Disemvoweling works extremely well if you have the idiot's post appear normal to themselves, but to everyone else it's disemvowled.

I like to imagine idiots posting and thinking "Where's the outrage!!!??!? Where are the people telling me how stupid I am?!?!?!?"

Rjak

i just read it was only for one post. nvm.

dafthero

>You read a Scroll of Identify.
>Select an object.
>The scroll vanishes! The sharp weapon was really a blessed straight razor +5 of disemvoweling!

ZinkO: Look Into His Eyes

@LittleBigPlaneteer: My mind is more blown by the fact that his name isn't Kenji Ito too. I was convinced for weeks that by some miracle of god, Spoony Bard and Witzbold had the same name.

@The Whaleman: I like this one better:

+ Watch video

Ad-hominem

I remember when Mr. Burns did this on a episode of the Simpsons where he made lenny explain why he should not be fired from his job but he could not use the letter E. LOL good times.

MURDERFACE

Have you ever heard of the Stupid Filter? Its pretty interesting. I've run a few of my posts through it just for shits and giggles and found that some of them were likely stupid. Its fun, check it out here:

[stupidfilter.org]

Obviously it would be a back end type of thing for finding which comments should be marked.

Ptolemy

@zebber: well, here's where i'm not sure it's the best thing. what if these people get the hint? is anyone going to bother reading a disemvoweled post? that's a form of censorship rather than a mark of shame.

dafthero

@Pentex: It's just a rule of English words, I guess. You need vowels in every word to figure out how to pronounce it. Unless the word is "shh".

Cygnoid

@bunch.of.wackos: lmfao Disemvoweling = quickly see the comment is not worth reading.

Seeing a comment made of numbers tells the same thing. It's not worth reading.

@Ehardergardens: Same answer. You shouldn't want to read a disemvoweled comment, don't bother. Go right passed it.

::waits for lunch hour to begin::

karasu is my homeboy

@LittleBigPlaneteer: @Does Not Equal: I had no idea.

tslothrop

You look like if Sweeney Todd & Jack Sparrow had a kid.

VakeroRokero

Might I suggest the Witzbold answer to everything?

[jp]

+ Watch video

;D

Witzbold

@The Whaleman:

Also, I'm going by Swedish standards where y is nothing but a vowel. No fake consonant operations and face lifts there.

The Whaleman

At crap, I just had a vowel movement in my pants.

BloggyMcBlogBlog

It's singalong time!

Here comes the razors edge
You're living on the edge
Don't know wrong from right
They're breathing down your neck
You're running out of lives

*bounces around like Angus Young to the music*

Of course... the disemvoweled version loses the rhythm...

Hr cms th rzrs dg
'r lvng n th dg
Dn't knw wrng frm rght
Th'r brthng dwn r nck
'r rnnng t f lvs

The Whaleman

@Cygnoid: Hmm, i get the picture. But why (hah!) can't they be considered words with no vowels?

Pentex

wh4t 1s t0 st0p a tr0ll fr0m ch4ng1ng 4ll b0w3lls f0r Numb3rs (3x3pt th3 U ... th3r3s n0 numb3r f0r U)

bunch.of.wackos

This talk of Y reminds me of that clip fro, Family guy.

KEITH1437

@Arttemis: Erm, typo.

"[...] while simultaneously removing the user's ability to comment*!"

Arttemis

@tslothrop: It's entirely possible that Spoony Bard's real name (you know, the one he uses when not online, like that's real life) is Shiraz.

@reekon: I was wondering that as well. Is "disemvoweling" a status that affects all of one's comments, or is it comment-specific? And will the offender be notified, or is it a surprise he'll see when checking his past-comment page?

Does Not Equal

Are we gonna have some serious desenvowelers turning desenvoweled people into tasty treats?

Ashurahori

I've already seen one post disemvoweled. It's kind of fun trying to figure out what people wrote.

I think it's a better solution than the alternate star. I think if there were some kind of dunce hat icon, the trolls would wear it as some fucked up badge of honor.

Silent Predator

I am loving this idea. And disemvoweling just sounds awesome. With a straight-razor none the less.

Amazing concept. Well exectuted. Nicely done.

0rin

@LittleBigPlaneteer: Mind blown indeed.

chuffhoncho

@LittleBigPlaneteer:

Sort of like Bisexuals

LittleBigPlaneteer

It would be nice if there was a symbol like the star (maybe a silhouette of a strait edge razor) next to the post that was dissemvoweled. That way I could just skip over posts that were input with no vowels.

I do want to read posts that are near ban territory, as I tend to get off topic. Would help me calibrate.

