Preview Notice Error Report

Today I began a post with this sentence, "For me stealing a few minutes of restful calm in a hectic day seems restorative."

That resulted a warning from AMASS even though the st and the fu were separated by many other characters , "PREVIEW NOTICE: STFU: You used an acronym STFU (Shut The **** Up). Please note that personal attacks are not tolerated in this forum. Moderators will act if your post contains profanities. Remember that this forum is read by your mom, granny and all the kids in the world." This was not a one off. The same warning appears on this post, along with a warning about the rude word quoted in the warning.

Perhaps the filter needs to be modified for [Space][letters not entered in order to avoid triggering the same warning], but not a space after the letter because there could be a punctuation mark like "!!!" or something else.

Several words trigger that warning in posts and PMs, such as "wistful." I just ignore it.

My opinion only, but context is important too. No one is being told what to do, and it isn't an attack on anyone. I appreciate the acronyms being spelled out, and an explanation of why it is offensive. Many people don't speak English as their primary language, but may pick up the term elsewhere without knowing when and how they should use it. I feel Pekkais helpful in his explanations.

Capn Jack wrote in post #18292558
My opinion only, but context is important too. No one is being told what to do, and it isn't an attack on anyone. I appreciate the acronyms being spelled out, and an explanation of why it is offensive. Many people don't speak English as their primary language, but may pick up the term elsewhere without knowing when and how they should use it. I feel Pekkais helpful in his explanations.

But there is no need to spell out the offensive F-Word in the warning, after all it might be your Mother, Granny or Kids, or some other easily offended soul, that are previewing a post that they have just written, and the warning actually spells out the word that the warning is supposed to prevent them from seeing.

It’s a bit like telling your kids not to use bad language by saying “Don’t f**king swear.”

Capn Jack wrote in post #18292558
I appreciate the acronyms being spelled out, and an explanation of why it is offensive. Many people don't speak English as their primary language, but may pick up the term elsewhere without knowing when and how they should use it.

I agree, but then I've been living in the 21st century long enough to stop experiencing a blood-pressure rise when I see words that, within my memory, weren't thought fit for civil discourse. To address Mr. Crossley's objection and spare very young ESL* readers such sights, the notice might say "You used the acronym STFU (Shut the F___ Up)."
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*English as a Second Language.

john crossley wrote in post #18292648
But there is no need to spell out the offensive F-Word in the warning, after all it might be your Mother, Granny or Kids, or some other easily offended soul, that are previewing a post that they have just written, and the warning actually spells out the word that the warning is supposed to prevent them from seeing.

It’s a bit like telling your kids not to use bad language by saying “Don’t f**king swear.”

OhLook wrote in post #18292713
I agree, but then I've been living in the 21st century long enough to stop experiencing a blood-pressure rise when I see words that, within my memory, weren't thought fit for civil discourse. To address Mr. Crossley's objection and spare very young ESL* readers such sights, the notice might say "You used the acronym STFU (Shut the F___ Up)."
_______________
*English as a Second Language.

OTOH, I remember, in grad school, my new class-mate from China telling me very sweetly "F**k you" to gauge my response because she didn't know the word. We gently set her straight after we ascertained she didn't like me that much. She did ask the spelling. Conversely, someone in India taught me a rather offensive word to women but there are fewer ambiguous spellings in Bengali. I was fortunate to know someone well enough to test my conversational skills with.

As noted above, dropping one or 2 letters should still convey the message, but the discussion (so far) is being held by people I assume speak primarily English. It would be interesting to see who those who speak other languages feel.

john crossley wrote in post #18292648
But there is no need to spell out the offensive F-Word in the warning, after all it might be your Mother, Granny or Kids, or some other easily offended soul, that are previewing a post that they have just written, and the warning actually spells out the word that the warning is supposed to prevent them from seeing.

It’s a bit like telling your kids not to use bad language by saying “Don’t f**king swear.”

Then again, you do know what that f**king means, so if we write it open is it worse than writing it as *** when you know what the *** means?

Sorry about the word filtering misinterpreting some good words for bad. If the detection would work only for full words it would not warn about intentional fuckfuckfucks (sorry). We cannot really have a whitelist of allowed words to make sure. Note that word filtering on finished posts take only full words into account, just for above reasons.

Keep on discussing, thanks. Comments are always helpful and if applicable taken into account in future designs.

But don't you think that it is rather ironic that it is the swear filter that is doing the actual swearing.

PMSL.

john crossley wrote in post #18293101
But don't you think that it is rather ironic that it is the swear filter that is doing the actual swearing.

PMSL.

No, the swear filter is telling me exactly what the problem is. Like the new friends who took me to the bicycle shed to teach me all the swear words in my new language, so that nobody could tell me that "ef you" meant 'pleased to meet you'. I'm eternally grateful.

john crossley wrote in post #18293101
But don't you think that it is rather ironic that it is the swear filter that is doing the actual swearing.

PMSL.

I think context is important. I don't believe it's swearing if the word is being used to educate that it is a swear word, and I feel that is what is being done in this instance.
BTW- what is PMSL? That's new one on me.

JWdlft wrote in post #18293252
No, the swear filter is telling me exactly what the problem is. Like the new friends who took me to the bicycle shed to teach me all the swear words in my new language, so that nobody could tell me that "ef you" meant 'pleased to meet you'. I'm eternally grateful.

I'm in agreement with this sentiment- my friend from China tested that very phrase on her new American friends as I mentioned earlier.