by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2007/05/08 02:31 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2007/05/07/2473828.aspx
There is a powerful spam filter on http://blogs.msdn.com/ now. A very powerful one in fact.
There really are a ton of spam messages that it catches. So I don't want to seem ungrateful here.
But recently when I posted Does bear shit in woods^H^H^H^H^HSlovenia?, a small fly appeared in the ointment.
You see, the title no longer seems to be something you can edit. You basically have no control over it right now (not sure when this changed, exactly?).
Not so bad by itself, mind you.
But in the case where the title has a curse word in it, the spam filter treats it like it is spam.
Even though it was the title that the blog suggested.
It wasn't anything that the person leaving the comment had any control over, now was it?
Amazing what we do in this culture with curse words. I hate making words (any words) into second class citizens in cultureville.
Anyway, I'll stop complaining now. I really do like everything else the spam filter (and the blog software) does.
It does seem like a case of two parts of the same product colliding, though.... :-)
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# Dean Harding on 8 May 2007 3:39 AM:
How does that work? I don't even have the option of changing the subject (maybe because I'm logged in?)
# Kevin Daly on 8 May 2007 3:52 AM:
I have to admit it causes problems with self-expression...even when writing my own blog posts I'm limited by the built in nannyware.
This is especially a problem for those of us accustomed to a more er, *robust* use of the English language than US culture likes to admit to.
This is also complicated by the fact that certain words that are profanities in US English are in New Zealand and Australian English either completely harmless or are in some contexts even used affectionately.
I would prefer it if we just assumed that words will not, in fact, harm you.
# Rosyna on 8 May 2007 10:19 AM:
They're called Words of Curse for a reason....
# Michael S. Kaplan on 8 May 2007 10:41 AM:
Clearly I agree with that, Rosyna. :-)
Dean -- I am not sure when they stopped letting the title be editable. It used to be available, thet took it out!
# Dean Harding on 8 May 2007 11:06 PM:
I think it must be part of your blog's skin because I just released that I can change the title of my comments over on Raymond's blog. Not that anyone ever does, really...
# Michael S. Kaplan on 9 May 2007 12:17 AM:
Wow, that kind of blows. :-(
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