A forum rules change is coming, which will affect Asylum.Follow

Our major advertisement provider, google adsense, has significantly increased their level of content monitoring and specifically the range of text terms (and images) they find objectionable and require to have removed from a site before they will serve advertisements to that site. Given the staggering percentage of this entire site that revenue pays for, we have no choice but to adjust the forum rules in several key areas. Chief amongst those will be removing the traditional profanity filter immunity Asylum has enjoyed until now.

Let me preface this by stating that that things as they are have worked pretty well for years, we have options for dealing with problems and exceptions, and that this change is not being driven by our thoughts on the forums or the population as a whole. If we could, I'd leave it alone. But that is not an option. This is not a knee jerk reaction because someone said something a step too far towards an admin or another user, or an attempt to quell conversation or topics. You did nothing wrong, but we have to make a change. Without this ad source for revenue, we close the site. Its unfortunately that critical.

So, starting in the next few days, we will be implementing additional words to the existing profanity filter, and enforcing it fairly rigorously, both on existing posts and those going back into forum history. One specific post that prompted this whole issue came from 2007 for example. Such wording will also be added to the forum rules, a copy of which will be posted for comment and review as usual with major rule changes. Most everything else in the other segments of the forum will remain the same, with additional filtered words.

There will also be similar filtering applied to user images, for the same reasons. I expect that to ultimately affect fewer people, but some people quite heavily. For what its worth, we aren't any happier about this than you are, and I and all the staff here appreciate you showing us some forbearance while we figure out how this works going forward.

What this means for you as a poster:
1. We're not going to suddenly start banning people for breaking the filter unless they really try harder than usual to get one.
2. You will see more post edits and nuked posts / threads in current posts than you are used to initially as things get tuned
3. You will see changes to historical posts, particularly ones referencing Knut the polar bear.
4. There will be a major image clean up at some point in the very near future, with an "if it's vaguely person colored or shaped, and the stupid site checker robot might think its ****, get rid of it" aim
5. The profanity filter is in force in the asylum and OOT, and we will be monitoring and enforcing it particularly if google yells at us again.
6. the additional words that probably should have already been on the profanity filter will be added, roughly 500 additional words and terms, much of which comes from the google bad word blacklist which i'm sure you can find if your are curious.
7. any past posts you made that now don't meet the new rule requirements won't be held against you, but they may be nuked or edited.
8. Going forward, filter breaking will be an automatic edit if we see it, but at the same time since it is going to be happening so often until people get used to it, were treating it as a minor thing of no consequence unless someone decides to go out of their way to annoy us to prove a point. That happens sometimes.

On behalf of everyone who is dealing with this issue, I am sorry for the inconveniance and annoyance this will cause.

Regards,

Senior Forum Administrator Kaolian "Tim Pierce" Drachensborn

I think I'm going to use Bing for a while now.

Does this mean that only profanity will be censored? There are certain topics that come up in parts of the forums, like the Asylum. Such topics would not necessarily require breaking the profanity filter, but at the same time would be a little more risque for vanilla day to day conversation. For example, say I started a topic in the Asylum about, I don't know, the proper toys to use in BDSM. If the topic might be a little more than vanilla, but it doesn't annoy any profanity detection bots, is it still allowed?

Basically, I'm asking if content in places like the Asylum and BDT can stay where as they are, as long as we don't break the profanity filter?

I'd think that turning off ads in the Asylum would put a serious dent in the amount of money they bring in.

*egocentric mode* it was the EU thread wasn't it.

I don't think that really changes anything.

Edited, Feb 7th 2014 10:06pm by Rachel9

The way google works is they see a hostname, lets say everquest.allakhazam.com. They look at all content contained on everquest.allakhazam.com with their pretty much all encompasing search tools set to "god mode" and go looking for things that do not meet their new criteria. If they find anything,based on their determination, not ours, they send us a nastygram and say "your ads are all shut off, here's an example of what we found, and also go look for everything else that might be a problem because we aren't telling you what it is". They do not care if we have an "allowed" area. They do not care if the words they find objectionable were used in relevant context, the system generates a nastygram, and then we get to appeal if we desire. A successful appeal means we leave that one instance, and then they scan again next week. An unsuccessful appeal means they shut off our ads until we get back to what they deem to be an acceptable wholesome family fun place. So in your scenario IDrownFish, Yes. that probable would have censored words, and some of those words or combinations of words may trigger automatic filtering of those words more than you presently experiance. Google explicitly targets "discusions of a sexual nature" as prohibited content. Things are unfortunatly going to be alot closer to an overal "PG" guideline than we have been comfortable allowing in the past until something changes. I can assure you we are not the only site that is getting hit with these changes at t he moment.

There is some leewaybut not much. Various gender and sexual orientation phrases that can be used in conversation or inappropriatly, I pulled out of the filter. We'll deal with those as needed if they report them to us. Same with most every other word that has a common usage. The ones were not going to get away with pulling off the list are the middle ground somewhat objectionable to some people but I personally didn't really care one way or the other words and descriptive adjectives and various somewhat scientific names for bits that are out there. Also more culturally sensitive words for specific ethnicities that in the past we haven't really worried too much about. I'm hopeing it ends up being more of a minor annoyance than truly stifling to discussion, but I really don't know how this is going to go down yet. Unfortunatly, in the grand scheme of things, the amount of hits the entire forum does per day s only a fraction of the hits the rest of the zam specific gaming site segments do in a given day. The changes are not presently in effect, My goal is to give you in particular as the most impacted, the most heads up of the incoming changes before they occur. And believe me, from a user specific perspective, I would be annoyed if someone were bringing this to me like this, so I get it. Just please take note of the fact that this isn't going away any time soon unless there is a general backlash against google, and I doubt that will happen. They'll just add it to their objectionable content section.

There's always sci-fi profanity to tell the fracking Tanj-Qu'vath guy'cha v'aka Petaq breath sons of frelling gorram bantha poodoo where they can stick their changes?

As a paying customer I am above the rules that the rest of the plebs have to follow right? If not can I make an awesome exit post before I leave?

Actually @#%^ this sh*t. The only reason I continue to use this site is because we can have openly free discussion about sh*t that other sites have to blackball because to many @#%^s get their vajayjays all twisted up in their panties.

I am going to go down in flames. You can keep the 9 months left on my 1 year sub!.

sh*t **** @#%^ **** SUCKER MOTHER @#%^ER TITS FART DITRY ****

SpoilerI @#%^ed your mom


really though ill try my best.

and another thing. I use BING so suck it.

Edited, Feb 7th 2014 11:40pm by rdmcandie

Holy Fbomb, most of my words have weird symbols that anyone who has ever used the internet at some point between 1997 and 2014 will easily recognize as cusses. Someone clean this **** up!

Edited, Feb 7th 2014 11:44pm by rdmcandie

You know, this may force me to get creative with new euphemisms.

I don't think I have abused the filter to terribly in the past, but I believe as a stoic reactionary, that may change. We shall see.

Ah well, I've been posting more on other forums anyway.

I'll really miss all of the 1990s style forum code.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Forum4/

Seems like the simplest option. Or I could censor my colorful speech for the good of this sites ad revenue.