It looks like you're simulating a hash with an array here. Since JavaScript objects are themselves hashes, you could go with a more readable form:

```javascript
var filterNames = { '#filter_by_content_type': 'content_type', '#filter_by_state': 'state', '#filter_by_scrape_status', 'for_scrape' }

for(var filterName in filterNames)
  if($(filterNames[filterName]).val()) {

 .... etc
```