How do I censor groups of words?

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  • glenv
    Senior Member
    • Feb 2001
    • 542

    How do I censor groups of words?

    I really need a way to ban unique groups of words. We have certain phrases that we do not want to have used on our site. And there are also those rebellious people that feel they need to alter normal swear words so that the filter does not catch them. Sometimes they separate the letters in the curse word with spaces. Any ideas?
  • Ocean
    Senior Member
    • Mar 2004
    • 839
    • 3.0.3

    #2
    Originally posted by glenv
    I really need a way to ban unique groups of words. We have certain phrases that we do not want to have used on our site. And there are also those rebellious people that feel they need to alter normal swear words so that the filter does not catch them. Sometimes they separate the letters in the curse word with spaces. Any ideas?
    Ultimately, you can't do anything to stop it, short of banning them or getting them to stop on their own.


    Censorship is what actually started "Leet Speak". Unlike most don't-know-squat wannabe hackers believe - Leet Speak had nothing to do with being cool. That "language" evolved out of a need to have public forums for hackers to converse with one another. Admins didn't like it, and tried to censor the language - so hackers evolved their language to bypass their filters.


    The reason why I say you can't do anything from a censorship point of view - is because there are infinite ways to modify text in order to bypass static filters.


    You don't like the phrase "dumb blonde"? Well, unless you tackle that problem at the source - meaning the users, they can evade your filters all day long without breaking a sweat:


    du mb bl onde

    dumb bl0nd

    dum b109nd

    etc....



    In my personal opinion - you set your rules down for your board. If users choose to break them, you let them know politely and ask them not to do it again. If they insist on committing repeat offenses, ban them, or put them in a Probationary Usergroup (i.e. No ability to post, etc...) for a while.


    Otherwise, you're only tackling the symptoms, not the source of the problem.


    But that's my take on it. I'm sure other people have different opinions.
    echo $ocean_signature;

    ;)

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