Censorship & Forum Rules

Hazumu - Dreamweaver · February 2011

I'm a huge fan of freedome of speech and I happen to live in a country where it's given, so I never really thought about it as a child. It was only when I started seeing foreign TV shows later on that I noticed that censorship actually existed and I was shocked and appalled from it. In my naive childish mind I thought it was a thing of a past and we had grown out of it, but apparently not.

Can anyone point out even a single benefit for censorship? And yes, I am including replacing words such as '****' with something ambiguous. What I am asking is that who exactly is it for and who does it benefit? If you try to say that it's "to protect the children" then you're being more ignorant than I was as a child. Most children know pretty much every bad word there is already, this was true when decades ago and it's true today. It is very obvious that if it is "to protect the children" that it's not doing a very good job. Actually I'd say it has a opposite effect.

Let's make a test... How many children use "bad words" because they're "cool", or they want to act "tough"? Quite a few I'd say... and where does this notion of 'coolness', or 'badness' come from? Because they are labelled as being 'bad'. Thus in fact censorship has a very NEGATIVE effect to childrens behaviour overall.

What about forums then? We are in one afterall. What use we have for censorship here? Is there ANYONE here that cannot translate the censored words into what they are? I doubt there is any, surely nobody is that sheltered. But because they are censored, it attracts SPECIAL attention to that single word because it forces us to think what the writer meant to say and thus makes the case only worse in fact.

There's also another thing that ticks me off about the forum rules here. This is an issue that springs up most often with the same sex embrace / marriage suggestion that springs up so often. The rules are that you cannot necro old threads, but another rule is apparently not to make new threads for topics that already has a thread. Fairly simple and fairly logical rules...

Let's make a hypothetical situation. Let's say that we lived in a society that works the same way as these forums do now and they allow something we all can agree is wrong and should be dealt with, such as slavery. Ok, we have an issue that pretty much everyone would like to deal away with, but they cannot bring this issue up because there's already a thread about it that they cannot necro, which is also very old. This means that under such system if we abide the rules strictly we would not be able to discuss this topic at all ever, even if we have a full consencus that we should, because the rules say that we cannot. Obviously these 2 rules can and is used as a form of censorship. Oh, I know fully well that that suggestion is never going to fly through, but is it really necessary to completely shut it down everytime it springs up in the hopes that it doesn't anymore?

Can anyone truly say that that's not censorship? You cannot post on a old thread, because it's old, but you cannot post a new topic either because the old thread already exists. That my dear friend is how I would define ABSURD. Even if there is a suggestion that can never be implemented, does it really mean that it is necessary to close all conversation about it? Where did freedome of speech go? Of course I realize that these forums are and can be governed as the admins like, but they're going halfway with this matter and as such it accomplishes nothing. We're not stopped from bringing this issue up time and time again which is why it always will spring up forever and ever as long as the admins allow it to.

So here's my suggestion to improve this system once and for all. Stop being half assed PWI forum administration. You have 2 options and you SHOULD pick one of them.

Either employ full censorship to block out any conversation that you don't like to see, such as the same sex marriage / embrace issue.

Or abolish censorship completely and let us talk about those difficult subjects as we like. This way we would see a stop of new topics suggesting this and similar things (Or at least lower the rate of them) and it would also free up the moderators work load since they wouldn't need to lock up and thrash every single one of those topics that spring up everytime they spring up. Which by the way is one method for how censorship works.

My second suggestion to improve the forums is to remove the swear word censorship. Everybody knows what those words are and censoring them only attracts unnecessary attention to them. If you leave them uncensored hardly anyone would notice them.

My alternative suggestion to the second suggestion is to test it. Lift the censorship system off of the forums and see if there is any increase in swearing at all. I will eat my hair if it does.

I've also heard that there's always someone that said it better as what you're trying to say.
So here's Stephen Fry's take on swearing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSQmk6gGTcE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_osQvkeNRM
I dare you to argue that he's not making sense, I dare you.

This section is a response for the trolls that obviously will crawl out. Yes, it's a wall of text, no, you don't need to read it and yes, I know it's too long for you to read even without you telling me so.

