Text Chat Censorship

Prof_Bawbag

Maybe just me, but there seems to be no rhyme nor reason to what actually gets censored at times. I'm talking about when you have the profanity filter off and random things still get censored. An example being I typed "that's a bit cheeky" and it appeared in chat as "that's *******eky". There's a whole host of other random sentences that contain absolutely no profanity whatsoever that get censored from time to time. My main issue being, when things do get starred, it can actually come across as you were being a complete tool and being abusive, when that's simply not the case. Certain words before "Kuta" seem to get censored and according to someone in my guild, that may be down to "kuta" meaning something crude in polish. However, I don't see why that would be the case as you see a lot worse bypassing the filter, plus "kuta" is the name of an item in-game.

Tryxus

I think that by now most ppl have the profanity filter turned off

Buffler

the bit cheeky one is obvious why it is censored

KerinKor

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

that may be down to "kuta" meaning something crude in polish.

Cases like that simply show how fatuous these filters are, when they try to sanitise multiple languages they're doomed to failure and mockery like this, but sadly devs still insist on wasting their time building and maintaining them even for PEGI 18 games. Bad language is something people should have got over being shocked by when they hit their teens!

Prof_Bawbag

Still happens with it's switched to off. Not often, but still happens randomly. Just last night and with the sentence I provided above, I was told I was overreacting using whatever language i used. I can totally see why others would say that as it did appear mostly starred. "that's a bit cheeky" and "that's *******eky", the latter can be taken as I was being aggressive or being OTT. Whereas the former is just a throwaway remark.

Prof_Bawbag

Buffler wrote: »

the bit cheeky one is obvious why it is censored

Yeah, when joined up, but it's a common phrase. It's like that time MS banned someone for putting his location as Scunthorpe in his bio, when in fact Scunthorpe is a real place and the guy in question did live in Scunthorpe.

anitajoneb17_ESO

It shouldn't happen with the filter turned off. Never does to me. There must be something wrong with your settings.

Suggestion :
1/ make sure it's disabled of every one of your characters. Settings are not account-wide.
2/ maybe you're whispering to someone who has the filter on ?

Danikat

Your profanity filter settings don't affect what other people see, so it's not surprising you had it switched off and someone else still saw it starred out.

The trouble is there isn't a practical way to avoid things like that happening, whilst also avoiding people bypassing the censor by putting spaces in the middle of the word they wanted to say or other characters before/after to make it look like a different word to a computer (whilst relying on a human being able to identify the intended word from the context).

Profanity filters work on a basic 'find and replace' system - they have a list of bits of text which are to be censored and one or more things to replace it with and then the scan all the text as it's posted and replace anything that matches their list. With some of them it is possible to include exceptions - for example tell it to censor "goat" or "go at" but not "if you go at the green light" or "I saw Django at the cinema" but that has to be done manually, meaning someone has to try and work out every single combination of words that might come up. Which is probably impossible.

(The alternative would be to use some kind of AI, probably with a neural network so it can tweak the lists itself, but that's overkill for a chat censor and then you get into the crazy world of things computers think are logical which make no sense whatsoever to a human.)

* No, goat wouldn't normally be censored, but I didn't want to use something that would because otherwise it'd be censored by the forum and the example wouldn't make sense.

Marabornwingrion

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

Certain words before "Kuta" seem to get censored and according to someone in my guild, that may be down to "kuta" meaning something crude in polish. However, I don't see why that would be the case as you see a lot worse bypassing the filter, plus "kuta" is the name of an item in-game.

Kuta in plural means in polish part of male body...

Danikat

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

Buffler wrote: »

the bit cheeky one is obvious why it is censored

Yeah, when joined up, but it's a common phrase. It's like that time MS banned someone for putting his location as Scunthorpe in his bio, when in fact Scunthorpe is a real place and the guy in question did live in Scunthorpe.

Not just them, everyone in Fort Gay, West Virginia had the same problem, even after the mayor wrote to Microsoft about it.

Magdalina

Tbh I don't really understand why there is a profanity filter at all, let alone one that's one by default. This is supposedly a pg 18 game. If you listen to the quests then it's full of death, suffering, people losing their loved ones, and I'm pretty sure I've heard npcs calling someone "ass" and whatnot. Yet we're not allowed to use these words by default ourselves?

It's like it's pg 7 or something, gee. Also are they really trying to censor things based on other languages too? Lol! "WTS a ****, pst"? That sounds SO much worse than whatever it is that could be implied XD

AcadianPaladin

I shall smile every time I make a legendary enchanted glyph now. . . .

