[SGI News] Software Engineers Develop 'Stupid Comments Filter' for Forums

[SGI]

Software engineers told Fortune magazine in November that they are constructing a filter to eliminate stupid messages to online forums and bulletin boards. Lead researcher Gabriel Ortiz said his team had compiled a database of idiotic comments and that the new software would detect unintelligible remarks and either alert the writer to fix them or divert the message to the recipient's "junk mail." Easy dumb messages to filter: those with the tacky, immature repetition of a closing consonant, e.g., "That thing is amazinggggg!!!" More difficult: how to treat sarcasm and irony, in that smart writers sometimes deliberately use dumb statements to mock other writers.

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Man Charged With Driving Kids In Weirdest Thing Yet
In October, Beckley, W.Va., police detained a 61-year-old man whom they found at the King Tut Drive-In on a Saturday afternoon, apparently sober, after he had "driven" his four grandchildren, all around age 4, "on a busy street in a 15-foot motorboat pulled by a lawnmower," according to an Associated Press report. The vehicle was of course unregistered and uninspected, and the children not properly seat-restrained, but the man seemed unaware that he had placed the kids in danger.

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Man trapped in Club Washroom for Four Days
A 55-year-old retired Scottish bachelor spent four days trapped in a cold men's washroom at an Aberdeen lawn bowling club because no one knew he was missing.
David Leggat was trapped last week at the Kittybrewster and Woodside Bowling Club when he entered the washroom and the outer door handle fell off, which jammed the inner handle, the Daily Telegraph said.
He credited survival training he took years ago for using hot water to keep his feet warm in the unheated washroom during the cold nights, the report said. He said he only had eight hours of daylight per day at the back of the club, which is all but deserted during the winter.
He had no mobile phone, and the windows were too small to break and climb through, he said.

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Kid Hits Button, Foams Airport Hangar
A curious kid just couldn't resist temptation and hit an emergency button that triggered a sea of fire suppression foam at a Philadelphia airport hangar.
The expanse of white foam not only filled the hangar Saturday but it spilled out onto the tarmac where the wind blew puffs of it into the air like a snow storm.
The incident at Northeast Airport occurred during Agusta Aerospace's family day outing. Authorities said an employee's child hit a button that said "Don't hit button unless in an emergency" WPVI-TV in Philadelphia reported.

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Ticketed Parrot Focus of Greek Legal Fight
A parrot facing a parking ticket in the Greek city of Patras is at the center of a legal dispute regarding the bird's alleged extroverted nature.
Local pet store owner Lambros Michalopoulos has alleged he placed Coco the parrot in a nearby metered zone so the bird could thrive in the busy thoroughfare outside his shop, the BBC reported Sunday.
Michalopoulos alleged that even after the bird earned a $650 parking ticket, he refused to bring it inside for fear the animal would die without constant interaction.

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I'm sure on animeforum there will be mixed reaction for the filter. Some of us will view it as the second coming of Christ, while others are going to be shaking in their shoes.

And how the hell do you only get away with a warning for pulling a boat with a lawnmower? With damn KIDS inside? That really is messed up.

[Caelus]

Pulling a boat...with a lawn mower...? O.o I hope he was given a sobriety test. Still, something so...outlandish deserves a harsher punishment. I think? Not really sure how to approach that with anything but laughter.

[Antares]

A 'Stupid Comments Filter' will be a blessing for me for so many reasons. Mmm, I wonder if the filter will also have a spanish version? Maybe someday I'll go back to spanish forums...

And, how can a parrot have a parking ticket?

[Eris]

Software engineers told Fortune magazine in November that they are constructing a filter to eliminate stupid messages to online forums and bulletin boards. Lead researcher Gabriel Ortiz said his team had compiled a database of idiotic comments and that the new software would detect unintelligible remarks and either alert the writer to fix them or divert the message to the recipient's "junk mail." Easy dumb messages to filter: those with the tacky, immature repetition of a closing consonant, e.g., "That thing is amazinggggg!!!" More difficult: how to treat sarcasm and irony, in that smart writers sometimes deliberately use dumb statements to mock other writers.

