NationStates Jolt Archive

]I actually did receive a complaint from a school just a few days ago about, uh, "controversial" words appearing in "Latest Threads." (Namely, "Are you an asshole?") They're using NationStates in their classes, and it's not good if the kids go home and tell their parents what the teacher showed them that day. That would lead to no more NationStates in schools pretty quick.

Ideally I'd like our code to auto-censor all potentially offensive thread titles before showing them in "Latest Threads", and am consulting with teachers to see if this works for them, or if we need to block the whole list or what.

On this note...I've a suggestion. Why not create a user defined option to show or hide threads in the Latest Threads section (or any section, for that matter) which have offensive titles? This way, teachers and/or parents can ensure their students/children aren't seeing anything offensive, while those who are old enough, or in a position to make that choice, may do so.

On this note...I've a suggestion. Why not create a user defined option to show or hide threads in the Latest Threads section (or any section, for that matter) which have offensive titles? This way, teachers and/or parents can ensure their students/children aren't seeing anything offensive, while those who are old enough, or in a position to make that choice, may do so.Yes! I love this. Maybe for classroom regions, the teacher could specify to turn this off or on for the whole region.

Yes! I love this. Maybe for classroom regions, the teacher could specify to turn this off or on for the whole region.

As in special regions for which student Nationstates would reside in? That could work, but that would require Max to rewrite some of the NS game code, which I don't think would happen.

I also had another thought..what about adding in a user defined filter for words?

As in special regions for which student Nationstates would reside in? That could work, but that would require Max to rewrite some of the NS game code, which I don't think would happen.
From http://www.nationstates.net/pages/educators.html
Updated 01-Dec-04: There is now a new process to have your region designated as a school class.

We'd still need to add code to remove the thread listings from the page.

From http://www.nationstates.net/pages/educators.html

Ahh..Missed that update. Thank you.

We'd still need to add code to remove the thread listings from the page.

True..but that's what Max would wind up having to do with his idea, correct?

The Nation|States page is unfortunately blocked by my school district. However, I don't believe that any one working on NS code should have to "censor" the titles on their main page - the entire idea of having "Latest Threads" on the main NS page is actually a don for those who don't use the forum - it provides an incentive for those NSers who just talk on their regional forums to actually become active RPers, which is what I think this game needs.

Furthermore, censoring the words can actually cause problems, such as the misinterpretation of titles. As a consequence, I don't think that anything on NS should be censored, and regardless, most topics, save those on general, are all PG13 or less.

If the teacher or parent was worrying so much about this anyways all the kid had to do is to show them the forums - perhaps the Nation States or the Internatical Incidents forum, or even the United Nations forum - and show them the first page. There's rarely anything offensive, and although this might be a bit farfetched, perhaps they would be intrigued by the RPing going on - and *gasp* think this as an intellectual site, not one of profanity and crude topics.

The Nation|States page is unfortunately blocked by my school district. However, I don't believe that any one working on NS code should have to "censor" the titles on their main page - the entire idea of having "Latest Threads" on the main NS page is actually a don for those who don't use the forum - it provides an incentive for those NSers who just talk on their regional forums to actually become active RPers, which is what I think this game needs.

Furthermore, censoring the words can actually cause problems, such as the misinterpretation of titles. As a consequence, I don't think that anything on NS should be censored, and regardless, most topics, save those on general, are all PG13 or less.

If the teacher or parent was worrying so much about this anyways all the kid had to do is to show them the forums - perhaps the Nation States or the Internatical Incidents forum, or even the United Nations forum - and show them the first page. There's rarely anything offensive, and although this might be a bit farfetched, perhaps they would be intrigued by the RPing going on - and *gasp* think this as an intellectual site, not one of profanity and crude topics.

While I am personally against censorship of this site beyond what it already has (which is quite reasonable, I believe), I do understand how there are some topics a teacher may not want his or her students exposed to, due to their questionable/objectionable nature.

Further, allowing a nation or even certain regions, to define censorship settings would help weed out those topics a user may not want to see, for whatever their personal reasons. Granted, I also believe that if there's a topic you don't like, based on the title, you shouldn't go into it.

When I say "censor", by the way, I mean threads with titles containing certain words that the user defines as "objectionable" simply would not appear on the list. The thing is, I don't know if this would fall under the prohibition in regards to making suggestions towards changing the code, since Max suggested an idea of his own that would result in code change, and I would think this might be something similar.