The word list

Moderation matches on a list of words and short phrases. You start with a built-in list and change it to suit your audience.

The built-in list is English

It covers racial and identity slurs, sexual harassment, ableist slurs, telling someone to hurt themselves, and common scams. Every word in it is English, so if your audience comments in another language, adding your own words is the part that will do the real work for you. That is why the box for your own words sits above the built-in list on the page.

Ordinary swearing is deliberately not included. Plenty of enthusiastic comments contain a swear word, and hiding those would punish people who are on your side.

Adding your own words

Type a word or a short phrase and add it. It takes effect on the next comment that arrives. Add the words you actually receive, in whatever language you receive them.

Removing built-in words

Any built-in word can be switched off, and it stays off. This matters when a word is ordinary in your line of work and offensive elsewhere. If we add new words to the built-in list later, you get those automatically, but anything you switched off stays off.

How matching works

Matching is on whole words, not fragments. This is what stops a filter hiding half your comments by accident.

• A word only matches as a word. Adding ass will not hide a comment that says "class" or "passion".
• Capital letters do not matter.
• Common ways of dodging a filter are caught: repeated letters, numbers standing in for letters, and a word spaced or punctuated out one letter at a time.
• Accents are ignored, so an accented spelling still matches.

Phrases

A phrase matches when those words appear together in that order. It will not fire on the individual words apart from each other.

Choosing what to add

Add words that are almost always an attack. A word that is sometimes rude and sometimes ordinary will hide comments you wanted to keep, and you will not be told when that happens - the comment simply stops being visible to your audience. When in doubt, leave it out and see what actually arrives.