Panth141

'Whisper me'

anitajoneb17_ESO

Magdalina wrote: »

Tbh I don't really understand why there is a profanity filter at all, let alone one that's one by default. This is supposedly a pg 18 game. If you listen to the quests then it's full of death, suffering, people losing their loved ones, and I'm pretty sure I've heard npcs calling someone "ass" and whatnot. Yet we're not allowed to use these words by default ourselves?

Because NPC-to-NPC communication is within Tamriel (fantasy, brutal, imaginary world with its own rules)
NPC-to-player communication is also within "Tamriel world"
But player-to-player communication is within Earth, now, between real people, where the common courtesy rules of the real world should apply.
Players don't play MMOs "forever" because they like the content. Sooner or later, they've played all the content. They keep playing because of the social contacts they've created and all the player-driven content that's created (friendships, love stories, hate stories, competition, guild building, guild drama, team fun, etc.). All this content / social network is needed for us to come back and all this content is built among human beings within the rules of real life society. If an NPC call me an a**h***, I'll think it's funny. If a player calls me an a**h***, I will more than likely see it for what it is : a brutal personal attack.

Also, I'd like to point out that PEGI has nothing to do with it. I was far more resilient to trash talk when I was 15 or 20 than now. I'm far more demanding now in terms of qualitative social environment. Many not-so-young-anymore people play ESO, and I'm ready to bet that it's for their sake that the environment is kept "clean" (as far as possible) than for teenagers who experience worse everyday at school anyway (unfortunately).

That being said, my "profanity filter" is turned off and I do not think it's an adequate nor efficient tool to promote common courtesy.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

Panth141 wrote: »

'Whisper me'

^THIS right here is why my profanity filter is off. Bad enough when in-game items like 'grapes' are censored, but when perfectly harmless, normal communication within the game comes out looking like a long stream of insults...good bye filter!

TerraDewBerry

Magdalina wrote: »

Tbh I don't really understand why there is a profanity filter at all, let alone one that's one by default. This is supposedly a pg 18 game. If you listen to the quests then it's full of death, suffering, people losing their loved ones, and I'm pretty sure I've heard npcs calling someone "ass" and whatnot. Yet we're not allowed to use these words by default ourselves?

It's like it's pg 7 or something, gee. Also are they really trying to censor things based on other languages too? Lol! "WTS a ****, pst"? That sounds SO much worse than whatever it is that could be implied XD

I use the profanity filter and I'm glad it's there. It's on by default because for people who would really would rather not see a host of profanity in zone chat.. once the profanity has started you can't "unsee" it.. and sometimes, people say the most awful things in zone chat... hence, the filter is on by default. It is sort of funny the **** things that are there at times.. but I would rather have the filter than to not.

Kiralyn2000

Yeah, filters that detect words across/within other words can always end up doing silly things.

The big one in WoW was that there were a number of cloaks (including several raid/endgame ones) that were called things like "Drape of _______". And every time someone tried to talk about them in chat, it was "D****". /facepalm

TheShadowScout

Yeah, we all know:


It gets a little silly, if for example you love the dark brotherhood DLC and want to play as a *****y khajiiti ******in, maybe with a telling name like "******in *****cat" , take your daily contracts to ******inate poor ****ers in the small hours of morning just before the ****erels cry, possibly hide the bodies beneath some d****s, ***** a ****on from their shirt as trophy, then toast you your successful ******ination in a ****y pub with a mug of g**** juice...
I sweart, somethinges I wonder what a the****** would say if they ****ysed those people who come up with the filters, really...

It gets a little silly, if for example you love the dark brotherhood DLC and want to play as a spunky khajiiti assassin, maybe with a telling name like "Assassin ***" , take your daily contracts to assassinate poor suckers in the small hours of morning just before the cockerels cry, possibly hide the bodies beneath some drapes, snatch a button from their shirt as trophy, then toast you your successful assassination in a seedy pub with a mug of grape juice...
I sweart, somethinges I wonder what a therapist would say if they analysed those people who come up with the filters, really...

...


And that ladies, gentlemen and other beings is why we all turn the profanity filter off. We can deal with some profanity. Better then having to deal with trying to figure out what people are actually trying to say through patches of wrongfully censored words.

Oh, and for the "offended" crowd... being offended is a choice. You can also choose to be amused at other peoples sillyness when they try to substitute profanity for wit... I often try seeing others like that myself, and I have to say, it is much more fun to go through life that way!

TheShadowScout

-gigglesnorts as something of the above censorship sillyness example post gets censored by the forum filters-