He might be being sarcastic, because, he is a bit right, not having this plug-in would be their extra work...

 

I don't think there is really a point,
1. It would be another plugin to deal with, like to configure and things
2. Takes away part of the staff teams job
3. Like Revan said, swear words within words would be blocked out, and that would just ruin your conversation with someone in game.

 

This is a bad idea, because moderate swearing that is not directed at anyone is legal... and this would have no way of determining whether it was directed at someone or not.

 

Really? Takes away part of the staff teams job? I can't tell you how many times a day I hear the phrase "Staff is extremely busy." or "We can't add this suggestion, too much work for staff."

The way I hear it, staff are dying in work, why shouldn't we take away part of their job?

 

I understand your point, but what I mean is when staff are in game. For example, moderating the spawn area, part of their job is to assist people on ECC and make sure players who act idiotic are delt with. Plus if someone files a complaint foe example, is the "inappropriate" word/phrase how are staff to know what that player actually said, and how serious there ban or temp ban will be. Do you get what I mean?

 

The main issue I have with this suggestion is the fact that you're trying to make something specifically allowed in the rules against the rules. I can say from experience, because I was there when it happened, that when you ban curse words you lose a ---large--- part of your audience. We had a system exactly like what you're describing and it resulted in more than 3/4ths of the server complaining to get it removed, and Andrew eventually removed it, because "It's not our job to babysit kids". This system has been tried before and has failed on every attempt.

Maybe its because i'm from an older generation of players with an different, perhaps unspoiled upbringing on things, but I certainly don't want a server as great as ours to slip down the slope of enforcing personal morality. All of staff know that I'm against anti-cursing rules in general, but I guess its just the old ones who really understand why. To make it short, I didn't fight for almost two years to keep cursing allowed, just to see a program I know won't work be implemented.

 

Sorry no, not quite getting your point...

Ah Ike, I'm glad to have you weighing in on this suggestion as you are literally the longest member on ECC...


All the rules say about swearing is (A) abbreviations are allowed and (B) "slip-ups" are allowed.
In a slight shift of subject, one of the main reasons this topic has been really brought to forefront is (1) the fact that no one really knows what defines a "Slip-up" and (2) no one really knows what defines an actual "swearword". Some define a "slip-up" as a one-time accident, others say that it's impossible to have a slip-up because you actually have to type it all out on the keyboard and hit enter. And for some people "dang" is a swearword, and others even "damn" isn't a swearword.
So all in all, rules need to be a bit more clear on where's the line.

I'm sorry to say I have not been around as long as you have, you say that at one point in time Andrew had a chat filter in place for this very thing? Why has no one else said anything about it? It sounds, no offense meant, that it was tried on a very small server without many players. Perhaps times have changed, were a huge server now, with lots more players.

I mean, take a look at events in the past 6 months (about the time frame I've been keeping track of stuff). When we made the mining world Builder+ and non pvp we got a ton ton ton pages and pages of complainers about it. But did anyone really quit? Anyone really say "That's it, I'm done, I'm sick of this, good bye."? No. Recently farming prices have been wobbling all over the place. Anyone quit? No. Anyone threaten to quit? Yes. The only occasion that the public rallied for something and actually got it, is when LWC's were lowered. Besides that, we've had a ton of people (including myself) complain about many things, and yet...never really follow through on the threats of leaving the server.

I think that when push comes to shove, it will take a lot, and I mean a lot, to really get more then a few people, if that, to walk off the server.

You say, quote, "Failed on every attempt." This sounds like over-exaggeration to be honest, your saying that this system has been put in place, used for a while, and removed, all in that order, many times?

I'm not sure how this server can really be "slipping down a slope" as you put it. By enforcing not swearing, do we really enforce your life? Can we really keep you from doing bad stuff or taking the wrong road by enforcing a little under a thousand people to not have their swears seen on screen? Are they still swearing? Yes. Are we seeing it? No.

But I also have to do a little speculation. You say, back in your time, that there was a chat filter for this, and people complained. Perhaps it's only the nature of a server to follow a pattern. People join the server, they play for a while, couple years later only a handful are still around, now it's all brand new players, and suddenly you have 95% on the server that have never seen the effects of a chat filter.

I've never seen a chat filter on ECC. Perhaps you, and a handful of other people, have seen one. But 95% of us here on ECC have never seen one working/seen affects of that.

Sometimes what we really need, is just to test, test, and test some more.
If Andrew adds this chat filter, and I see a lot of hate over it, and a lot of people not liking it, I will drop my case, and say no more.

 

It was tried more than once, but the first time it was tried was when we had about 30 or so players on at peak, and then later on it's been tried. The enforcement of the cursing rule goes up and down depending on the staff who are around, and when it gets extreme there is ALOT of uproar over it. I can name several times where staff members took the cursing rule to the extreme and we had to fight it out for weeks until a side won out. Any strict non-cursing rule has always failed and we have always had to revert back.

Actually, quite a few people(I can name a dozen or so of my friends) have left because of a lot of changes, you just don't notice it because they don't leave with the whole hullabaloo of "IM LEAVING YOU'LL NEVER SEE ME AGAIN" type of situation. We lose a lot of our mature audience because of rules which are changed without any real thought behind it, or rules are changed because someone is "offended" by something. You don't seem to understand that just because someone is hurt by something doesn't mean you should make it against the rules.

Nope, not exaggerating. Trying to enforce a non-cursing rule very heavily has been met with extreme backlash and has always been forced to revert back to looser enforcement.

You don't seem to understand that by banning cursing and making people receive a temp-ban for it you're imposing a level of social-engineering upon a very large group of people within the server who will fight it tooth and nail. It will cause more consternation than just dealing with the extremes once in a blue moon and letting people do as they do.

