• Letters to the COW Team

  the Cow bad word filter

  Posted by Bob Zelin on January 20, 2011 at 5:57 pm

  Hi –
  I just tried to post one of my smartass comments, and my post did not go up, because I wrote the word c r a c k
  in the context “tell your boss to 12345 open his wallet and buy a new MAC Pro”, where 12345 is the “naughty word”.

  I fully understand how any 4 letter word should be censored, but even if someone was to respond with “are you smoking 12345” – that is not really offensive – I dont’ think it is !

  Bob Zelin

  Ron Lindeboom replied 15 years, 7 months ago 3 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Tim Wilson

  January 20, 2011 at 6:22 pm

  [Bob Zelin] “even if someone was to respond with “are you smoking 12345″ – that is not really offensive”

  I hope not! I use that word all the time in exactly that context.

  Here’s the deal, though. We have thousands of new posts to monitor every day, and there’s no way to get to them all. We’ve identified the words that are most often used by miscreants, and flag them for evaluation by hand to make sure of their otherwise good intent.

  The fact is that you’d be amazed at how many spam posts are still being made with invitations to download software that has been you-know-whatted. There’s no way that we can turn off the flag on this word without creating problems for ourselves that we’d have to chase all over the forums.

  In the meantime, we hope that folks can either find another word, or do what I have – acknowledge that this is indeed the perfect word for some situations, and wait for the post to make its way through moderation. 🙂

  Best,
  Tim
• 

  Ron Lindeboom

  January 21, 2011 at 2:21 am

  The reason that “crack” is in the filter, Bob, is that we do not support software piracy and many people refer to pirated software as cracked versions. Or ask “where can I get the crack?”

  So we block it.

  Unfortunately, our mechanism does not yet recognize usage, such as “Is your boss on crack?” But we are working on it.

  Best regards,

  Ronald Lindeboom
  CEO, Creative COW LLC
  Publisher, Creative COW Magazine

  Creativity is a process wherein the student and the teacher are located in the same individual.

  “Incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.” – Woody Allen

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