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All things BZFlag - no [OT] here please
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cookiecutter
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Post by cookiecutter »

Just because people know the swear words, doesn't mean that it still isn't pleasant to hear them.

If we were all playing in the same room within earshot of each other, I wouldn't care because obviously it's a competitive game and swears come out naturally as you said. I know I swear at the computer screen occasionally. But to type it out and press enter is unnecessary. It's much easier just to say it out loud.
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Post by RexFlex »

I once got chastised for swearing when I used the word "damn" in spiralzone, and the language filter turned it into "$%^&". :? I found the whole thing a little funny considering the scale of harsh language involved and how some of the jibbing going on at the time was more potentially hurtfull without using actual swearwords, but I apologised never the less and promised myself to switch to "darn" in future occasions :wink:

Except I forgot to do it just a little while ago :roll:
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Post by The Psycho Chicken »

If you are proud of that filter, noone can help you.

But if you want to do some good to the comunity of bzflag-players, fix that filter. I do not want to be threatened again with a ban or even just become corrected again for swearing, when I did not do it. Stop.

Have you taken into consideration that many of those players are not native English-speakers and if they say a phrase like "I passed the flag", they just cannot see anything special about that phrase?

What you say about the younger players here shall also apply to those who may me much older than yourself. Do not instruct us on common sense, where nobody failed in the first place!
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Post by H0ley »

::Cough:: I think the filters are put in place to remove any socializing that might arise. On some of the more popular servers, I have to keep my trap shut if I dont want to piss off the admins.

::Grumble grumble:: It's because I'm a cop at Planet Mofo and I allow contructive cursing... player haters!
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Post by The Psycho Chicken »

The Holey Tank wrote:::Cough:: I think the filters are put in place to remove any socializing that might arise. On some of the more popular servers, I have to keep my trap shut if I dont want to piss off the admins.
If my English does not fail me this time, I once ventured something like this on pimpi.org..; that the filter is there, mainly to discourage chatting. It was meant to read cynic and had been rebuted, as expected. I do not think it is true. I think, the folks who _liked_ the filter from the beginning cannot easily accept, that it is not working properly in many situations.
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Post by TD-Linux »

contructive cursing
Alright. This has completely overloaded my brains. How can cursing be constructive?
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Post by H0ley »

TD-Linux wrote:
contructive cursing
Alright. This has completely overloaded my brains. How can cursing be constructive?
Well let me translate for you...

Say the enemy has my team's flag. Instead of saying "Cherrio mate, they stole our flag. Jolly good day it is!" ... I would say "Hey [insert favorite swear words here]s our flag is gone, get [more here] moving!"

Swear words invoke passion and feelings; it makes the game feel more personal. I find it a bit boring when servers try to impose their "do not talk" rhetoric.

I hope that explaination is simple enough for the non-"contructive" thinkers...
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Hmmm

Post by Gerbil »

Ahhhhh....

The great "I".

It's not about everyone else--it's about what I like.

You don't swear in public for other people not yourself--that's the entire point of politness and sensitvity.

I am male, I would enjoy sitting on the beach and looking at supermodels--but I don't because of my wife's sensibilities. I could rationalize it and explain it to her but it comes down to "Should I do what I want or be considerate?"

Actually I really don't want to do that though I can imagine a beach full of bikini clad supermodels could pose a problem for even the strongest of us.

I wonder if there is such a job as "supermodel beta tester"?

"Honey--great news! I got this new job..."
Politically correct BZ: A kinder, gentler Guided Missile.
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Re: Hmmm

Post by H0ley »

Gerbil wrote:Ahhhhh....

The great "I".

It's not about everyone else--it's about what I like.

You don't swear in public for other people not yourself--that's the entire point of politness and sensitvity.

I am male, I would enjoy sitting on the beach and looking at supermodels--but I don't because of my wife's sensibilities. I could rationalize it and explain it to her but it comes down to "Should I do what I want or be considerate?"

Actually I really don't want to do that though I can imagine a beach full of bikini clad supermodels could pose a problem for even the strongest of us.

I wonder if there is such a job as "supermodel beta tester"?

"Honey--great news! I got this new job..."
Blown way out of proportion and off topic. You're just mad that we all hunted you at Tropical's new server.
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Post by Green Manalishi »

The Holey Tank wrote:
TD-Linux wrote:
contructive cursing
Alright. This has completely overloaded my brains. How can cursing be constructive?
Well let me translate for you...