Overall, great idea, but we need a way to deter fake vowel removal. which will become a new internet trend like annoyingly spelling words teh and zomg etc. until they are unreadable.

Minigote

@okenny :( ... not sure what to believe in anymore: lmfao you are so amusingly odd.

Don't change! I'm sure you're fine. The offendors are the type of people who will post "lol rrod coming!" or "uh people actually buy ps3s? no games!" no matter what the topic is at hand.

karasu is my homeboy

HA! My insightful comments of "wwwwww!" will remain untouched!

skrame ☆

@Pentex:

It's all bullshit. Y is just a greedy bastard who can't decide whether its a consonant or vowel.

LittleBigPlaneteer

@Pentex: "Try" is an example.

Cygnoid

I'd also like to see a ban hammer with a serrated edge! All previous comments could become disemvoweled, while simultaneously removing the user's ability revoked!

The Switchhammer! or the Sledgeblade.

Arttemis

@tslothrop:

This may be shocking. But Spoony Bard wasn't born as Spoony Bard. Shocking I know! In fact, he had a real name at one time. They called him "Shiraz". This must be blowing your mind!

LittleBigPlaneteer

What's this crap about Y being sometimes a vowel?

Pentex

Finally... an automated tool that can help my posts be shorter.

dv8godd

I think the offending text should simply be replaced with that image.

gblock

@tslothrop: That crossed my mind as well.

CaptainAhab

@Brian Crecente: Btw, will I know that I'm disemvoweled, by using the "Preview comment" option?

reekon

I spotted one of those yesterday and figured I'd just missed the tool up until now. It's brilliant, really, but I hope it doesn't require you guys to actually retype the post yourselves sans vowels.

Does Not Equal

@LanciePants:

Where's the comic relief there?

LittleBigPlaneteer

@Captain_Collide: Disemvoweling is only for a single post. So if I do that to a post, it only effects the one.

Brian Crecente

This is a great idea, there will always be trolls but now voweless :) Hopefully those who overstep the mark a bit put extra thought into comments. Here's hoping for less 4chan in my Kotaku too.

holytramp

Reader contest: write something that becomes WAY dirtier when you take the vowels out.

MeanMF

Little obtuse, couldn't they just change the font/color of the posters text as a warning? If all of a sudden your font is in Comic Sans and neon pink, you know you're skating on thin ice.

LanciePants

Shiraz?

I thought Spoony Bard was the current possessor of the Banhammer. Did I miss something???

tslothrop

@evslin:
Lolz.

Also, think that's a very good idea, kudos Kotaku, Gawker et al.

ChiZ_MacT

@evslin: FRRRRRRRRRDDDDDDDMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.... GHHHHHHHH *ds*

Geomanis

you guys realize, as a gamer, this is going to drive me crazy trying to decrypt what was said, and therefore spend more time on the offending comment(er)??? sigh.. I'll have to build up a tolerance...

Ehardergardens

@KeeganTheBrain: I could see people making user names just for that

Neostorm

Also Brian, does it retro-DMV their previous posts, so one knows if they're legitimately stripped of their AEIOU's?

Captain_Collide

@Brian Crecente: I'm I and others of my kind still allowed to post strange accounts of (cute) animal molestation along with or often insightful and highly valued (by all) ON-TOPIC posts?

okenny :( ... not sure what to believe in anymore

Let me rephrase my last remark:
bt 'm ttrng n th dg f th rzr.

Is that right?

KEITH1437

To be fair, some of the worst posts on Kotaku can survive a disemvowelling with little to no apparent effect on their grammar, spelling or content. It slows down the "lol" brigade a bit, but it'll only take a few posts of "ll 360 RRD" to figure out that trolls can only be permanentyl damaged by fire.

How does the Straight Razor work on the l337 typists? Are they denumbered too?

stoneagedan

Now we can expect an outpouring of people feigning disemvoweled just to troll.

Captain_Collide

ths s a grt wy t gt ppl t lrn t tp wth t vwls

Neostorm

Straight razors, in general, are one of the more terrifying things created by mankind - now that it can cut out vowels along with slicing throats, I'll never get any sleep...

AngryEddy

great. get ready to see a resurrection of 1337sp34k.

nikolaj

@Numerous: I think the disemvowelling serves as your "ban hint". There's enough left to let you know what you said, and the fact it's lying there cut-up and bleeding letters gives you a small idea that you probably shouldn't have said that.

If you're an ass and just repost the dv'd comment, well, frankly, the IQ of the boards is better off without you.

KeeganTheBrain

You should also temporarily strip the vowels out of their usernames.

