Language Spoiling The Experience

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d3adduck
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Language Spoiling The Experience

Post by d3adduck »

It saddens me that all the effort, dedication, hard work and money put into bzflag and the servers is spoiled by the increasing use of bad language.

I consider myself to be one of the better players because I never curse, call people idiots, morons, J..A.. or worse. Score wise I am a terrible player but it does not bother me. I do not care if my score is -200 as long as I have fun, but my fun and that of others is being spoiled. I especially find the ones who private message their Bad Language comments to me to be real cowards. I have a seven year old who loves this game and plays online with me. I watch her like a hawk and I am concerned that one of these self righteous, self important, self serving abusers will message her an unsavory comment.

Can we do something about this increasing problem?

A couple of suggestions are
1) Filter all messaging for bad language and autokick the individual. These forums are filtered, so is the username registration. Why not messaging?
2) Provide the ability to publish any private message together with original sender for everyone to see.
3) Encourage Admins to not treat bad language complaints as whining.

This is a great game it should be fun but increasingly it is just a place for others to express their angry foul mouths. I could get a thicker skin, I could play elsewhere but I AM the type of player BZFlag should be wanting to attract. I do not cheat, I do not curse, I apologies for my errors and I take BZFlag for what it is "a wonderfully enjoyable game".

Regards
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Re: Language Spoiling The Experience

Post by Spazzy McGee »

d3adduck wrote: 1) Filter all messaging for bad language and autokick the individual. These forums are filtered, so is the username registration. Why not messaging?
2) Provide the ability to publish any private message together with original sender for everyone to see.
3) Encourage Admins to not treat bad language complaints as whining.
The difference between in-game servers and these forums is that servers are run by members of the community. The developers and admins here have very little control over server owners enforce their servers, and the policies they use.

There are servers that claim to be 'family friendly', if fact most have bad language policies. Many servers employ the in-game swear filter. I suggest you give your child a list of servers that you know enforces these policies. If you're worried about specific player's PMs, you should talk to an admin present on the server, or /report if nobody is available.

It's also up to the server owners what they do with their logs of server chat.

There are certain servers, such as Planet MoFo, that have a very pointed 'cussing is allowed' policy, so I suggest that you steer clear of these.
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Re: Language Spoiling The Experience

Post by blast »

It's possible to enable client-side message filtering with the -badwords paramater. You just have to point it to a badwords file. So, for example, you can place a list of bad words (one word or phrase per line) in the BZFlag install directory on Windows ( C:\Program Files\BZFlag2.0.10\ ) named "badwords.txt" and then modify the shortcut for launching BZFlag to have the following target:

Code: Select all

"C:\Program Files\BZFlag2.0.10\bzflag.exe" -badwords badwords.txt
That will filter chat within the game. It won't filter bad callsigns as far as I know, but it's a step in the right direction. There is a couple bad word files in our SVN and source packages (multilingualSwearList.txt and simpleSwearList.txt). You could probably use one of them and reduce it down to just the English words.

As for publishing private chat, that's not something the BZFlag project has anything to do with nor condones. So if you're going to publish private chat, do it on your own server/blog, not here.

Owners can run their server however they want. They choose their admins. If the owner and the admins don't consider bad language to be an issue, then play on servers that do. You can try using /report to notify the owner and/or admins about language issues if they aren't there. A benefit of that command is that the owner is the only one that can remove reports, so they are more likely to see it at some point. (Assuming the actually check their reports, that is..)
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Re: Language Spoiling The Experience

Post by Wreckage »

The best advice is to use the filter as described above. Also, if someone is PM-ing you, you can simply silence him by pressing K while in game, using the arrow keys to select the user-name you wish to silence, and pressing enter. Check key config if it doesn't work.
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Re: Language Spoiling The Experience

Post by Quantum Tank »

I can't think of many other servers right now, but I know the bzbattleground servers are well-admined and do not tolerate language. The leagues generally don't have much bad language, but sometimes things get out of hand.

