Another one on language and censorship.

mordekai · June 2017

Simple question.

How come I can't type the word that is shorthand for the human posterior and sounds like a large barrel for storing water, into an email, but that bald headed, tattooed, hamster botherer can keep talking about kicking it openly?

zebular · June 2017

The text of it probably a profane word, in part or in whole, in another language while the spoken word in English may not be. Another possibility is that the word doesn't have a non-profane translation in a supported language, so when it would be translated by the system, a profane word would appear in that language. Alas, the censor filter is dictated by the legal department and the devs have little to no control over what is and is not censored. Another department handles translation and probably either couldn't or time constraints or even broken meaning didn't allow for a proper translation, so perhaps the legal department added it in the filter to keep any risk from a profane word being translated erroneously.

You could email Support and ask them to clarify the reason, I suppose, as they'd more likely have access to that information more readily than any Cryptic Staff here as Support and Legal are both PWE.

You can get profane words to show up in chat though by disabling the chat filter. You'll then see your own words as well as words written by others but those with the chat filter on will still see the filtered output. I don't think that disables it in game mail or in game support fields though.. Just in chat. FYI, butt isn't filtered on the Neverwinter forums, as Cryptic controls that here.

zephyriah · June 2017

zebular said:

You can get profane words to show up in chat though by disabling the chat filter. You'll then see your own words as well as words written by others but those with the chat filter on will still see the filtered output. I don't think that disables it in game mail or in game support fields though.. Just in chat. FYI, butt isn't filtered on the Neverwinter forums, as Cryptic controls that here.

I don't think there is any way to disable the filter on Xbox.

Some of the filter seems to be controlled by the console makers. An example, the word "got" is filtered on Xbox, but not PS4. There are other examples to support. So, words in chat and words in mail may be subject to different filters on consoles.

mordekai · June 2017

I admit to being a chronic swearer, but try hard to keep it clean in game, particularly in guild stuff.

The only thing that gave me cause to query this was when by choosing to refer to kicking some dragon butt on the next DF, by filtering it, it implied I'd used something stronger.

Thanks for the reply, by the way. Always appreciated.

neverburnaclown · June 2017

What amazes me is that some words are fully censored, yet benign, yet some words are half censored, and some harsher ones not censored at all.

It's like different people did things at different times on the censors

yiazzy · June 2017

The censor is downright stupid. The fact that "Got" is censored, as is the "s not" part of anything ending with S before the word not, is downright ridiculous.

I've searched high and low for any reference to "Got" being profanity in any foreign language, and the bottom line is, it isn't. So why is such a widely used word censored?

I'm gonna go for the usual reason, someone wrapped in cotton padding complained.

zephyriah · June 2017

yiazzy said:
The censor is downright stupid. The fact that "Got" is censored, as is the "s not" part of anything ending with S before the word not, is downright ridiculous.

I've searched high and low for any reference to "Got" being profanity in any foreign language, and the bottom line is, it isn't. So why is such a widely used word censored?

I'm gonna go for the usual reason, someone wrapped in cotton padding complained.

Except that would not explain why got is censored on Xbox, but not on PS4.

mordekai · June 2017

The only, even vaguely, rational reason I can think of (and that doesn't mean a better one doesn't exist...) is that its a word that probably appears with high frequency in spam.
And yeah, I know there are probably other, worse cases, but it's the best I can come up with for why "got" is forbidden,

orland1n · August 2017

Any chance to translate the texts game to pt-br ???

ollybongo89 · August 2017

The censor system is dumb e.g you can say HAMSTER but not got wood

<font color="orange">Mod Edit, please don't circumvent the profanity filter on the forums. Thanks!</font>

destrowod · August 2017

To be honest i think the whole "profanity" being censored thing is such a ridiculous thing. Maybe its because i am from Quebec and we use profanity in our daily language like common words, but i never understood the concept of wanting to censor peoples. IN ANY GAME OR MEDIA.

Even Xbox Live do not bother to censor text messages... you should take exemple on it. Im not saying if you insult somebody you won't get suspended, but it has to be manually reported and the person have to take action for it to happen.

In Neverwinter you always have to fight the chat when you try to speak. The GOT thing is really the worst offender obviously and it should had been adressed a long time ago... Its such an annoyance that sometimes im telling myself i would even pay zens to remove the filter...

mordekai · August 2017

I think the developers are entitled to apply a reasonable limit to the level of profanity. It's their platform, their content, and the way people interact publicly across it reflects on them.
As I mentioned before I swear a lot, but I appreciate that some people don't, and find certain words and phrases incredibly offensive, and even while I'm firmly of the belief that words are less important than the context and intent of the message, I'll accept that limits on profanity are OK.
I think that such limits do, however, need to sensible and proportionate. I've been on a couple of user moderated fora where it seemed like all one had to do was message a mod with, "I find xxxx offensive, please sort this out" and in fear of appearing to not be liberal PC guardians of decency just blocked the word or phrase.

What annoys me about the NWO filter is that I try and make sure to not swear and still end up with squiggles and hashtags in the middle of something calm and sensible. My guild is aimed at new players, many of whom won't know the filter is messed up, and I don't want members to read a post or email that makes them think, "Wow... how did this guy manage to fit a profanity into THAT comment... don't wan't to HAMSTER him off"...

(used HAMSTER for irony...)

Another one on language and censorship.

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