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Create and Manage Profanity Lists
Create and Manage Profanity Lists
Laura Berwick avatar
Written by Laura Berwick
Updated over a week ago

This article covers the following topics:

  • Customize a Profanity List

  • Create a New Profanity List

  • Reorder Profanity List Dropdown Options

  • Export a Profanity List for Reuse

  • Import a Profanity List

  • Delete a Profanity List

  • Use Wildcard Characters and Exceptions to Refine Your Profanity Search

  • Default Short and Long Lists

Customize a Profanity List

  1. Select Profanity Lists under Settings in the Tools menu or window.
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  2. Choose a list to customize from the dropdown.
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    ​Note that Short and Long Default Lists are provided automatically and can be customized as desired.
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  3. Click into the Name field to change the name of your list.
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  4. Click existing words/phrases in the terminology field and make desired changes, including deleting text, modifying text, or augmenting text with wildcard characters (learn more below).
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  5. Place your cursor at the end of a word/phrase, press enter, and type to add a new profane word/phrase.
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  6. Click the exception checkbox to make a word/phrase an exception (learn more below).
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    ​Your changes are saved to your list automatically as you go. As a best practice, you may wish to export and save the list you wish to customize, so that you can recover your default lists if you wish.
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Create a New Profanity List

  1. Select Profanity Lists under Settings in the Tools menu or window as shown above.
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  2. Click the new list icon to the right of the selection dropdown.
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  3. Enter a name for your new list in the Name field provided.
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  4. Type or paste a list of "profane" or exception words or phrases in the terminology field provided, including wildcard characters if desired (learn more below).
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    ​Note that pasted text must include one profane word/phrase per line.
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    OR
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    Select or drag over a text file containing your list of profane words/phrases, with one entry per line, and drop it onto the target field in the list data pane to the right.
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    OR
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    Use the Select File button in the target field to browse for a .txt file using your operating system's dialogs.
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    ​See the Using Wildcard Characters and Exceptions section below to learn more about how typed/pasted/imported text can be modified for more refined searches.
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Export a Profanity List for Reuse

  1. Select Profanity Lists under Settings in the Tools menu or window as shown above.
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  2. Select the list you want to export from the dropdown as shown above.
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  3. Click the menu icon to the right of the name field and select the Export List option.
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  4. Save your list using your operating system Save dialog.
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    ​Your list is saved as a plain text (.txt) file with one text string entry per line. This list can be shared with other users and imported as described below for their use.
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Import a Profanity List

  1. Select Profanity Lists under Settings in the Tools menu or window as shown above.
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  2. Click the import icon to the right of the selection dropdown.
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  3. Drag and drop or browse for a .txt file containing your profane words/phrases in the resulting dialog and click OK. ​
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  4. A new profanity list will be created with the file name in the Name field and the file text in the Terminology field, including wildcard and exception characters.
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Reorder Profanity List Dropdown Options

  1. Select Profanity Lists under Settings in the Tools menu or window as shown above.
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  2. Click the manage lists icon to the right of the selection dropdown.
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  3. Hover over each list to reveal additional controls.
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  4. Click and drag the handle to the left of the list name to move that list to a new spot in the order. A drop location line will be visible where lists can be positioned.
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  5. Click Save.
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    ​The order selected here is the order the lists will appear in the selection dropdown.
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Delete a Profanity List

  1. Select Profanity Lists under Settings in the Tools menu or window as shown above.
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  2. Click the manage lists icon to the right of the selection dropdown.
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  3. Click the trashbin icon that appears for the desired list on hover
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    Click the menu icon to the right of the Name field and select Delete List.
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  4. Click Delete to confirm your deletion.
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Use Wildcard Characters and Exceptions to Refine Your Profanity Search

Wildcard characters used in typed, pasted, and imported text refine how the text or phrases in the terminology window are used for your profanity search.