Also, if you're worried about your daughter but don't want to watch her all the time, you can always close the chat log, but I don't know of a way to get rid of the messages at the top of the screen.

Hope that helps a bit.
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Re: Language Spoiling The Experience

Post by ducatiwannabe »

d3adduck wrote:It saddens me that all the effort, dedication, hard work and money put into bzflag and the servers is spoiled by the increasing use of bad language.

I consider myself to be one of the better players because I never curse, call people idiots, morons, J..A.. or worse. Score wise I am a terrible player but it does not bother me. I do not care if my score is -200 as long as I have fun, but my fun and that of others is being spoiled. I especially find the ones who private message their Bad Language comments to me to be real cowards. I have a seven year old who loves this game and plays online with me. I watch her like a hawk and I am concerned that one of these self righteous, self important, self serving abusers will message her an unsavory comment.

Can we do something about this increasing problem?

A couple of suggestions are
1) Filter all messaging for bad language and autokick the individual. These forums are filtered, so is the username registration. Why not messaging?
2) Provide the ability to publish any private message together with original sender for everyone to see.
3) Encourage Admins to not treat bad language complaints as whining.

This is a great game it should be fun but increasingly it is just a place for others to express their angry foul mouths. I could get a thicker skin, I could play elsewhere but I AM the type of player BZFlag should be wanting to attract. I do not cheat, I do not curse, I apologies for my errors and I take BZFlag for what it is "a wonderfully enjoyable game".

Regards
Greetings, d3adduck. I'm fairly certain we haven't met in game, but that's one of the awesome things about this forum... got to find another cool player.

Alright, welcome to the game. I'm sorry you've had a back experience with language so far and I totally understand your predicament. Several servers in particular have good administration that I think might help you and your daughter have more fun.

Servers:
bzbattleground.com
bzflag.norang.ca
bzf.bzflag.org
bzflagr.net

The majority of the time at these servers has been wholesome playing time for me. Typically, the administration team is excellent at stopping obscene chat.

I'm certain there are lots of other wholesome servers I haven't mentioned. In fact, I know that. These were just the top four I thought you should know about. Again, if somebody is bothering you, feel free to press your "k" key on the keyboard, select their name, and silence all private and public messages from them on your client. The only other option I can think of that might help you is to make a badwords filter or download an already existent list.

In general, on most online gaming with chat, people will find ways to be vulgar. The best way to deal with it is to have an active administration team. Most of these servers I listed do.

Lastly, I just want to say *thank you* for being one of the wholesome players out there. It is always refreshing to see someone sticking to how things should be. 8-)

See you on the battlefield,
dw
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Re: Language Spoiling The Experience

Post by zaphod »

even with the badwords paramater enabled ::: there are always some "smart" guys who figure out a way to go around the filter to "express" themselves!
i personally underline what ducatiwannabe suggested ::: use that "K" key on your keyboard to silence the unpleasant participants of this fun game to keep the fun!
or chose a server with at least one admin present and don't hesitate to talk to them if you feel it goes beyond limits (use the "Z" key to talk in private with the admin/s)!
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Re: Language Spoiling The Experience

Post by blast »

The main difference is that with the client-side filter the ones using profanity won't know they it is being blocked in your client, so they might not even try to get around it, though that's assuming that the server itself doesn't run a filter. But the great part about the client side way is that you can add your own words that come up very easily.
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Re: Language Spoiling The Experience

Post by Quantum Tank »

ducatiwannabe wrote:Lastly, I just want to say *thank you* for being one of the wholesome players out there. It is always refreshing to see someone sticking to how things should be. 8-)
I second that :D
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Re: Language Spoiling The Experience

Post by Branton »

I really like the "auto-kick/ban" idea on the bad language. Now I've never made a server side plugin so I can't say with any authority, but couldn't that be accomplished via a plugin? Maybe one of the plugin masters could give inputs. I'll gladly work on it if is possible. I've been wanting to get into coding up a plugin and this is a good opportunity. If any of the Plugin Masters has any tips, please PM me.