MeanMF

Do mods get to disemvowel flamebait news posts like this gem?
[kotaku.com]

Cygnoid

I love this idea. So far I have been a good boy or very lucky. Not sure which.

Frst ht wth th hmmr, thn th bld. Ppl r gnn gt hrt.

Don't worry though, we can all still use the words Crypt Rythm and Twyndyllyngs.

furiku

Wow. This is awesome!
I really love this idea.
Of course, I'm going to have to try and make this into a game- How many times can you get disemvowled without getting banned?*

@TheHun: Why not ban? He says right in the post: It's a warning. A lot of the time, there are commenters who go a little overboard, and they say something stupid (or many stupid things) they'll regret the next day. Most of the time, the choice is to ban them or just let them go and keep saying that stupid stuff(which isn't a choice). This way they know they're going too far.

*Note: I don't actually advocate trying to mess with the system in order to get some sort of cheap thrill.

Ad-hominem

At last, my arm is complete! Sweeney Todd love.

Well, it's certainly effective.

urutapu

I bet I'm teetering on the edge of the razor.

KEITH1437

@Brian Crecente:
Y is some kind of weird psuedo vowel that sometimes is one and sometimes isn't. What JustJake is asking is do the disemvowelled get to keep access to this kind of but not quite a vowel?

Odin

Good news to hear. Kotaku has started getting a little insane lately.

liquid_kore

@Numerous: Read the link below.

Brian Crecente

Oh, so that's why I saw a bunch of comments that seemed like gibberish get responded to in fluent ways.

Okay, I should rephrase that.

Oh, so that's why I saw gibberish being responded to by more gibberish.

Also, I have an uncontrollable urge to make that image my desktop wallpaper.

RPharazonius

@TheHun:

Some people do deserve some sort of warning before being outright banned. There's a lot of people who don't know the rules of the Kotaku tower and may say "First!" without knowing that shit doesn't fly here. A warning is better suited for that than a banning.

LittleBigPlaneteer

@Brian Crecente: A E I O U and sometimes Y

JustJake

This has to be one of the most insidious comment regulation tools I've ever seen. Well done to whomever dreamed it up.

@evslin:
@JustJake:

Lol at both of you, well done. :)

doubtful

@karasu is my homeboy: joke-y question*

karasu is my homeboy

LEt us see what happens.

Amazon_Chris

@Brian Crecente: lol I thought it was pretty funny, because Y is a vowel "sometimes." So will you be taking out y or leaving it there was his joey question.

@Brian Crecente: Hopefully. Seeing comments are simple as "lol they'll rrod anyway" on a post about a 360 game is ridiculous.

Now we'll see "ll thll rrd nw"

Ah so excited!

karasu is my homeboy

Can folks be made aware as to why they are venturing into Ban territory?
I've seen people banned who deserved it but also seen folks disappear for reasons I can't figure out.

Numerous

ou ou ae e oe ou o a e oe i yi o a o a ae

Cygnoid

Neat! ^_^ Thanks!

Zaxxon Q Blaque

So is "Disemvoweling" done by staff? If so why not just ban? If not what can I do to disemvowel trolls?

TheHun

Quite creative, and I'm loving the MASOCRECENTE picture

Arelan

@Necrid: ys t ds

XeroKool

This is awesome. Also I thought I had a star because I paid you guys off, but I'll take the whole exceptionally insightful commenter thing. Err..I probably shouldn't have said the above.

Look over there!

*runs*

LittleBigPlaneteer

I must say that I'm a fan of frantic disemvowelment.

CaptainAhab

@JustJake: Yes... what is your response Crecente?

bhive01

@Pr1vate_D0nut: Keep in mind it's also a warning. I'd like to think a combination of the razer and the hammer will keep people on topic and cut down on trolling.

Brian Crecente

@dafthero: Please no. I don't want to see that.

Disemvoweling is a good move, perhaps even one that is suitable for the time being. One worthwhile enhancement could be some indicator of how recently/how many times in the past X days someone has been disemvoweled. That way, we can give people the chance to talk, while also noting that, hey, this guy's been a bad egg before. We should still let him talk, but keep that in mind.

zebber

Excellent idea.

Jayge

t jst lks lk txt tlk tbh

Necrid

@karasu is my homeboy: it's hard to be motivated to post comments when you know it's going to be drowned in a sea of bad grammar.

i, too, am excited.

dafthero

@JustJake: ?

Brian Crecente

thy my tk r vwls, bt thy wll nvr tk R FRDM!

evslin

What a hilarious picture!

Kamesen

So now I can expect to see Frst instead of first? Awesome

Pr1vate_D0nut

This is quite possibly the coolest shaming tool on the internet. Bravo, Gawker!

gtc

So do you count y? Or only sometimes?