Say the enemy has my team's flag. Instead of saying "Cherrio mate, they stole our flag. Jolly good day it is!" ... I would say "Hey [insert favorite swear words here]s our flag is gone, get [more here] moving!"

Swear words invoke passion and feelings; it makes the game feel more personal. I find it a bit boring when servers try to impose their "do not talk" rhetoric.

I hope that explaination is simple enough for the non-"contructive" thinkers...
simple yes, convincing no. there are more intelligent and polite and working ways to warn your teammates when your teamflag is in danger. i have yet to witness an incident when teammate bashing has produced a positive result for the team whereas i have surely witnessed many incidents when the teammates of the cussing player have become irritated and urged him to shut up, complaining to a present admin, thus getting distracted and wasting time on typing when they could actually save the flag.

more generally i think it's ok to use a swear word to let out frustration (when it is not directed to anyone but the situation itself, like '..swear word... i have lost my geno!'). i don't find it ok when someone is namecalling/insulting others whatever the reason might be. that's when a cop/admin should always interfere imo (warn, mute, kick, ban). of course this doesn't apply to servers which are known to allow cussing and state it clearly on server entrance (like mofo) and i respect that too.
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Re: Hmmm

Post by DTRemenak »

The Holey Tank wrote:
Gerbil wrote: It's not about everyone else--it's about what I like.
Blown way out of proportion and off topic. You're just mad that we all hunted you at Tropical's new server.
That was completely uncalled for. Gerbil was making a point about how swearing is a self-centered activity in his opinion. That is on topic. Your post is a personal attack, which contributes absolutely nothing to the discussion. Furthermore, while YOU may think his analogy is extreme, that doesn't mean everyone else does. That's why different servers have different rules.

Can't we all just get along?
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Post by Hannibal »

i guess that we cant all just get along.
Games don't make people violent, lag does.
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Muwahahahahahaaha

Post by Gerbil »

They only attack what they fear...oh yes....they fear....

...muwahahahahaa


"Profanity: the last refuge of the witless."
Politically correct BZ: A kinder, gentler Guided Missile.
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Post by cookiecutter »

I agree with you completely Green Manalishi.

Although I play free-for-all, where it is less team oriented, I've found that if you are civil to your teammates, it creates a more positive atmosphere. It's more pleasant to be told "the flag is stolen, let's get it back" than "Hey [insert favorite swear words here]s our flag is gone, get [more here] moving!" That creates a hostile environment in what should be a fun game.

I also think Gerbil hit the nail on the head. Some people may think swearing is fine and don't mind hearing it. However there are people who find it offensive. In such a diverse population of players from all over the globe, it is more considerate to everyone to just leave swears unsaid.
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the truth of not wanting swears

Post by mr manalishi »

after a little frustration with lag being given (really) to me, I realize that God is saying "Swearing is wrong, do not make yourself unholy!"

He is right. Who would want to be yelled at because they left the flag near their opponent's base? *cough*POOPCHUTE*cough*. let's not bring HIM up. :| someone seems to be :lurk: ing around my computer, whom is stuck with whatever he's doind when I play BZflag. :roll: :twisted: .
ANYWAY, again,(this is off-topic, sorry, just wanted to make a point.)
my lag goes up and down because...
  • NEIGHBOR'S CONNECTION.

    DISTANCE.

    UNSTABLENESS.

    LOW CONNECTION RELIABILITY.
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Re: Hmmm

Post by The Red Baron »

The Holey Tank wrote:
Blown way out of proportion and off topic. You're just mad that we all hunted you at Tropical's new server.
Gerbil's been hunted all his life, thats nothing new to him.
Beware! I'm going to clone myself and spread those clones all over the world!
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language filtering

Post by learner »

For what it's worth, the language filter was never meant to be an end-all solution to prevent seeing any sort of profanity in the game chat for servers that which to run a profanity-less server. It was 1) meant as a robust upgrade from the previous simple exact-match word filtering and 2) intended to prevent accidental or "newbie" profanity on otherwise mostly clean servers.

Getting around the filter will always be possible. The filter as it currently exists is very good at what it was intended to do, albeit not perfect. There are several enhancements that I'd like to make some day to it. I also know of several fundamental ways to get around the filter that I don't expect will get fixed any time soon (it's just not a high priority issue). There are a handful of minor known bugs as well.