Great Idea d3adduck!
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Re: Language Spoiling The Experience

Post by JeffM »

there is an event that is called when a message is filtered on the server, you can do whatever actions you want on it.
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Re: Language Spoiling The Experience

Post by joevano »

Branton wrote:I really like the "auto-kick/ban" idea on the bad language. Now I've never made a server side plugin so I can't say with any authority, but couldn't that be accomplished via a plugin? Maybe one of the plugin masters could give inputs. I'll gladly work on it if is possible. I've been wanting to get into coding up a plugin and this is a good opportunity. If any of the Plugin Masters has any tips, please PM me.

Great Idea d3adduck!
Before anyone runs off to create that, the language filter would have to get MUCH, MUCH better to implement that idea. It catches language violations just great, but it also errors on the side of caution. There are way to many "false" positives to implement anything automatic. It is very difficult to say some common words, such as 'page', and quite a few others that slip my mind at the moment without having them be filtered.
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Re: Language Spoiling The Experience

Post by Branton »

I found the filterEvent which would makes it very easy to auto kick/ban. I got it mostly code (except for a config file reading etc) in less than an hour and this is the first ever plugin I've made. But joevano you've got a good point too. The filterEvent depends upon the BZFS filter system which is somewhat aggressive. There is a chatMessageEvent also which would require your own filtering algorithm. I personally do not recall any of my messages ever being filtered (that I'm aware of) so I would guess the bzfs filtering with sufficient warnings before a kick would suffice.
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Re: Language Spoiling The Experience

Post by blast »

joevano wrote:
Branton wrote:I really like the "auto-kick/ban" idea on the bad language. Now I've never made a server side plugin so I can't say with any authority, but couldn't that be accomplished via a plugin? Maybe one of the plugin masters could give inputs. I'll gladly work on it if is possible. I've been wanting to get into coding up a plugin and this is a good opportunity. If any of the Plugin Masters has any tips, please PM me.

Great Idea d3adduck!
Before anyone runs off to create that, the language filter would have to get MUCH, MUCH better to implement that idea. It catches language violations just great, but it also errors on the side of caution. There are way to many "false" positives to implement anything automatic. It is very difficult to say some common words, such as 'page', and quite a few others that slip my mind at the moment without having them be filtered.
That's why I usually discard non-English languages from my swear list. Having all of them seems to cause issues like that. I suppose it's possible to make the server output not only the word it saw as "vulgar" but also the rule from the swear list that triggered it.
"In addition to knowing the secrets of the Universe, I can assure you that I am also quite potty trained." -Koenma (Yu Yu Hakusho)

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Re: Language Spoiling The Experience

Post by L4m3r »

d3adduck wrote:It saddens me that all the effort, dedication, hard work and money put into bzflag and the servers is spoiled by the increasing use of bad language.

I consider myself to be one of the better players because I never curse, call people idiots, morons, J..A.. or worse. Score wise I am a terrible player but it does not bother me. I do not care if my score is -200 as long as I have fun, but my fun and that of others is being spoiled. I especially find the ones who private message their Bad Language comments to me to be real cowards. I have a seven year old who loves this game and plays online with me. I watch her like a hawk and I am concerned that one of these self righteous, self important, self serving abusers will message her an unsavory comment.

Can we do something about this increasing problem?

A couple of suggestions are
1) Filter all messaging for bad language and autokick the individual. These forums are filtered, so is the username registration. Why not messaging?
2) Provide the ability to publish any private message together with original sender for everyone to see.
3) Encourage Admins to not treat bad language complaints as whining.

This is a great game it should be fun but increasingly it is just a place for others to express their angry foul mouths. I could get a thicker skin, I could play elsewhere but I AM the type of player BZFlag should be wanting to attract. I do not cheat, I do not curse, I apologies for my errors and I take BZFlag for what it is "a wonderfully enjoyable game".

Regards
Aren't we being just a little self-righteous?

