Automatic Block Feature with Specific Phrasing

[Zeraphia]

I'd love it if there were a feature that just automatically blocked messages from sight for a player by using a "phrase" simulator for things such as:

 

1. Political phrases "MAGA," "Russian Spies," "COVID-19 is a hoax."

2. Racial slurs, sorry I'm not providing examples. 

3. Other various annoyances to the player.

 

I know this is a bit of a "sour" suggestion, but I find the trolling in this game can get excessive and I'd rather just have the option to not see these kinds of statements/conspiracies. I play this game to escape from the horrific reality that plagues my real life, I don't want to see some of these topics come up again and again.

 

For example, let's say a fictionary character named BluePurple Red said in General Chat "COVID-19 is a hoax." and I have "COVID-19 fake" and "COVID-19 hoax" in my phrase blocker. I would not see this message in general chat without having to block this character/person.

 

Please keep in mind this is NOT censorship. This is client-sided. You are not suppressing the instigator from saying such phrases and words, you are merely stopping it from sight on your end.

Edited July 10, 2020 by Zeraphia

[ImpousVileTerror]

More tools to provide players with the power to tailor their game experience without negatively impacting others are always good ideas, as far as I'm concerned.  I don't know what sort of programming overhead there might be on a feature of this nature, but it definitely merits a feasibility study at the very least.

[SurfD]

Auto filters for chat like that are something that other games (WoW for example) often handle with 3rd party addons.  Unfortunately, I don't think CoH has anything remotely similar to WoW's UI and Addon API so it might be a hell of a lot more difficult to pull off.

[Greycat]

I just remove General, so I miss most of that. Well, miss as in don't see, not feel longing for.

[Mezmera]

1 hour ago, Greycat said:

I just remove General, so I miss most of that. Well, miss as in don't see, not feel longing for.

I'd just have to agree with this.  I want this volunteer team to spend NO time on a censorship system that who knows how things could break one way or another.  They do a pretty good job of not bringing the hammer down on things unless it gets too out of hand and I've only really seen a few instances where it persisted to where they had to ban someones IP.  On that same token I will say that I've seen some character names get generic'd that aren't really all that bad and all it does is make people more spiteful.  

 

Removing General seems to be what you're looking for, this stuff hardly spills over into Help anymore.  Honestly any time spent on reworking the chat system which is fine as is in place of possibly adding more challenging content to keep you preoccupied from looking at said chat would be time ill spent when the solution seems to be already at your fingertips.  

Edited July 9, 2020 by Mezmera

[Zeraphia]

1 hour ago, Mezmera said:

Removing General seems to be what you're looking for, this stuff hardly spills over into Help anymore.  Honestly any time spent on reworking the chat system which is fine as is in place of possibly adding more challenging content to keep you preoccupied from looking at said chat would be time ill spent when the solution seems to be already at your fingertips.  

No offense, but that's your perspective. I saw someone call another the n-word in LFG for spamming. I don't want to see this stuff, and I enjoy actually looking into the discussions on general chat for laughs, but there is a time when enough is enough and I don't want to see messages containing this stuff. So no, your "solution" isn't a solution, and quite honestly I don't think I should have to deal with seeing messages like this in a game. Ever.

 

Btw, said individual still logs into the game and isn't banned. 

3 hours ago, SurfD said:

Auto filters for chat like that are something that other games (WoW for example) often handle with 3rd party addons.  Unfortunately, I don't think CoH has anything remotely similar to WoW's UI and Addon API so it might be a hell of a lot more difficult to pull off.

This is a very valid post and it brings a dialogue to this topic more on implementation rather than just the suggestion itself. If such a feature of an add-on exists, I would love to use it. If devs are able to run this capably, I would enjoy it thoroughly. 

2 hours ago, Greycat said:

I just remove General, so I miss most of that. Well, miss as in don't see, not feel longing for.

The problem extends beyond General chat. It is probably the most obvious offender but it was purely used as an example in my opening statement, but as I stated above in this reply, it is not a full solution to this. 

[Mezmera]

1 hour ago, Zeraphia said:

No offense, but that's your perspective. I saw someone call another the n-word in LFG for spamming. I don't want to see this stuff, and I enjoy actually looking into the discussions on general chat for laughs, but there is a time when enough is enough and I don't want to see messages containing this stuff. So no, your "solution" isn't a solution, and quite honestly I don't think I should have to deal with seeing messages like this in a game. Ever.

