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We used to call this the "Scunthorpe problem" - how do you filter for obviously rude names while still allowing people to have their actual names? Bearing in mi

We used to call this the "Scunthorpe problem" - how do you filter for obviously rude names while still allowing people to have their actual names? Bearing in mind that some people's names are actually rude. I worked on the application form processing for the Nectar card launch in the UK back in the early 2000's, and we had several cases. Luckily we had human data-entry clerks in the loop, so all we had to do was flag when a name contained anything on the "Scunthorpe list" and get a human to look at it. Even then it wasn't perfect and a few slipped through. One of the early PR messes of the launch was someone getting a Nectar card issued with a rude name, and of course they immediately went to the press with it [0] I'm interested to see they still haven't solved this [1] [0] I never saw the journalistic interest in this: this guy said his name was <rude name>, and then signed the form to say everything on the form was true. Why is anyone surprised or interested that we accepted his name was what he said it was and gave him a card in that name? [1] https://metro.co.uk/2015/02/20/woman-refused-sainsburys-nectar-card-because-her-first-name-is-fanny-5071703/ https://metro.co.uk/2015/02/20/woman-refused-sainsburys-nect...

chanandler_bong 5y ago
The city of Toppenish in the US had the same problem when the council turned on a generic filtering system for the city networks. Everything stopped working.
qwerty456127 5y ago
People should just be taught (I would consider this is an essential skill which should be put in basic school curriculum to psychologically prepare people for the life, many support/sales professionals learn it quickly but the rest of the people don't) words are just words and they don't have to take them seriously. No word is rude until you consider it rude. No word can actually harm you directly. It's you who is in charge of deciding what to feel whenever you hear/see a particular word. Sadly, most of the people just ignore this job. I personally enjoy being called by the derogatory nickname of my ethnicity because I just like how does it sound. First half of my life I didn't even know it was supposed to be insulting (as I didn't know actual racists exist and can be serious about hating/judging people by just their ethnicity).
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  I think words can hurt people in certain contexts, but it is very rarely about a single term.
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  We used to be taught that "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me". I'm not so sure that has ever been true. Emotional bullying was always a thing, and it did hurt. I'm glad that we're now taking that more seriously. But it's also true that my emotions are my responsibility, and my emotional reaction to words is unique to me. I cannot force everyone else to be responsible for how I feel about their words. And I cannot expect everyone else to anticipate how I might feel about what they want to say and modify their speech accordingly. There's a balance in there. I suspect that this balance is what we call "good manners" or "politeness".
  - 0des 5y ago
    > We used to be taught that "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me". Now it is more "sticks and stones will break your bones because your words have hurt me"
  - mnsc 5y ago
    >I suspect that this balance is what we call "good manners" or "politeness". Or "empathy". And I think on an interpersonal level this is easy. You can't force anyone else to be responsible for how you feel about their words, that is true. But if you say to a colleague or a friend that "when you call me X, that makes me feel bad, could you call me Y instead?". Depending on the friend they might want to understand why this feels bad, but they would call you Y from then on. Easy peasy. But on a collective level we aren't yet (if we'll ever be) as developed a civilization to have empathy on that level. So some people want to, with good intentions, extend their empathy to others and write code like this. But seconds later, the creative and determined individual called cVnt_h_ater have bypassed the code and can proudly wear his misogyny on his sleeve.
    - 5y ago
exar0815 5y ago
Its a similar problem to people having names that are considered "fake". I shudder what people actually named Harry Potter or James Bond have to go through regularly. Also, I dont see any sense in actually enforcing any of those lists. I always think about the "Journey of Life" in The Grand Tour, which, frankly, is completely inoffensive in any other language than english https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLXe2WTYngQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLXe2WTYngQ
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  I live in Wedding, pronounced "Vedding". It was weird for about the first week, then it never really occurred to me again. I'm sure the people who live in Fuck have the same, right up until they have to fill in their address online.
chx 5y ago
That this system is so primitive doesn't surprise me at all. After all, people with a family name "Null" often get database errors -- despite even Oracle, which can't tell null and empty string apart, decidedly has IS NULL vs == "NULL" comparisons... https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160325-the-names-that-break-computer-systems https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160325-the-names-that-b...
- newforms 5y ago
  Little Bobby Tables struggles
noneeeed 5y ago