Dyskrasia - Heavens Tear · February 2011

Well, for starters, since this is a private organization you aren't actually entitled to freedom of speech. The administrators are perfectly within their rights to censor people. I know you didn't say they weren't, but I'm sure someone's going to come along with a great sense of entitlement.

Secondly, I've always been under the impression that this game is supposed to be somewhat family friendly. Yes, people know perfectly well what's behind the asterisks most of the time, but it is still a step up from the word itself. Lots of people have been desensitized to these words, but there are still many people who do in fact get offended when they're used. It's the same as when a word is dubbed out of a movie or a song... people do know what the real word is, but they're free to ignore it and replace it with something else if they choose.

Lastly, if the forum were littered (you say the amount of swearing wouldn't increase, and you're probably right, but I still see it pretty frequently) with obscenity it would make the game and the company look bad all around. Are teenagers (those who I would guess care least about swear words) going to decide not to play the game because it's censored? Probably not. Are (some) adults going to decide not to play the game if the forum is full of people with limited vocabularies trying to prove their coolness? Maybe. That and, as I said before, it makes the company itself seem less professional and less likely to receive outside support. I'm pretty sure the CN execs wouldn't be too pleased about it either.

I agree that it shouldn't be a big deal... they're just words after all. But it is, and taking away the censorship on the forums won't change that.

Hazumu - Dreamweaver · February 2011

I don't truly understand just exactly HOW replacing words with asteriks is a step up when everyone knows perfectly well what is said? It's only a slightly more sophisticated way of plugging your ears and going "La-La-La-La". That's not a step up, that's childish and if anything it's a step down.

As for getting offended of a word, then why offending non-swear words aren't censored? There's no sense of consistency here. If you don't know what I mean, I'll let Stephen Fry explain it since he does it better than I possibly could:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvbG92hjO3A

To be honest, that kind of languange would be offending, way more offending than plain swearing to be honest, but is it swearing, or is it censored? No. Therefore the logic of "swearing is offending, therefore censorship" is honestly quite a poor argument, if you can spute that kind of languange on a national television no less without even a hint of censorship.

For your last point... if it would happen that way, I would agree. But I'd like to remind you that I live in a country (Finland) with very low rate of censorship, I remember hearing swearing and naked **** in day time TV, but I don't see kids, or adults behave any differently than elsewhere. I also once managed to lift the censorship filters off another international forum FULL of teens and kids and the obscenities did NOT increase and I actually believe (Note, believe, not truly confirmed) the obscenities actually did not only increase, but actually DECREASED. Also, the game is owned by the CN company yes, but the forums has full PWI management, PW-CN does not control the forums in any way as far as I'm aware.

I agree, it wouldn't truly change anything, but at the same time... if it's not such a big deal, then why not do it? If it's not a big deal then surely it's only that much easier to change without anyone even noticing. My whole point is that censorship doesn't work the way people want it to work and anywhere where censorship has been used, it has only had negative effects. I'm just one of that kind of people that would rather see anykind of censorship tossed and trashed altogether, or at least being less hypocritical about its use, if you insist employing censorship.

Sirrobert - Dreamweaver · February 2011

So let me get this straight.

You'r comparing forum 'cencoring' of offencive words (words that could be offencive to certain races and stuf. Yes they do exist), with the kind of cencoring hitler did to cover up critics against him?

If so, you are one hell of a hypocrit

Zoe - Heavens Tear · February 2011

I have a question for you. Why is it that people are incapable of having the intelligence to NOT use these words in the first place?

RedsRose - Lost City · February 2011

Someone needs to read the ToS.

Read the Forum Rules.

Also, I think someone needs to do some major research on what exactly Freedom if Speech is and how it applies...Hint: Think Government -.-

Hazumu - Dreamweaver · February 2011

*looks at the replies*

*facedesks*

@Sirrobert: Quote me even mentioning HITLER in any of my posts. I can't recall making any connection to Hitler, or Nazism. Geees....

@Zoe: As Stephen Fry said it in a video I posted earlier. Swearing is not a sign of lack of intelligence, education, or even vocabularity. Fry even goes as far as saying that the case is actually quite the opposite.

