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Forum Quick Questions

Craig said:
Please see the changes we’ve had to make due to the Online Safety Act in the dedicated topic. Unfortunately image uploads is one of the things we’ve been forced to disable:
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Unfortunately, thanks to the Online Censor Safety Bill, Imgur has withdrawn from the UK, so any links where you have uploaded images on this site now do not work.

www.bbc.co.uk

Imgur blocks access to UK users after proposed regulatory fine

The image-hosting platform - which is widely used to make memes - was facing a fine over its use of children's data.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk
 
Wasn't sure where to put this, but when people use Google Drive to link photos, it doesn't display the access form fully and I can't see the confirm button, so I can't access the media.

image.png
 
Skyscraper said:
Wasn't sure where to put this, but when people use Google Drive to link photos, it doesn't display the access form fully and I can't see the confirm button, so I can't access the media.

image.png
Click to expand...

This isn’t a forum issue, but a problem with the poster’s permissions on their Google Drive. As explained in the embed, there’s no public access enabled.

I’ve removed the post pending the member reposting with an alternative host or using correct permissions on their Google Drive account. As this is an issue with a single post, we only need the report that you made rather than a post in here for them in future :).
 
Can someone help me understand how to embed images in posts that are hosted on imgbb or a similar site?

If I paste in the image URL I just get a small thumbnail like this:

ibb.co

IMG-20250926-115539 hosted at ImgBB

Image IMG-20250926-115539 in the Nuttysquirrel's images album
ibb.co ibb.co

Is there no way to display it as a larger image without all the link text?
 
NuttySquirrel said:
Can someone help me understand how to embed images in posts that are hosted on imgbb or a similar site?

If I paste in the image URL I just get a small thumbnail like this:

ibb.co

IMG-20250926-115539 hosted at ImgBB

Image IMG-20250926-115539 in the Nuttysquirrel's images album
ibb.co ibb.co

Is there no way to display it as a larger image without all the link text?
Click to expand...
Once you've uploaded an image to imgbb you will see a drop down menu for "Embed codes". Change it to "BBCode full linked", copy the text, paste it to here into the body of your post (no need to worry about the image icon in the editor) and voilà!

Screenshot-20251007-201349.png

Screenshot-20251007-201637.png
 
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Who decides what words are offensive? The word behind the asterisks below I would not even consider a swear. I've heard worse in a PG film 😂

In fact the asterisks make it look like I used an actual swear word.

Alsty said:
Getting sick of all this AI slop now.

Flicking through Instagram and instead of funny videos, you find synthesised **** instead. Even worse is now when I find a funny video I question if it's even real rather than enjoy
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Alsty said:
Who decides what words are offensive? The word behind the asterisks below I would not even consider a swear. I've heard worse in a PG film 😂

In fact the asterisks make it look like I used an actual swear word.
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It’s an extensive list which was imported from elsewhere. The problem we have is the word is considered fine for some people in one context, but in another it can be inappropriate. It’s not possible for the word filter to determine context, so we have to err on the side of caution.

As I’ve said before I know the word censor isn’t liked. But it’s either a case of have we have it, or to put it bluntly - we have no forum. The word filter will trigger even when previewing a post, so I’d encourage people to do so prior to hitting reply. You can then pickup any of the censored words prior to submitting your post and make changes where necessary. I know it’s not ideal, but I think there’s more than enough alternative words that could be used instead to avoid the censor triggering.
 
But I'm one of those who just isn't clever enough to know proper alternative words.

That's what Mrs Hacking said in O level English half a century ago.
 
The thing I don't get though... kids can log in to social media and you'll find much worse language used. There is no consistency with how the OSA is applied.

Is it actually a requirement to block profanity? I don't see any mention of that in the guidance.
 
Alsty said:
The thing I don't get though... kids can log in to social media and you'll find much worse language used. There is no consistency with how the OSA is applied.

Is it actually a requirement to block profanity? I don't see any mention of that in the guidance.
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Yup, you’re right in saying there’s nothing that specifically points out “you must block swear words”. But what it does say is that we’re responsible for stopping children from seeing content that could be inappropriate or harmful, and swearing falls under that. The swear filter is basically the easiest and lowest cost way for us to do that versus full time moderators or forking out for AI tools.

When we implemented the OSA changes, we classified the forum as PG in our risk assessments. One of the main reasons for this is that it keeps everything less admin heavy behind the scenes. If we removed or overly watered down the filter, we’d have to reclassify the forum as a general adult audience, meaning a fair bit of additional work. We’d have to have (even longer!) risk assessments, more manual checks and more reports to document and deal with. It’s not really a realistic option with a volunteer only team.

As mentioned in my last post, there’s the context side of swearing too. If it’s used in a way that tips into bullying, harassment or psychological harm, that’s something that does fall under our responsibilities under the OSA. Having a swear filter prevents a chunk of those sorts of issues at source.

I wholly agree on social media being much worse and there’s definitely massive inconsistencies with how it’s all applied at the moment. The difference is that they have huge resources like paid moderation teams, automated tools and of course entire legal teams if OFCOM come knocking - something we’re not lucky enough to have. Ultimately, myself and Sazzle are responsible for what gets posted on TowersStreet. We’ve got normal jobs and lives outside of all this, so we’ve got to make decisions that keep the risk to us low and manageable as possible. Having the swear filter (as overzealous as it can be!) is one of the tools that contributes to doing that as easily as possible.
 
But you couldn't do a proper rant, on here, though, could you.
Not without a bit of cussing.

I was voted the student teacher most likely to say "ladies front bottom" (or something similar) in the classroom, and I'm proud to say I never did.

As one of the very potty mouths on here, I am happy to tolerate, and remain grateful for all the hard work the nice people do to keep it running.
 
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