Bots run amuck

Thank you to the staff member who ended my 24-hour mute after only 18 hours. 

I was muted by a bot for failing to properly edit a post I quoted in which the poster had used some profanity. Actually, the words were quite common and only profane in the strictest moral sense (think about your oldest living relative while she is in church). They were also self-referential, not to me, but to the one whom I was quoting.

Strange that he could post these words, but all my content on the site disappeared for 18 hours when I quoted him. That’s why I blog elsewhere. This site lacks stability. At least when one of the Google bots goes on a rampage it only removes selected posts, not the whole blog.

I was muted in 2021 for the same “offense”.

I was warned once when I was posting some scholarship from the University of Washington website. The scholarship concerned the history of intelligence testing. Some terms were coined by Eugenicists (think “racists” as that’s what they were) in the late-nineteenth century for people substantially below average. These offensive terms were in the material I was quoting. 

As Bugs Bunny liked to say, these bots are [a word that means alone on a deserted island that is a misspelling of the word he means].

Ahem.

This thread contains the word bot and is more recent tan most on this list:

Another bot failure documented.

only 18 hours? you were lucky!

I dredged up the email from the last unmute, hit reply, and lodged my complaint. This gets faster service than going through help and support, although I did that, too.

i hope others see that and use the advice.

for me, replying to the last email still took a week.

Well I never !

Actually, I did, but they never caught me

what happens when human judgement is replaced by an algorithm....

Judgement already lapsed when the replacement was made.

Easier to shift the blame to the bots, then. It's a messed up strategy tbh.

There's not enough time or people to manage the amount of content generated on the site. A simple text filter is basic but ultimately is better than nothing or missing the majority by being unable to cover everything.

Ideally, the filter would impact all clients equally.

That’s the crux of the matter. If it cannot do this, it should be unplugged.

I contribute a lot to this site. Everything I have contributed and my ability to participate in my team’s vote chess games was suspended from Sunday night until Monday afternoon because a nefarious and inconsistent bot flagged me for quoting someone else calling themselves a mute donkey (they used a different word). Happily, I did not have any lessons scheduled with students on this site’s classroom because I assume that, too, was suspended by this malicious and inconsistent bot.

The same thing happened in December 2021, so I was well aware and edited the post I was quoting. Alas, I missed one instance of his “profanity”.

Requests have been made a list of the forbidden terms, but staff refuses or ignores all such requests.

I’ve had posts about the scholarship concerning intelligence testing unposted with a red flag warning because certain words coined by Eugenicists in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century are forbidden.

Turning off the filters would be a nightmare.

What exactly is it now then for those members above who have voiced their concerns ?

Confirming this problem.

I will also confirm that the solution is simple. Move the filter lists server side, and make only one list instead of having different platforms use different lists. Post submissions must hit the server anyway to complete, so this does not really add any significant bandwidth or transactions. This is how it should have been architected from the beginning.

I realize you're not on the payroll, so this isn't directed at you but--

The year is 2023. Word filters are not advanced technology. It's pure incompetence.

Losing all of my content is a nightmare, even when it is only a day. Being denied participation in a vote chess game at a critical moment in the late opening is also a violation of the site's agreement with me when they take my money. I've been a paying member for 15 years.
The filter fails. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But, it is broke. Time for the refuse heap.

Bingo!

How about turning them on, as that would have preempted Ziryab's issue.

How about sensible measures such as red banners not accumulating in perpetuity. Window it to 1 or 2 months... because as it is, you're punishing long time, older, members for quoting children who post nonsense via their phone.

None of this is particularly difficult to understand or implement.

Is there even a mechanism for moderators to provide community feedback to the paid staff/developers? The site might give more weight to feedback from experienced moderators such as Martin.

And Martin, I believe, at least deserves to be compensated for the efforts he puts in. I have heard the newer moderators have to go through a lengthy interview procedure, only to end up for an unpaid role of moderating a dysfunctional website.

Paid moderators would be a good change.

And while some of the relatively new mods seem a bit, eh... sub-par, there have been excellent past and current mods (such as Martin).