JustJake

Frst!

MASOCHIST187

Dsmvwllng s bllcks.

Just stick with the banhammer, or force a cool-down period.

hahnchen

n v w ls h?

Sh m th t.

bhive01

wll fck.

MeanMF

I love the opposite-of-star idea, but this is just as good.

Too much garbage has been floating around lately. I am excited.

karasu is my homeboy

You have to break into song if you're gonna use that picture.

greyhoundbus

make a poop icon.

like a simple one. a little swirly pile with little steam markes coming up.

dafthero

My comments got disabled for a bit, now whether this was a straight up ban or a bug, I don't know but if you're banned from commenting, you should be able to see the comments. And you should be informed your banned.

kinglink

Creceeney Todd: Demon Blogger of Leet Street? I'd watch it.

Qalbert

I say this should be the reverse star.

[www.percywells.com]

Witzbold

Scratch my last question. My comments are now official.

*giggles like a little girl and runs off*

SymbolicMeaning

aeiou

sweet im still in

3inst3in

@h445: In a place like Kotaku, though, retaliation would mean an instaban, more or less. If someone is just in a gray-area situation, disemvoweling would say "Hey, your toes are on the line, so you should take a step back." And it serves as an example to others. I don't see the problem at all.

Maybe on a forum that was moderated with a little less vigor, you'd be right, but not here.

antialias02

Hmm I am certainly all for this new regulation. But my account has yet to be approved and my potential life-changing comments have not yet been seen or heard of. I'm sure the mods or staff are reading these.

Is it possible to get banned even when my account has not been approved yet? :)

*hoping for approval* heh

SymbolicMeaning

@antialias02: Ha..remember, this is the Internet, the place where people feel they can be flaming jerks whenever they feel because of the anonymous nature of the 'tubes. What happens when a flaming jerk is ridiculed? They retaliate, and not in a nice way. It seems like it would exacerbate the problem, not fix it.

@Brian Crecente: When you say 'grey area', what do you mean? Could someone give an example?

h445

@tinkyXIII: I think a dead horse icon should be used instead.

The Whaleman

@Absent Blue: I'm gonna ask that a pentagram not be used in a negative manner. It's still considered a religious symbol to many people and some (not me) might consider it offensive.

tinkyXIII

Great idea.

Demonbird

@LittleBigPlaneteer:

Ok, fair enough. What if they just randomly inserted children's nursery rhymes into the post?

For example:

DUDEZZZ! You guys and your faggotry are totally killing the HARDCORE SCENZ!! Let me tell you. MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB, LITTLE LAMB, LITTLE LAMB. If this shit was going down in frotn of me, I would show why they call me a Street Fighting GOD at school. EVERY WHERE THAT MARY WENT, MARY WENT, MARY WENT. So yea, what do you think abou tthat! You guys are such suckers. EVERY WHERE THAT MARY WENT HER LAMB WAS SURE TO GO. So yea, keep it up and I'll show you what's up.

That could work and add a little hilarity to the forum.

LanciePants

Why is it that Crecente's face on anything other than Crecente's body just makes things creepy? >.>

Project Thanatos

How many of you are going to stare at disemvoweled posts and attempt to decipher them? I know I will...

Wolfers

@h445: Oh, people can still be insta-banned, this is more for those people who were in a grey area.

Brian Crecente

While I am all for the concept of an improved warning system, Gawker's network-wide method feels a bit underwhelming. While it would be a bit overkill to see a moderation system similar to Slashdot's on a Gawker blog, I think a point system concept could work quite well.

For example, a particularly insightful user could earn points given by the mods, eventually reaching a point where they could earn a star ranking. Invertedly, if a given user continues acting like a [rooster], points could be subtracted. If that user goes too far down the rabbit hole, they're gone.

This said, it's all a matter of personal preference. Your mileages may vary. I'm down with the current methodology, but I feel there is still room for improvement.

Keep up the good work, amigos y amigas.

ThatShortGuy

@h445: The thing of it is, problems don't have to be solved by the banhammer when they can be solved by public ridicule. In many cases, that works even better. I love this idea.

antialias02

@LittleBigPlaneteer: lol

Brian Crecente

Meh, I dunno Crecente. I mean, if someone does something that's almost ban-worthy, why not just have Shiraz bop them on the head with the banhammer? Why stoop to cutting out vowels when you could just outright solve the problem? Methinks you're being too kind. There is no such thing as traipsing into ban country, if you're being a douche, you're being a douche and should be banned. And NO, I'm not a Communist!

h445

At first glance I read that as disenbowelment and scarily enough did not think it was too harsh a penalty.

