Several individual pages within the forum have been blocked as "Adult Material" due to the frequency of use of (I'm assuming) the F-word (which obviously I can't type myself or I'm creating more of my own problem).

I would really like to be able to turn on a language filter if possible to prevent my account from being flagged for "Adult Material."

Thanks for any help or guidance.


Admin becca Curious3D charo princesscheezits

[Admin]

I am not seeing anything built in or as a current plug in but I will definitely look into this.

[angeldaae]

Thanks, Admin. I know the freedom to post using whatever language we please is a benefit to this board, but I do see that this could potentially create a large problem for myself and others in similar situations. It will affect my ability to participate and even just passively lurk.

[Curious3D]

We can censor/replace words at the admin level (for the whole board), but I can't find a user-level profanity filter for Proboards. I'll keep looking too.

[Curious3D]

angeldaae

If there's no solution on Proboards, I think the Chrome browser has a plug in called Web Censor that gets rid of profanity at the browser level (so everywhere online, ostensibly). Firefox used to have one called Profanity Filter, but I don't think it's supported anymore. You might do a search for your browser.

[angeldaae]

Curious3D Thank you for that info but I actually don't think that would resolve my problem. If it removes it at the browser level, the language would still be loaded initially, correct? My web filters would still "see" it before it was blocked en route to me.

[Curious3D]

Hmmm... Ok here's my thoughts:

I know the substitution filter we use here for a couple of really awful words is put into play when the objectionable word is typed out. The word is actually changed in the code before the post is made. I don't think any user-level filter could work before the code was run to display the page on your end. If your firewall (which is most likely on a separate server from your computer) is scanning sites for specific words, it won't deploy a filter you use locally that changes words that exist in the code, it'll just read the code straight from Proboards, swears and all.

So a filter would keep you from seeing the words, but they'd still be bad words in the code on the site.

[angeldaae]

Curious3D I agree with everything you just said and that was one of my main concerns. That even user-level filtering wouldn't resolve my problem.

I would humbly request that the F word be added to the substitution filter, even though I know I will be in the minority to want that. But I do think it is also a concern of board longevity. If the site is getting flagged and blocked for language, the community may wither.

In fact, I'd probably argue for the "seven dirty words" to all be substituted.

[Curious3D]

angeldaae

I've opened this up for discussion on the Moderator board. One further consideration is that any filters put in place now might not work retroactively, meaning the swears would still be in the site content. I'll let you know how the discussion progresses, ok?

[angeldaae]

Curious3D That is all I would ask, is that you all discuss the possibility. Thank you so much!

[Curious3D]

angeldaae, have you considered posting/reading from your phone using the Tapatalk app? That way you could participate with no worries about filtering. I think that's what many other posters do at the office.

[angeldaae]

Curious3D I have and do occasionally, but I really prefer typing on a keyboard to typing on my phone. That's what I'd do if it came down to it, though.

[Curious3D]

The consensus is that many posters have said how much they enjoy not having to censor themselves, and there is Tapatalk as an alternative. So for now, we're not going to implement any filtering beyond what we have in place for hate speech. However as the forum continues to grow, this and other issues may be revisited.

[angeldaae]

Thanks for considering it. Y'all are great!