 

No offense ever taken!  Lets be clear where I stand on free and open communication.  I'm for free communication to the max!   There's one word I detest and it is that very word yet it seems to be propagated more by the very culture that it was meant to demean, bit ironic I'd say.  Even this word I would not like to be banned, I'd rather the stigma of its use determine its fade.  But there will always be a replacement word for that to be offended by either by from edgy folk or plain mean spirited people.  

 

Which brings us to the N-word you saw.  Certainly there's a profanity filter that would bleep out that word and if someone was determined to have it seen how many variations could they use to get around the filter?  So you say you'll be able to program in on your own every iteration of verbiage that you don't like, what if someone gets around your programming?  

 

What happens if while in their attempt to create this new chat system something gets broken?  There's a chess channel on Youtube I enjoy on occasion, this channel was penalized recently because the algorithm registered a pattern that it was programmed not to like.  This channel talks about nothing but chess and all its strategy and yet because there's a white and black side and the phrase "white side may be winning" might have been uttered it got suspended.......What are we doing?!

 

Again this is from my perspective on the matter but I'd say turn on your filters and since you'll be subjected to chat outside of yourself be prepared to get the good with the bad.  Tell whoever said the n-word to chill out and if it upset you so just take a break, grab a snack or something.  

 

 

Edited July 9, 2020 by Mezmera

[Replacement]

8 hours ago, Mezmera said:

I'd just have to agree with this.  I want this volunteer team to spend NO time on a censorship system that who knows how things could break one way or another.  They do a pretty good job of not bringing the hammer down on things unless it gets too out of hand and I've only really seen a few instances where it persisted to where they had to ban someones IP.  On that same token I will say that I've seen some character names get generic'd that aren't really all that bad and all it does is make people more spiteful.  

 

Removing General seems to be what you're looking for, this stuff hardly spills over into Help anymore.  Honestly any time spent on reworking the chat system which is fine as is in place of possibly adding more challenging content to keep you preoccupied from looking at said chat would be time ill spent when the solution seems to be already at your fingertips.  

"Censorship" - implication of authoritarianism.  Instill fear.

"Spend no time" - whatabout'ing the issue by implication of there being better things to work on.

"Who knows how things could break" - More of the same.  Fear+the issue with investing time into this.

This is just right out the gate.

 

I'm not saying you're doing this intentionally, that you're at all nefarious.  But you are trying to push a narrative.  Through insinuation, you have indicated you think people should be allowed to message stuff like this in-game, that you want to push the envelope on allowed-names.  Hell, you even said your advice for someone throwing around the N-Word would be "if it upsets you just take a break."  It's telling to me that you didn't even think about reporting the person.  Your whole attitude is "if people don't like it, they can leave."

 

The truth is: a chat filter like this would likely run at the client level and would at worst, result in the same thing as completely removing a channel.   Is it really censorship if I'm not pushing the filter on you?  It's either feasible, or it would grind the servers to a halt and it's not.  Either way, I wouldn't be arguing that it's not even worth looking into.

 

As I find myself saying in tons of Suggestions & Feedback threads: What they prioritize to work on is for Homecoming to decide; not you.  All we do here is make the suggestion.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

7 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

No offense, but that's your perspective. I saw someone call another the n-word in LFG for spamming. I don't want to see this stuff, and I enjoy actually looking into the discussions on general chat for laughs, but there is a time when enough is enough and I don't want to see messages containing this stuff. So no, your "solution" isn't a solution, and quite honestly I don't think I should have to deal with seeing messages like this in a game. Ever.

 

Btw, said individual still logs into the game and isn't banned. 

This is a very valid post and it brings a dialogue to this topic more on implementation rather than just the suggestion itself. If such a feature of an add-on exists, I would love to use it. If devs are able to run this capably, I would enjoy it thoroughly. 

The problem extends beyond General chat. It is probably the most obvious offender but it was purely used as an example in my opening statement, but as I stated above in this reply, it is not a full solution to this. 

Ill be honest, imo we shouldnt be able to filter it out beyond the profanity filter, because words like this being used are more than mere profanity and are something you need to report when you see so that the GMs can deal with such problematic members of this community head on. Ill deal with anything even bigotry in closed RP circles because hey I am an anti space parasite bigot myself in RP so cant give too much flak in those scenes. But on LFG or in general chat,local anywhere but closed circles, such things need to be reported if seen.

 

Its just like they are not going to ban the red hat sg and they are not going to filter out the words red and hat, or make it so we cant see that obnoxious symbol of their fealty.

[ShardWarrior]

12 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

I'd love it if there were a feature that just automatically blocked messages from sight for a player by using a "phrase" simulator for things such as:

 

1. Political phrases "MAGA," "Russian Spies," "COVID-19 is a hoax."

2. Racial slurs, sorry I'm not providing examples. 

3. Other various annoyances to the player.

 

I know this is a bit of a "sour" suggestion, but I find the trolling in this game can get excessive and I'd rather just have the option to not see these kinds of statements/conspiracies. I play this game to escape from the horrific reality that plagues my real life, I don't want to see some of these topics come up again and again.