Gray665

@LittleBigPlaneteer: well ban temporarily if it's the first time, ban lets say for 1 day from their next attempt at a post. Then they'll have a clue. "First!" comments should be an outright ban since that is not acceptable behavior anywhere. Either way it'll be fun reading "THYR GNG T RRD LL" for the next couple of weeks.

TheHun

I always liked Youtube's method of dealing with flagged comments wherein they weren't readily visible so you had to consciously click them open. Double this with Crecente's idea of a bad-star (maybe a pentagram, yeah, that'd be wicked) to further sully future comments and I think it'd be a fair warning sign.

Never heard of disemvowelling but it sounds OK I suppose.

Absent Blue

@Cygnoid: That's just Luke. You'll find that he tends to insult pretty much everyone. I think that's how Australians say hello or something. Besides, his newsposts are nowhere near as flamebaitish as Drew's were.

jasu78

F1rst p0st!

Wait. Damnitall.

Reilaos~

I think it's a cool idea. Personally, I'm for turning a certain army of dedicated Kotaku-ites loose on the fray, but this is an entertaining concept. I look forward to every thread being filled with comments about th W hs n gms, and how yr cnsl wll RRD and RDG RCR.

wild homes isn't anything!

I have already been disemvoweled. I would write "watch me as I bleed" disemvoweled, but it ends up looking like something else entirely. Something horrible.

Curious--how are the words "sky" and "why" dealt with?

No other vowel in sight, does the "y" get the scratch?

Xiatter

Ktk scks nw.

Clarke

This should be amusing. We can make a game of taking disemvoweled posts and making them say things other than the intended message.

TRT-X

I don't know if this has been mentioned, but If i Recall Correctly... Hasn't Disemvoweling (on those -other sites) traditionally been a moderation option aimed at specific posts rather than a warm up to banning? Less about 'That could get you banned, here's a warning' to 'that post is against our mod policy, or you're being a jerk, so we're going to make your content less useful and harder to decipher'?

Crimson (PS3 ID Black--Tiger)

Considering the most assinine posts consist of about 5 badly-spelled words in the first place, I don't really know how effective this will be. I'm also not really sure I can deal with the headache of seeing such mangled posts (because I'll feel compelled to decipher them anyways).

If you were going for an anti-star, I think some ridiculous or poop-themed background to their post would be surreal. So that the entire time you're reading it, the back of your mind keeps telling you, "This is sh*t. This is sh*t. This is sh*t."

Comatose Turtle

Will the Razor be passed around, much as the ban hammer? It has long been a dream of mine to disemvowel trolls and the like.

dragonsword

@MASOCHIST187: I really should have seen that joke coming, but alas. Made me laugh, well done sir :)

MehGinla

Gizmodo is doing the same thing. However, it just seems to me there's quite a few more bannable people over here on Kotaku...

Mostly the "First!" crowd, or the ever-present "(insert anything) is gay" group.

Chromeo

@OtisElevator: I think you meant "grfrs wll b bnnd:.

antialias02

How can we tell who is actually getting a warning and who is just being dumb and taking out their own vowels?

DarkHavoc99

@Ad-hominem:
Then I got hit by a glitch, which makes me feel better. I just couldn't log out or see any comments.

Somehow the straight razor seems like reading comments that got hit by it would be more disruptive then a troll attempt. But that's my opinion. We'll see how it works.

kinglink

will Y only be cut out some of the times?

Firemane

That picture is priceless. They all deserve to be banned.... /musical nut

blackadvent

Oh, this is crafty. I like it.

InsidiousTuna

grfrs wll xplot

OtisElevator

@The Whaleman: meh, must have messed up the image tag, sorry about that...

[www.holybork.com]

The Whaleman

@kinglink: Yeah, you do get told. When you're banned, it says "This user's ability to comment is not enabled".
Well, I assume it does. I've seen other banned guys, and that's always what it shows.

Ad-hominem

@The Whaleman:

This is what somewhat what I had in mind:

(from Duane Blehm's classic Mac game "Stunt Copter" made back in 1987)

The Whaleman

@Pentex: I don't know, apparently in some languages you have your AEIOU and sometime W or Y.

[en.wikipedia.org]

Personally, having a degree in English and being a qualified English teacher, I recognise only AEIOU.

superbabyproject

@Absent Blue: That wouldn't work because many people (including me) would then want one lol.

Pentex

@Witzbold: I always pictured an asshat as a hat shaped like an ass, but this seems more poetic

Qalbert

@h445/@Brian Crecente: Don't give him examples! It's a trap!

