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.)

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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.

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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!

[GCSkye]

Would be a nice feature for you to choose a usergroup that always has disemvoweled posts.

[ericgtr]

Originally Posted by magnus

As promised, I made v1.1.1 available which will detect which postbit layout you're using and modify accordingly. Nothing else has changed.

Thank you.

[magnus]

Originally Posted by Hugo Holbling

Thanks, magnus - much appreciated. It works great.

I'll try to figure out how to replace the text (Disemvowel/Revowel) with icons; I suggest the famfamfam font_delete and font_add silk icons would work nicely.

The next release will allow you to choose between text or (user-specified) icons via the AdminCP. If you come across any (public domain) icons you feel would fit nicely with this hack, feel free to post them up.

[magnus]

Originally Posted by GCSkye

Would be a nice feature for you to choose a usergroup that always has disemvoweled posts.

That's not really what this hack was designed for, if you want someones posts to ALWAYS be disemvoweled, you may as well just use Tachy Goes to Coventry. This is meant more to be a surgical strike, rather than a carpet bombing.

[Hugo Holbling]

Originally Posted by magnus

If you come across any (public domain) icons you feel would fit nicely with this hack, feel free to post them up.

I think the famfamfam silk icons attached would do nicely.

[magnus]

Originally Posted by Hugo Holbling

I think the famfamfam silk icons attached would do nicely.

Wow.. yea, those are pretty perfect (and free!) if you ask me. I'll definately be including them in the next release.

Thanks for pointing those out!

[Alien]

Nice work, magnus!

I'll have use for this. Looking forward to the icon update and consider this installed!

[Wings69]

Originally Posted by GCSkye

Would be a nice feature for you to choose a usergroup that always has disemvoweled posts.

I know you said this isn't what you intended the mod to be used for, but I would also just like to second this. I allow my users to "buy" custom titles etc for other users(with vbcredits) for fun, and I'd love to be able to get them to "buy" this for someones posts for x amount of hours

[ericgtr]

Just thought I would throw this out there, might be pretty cool with this mod.. Swedish chef speak https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=134327

[magnus]

As promised, 1.2 is released -- now with ICONS! (thanks Hugo Holbling)

Also included manual instructions for template edits.