On 21 Jul 2015, at 4:46pm, Paul Sanderson <sandersonforensics at gmail.com> wrote:
> The problem seems to be with the web filter and not the abbreviation > cnt. I would suggest that the onus should be on them to adjust their > filter to prevent filtering of an innocuous word (its only > rude/offensive if the u is added). Semantically, you're right. But this is a web filter implemented by one of the big five ISPs here in Britain, set to its second most paranoid setting "Protect the children", and it filters out 'cnt' spelled just like that, replacing it with five asterisks. The ISP has millions of customers and isn't going to change its filtering policy just because one user complained. The student lives with their parents and has a younger sibling, and the father won't change the setting for his ISP customer profile. I have seen the rude word spelled like that in SMS-chat. You and I understand that if we block one form people will just move on to the next. And I'm sure people who live in Penistone (a town in South Yorkshire) would agree with us. But that's not what the sort of people who use web-blockers think. It seems an easy enough change and I thought it might be helpful to point it out. No big problem if nothing is done about it, it's just one of my students out of many, and he can use the computers in the lab when he wants. Simon.
