Advanced client-side chat filter

[mechahamham]

I would like to see a UI feature where a player can filter individual lines of chat from a given channel based on a keyword, preferably on the client-side and after any logging is done.

 

This feature *seems* like it would be a relatively low-hanging fruit, especially if it's able to hang off of or reuse parts of the existing ignore or friends features. Of course reality may be starkly different.

 

For example, say, I loathe beyond reason the Citadel task force. I'd like to be able to set a filter on the lfg channel to match 'citadel'. Any line of text containing 'citadel', 'Citadel', 'CITADEL', etc... would simply not be displayed for me. (I'd actually use this filter, since I really do wish the Citadel TF just wasn't part of the game. I have a rule of only doing 1 per character, simply for the possibility of getting TFC.) Setting it per channel would mean that friends could still ask me, 'Hey, Ham, we really need some support for this Citadel TF Soandso needs for TFC. Is there anyone you can bring?' Since I'm ignoring a keyword and not a player, I'd still see it if the same player were to post a line to a channel about 'Numina' or any other non-Citadel content.

 

I'm *certain* that there are other uses that will come immediately to mind for a lot of players, but my attorney has  advised me not to mention certain sensitive subjects.

 

[ImpousVileTerror]

I think your suggestion might be on the tougher side of things to code, actually.  But I also think it's worthwhile.  The more self-moderation tools the Team can give to players, the less reliant the players will need to be on the GMs to address personal grievances from other players.  

[mechahamham]

29 minutes ago, ImpousVileTerror said:

I think your suggestion might be on the tougher side of things to code, actually.  But I also think it's worthwhile.  The more self-moderation tools the Team can give to players, the less reliant the players will need to be on the GMs to address personal grievances from other players.  

I also think it's very worth-while. If someone knows they can't be trusted not to argue about a subject filtering it away from themselves without bothering anyone else is a good move. I can see people using a filter to make it easier to go a day without being baited into religious or political arguments.

 

I think the back-side difficulty depends on how easy it will be to drop in an existing 'regex match' function in the chat display code. I'm thinking of something like the following pseudo-code:

display_line = true
foreach filterlist.element as element do 
	if element.matches(output)
		display_line = false
		break
if display_line == true
	channel.print(output)

 

I think that the difficult part of the exercise is providing the functionality to users either by adding new slash commands or via a gui, and, of course, sanitizing the input to avoid a Little Bobby Tables situation. Ideally the filter list would be a text file on the player's computer, but there are still ways to mung that up.

Edited June 22, 2020 by mechahamham