WebProNews

So, like, they're working on a program that will filter out stupid comments on the Web. I, for one (smack, smack, smacking on my gum), think that's a great idea. There's a lot of idiots out there terrorizing comments sections all over the net.

Presumably, the StupidFilter won't examine the quality of a commentator's logic, but will (perhaps eventually) be able to detect the difference between stupidity and sarcasm. According to USA Today, idiots tend to repeat consonantssssssss rather than vowels, seeeeeeee.

Vowels are ironic, it would seem.

But what's really neat about the idea is that if a commentator comes in swinging his LOLs and his OMFGs, he can count on getting a swift digital kick. The filter will tell him his comment was "more or less unintelligible" and ask him to try it again.

I wonder if that goes for LOL Katz (or however it's spelled), too.

Gabriel Oritz and Paul Starr, the indignant geniuses working on the project, describe it this way:

The solution we're creating is simple: an open-source filter software that can detect rampant stupidity in written English…. we're collecting a ranked corpus of stupid text, gleaned from user comments on public websites and ranked on a five-point scale.

In the future, the "stupid filter" will available as a Firefox and a Wordpress plug-in.
Genius!