John Reynolds's Blog

The next big thing in IM/email/blogging: the Rudeness Checker^TM

First came the spell checker, then the grammar checker... We are way over due for the Rudeness Checker^TM.

How many times have you grimaced when reading your own messages/blogs/emails/comments?

I have gaffed so many times while blogging that I now generally "sleep on each entry overnight" before publishing. I still don't catch all of the unintended slurs, but it helps.

Some brilliant AI researcher out there (and a generous Angel Investor) needs to volunteer to help me develop the Rudeness Checker^TM. A closely allied product to the Rudeness Checker^TM will be the Violations of Corporate Policy Checker^TM (to help keep naive bloggers from losing their jobs).

I don't imagine that it will be easy to create the Rudeness Checker^TM... in fact I imagine that it will require nuanced speech comprehension far beyond simple speech recognition (Sounds like a great candidate for a DARPA grant).

Difficult or not, the Rudeness Checker^TM might be a significantly worthwhile piece of technology for bringing us closer together.

The ^TM is tongue-in-cheek... if you had searched Google for "rudeness checker" (before this blog was posted), you would have seen:

Your search - "rudeness checker" - did not match any documents.

Now that's an example of socially relevant technology ;-)

Comments

• I'm deeply offended by this blog entry and think you should lose your job over it. ;)

  Posted by: duanegran on July 01, 2005 at 08:01 AM

• Check your daily spam and you know that this idea is futile. Maybe we all should calm down, take a deep breath and ignore the rude people. The less we care about them the less they will be rude. Currently if you want to get some attention just rant aboud JBoss on the Server Side and you get some traffic. Why is Marc (you know who) rude because he wants to get his message out and it works and when you are nice and try to be objective then you are ignored.

  -Andy

  This message was tested with the Rudeness Checker (tm) to be not offensive.

  Posted by: schaefa on July 01, 2005 at 11:22 AM

• Andy (schaefa),
  You've given me a great idea for a related browser-add-on product: Rudeness Blocker(tm).

  I'll list you as co-inventor on the patent application ;-)

  --JohnR

  Posted by: johnreynolds on July 01, 2005 at 12:34 PM

• Well, maybe it's better and easier to create a machine that gives an electrical shock to people who are offended by rudeness. Rudeness actually means "common"-ness, and like all simple things it seems to be healthy and good to be rude. Wellbred people are never rude, instead they are mean and insulting on purpose without any other purpose.

  
  Reply from John: Rudeness has several definitions. I am sure that you know my intended definition: Dictionary.com's 3.c. Ill-mannered; discourteous: rude behavior.

  How "rude" of you to nitpick my usage of the term "rudeness"... surely you were not trying to be mean and insulting ;-)

  Posted by: tobega on July 02, 2005 at 12:43 AM

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