Poo Bum Willy Madness

It does also get set off by words it doesn't recognise (I don't know why, I didn't build the thing) - I suspect 'lollo rosso' might have done the trick. Sorry.

*creased up laughing*

Surely it would be better to have a health warning on risque stuff and scrap the bloody stupid filter altogether. Nobody likes it, and to give sufficient warning of potentially offensive content should exonerate the site from claims of the 'obscene publication' variety. Other sites do this so what's the problem?

Yep, the old @~#% doodah really p.i.s.s.e.s me off as well. Let's see what it does to nob twat fannyfart eh?

bugger all on the forums..its worse than useless really... Still desperately laughing at it catching lollo rosso.....

Well, I find lollo rosso quite offensive. I must confess that I often check pieces on the swear-filter and have no earthly idea how they got there. You'll have to raise the swear filter thing with Tony, Mississippi. Actually, I think there is an argument for the reverse, that all pieces should be cleared before they go live - the swear filter catches swearing (albeit on a 'better to imprison ten innocent poems than let one guilty go free) , but it doesn't always get the violent or defamatory stuff. But then, it is in my nature to be careful, and there might be better ways around it - like the disclaimer you suggest. There is more scope now that youngabc exists for younger readers. But I don't know - it might be that this sort of disclaimer would give the impression that all the stories were full of foul language and violence. (Such things obviously have an impact on hits for the site and advertisers) I will say that a significant number of people still try to get pieces with F*** scattered around through on a U rating, so trusting people to be responsible when grading their own work isn't necessarily going to work.

F*** is actually an innocent acronym of "For.Unlawful.Carnal.Knowledge" and these letters were hung round the necks of fornicators and adulterers when they were receiving public punishment so everyone knew what they'd done. That is honestly where this word that receives such bad press comes from. I don't however expect anyone to agree with my sentiments when it comes to censorship so I do begrudgingly accept the filter. Maybe we should invent some new swear words or use existing "Innocent" words in a context that makes them sound like swear words. Below are a list of words that I think sound rude (ish) but aren't wedge Masticate Fulcrum cunctator jactaid sillabub feff jimcrack Futtock (all these are real words) Alternatively "Roger's profanasaurus" http://www.viz.co.uk/profanisaurus/profanis.htm(link is external) provides a whole array of filthy euphemisms that could bypass the filter no problem. Not that I condone that sort of thing.

I thought the censorship thing in literature was supposed to have come to an end with the 'Lady Chatterley' trial in the '60's. If it is the intention to censor everything then half of the stuff on the shelves in WH Smith would be banned from the site. We are supposed to be enlightened, sensible people here! Aren't we? Why do we need a policeman to check everything we read? I can't think that anybody is worried about offending my sensibilities, or anyone else's for that matter. Even Princess Anne tells people to f u c k off and that's ROYAL approval no less!

the word jimcrack, actually.... *laughing helplessly*

I think there are two different issues here Mississippi. The whole lady Chatterley thing was about whether society could ban a book it found distasteful - and you really don't think that's over do you ? The areas open to writers may have widened considerably, but there are still things that couldn't be written about - not just through censorship from the State (although Hitler apologists, racist tracts, books written by Tony Blair's staff, information about spies or Jamie Bulger's killers would all fall foul of the state), but less visible suppression - publishers, booksellers. In America, AOL is a pretty powerful organisation, as is Time Warner and Viacom. All of whom happen to have a fairly conservative attitude. If your book or record or film falls foul of what they judge to be acceptable, good luck with the sales figures. If Amazon won't take your book, chances are no publisher will. But the swear filter isn't about censorship - at base, it is ensuring for the writers who write childrens fiction here (and there are a lot of them), that some of their readership can read them without coming across stuff that was never meant for them. So I think that the age ratings are necessary, and as I've said, not everyone classifies their work appropriately. It is not censorship, it is context. Within a story for 15-18 year olds, there can be sexual content, strong language, violence and drug-taking. For 10 year olds, those things can probably wait awhile. And I know that they can find all of that elsewhere on the net, or probably in the playground, but abc has links to other charitable organisations who could do without being slaughtered in the press for being connected to "shocking website". I don't think it is too bad a thing that abc try to be responsible.

