The majority of people isn't limited to people on the server.

 

Greetings,

"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."

This statement, to me, means "If you don't agree with me, then don't post." While I am not offended by the swearing, I understand that other people are and adapt to my surroundings. I have just read through all the posts and I'm confused about a few things. I would like to ask them, if it is OK with you.

How is this "filter" going to help?

I don't think it will benefit staff, as they will still have to look out for 'variations' of people trying to bypass the filter. They will still have to determine if if the bypass was a slip-up/accident or was intentional and excessive.

I don't think it will benefit the community. Benefit being defined as more good than bad. I think 'more' people would be offended by the filter, than the number of people who say it 'helps'. You are into "testing,testing, testing", so I suggest you do a poll. Who wants the filter and thinks it would help? vs Who thinks the filter will cause more problems than it is worth?

Let's stipulate the filter works. But is it "cost-effective"? By that I mean, it is really worth the effort. Is the benefit worth what it would take to carry out? I don't think so. Mainly because of the points above. It won't dramatically decrease the work of the staff, and it won't be a huge benefit. In addition, the filter will need to be maintained (words added,etc) and that time could be spent into just addressing the problems directly with the offenders.

It will also make users lazy in the regard that they will swear more often and not care what they say because "If it is bad, the filter will catch it." It removes the responsibility/liability from the user to the filter. That is a bad idea IMHO.

While I understand why you want one, I am not onboard of getting one. I do not think the problem has reached the point of needing one. Sorry.

 

There is no need for a poll because the majority of people (not necessarily the people on this server, but the majority of people in the real world) swear... this is just a fact.

 

We aren't banning swearing from the world. For the people themselves, but what about the parents of our young players? A poll is needed, an assumption that you call a "fact" won't "cut it"

 

You are wrong.

It is just plain stupid to disagree with the fact that the majority of people swear... a poll is not needed because it is common knowledge. Also, this is another case of an unjustified claim, you have to explain WHY this fact, which you incorrectly call an assumption, won't cut it.

 

I hesitate to explain my reasoning behind this, as it is against server rules to speak of religion, so I won't mention that here.

No one off the server will be affected by this poll, why shouldn't we limit it to the server?

Then please, would you explain WHY your "fact", isn't an assumption?

I still think we need a poll for this.

 

We'll do this deductively:

All things considered not obscene are common behavior by definition of obscenity.

The United State's Supreme Court does not recognize profanity as obscene.

Therefore, profanity is common behavior by Supreme Court ruling. <-- as close to "proof" as one can get without surveying every living person. This is enough evidence to pronounce my point as more than an assumption.

Furthermore, because of statistical accuracy one must not limit the definition of majority to just ECC. The definition of obscenity would be extremely altered if ECC was the sole source of the standard of comparison.

 

I wonder if you would be willing to use ANY countries definition's and just the one in the U.S., which seems arbitrary in this discussion.

 

The point which I was making is that the majority of people swear, I wasn't making a legal argument. I was basically saying that the United States Supreme Court conducted a miller test to determine whether to consider profanity obscene, and they determined that it couldn't be considered obscene because the majority of people employ it. I was basically referencing the United States as the conductor of Jason's desired poll, but I guess I was unclear.

 

A little off topic, but not too far:

I don't get the conclusion. Just because people do an immoral or indecent, doesn't make it decent or moral. Just because the majority of people do something that is seen as being indecent doesn't mean it is decent. It just means the majority of the people are hypocrites and/or have low will-power. It doesn't make it right or decent.

I've seen you argue this around the forums and I don't get it. Let me check a dictionary: some of the definitions of obscene is: "disgusting to the senses, designed to incite to lust or depravity , containing or being language regarded as taboo in polite usage". So if someone uses language in private, that same language can still be viewed as taboo for POLITE USAGE. I think this is what we are talking about here. I may swear at home and with friends, but I won't do it at work or in public place because I understand it is taboo to do so. People consider it being obscene. ... Even if the majority of people swear behind closed doors.

Having sex in public is obscene, even though I am sure the majority of people have sex behind closed doors. Having sex in chat in ECC would be considered obscene whether or not the definition fits the US Supreme Court.

 

The dictionary does not provide the legal definition of obscenity, you have to do some digging since I am limited when it comes to directing you to the actual procedure... due to server rules. I will outline the procedure which is used when defining something as obscene, the actual legal procedure, but if you disbelieve in my honesty you will have to do some research yourself. Emau

Procedure for Defining Something as Obscene​

​

1. Whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
2. Whether the work depicts or describes, in a offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state law,
3. Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

I used only the first clause in my argument, I did not incorporate the other two, but if you want to get technical something which is obscene is only obscene if it meets ALL THREE of the above statements!

The first statement can be rewritten to say: whether the average person, applying the common standard of the majority, would find the work, taken as a whole, to be appealing to the prurient interest. <-- in this case the "common standard" is completely necessary for the definition of obscenity. Therefore, something which is common practice can NOT be obscene, because if something is common practice it is not taboo or immoral by the common standard of the majority.

Furthermore, we are not talking about things like etiquette, I am not concerned about the politeness of swearing because something which is impolite is not necessarily immoral, therefore you cannot refer to the moral value of something through the means of etiquette.

In the case of sexual intercourse in public, I concur that it would be obscene, and I concur because it is not common practice and is therefore not supported by the common standard of the majority.

 

Setting aside all this arguing over technicalities, if this filter would be implemented and 99% of the swear words were to be blocked what would the advantages be? Please directly list these Jason1964.