:D

Sensai-N

Well, if nothing else it's make the stupid quicker to scroll past.

ggodo

i just bought a staright razor yesterday... freaky...
(off-topic, i know, but still)

Zombie_Moogle

@bunch.of.wackos: U = |_|. Problem solved.

ninjafetus

I agree with many others.... I think this is a great idea. I also like the star-opposite too.

Perhaps the recent down-turn in comment quality is related to the summer vacation effect. I'm sure Xbox-live suffers the same way. The teen-thug-fanboy-homophobes have nothing but time these days... if they aren't supposed to be in summer school.

Cojo21

It sounds really useful, and also amusing. But if I may say so, I'd like to be able to post. At all. It takes a lot of time, huh? I've been a good boy. Now please. :)

PsyComa

I just saw a disemvoweled post before this went up. I was sure the poor bastard was having a seizure, or had trained a monkey to look like it was doing office work. This explains a lot.

shaker28

@karasu is my homeboy:

A wise MMOG developer once said the following, which seems to apply here:

"Things I've learned: Never put anything ugly or stupid into your game. Everyone will want one."

Vexorg

@superbabyproject: Why?
"Why" would become a word made entirely of consonants.

Crawl to China

It's a good solution. While an anti-star icon is awesome in theory; I'm afraid that in practice you'd see MANY people earning poop piles that don't actually deserve them. At least if they were earned in the same way that the star icon is earned.

Soooooo will this disemvowelment be active on all of the Gawker sites I assume?

robinandtami

@angry_gamer: you know, it would be even funnier if instead of removing vowels, turn it all into "l33t sp34k".

That way you kill 2 birds with 1 stone. You discourage "l33t sp34k" and flag people at the same time.

angry_gamer

@OtisElevator: pc fl.

MeanMF

I am against "disemvowling" if for only 1 reason...

Y3r ask1n 4 l33t sp34k pr0p@g@t10n

Ugh, I feel like I had to rip out my brain to do that...

angry_gamer

@TRT-X: Brilliant.

I'm pretty excited about this hitting Kotaku and Giz. I've never really been annoyed at io9 and Lifehacker posts, but seeing some guy's post about how he hates Lego or Apple become, "'m sck f ll th fckng ppl psts! wh dn't th jst cll t pplmd nd spr s ll th ppl fnby psts! Ths sht s gy rtrdd" will be priceless.

Human Bomb

IMO for Y, you should just flip a coin each post.

ZinkO: Look Into His Eyes

@1664: No, it's not. For one thing, you need all the letters for that to work, and you can only read the words with the letters mixed up if you the first and last letter remain the same, and if you're expecting the word.

Completely random words are near unreadable.

Ad-hominem

I for one praise our new bladed leaders

Just remembr wh yr frnds r...

WWWW CRP!!!

Hand_O_Death

Actually i kinda like joystiqs voting method now. If your comment gets voted down its very hard to read it, and if its voted up its almost bolded.

Sinharvest

r ld schl tchr sd t wrt wth n vwls ... ist knid of lkei wenh yuo wiret wthi teh lttres mxide up yuo cna sitll rade wtah it syas

1664

hmm, this will make dechipering even harder. if my comments get disemvoweled to...lets say "rl" will people know what i was saying? was i trying to say areola? or real?

bigman88zz

Sooooo, could I have my star AND get Disemvoweled?

Quilt

Well, I need to sleep about 1 hour ago and there are 174 posts right now (so I ain't gonna read them all), but if you want to take such drasitc measures, how about just making the post text size small? So that way if they say something stupid it's just tiny- still able to read it, just tiny. Would compress the verticle size of the page and ease scrolling space too, and as you all know, from the recent drought, the price of scrollbars have gone up, so it's best to conserve them.

denki

@Ehardergardens:

I think thats the point..you wont want ot spend time reading their comment and skip over it. You should just change their font color to a light grey or something. like they are fading out.

Or change the grey bar that has your name in it to red with two hammers on either side of the name with a "report this post" link. Even more reason to straiten up so you dont get reported!

Piblo

@NateN: Well i'm certain now that you mentioned it, someone will do it. Don't give people bad ideas boys.

PsyComa

I believe the entire gawker network has just the right amount of moderation. Ive always hated when the mods over moderate and strike me for my usually vulgar language no matter how well spoken my point (i used to be a sailor , cssing s n my fckn bld). But you guys get it just right...GOOD JOB MTHR FCKRS!

Wreckyoself

Awesome. My older account got banned because one of my posts got misconstrued as a racist joke, and I had no way of refuting that claim.

