Fallen foul of the BBC blog's profanity filter?

Jennifer Tracey | 16:05 UK time, Tuesday, 19 August 2008

Have you spent three hours writing out your vital and timely Watergatesque scoop for iPM to investigate, only to try posting it and been greeted with 'html invalid' or 'it has failed our profanity filter'?

(Just a thought - you might want to email us if it's, like, one of those old, bring-down-president/prime minister scandal type tales...)

Well, huge apologies and thanks to those who've emailed in and commented on the blog. BBC tech bloggites are working to fix the problem. In the meantime they say avoid ampersands. In fact, not only &, but also /, and even " " and ! - this should help fend off the 'html invalid' response at least.

The profanity filter is a bit more of a mystery. Email us if you just can't get through. OR - share what you know of Moveable Type blog software, and suggest a fix! Only joking...or am I...

And here's hoping this posts okay, now that I've used everything I've told you not to.

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Comments

1. At 8:51pm on 19 Aug 2008, Fearless Fred wrote:
there's also the letter between J and L. a solitary use of that will get you branded as profane these days...

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2. At 9:29pm on 19 Aug 2008, mittfh wrote:
Has anyone from the blog development team discovered the MT Community Forum yet?

http://forums.sixapart.com/index.php?act=idx

Might be worth someone having a look and possibly registering and posting (it does appear to be active, unlike some support forums...). Although theoretically anyone could register, they'd be more likely to know the version of MT installed, what environment it's running in and how they've configured it etc.

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3. At 9:33pm on 19 Aug 2008, mittfh wrote:
Hmmm...talking of the blog, how many posts do you have to make over here to lose "new member" status? I'm just wondering, because being a seasoned contributor to your sister blog, I've grown used to my comments appearing immediately (subject to avoiding typing the letter kay and ensuring I 'escape' any ampersands...)

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4. At 10:51pm on 19 Aug 2008, Frances O wrote:
Good point, FF. It's utterly silly, since we can post (eg) f. Or F.

But the kay-letter

(hmm! it only seems like yesterday that we talked about the f-word; how times change. Now letters are profane. What next? We all know that the pounds-sterling symbol is unacceptable; and inverted commas don't make it very often, including onto the PM strapline, where every one is preceded by a question mark.

Or is that ironic?

How long before the apostrophe is banned causing consternation amongs grocers everywhe're[sic])

Anyway, the kay-letter seems utterly silly; is it the credit crunch - 1,000 is an obscene number of, er, money units? Well, in Zimbabwe, perhaps.

I still think it's because it's the first letter of that well-known comment, 'kinell'.

I'm going to copy this in case it falls foul, btw.

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5. At 10:53pm on 19 Aug 2008, Frances O wrote:
Oh, and just to see if this works; a word the chooks might recognise: Gadzooks! Also Swive!

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6. At 10:57pm on 19 Aug 2008, Frances O wrote:
Re 4: or even falls fowl. Just realised and thought I'd get in first. You know what these froggers are like.

We could take over the world, you know... bunch of smartypants

though why you'd keep smarties in your knickers, I don't know. Could melt embarrassingly.

Right, off the the Beach; I know my place.

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7. At 00:03am on 20 Aug 2008, jonnie wrote:
Sooooo infuriating Jennifer!

I'ts awful if you spend time constructing well thought out posts and forgotten to back it all up - to find it's destined for the bin!

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8. At 00:04am on 20 Aug 2008, U10783173 wrote:
Well, I post some very near the knuckle stuff and most of it is accepted. I've had the odd post rejected, sometimes for the most obscure reason, but mostly because I've overstepped the mark.

On the whole, I've no complaints.

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9. At 09:13am on 20 Aug 2008, Big Sister wrote:
kay

There - I've said it!

So, I could have posted Jay Kay Galbraith yesterday and got through .....

Hm.

I wonder what the great economist would have made of this? ;o)

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10. At 12:05pm on 20 Aug 2008, mittfh wrote:
Just thought...

I haven't seen many [] on the regular PM blog recently - perhaps someone's fixed the character encoding issue...

Let's test using the infamous pound sign:

£123.45

(Still doesn't like £ though!)

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11. At 12:12pm on 20 Aug 2008, mittfh wrote:
Seems not...

Let's see if any other standard punctuation gets swallowed...

That key between 1 and tab: `¦¬
The numbers: !"$%^*()-_+=
The other bits: []{};'#:@~,./?\|
And since it doesn't like the pound sign,
it probably won't like this either: €123.45

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12. At 12:26pm on 20 Aug 2008, Jennifer Tracey wrote:
Thanks for your comments - especially stuff about solitary use of the letter kay?! I didn't know about that one.

mittfh - suggestion of user forum is a good one. But I think BBC has created a system using Movable Type that's unique to the BBC - which is maybe why our problems are unique...And I'm surprised there's a time-delay in your posting - I'd understood that since one username for whole blog network, new member status moved around with you, irrespective of where you post.

Frances_O - glad you added 'falls fowl' - nearly wrote it in the title, but thought you might peck me up on it, gobble, gobble.

Since we're experimenting here, see what happens when I type

& (html number for ampersand)
& (html name for ampersand)
£ (html number for pound sign)

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13. At 12:59pm on 20 Aug 2008, nikki noodle wrote:
kkk

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14. At 1:01pm on 20 Aug 2008, nikki noodle wrote:
"Where's my comment?All new members are pre-moderated initially, which means that there will be a short delay between when you post your comment and when it appears while one of our moderators checks it"

It seems that this thread also thinks I am a new member - and did you mean 'new member status' moves around with you, Jennifer?!

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15. At 3:15pm on 21 Aug 2008, U11204129 wrote:
I got Profane by saying something was a shibbolith (mis-spelt here, deliberately, see below)
(In that post I spelt it correctly)

I thought, fair enough, its an almost sacred word.
I recast the post, but the Filter has persistence - its unforgiving. If you offend it, it remembers if any trace of anything you said remains in your reposts.

Its like.....God, really!!

Then, would you believe, someone got away with 'shibbolith' (sic) on a Shatner thread.

So the Profanity Filter only seems to pick up well-spelt (according to Firefix) Profanities.

I'll post samples of what was then rejected, separately, now, and my reply blog too. (Which I don't include here, 'cos the last time I tried I had to do a whole reboot debug. Did you know posting copies of posts is v.d. here (v. difficile as its now called?)

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16. At 3:16pm on 21 Aug 2008, U11204129 wrote:
shibboleth

Seems Ooh Kay now!

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17. At 3:25pm on 21 Aug 2008, U11204129 wrote:
# 15. At 1:15pm on 20 Jul 2008, pmLeader wrote:

shibolith? SHIBOLITH?

I got profanity filtered for that!

OR RATHER FOR SPELLING IT AS FIREFOX REQUIRES.

So we have a profanity filter fussy about spelling!!!!

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18. At 3:26pm on 21 Aug 2008, U11204129 wrote:
Even that seems Okaay now!

Good on iPM!

I'm honoured to be a 'newcomer' here.

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