Chat curtesy improvment

[KivoR]

I am very desapointed by the lack of curtesy in the chats. Lots of people quickly insult each other and they parents with sexual and racist terms in depths not related to their strategy.

Can you silent those chats ? I suggest creating a list a of bad words. And whenever some one tells such a word, both the account and the IP adress get muted for 48 hours. Any of the next messages gets displayed on the writer's windows but isn t relayed to the other players.

That should spare a lot offending words, provocations and answers. And finaly give people a lot of peace.

[BelgarionRiva]

I have to agree that it gets annoying sometimes. A way to stop this is to give every user the option to filter the chat. Any word that's from a list of words will cause the whole message not to be seen by the players enabling filter, or just stars ****** instead of the bad words.
I doubt you can improve quality of courtesy by banning IPs for 48 hours. If someone really wanted to swear or be impolite, they can write F_U_C_K instead of fuck, or use connotative language such as:

If you're offended by connotative text, do not read what's written below.

The vista of the vixen's visage and the vindicated vanity that she voluntarily conveys has vitalized my virile vessels so that my voracious vein is visually becoming vertical. Verily, such a vibrant and voluptuous view will inspire a vigilant voyage to the point of a vulgar and volcanic eviction of a viable volume of... viscous vitality. This, in all veracity, I vow.

[KivoR]

I have to agree that it gets annoying sometimes. +1

A way to stop this is to give every user the option to filter the chat.
Why not but that would be another option to toggle on/off. That is why I prefer it permanently set.

I doubt you can improve quality of courtesy by banning IPs for 48 hours.
The IP wont get banned. I will be chat silented. I think it can be extended to a longer time. Such forced silence would not be a problem in matters of gameplay for people sharing the same IP.

If someone really wanted to swear or be impolite, they can write F_U_C_K instead of fuck,
Of course the badword list can be extended to such variations. They can be listed. Separators can be droped before filtering also.

or use connotative language such as: [...]
That takes long to write. And one single word (like vixen) and they get silented.

Bad speakers don t get any notice about being silented to others...
And that rule can be discretly left somewhere where they talk about chat. I don t believe that people who dont care about other players care a lot about rules.

So up to them to spend useless time in bad words.

I put forward this request because it is easy(i think, I hope), discret (no buttons), not detrimental to game play(no ban...), should solve a big percent of cases of annoyances

[egavaS]

I have to agree that it gets annoying sometimes. +1

A way to stop this is to give every user the option to filter the chat.
Why not but that would be another option to toggle on/off. That is why I prefer it permanently set.

I doubt you can improve quality of courtesy by banning IPs for 48 hours.
The IP wont get banned. I will be chat silented. I think it can be extended to a longer time. Such forced silence would not be a problem in matters of gameplay for people sharing the same IP.

If someone really wanted to swear or be impolite, they can write F_U_C_K instead of fuck,
Of course the badword list can be extended to such variations. They can be listed. Separators can be droped before filtering also.

or use connotative language such as: [...]
That takes long to write. And one single word (like vixen) and they get silented.

Bad speakers don t get any notice about being silented to others...
And that rule can be discretly left somewhere where they talk about chat. I don t believe that people who dont care about other players care a lot about rules.

So up to them to spend useless time in bad words.

I put forward this request because it is easy(i think, I hope), discret (no buttons), not detrimental to game play(no ban...), should solve a big percent of cases of annoyances

nope! WE can get around all that.

[Lopdo]

If you're offended by connotative text, do not read what's written below.

The vista of the vixen's visage and the vindicated vanity that she voluntarily conveys has vitalized my virile vessels so that my voracious vein is visually becoming vertical. Verily, such a vibrant and voluptuous view will inspire a vigilant voyage to the point of a vulgar and volcanic eviction of a viable volume of... viscous vitality. This, in all veracity, I vow.

What does this mean? I don't get it and I am curious

Anyway, there is bad word filter already in place, but it filter only some words. I don't plan to expand this list of words, it would be too limiting and practically useless. What I plan to do is add mute button to each player

[magves]

Lopdo... he´s having a ... hard on!

[Lopdo]

oh, I can see it now... nice one

[CrystalLuna]

Interesting ideas, and I agree that a means remain in place or be implemented to filter out offensive words, however it is not as easy as it sounds. The mute button sounds like a good idea to me (as in a way to turn off all chat, or chat from selected players). It is not feasible to be able to create an all inclusive list of words or text strings, in my opinion, that will all inclusively eliminate all possible offensive forms of words, let alone ban or silence a person for each infraction, for the following reasons:

1. the variations are endless. I've played other multiplayer games online with chat capabilities and I've seen just how easy it is to circumvent filters. For example the bad word "shit" can be displayed as sh1t, sh!t, s|-|t, sht, s**t, s-t, s.hit, shi.t, sh!+, 5hit, 5h1t, 5h!+, 5|=|!+, $.}{( +, s_h_i_t, s_____t, (s).(h).(i).(t), even SavHaevIjgldT (read cap letters only) or t.!,h.$ (read backwards). The possibilities are endless so it's impossible to cover all forms, and not just for this word but all others too. Not to mention that bad words can be spoken in foreign languages to circumvent filters too (which means that then the programmers would need to look up lists of all bad words in all languages then to prevent offending people of those native languages who might play). The project gets very large and time-consuming very fast. People are very creative in writing and reading and understanding ways to get around the filters. So no matter what list is employed, it will not stop the words from being spoken if someone is determined to do so. I know, I've seen and even used them in other games to get around filters myself.