@RedsRose: You're gonna have to elaborate. I went through the forum rules and TOS, but I couldn't find a single stipulation that my rant / suggestion hybrid violates. As for the freedome of speech you brought up yourself, there's not a single point where it sais that censoring swear words is ok, but anything else isn't. I've no idea what you're actually trying to say.

NiightmareXz - Harshlands · February 2011

Honestly, as a child, I was banned from all things bad in the world. I live in the middle of nowhere, grew up with my cousins and brother to play with in the woods for hours on end, and my parents were very strict on what media we paid attention to. Around the age of 6, my dad bought my brother and me an N64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It was amazing, and we finally were introduced into the world of gaming. This leads to our first censorships. We bought Duke Nukem, and anyone who is familiar with the game will know how bloody and gorey it was for a horribly graphic'd game. My mother took it away because of the violence. (I guess it's different if it's a little boy with a sword and a fairy). Later in life, we were banned from TV shows that could teach us how to disobey our parents: Rugrats, etc. and shows that would give us nightmares: Ahhh! Real Monsters!. Leading into our teenage years, my brother and I were banned from listening to certain music. No Linkin Park or Screamo "I-Want-To-Kill-Myself" music was allowed. Swearing was frowned upon in our house, also.
My cousin, whom is at the age of 8 years old, was not censored in his younger years. He plays Left 4 Dead and other zombie games that was not allowed in my house at my age. He was allowed to watch whatever he wanted to (Wrestling, a very violent sport, and which is encouraged in their household, leading to multiple injuries), and he enjoys listening to Rap, of all things. It honestly disgusts me, because he is too spoiled and can say whatever he wants to, whenever he wants to. He's swore before, he physically bites and kicks if he doesn't get his way, and seriously "jokes" about killing people! While I would be smacked and sent to my room grounded for a month, he gets nothing as punishment.
You can see I have compared the two enviroments, one with censorship and one without.
While I have become older, I do admit to using swear words, but on this forum, I take comfort in the censorship because I can say whatever I want without really offending someone because they can't physically see what I have written. I think the censorship put in place is great for the younger kids; while they may know what it is we have said, it's not like they can really see it. I can honestly say that if I read certain posts as a child, I would have no clue what the ******* were meant to be. And I applaude anyone who raises their child like my parents did, because while it makes you naive, it also turns you into a better adult, less likely to do bad things. (IF you hit them early on, of course. If you start enforcing the rules in later years, they will do nothing more than rebel, but that doesn't take an expert to know that.)

By the way, your point is invalid about how the forum doesn't allow us to post topics again if the old topic is closed. You chose a very stupid example of it - the only reason why they keep closing threads about same sex marriage is because idiots keep posting them! If it were a question about a quest or where to find a mat, the Mods would be very tolerable about it, because it's not something that gets posted every other week.

Zoe - Heavens Tear · February 2011

Hazumu - Dreamweaver wrote: »

@Zoe: As Stephen Fry said it in a video I posted earlier. Swearing is not a sign of lack of intelligence, education, or even vocabularity. Fry even goes as far as saying that the case is actually quite the opposite.

Fry is an idiot from a stupid show. I've seen the show before.

It takes more intelligence to come up with other words and ways to say things without just spamming swears all over the place. What is more intelligent? Just imitating everyone else? Or perhaps coming up with something unique that DOESN'T involve such words, showing you have a much larger vocabulary and are capable of thinking outside of the hive mind.

LenieClarke - Heavens Tear · February 2011

Zoe - Heavens Tear wrote: »

It takes more intelligence to come up with other words and ways to say things without just spamming swears all over the place.

sure it does. but let's face it --- some things are just too damn stupid to be worth the ****ing effort.

Shivalia - Lost City · February 2011

The only thing I want to add: This has confused me for years. People just seems like idiots. My favorite television censoring has to be 'god-da.mmit'. The reason for this is, they don't even censor the swear word. They sensor 'God' and scream out 'da.mmit' instead. Oh, don't take the lord's name in vain! But if they do, then you can't hear his name, and you'll hear the curse word instead. b:chuckle People make so much sense. That seems completely backwords. And someone may come and say to me that its only censored that way because d.amn is acceptable on American tv, for instance. Well, then is d.amn is acceptable, why is it censored at all? If its acceptable for tv, why would they consider it against 'god'? Its ACCEPTABLE. b:laugh Morons. If you're gonna censor something, do it thoroughly.

