Censoring words in tribal languages

[innerlight]

Originally Posted by Wisa'ka

I have come to find that some words in American Indian languages are blocked as they may contain within them something that is censored by the swearing filters here. One was the name I chose for myself here, but no biggie as the same name in the tongue of our Sauk cousins worked just as well. The other was a Lakota word for the Great Mystery which is spelled W*nkan Tanka. Perhaps this happened because of the unfamiliarity with this world. I understand that one of the big social networking sites had a similar problem as they did not want to accept real tribal names of Indian members as they seemed non conventional. Of course this was overturned.

Honestly I was not talking about a w*nk or w*nking.

To answer you question it is not about censoring certain languages or being against certain sects, or tribes. It is a censoring of common swear words that are used.

What then happens is that these words that are entered into the censor it sees any use of that word as being the swear word and blocks out that part of the word.

What then happens is when you have that part of the word in a longer word you get the swear part omitted out to look like the whole word is out.

There will always be an arguing over what one person may deem as unacceptable and what another will thing is ok. Then you will have those who say they are adults and should be able to say whatever they want and its a suppression of free speech to block words.

Unfortunately you can not please everyone and since it is a family forum we work to keep profanity off of the forum. In some cases innocent words get censored in the process of the forum censoring the word that is used as a profane word even if the word in some cases may not of been a swear word at all.

Greetings Innerlight.

Thank you much for this information :)

[norseman]

Originally Posted by Wisa'ka

Greetings Innerlight.

Thank you much for this information :)

I can agree with Innerlight. I have had problems with mentioning the chemical element Arsenic before.

Originally Posted by norseman

I can agree with Innerlight. I have had problems with mentioning the chemical element Arsenic before.

Black Kettle an old Cheyenne chief and his people were killed by Custer and his 7th Cavalry while at winter camp beside the Wa****a River.

Originally Posted by innerlight

To answer you question it is not about censoring certain languages or being against certain sects, or tribes. It is a censoring of common swear words that are used.

What then happens is that these words that are entered into the censor it sees any use of that word as being the swear word and blocks out that part of the word.

What then happens is when you have that part of the word in a longer word you get the swear part omitted out to look like the whole word is out.

There will always be an arguing over what one person may deem as unacceptable and what another will thing is ok. Then you will have those who say they are adults and should be able to say whatever they want and its a suppression of free speech to block words.

Unfortunately you can not please everyone and since it is a family forum we work to keep profanity off of the forum. In some cases innocent words get censored in the process of the forum censoring the word that is used as a profane word even if the word in some cases may not of been a swear word at all.

I realize you are the victims of the software program you are using so this is not directed against the mods but the moron who wrote the filter code.

We are not arguing about acceptable words. If we would deal with words we wouldn't have this conversation, but what happens is that the filter checks for a sequence of characters, and if it finds them, even if they are part of a another word it blanks them out. That approach is just too stupid for words.

We know that a word is separated from other words by a space, a comma, a full stop, maybe a semicolon or a hyphen. It is not difficult to see, or for a computer to check, what constitutes a word and what not.

Originally Posted by Rin

I realize you are the victims of the software program you are using so this is not directed against the mods but the moron who wrote the filter code.

We are not arguing about acceptable words. If we would deal with words we wouldn't have this conversation, but what happens is that the filter checks for a sequence of characters, and if it finds them, even if they are part of a another word it blanks them out. That approach is just too stupid for words.

We know that a word is separated from other words by a space, a comma, a full stop, maybe a semicolon or a hyphen. It is not difficult to see, or for a computer to check, what constitutes a word and what not.

Well Rin, I'm going to let it be as this seems to have brought about some irritation and claims that I'm arguing about this, or it was innappropiate for me to start this thread in the first place.

I saw the words 'forum help' and just commented about tribal words being censored. Now I know it is because of a filter and have been reminded again of this. If someone wants to argue about it, I'll not be part of it as I'm now aware of the rules and who the chiefs are who make them. I shall respect that.

I thought I would get censored for saying Pussy Willow. Perhaps Carlin's "10 words you can never say" was the backbone of the original program and it has now been updated?

Originally Posted by Wisa'ka

Well Rin, I'm going to let it be as this seems to have brought about some irritation and claims that I'm arguing about this, or it was innappropiate for me to start this thread in the first place.

I saw the words 'forum help' and just commented about tribal words being censored. Now I know it is because of a filter and have been reminded again of this. If someone wants to argue about it, I'll not be part of it as I'm now aware of the rules and who the chiefs are who make them. I shall respect that.

First let me say that my rant is not directed at you. In fact we should be much more vocal about this. IMO the moderators and admins themselves should complain to the software vendors about this mangling of language, especially considering how easy the remedy is.

It is not only tribal languages which suffer from it, e.g. one cannot write the 5 Reiki principles in Japanes, using romanized Japanese without resorting to avoidance mechanisms.
Kyo dake wa:
Okoru na,
Shinpai su na,
Kansha s h i t e,
Gyō wo hakeme,
Hito ni shinsetsu ni

IMO this is just not on in today's world and I find the totally unwarranted mangling of words, no matter what language, even more offensive than profanity and swearing, except that the last 2 would happen more often.

I wonder whether admin could publish a list of forbidden words or would that list also get censored?

Originally Posted by Rin

I wonder whether admin could publish a list of forbidden words or would that list also get censored?

Found it, here is a selection:
***
*****
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