 

For example, let's say a fictionary character named BluePurple Red said in General Chat "COVID-19 is a hoax." and I have "COVID-19 fake" and "COVID-19 hoax" in my phrase blocker. I would not see this message in general chat without having to block this character/person.

Not against the idea as giving players more tools to do this kind of filtering themselves is a good thing in my opinion.  However, in your example, you will have to start adding quite a lot of variations of the phrase unless you are looking to do some kind of LIKE operator, which in of itself can be problematic.  I can only speak for myself here, but if someone is typing stuff I do not agree with, I will just put the person on ignore and move along. 

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

9 minutes ago, Replacement said:

"Censorship" - implication of authoritarianism.  Instill fear.

"Spend no time" - whatabout'ing the issue by implication of there being better things to work on.

"Who knows how things could break" - More of the same.  Fear+the issue with investing time into this.

This is just right out the gate.

 

I'm not saying you're doing this intentionally, that you're at all nefarious.  But you are trying to push a narrative.  Through insinuation, you have indicated you think people should be allowed to message stuff like this in-game, that you want to push the envelope on allowed-names.  Hell, you even said your advice for someone throwing around the N-Word would be "if it upsets you just take a break."  It's telling to me that you didn't even think about reporting the person.  Your whole attitude is "if people don't like it, they can leave."

 

The truth is: a chat filter like this would likely run at the client level and would at worst, result in the same thing as completely removing a channel.   Is it really censorship if I'm not pushing the filter on you?  It's either feasible, or it would grind the servers to a halt and it's not.  Either way, I wouldn't be arguing that it's not even worth looking into.

 

As I find myself saying in tons of Suggestions & Feedback threads: What they prioritize to work on is for Homecoming to decide; not you.  All we do here is make the suggestion.

While I totes am in cuncurrent pov about reporting such abusive word usage in open chat, your final line basically ruins the rest of your post. Its not whataboutism, as it is the default and in my experience on MMO forums highly accepted  way to respond to any suggestion with a " Meh I dont really want dev energy spent on this kinda thing personally". Their suggestion to the devs to not do something is equally valid. In fact the way you do keep telling posters that they cant post such because you dont like it has been enough to get folks banned on no few game forums Ive been a member of.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

4 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

Not against the idea as giving players more tools to do this kind of filtering themselves is a good thing in my opinion.  However, in your example, you will have to start adding quite a lot of variations of the phrase unless you are looking to do some kind of LIKE operator, which in of itself can be problematic.  I can only speak for myself here, but if someone is typing stuff I do not agree with, I will just put the person on ignore and move along. 

yep report if truly abusive and inappropriate for open chat channels, put em on ignore and trust in the GMs.

[Lines]

Customising the profanity filter clientside sounds like a good feature to have. Maybe not even that tricky, if the profanity filter could read from a text file.

 

Outright blocking the message could lead to some perfectly innocent messages getting lost by an overzealous filter, but as long as the interface cautions this in some way I don't see there being a problem.

Edited July 9, 2020 by Lines

[Replacement]

3 minutes ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

While I totes am in cuncurrent pov about reporting such abusive word usage in open chat, your final line basically ruins the rest of your post. Its not whataboutism, as it is the default and in my experience on MMO forums highly accepted  way to respond to any suggestion with a " Meh I dont really want dev energy spent on this kinda thing personally". Their suggestion to the devs to not do something is equally valid. In fact the way you do keep telling posters that they cant post such because you dont like it has been enough to get folks banned on no few game forums Ive been a member of.

People can post whatever they want, BB (within the forum guidelines, of course). 

 

And I am allowed to respond with the reminder that...

17 minutes ago, Replacement said:

What they prioritize to work on is for Homecoming to decide; not you.  All we do here is make the suggestion.

And that my feeling is this truth undermines any argument that "devs shouldn't be working on this."

[Mezmera]

3 hours ago, Replacement said:

I'm not saying you're doing this intentionally, that you're at all nefarious.  But you are trying to push a narrative.  Through insinuation, you have indicated you think people should be allowed to message stuff like this in-game, that you want to push the envelope on allowed-names.  Hell, you even said your advice for someone throwing around the N-Word would be "if it upsets you just take a break."  It's telling to me that you didn't even think about reporting the person.  Your whole attitude is "if people don't like it, they can leave."

