Disemvoweling
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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.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden developed the technique in 2002 for internet forum moderation on her blog Making Light. It was implemented in 2007 on the blog Boing Boing when she joined as community manager. [1][2][3] Regarding the use of disemvoweling to police internet blog comment sections, Xeni Jardin, co-editor of Boing Boing, says of the practice, "the dialogue stays, but the misanthrope looks ridiculous, and the emotional sting is neutralized."[4] Also, Boing Boing producers claim that disemvoweling sends a clear message to internet forums as to types of behavior that are unacceptable.[5] Gawker Media sites adopted disemvowelling as a moderation tool in August 2008, further popularizing its use. [6]
In July 2008, New York Times reporter Noam Cohen criticized disemvoweling as a moderation tool, citing a June 2008 dispute about the deletion of all posts on Boing Boing that mentioned sex columnist Violet Blue. In the Boing Boing comment threads resulting from this controversy, Teresa Nielsen Hayden used the disemvoweling technique. Cohen noted that disemvoweling was "Not quite censorship, but not quite unfettered commentary either."[7] A subsequent unsigned case study on online crisis communication asserted that "removing the vowels from participants’ comments only increased the gulf between the editors and the community" during the controversy.[8]
On October 30, 2008, Time magazine listed disemvoweling as #42 of their "Top 50 Inventions of 2008,"[9] despite its having been developed six years earlier. The Time article made no mention of Teresa Nielsen Hayden or Boing Boing.
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[edit] Example
This original sentence:
In the fields of Internet discussion and forum moderation, disemvoweling (also spelled disemvowelling) is the removal of vowels from text.
would be disemvowelled to look like this:
n th flds f ntrnt dscssn nd frm mdrtn, dsmvwlng (ls splld dsmvwllng) s th rmvl f vwls frm txt.
[edit] Technique
The technique has been facilitated by plug-in filters to automate the process. Because the letter y is sometimes a vowel and sometimes a consonant, there are a variety of ways to treat it. To remove it only where it is used as a vowel is not easily automated. Aside from an "all-or-nothing" approach, one option is remove a y only at the end of words, where it is virtually always a vowel.[10]
The word follows the standard patterns of English orthography; i.e., it may be spelled either disemvoweling or disemvowelling, with the former generally preferred in U.S. English and the latter preferred in British, Commonwealth and Irish English.
[edit] References
- ^ Used as a forum moderation method as early as November 21, 2002 by Teresa Nielsen Hayden on Making Light. This was termed "disemvoweling" by Arthur D. Hlavaty in that thread, later the same day.
- ^ Hayden joined Boing Boing in November 2007 and implemented disemvowelling as a tool to manage the blog's newly relaunched user discussion threads Boing Boing
- ^ Cited as a synonym for splat out in Eric S. Raymond's Jargon File v4.3.0, April 30, 2001
- ^ Xeni Jardin. "Online Communities Rot Without Daily Tending By Human Hands". The Edge Annual Question 2008. Edge. http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_index.html#jardin.
- ^ Cory Doctorow (14 May 2007). "How To Keep Hostile Jerks From Taking Over Your Online Community". Information Week. TechWeb Business Technology Network. http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=199600005. Retrieved on 2007-05-15.
- ^ [1]
- ^ Cohen, Noam Poof! You're Unpublished The New York Times
- ^ "Online Crisis Communications: Your First Statement Is Crucial". PR News Online. July 21, 2008. http://www.prnewsonline.com/digitalpr/casestudies/dpr11933.html. Retrieved on 2008-11-04.
- ^ "42. Disemvoweling - 50 Best Inventions 2008". Time. October 30, 2008. http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1852747_1854195_1854185,00.html. Retrieved on 2008-10-30.
- ^ Scholastic Teaching Resources, Scholastic, Accessed August 09, 2006
[edit] Further reading
- Double-tongued Word Wrester by Grant Barrett
- Jargon File by Eric Raymond
- shrpshr.pl A Movable Type plug-in, written by Bryant Durrell, which removes the vowels from all comments coming from a specific IP address or addresses.
- disemvowel.tar.gz Another Movable Type plug-in, written by Thomas Hassan, which lets the moderator disemvowel specific individual comments.
- Plugins/Disemvoweler by WordPress
- NP_CommentBuddy a plugin written by Matthew Brown that allows flexible and lossless disemvowelling of posts in Nucleus CMS.
- Making Light - Autodisemvowelling A discussion of Disemvoweling techniques, including the shrpshr.pl plugin, and Thomas Hassan's implementation, both linked above.
- A disemvowelling CGI script
- A 1991 Usenet mention of disemvoweling in a slightly different context (Scrabble set)
- A 1990 Usenet mention, in the moderated group comp.risks, of disemvoweling with a slightly different meaning (vowels replaced by asterisks)
- Cited in SFX magazine column, November 2006
- How To Keep Hostile Jerks From Taking Over Your Online Community by Cory Doctorow at InformationWeek
- Mac/Win/Linux Disemvoweling software
- A re-emvoweler