NiightmareXz - Harshlands · February 2011

Shivalia - Lost City wrote: »

The only thing I want to add: This has confused me for years. People just seems like idiots. My favorite television censoring has to be 'god-da.mmit'. The reason for this is, they don't even censor the swear word. They sensor 'God' and scream out 'da.mmit' instead. Oh, don't take the lord's name in vain! But if they do, then you can't hear his name, and you'll hear the curse word instead. b:chuckle People make so much sense. That seems completely backwords. And someone may come and say to me that its only censored that way because d.amn is acceptable on American tv, for instance. Well, then is d.amn is acceptable, why is it censored at all? If its acceptable for tv, why would they consider it against 'god'? Its ACCEPTABLE. b:laugh Morons. If you're gonna censor something, do it thoroughly.

There are 3 acceptable swear words that can be aired on normal television, atleast in the US. Of course the shows that air the words have ratings for them, and you'll see an L in a black box next to the TV rating when the show comes on. Da,mn, as.s and bi.tch can be aired on TV without the use of censors. The reason why is because these are "socially acceptable" words, or milder swear words if you want to go that route.This does not apply to movies, which are an entity in themselves and have their own ratings and can say any word they want to without being censored. The God in God dammit is blocked for the same reason why they are attempting to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance. It is also considered offensive to all religious people; one of the 10 Holy Commandments is "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain (for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that takes his name in vain)."

Hazumu - Dreamweaver · February 2011

@Zoe: All I need to say to your previous post is that you take a VERY high horse indeed to label someone as an 'idiot'. Eitherway that's a ad-homini and doesn't make anything he said any less valid. The case stands.

Nightmare, I cannot obviously say that your experience was not true, or even not valid. But I do have to mention that it does fall into the category of personal experience that may, or may not apply to the big picture.

To the contrast, me and my brother were raised in a environment where we could do, watch and say pretty much anything we wanted and I can't remember any of us swearing excessively, or being the spoiled brat like either. But again that is MY personal experience that may, or may not apply to the big picture.

What I am trying to say that the parents have a WAY bigger influence on any child than any media, or outside environment and as said, the country I live in doesn't censor anything as much (Although we have started beeping swear words in one particular channel for who knows why, eitherway I find it highly annoying) and there's no difference. The whole point is that censorship has inert effect, if not even negative effect especially even more so when it's applied in the same way as Shivalia described.

Here, let's make a simple logical test. I'm gonna say 2 'offending' words and see which gets banned.

****** and ****.

Which one is more offending word as a word on their own? A racial word meant to describe skin colour that was THE politically correct word for it back in Darwins day, or a horrible word that has much more horrible and more recent history and way more violent than the other?

Can anyone truly say that it makes sense that one is covered, but not the other?
Either censor any offending word, or none at all.

And either allow necroing, or making a new topic on one that is buried, don't ban both. That restricts speech.

sikozu · February 2011

I find it odd that things like A::I::O::N and G-A-Y are censored yet *****y is not.

Zoe - Heavens Tear · February 2011

You have no case. You want to do that which should not be done. I'll be 28 this year and have never used the foul language before, nor will I ever. I have enough of a brain to not need to, clearly, you do not and neither does that person you keep posting vids of. It takes more intelligence to come up with something new than it does to just copy everyone else.

Humans keep proving daily, that they are by FAR the least intelligent form of life on the Earth.

@sikozu
I find it odd that they don't censor every possible way someone could get around the filter.

I vote that everything that can be used in an offensive way get censored, along with every way people could get around the filter!

sikozu · February 2011

Zoe - Heavens Tear wrote: »

@sikozu
I find it odd that they don't censor every possible way someone could get around the filter.

I vote that everything that can be used in an offensive way get censored, along with every way people could get around the filter!

That would be impossible. These HUMANS you think are "least" intellegent tend to find a most intelligent way around everything. Making any efforts to do so not worth the time it would take.