It's getting particularly problematic for international sites. What constitutes offensive language in one country might be a perfectly normal name, or product, in another country that uses the same language, let alone in another language. There's been a running joke on the UK Reddit subs recently about people getting short bans for using the term "faggot" as it's now on some automatic, site-wide blocklist. The bans are completely context free, so people are supposedly getting banned for discussing the food product, a kind of large meat-ball made primarily from minced offal. The same happens with "fag", meaning a cigarette.
- dkdbejwi383 5y ago
  There's the opposite problem too, where "fanny" has a different meaning in the UK vs. USA. There's the classic line from "The Office" about it ("over there fanny means your arse. Not your... minge") and I think most folk are pretty aware of the American meaning here these days. I wonder, is it too much to ask that we (as in, the various English speaking places) understand the different meanings of words that are offensive in one dialect but have a different and mundane meaning in another dialect?
globular-toast 5y ago
If nobody ever implemented a rude word filter, nobody would ever need to implement a rude word filter.
raxxorrax 5y ago
Seems like a rude name might give you some privacy advantages in the 21st century. To the price of being excluded by random services maybe. Old math prof of mine was named Dr. Cock, and he wasn't the only one, the name was common. Students called him Dr. Octocock.
- st_goliath 5y ago
  I have a friend who studied at the University in Linz, way back when. According to him, on the Universities System/370 they used to have an account name scheme where they simply concatenated the first 2 letters of the first name and the first 3 letters of the last name. Aledgedly, the scheme got changed after Professor Arno Schulz (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arno_Schulz https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arno_Schulz) was understandably upset about his account name (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Arsch https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Arsch).
OJFord 5y ago
> We used to call this the "Scunthorpe problem" Fwiw, it's well-known as such, after relatively high-profile incidents involving people with that address: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  Is that just well-known in the UK though? I've mentioned this to people outside the UK and only occasionally have they known it.
  - skhr0680 5y ago
    I’ve seen it called the clbuttic problem
  - OJFord 5y ago
    I'm also in the UK, so I don't really know. I thought/assumed it was fairly well-known among software engineers, HN, etc. (not discounting the day's 'lucky 10,000' of course) but not so much by others, regardless of country. :shrug:
  - pjc50 5y ago
    Nobody outside the UK has heard of Scunthorpe because it can't make it through the filters. (There's a ridiculously large list of innuendo place names for tiny villages: https://anglotopia.net/ultimate-list-of-funny-british-place-names/ https://anglotopia.net/ultimate-list-of-funny-british-place-... )
    - marcus_holmes 5y ago
      One of Douglas Adams' lesser-known but still hilarious works: https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/douglas-adams/the-meaning-of-liff/9780752227597 https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/douglas-adams/the-meani...
    - mbg721 5y ago
      Hey now, it's not Bielefeld. In Ohio at least, the word it's concealing is taboo enough that nobody who does know wants to explain to their more-sheltered coworkers why the situation is funny. (Clearly the filter wasn't designed in Australia.)
mcintyre1994 5y ago
Random story I remember my ICT teacher telling us in school along the same lines as Scunthorpe. They installed some nonsense web blocking thing that schools like to have and a lot of teachers complained because it blocked weightwatchers.com
- cauliflower99 5y ago
  :)
georgyo 5y ago
I only recently learned about Scunthorpe because the username I've been using for 15 years is now affected. Georgyo has orgy right in the name. More and more places are refusing to accept it when signing up.
chrisdengso 5y ago
Haha, I call this the "Clbuttic" problem. But nowadays it can be solved with machine learning fairly easy https://moderationapi.com/blog/moderate-text-automatically-using-zapier-moderation-api/ https://moderationapi.com/blog/moderate-text-automatically-u...
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  That's a slightly different problem from the Scunthorpe problem. You have a customer who gives her name as "Fanny Batter". Is that a permissible name? What about "Juan Kerr"? Or "Amanda Huggenkiss"? It's not about replacing "ass" with "butt", but detecting rudeness/humour in context. I'd be amazed if machine learning can solve this one. It's extremely hard for humans. * all those names should be rejected btw
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    > * all those names should be rejected btw No they shouldn't.
    - marcus_holmes 5y ago
      If you don't want someone going to the press and creating some "human interest" story about how they got a loyalty card with a stupid name, then your algorithm should at least question them.
      - CRConrad 5y ago
        But perhaps you do want them to do that, or at least don't care if they do. Maybe you think silly jokers is a good demographic to market to this way. And if not, then just tell the press: "They typed in the stupid name, so they got it on their card. How is that our fault? Now go write about some real news in stead of this lazy sensationalism."
- xsmasher 5y ago
  The clbuttic problem involves replacement; original source is (AFAIK) here: https://thedailywtf.com/articles/The-Clbuttic-Mistake- https://thedailywtf.com/articles/The-Clbuttic-Mistake-

