Moderators Functions - Disemvowelr? - A new passive-aggressive form of moderation..

Keywords: Disemvowel, Devowel, Revowel

Description:
Where to start? Basically, this modification will allow you (the moderator) to strip a post of it's vowels (ie. "disemvowel" -- get it? See what I did there? Oh yes..) Why would you want to do this? Well, I can think of a multitude of reasons.. none of them relevant, but I digress. Disemvoweling has been made e-famous by popular blog sites such as BoingBoing and Gizmodo.


Details:
So, what is disemvoweling exactly?

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

In the fields of Internet discussion and forum moderation, disemvoweling is a technique used to censor unwanted postings such as spam, internet trolling, rudeness or criticism and yet maintain some transparency, both of the act and the underlying word. Disemvoweling (also spelled disemvowelling) appears to model the word "disemboweling" and involves removing vowels from questionable text, either as a form of self-censorship or as a technique used by forum moderators and newsgroup operators. The net effect of disemvoweling text is illegibility or legibility only through significant cognitive effort; thus the technique helps to suppress unwanted comments.

Neat idea, huh? Yea.. I thought so, too.. and here we are!

Cliff-Notes (y'know, for the slow..):
This mod will turn this:

This site sucks, you (and your dog) suck too. I'm going to go eat paper, bye!

... into this!:

Ths st scks, y (nd yr dg) sck t. 'm gng t g t ppr by!

(FYI, if you need pictures.. I attached those too.)

[hr]-[/hr]
Installation:

1. Download and unzip the attached archive.
2. Upload included files to their respective directories.
3. Import product-disemvowelr.xml via the Product Manager.
4. ???
5. Profit!

Notes:
All template edits are done automagically for you. However, if you'd like to do them yourself in an alternate location, color, whatever -- simply disable the auto-template editor plugin via the Plugin Manager.

[hr]-[/hr]
Comments:
As with all my hacks, this modification is provided free of charge. However, if you find this product useful and have money burning a hole in your pocket, feel free to make a small donation, I won't mind.. really.

Version History:

• 1.0 - Initial release, here's to hoping..
• 1.1 - Added a FAQ entry as to what disemvoweling is and linked to it from within the disemvoweled post.
• 1.1.1 - Added auto-template support for postbit_legacy
• 1.2 - Icons! Yay! Also included instructions for manual template edits (see README.TXT)
• 1.3 - Fixed a problem when disemvoweling a post with quotes (or possibly any BBCODE). Now the post is stripped of BBCODES before disemvoweled. No more broken quote tags.

* Please note that this modification was developed on a forum with a userbase of 1 (myself). I've tested it for basic functionality but I cannot guarantee functionality or behavior on your forum. So, please -- make backups before installing this product!

[magnus]

Originally Posted by sheep92032

I don't think spammers care whether you shame them. All you're doing it allowing your forum to be flooded out. Google 'WoW forum' if you want to see what your forum will look like if you let it happen.

Ideally, this would be used for troublesome posts (ie. flamebaiting, off-topic, etc.) Think of it more of a "pre-warning" before and official infraction is given.

[Digital Jedi]

Originally Posted by sheep92032

I don't think spammers care whether you shame them. All you're doing it allowing your forum to be flooded out. Google 'WoW forum' if you want to see what your forum will look like if you let it happen.

It's not a spam tool, it's a troublesome user tool.

I won't be using this because, well, I chased all the jokers out of my forum. But I must say, it's funny. If I ever start getting trouble again, I'm definitely installing this and Miserable Users.

[1Unreal]

Wonderful idea. Installed

[biome.pat]

Hmmm any way that disemvowelr could be made to ignore text between QUOTE and IMG tags? Maybe not quotes (as I'm sure people would figure out a workaround and just quote their whole post), but ignoring IMG tags would be useful... This might be complicated though...

I'll update if I figure anything out!

[biome.pat]

Ugh... I've got nuthin... Drats.

I'm sure it involves preg_match, but I can't wrap my mind around it right now...

PHP Code:

if($this->post['disemvowel']) 
{ 
    $this->post['pagetext'] = preg_replace('/[[\/\!]*?[^\[\]]*?]/si', '', $this->post['pagetext']); 

    $this->post['pagetext'] = preg_replace('/[aeiou]/i', '', $this->post['pagetext']); 

    $this->post['title'] = preg_replace('/[aeiou]/i', '', $this->post['title']); 

    $this->post['message'] = $this->bbcode_parser->parse($this->post['pagetext'], $this->forum['forumid'], $this->post['allowsmilie']); 
} 


[barcena]

I have doubts:

Does this mod takes the vowels by itself or do the admin has to disemvowel-whatever the post?, I guest the Admin or Mod has to do it. I find this hilarious and I'm so having it, but since my site is in Spanish I don't know if it will work, guess so if I, as Admin, take the vowels out, but aside from the hilarious part it takes more time than delete or edit the post, right?.

[imedic]

@barcena - If you set the rights for a group to use it you just click a link to devowel and same to restore. Easy to use and very effective for a visible warning.

I found a possible bug (or is just on my forum).
If you reply to a thread with a disvoweled post, below you can see the post in clear.
I guess it should not be like this as it beats the purpose of having the mod.

[J105C]

WOW, what an awesome idea!

[ctbo]

Originally Posted by magnus

Absolutely, everything is template based. Just remove/comment out the portion of the auto-template edit plugin that adds it.

There seems to be two sections in the .xml that look like they are adding the message (from laymans view) could you confirm exacty what section(s) should be removed to take away the message.

Thanks

[gmerin]

Cute. This should cause about as much frustration as the Miserable Users mod. Thanks.