Lord Thayer

@angry_gamer: Have disemvoweling also spell out any digits/punctuation in the comment. And then disemvowel again. Then your example leetspeak comment would end up as:

Ythrr sknn fr lthrthrt spthrfrk przrptgttnzrn

Which, as I read it, looks more and more hilarious. It's like the Swedish Chef being electrocuted.

gregly

Wll, ths lvs m qt flbbrgstd!

Zero_Beat

Show me where on the doll the Kotaku editor touched your post.

gblock

YHWH

gewgaw

While I like the idea, it would be nifty if they were marked in a way so it was super-clear that the particular post was over the line. Changing the font color or opacity or something. Otherwise I just think people will fake disemvowel to start arguments on why a post was disemvoweled.

NateN

@Chromeo: Yeah but Gizmodo is a whole different story. I don't think I'm the only one who remembers the "Shut Up" headline for people who were annoyed at them neglecting to post other happenings in the tech world to give the iPhone it's 31st post of the day.

@Vexorg: lmao I was actually thinking about it more and you're right. Not to mention that a bad symbol would give them just as much attention as star commentors which isn't really fair.

karasu is my homeboy

I can't wait to see this one in action. Hilarious comments ensue!

KingBroly

you better pray those courting the banhammer don't know Welsh. ;)

geekgrrl

This shjould make reading comments more entertaining at least.

EmeraldDragon

I love the idea. Bring on the razor!

Mike's Stalker

I can't wait for this.

How about just adding the letter "D" where a star appears now.

The D can represent

"disemvoweling"

or

"dunce"

or...

"douche"

EndersGame

@NateN: Oh i'm sorry. I'm already skipping the disemvoweled comments so I didn't really try to read them. :P

PsyComa

I'm...I'm...I'm still laughing Mr. Crecente...Oh lord...

And pretty good idea, too. Bravo!

HotFootMcCook

@VakeroRokero: depp on depp fornication? guess that's someone's fetish...

Qalbert

@Rjak:
^ THIS.

The basic idea sounds great and I'm all for it, but having trolls not realise they've been disemvoweled sounds fantastic!

Kazzahdrane

Im sorry, but reading this post was one of the few times that I laugh out loud from just reading something casually.

Brilliant idea, I give it double thumbs up

dantemustdie

I think this is a fantastic idea!

PlayerX

ll

DaveKap

I've seen some disemvowled posts, and it actually worked! I laughed and discarded their silliness.

A dunce hat would be amazing though. I'd love to see chumps with those.

Mister Adequate

@PsyComa: *points at roughly half the comments in this thread*
Well, it's not like most people needed the idea planted in their head! ;-)

@Kdawg: From what I understand from over at Giz, if you get disemvoweled once it's a warning, twice it's a vacation. I still like the idea of changing the font/color/opacity or something else that we can't do so it's clear that the post was stupid.

[gizmodo.com]

NateN

I feel like I'm the only one that doesn't care for the idea. Not only will we we have to wade through a ton of unintelligible posts, but disemvoweled people will post multiple time wondering why their posts are jumbled. Then when they figure it out, we'll have to wade through posts of those people using l33tsp3ak and numbers in place of the vowels.

I like the idea of a reputation/karma system a lot better.

Kdawg

wow I was wondering that those weird messages were! brilliant!

excel_excel

Disemvoweling is the greatest idea ever.

NihonTiger90

Cool.

Now it's Kotaku with more public ridicule!

Thorax

@nikolaj: great. get ready to see a resurrection of 1337sp34k.

^This.

Now people who post comments who may fear being disemvoweled will just resort to using inane 1337sp34k, making Kotaku look like a bunch of retarded texting, poo-flinging monkies. (As opposed to poo-flinging system fanboys, which is perfectly acceptable.)

I refuse to believe there is no reasonable alternative between the two extremes (of banhammer or no banhammer). The dunce cap is a nice idea, only instead of an icon, tie it to a 72 hour ban (or timeout, or whatever you want to call it) and forcibly change the user's icon to a dunce cap.

The novelty of this new 'crowd control' toy will wear off once people start reverting to numbers for vowels or when people get tired of trying to decipher vowel-less posts.

Captiosus

sweet maybe this will finally rid or at least hamper the influx of (enter system name) fanboys who dumb down any thread they post on.

maraxusofk

Oh and the problem with the "reverse star" "poop icon" or whatever is it will give the trolls something to aim for. Who can be the douchebaggiest...

We should have a different comments of the week thing. The most stupid and trollish comments of the week plus the author and let's see how they can justify said post.

excaliburps

Hey this is good news! Seems like Kotaku has been getting its share of trolls and "meh" posters. It's been accumulating for the past few months now.

excaliburps

@Captiosus: Cmon. Why is this that hard to figure out?