Similarly there are, as you have noticed, a variety of phrases that cause 'false positive' filter matches where otherwise innocuous statements are blocked. These are almost always caused, however, by server operators using a very large comprehensive multilingual filter list for their matching. The matches generally are "valid" per the filter rules. If you find too many false positives, ask those server operators to remove or minimize the international languages and those false positives will mostly go away.

Different servers have different rules. The 'default' filters are intended to only filter truely profane language, not simply words or phrases that are rude, insulting, or mean. If it's not profane, then likely the server operator(s) have added additional words to suit their preference.
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Post by Guest »

Whilst we are on the topic... Who made the lists of swear words? I am guessing they weren't english.
On GU, you can't say you were sucking a lollipop, but you can say that you need to go to the toilet to take a S*!t!
It should be the other way around. Or both should be blocked.
Suck might be used in a rude/vulgar way.
S*!t is always a swear word. You cannot put it in a context where it is not.

This is just an example. I am sure there are other things like it that I forgot... ;)
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Post by H0ley »

Yea who made that filter? It goes back to the "I" thing. Who's the one who believes their ethics and opinions are "holier then thou." Yea but when my opinions are violated, no one cares because thou opinions are better then I. When I return the favor, it's the Holey Tank versus the community.

Forget it, I'm done... I'm just gonna have to learn Italian or something. We need more people like Maddox the Pirate that dont take .... stuff from people. SEE, why must I conform to your ways... I'm so done with this topic. Point your flame throwers at me, this game needs flame throwers btw.
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Its silly really

Post by Grumbleduck »

This discussion is silly really, I've been kicked from servers for "swearing" although I seldom do, if ever...

I get sweared at a lot though, usually by nine-year olds that cant handle getting shot in a game that is all about shooting and getting shot.

Once i got kicked from a server because I said something in Swedish to my brother who played on the same server... admin said no talking in other languages, my response was, so where is that rule?
Because he sure didnt ADVERTISE that that was the rule and I got no warning whatsoever, since he had nothing to say, my stating this simply resulted in that he banned me instead, I sure like those mature admins.

Needles to say, I havent played that server anymore since then.

I also got kicked for "cheating" several times, guess they dont like players that play better then themselfs, point is, some admins have really BIG egos and have a hard time handling it.
/Grumbleduck
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Post by ducatiwannabe »

This game just really needs to be as fun loving as it used to be. It's getting too serious :(

(Learner, is there anyway I could get ahold of your language filter?)
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filter's origins

Post by learner »

Each server specifies their own filter list and they can customize it as much or as little as they like. Whether not a given server filters or should filter a given word/phrase is different for every server -- I know that many customize their list.

That said, BZFlag provides a good starting point filter list that includes over 2000 total words and phrases that cover about two dozen different languages. If you think there are omissions in the default filter, feel free to submit a patch or updates to the BZFlag patches tracker on sf.net. Many server operators simply use this default list, others such as Secretplace heavily modify the list to include more than profanity. The list does include lots of non-English words by default which will cause considerably more false positives than an English-only list -- I generally recommend that server operators remove the language(s) that they do not care about filtering. The default list is openly available to anyone in the source distribution of BZFlag only (misc directory).
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Post by QuantumBeep »

Well... here's how it seems to me. I understand cussing isn't something everyone wants to hear. I mean, it is, after all, bad manners. I also understand that it's not for me to decide whether that person has a justification for thinking cussing is a Bad Thing... everyone has to work out their values etc. for themselves.
Perhaps cussing could be regarded as a creature similar to smoking... some people do, some don't, and I would personally split you at the notch if you puffed smoke into my face more than about twice.
On the other hand, cussing is fun to some people, definitely including myself. I don't do it around my mother, and I usually don't do it around females, but I certainly enjoy it when I do... it's much like picking your nose on stage or drinking a Pepsi with a two extra sugars in it.
I *do* feel a bit offended to find myself being censored by a filter when I'm actually being very careful about my language. It's like the server owners are trying to be Amish about it, while looking down on anyone who says, for true example, "fart" and "puke" and "car".
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Post by Valoche »

Oh my, you americans are very strange people.
On french servers (for other games), swearing, when used with humor, is welcome by other players. When it's not, (usually using insults like "there is sun on the beach"), offenders are kicked or banned.
I can't imagine that *you* imagine that *your children* do not swear when they are at school.

Valoche-my daughter is 5 months old, I'm pretty sure she doesn't swear :wink:
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