NiightmareXz - Harshlands · February 2011

Hazumu - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Here, let's make a simple logical test. I'm gonna say 2 'offending' words and see which gets banned.

****** and ****.

Which one is more offending word as a word on their own? A racial word meant to describe skin colour that was THE politically correct word for it back in Darwins day, or a horrible word that has much more horrible and more recent history and way more violent than the other?

Can anyone truly say that it makes sense that one is covered, but not the other?
Either censor any offending word, or none at all.

Okay that is the worst test ever. ****** is never appropiate and I don't care if it was politically correct in Dawrin's era. This is 2011, and we have other words to use in place of that highly offensive term. The word "****" is a different story. When Hitler reigned, that was what the group of soldiers fighting under his command was called. While the things they did was wrong and 'horrible', it not being censored doesn't constitute a valid reason for the word ****** being uncensored. The only way you could offend someone with the word **** is by asking them if they are German, then calling them a ****. Even then, I don't know how many Germans would get offended by it. Anyway, it can't be a racist remark because there were non-German **** in WWII. ******s compared to **** is like comparing apples to oranges. Please learn your history before you go around throwing "racial" words out.
Anyway, to have ****** uncensored would offend so many black people and would mark PWI as a "racist" game, because forum goers would be calling everyone and their grandmother it, regardless of the person's actual skin colour. And please tell me who gets offended by the word ****? It happened over 70 years ago, and there are only a few remaining surviviors of the Holocaust, and I highly doubt any of them are on this forum saying "OMG YOU SAID ****!!!!!" . While I have sympathy for all Holocaust victims, it is simply not a word that evokes much offense, unlike the word ******.

PotatoHeadQR - Dreamweaver · February 2011

well, about the necro/same post:
if you have something new to say/ask about the topic, it has been stated that you should create a new thread and maybe link the old thread.

generally, the rules are guidelines and not laws that are strictly enforced.
besides, htye can close/edit/move any thread for any reason, ban anyone etc.
it's the perfect dictatorship (or oligarchy) and it's perfectly right since it's their domain;
you dont talk about violation of the freedom of speach because you cant post your views on the first page of google, right?

and that leads to my view upon the swearing; frankly, my dear, I dont give a damn.
since it's their domain, they could ask us to write in fluffly comic sans in light pink and finish our posts with "all hail the invisible pink unicorn"b:chuckle
basically, it's generally accepted and that sounds weird to more..
i was kinda socked to find out that they censor songs.
but still, they have to accomodate the views of the main target audience; regardless if they say international in the name or not

all in all: under the current administration, the form of censorship you described (old thread=> cant post there + cant make new = banned topic) does not exist.
while in theory it could be justified, i would be more concerned about the clause that states that they can do anything to your posts and your characters :b

frankieraye · February 2011

To me, the purpose of the language filter isn't so much about "protecting the children" as it is about keeping the forum environment as welcoming and friendly as possible. We want players to feel like our forums are a safe environment for them to hang out, enjoy themselves, and talk about the game. Profanity can be very aggressive at times, and can spiral into very hostile territory, and that's exactly the kind of environment we don't want here.

As for the necro/new thread paradox, it's actually allowed to make a new thread if the old one on the same topic hasn't seen any action in the past 30 days. I'll update the forum rules to reflect it.

Hazumu - Dreamweaver · February 2011

*Tips her proverbial hat at frankie*

Thank you for coming at least halfway and updating the rules to be more sensical.
I can't begin to describe how happy that actually makes me. (Yes, I'm nerdy in that way)

But as for the censoring responce... I'm not sure that answer really holds water on the long run. As Stephen Fry demonstrated, it is possible to be horrifyingly vile without uttering a single swear word. Thus censoring swear words only is simply not effective especially when people work their way around these filters anyway. I know it's not allowed to do so, but that's what they do.

For example, when I look at Nightmares most recent responce, it looks like she's using some pretty horrible languange without actually reading the text at all by looking at the amount of asterisk's in there. When I glance through a post, the asterisks only highlights the swearwords for me instead of letting them blurr into the wall of text.

