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Web Censors Prompt College To Consider Name Change
babbage writes: "The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Beaver College is considering a name change. The president of the formerly all-girls college commented that she worries about derogatory remarks and jokes." And now she has Web censorship to deal with, too.
While insults and jokes have been around a long time (as has the word "beaver" as sexual slang), Web-filtering software has not. And some Web filters, which are by necessity based on logic not suited to all situations, block the college's Web site and e-mail. Check out the Inquirer article.
On that note, while at mardi gras a couple years back I saw a street barrier which had been defaced so it said N.O. P.D. -- All Warez. I have to admit, I was amused.
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Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the Philadelphia Inquirer is the major Philadelphia newspaper. It's real. It does *NOT* have articles regarding the end of the world, elvis, or how to lose 30 pounds in 30 minutes.
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First, why is Slashdot linking to the Inquirer? I know it's gotten bad here, but... Oh well, there's always the Weekly World News, right?
Second, what web filter would look for "Beaver" as a word to block? What about all the legitimate "Beaver" sites out there about little furry creatures who like to "get wood" and chew on it?
Feel free to change the name of your college; it's a dumb name. However, think about your reasons.
What could be stupider than letting a word-matching computer with the brains of a spell-checker on prozac decide what content you allow yourself and others to see?
That's about as smart as reading all your text files with 'grep -v [blahblahblah]'!
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Those are the kinds of wackos that will be deciding what kids get to see on the net?! Methinks we're quite screwed if this stuff becomes too widespread.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
My personal favorite (especially since I have gone around it many times) is Detour, MD
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
Maybe is people were willing to do more research than just look at the fancy graphics in choosing a college, this would not be such a severe problem.
Except, of course, that the research probably won't even include Beaver College as a possibility unless you have the Web. I'm willing to bet that 99.9% of Californians don't know anything about Beaver College (except maybe the name) and also don't know any alumni from the school. So how would one determine if one even wanted to bother to call up the college to send some literature?
What the Web does is put all those thousands of college brouchures on the web, which makes starting with a larger pool of possibilities easier. Otherwise, you're stuck investigating a handful of schools with national reputations and a handful of schools geographically close enough for you to have heard of them, instead of finding the small college on the other side of the country that fits your needs perfectly.
Steven E. Ehrbar
Try New Orleans -- their police cars, barriers, etc are all labeled:
N.O. {logo here} P.D.
Lea
is that with talk about sexual matters still taboo in many places, people have always resorted to 'double talk', suggestive language and innuendo, speaking 'martian' etc - you catch my drift? I heard That! Often it's not what you say but how you say it. So even the phrase 'hard disk' can have an obscene meaning if it's used with a wink and a nudge, say no more, say no more. All filters can do, at best, even with a huge ammount of sociological research going on every day to keep up with latest language trends in the singles and bar scene, etc. is just block trendy words that have taken on another subtle meaning to those 'in the know', and damn those who are stuck with a domain name in the older sense of the word. I might have a very happy web site for children who have a 'gay' old time like the Flintstones, and then suddenly I'm being blocked because some censorware has decided that ANYTHING with that term in it is inappropriate and offensive, and there goes my click-thru rate and ad revenue.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
dude, "pair" of beavers?
;)
Mebbe you guys down think that beaver means
something different than what Canadians mean. We
do have alot of beaver here so we knows what we
talks about.
(note the plural is the same as the singular. *AHEM*)
Math.
I would hope that they keep the name and not cave in to the drooling segment of society that considers "Beavis & Butthead" to be high art.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Perhaps we can use a situation like this to eventually get sites filtered.
Just start using common web names in derogatory ways.
"First he told me to lick his msn hole and then he unzipped his fly and started waving his amazon around. Next thing you know he'll be trying to have sex with mpaa's."
Hey, it's a thought...
Educational sig-line: Choose rhymes with lose. Chose rhymes with goes. Loose rhymes with goose.
Edu. sig-line: Choose rhymes with lose. Chose rhymes with goes. Loose rhymes with goose.
Comparing? THEN use THAN.
Seriously though, can you imagine how much money and manhours it will cost to change the name of a college?
Not as much as you might think. Things like viewbooks get reprinted every year anyway, and letterhead, business cards, envelopes, etc. are all consumable supplies.
My alma mater (Albertson College of Idaho) changed its name from The College of Idaho my senior year there -- and expense wasn't really a consideration (given the amount Joe Albertson had donated to the institution in the sixty years since he attended, the cost of the unilateral decision to change the name to honor him was trivial). The bigger issues were tradition (a big deal at small privated colleges, it had been "The College of Idaho" since its inception, back when Caldwell was still called "Bugtown") and development (would naming the instituion after Albertson discourage other donors? It appears the answer to that has been an overwhelming "no."). If anything, it (the name change) has been a boon, since it has effectively eliminated confusion regarding whether or not it is a public institution (no) and which school it actually is (people often confused it with the University of Idaho, in Moscow, where I went to grad school).
They will have to buy and design new uniforms for all athletics and everything else that contains the Beaver logo.
