The profanity filter

[Scutt]

Was DMing with a friend and we noticed that the word "queer" is getting bleeped. To be sure, I tested the usual cussing suspects - bleeps the lot of them. I do find labeling "queer" a profane word a bit troubling. Maybe this is newish? Maybe it always has been and no one noticed/cared/brought it up? I myself am queer, and I took a mere smattering of offense at it. Would like to get your thoughts on this. Love, Scutt

[Rudra]

Not taking a stance on this, just giving likely explanation. The word queer has often been used less to describe someone and more to insult someone until fairly recently. Probably why it is bleeped out. Though I am rather surprised it is bleeped out. It isn't itself any form of profanity that I am aware of.

[TheZag]

I wouldnt mind a file to edit for adding additional filtered words and exceptions.  There are several words that i would add and several that i would remove.  Like in the mission where an enemy says something to the effect of 'im gonna slit your throat' (in the chat bubble),  except it shows as 'im gonna <bleep> your throat' (in the chat box)....no way anyone would fill in the blank wrong there.  And players cant use slit at all without getting bleeped in both the chat box and bubble.

 

But as for adding or removing words server side,  that is likely a can of worms best left unopened.  I think client side lists of additions and exceptions is the way to go (if its possible to begin with).

 

[Oubliette_Red]

When I worked for a gaming company, their profanity doc has 22k+ entries across multiple languages. I don't think words were ever removed, but new ones were added throughout the year.

 

[Rudra]

51 minutes ago, Oubliette_Red said:

When I worked for a gaming company, their profanity doc has 22k+ entries across multiple languages. I don't think words were ever removed, but new ones were added throughout the year.

 

I know of one game at least where words were removed from the profanity filter. Their filter was garbage though. It filtered even words that had the designated words as part of it. So you couldn't post the word 'assassin' because of the first 6 letters. (Or comments like "his hit was way strong, bring something with high defense" because of the third through sixth letters.)

 

 

Edited August 6, 2023 by Rudra
Edited to correct letter count in parenthetical comment.

[kelika2]

I blame Smiling Friends and that one Wizards animated film from like 50 years ago

[Scutt]

3 hours ago, Rudra said:

Not taking a stance on this, just giving likely explanation. The word queer has often been used less to describe someone and more to insult someone until fairly recently. Probably why it is bleeped out. Though I am rather surprised it is bleeped out. It isn't itself any form of profanity that I am aware of.

I do have a number of older gay male friends that still take offense to queer - understandably. I embrace it as my identity, preferring it over  "gay"

[biostem]

A lot of words can be construed as acceptable or offensive, depending upon who is using the word, how they are using the word, and to whom they are directing it.  The beautiful thing is that you can disable the profanity filter and not have to worry about it one bit.  Better to err on side of caution and leave it in there, since anyone likely to want to discuss their sexuality in a respectful and mature way would know how to disable the filter, and should anyone want to supervise a younger player, for whom they do not want to see sexuality discussed in-game, they can leave the filter on.

[Scutt]

17 minutes ago, biostem said:

A lot of words can be construed as acceptable or offensive, depending upon who is using the word, how they are using the word, and to whom they are directing it.  The beautiful thing is that you can disable the profanity filter and not have to worry about it one bit.  Better to err on side of caution and leave it in there, since anyone likely to want to discuss their sexuality in a respectful and mature way would know how to disable the filter, and should anyone want to supervise a younger player, for whom they do not want to see sexuality discussed in-game, they can leave the filter on.

Wise words

[Turric]

To echo Rudra, many people born before 1990 would recognize the word as offensive. I was born in the 1970s and for me it was a part of my lexicon for many years, especially when I was younger. It has taken some effort to edit it from usage. That, and calling people or things "retarded". I think I was in my 30s before I really recognized how offensive some of my words were.

 

<---- Thoughtless youth!

[srmalloy]

The problem with filtering from a word list is that it can filter inappropriately. I recall the flap over AOL censoring the word 'breast' when it gutted the discourse in AOL's breast cancer forum. 'Pushing the queer' has nothing to do with shoving homosexuals; it came into use sixty years before 'queer' was used to refer to homosexuality, and was a term for distributing counterfeit money.

[Oubliette_Red]

My favourite filter fail occurred on the Legacy forums.