As people have explained already, servers are privately run and owners can set rules as they please. Client-side filtering is probably your best option.

What exactly makes you the type of player that the game "needs"? What puts you in a position to make such an assertion? You're being extremely judgmental. It's not very nice.

There are already a great number of BZFlag players who are neurotic about language like you are. BZFlag is generally much cleaner than most online games. If that's not enough, I don't know what to tell you.
Optimism is just a milder alternative to denial.
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Re: Language Spoiling The Experience

Post by dereliction of duty »

Quantum Tank wrote:but I don't know of a way to get rid of the messages at the top of the screen.
easy, press "k" then "*" (without the quotes) but I'll admit that is a little extreme
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Re: Language Spoiling The Experience

Post by Green Manalishi »

just my thoughts, L4m3r. self-righteous as hell.. this is not chess, this is a game about colorful tanks shooting colorful bullets at each other and causing explosions. there will inevitably be some excitement, frustration and a 'bad word' said here and there. while hostile behavior (cussing a person, nemacalling, insulting them) should not be tolerated whatsoever (and then it's still up to the server owner what to allow and what not), many cusswords are not directed towards people, but towards situations. if someone can't stand seeing words like crap, damn, wth, lmao (look there's an 'ass' in there!), given they are used to let off steam only, maybe they should play something else, in more sterile, hygienic environments instead of trying to make all private messages visible by everyone (which beside being an oxymoron, is the worst idea proposed about bzflag i've ever seen), or trying to get people kicked for getting caught in some language filter even though they didn't mean to offend or bother anyone.
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Re: Language Spoiling The Experience

Post by ducatiwannabe »

Aren't we being just a little self-righteous?

As people have explained already, servers are privately run and owners can set rules as they please. Client-side filtering is probably your best option.

What exactly makes you the type of player that the game "needs"? What puts you in a position to make such an assertion? You're being extremely judgmental. It's not very nice.
I'll tell you what. How about the fact that he seems to be a very decent player striving to make a difference int he community for fun for everybody? He has concern for other players and is a valuable addition to our community, at least, in my opinion. Any game needs those sorts of people.

And Manalshi, please... I stopped reading your post because it had... bad language. Kind of ironic for this topic, no? :-) Typically, people hear a point better without swear words. But that's not meant as on attack on you.
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Re: Language Spoiling The Experience

Post by L4m3r »

ducatiwannabe wrote:I'll tell you what. How about the fact that he seems to be a very decent player striving to make a difference int he community for fun for everybody? He has concern for other players and is a valuable addition to our community, at least, in my opinion. Any game needs those sorts of people.
He only has concern for, and seeks to improve the game for, like-minded individuals. The proposition is basically "Swearing is bad, and I don't like to see it. Ban it everywhere!" People who have such a big problem with language are an overrepresented minority of players.

Not everyone has a problem with colorful language. Most people do cuss occasionally, and a competitive game like BZFlag will undoubtedly make people more prone to swearing. My BZFlag experience would be worsened if oppressive censorship were implemented across all servers. I (and many other people) hate having to be so careful and limit expression to avoid running afoul of the censor filter. It sucks to be harassed by an overzealous admin because I was not aware that "fart" was censored (I'm not exaggerating, either). That sort of thing ruins the game for me.

Moreover, the way that the OP presents this "problem" shows a shocking lack of tact that is offensive to most people, myself included. It's incredibly rude to call oneself "better" than others for something as trivial as diction.
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Re: Language Spoiling The Experience

Post by F687/s »

Alright, here's my !@#$%ing two cents. ;-)

Obviously, the language problem is up to the server owners, all 150 of them, since they're the ones running the servers. They're free to run their server however they want, implement as many or as few rules as they want, and basically get away with whatever they want. There are some exceptions to that rule (like running cheat servers or doing something absolutely horrid with the project's resources), but for the most part servers owners are free to do whatever they want. So even if one server runs a fairly clean establishment, there's no guarantee that the others will do the same.

