Autocensor Changes

[WarKirby]

As a scotsman, I find this filter to be retardedly offensive.

Civ is a game that appeals to adults. We should all be mature enough to not need things like this. I could undertstand it on, for instance, a Halo forum, which is going to be full of young teens and where constant stupidity is a problem. But turn based strategy genre rarely suffers such issues

And frankly, censorship of any kind is a bad thing. Get rid of it, I want to be able to swear when I want, which I often do when approriate. It's part of my culture. You can probably see from my post history that I'm hardly a foul mouthed teenage fanboy. But swearing is a common use to express one's emotions, and stifling it serves no real purpose.

 

[Takhisis]

No, it's not, there's been worse. Even though, well, people from a certain *censor cuts in* country do have a certain *censor cuts in* propensity to be slightly *censor cuts in* profane…

 

[WarKirby]

Moderator Action: <removed>
We are actually serious about this.

Watch your language.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

just a single four letter word generates 48 smiley faces, to the point where it cannot be posted. What were you thinking, seriously. Is this a joke or what? It's not even hard to circumvent. This is a waste of time for whoever coded it.

This is a terrible example of power abuse. Consider this an official protest


Ladies and gentlemen, we are old enough to read naughty words.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

No, it's not, there's been worse. Even though, well, people from a certain *censor cuts in* country do have a certain *censor cuts in* propensity to be slightly *censor cuts in* profane…

Oh please, it's not like Americans have a monopoly on swearing. If they did, I wouldn't know how to swear in four languages, despite only knowing how to speak in two.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Any sort of word filter is bad. As Elephantium said, if people are breaking forum policy than that is a moderation problem, not a technical one.
And while it might sound ok now while it's just baning the F word it won't stop there. I know a forum where they banned the word Apple.


And while I mean no offense I must state that in my opinion if the staff feels that they have to take physical measures to enforce the forum rules. That tells volumes about their capability, or perhaps a lack there of.

Thunderfall has set a standard for his forum. As moderators it is our job to maintain those standards. The fact that posters continue to swear when they have been asked not to is a pretty good indicator of their childishness, selfishness and lack of self control. Such qualities are expected from teenagers who feel it imperative to express their rebelliousness, so we prod them back into line as best we can. In anyone else it is simply bad manners and a rude personality.

 

[WarKirby]

At the end of the day, people are always going to circumvent these blo ody filters if they want to. This does no good except to annoy the mature users of this site. Swearing, like any other form of language, is something to be used in reasonable moderation. If someone is using it to abuse another member of the site, then is the time to take manual action. No computer yet invented can intelligently moderate a forum, and this filter only serves to make it harder to post for those who feel a desire to use naughty words, which in the end will only lead to a decrease in user participation.

 

[Moss]

Any sort of word filter is bad. As Elephantium said, if people are breaking forum policy than that is a moderation problem, not a technical one.
And while it might sound ok now while it's just baning the F word it won't stop there. I know a forum where they banned the word Apple.


And while I mean no offense I must state that in my opinion if the staff feels that they have to take physical measures to enforce the forum rules. That tells volumes about their capability, or perhaps a lack there of.

To me, we're being nicer and more proactive about notifying people that they have broken the rules and thus we are allowing them to avoid an infraction. Of course, if people choose to bypass the censor, then they WILL be infracted.

The point is, the admins have decided that CFC should be a forum without profanity, this is the best way we have found to accomplish this.

As for the moderation capability, if we could find a way to stop spam bots from initially posting as well, I wouldn't say that is moderation being ineffective, I'd say it's moderation being quite effective. If something is against the rules, and we can stop rule breaking posts before they ever show up, I see no harm in this.

As to whether or not profanity should even be banned, the short answer to that question is that TF has long been against it, and it is his site, so we go by his rules.

 

[WarKirby]

Thunderfall has set a standard for his forum. As moderators it is our job to maintain those standards. The fact that posters continue to swear when they have been asked not to is a pretty good indicator of their childishness, selfishness and lack of self control. Such qualities are expected from teenagers who feel it imperative to express their rebelliousness, so we prod them back into line as best we can. In anyone else it is simply bad manners and a rude personality.

As is the case in the majority of other forums which use such a system, people will simply circumvent it, with use of numbers instead of letters, or conveniently placed spaces, or similar words like fudgingg. It is a never ending and pointless war against the wrong target.

If there is a problem with people excessively throwing abuse around, target the people doing it. Swear filters only patronise your user base and are a blanket solution to a specific problem.

This is a social problem, and it requires a social solution - human moderation. No computer can adequately fill that role, and often simply gets in the way.

 

[Camikaze]

Just to counterbalance the evident negativity here, I have to say that IMO this is a good change. The autocensor already existed; this is just making it more effective.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

I know the perfect way to get around it that won't earn me an infraction...

I'm sick and tired of this <snip>

 

[WarKirby]

Also just checking
It is no longer possible to post that you have found a ch ink in your opponents armour.

