fellowship chat censorship

[TomatoeHu]

I find censorship amusing most times it happens in elvenar and an interesting deduction game when it happens. And when some one is actually swearing and cursing at me.... still funny. Having experienced some sensitivity in many games, including elvenar, it can be necessary in keeping such a numerous amount of people both happy, feeling safe and comfortable, while interacting with strangers. I would rather see a chat full of asterixis and a discussion about them, then an empty chat where no one felt safe to talk.

That said, it is very difficult to really know sometimes what exactly the asterixis are about and rather than making a player look like they are saying bad stuff and generating unnecessary tension and embarrassment even, when asterixis appear, it would be nice if Elvenar followed what all social media platforms are currently doing and provide a profanity/ sensitive content slider for the user to turn on or off, making it simpler to enjoy or not enjoy chat.

Until then, i will eat some cake and enjoy my **** filled chat ♥

 

[Deborah M]

I did get a giggle out of somebody saying C__ker Spaniel was censored when they tried to mention their dog. Had to say, Gee they never censor when I mention my German Shepherds Go figure!

Odd that they have city names that are or include words that are censored in chat

 

[Darielle]

Odd that they have city names that are or include words that are censored in chat

I once reported a city name that was wayyyy over the top offensive. Only time in the past 3 years I've ever done that, but it was taken down pretty quickly.

 

[mucksterme]

Back in my old Halo days I had a friend that went by 6D9
And it was NOT for the reason some of your filthy minds think
But I remember we were playing on a group's server one time and they booted him
I asked why and a guy said "My twelve year old daughter plays on here and she doesn't need to see that"
I told him that first off his daughter was playing a game where the object was to kill people
but that aside, if his daughter knew what "6D9" referred to he had bigger problems that Halo players.

Never got to finish the conversation because I got booted too

I think we've established that if anyone is taking someone's cookies away, it's far more likely to be me.

*checks cookie jar*

 

[Myne]

The chat censor system is very basic. Sometimes certain word or word combos are added because players are very creative in HOW they spell their offensive posts. When we see it reported a lot we are forced to add this creativity to the ban list. This is also why you might have trouble using the word Trumpet in chat, for instance.

You mean like......shitake mushrooms???

 

[Ariel Greensleeves]

Try having the last name of Hardick. For real. People desperately try to pronounce it Hartwick or Hardwick or even Hartick.
Its HARDICK! Damn glad to meet ya!

often your emails get shunted straight to spam.
And no, none of our children are named Harold, Anita, or Happy.
But our neighbors last name is Limpert.
I wish I were kidding.
ROTFL

 

[ajqtrz]

The best and truest censor is the one you do of yourself. Remembering you are here, with others who may not enjoy the language you use, and then censoring it voluntarily, is probably the only censor needed for most players.

Occasionally, of course, somebody will use a word or phrase which contains a string of characters the computer matches up to another string of characters in a list of strings of characters not allowed. It then goes to the substitutes for that string of characters and puts in the substitute string of characters. It really has no idea about meaning. Meaning is human, mind construct and, sadly even AI isn't all that intelligent.

Finally, as I've said before, I'm always surprised that anyone would use potentially offensive language/abbreviations for a couple of reasons.

1) Nobody ever, that I know of, got mad because you didn't use those questionable words. It's not like some business person you are trying to sell something to, turns in a report to his/her company -- "don't buy from this guy, he doesn't use enough profanity"

2) Along the same lines, you never know when what you say will offend...or at least be noticed as a bit insensitive. Others are listening and why take the chance of making them even mildly uncomfortable. In fact, if you do by your use of language you'll find they don't remember a lot of what your are saying as you just distracted and they focused, at least momentarily, on the words you use.

3) Words are a hierarchy. Some words are stronger than others and carry more emotive power. Let's say, for instance, when a person is really mad they say, "You googly slosher! Now let's say "googly slosher" is considered the most powerful emotive word in you vocabulary. Finally, let's consider the person who uses it all the time, every other sentence, and various forms. They go to work one day and they open the drawer of their desk and find they are out of pencils...which are in the cabinet behind them. They then say, "those googly sloshing pencils. How the googly sloshing am in to do any work without them?" Five minutes later they are handed a pink slip. They stand up and say, "Those googly sloshing managers. How can I do any googly sloshing work when they have these googly sloshing rules and googly sloshing regulations!" Nobody pays any more attention to the words of second outburst because it contains the same level of emotive words as the first. They may pay attention to your voice, that's true, but without the force of the language you squandered on the "googly sloshing" pencils, your effect is less. In other words, if you use the same words for when you are mildly irritated as you do for when you are really, really, mad, they will not have any more impact than normal, especially if you use them all the time. Using those words in lesser situations all the time means you have not "more intense" words to use you really want to get people's attention.

4) Now here's the kicker about what I just said. To adopt this strategy you have to be discipline in your use of language. And you have to break a habit. To do that you have to decide when and under what circumstances the strongest emotive word should be used. And then limit your list of circumstances to just a few, lest your power words become overused and thus drained of their power.

In the end, then, it's a matter of being practical. Appropriate language in the right amounts for the situation. Which probably means very little use of those words and less and less as you reserve the most powerful ones for when you really need to get people's attention.

AJ