If you get disemvowled, it applies to that one post.
That's it.

And for god's sakes, you don't think Kotaku going to ban LeetSpeakers?

Of course they are.

Ad-hominem

hv nvr sn smthing dsmvwlld n th ntrnt bfr nd hp nvr d.

mentok1982

Seems like someone loves to put his face over other peoples faces.

Scherzkeks

@Captiosus: As I noted above, I think the system should spell out the 1337sp34ked digits and punctuation, and then disemvowel the whole thing. People end up with even less legible posts because they tried to game the system.

gregly

This sounds like a fun activity.
Go Sweeney Crecente on their asses!

swordsmith87

@Brian Crecente: I know that this is unlikely to be read this late on in the commenting, but can you tell me if the 'disemvowelling' is temporary or permanent?

duckmouth

God, I love that picture. I can't even bring myself to scroll down and read the article (luckily I read about it on Giz).

man in gauze is king ramses II, silly.

How about adding thumbs-up & thumbs-down functionality. Everyone uses that nowadays, it's great. Digg, Youtube, GameTrailers etc.

yargh

D1s3mv0w3l th1s!

You should also temporarily strip the vowels out of their usernames.
@MeanMF:
No problems here :P

kftgr

This would be good. I somehow lost my commenting privileges on my main account a couple weeks ago. Username: "Argh"

Some explanation as to why would've been nice.

yargh

Apologies if this has been mentioned already, but just didn't feel like taking 10-15 min. to read through all the comments (potential grounds for banning, maybe; grounds for bad/not the best commenting, probably).

I am a little skeptical of this idea. While it may seem nifty at first, it's going to usher in a wave of people pretending to have already had their vowels removed (as already evidenced).

Also, unless you go back and check your comments, it's not necessarily the best warning system.

Why not just use the rather basic thumbs up/down that many sites (e.g. bash.org) use? Would it really be that bad? It could either be comment based, or commentor based. Either one should suffice.

Additionally, wouldn't having someone go in and remove the vowels from the bad comments be rather inefficient in regards to time? It almost seems like it'd be as much a punishment on the remover as the removee. Then again, it would probably be for bad, stupid, short comments.

Why not just incorporate a way to let your peers decide? Voting off the island, so to speak, with possible grounds for immunity if you have one bad comment among(st?) a myriad of decent to good ones.

Bah, this really feels like it shouldn't be that hard of a problem to solve.

By the way, is there an option for email notification if/when someone responds to a comment you post? Don't recall seeing anything, but it might be a nice feature...

thespyderboy

@Chewbenator: good point... just like ASBOS (google if you dont know) are like a badge of honour...

Mr.Monkey

Aren't you worried that it would become some sort of acheivement to see how close you can get to being banned, but still having the dunce cap?

Chewbenator

@dv8godd's idea of a valid argument is "NO U!": That made me chuckle.

Billkwando

Oh this is a blessing indeed. No longer will I see posts of FIRST!

Now it'll be FRST!

Tyber_Zann

"W" can also be a vowel: [dictionary.reference.com]

LawyerMike

awesome photoshop job!! well, no, not really. If you are thinking about making a living on that skill of yours, first watch the "You Suck at Photoshop" tutorials. Please. Seriously, watch them. Now.

ZebediahHippocampu

Wow, that is a good idea.

There should be another stage after where all they're allowed to do is use vowels XD

e ou iae ai oo!!11

^^

LiamR

Hmm, could we replace the razor with a sickle?
You'll have the hammer, sickle and the star, reminding everyone that they're dangerously close to virtually sent to communist china.

while were at it, why not let people buy back their vowels one by one. Preferably have a little micro-transaction system set up with Kotaku-creds.

Might as well start digging that pool you always wanted Kotaku editors, you'll be rich in no time!

leon01

I'm glad I joined after the banhammer has been well, banned?

Fenian

Neato

M-26-7

I have been playing Persona 3 too much, I understand.

Despite that, this thought made me smile: The razor is slashing damage, and the ban hammer is strike damage.

pastepunkjames

@excaliburps: uh, you think giving a symbol next to their name is bad because it'll create contests and attempts for attention and yet you want to have a "troll comment of the week" post and interview?

That's even worse! 1,000 times worse.

karasu is my homeboy

I think this is an amazing idea! I noticed it in an other post and was wondering what was going on, but now i get it and think its awesome.

Tho, it might be a tad confusing to new people

roguemarvel

This is an awesome idea!

Nosignalinput

@