Though I couldn't find it on their website, I sincerely suspect their mascot isn't the "Beaver Beavers" -- if anything, it appears from the design that they are the "Beaver Gargoyles", which is in-and-of-itself more-than-mildly suggestive! Once again, though, I'd like to point out that schools typically change athletic uniforms every couple years anyway, as a minimum.
This is my opinion and my opinion only. Incidentally, IANAL.
MOO;IANAL.
There used to be a picture linked here.
"The problem is, they're changing their name to the College of Bearded Clams."
My favorite? Jersey Shore, right there in the middle of the state....
Then again, they DO have a point -- Beaver all girls school is just too easy a joke. I don't think I could say it with a straight face.
_________________
rooooar
I grew up attending Hempfield Area Senior High School, although interestingly, kids never seemed to make fun of that name.
Sorry, but it seems silly to rename a school simply because people might make fun of it. Can you imagine everyone named Dick or Randy deciding to have their names changed? If all the Dicks in the world can live with it, then I think a college can certainly live with it.
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
People who don't make an effort at choosing a college generally go to one they've already heard of, usually a nearby school (of all the graduates from a given HS that attend college, it's not unusual for 90% of those attend the same college (or one of 2-3 colleges)) .
However, if I were shopping for a college, I would give their website a thorough look, since you can see a lot of really great stuff: course materials, office hours, reading lists, etc.
And I would be very leary of a school that appered to have no web page (but for a CS school that would be pretty sad).
But I doubt that there are many good schools that can't find enough qualified students each year. They just like to have lots of applications because:
1) With more apps to choose from, they might get 'better' students.
2) One common measure of a schools worth (I said common, not fair or accurate) is how many applicatins they get per open slot.
3) They get 30-50 bucks per undergad application , 50-100 for grad and up to 200 per app for med school! KA-CHING!
- bridgette
A couple of years ago many filters blocked pages with reference to the town of Scunthorpe (due to substring at index 1-4). I don't know why the software couldn't check for spaces around the blocked words, but Scunthorpe council got quite annoyed. They complained to one of the firms producing the software and the reply was that they ought to change the name of the town to Sconthorpe. Caused quite a stir...
You think edus don't have porn? Edus probably host the largest concentration of teenage males with web sites on the net. Beware *.dorm.college.edu
Ryan
I found it hard to believe at the time that a site would be banned simply for having the letters s-e-x WITHIN a word. But these days, nothing surprises me when it comes to these filters.
I told them that these things have really stupid rules for determing which sites to block and the only thing they really could do is change the name of their college since attempting to find every version of filter software out there and getting their site unblocked would be time consuming and probably futile.
Sigh...
You think edus don't have porn? Edus probably host the largest concentration of teenage males with web sites on the net. Beware *.dorm.college.edu
.edus?
First, this is irrelevent since the issue was about TLDs not porn. Why should beaver have stricter blocking applied to it then the rest of the
Second, I doubt that the censorware blocks much of the dorm room stuff.
BTW> I really hope Beaver Collage dose not let the censorware make them change their name. Collages should take a stand against this kind of shit.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Needless to say, during the conversion, there was much ado made of the change.
Such stupid behavior for an alleged institute of higher learning....
www.eFax.com are spammers
Since potential students can't reach their website, what would keep them from filing a civil law suit against the censoring companies?
Have you ever been to New York and listened to the working-class locals? We already have one!
.sig: Now legally binding!
I go to Penn State, and I live in Beaver Hall, which isn't that far from Beaver Stadium, and East Beaver Avenue. Everyone makes fun of me when I tell them I live in Beaver Hall, oh well, I don't care (and I am not kidding either)....
I don't really see a particularily good point in changing the name. I don't think they should accomodate some crappy censoring program, it should be the other way around, that is what is wrong with censorware.
Ben
Must be some Amercian Colloquialism.
What?
I'm British, and have never been to the US, and beaver has been acceptable slang for female genitalia for as long as I can remember.
The problem with names is that any name, no matter how well intentioned, will be made fun of, eventually. Especially if people want to.
Ever been in a group of people where someone decides that it is fun to find and make fun of the sexual connotation in whatever anyone else says? Ever notice how s/he is able to do this with virtually every sententence? It will always be true.
Even if, at the extreme, a mascot or team was replaced with something so arbitrary as a number, people would find ways to make fun of it. 69, anyone?
My point is that unless the name or mascot is offensive and dated, like the Cleveland Indians Chief Wahoo, it should not be changed, as whatever new thing that is created will be at least as easy, if not easier than what was there before. And some filters block the term "beaver"? It makes the blocking of "soccer" seem almost... not completely insane?
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Not what you think, though.
EAGER BEAVER COMPUTERS
SERVING SPOKANE SINCE 1989 Hee hee.--
We have fought the AC's, and they have won.