Time to break out the old tin foil hat. First it's stupid comments that vanish, and nobody complains except the stupid users. Then comments questioning the president vanish, and nobody complaints at all, because those complaints are also stupid. This sort of technology can go from 0 to 1984 in 4.6 seconds.

[SGI]

Time to break out the old tin foil hat. First it's stupid comments that vanish, and nobody complains except the stupid users. Then comments questioning the president vanish, and nobody complaints at all, because those complaints are also stupid. This sort of technology can go from 0 to 1984 in 4.6 seconds.

You know that is something I never thought of, quite a good point.

An Interesting (and sadly rather likely) reversal of this would be software that
'inserted' comments into a post. For example, a forum received a big bag of money from a corporate sponsor to insert 'positive comments' about said sponsor.

For example, in one of those obnoxious vs. threads.

'I fink Goku could beat Naruto anyday of teh wek cuz Naruto ish teh mor0nz

And have you tried the new cheeseburger at McDonalds? It is rich in flavor and provides an exquisite aftertaste. It also contains only 800% of your reccomended intake of fats and calories. I highly recommended this above par food choise for my current relevant meal choice.'

That would be amusing, albeit sad.

[Caelus]

For example, in one of those obnoxious vs. threads.

'I fink Goku could beat Naruto anyday of teh wek cuz Naruto ish teh mor0nz

And have you tried the new cheeseburger at McDonalds? It is rich in flavor and provides an exquisite aftertaste. It also contains only 800% of your reccomended intake of fats and calories. I highly recommended this above par food choise for my current relevant meal choice.'

That would be amusing, albeit sad.

That's horrifying, mostly because I could picture a world where that happens o.o


"Sasuke is ghey!


But I sure do love California Oranges. Pick up some at your local super market"


-flees-

[DOOM!]

Time to break out the old tin foil hat. First it's stupid comments that vanish, and nobody complains except the stupid users. Then comments questioning the president vanish, and nobody complaints at all, because those complaints are also stupid. This sort of technology can go from 0 to 1984 in 4.6 seconds.

Most certainly agreed. I want liberty to post about anything, in this world, that i want. And scew it if my grammar, spelling, or logic does not compute! We don't need no technology to tell /what and /when is stupid, we have moderators for that. And if the moderators mind me saying this, then i dare you to put the damn thing on and STOP MODERATING.

[Perpetual Specter]

Wow,even more interesting news than usual.

-Driving kids in a boat pulled by a lawnmower.That's crazy!xD

-I'm glad to hear that one guy got out of that building.Looks like his survival training was put to some use. o.o

-That kid at the airport doesn't sound too much different than many others.It looks like that childish naivness or curiosity just happened to kick in at a very wrong time and place. XD(actually it depends on his age O.o)

[Myrra]

I read an article about the guy trapped in wash room earlier this week. I found it a bit humorous and a bit sad as it took so long for someone to note his absence.

Moving on to the Parrot, what on earth was it ticketed for? Not putting money in the meter? Loitering? I find it all a bit ridiculous.

And as for that kid who pushed the button that read "Do not push", that just goes to prove reverse psychology works in children. How was he to resist? Will they ever have family day at the airport again? And more importantly, who's picking up the tab for the damage?

And lastly, I have to agree with Eris. It's all too Orwellian to have a filter like that. I'm a great admirer (and defender) of free speech...though sometimes I want to deck people for their use of it. Besides, I like the personal touch of an actual moderator.

[Manhattan_Project_2000]

I say instead of the stupid filter, we set up a filter and give it moderator powers. Instead of banning based on content, it bans based on non-sensical rules regarding sentience structure (For example, if you start a sentience with the letter "R", you get banned) . Only those that can figure out these rules are allowed to post. Basically, this would mean Eris would be the only non-mod around. But man, would it be funny as it happened!