Wildcard syntax allow variations of a word/phrase to be detected without having to enter each variation. For example, some practitioners object to words like 'invent', 'invented', 'invention', etc. All of the variations can be covered with one entry: invent*

Three wildcard characters are available:

  • Dot: (.) represents 1 character (letter, number, space, punctuation)

  • Question-Mark: (?) represents 0 or 1 characters

  • Star: (*) represents 0 or more word characters (letters & numbers, but not spaces or other punctuation)

Dot (.) Wildcard

A "." matches any 1 character of any kind (letter, number, space, punctuation)

For example, "prior.art" instructs Analytics to insert a Patent Profanity comment whenever it encounters the word 'prior' followed by the word 'art' with any 1 character between them, e.g., 'prior art' or 'prior-art'

The dot wildcard is also useful for matching contractions or other words that may or may not have curly/smart quotes embedded within. For example, "mustn.t" tolerates any kind of apostrophe or quotation mark that may appear in the contraction "mustn't".

Question Mark (?) Wildcard

A "?" matches 0 or 1 characters of any kind. For example, "require?" instructs Analytics to insert a Patent Profanity comment whenever it encounters the word 'require' with an optional character at the end of the word, e.g. 'required'

Star (*) Wildcard

A "*" matches 0 or more letters, hyphens, or parenthesis (but not spaces or other punctuation). For example, "invent*" instructs Analytics to insert a Patent Profanity comment whenever it encounters a word that begins with 'invent', including 'invention', 'inventions', and the like.

Similarly, a * could be used to represent a word along with optional-plural variations of that word. For example, "limitation*" and "without limitation*" identified as an exception instruct Analytics to insert a Patent Profanity comment whenever it encounters any word that begins with 'limitation', including an ordinary plural 'limitations', an optional plural 'limitation(s)', and the like, UNLESS that word is used in the phrase 'without limitation'.

Exceptions

Exceptions are identified in the terminology field by clicking the Exception text box. They are listed in green, in contrast with profane words/phrases which are listed in red.

In pasted or imported text, an exclamation point (!) at the start of a word or phrase identifies it as an exception. For example, "!read.only" indicates that while "only" may be identified as profanity, "read only" will not.

Default Lists

Short Default List

PROFANITY (invokes warning)

always
approximate*
critical
exactly
invent*
limitation*
more.or.less
must
must not
mustn.t
necessary
only
preferred
prior.art
require?
substantially
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EXCEPTIONS (does not invoke warning)

!group consisting of
!no? * (e.g., 'not exactly', 'not critical', 'no limitation'
!non-* (e.g., 'non-limiting', 'non-critical')
!not critical
!read.only
!without limitation*

Long Default List

PROFANITY (invokes warning)

about
above
absolutely
adapted for
adapted to
all
allow
always
appropriately
approximate*
around
below
big*
by necessity
characterized by
clearly
completely
composed of
constantly
contain
containing
conventional
critical
customary
desirable
device for
downward
eliminate
entirely
essentially
exactly
fact
greater
higher
huge
immediate
indeed
infinitely
invent*
just
key feature
large
left
lengthen
less
lesser
limitation*
longer
lower
mainly
major
marginal
may
means
mechanism
mechanism for
microscopic
miniscule
minor
more
more.or.less
most
must
must not
mustn.t
necess*
nominal
normal
normally
obvious
obviously
only
optim*
ordinary
orthodox
over
permanently
precisely
preferred
prior.art
proximate
proximately
require?
right
same
shorten
shorter
significant
significantly
simply
small
smaller
somewhat
standard
substantially
tiny
totally
traditionally
typical
under
undesirable
upward
usual
vast
will
won’t

EXCEPTIONS (does not invoke warning)

!group consisting of
!no? * (e.g., 'not exactly', 'not critical', 'no limitation'
!non-* (e.g., 'non-limiting', 'non-critical')
!not critical
!read.only
!without limitation*

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