Sometimes I follow the links that WordPress helpfully leaves at the bottom of my wp-admin page on my privately hosted blogs.
Today I did that with regard to a so-called StupidFilter, and got interested in the whole idea.
In short, it would appear that stupid comments are categorizable. The method used to identify them is questionable (of course) but still. It’s an interesting idea.Here’s CNN Money on the subject:
The stupid-filter team is trying to accommodate this behavior with a variety of rules of thumb. For instance, Ortiz, who studied linguistics as an undergrad, recently noticed a pattern in the way some writers use letter repetition. The clueless tend to repeat consonants: “This video is amazinggggg!!!” By comparison, says Ortiz, “when you repeat a vowel, you’re being sarcastic — ‘Yeaaaaaah.’ We’ll be using several different methods to try to mediate this.”The first line of defense is context — using well-established markers of standard English to judge a piece of writing. For instance, if the rest of the sentences in a comment are grammatical, and difficult words are spelled properly — Ortiz mentioned “zucchini,” which I had to look up — the message ought to get by the filter. If the rest of the comment is unintelligible, it will be screened.
Controversial? Yeah. Elitist? Sort of the point. Cool?
You betcha.