2. Not everyone may know that a word is bad at first and to ban or silence them for a day or 2 without a warning at least is kind of extreme. People from many countries use this game and what is a bad word to a person in one country may not be a bad word for a person in another country and maybe even a good word due to language differences. I've typed a word in other games only to have it censored out only to find out that it was a bad word in a different language that I did not even realize, so I had to fudge my text to get around it. Now even if we even could filter out all more commonly known words, it would do nothing to appease those who are offended by use of lesser known words in other languages.

3. Furthermore, it's not like all of us never make spelling mistakes, and it's possible that an accidental spelling mistake such as typing "shit" instead of "shift" or "hit" or "ship", or "ass" instead of "bass" or "mass" or "assassin" (if a space was put in), or "fuck" instead of "duck" or "suck", could result in said 2 day silence all for a mistake. Rather extreme for a spelling mistake! Also, if substrings are used, bad words are sometimes found inside acceptable words, such as ass in assassin or mass, rape in grape or drape, ect. How many of us spellcheck our texts before sending to make sure that they dont have mispellings or any bad word contained therein in any language whatsoever? Point made. Many times I've accidentally sent words that were misspelled badly or had substrings of not so great words in them (grapes anyone? lol). So for reasons 2 and 3 here, silencing a person immediately, without review, for an unknown bad foreign word (to them) said or for a spelling mistake is kinda harsh. It is better to not display the text and have the system inform the typer that the word is not acceptable as a warning. And then, as said, the 2nd measure is just to allow muting or filtering out of that person by the other players.

However, if a person is a repeat offender and continually bothers others with consistent use of purposely vulgar words, then a system should be in place where that person can be reported via screenshots or something, such that a moderator or game master or sorts can review the case and if legitimate, contact the repeat offender to desist or their account will be silenced or banned for a duration determined by reviewer. Thus extreme cases which cannot be dealt with will involve moderator involvement, but hopefully these cases will few.

I am not making the case to support bad language usage as in fact it is offensive for me as well. very much so. and I support measures taken to limit such vulgar expression. However, the means must be practical and fair to all who play (that is, no unnecessary silencing or bans) and allow for flexibility of usage (that is, for words which are not bad, and for users to filter out or mute a person who is using words not in the list).

In all I hope a happy medium can be reached.

[KivoR]

1. the variations are endless.
That is why I have suggested to drop the separators to increase the range of detected words. I suppose there can be other tricks to make filtering more efficient

2. Not everyone may know that a word is bad at first and to ban or silence them for a day or 2 without a warning at least is kind of extreme.
3. Furthermore, it's not like all of us never make spelling mistakes
silencing a person immediately, without review, for an unknown bad foreign word (to them) said or for a spelling mistake is kinda harsh.
No ban. Just silencing to others. I don t find it that extreme. It is reversible.It doesn t messes the game play. I am sure users won t even notice it most of the time. And honestly, the dialogs I have read have not been that valuable. So I believe we can afford to silent someone by error, during 2 days. It won t prevent him to having fun on a strategical game that is usualy played with no chat system on internet.


It is better to not display the text and have the system inform the typer that the word is not acceptable as a warning.
I agree that would work with willingly minded people. But for many childish people that would become a challenge : test and trick the system.

And then, as said, the 2nd measure is just to allow muting or filtering out of that person by the other players.
That could be a solution also. But It means creating a data base of who mutes who (bigger than a 2 days ban list). It creates a mute-button which is a sad thing on a game. Then how do you unmute people ? After a time out ? Manually ? People and specialy non native english players wont get the purpose of that option. Does that button reports people or does it just silent the chat ? What about muting annoying ally offers, any side effect ?

Also a mute button won t work that great.
Irrespectfull people know they will get muted by the surrounding players. But they will consider it will be worth saying something really dirty, something heard before being muted. Their impulsive offense will be done and they would not care the consequences.

But if you mute them at once, to all other players, the amount of offending words will quickly drop. Not all but enough to change the image of the game. Insulting is way too common right now. They believe that is a normal atitude. It needs to become unusual.

[KivoR]

nope! WE can get around all that.

Of course but the moderators would not be flooded by reports about childish teenagers and will be able to concentrate on the serious smart great reported offenders. And they will make serious smart great and taylored responses.