What's so telling?  What connotations are you inferring onto me with assumptions of any "narrative" that I didn't already state?  I'm telling Zeraphia to speak up to this person that very instance if it upsets them so and if it persists I've stated in my earlier text that the GM's are pretty good about reigning that stuff in when it gets out of hand so then Zeraphia can "take a break" while they're handling it.  

 

As far as reporting someone, no I'm more of the type to tell the person saying absurd stuff to chill out directly than to go report them behind their back because hey I might even be in the wrong.  But yeah I'm all for your and anyone else's ability to say whatever so long as it's not causing actionable harm to someone other than yourself.  

 

If there was manpower from this volunteer team to be devoted I'm saying I'd rather see fun and challenging content added like the Monster Mash tomorrow to entertain people with something fresh than to create a program that might not work as intended when there's already a profanity system in place and other ways available to avoid that troublesome type of chatter.  

Edited July 9, 2020 by Mezmera

[MTeague]

50% of the time, General chat is fun and useful and worth reading.

50% of the time, General chat is a toxic morass that .... I question why I have it in my channels at all. 

 

I'm pushing 50 and I have never in my life seen people so politicized and so circling wagons thinking anyone with different political views is an inherently bad person with nefarious motives, and that one great joy in life should be to taunt the other side.  THAT's the real problem, and I have ZERO clue how that gets fixed or even begin the process of some kind of Detente.  

 

But it spills out into General Chat. A LOT.  Short of having someone permanently assigned to monitor General Chat and slap it down each time it comes up, I don't know how you can stop it.  Sure, political speech in chat channels may be against certain rules, but unless you start silencing / banning people I don't expect it to ever stop.  And I'm not really thrilled at the idea of having to have people silenced and banned, either.  And god knows I would not want to be stuck with the thankless job of having to monitor general chat or become percieved as the Speech Police.

 

A filter would be nice as a way that doesn't need someone who has to be watching it all the time, it just happens silently in the background.

But a big big question is "just how much resources / time woudl this take?"

If it's a small lift, something that can be banged out quickly, sure yes, please, do it.

If not.... I can't justify asking for even moderate dev time if it's a medium-or-bigger project.

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

This is not the first time I wondered if @MTeagueand I were separated at birth.

 

I wish that I could make a filter in real life that would blank out the n word.  Because I don't like that word.  But if people are going to use it, then we really need to focus our resources on stopping people from using it.  Not from us seeing it.

 

You can bury your head as much as you want, or complain that "I deal with these things every day in real life and I don't want to have to deal with them in my fantasy video game."  

 

But everyone does have to deal with them.  If you think slapping a female toon on the ass is funny, or if you want to make a racist comment, I cannot stop you.  

 

But I think you are wrong and would not miss you if the HC devs booted you.

 

By  "You" I'm not referring to anyone in particular.

[MunkiLord]

9 hours ago, Mezmera said:

No offense ever taken!  Lets be clear where I stand on free and open communication.  I'm for free communication to the max!   There's one word I detest and it is that very word yet it seems to be propagated more by the very culture that it was meant to demean, bit ironic I'd say.  Even this word I would not like to be banned, I'd rather the stigma of its use determine its fade.  But there will always be a replacement word for that to be offended by either by from edgy folk or plain mean spirited people.  

 

Which brings us to the N-word you saw.  Certainly there's a profanity filter that would bleep out that word and if someone was determined to have it seen how many variations could they use to get around the filter?  So you say you'll be able to program in on your own every iteration of verbiage that you don't like, what if someone gets around your programming?  

 

What happens if while in their attempt to create this new chat system something gets broken?  There's a chess channel on Youtube I enjoy on occasion, this channel was penalized recently because the algorithm registered a pattern that it was programmed not to like.  This channel talks about nothing but chess and all its strategy and yet because there's a white and black side and the phrase "white side may be winning" might have been uttered it got suspended.......What are we doing?!

 

Again this is from my perspective on the matter but I'd say turn on your filters and since you'll be subjected to chat outside of yourself be prepared to get the good with the bad.  Tell whoever said the n-word to chill out and if it upset you so just take a break, grab a snack or something.  

 

 

Your YouTube example is really doing something different than what is being asked for here. The OP is asking for the ability to filter their own experience only, not an automated ban system like YouTube is using. I think people being able to set their own filters for what they do and don't want to see is a great idea. That way if they don't want to see someone say 'fuck' but don't care if someone says 'shit' that is possible so long as they are willing to go through the trouble of setting it up and customizing it.

 

And if something is broken in the attempt then HC would do what normally happens when software breaks, roll back the change and/or fix it.

