Board Thread:Off-Topic Discussion/@comment-6433273-20160430010301/@comment-26427856-20160605003433

90.203.245.57 wrote: https://twitter.com/Vocalowikitxt/status/739061886868705280>apparently "offensive" yet everyday words will cause another war. >'Japanese anime-derived moral decay now crawling onto US stores'... Have they ever heard of LEON/LOLA (or another other Engloid for that matter)? >Thinks parents buy their children these. >Acts like VOCALOID has never once been disturbing in it's whole run since 2004. >Thinks VOCALOID needs a '"parental control"'.

SMH - so many things wrong. I hope I don't come across the original comment. WARNING, PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS COMMENT IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED.

Sonika has all three of those words in her default dictionary, and so does Big Al (I tried it in the V2 Editor, just in case the V4 Editor adds more to a dictionary for whatever language), and I could test if my other four Engloids have those words in their default dictionaries and they probably would have them. But they're just words. They've been in the English Vocaloid dictionaries since at least V2, and I'm willing to bet that LEON and LOLA had those words in their default dictionaries too. And I have no doubt that other potentially offensive words are in the Vocaloid dictionary. *tries some words* The (V2 English) default dictionary also has the words miscarriage, carnivorous, incest, masturbate, fuck, vore, Darwinism, evolution, Neanderthal, creationism, purgatory, Satan, Satanism, genocide, eugenics, Hitler, Nazis, communism, socialism, Stalinism, Marxism, overthrow, democracy, Republican, prohibition, monarchy, absolutism, enslavement, segregation, racism, discrimination, nigger, gringo, terrorism, Buddha, Allah, Zeus, Poseidon, Aphrodite, Venus, Horus, embalming, dissection, entrails, sadistic, masochism, homophobic, prejudice, stereotype, gay, lesbian, faggot, bastard, bitch, sexism, rapist,... I could go on but I think I've made my point. Any of these words could be offensive to someone. Some of them aren't "child appropriate." Some are racial slurs. Some are forms of government. Some pertain to religions. So what? THEY'RE JUST WORDS! The fact that they're included in the default dictionary doesn't mean anything about the political leanings or social opinions of the people who created the dictionaries. The Vocaloid dictionary is just a way for words to get broken down into syllables and phonetics. Those words specifically may not have even been what was coded into the dictionary, root words plus prefixes and suffixes were probably what was coded.

The idea of providing a "parental control" feature is plausable, but consider this: If children are using Vocaloid and want to put in those words, they must already know those words - they aren't learning those words from using Vocaloid. If those children have access to Vocaloid then 99.999% of those children also have access to a normal dictionary. If children can type those words into Vocaloid then they can also type them into an online dictionary or look them up in a physical book dictionary. Plus the Vocaloid software is a music-making tool, not a toy - if a child has Vocaloid it's because that child knows what it is and wants to use it to make music, therefore said child would already know that it sings whatever words the user types in. Thus, blocking potentially offensive, "nasty or disturbing words" that are already in the Vocaloid dictionary is pretty much pointless.

Finally, those words being in the Vocaloid dictionary have no effect on the public images of the Vocaloids unless the companies that made the Vocaloids specifically intended for them to sing those words, which they didn't. Those words are just there for users to be able to implement if they so desire. If those words are present in a song it's because the person who wrote the song wanted them there, so really the use of those words should only affect the image of the songwriter, not the Vocaloid that is only being used as a tool and is just singing what the user told it to. The only way those words are impacting the public image of Vocaloid is by the person who wrote that comment in the Twitter post overracting to them. Seriously, that's just ridiculous. Whoever wrote that comment obviously needs to get over themself.

Sorry for such a long rant. '^^