And to respond to Nightmare, you completely misunderstood the test. I didn't compare Nazism to racist remarks, I compared 2 'bad' words and how they're treated. I don't know about you, but I personally would be more offended being called a **** than being called a ******, actually I can't think of anything more offending than that.

And here's another test.... how many people saw the asterisks above first, or among the first things before anything else, if you glanced through the whole text before reading it first?

P.S. (To frankie)
A single word, no matter how bad can never lead a spiral into a hostile territory. It's always about how and what you say that causes it. Censoring words doesn't stop people from using profanity either, just look at any flame topic and you're bound to see countless asterisks. Simply put, censoring swear words doesn't provide a safe environment at all. Especially when people can be offensive and hostile even without swearing.

NiightmareXz - Harshlands · February 2011

Hazumu - Dreamweaver wrote: »

*Tips her proverbial hat at frankie*

Thank you for coming at least halfway and updating the rules to be more sensical.
I can't begin to describe how happy that actually makes me. (Yes, I'm nerdy in that way)

But as for the censoring responce... I'm not sure that answer really holds water on the long run. As Stephen Fry demonstrated, it is possible to be horrifyingly vile without uttering a single swear word. Thus censoring swear words only is simply not effective especially when people work their way around these filters anyway. I know it's not allowed to do so, but that's what they do.

For example, when I look at Nightmares most recent responce, it looks like she's using some pretty horrible languange without actually reading the text at all by looking at the amount of asterisk's in there. When I glance through a post, the asterisks only highlights the swearwords for me instead of letting them blurr into the wall of text.

And to respond to Nightmare, you completely misunderstood the test. I didn't compare Nazism to racist remarks, I compared 2 'bad' words and how they're treated. I don't know about you, but I personally would be more offended being called a **** than being called a ******, actually I can't think of anything more offending than that.

And here's another test.... how many people saw the asterisks above first, or among the first things before anything else, if you glanced through the whole text before reading it first?

P.S. (To frankie)
A single word, no matter how bad can never lead a spiral into a hostile territory. It's always about how and what you say that causes it. Censoring words doesn't stop people from using profanity either, just look at any flame topic and you're bound to see countless asterisks. Simply put, censoring swear words doesn't provide a safe environment at all. Especially when people can be offensive and hostile even without swearing.

You must be a democrat /my mum's thoughts
I honestly don't see why you think you can come in here, change the censoring and still think you change the censoring even after mr. raye told you why it is here. The whole idea is just plain... stupid. I don't care if your eyes go to it first, I'd rather see asterisks than the actual word. There are little kids on this forum, and please don't say "OH but I changed this other game's forum around and they had kids!" because that's just wrong and the owners of the forum/game must have been mental. -_- You talk about offending words but I would rather have the majority of offending words censored out rather than have all the offending words NOT censored. I personally take offense to a certain censored word, which is censored in the forum but not on the game, and every time I see that word in game, I screenshot and submit a ticket about it. Now that I've stopped playing the game and basically focusing on the forum aspect, I'm quite pleased I don't have to see that word thrown around unless it bypasses the filter. How do you think I, let alone all the other people that are offended by that very word, would react? There would be a bunch of QQ threads that the mods would have to clean up, and at extreme, some people would leave the forum. And then, new players looking for a nice game, they come into the forum and see it is full of cuss words and horrible, degrading terms. How do you think they would take that? Unless they own a sailor's mouth, they obviously would assume all people on the forum were like that in game and wouldn't even think about joining it after that.
You mentioned earlier that the amount of swearing did not raise after you got a certain game's forum to uncensor words. Every forum is different, and our users are very... unique. How can you honestly say that after they realise this offending words aren't banned anymore that they won't use them to swear at everyone and their brother?

This idea is just so plain... stupid. Freedom of Speech is our right, but when you sign up and agree to the ToS, you give up all your rights in this forum, and are binded to the rules and regulations of it. It is their choice to censor certain words and the like; you can't use Freedom of Speech as an argument if you do not have it .

Hazumu - Dreamweaver · February 2011

@Nightmare
What on earth is a democrat? I've no idea... I'm European, not American.
Secondly, your opinion doesn't invalidate anything.