This reminds me of Caesary. A game where, amongst other things, you could find Spices after a battle. Yet the word "spic" was banned because of potential racial connotations, an as a result it was not possible to discuss where or how to find spices ingame.

Everyone just called the resource mexicans instead, as an ironic jab in the ribs. The idea of finding a sackful of mexicans from defeated enemies is quite surreal.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

Also just checking
It is no longer possible to post that you have found a ch ink in your opponents armour.

This reminds me of Caesary. A game where, amongst other things, you could find Spices after a battle. Yet the word "spic" was banned because of potential racial connotations, an as a result it was not possible to discuss where or how to find spices ingame.

Everyone just called the resource mexicans instead, as an ironic jab in the ribs. The idea of finding a sackful of mexicans from defeated enemies is quite surreal.

Can we do the same thing here?

"I've found a chinese person in your armor!"

 

[Birdjaguar]

<snip>

just a single four letter word generates 48 smiley faces, to the point where it cannot be posted. What were you thinking, seriously. Is this a joke or what? It's not even hard to circumvent. This is a waste of time for whoever coded it.

This is a terrible example of power abuse. Consider this an official protest


Ladies and gentlemen, we are old enough to read naughty words.

At the end of the day, people are always going to circumvent these blo ody filters if they want to. This does no good except to annoy the mature users of this site. Swearing, like any other form of language, is something to be used in reasonable moderation. If someone is using it to abuse another member of the site, then is the time to take manual action. No computer yet invented can intelligently moderate a forum, and this filter only serves to make it harder to post for those who feel a desire to use naughty words, which in the end will only lead to a decrease in user participation.

Feel free to protest the system. You are not the first and won't be the last. The fact that you don't mind reading naughty words is not the issue. Nobody here cares whether you read or use such words in your daily life. The only issue is that TF has said he doesn't want them here. It is his site and he is in charge. The fact that you think it is your place to correct him and straight out go against his wishes for his site, is a pretty good indicator of your actual maturity. But human judgment is still underdeveloped until the mid twenties, so there is hope for you yet.

If you want to be seen as a thoughtful person, you might consider making a reasoned argument why his vision and his rules for this site is flawed and how your thinking is superior to his.

 

[Takhisis]

As Camikaze's just said, the autocensor's always been here! All that's been done is tweak it around a little.

just a single four letter word generates 48 smiley faces, to the point where it cannot be posted. What were you thinking, seriously.

The whole point of it was to stop profanity.

Is this a joke or what? It's not even hard to circumvent. This is a waste of time for whoever coded it.

This is a terrible example of power abuse. Consider this an official protest

No it's not a waste. If you type in some curses in the heat of the moment then it allows you to cool down. If you take the trouble to circumvent the autocensor then you're going out of your way to be rude, just as if you were spitting in someone's face which is not poite or necessary.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are old enough to read naughty words.

And we're also old enough to know that being rude is not proof of Scottishness and Scottishness is not proof of being rude. And then you'll probably have the cheek to complain about national stereotypes!

Oh please, it's not like Americans have a monopoly on swearing. If they did, I wouldn't know how to swear in four languages, despite only knowing how to speak in two.

They don't. I could swear in three languages. So what?

At the end of the day, people are always going to circumvent these blo ody filters if they want to. This does no good except to annoy the mature users of this site. Swearing, like any other form of language, is something to be used in reasonable moderation. If someone is using it to abuse another member of the site, then is the time to take manual action. No computer yet invented can intelligently moderate a forum, and this filter only serves to make it harder to post for those who feel a desire to use naughty words, which in the end will only lead to a decrease in user participation.

If you have a desire to use naughty words then you're just angry at the world.
If you try to justify it behind national identity then all you do is smear the rest of your countrymen while avoiding responsibility for your own words.

I swear a lot IRL too. But this is not RL and there's no reason why it should be.
And yes, it's been a bit overdone and some words like chi-nk beign banned seems stupid. But that can be corrected, and it does not give you the right to go around making a prat -for want of a better word- of yourself.

Now take a deep breath and act your age. Please.

 

[WarKirby]

The fact that you think it is your place to correct him and straight out go against his wishes for his site, is a pretty good indicator of your actual maturity.But human judgment is still underdeveloped until the mid twenties, so there is hope for you yet.

Ignoring the thinly veiled insults, I have been, and I would hope, continue to be, a valuable contributor to this community for several years. I feel that this change directly impacts my comfort in using the site. As this thread has been SPECIFICALLY CREATED TO DISCUSS THIS CHANGE, I feel well within my rights, as any user of this forum should, to voice my opinion about it here. May I direct your attention to the announcement at the top of the screen, specifically noting the last section:

CFC has an autocensor in place to prevent people posting swear/cuss words. We have modified this autocensor in a manner that it now prevents people making a post with these words in it. It does this by a workaround of the vBulletin software, that changes the word to images, however changes it to enough images that the post can't be posted.
You will get an error message telling you this, and if this appears, please go back and remove the offending word(s) and try posting again. Remember: Our view is that people can make their points without resorting to such language.
Discuss this change in the Site Feedback Forum.

