I work in a middle school and need to filter out any profanity from posts. The kids speak both English and Spanish. Can anybody recommend a good filter that will take care of both languages, especially slang and street spanish? Thanks in advance.
Mike - You can go in and manually edit the list of "bad words"; however, I found this to be produce some annoying results that actually IMO calls more attention to some of the bad words than just letting it go and working with students on an individual basis. The classic high school example has been Emily Dickinson which when the filter is on becomes Emily ****inson which actually seems more profane. I would periodically search for profane words, more frequently early on, and pull a couple students out of class and ask them to explain their choice for using that language. Once the students get the message that what they do on your site is being monitored and supervised just like a classroom conversation they will likely become more aware of their language choices and thus not need to have a profanity filter. In forums, I have assessed a point penalty if I feel that I need to go in and edit something out of a student's contribution. I think it ultimately comes down to accountability. Peace - Anthony
I do agree with you Anthony. I, however, don't have an extensive Spanish vocabulary. I was just hoping for something to assist me.
Mike - You can start by seeing the words listed in the censor.php file for Spanish at http://moodle.cvs.sourceforge.net/moodle/lang/es_utf8/censor.php?revision=1.1.1.1&view=markup. There are some others that I might add. Send me an email and I will send a you short list of words that I would filter (some are in the censor.php). I'd rather not post it here. Peace - Anthony
Hi Anthony,
Thanks for your wise (as always) answer. As you know I am very much against an automatic profanity filter, as I find it both practically useless and ethically challengeable. The "educational" option which you advise is much more sensible.
ATB and &@$µ#§!
Joseph
Thanks for your wise (as always) answer. As you know I am very much against an automatic profanity filter, as I find it both practically useless and ethically challengeable. The "educational" option which you advise is much more sensible.
ATB and &@$µ#§!
Joseph