 

Mendiboi

I consider the Miller Test to be an arbitrary "legal" definition in this discussion.

 

It is useful because it provides a standard of measurement and does not conclude based solely on conjecture. If there exists another framework which formulates its conclusions against a standard of measurement, then I will be happy to consider it as well.

 

Pfft. I wish it was.

There can be thousands upon thousands of variations. Heck, tons more even. First, you could just change a letter. Then, you could add symbols. Then, you could add spaces...numbers, color coding in shouts...

Think of 20 variations of any swear word, which should be easy...then add spaces.

Spaces are a big deal. It's really easy for me to take "damn" (Using it as an example, really, it's hardly a swear word and usually falls under the category of a slip up if anything.) and just say "da mn", "d amn", etc.. Now what if I add a period between them? A comma? Two spaces? Three spaces? A space between every letter? Two spaces between each letter? A space and a period? A period and a space? Two spaces and a period in the beginning, middle, or end of the spaces? All of these things multiple times in the word? What about special characters that look like other letters that most, if not all, keyboards don't have? Do all this for every variation of every swear word and I can assure you the numbers are too high for the staff to be done any time in the next century. (This is all theoretical, I don't think people would find all of these...but seriously, you cannot physically block all variations, that's not humanly possible, and it's too dangerous to let a computer do it, as well as time consuming to create and debug.)

Also consider that for the system to not block words like assassin, it needs to be okay with the word being part of another word, at least for the most part. I could say damnn, dammn, etc., and then do everything I said above to that. (Well, theoretically the system could be made so that words like assassin, spelled exactly like that, are allowed, but then we have a whole new problem...) Before long, people will find new words that nobody knows and start using those as well, and then all of their variations...these words could be far worse even than what's seen on ECC today. Trust me, the swearing on ECC is really, really minimal as it is in comparison to other parts of the internet, and I don't even need to be a part of these other places to know that.

Honestly, if someone was upset and wanted to let out their frustration through some swearing, and the system just said "no" or "made fun" of them by changing the word, do you think it'd stop them? Heck no, it'd only add to their frustration, and they will go out of their way to find a bypass. There will always be a bypass, even if it means adding tens of spaces between the letters or using really fancy characters keyboards don't even have, and I tell you, it's only more annoying when people take up large portions of chat or attract too much attention to your eyes with fancy characters, and none of this will stop people harassing, bullying, or any other form of similar actions, it will just make it harder for them to swear while doing it, and what difference does that make other than to avoid showing these words to children?


Trust me, an ECC where every sentence has a swear in it is not okay with me, that's just unnecessary and an environment I'd like to avoid...but asking for everyone to stop swearing all together, to never let another word go by...that's never going to happen, and I'm not okay with that either. I don't have to be in the position of someone who's upset and the system is yelling at them for it to know it never makes things better. There are far more important things to be worrying about than a few people who can't stand a single swear here and there. I respect their opinion, if they really can't stand them...but I know that appealing to such an audience isn't worth the effort that's required, especially when other parties are negatively effected. (Which if any previous attempts at such a filter have proven anything, it's that these kinds of systems don't come without their problems.)

If someone puts their name as "abmin", do you seriously think people will fall for it after the first few seconds? If there were a bunch of spaces, symbols, or bad spellings of it, it would be pretty hard to believe.

This is a bit of a different story: The name "Admin" could actually be extremely misleading and cause big problems, but the name "Abmin" would be caught fairly quickly as a hoax. It would be frowned upon, and maybe dealt with depending on the situation, but that's all it needs. I seriously doubt people would try it more than once or twice, and if they did, then yes, it can be blocked...but there isn't many other ways to fool people here.

Swearing on the other hand is another story. It's not about misleading people into doing things like giving you items, it's a word that certain people take offense to. These people will take offense to it regardless of if it's spelled correctly or every letter is wrong: They understand what it means and that's all that matters.


This is the point I'm making: Nicknames can afford to put in filters, because so few are needed. In the case of "Admin", the only given example, it's only a problem if people believe it. For swearing, it's a problem if people so much as understand the word that they bypassed the filter to say. For admin, all you need to do to fix the problem is to block things like "Admin," "Administrator," and "Owner," etc., but for swearing, you'd need to block hundreds of thousands of variations for the same word, which is not really possible. Variations for "Admin" like adding a space or a period would not have nearly the same effect, thus making the numbers of problem variations manageable.

 

Just to clarify..

Some people are looking at it from a "legal" point of view, so this post is for those people.

My opinion on this is that everyone has different ethical/moral views. It would literally be impossible for everyone to agree on something; considering nothing has been changed after the multiple suggestions with people whining, and people actually having a civil conversation about it, I really doubt Andrew is going to change anything. As far as I see it, he's fine with the way it is. Making ANOTHER suggestion about it will not work. At this point I feel like the people complaining about swearing is turning into a bigger deal then swearing itself. I hate to be blunt, but it's needed.

 

http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1314911-164-safechat/

A clientside solution for this. If someone doesn't want to see swearing, then this is the solution.

 

I swear. I am 11. Its bad but people swear these days so its in the system. My best friends family swore too much. my best friends 6 year old brother swore quite a bit but he was just trying to be cool. I suggest the client that kuke said or just reporting them. The one thing I disagree is racism it should be a insta ban.

 

If you react they will continue as they know its annoying you. Ignore it and they will stop since they are just wasting their time if it has no affect. I can say this is true because I have a older brother :3