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Disemvoweling

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In the fields of Internet discussion and forum moderation, disemvoweling (also spelled disemvowelling), which appears to model the word disemboweling, is the removal of vowels from text either as a method of self-censorship, or as a technique by forum moderators and newsgroup operators to censor unwanted posting, such as spam, internet trolling, rudeness or criticism, while maintaining some level of transparency.[1][2]. The net effect of disemvoweling text is to render it illegible or legible only through significant cognitive effort, thus suppressing unwanted comments and discouraging such comments from being made in future.

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."[3] Also, Boing Boing producers claim that disemvoweling sends a clear message to internet forums as to what behavior is unacceptable.[4] In an article on the June, 2008 dispute on the deletion of all posts mentioning Violet Blue by Boing Boing, the New York Times was critical of disemvoweling as a moderation tool; noting that it was "Not quite censorship, but not quite unfettered commentary either." [5]

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.

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.[6]

This treatment can be seen as reduction of the Latin alphabet to an abjad through the removal of vowels.[original research?]

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 Commonwealth and Irish English.

Religious usage

Original Hebrew orthography had no vowels. More recently a system of diacritical markings called Niqqud has been added to clarify pronunciation, including the presence of vowels.

A related usage, the spelling of "God" as "G-d", notable in traditional religious Jewish culture, may be of different origins, stemming from a biblical injunction to not erase the name of God once written, but to treat it with reverence.

References

  1. ^ 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.
  2. ^ Cited as a synonym for splat out in Eric S. Raymond's Jargon File v4.3.0, April 30, 2001
  3. ^ Xeni Jardin. "Online Communities Rot Without Daily Tending By Human Hands". The Edge Annual Question 2008. Edge.
  4. ^ Cory Doctorow (14 May, 2007). "How To Keep Hostile Jerks From Taking Over Your Online Community". Information Week. TechWeb Business Technology Network. Retrieved 2007-05-15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. ^ Cohen, Noam Poof! You're Unpublished The New York Times
  6. ^ Scholastic Teaching Resources, Scholastic, Accessed August 09, 2006

Further reading

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