[Mezmera]

3 minutes ago, MunkiLord said:

Your YouTube example is really doing something different than what is being asked for here. The OP is asking for the ability to filter their own experience only, not an automated ban system like YouTube is using. I think people being able to set their own filters for what they do and don't want to see is a great idea. That way if they don't want to see someone say 'fuck' but don't care if someone says 'shit' that is possible so long as they are willing to go through the trouble of setting it up and customizing it.

 

And if something is broken in the attempt then HC would do what normally happens when software breaks, roll back the change and/or fix it.

Here's the crux of what I said.  I'm in the camp of sure if it's tailor-able to the users preference sure what do I care what another wants to filter especially if its quick to enact by the dev team.  But I really don't see it being as easy as snapping your fingers problem solved.  There's tools already in place to help mitigate your user experience, this might just be a bigger rabbit hole than might be feasible.  

 

Certainly there's a profanity filter that would bleep out that word and if someone was determined to have it seen how many variations could they use to get around the filter?  So you say you'll be able to program in on your own every iteration of verbiage that you don't like, what if someone gets around your programming?  

 

What happens if while in their attempt to create this new chat system something gets broken?

Edited July 9, 2020 by Mezmera

[Lines]

That would be on the player to adjust their filter if they feel like they need to. Though you don't see many people trying hard to circumvent the existing profanity filter. I doubt behaviours would change.

 

You'd have to be a whole special sort of troll to try to find ways around people's filters, and there's an ignore list for such people.

[MTeague]

I've never used the Ignore feature for anything except the goldfarming bots that existed back in LIVE.

I have an overdeveloped sense of Voltaire there.  ("disagree with what you say / defend your right to say it")

 

I will report someone if I see them using a racial slur, but not until I scan the conversation and try to capture full impact of how it was used. 

And that primarily because it's directly against the Code of Conduct and because I don't want people like that sullying the CoH community.

 

But... when it's purely political....  "MAGA" and the like.... yea, political speech may be against the code of conduct, but I just can't bring myself to report anyone for that.  I have immediate family with political views that I ..... cannot..... fathom.... for the life of me.  But I'd rather try to understand what makes them tick, how they got to where they are, etc, than try to shut people down.  

 

I don't feel any pity when I see a GM show up and tell them they'll start handing out silences if people don't drop it. 

That's the GM's enforcing their rules as the people hosting the game.

And I would feel exactly zero shreds of pity if some folks were permabanned for going off politically in chat for a half an hour.

But that's qualitiatively different from me issuing a report on political speech that offends me, which.... is a line I just can't bring myself to cross.

 

[MunkiLord]

11 minutes ago, Mezmera said:

Here's the crux of what I said.  I'm in the camp of sure if it's tailor-able to the users preference sure what do I care what another wants to filter especially if its quick to enact by the dev team.  But I really don't see it being as easy as snapping your fingers problem solved.  There's tools already in place to help mitigate your user experience, this might just be a bigger rabbit hole than might be feasible.  

I doubt anything like this would be as easy as snapping fingers, I don't disagree. As for how difficult or worth dev time, no idea. Since we're not demanding anything I don't really factor in dev time at all, they'll know better than me how much time they are able and willing to invest in a particular project and if they want to do it at all.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Global channel? Removed. LFG channel, only viewed if I'm bored.

Broadcast stuff I don't wanna see? Get global name and gignore.

People can not be reasoned out of beliefs they didn't reason themselves into and I'm far too old to give any of them a single moment's thought in a game I play.

I don't need extra code added for something I can so easily control myself.

But we'll all choose our own path on that.

[EmmySky]

Regarding dev time:  might it be quicker/simpler to add keywords to the existing filter?  Add MAGA and COVID and the n word if its not in there already.  I believe I read somewhere that attempting to circumvent the filter is a violation of some sort so let people dig their own holes.  

[Greycat]

2 minutes ago, EmmySky said:

Regarding dev time:  might it be quicker/simpler to add keywords to the existing filter?  Add MAGA and COVID and the n word if its not in there already.  I believe I read somewhere that attempting to circumvent the filter is a violation of some sort so let people dig their own holes.  

Two things on that - first, the filter as it is is pretty goofy, as I recall. (I tend to turn it off. Not least because of odd choices for what was or was not in it.)

Second... I don't think I've seen anyone get in trouble for circumventing it. Maybe as part of a larger overall issue with someone's behaviour.

 

Eh. I'd be fine with "it can read this external text file and add it to the filter." I just think the people adding things would find it ... pretty quickly useless as people come up with new and exciting ways to say the same thing. (Not to mention that people come up with ... creative spellings, even if they don't mean to.)