 

A user posted a rant liberally laced with f-bombs, so one of the Mods, edited their post, to which the OP responded by sending a DM to the Mod, also liberally laced with f-bombs, so the Mod reverted the post but then set vBulletin's filter to replace instanced of the f-bomb with the word "pancake". vBulletin, being somewhat stupid at times, instead of just replacing 'f***' with 'pancake, replaced every letter with the word 'pancake' so that all of a sudden 'pancakepancakepancakepancake' was appearing in people's posts. It was pancaking hilarious.

 

I found it to be so funny, that I have used 'pancake' in place of f-bombs out in the wild ever since.

 

[honoroit]

ugh, gross.  if its not one thing its another with some who'll worm to find a way to make perjorative.

it doesnt matter if it was ok to say darky because it was ill lit.  that has connotations.

 

its in a lot of language. sinister - latin, 'on the left' was associated with left handedness.

 

why? because it wasn't easy to teach more than one way of hand writing, and tools typically presumed right handedness.

 

so it became an association with evil.

 

you can see how that is silly, but also shaping of society.

 

stop bandying about words you know hurt people - or in this case, complaining theyre filtered.

 

unless you're straight out of the 18th centurty - you can term a phrase more PC than 'pushing the queer'.

 

 

[srmalloy]

26 minutes ago, honoroit said:

unless you're straight out of the 18th centurty - you can term a phrase more PC than 'pushing the queer'.

Now you're just trying to queer my pitch...

[Scutt]

1 hour ago, honoroit said:

ugh, gross.  if its not one thing its another with some who'll worm to find a way to make perjorative.

it doesnt matter if it was ok to say darky because it was ill lit.  that has connotations.

 

its in a lot of language. sinister - latin, 'on the left' was associated with left handedness.

 

why? because it wasn't easy to teach more than one way of hand writing, and tools typically presumed right handedness.

 

so it became an association with evil.

 

you can see how that is silly, but also shaping of society.

 

stop bandying about words you know hurt people - or in this case, complaining theyre filtered.

 

unless you're straight out of the 18th centurty - you can term a phrase more PC than 'pushing the queer'.

 

 

How queer... 

 

I get what you are saying, and my offense was the barest of minimum. I just hope one could see that w word, that some people being identified as as being profane, could be a bit off putting. I am not looking to change the acceptable lexicon, was just want thoughts, which i have gotten.

 

I fully realize that the word queer can offend some people, as I stated in an earlier response, but that can be said of many words. It's one that I embrace and I would hope that, given more time, it's offensive nature will be lessened (but not forgotten)

[Scutt]

8 hours ago, Turric said:

To echo Rudra, many people born before 1990 would recognize the word as offensive. I was born in the 1970s and for me it was a part of my lexicon for many years, especially when I was younger. It has taken some effort to edit it from usage. That, and calling people or things "retarded". I think I was in my 30s before I really recognized how offensive some of my words were.

 

<---- Thoughtless youth!

This is something I have struggled with myself. I am a gay man but I have never liked the feel of "gay" for me, as I tend to not check all of those boxes and I never liked being pigeonholed into a type of life style. I held back it's usage, for myself, until around the early 2000s, as I was seeing it more widely used - even by those who were previously, and understandably, offended. I have had MANY conversations with older gay men about this, and most of the realize that language evolves, but it can still sting - which I fully respect. But this is the one thing/word I will not back down on as it is how I choose to identify. And no, I would never take offense to anyone who prefers to call me gay - as that would be a bit silly.

 

I have edited out MANY words and phrases throughout my years and try to let others know when meanings, and social acceptability changes (esp with my mom 😛 )

[Saiyajinzoningen]

Words only have the power and meaning we give them. 

Those meanings change and evolve over time with each generation. 

Any word can be an offensive word if used in a boorish manner. 

Just like any noun can be a verb if you try hard enough. 

Instead of eliminating words maybe we should work on eliminating bigotry and ignorance. 

burning books and cancelling words seems like a stopgap measure at best

[honoroit]

^  largely agree! 

 

-- it comes down to, is there intent to harm? if there is, that which harms is typically problematic. or pond scum.

 

its a dance about gap to be cruel within for some.

[Owl Girl]

yeah it also censors the word 'castration' which i find a lil' weird. but i just turn the profanity filter off when i want to get called dirty names by my Friends 😃

[srmalloy]

Well, you have to admit that exclaiming "I'm going to perform a double bilateral orchiectomy on you, you unprintable so-and-so!" just doesn't carry the same heft as a battle cry...