But I agree, I would rather see every offensive word censored rather than just some.

But even more than that I'd rather see it lifted off completely and no, frankie did not say that it's never going to happen. He only shared his own view on it and honestly, that doesn't stop any change from happening. If he were to say that if I keep persuing this I'd get banned, or had locked the topic as "solved", or even just said that it's not gonna happen, that would be a sign that it's not happening.

Until then I keep persuing and pushing and fighting towards something I believe is RIGHT.

Censorship has no positive qualities, the only reason anyone would want to keep it on is because people are afraid of change. Not too long ago prior to American civil war people argued if slavery was right and people defended slavery. Just because someone wants to keep status quo doesn't mean it's the right thing. And no, you don't get to be offended by that statement because it was an EXAMPLE, not a comparison.

And here's the other thing. How can you live your life if you get offended by individual words? If you really think about it, that's absurd and frankly, not healthy.

Nelchael - Harshlands · February 2011

I agree with Hazumu, I was raised as a kid, without a stric censorship from my parents, of course there were things I couldn't do, all kids go trough that. But I know now that made me a much less "uptight" person. I can swear if I want to, but most of the time I don't, because it's MUCH more effective to get my point in another way, just swearing all the time makes people look a bit childish, or just furious.
I don't understand how a word, can be so offending, I mean I think it always depends on the context you're using it. If you say to someone "you're a ****ing ***** and I hope you die" censoring 2 words doesn't make the sentence less offensive, it's the sentence as a whole that's violent, and I think that in a forum we whould be as civil as we can, so it's not a matter of censoring isolated words, but a thing of attitude towards the rest. If you can't be respectful of others, then you probably shouldn't be in a forum.
I don't think it's going to change though, word censoring is like a patch solution to a much bigger problem, but I don't think people are willing to do what it takes to have the right solution.
As the OP, to me all censorship is always bad, I'm glad he(she) lives in a country that has such a mature vision on the topic, where I'm from we can't even listen to songs in the radio that have those words...
About not having censorship would make the forums seem less professional, I disagree, the real world is filled with those words, and it's censoring them in a forum that makes it look childish and overly uptight, at least for me. Of course that's my own opinion, considering it's such a subjective topic many people can see it differently.

LenieClarke - Heavens Tear · February 2011

SUGGESTION: that the cussword filter be made a switchable user interface option, defaulting to enabled. (other MMOs have gone this route, so it wouldn't be any groundbreaking innovation.)

NiightmareXz - Harshlands · February 2011

LenieClarke - Heavens Tear wrote: »

SUGGESTION: that the cussword filter be made a switchable user interface option, defaulting to enabled. (other MMOs have gone this route, so it wouldn't be any groundbreaking innovation.)

This would actually be a good idea. I know a certain game does this and I don't see why we shouldn't have it implimented.
@Hazumu
As for Democrat, it's the uh... "liberal" political party, if you will. I guess. I don't know. My mum says that everyone she doesn't agree with is a democrat. *Someone driving bad on the road. Mum: Must be a democrat!*
I actually didn't read your reply aside from the first and last line because I'm so freaking tired from work but I can tell you I have the right to be offended by a certain word, but I also have the right to not tell you why I get offended by that word.
And as for the opinion thing, it's not really an opinion... If you think about, you are asking for censorship on this forum to go away, while others do not want it gone. It doesn't hurt you or anyone else who wants no censorship if there is censorship, but it can affect people who want the censorship if there is no censorship. You see, while it might be what you, and, say, 50% of the PWI forum population want, the other 50% want censorship, and since you stated you can figure out what they're saying regardless of asterisks or not, why does it concern you? There are people here who enjoy not having to read every swear word, and we shouldn't change it just because some people want to. It doesn't hurt you (or the non-censorship party), but it negatively affects me ( or the censorship party). The only way I can see the censorship changing is if 100% of the forum users agree on it, and then after that, all new forum users agree also.
Or you could just make a switch button like Lenie said.
It would work wonders

Tearle - Dreamweaver · February 2011

LenieClarke - Heavens Tear wrote: »

SUGGESTION: that the cussword filter be made a switchable user interface option, defaulting to enabled. (other MMOs have gone this route, so it wouldn't be any groundbreaking innovation.)

