Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Private Messages - censored?

Okay, I understand public forums being "censored". But private messages, really? That's so unfair. I have friends here that I would like to talk to freely and vent with - and I can't! Noody sees these messages anyway, what's the problem?

Freedom of speech...?

It could just be a software thing. There are lots of similarities between posting and writing PM's. I bet large parts of the same software code are used for both, and it's probably not possible to censor messages and not PM's. Annoying, I agree.

-J

That's just how the software works. And since anybody can send anybody a PM, it's safer.

If you know somebody well enough to vent and talk freely with, you also know them well enough to exchange email addresses or friend them on Facebook. (That's what I do - and I rather like getting to know forum people on FB.)

PW just gets better and better every day.

By the way did you decide to censor it because of me? You could've asked me to leave, you know (or shut up).. would've made things easier =)

Plus messages on PW are SO much better than facebook, I like the colour and the whole space, and the characters and fonts, colours etc. Kind of ruined now though.

Boy am I in trouble -

How "censored"? I thought the mods couldn't read the pm's - does the software just notify them of 4-letter words or something?

Cathy

I think censoring words on PW is new now, so there's nothing to worry about. What was done before the censoring should not be used against you now.

Thanks OSK, but I don't think I've used 4-letter words even in pm's.

But slander -

:\

Cathy

On another forum I visit, the Admins decided to change software settings to replace um, colourful language.
For example, typing one particular word, resulted in the words, 'Ryan Seacrest' being substituted

A forum I frequent does that, too. You can no longer say "hotwater bottle" with the first word as all one word

Cathy

That's gold

Word of warning: Private Messages aren't really private. I do not know if moderators can read them -and I doubt Kreisler will admit to anything- but believe me, the owner of this website CAN read them if he chooses to. He owns the website, that is within his jurisdiction.

I found that out the hard way on another (non-musical) db. Whew, that wasn't pretty.

Whenever I get into extensive PMs with people here, I always ask to switch over to independent email.

The censoring is automatically done by the software. Mods (like me) *cannot* access your private messages. I don't think the admins can either, but I'll ask them.

FYI - I only have the ability to do edit, lock, and move topics and posts. I can also see the ip address where each post originated. I have no special access to user accounts. I see the same stuff about you that every ody else does.

Whew!



Cathy

Admins with cpanel access to the server can query the database for anything they want to see.

One of the more colorful people on P.C. was talking to me on PM and a lot of words appeared with [Censored] on it.

Like ..."I don't know a [Censored] thing about what you're talking about" (just a sample).

So I figured what the word was. LOL. I actually thought it was typed in manually but then it occurred so often that I had to think.

No Cathy, it wasn't you...:)

So that's when I discovered this "new" feature.

It should be obvious that Frank can see anything he wants to see. If it's not obvious, then I'll teach you something. The person managing your email system COULD read your emails too.

In fact this is so obvious that by law (US), Physicians cannot talk to/about patients by email.

I have no doubt that someone at Facebook can read your private messages as well.

...it gets worse. Ever hear of a "packet analyzer"?

OK -- that explains a little surprise I had yesterday.

I typed "heck" in a post yesterday but it came out as "heck."
Nothing like that ever happened before. I mean, I'm pretty sure I said "heck" a few times in the past and it always came out before as "heck," just the way I typed it, but this time it came out as "heck."

Edit: So.....they all came out as heck.
Not that I didn't expect it.

P.S. If anyone doesn't know what was the word that I typed instead of "heck"......well, that's easy -- just look it up in the dictionary under.....aah, what the heck, if I type it again I'm sure it'll just come out again as "heck".....

In fact, now you never know if someone said "heck" or "heck."
(Dam, 2 hecks again.)

BTW: For what it's worth, IMHO it would have been good to announce the new automatic censor when it was put in. Not that much of a big deal, but it would have been a 'nice touch' rather than making us be taken by surprise.

Well, as someone who values freedom of expression, be it musical, artistic or otherwise, I gotst a real problem wit dis.

I do not understand how anyone with any respect for expression can think it is o.k. to have a machine change the language that I choose to type. If there are offensive key words not to be used in public discourse, then that should be made clear in the user agreement or something. If people can't obey the rules, they should be invited to leave for a time. But having a machine automatically "search" and "replace" words that I have typed on purpose makes me cringe, shudder, sweat, and puke in fear of where "We" are headed. (I mean, has anyone else read "We" by Yevgeny Zamyatin? Know what I mean?) What's next? Will the machine be programmed to not allow any discussion of the use of A min. or F# maj.? I know this is Frank's house and everything... And I am more than happy to take my shoes off at the door it those are his rules, but, un-censored expletive! I am not joking when I say that I am majorly disappointed by this turn of events!

Would anyone like to join me in shouting the word "Transparency!" from the Piano World rooftops? Criminently!!!

I would rather have a hot discussion thread about the degradation of discourse than a machine making my writing choices!

The owner of a web site can run it anyway s/he likes. What's the problem with that? It's not a cooperative venture. If a user - or all users - takes exception to how it's run, then people can vote with their feet. Rather ironic for me to make such a statement, which is consistent with our brave new Anglo-Saxon free market which is ruining the planet. I despise the free market jungle and the deceit of globalisation which just enriches the already rich and in fact rather favour cooperative ventures, but this forum is a facility which has been made available for us to use: we don't co-own it.
We do have choices, but we have to decide which choices are available to us.