Official forums for BZFlag.org

BZFlag has an optional feature that replaces naughty words in chat messages with !@#$%^&* characters. Please tell us why you do or do not want this enabled on game servers in the new league.

the filter was a good idea but till now it can be bypass as soon as you write way of phonetic words, in the other side with no filter activated there is evidence a breaking rule lang , so i am in favor of not using this plugin

I think we can give us all a second chance about watching our language . Cursing once in a while is not dramatic imo, but cursing all the time could be offensive to other players. What about removing the language filter for some time, and see how it goes? If players abuse of the liberty of expression, the language filter could always be set back. I was wondering if there was a way to set the filter for «public chat» only. After all, what happens in private message remains private, so cursing or not, it does not really matter since you talk to one person only, and that person wouldn't care about your language (and if a player wants to curse another one in private, there is always the «mute» option).

tough one this is, server operators have a right to determine language rules ultimately, where league admins would decide the policy where player community might not agree with the policy put in place.

however, there are a active players/operators who do not like cursing or use of acronyms that reflect cursing, and these community members should be respected for good reason. i think its better to side with the positive atmosphere and respectful conduct with filter in place, while this may be an unpopular view for some of you.

ara - my view regarding private messages is that because server operators provide us their resources ($, time, effort) which enables us to join the league server. private messages are information that can be logged and property of server operators, this information can/should be used as evidence of misconduct, abuse, and harassment regarding league activity.

gorgomol wrote:the filter was a good idea but till now it can be bypass as soon as you write way of phonetic words, in the other side with no filter activated there is evidence a breaking rule lang , so i am in favor of not using this plugin

If they purposely bypass the filter, ban them for longer than a normal violation.
There is evidence even if the filter is enabled because it logs the unfiltered message as well.
It is also not a plugin, it is built-in functionality.

Araquiel wrote:I was wondering if there was a way to set the filter for «public chat» only. After all, what happens in private message remains private, so cursing or not, it does not really matter since you talk to one person only, and that person wouldn't care about your language (and if a player wants to curse another one in private, there is always the «mute» option).

Not without a modified bzfs server.

sn0w_m0nkey wrote:tough one this is, server operators have a right to determine language rules ultimately, where league admins would decide the policy where player community might not agree with the policy put in place.

The server owners for the official league servers should follow the guidelines/rules that the league defines, so it's not ultimately the server owners' decision.

Aïe. Then I stick to the idea of the second chance.

blast wrote:The server owners for the official league servers should follow the guidelines/rules that the league defines, so it's not ultimately the server owners' decision.

The server owners are the final authority on what happens on their servers. The league admins are the final authority on how the league operates. Game servers for the league only exist when server owners and admins have a mutual agreement about how they will work.

That is slightly twisting my words, and wording is key here. "Official league servers" must meet specific criteria or else they will no longer be official league servers. So while a server owner may have final authority over their server, they cannot make any change/decision they want and still have it be an official league server.

I agree with blast in the sense that official league servers should all follow the same configuration to keep things consistent since language filter policies have not been consistent in the past (e.g. bzexcess had a language filter but my GU servers didn't). I agree that server owners are the final authority on what happens on their server and who can play on it, I do think consistency is important; as a server owner, I wouldn't mind using the language filter if that's what the league enforces.

As for the topic on hand, I don't think a language filter would necessary; several times the language filter censors out random words and players could get the wrong idea about what someone meant. I think players should be mature enough to not use profanity in public chat. If profanity becomes an issue, then those players can always be muted.

Should a language filter be used, I agree with blast that purposefully bypassing the filter should result in a longer ban.

Agree with leaving the language filter out. Consistency was an issue, you can never have a list of blocked words that's sufficient, players can work around it, and there are false positives. Let's try to have better coverage with cops, instead.

I am in favour of a language filter on all league servers. If one cares enough to bypass it any offended player can take a screenshot and send it to an admin/cop who is in charge of such matters. Language violations should not be taken lightly imo.

I don't really care if there's a language filter or not, but if there is, just don't make it like the one on bzexcess. Whenever you were pm'ing someone a curse in a long message, it'd just return the message back to you and say it couldn't be sent. I remember people having to go back and delete a specific letter and it was just a pain in the butt.

hrj wrote:I don't really care if there's a language filter or not, but if there is, just don't make it like the one on bzexcess. Whenever you were pm'ing someone a curse in a long message, it'd just return the message back to you and say it couldn't be sent. I remember people having to go back and delete a specific letter and it was just a pain in the butt.

One would think that would train people to just not type profanity in their messages, eh?

Profanity is what we make it

How many offensive words will we ban? Is there a word list?

If someone asks for a word they find offensive to be added to the filter how do we cope with this?

I dislike self-censorship...there is /silence for a reason

blast wrote:One would think that would train people to just not type profanity in their messages, eh?

Haha, if this were the standard in all servers, then perhaps you've got a chance. But people type out profanity regularly, whether it's normal texting, typing on your computer, etc. so it'd still be nigh impossible to classically condition people with bzflag as the only restrictive environment.