[honoroit]

23 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

Well, you have to admit that exclaiming "I'm going to perform a double bilateral orchiectomy on you, you unprintable so-and-so!" just doesn't carry the same heft as a battle cry...

 

obsession with (male) genitals?  i find this to be typical of a sort.

 

youre probaly not qualified, in battle or otherwise, and id doubt method and tenor of mind if you were.

[biostem]

5 hours ago, honoroit said:

obsession with (male) genitals?  i find this to be typical of a sort.

 

youre probaly not qualified, in battle or otherwise, and id doubt method and tenor of mind if you were.

 

[WanderingAries]

On 8/5/2023 at 9:54 PM, Rudra said:

Not taking a stance on this, just giving likely explanation. The word queer has often been used less to describe someone and more to insult someone until fairly recently. Probably why it is bleeped out. Though I am rather surprised it is bleeped out. It isn't itself any form of profanity that I am aware of.

 

This as you have to remember that the game was originally running when things like "that's so gay" were a thing. Granted, I'd imagine that they'd have full access to this subsystem, so maybe it depends on how they're wanting to approach it and the abuse it may face.

[honoroit]

something I'll remember as realization of how we shape things, particularly as minds are forming, came at me amusingly, and unexpectedly in a grocery store.

 

probably c.a. 2012.

 

parent mother is by the checkout. snall child, maybe 6-8, reaches for end isle candy, places it on the checkout roller.

 

mother smacks child's hand, not over hard, and exclaims: 'stop picking stuff up - thats so communist' in a vert scolding tone 

 

so, attempting to get candy had nothing to do for the chosen word - and theres the focus - it was a substitution for 'bad' / 'wrong' / 'punishable'.

 

but the mother did not say the words bad/wrong/punishable.

 

denial of the item, a smacks pain and jolt, and a link is established on tge impressionable.

 

iver time, and not long, that child is going to associate a word with 'bad'.

 

and so the mother tries to shape behavior of her child.

 

we'ce spent the better part of our lives with 'queer' this, or 'thats so fag gay that'.

 

its never been nice.

 

and oft the vocal are indeed obsessed, with male genetalia. 

 

I'll leave the reader to fathom why

 

- some of us have had to spend mich of our lives trying to understand how to avoid being left-handed. and oh, is it tiring. its designed to be. encouraging of self-elimination, an effective social neutering- just harm, at the end.

 

profanity and its travel - it has veen a long and looped road.

 

if i have learned anything, weathered - itd be that we value and stand for kindness and virtue - and this as noble.

 

we talk of, and seek grace, and its emulable acts, but are among these sentiment in antithesis - more often than not.

 

so filter all that away 😀

Edited August 7, 2023 by honoroit

[Scutt]

49 minutes ago, honoroit said:

something I'll remember as realization of how we shape things, particularly as minds are forming, came at me amusingly, and unexpectedly in a grocery store.

 

probably c.a. 2012.

 

parent mother is by the checkout. snall child, maybe 6-8, reaches for end isle candy, places it on the checkout roller.

 

mother smacks child's hand, not over hard, and exclaims: 'stop picking stuff up - thats so communist' in a vert scolding tone 

 

so, attempting to get candy had nothing to do for the chosen word - and theres the focus - it was a substitution for 'bad' / 'wrong' / 'punishable'.

 

but the mother did not say the words bad/wrong/punishable.

 

denial of the item, a smacks pain and jolt, and a link is established on tge impressionable.

 

iver time, and not long, that child is going to associate a word with 'bad'.

 

and so the mother tries to shape behavior of her child.

 

we'ce spent the better part of our lives with 'queer' this, or 'thats so fag gay that'.

 

its never been nice.

 

and oft the vocal are indeed obsessed, with male genetalia. 

 

I'll leave the reader to fathom why

 

- some of us have had to spend mich of our lives trying to understand how to avoid being left-handed. and oh, is it tiring. its designed to be. encouraging of self-elimination, an effective social neutering- just harm, at the end.

 

profanity and its travel - it has veen a long and looped road.

 

if i have learned anything, weathered - itd be that we value and stand for kindness and virtue - and this as noble.

 

we talk of, and seek grace, and its emulable acts, but are among these sentiment in antithesis - more often than not.

 

so filter all that away 😀

So, so very well put