If you want to be seen as a thoughtful person, you might consider making a reasoned argument why his vision and his rules for this site is flawed and how your thinking is superior to his.

To put it simply, the vision of the site owner often means little in the grand scheme of things. A community is defined by its members, and if an administrator exerts too much control over those members, they may leave.

Certainly, people can make their points without "resorting to such language". They can also make their points with "resorting to such language". In the end, it's all semantics. Words are words, and the wise human being looks for the meaning, not the words used to express it. My culture predisposes me towards swearing significantly more than most, it's how I've been raised from an early age. Most of the men I know personally swear every few sentances as naturally as breathing. In scotland, the word cu nt is often used interchangeably with "person". I would say that I don't swear particularly excessively compared to the average internet user, although I quite frequently use swear words in an entirely non-aggressive manner, simply because it's how I talk in real life.

It also worth pointing out that, although there may be many other cultures that swear frequently, mine is discrminated against because english is my first language. The swear filter does not block

Moderator Action: European swear words removed.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

The primary function of swear filters is to "protect" children against "inappropriate content". I would like to meet the child with the mental capacity, attention span, and/or intelligence to play a civilisation game

 

[Afforess]

I can't tell you how much I dislike the idea of censoring swear words, and this proposed solution is terrible. This forum seems to be of the perception that we are children, not mature human beings. Sure, there will be people who use far too much profanity than necessary, but those incidents should be dealt with on a case by case basis, not by restricting the freedoms of all for the abuses of a few. If the current forum staff is not adequate for the workload, this stopgap will not make a long-term difference, except to create a hostile environment against the administration. I don't think that is your goal.

Instead, I suggest a system that collectively monitors itself, much like the immune system of any organism. Allow members to be rewarded for finding and reporting wrongdoers, and punished for false reports and wrongs, and you will quickly have solved the problem, without restricting any access, and allowing freer speech.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

I can't tell you how much I dislike the idea of censoring swear words, and this proposed solution is terrible. This forum seems to be of the perception that we are children, not mature human beings. Sure, there will be people who use far too much profanity than necessary, but those incidents should be dealt with on a case by case basis, not by restricting the freedoms of all for the abuses of a few. If the current forum staff is not adequate for the workload, this stopgap will not make a long-term difference, except to create a hostile environment against the administration. I don't think that is your goal.

Instead, I suggest a system that collectively monitors itself, much like the immune system of any organism. Allow members to be rewarded for finding and reporting wrongdoers, and punished for false reports and wrongs, and you will quickly have solved the problem, without restricting any access, and allowing freer speech.

There's only one problem with system: what if you are thinking of filing a report, but you're not sure if it will count, and you don't file it for fear of punishment?

 

[WarKirby]

Instead, I suggest a system that collectively monitors itself, much like the immune system of any organism. Allow members to be rewarded for finding and reporting wrongdoers, and punished for false reports and wrongs, and you will quickly have solved the problem, without restricting any access, and allowing freer speech.

I agree here.

I hope it doesn't come across so, but just in case, I am certainly not in favour of forum anarchy. I believe in the value of moderation and civil discussion. I believe a moderator's place is to step in when one user is clearly malicious, threatening, trolling, or otherwise bringing down the mood of the site. When someone curses that japanese AI for their unkillable units, it's quite a different matter to calling another user a idiot for having a different opinion, and painting both ends of the spectrum with the same broad brush is never a good thing.

I also know that the average audience of Civilisation titles is males aged 16+ and generally leaning towards the older end of the spectrum. It is a genre that appeals to a more mature sort of player, by the necessity of attention span.

I will also point to my signature. I wrote that for a reason. I can type walls of text at you guys all night

 

[Afforess]

There's only one problem with system: what if you are thinking of filing a report, but you're not sure if it will count, and you don't file it for fear of punishment?

Obviously there will be shades of grey. It should be easy for a moderator to tell if the report was filed in error (abusing the system), or if the post could potentially be interpreted wrongly.

 

[WarKirby]

If you have a desire to use naughty words then you're just angry at the world.
If you try to justify it behind national identity then all you do is smear the rest of your countrymen while avoiding responsibility for your own words.

To me, they are just words. Used without malice, merely as exclamation or expression of emotion. I say close to 100 times a day, and I am not "smearing" fellow countrymen, I a completly honest when I say that others I know use these words in similar frequency.

I swear a lot IRL too. But this is not RL and there's no reason why it should be.

I disagree.

In real life, you have to look someone square in the face when you swear at them, or otherwise in their presence. If you're comfortable, and non-hostile enough, to do it under those conditions, then the internet, relatively speaking, is nothing. Or to put it another way, if you wouldn't get punched in the face for saying it in real life, censoring it on the internet is madness.

Now take a deep breath and act your age. Please.

haaaaaaaaaauuuuugh.

Last I checked we were living in an age of free speech where the majority of societal taboos had been abolished.