^ This definitely. Would make everyone happy. Would be nice for ingame too, maybe have an option where people can choose what words to censor if a certain word not already covered can be blocked in their personal curse word-be-gone. Not sure if that'd be hard to do or not.

Hazumu - Dreamweaver · February 2011

LenieClarke - Heavens Tear wrote: »

SUGGESTION: that the cussword filter be made a switchable user interface option, defaulting to enabled. (other MMOs have gone this route, so it wouldn't be any groundbreaking innovation.)

This is something I'd say to be fair enough. Forum devs, do it. b:thanks

Semara - Dreamweaver · February 2011

Quote:
Originally Posted by LenieClarke - Heavens Tear
"sure it does. but let's face it --- some things are just too damn stupid to be worth the ****ing effort."

Wow; you have got to be kidding me with such a statement as that... It is absolutely worth the effort because that is how we correct situations. It takes persistence and passion to fight for what you believe in to achieve your goal, and this is worth fighting for many people.
If that view, in which to gauge the importance of necessary change was used by everyone; our world would have even more problems than just "offensive" material. Should Women have never fought for their right to speak, work or vote as peers, as men did? You may argue this because its "comparing apples to oranges", but in fact one small change or decision can be the beginning of a great resolution in something wonderful.
The world is exciting because of its diversity in many avenues, and expressions is one. as a comment was made about "one having the intelligence to not use these words", it is quite the opposite actually. By narrowing your usage of expression, you are either ignorant or uneducated to the possibilities of communication. And while we're on the matter; should we remove every new "swear word" as new ones are created constantly throughout time and civilization? How about grow up, have some respect in how you use your words...not pretend they don’t exist!

I believe that the last reply would be a great idea to let the user / home make their own choices, impacting each individual home & family

GO HAZUMU!
I hope you achieve what you are fighting for.

HarmOwnie - Dreamweaver · February 2011

Personally i would prefer a bugfixing and rework of other things with a higher impact on the gameplay than the update/modification of a language filter ingame. Nevertheless i agree in the point that a plain censorship like replacing certain letters in a word with symbols is just ridiculous. Especially when the consistency of the filter doesnt work well like with *** and gr***hopper. Moreover the use of the filter doesnt prevent people from using swearwords but makes them using terms like **** instead of ***** and so on which work as a substitute.

I see frankies point that from a marketing perspektive the appearance of the game and forum is crucial for PWE when it comes to the first impression players get. Moreover preventing offensive language from appearing in the game is important when it comes to the requirements for computer games for children and teens. Not mainly to protect the teens from hearing those words but from the legal consequences of having such possible ingame content. It would be hard to decide to which extent swear words could be allowed in the game without getting into trouble with foreign laws especially in other legislative systems. So PWE rather prefers to censor the game by themself to prevent it from getting censored or restricted in some other countries with different legislation which is no bad idea i think.

Moreover in offensive words in written form can be missunderstood easily while a large amount of people use them in some situations without the intention to insult for instance:

damn, you lucky **** you've won another lunar item out of your pack big gratz b:victory

so while a person who is familiar with this player might be able to write such sentences another person who doesnt know the same player so well might be cause an insult when writing the same sentence so the risk that someone is offended is always present

In addition i would say that people now are trying to ommit swear words from their chat simply because they dont like their phrase with *+~= and so on in it while without the censorship they would use the words more frequently. In my opinion people tend to overuse swear words anyway so the filter here has also its good sides. I mean phrases like,

hey noob where have you been we ****in waited 2 hours for you yesterday for the TT run but you lazy *** didnt show up.

look so mich nicer when put differently

hello buddy where have you been yesterday we expected you to show up for TT run. The next time you wont be able to make it tell us please because yesterday some of us got really upset because you was missing.

and last but not least players are not able write

****ing PWE i give a **** about your new dances fix the APS madness or......(imagine a long chain of ********s here )b:chuckle

greetz harmOwnie

edit : i see you updated the filter for forum so
a ss and gra ss hopper works now
and also bis h and bit ch

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