On another note, there's really no automatic way to prevent language while all the admins are away. Sure, you could put an "ALL CHAT MESSAGES ARE LOGGED!!!" line in the server message, but let's face it, no server owners actually read the logs, much less schlogg through looking for the IP to ban. So you can say it really comes down to the players in question, and there's really nothing you can do about that. The Law of the Internets clearly states that anonymity is directly proportional to jerkitude.

On another note, I don't really thing language is really much of an issue. Compared with cheating, blatant TKing, flag running, and generally being a moron, language is quite a minor issue. The phrase "you suck go fall in a pit and die" will most likely be caught by only the "the 'fart' filterers", but that still doesn't make it right. And just because someone occasionally throws out a cuss word or so doesn't make him a bad person.

So I think the real moral is, "don't be a hater."
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Re: Language Spoiling The Experience

Post by joevano »

F687/s wrote:On another note, there's really no automatic way to prevent language while all the admins are away. Sure, you could put an "ALL CHAT MESSAGES ARE LOGGED!!!" line in the server message, but let's face it, no server owners actually read the logs, much less schlogg through looking for the IP to ban. So you can say it really comes down to the players in question, and there's really nothing you can do about that. The Law of the Internets clearly states that anonymity is directly proportional to jerkitude.
I would disagree with the statement that "the logs are not read." Most of the bans I issue on norang are from the logs (and the logs are easily accessible by all our admins). While I know we are the exception, there are others that also utilize them on a regular basis.
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Re: Language Spoiling The Experience

Post by ducatiwannabe »

Well, if certain players enjoy the atmosphere at Planet M, that's entirely up to them. As mentioned, it is correct, server owners have the right to allow or disallow language and be lenient or very strict about it. As for this:
People who have such a big problem with language are an overrepresented minority of players.
Entirely ridiculous. Only one server comes to mind that does not have any policy on swearing. I've already mentioned that one in the paragraph above. The majority of the servers (not the minority) strongly discourage and even discipline language (gasp), some stricter than others. To say obscene language and swearing is only disliked by a small number of people is ridiculous. It is true, some people don't have problems with mouthing off, and there is a place for them to do that. But that by no means is the majority. :)
It's incredibly rude to call oneself "better" than others for something as trivial as diction.
Actually, what's incredibly rude is forcing bad language on children and people that don't care for it... they are a large part of this community. It's called common courtesy.

And d3adduck never said he was better than anybody... nor did I. I thanked him for being wholesome (as in respectful and avoiding conflicts as best as possible), if that's what you mean. He simply said that BZFlag should want people that are respectful, as he tries to be.

I merely said that the topic-starter wasn't being "self-righteous." Typically, people that don't use excessive vulgar language, or even a little, are likely to have fairly good morals. These are the kind of people that I think could help BZFlag's community.

Now, to get to the actual point... some people don't seem to have as much trouble with their conscience when they swear, and there are places for them. Others do, and there are places for them. Now, for the people that do have problems with vulgar language, we should do our best to find a solution. Best I can figure, the easiest ways to avoid the problem is...

1. Create better bad word filters
2. Silence the bothersome people
3. Play at servers with good administration
4. Host your own server and keep it well managed with different permissions and settings
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Re: Language Spoiling The Experience

Post by joevano »

OK. Enough guys... Topic Locked
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Re: Language Spoiling The Experience

Post by joevano »

Got this from d3adduck in a PM and he asked that I share it.
Thank you everyone for reading and replying to my posting.

I guess in conclusion auto kick mechanisms are too much. I do not like censorship and in certain circumstances colourful language can be very entertaining.

Client side filtering for my little one would work. For now I have taken the K"*" option.
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Re: Language Spoiling The Experience

Post by blast »

The one problem with ignoring all chat is that you also won't hear messages from admins/cops if they are warning you. Just something to keep in mind.
"In addition to knowing the secrets of the Universe, I can assure you that I am also quite potty trained." -Koenma (Yu Yu Hakusho)

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