chanandler_bong 5y ago

The city of Toppenish in the US had the same problem when the council turned on a generic filtering system for the city networks. Everything stopped working.

qwerty456127 5y ago

People should just be taught (I would consider this is an essential skill which should be put in basic school curriculum to psychologically prepare people for the life, many support/sales professionals learn it quickly but the rest of the people don't) words are just words and they don't have to take them seriously. No word is rude until you consider it rude. No word can actually harm you directly. It's you who is in charge of deciding what to feel whenever you hear/see a particular word. Sadly, most of the people just ignore this job. I personally enjoy being called by the derogatory nickname of my ethnicity because I just like how does it sound. First half of my life I didn't even know it was supposed to be insulting (as I didn't know actual racists exist and can be serious about hating/judging people by just their ethnicity).

raxxorrax 5y ago
I think words can hurt people in certain contexts, but it is very rarely about a single term.
marcus_holmes 5y ago
We used to be taught that "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me". I'm not so sure that has ever been true. Emotional bullying was always a thing, and it did hurt. I'm glad that we're now taking that more seriously. But it's also true that my emotions are my responsibility, and my emotional reaction to words is unique to me. I cannot force everyone else to be responsible for how I feel about their words. And I cannot expect everyone else to anticipate how I might feel about what they want to say and modify their speech accordingly. There's a balance in there. I suspect that this balance is what we call "good manners" or "politeness".
- 0des 5y ago
  > We used to be taught that "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me". Now it is more "sticks and stones will break your bones because your words have hurt me"
- mnsc 5y ago
  >I suspect that this balance is what we call "good manners" or "politeness". Or "empathy". And I think on an interpersonal level this is easy. You can't force anyone else to be responsible for how you feel about their words, that is true. But if you say to a colleague or a friend that "when you call me X, that makes me feel bad, could you call me Y instead?". Depending on the friend they might want to understand why this feels bad, but they would call you Y from then on. Easy peasy. But on a collective level we aren't yet (if we'll ever be) as developed a civilization to have empathy on that level. So some people want to, with good intentions, extend their empathy to others and write code like this. But seconds later, the creative and determined individual called cVnt_h_ater have bypassed the code and can proudly wear his misogyny on his sleeve.
  - 5y ago

exar0815 5y ago

Its a similar problem to people having names that are considered "fake". I shudder what people actually named Harry Potter or James Bond have to go through regularly. Also, I dont see any sense in actually enforcing any of those lists. I always think about the "Journey of Life" in The Grand Tour, which, frankly, is completely inoffensive in any other language than english https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLXe2WTYngQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLXe2WTYngQ

marcus_holmes 5y ago
I live in Wedding, pronounced "Vedding". It was weird for about the first week, then it never really occurred to me again. I'm sure the people who live in Fuck have the same, right up until they have to fill in their address online.

chx 5y ago

That this system is so primitive doesn't surprise me at all. After all, people with a family name "Null" often get database errors -- despite even Oracle, which can't tell null and empty string apart, decidedly has IS NULL vs == "NULL" comparisons... https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160325-the-names-that-break-computer-systems https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160325-the-names-that-b...

newforms 5y ago
Little Bobby Tables struggles

noneeeed 5y ago

It's getting particularly problematic for international sites. What constitutes offensive language in one country might be a perfectly normal name, or product, in another country that uses the same language, let alone in another language. There's been a running joke on the UK Reddit subs recently about people getting short bans for using the term "faggot" as it's now on some automatic, site-wide blocklist. The bans are completely context free, so people are supposedly getting banned for discussing the food product, a kind of large meat-ball made primarily from minced offal. The same happens with "fag", meaning a cigarette.