Yes, but that doesn't mean you just blow off the people before you who clearly know more about a situation that is a carbon-copy of something they've been through just because they're old fogies now. There's a reason the quote "Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it," is so important.

 

lol

 

Jason1964

The reason "slip-ups" are undefined is because they are supposed to be undefined. The entire purpose of the slip-up rule is to provide some cushion for players who normally incorporate these words in their normal vocabulary. If you started to list all the swears which are to be considered "illegal," then they would be illegal and no one would have some cushioning in unfortunate circumstances. Keeping slip-ups undefined is integral to the purpose of that rule.

Additionally, any attempt to list the illegal swear words would be stupidly childish.

 

Okay, some of your points are silly, Jason.\

Then why is swearing allowed in real life if it causes a problem or hurts someone? Honestly, swearing solely exists because people needed to scream something when in (emotional) pain, angry or both. I don't know when the "swearing is bad" thing started, but people have been swearing since forever. It was more socially accepted to swear than to drink alcoholic beverages. But for some reason in the past 100-200 years people suddenly decided it's bad.
Why is swearing bad? What makes swearing so bad? I understand finding someone swearing 10 times a sentence bad, that's simply ridiculous. But aside from that, why is swearing so bad?

This is because it's the quiet and mature people who are negatively affected by this, only a handful of them are actually active on the forums and even from those only a small amount of people actually argue about it. But trust me, if a swear filter would be implemented then a lot of those people would quit. We would lose perfectly good members because a handful of people can't handle the small amount of swearing on ECC. And ECC is one of the cleaner places on the internet.

It's fine if you want to test things for yourself, but just testing this feature could make us lose current members and even lose new members for something that is already doomed to fail. (As it happened in the past on ECC and on other servers I've seen)
I've joined servers that had swear filters in them, and even though I very rarely swear, that filter got on my nerves. This is for multiple reasons. One of those reasons is that the server is aimed specifically at children, it's something I've seen very often. Servers will swear filters/blockers almost never have adults on them, and the adults that are on them are usually parents of children on the server. I quit that server because I had practically no one to talk to.
I see the same fate on ECC, if ECC were to get a swear filter then the average age on ECC would slowly drop, the quality of chats would go along with it.
This is a server for all ages, not for just kids. We have a compromise that has worked for over 2 years, and that is our slip-up rule.

Also, if parents are going to make a fuss about swearing on ECC, then they shouldn't let their kids on the internet without supervision. ECC is one of the cleaner places on the internet, if you were to go anywhere else then you'll see A LOT of swearing. Parents who don't want their kids exposed to swearing should keep those kids away from the internet. (Or people)

Honestly, the only way I can see a filter like this work is when we block out racist words, but keep the rest. This is a compromise that works. Racism is something that people universally frown upon, a filter for those words would work without problem. But blocking swear words won't improve anything.

 

Swearing is a part of language. Language ties to "freedom of speech." Comparing things like Mining World becoming Builder+ to blocking vulgar language is...not a very good argument. Most people are taught from a young age that they have freedom of speech (for the geographies of our server's major userbase). Take away any of this freedom, and people will be far, far more emotional, vehement, and angry about it. They will fight harder than they would on most anything else.

Those who say or threaten they will quit often do not "quit" for long; they usually come back a few days or a couple weeks later. That is not quitting, that is taking a break that was over-dramatized from temporary frustration and need for attention. Normal psychological behavior for many people - especially younger people. Those who do really quit, however, go in silence in all - or most - of ECC social media spaces. They will only privately tell their friends, or go without a word.

If this LWC lowering was announced in a thread by Andrew / the SA, that means Andrew is specifically going to be watching it for opinions and thoughts. As well, the older a feature is, the more people will fight for it.

Mining World isn't too old ... and isn't a necessity, so fights for changes don't often get anywhere. This goes for many newer and non-necessity things, too.

On the other hand, LWCs have been around since the very beginning and are essentially a necessity. Little changes have been made. A major change - lowering them - causes a greater uproar and far more likely to get changed [back].

Prices have also drastically changed (and completely changed at times), so they are a type of "new" and "old," and a necessity to the server, which is why those fights go either way, with more influence in the arguments.

 

This is funny, look at Andrew's most recent post:

Very strange don't you think? With all the thousands of possibilities for all these tons and tons of words pertaining to admin and such?

Bit of a useless idea isn't it? Because we'll never ever get all the variations to these words right? This is just another fat weight on staff to think of all these words right? Completely useless feature right? Entirely hopeless to even get going eh?

Sarcasm aside, it is obviously possible to eventually block all these words, because Andrew is adding a blacklist. He wouldn't add one if it were useless.

Yes, there are a lot of swearwords, but there are a TON of words I could use to make myself look official or staff-like or with powers plus all the variations to those words.

So please people, don't tell me that adding a filter/blocking most everything is impossible or a lost cause.

 

Here's something simple; quit whining, if you see someone swear, ignore it. People are making this in to such a big deal, when in reality, it's a little problem.

 

exactly.

 

The thing is though, impersonating staff causes actual harm as where swearing, when not directed at anyone, is harmless. There is never any need to block something that is harmless when the block itself would cause harm.

 

I really hate to be blunt, but I'm gonna be blunt anyway.

If you don't care if you see swearing or not, then don't argue to keep it or get rid of it. Some people do care, some people think it's a problem. If you don't, and your mature enough to ignore it, please, by all means, ignore it, and don't argue for it or against it.

You seem to by side-stepping your previous argument. You guys have argued this: "We cannot add this filter because it would be impossible to block all the variations."

What I really want to hear, is the solid fact of why AndrewKM added a filter if it is impossible to block all the variations.