I take your points Andrew but I thought the whole idea of 'young abc' was for the kids to write, read and browse without being exposed to adult language and ideas. I would never expect the site to be irresponsible but to some extent parents have to police what their kids see, I certainly did where mine were concerned.

Andrew's right, people below the age of 15 shouldn't be exposed to things like violence, drugs and erotica. Age ratings are important, young minds are very impressionable and easily disturbed. Imagine if there were no age ratings on any of the pieces: a gruesome horror story full of disturbing images, blood, sex and drugs could be read by someone thinking it was a story for the family. To a young child or a very sensitive person, such a story could disturb them. At least if you put an 18 certificate on it, people know that the story is going to contain adult themes. The age ratings are a guide for the reader, so they know what sort of content is likely to be in the story. Abctales is getting more and more popular. So it's good to be responsible about that sort of thing.

I take your point about young abc Mississippi, which I think is a good one - now that the kids have their own site, can't us adults just get on with it ? However, that site is for young people to write and read their pieces. There are people here writing for younger age-groups - not just the ones who write specifically for them, I think most of the stories and poems here are suitable for 12s and under. Essentially, if we have no age-rating here, we would need to either ensure everyone entering was 18, which means no casual browsers who want to dip into a few PG stories before registering, or put up a disclaimer at the front saying the stories here are not suitable for under 18s, which also loses readers. I just don't think you can have children's stories and erotica on the same site without age banding.

Tell you what would solve it. People wouldnt get anywhere near as annoyed with the filter IF after it has finished deciding that lollo rosso et al arent the words of the devil, it delivered the work that it seized onto the site somewhere within the last 10 entered. Its the fact that the stuff ends up entered in the hundreds, lost, never to be seen again, that pisses people off......

i think that the swear filter should go, and that people should be allowed to swear freely in the forums. the age rating's fine by me; that can stay. the idea of a disclaimer on the front page is a good one - adult material here, blah, blah blah, do not read if you're subject to panic attacks, or of a highly sensitive nature. in point of fact, i suspect that armies of pre-adolescents are not logging on to abctales every evening in search of a bed time story. rather, they're probably going straight to the porn sites. my earliest stories at Junior School were always full of blood and guts - usually my teacher being beheaded or some such nonsense. all the boys wrote that kind of stuff. admittedly the girls used to scream a lot when our stories were read out in class, but i think they just did it because it was expected of them. we were all about six at the time. the girls stories were always about pork sausages mysteriously disappearing, only for it to turn out that they had been eaten by the dog, but that's probably because they were more sexually precocious than we were.

Just to set the record straight on this one. Sorry it's taken a while for me to reply to you all. The poobumwilly filter is there for a number of reasons. Number one is to prevent paedophiles using the site for nefarious purposes. Number Two is to indemnify us against pointless obscenity. Number Three is that as we are now beginning the process of applying for charitable status we must actively demonstrate that we are doing all we can to exclude racism, pornography etc. I do understand that ti can be a bore but it is necessary. You may be interested to know, but please don't tell anyone, that it doesn't operate on the foums! pip pip, The Chief Exec.

But what abt adapting it to enter stuff previously held up at the date it releases the stuff?

I agree with Liana\s last post. For my own part, I have no objection at all to a piece of mine being held up for review prior to posting. Fine with me. Give it the age rating that fits the piece. Fine. But now that there are as many as 50 pieces posted per day (not per week the way it was 10 months ago), a new piece gets lost in the shuffle fast and if it goes live "post facto" it could be 100 or more items down the list. This should be a simply thing to fix, even if it were something really neanderthal, like manually changing the date after review.