[Wio]

Time to break out the old tin foil hat. First it's stupid comments that vanish, and nobody complains except the stupid users. Then comments questioning the president vanish, and nobody complaints at all, because those complaints are also stupid. This sort of technology can go from 0 to 1984 in 4.6 seconds.

I think that it would take a huger algorithm to find out whether a post questions anything than it would to find out if a comment is a generic stupid one. In fact, it would be like comparing the programming of Pong to the programming of Halo 3. The filter would have to understand what is actually being said.

Besides, it's a forum, so no one really cares if it doesn't allow certain posts. Moderators can already be gestapo on their forum if they desire. I don't see a problem here.

[Eris]

I think that it would take a huger algorithm to find out whether a post questions anything than it would to find out if a comment is a generic stupid one. In fact, it would be like comparing the programming of Pong to the programming of Halo 3. The filter would have to understand what is actually being said.

Besides, it's a forum, so no one really cares if it doesn't allow certain posts. Moderators can already be gestapo on their forum if they desire. I don't see a problem here.

You would be surprised how advanced text processing and recognition has gotten today. This sort of technology isn't some far-away dystopian nightmare, it's here, now!

If an individual forum moderator goes gestapo, that is not a problem. If the same, automatic moderator, goes gestapo on all forums, cellphone text messages, etc., we've got a problem.

And this isn't just hypothetical, it's fairly similar to the situation in China. Could probably happen here too, I mean, automatic censorship, you just have to cry "Think of the children!" or "It will stop terrorists!", and the law is already signed and passed.

[UrusaiSevera]

Software engineers told Fortune magazine in November that they are constructing a filter to eliminate stupid messages to online forums and bulletin boards. Lead researcher Gabriel Ortiz said his team had compiled a database of idiotic comments and that the new software would detect unintelligible remarks and either alert the writer to fix them or divert the message to the recipient's "junk mail." Easy dumb messages to filter: those with the tacky, immature repetition of a closing consonant, e.g., "That thing is amazinggggg!!!" More difficult: how to treat sarcasm and irony, in that smart writers sometimes deliberately use dumb statements to mock other writers.

At first this would be a great system, though like Eris said, 1984 isn't far around the corner here. Though I would love to see some of the blibbering idiots that frequent the forums banned or at least subjected to some, in their eyes, torment.

Man trapped in Club Washroom for Four Days

Just lift the door of the hinges or slam the hinges away with a toiletseat. Isn't that what they learn you in the most basic of survival training?

Ticketed Parrot Focus of Greek Legal Fight

So what if he had placed the parrot in a tree or set the bird on a bench? Would he still have received the ticket? And how did they give the bird a ticket in the first place? Stick it on him with a piece of Sellotape?
Quite an amusing story indeed.

[Reniti]

Haha, wow. I don't even need to read the first post and I'm already laughing.

[Wio]

You would be surprised how advanced text processing and recognition has gotten today. This sort of technology isn't some far-away dystopian nightmare, it's here, now!

If an individual forum moderator goes gestapo, that is not a problem. If the same, automatic moderator, goes gestapo on all forums, cellphone text messages, etc., we've got a problem.

And this isn't just hypothetical, it's fairly similar to the situation in China. Could probably happen here too, I mean, automatic censorship, you just have to cry "Think of the children!" or "It will stop terrorists!", and the law is already signed and passed.

I still think you're jumping the gun though. It's a filter, not an automatic moderator. This filter doesn't sound much different than a junk mail filter which is put on a forum. If there is such text recognition to do such, and I have no idea whether there is or not, I don't think junk mail filtering comes close to it.
If companies are filtering text messages already, that alone is the problem. Not simple filtering. I think there is going to be strict restrictions on any system that uses AI.