Manuscript (RivenGuild problem)

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This page is written from an OOC point of view. Events and elements surrounding the Myst Universe are regarded as fictional.

Manuscript, m****cript, manuscripting and other such variations as used by fans may, depending on context, be a generic, semi-humorous swear word.

[edit] History

RivenGuild's message boards used an automated word filter for certain bad words, in order to keep the language at a clean, family-friendly level. This filter, however, was set to act even when the term filtered out was part of a different, completely unrelated word.

In the case of manuscript, someone used the word in a perfectly normal setting, only to find out that the filter would modify it to m****cript, blocking out what would have been the letters a-n-u-s, forming the completely unrelated word anus, which was to be blocked. Due to the scope of topics at RivenGuild, it would have been unlikely for someone to legitimately using the word anus and much more likely for someone to use it as a derogatory swear word; therefore it was blocked. Since there are cases where one such word can be combined with others and still be considered "bad", the filter was configured to still act.

Using the term deliberately as a swear therefore ended up becoming a common fan joke, avoiding an actual swear word and only letting other fans know that the use of the word is a swear at all -- to the uninitiated, it would look like a confusing use of the original word (and newbies therefore occasionally ask about the word's actual contextual meaning).

The fan went on far beyond RivenGuild's existence and on discussion boards where no such automatic filter exists to begin with. It is perhaps a good example of how artificial intelligence-based filters cannot be trusted to have accurate results, and how "false positives" (the AI believing it should filter something when it really shouldn't) can happen in very unexpected cases.

The word continues to be filtered by the Cyan Chat server, and results in a 24 hour ban from the server.