I think the school ought to sue the software companies whose software filters them out. :-)
"Open code, in other words, can be a check on state power." -Lawrence Lessig
Everyone's friend Jon Katz notwithstanding, maybe this is a sign that the Internet is not always a liberating force. I suspect that the name calling hasn't changed much in a long time, but the _neccessity_ of a high-visibility web site in the college admissions business is certainly a recent development. Maybe is people were willing to do more research than just look at the fancy graphics in choosing a college, this would not be such a severe problem. (Maybe that's a little harsh)
Aside from that, blocking an entire domain that is obviously legitamate is just so ludicrous that it suggests that the people writing this software simply have no intelligence, in addition to not having a clue. Unbelieveable. (shakes head)
Sam TH
Sam TH
AbiWord Developer
The article itself mentions the problems with filtering software, but that is not the main focus - I mean after all, how many people are really not going to see the college web page because of filtering software?
It does mention numerous non-internet related problems - a 30% less appealing rate to prospective students not because of blocking, but simply because people would be embarassed to say they were going to school there. Even worse (and also part of the problem) - graduates from the school are deciding to not include the name of thier college due to fear of rejection by employers.
They are voting to decide if they want to change the name, so at least the students have a say - perhaps they could change it to "Dam Mammal". I know I wouldn't mind saying I had graduated from "Dam Mammal". If you pronounce it with a French accent it sounds quite distinguished!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
whoa! Nice pair of universities!
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
The actual Inquirer web site is here, and the actual article is here.
-ac
NPR did an interview with one of the "Media Representatives" from Beaver College today, and the sexual connotations of beaver was one of only three reasons that beaver was problematic. The web filtering part is just not that big of a deal; they are more concerned that people associate "beaver" with weak or silly. (One poll they did found that 30 percent of applicants wouldn't even apply because they didn't like or respect the name) Not everything everywhere happens because of the 'Net.
Beaver College
Ball State University (Ball U, BSU for short)
Morehead University (yes please)
The word 'beaver' too often elicits ridicule in the form of derogatory remarks pertaining to the rodent, the TV show Leave It to Beaver and the vulgar reference to the female anatomy," Beaver president Bette E. Landman lamented in a letter sent Feb. 15 to alumni, parents, staff and students.
They have caved in and picked a new name, I guess selling the old domain was worth a lot more than the cost of changing the letterhead. So for school year 2001, it will be officially know as U of Pussy. From rodent to feline. Wow.
Keep the name and put up 20-50 web cams all over campus (and dorms of course). With the ca$h they'll make tuition could be free!
Pennsylvania is known for all it's silly and slightly odd town names. I mean while you're visiting Beaver College drive through Amish country and go to Intercourse, if you run out of gas before you get there, you'll end up in Blue Ball. Oh, and if you're worried about anti-drug web censorship then don't mention that you're from Smoketown or Pottstown.
I hope my point is clear.
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So, next time you see a cute girl walk by, be sure to say to your friends, "I'd like to see the Harvard on that!"
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
First of, there is nothing new in censorware malfunctioning like this. There is nothing new that censorware block sites they shouldn't. Take a look at peacefire.org for lots of examples.
.. and so forth.
.. I *am* my abuse department. When I answered to their complaint that they were being childish, and that they should stop sending *fake* abuse-messages (complaining about SPAM? When I send them opinions and feedback?). The freaking head of solidoak answered that they had sent the case to the "FPI" for investigation (I have a feeling that the nutcase have some problems with writing "fbi" or something ;)
beaver.com should pursue every maker of censorware that blocks their pages. They block legitimate pages, legitimate universities
Furthermore, I read that the inquerier article "promoted" cybersitter from solid oak software. Well, take a look at the aforementioned peacefire site. Solid Oak software don't want criticism. They block every page that critizises their software. Like www.spectacle.org which has delivered quite a lot of criticism.
Not to mention. I wrote to solid oak once, and told them my opinion about them blocking peacefire, and that I would NOT buy any form of product from them, as long as they had that kind of attitude. You know what the jerks did? Heck, they mailed my abuse@department. The funny thing is
Ohwell. Enough ranting.
--
"Rune Kristian Viken" - arcade@kvine-nospam.sdal.com - arcade@efnet
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
Between this and the LophtCrack article, it is getting rediculous. Everytime there is a mention of something that could be connected to something the "hacker community" doesn't like, we get a yellow journalistic story.
Beaver College is considering changing it's name because alumni are being discredited and recruiting is hurt because of it. That is a SERIOUS problem for a institution of higher learning. The web filtering stuff was kinda a flippant icing on the cake, yet the story here would appear that it is a major part of the story.
The Lopht crack story involved someone charged with using it for committing computer crimes, and one of the minor charges was possession of burglary equipment. That is kinda like charging a double homicide defendent with 2 charges of murder, 2 charges of assault with a deadly weapon, and one charge of illegal possession. Clearly the murder and assault w/ a deadly weapon are the REAL charges, but the minor one is throw in.
Can the "editors" please READ the articles? If it is real, consider it, if it is yellow press by someone more concerned with getting a story line on slashdot than reporting really news, kill the story. This discredits slashdot, and is kinda silly, because a lot of the posts are people like me complaining.