Filtering out stupidity ‘a kind of genius’
p2pnet news view | Cool:- “StupidFilter was conceived out of necessity,” say Gabriel Ortiz (right) and Paul Starr.
“Too long have we suffered in silence under the tyranny of idiocy.”
It’s kind of genius, thought p2pnet reader BH in a comment post, quoting Ortiz and Starr as saying, “The solution we’re creating is simple: an open-source filter software that can detect rampant stupidity in written English.”
“Haven’t had a chance to work with it myself,” says BH, “but it looks promising 
“.
I’m not sure if I’m ready to embark on a software censor, no matter how well meant, I said, “But it looks like a story, at the least.”
So I contacted Gabe, asking, “Could you explain how this doesn’t interfere with freedom of speech? And this isn’t a hostile question. I’m genuinely interested in ‘an open-source filter software that can detect rampant stupidity in written English’.”
And I was interested. Genuinely. I’ve been having trying to make people understand p2pnet may not be the place to air their ideas and I was starting to have serious second thoughts about the StupidFilter. 
and, “Freedom of speech doesn’t extend to people having the right to say whatever they like on /my/ website,” said Gabe from Albuquerque in New Mexico, where he’s based.
Exactly.
Then, “We try to keep things as fair as possible in the sense that the filter is completely content-agnostic,” he went on. “So, it’s not looking at WHAT you’re saying, but rather HOW you’re saying it.”
Actually, I’ve been having problems with both. But never mind.
“This has kind of turned into my day job as well,” Gabe told me, continuing
I founded a venture-capital backed company to commercialize the software that we developed to implement the StupidFilter.
We’re currently working on a blog spam filter and some custom classifiers for clients. When I’m not founding companies based on internet memes, I enjoy founding collaborative workspaces for creative professionals.
And curing hams in my garage.
But of course. The two make natural partners.
So how did Gabe get into outing Stupidy?
“It all sort of started as a joke about how it was impossible to make a comment on Youtube SO DUMB that people would realize that you were being ironic, which led to a discussion of how I might be able to block really terrible Youtube comments with a sufficiently advanced regular expression,” he explained, adding:
“So, that turned out to be harder than it seemed and after several abortive attempts and lots of pressure from people all over the world who wanted to see this work, I developed this really, really fast and sophisticated textual classifier that handled the job nicely. We actually even have a provisional patent on it.”
Textual classifier, eh? hmmmmmm
Definitely stay tuned.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
(Cheers, BH )
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February 6th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
what do they define as stupidity? a spelling mistake? a curse word? I’ll be the first here to say shenanigans.
February 6th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
can they make it in cape form so I can wear it in public?
February 6th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
sounds like an interesting software development project.
could lead to good posts being lost though.
as for filter public stupidity, best way I’ve found is to stay home with the TV turned off.
February 6th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
“…founding companies based on internet memes…”
I’m thinking those sites would be completely blocked by StupidFilter. ;-P
February 6th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Hummm Troll Filter…. Nice
February 6th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
I don’t see it working.
It MAY do ok, but it will never be able to identify
nuance and context, which are all factors in determining
the difference between stupidity, and sarcasm, and all
of the grey areas in between.
Only a real live person can do that.
( heh, sometimes a real live person can’t even get it )
I doubt I could comfortably allow a machine to perform that totally on it’s own.
February 6th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
If it DID work flawlessly tho, it truly WOULD be a work of genius.
Beyond a doubt.
February 6th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
This “stupidity filter” is snake oil to forums such as this, just as DRM is to Big Media.
There’s no computer on earth yet invented that has thinking capacity even remotely like a human that can figure this stuff out. Heck, troll and/or stupid/whatever posts are often too ambiguous and subtle to pick them up reliably even with a human, let alone the primitive computers we have today.
Don’t be a stupid dumbass by falling for it.
February 6th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
I tend to agree DRM,
But, if it’s distributed FOSS, it would be worth playing with.
I certainly would NOT pay for it without FULL play first.
Who knows, anything is possible.
People used to be certain the earth was flat too.
February 7th, 2009 at 6:59 am
“But, if itâs distributed FOSS, it would be worth playing with.
I certainly would NOT pay for it without FULL play first.”
Indeed, there would be no harm in playing with a free product, but they don’t so anything about that on the website. The design of that website also doesn’t inspire confidence, really.
Oh and the earth is flat my friend. Give me some money and I’ll prove it to you! lol