dkdbejwi383 5y ago
There's the opposite problem too, where "fanny" has a different meaning in the UK vs. USA. There's the classic line from "The Office" about it ("over there fanny means your arse. Not your... minge") and I think most folk are pretty aware of the American meaning here these days. I wonder, is it too much to ask that we (as in, the various English speaking places) understand the different meanings of words that are offensive in one dialect but have a different and mundane meaning in another dialect?

globular-toast 5y ago

If nobody ever implemented a rude word filter, nobody would ever need to implement a rude word filter.

raxxorrax 5y ago

Seems like a rude name might give you some privacy advantages in the 21st century. To the price of being excluded by random services maybe. Old math prof of mine was named Dr. Cock, and he wasn't the only one, the name was common. Students called him Dr. Octocock.

st_goliath 5y ago
I have a friend who studied at the University in Linz, way back when. According to him, on the Universities System/370 they used to have an account name scheme where they simply concatenated the first 2 letters of the first name and the first 3 letters of the last name. Aledgedly, the scheme got changed after Professor Arno Schulz (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arno_Schulz https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arno_Schulz) was understandably upset about his account name (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Arsch https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Arsch).

OJFord 5y ago

> We used to call this the "Scunthorpe problem" Fwiw, it's well-known as such, after relatively high-profile incidents involving people with that address: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem

marcus_holmes 5y ago
Is that just well-known in the UK though? I've mentioned this to people outside the UK and only occasionally have they known it.
- skhr0680 5y ago
  I’ve seen it called the clbuttic problem
- OJFord 5y ago
  I'm also in the UK, so I don't really know. I thought/assumed it was fairly well-known among software engineers, HN, etc. (not discounting the day's 'lucky 10,000' of course) but not so much by others, regardless of country. :shrug:
- pjc50 5y ago
  Nobody outside the UK has heard of Scunthorpe because it can't make it through the filters. (There's a ridiculously large list of innuendo place names for tiny villages: https://anglotopia.net/ultimate-list-of-funny-british-place-names/ https://anglotopia.net/ultimate-list-of-funny-british-place-... )
  - marcus_holmes 5y ago
    One of Douglas Adams' lesser-known but still hilarious works: https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/douglas-adams/the-meaning-of-liff/9780752227597 https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/douglas-adams/the-meani...
  - mbg721 5y ago
    Hey now, it's not Bielefeld. In Ohio at least, the word it's concealing is taboo enough that nobody who does know wants to explain to their more-sheltered coworkers why the situation is funny. (Clearly the filter wasn't designed in Australia.)

mcintyre1994 5y ago

Random story I remember my ICT teacher telling us in school along the same lines as Scunthorpe. They installed some nonsense web blocking thing that schools like to have and a lot of teachers complained because it blocked weightwatchers.com

cauliflower99 5y ago
:)

georgyo 5y ago

I only recently learned about Scunthorpe because the username I've been using for 15 years is now affected. Georgyo has orgy right in the name. More and more places are refusing to accept it when signing up.

chrisdengso 5y ago

Haha, I call this the "Clbuttic" problem. But nowadays it can be solved with machine learning fairly easy https://moderationapi.com/blog/moderate-text-automatically-using-zapier-moderation-api/ https://moderationapi.com/blog/moderate-text-automatically-u...

marcus_holmes 5y ago
That's a slightly different problem from the Scunthorpe problem. You have a customer who gives her name as "Fanny Batter". Is that a permissible name? What about "Juan Kerr"? Or "Amanda Huggenkiss"? It's not about replacing "ass" with "butt", but detecting rudeness/humour in context. I'd be amazed if machine learning can solve this one. It's extremely hard for humans. * all those names should be rejected btw
- CRConrad 5y ago
  > * all those names should be rejected btw No they shouldn't.
  - marcus_holmes 5y ago
    If you don't want someone going to the press and creating some "human interest" story about how they got a loyalty card with a stupid name, then your algorithm should at least question them.
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      But perhaps you do want them to do that, or at least don't care if they do. Maybe you think silly jokers is a good demographic to market to this way. And if not, then just tell the press: "They typed in the stupid name, so they got it on their card. How is that our fault? Now go write about some real news in stead of this lazy sensationalism."
xsmasher 5y ago
The clbuttic problem involves replacement; original source is (AFAIK) here: https://thedailywtf.com/articles/The-Clbuttic-Mistake- https://thedailywtf.com/articles/The-Clbuttic-Mistake-