Censoring URLs

[SoftWareRevue]

We've all been there.

Low flying object is spotted just over the treetops. Suddenly, and without warning . . . BAM! Your forum's littered with URLs to increase your manlihood or your breast size.

Or maybe it's just someone trying to help by offering your members the best "services ever!"

Your forced to censor the URL to stop the madness.

Now, a member of your forum comes by and wants to talk about *********.

Do you lift the censor (ie: let them format to display the URL), or do keep it censored?

[Tyler]

I think this is a touchy subject. I'm not in favor of censoring "general URLs". When X company does such bad things, I think that should be public information. If that URL is censored, and someone is looking for information on the company in question, it won't do a bit of good.

On the other hand...If the company did such horrid things to website(s), and then yes I believe they should be censored. :angel:

[writespeak]

BAM! Your forum's littered with URLs to increase your...breast size.

How come I never get to see those ones. :hrmph:

Your forced to censor the URL to stop the madness.

Now, a member of your forum comes by and wants to talk about *********.

Do you lift the censor (ie: let them format to display the URL), or do keep it censored?

It would be ideal if URLs could be censored only for specific members, i.e. spammers. Since I haven't heard of a hack for that....hmmm. Once the spammers are gone, is the censor needed? Is it easy to put back in place if necessary? 'Cause I think that we're taking away from the ability of people to get useful information if we keep those URLs censored for everyone. And sharing good information is what forums are about. :)

Lois

[Jan]

Censors are usually used for persistent spammers, them thar ones that keep signing up to spam. :mad: If enough time has elapsed since their last signup/spam (6/12 months?), I can't see a reason to not uncensor it (pending temporarily) for members to discuss it.

It was interesting to note that I did a seach on google for someone/something recently (don't ask me what now :pray: )and the URL showed as ******* in the description of the search result for a WHT thread :google:

[bear]

We'd taken it a little further and used replacement vars on one persistent spammer instead of censor. Change 'spammerdomain' to 'I'm spamming for <domain name>.tld'.
Left the name in for searching, while showing it for what it really was and ruining the clicking of the link. They got the hint.

[writespeak]

We'd taken it a little further and used replacement vars on one persistent spammer instead of censor. Change 'spammerdomain' to 'I'm spamming for <domain name>.tld'.

Interesting. Did it appear that way only when the spammer posted it? I'm wondering if you got "I'm looking for information on I'm-spamming-for-spammername.com" when other people posted that domain.

Lois

[bear]

Unfortunately replacement vars work on all instances. We did this to allow the name to be searched on, yet show it was "a bad thing". The end result wasn't the best, since anyone asking about it got the same switch. we eventually did away with the long version, and just added << >> around the name to keep it from being a live link.

[writespeak]

Putting those ideas together, what do you think of converting spammersdomain.com to <<spammer:spammersdomain.com>> whenever someone posted that domain instead of ***********?

Lois

[PHPGeek2k3]

This is an interesting topic. Depending on the to be censored text is depending if i would sensor it. There should be a good post spam filter / detection system built for forums to where either a) the forum software prevents the post/thread from getting posted or b) the post is marked for approval by a mod/admin.

Thanks
- James