What the garden is this chat moderation bullpudding?

You win the best thread title of the year award I think.

Honestly, I don't know why they don't just add a chat censoring option that you can opt into. Don't force it on people. You can curse in a non-inflammatory way, and you can flame people without cursing. Handle troublemakers on a per-case basis, don't impose sweeping automated moderation and censorship.

These kinds of filters and moderation only fuel the fire for creating a community and/or society of sensitive individuals. Sure there's a line to be drawn that you shouldn't cross in terms of being deliberately hateful, but being over sensitive doesn't make it much better and/or may make things non-enjoyable if we are constantly crying about things like "ooooo he said fuck and called that guy a gay fag ass butt", which doesn't seem much of a clear insult lol. What are we? In elementary still?

I totally understand people wanting to opt in to this, but what I don't understand is how people can downplay some of the verbal abuse in this community as if it's no big deal. Like seriously have you seen some of this stuff?

I totally understand people wanting to opt in to this, but what I don't understand is how people can downplay some of the verbal abuse in this community as if it's no big deal. Like seriously have you seen some of this stuff?

Sure did. Two days ago a raging player wanted to garden my mother in the pudding. I told him to go flowers himself.

I would have preferred a sound clip of Imperial Dane saying 'Mind your bloody manners' like he says in his casts.

Seriously though, the worst I've ever gotten is when an opponent will do something like run his riflemen across red cover into my Obersoldaten with STG44 Vampirs, lose the squad and then say 'So fucking OP, OKW is so fucking OP you noob'

Never seen any racial attacks, and very very few personal insults. Sad that they felt the need to put in a filter, it won't really impact my enjoyment of the game too much, but I agree it should be an opt in feature.

Friendly banter =/= talking shit

friendly banter =/= sportsmanship

esports =/= sportsmanship

You're argument is so illogical it hurts. If you want sportsmanship get off the internet. This is the last place you're going to get it. If you do want be sportsmanlike that's fine but just remember where you are. Its like comparing the sportsmanlike conduct of rubgy (breaking each others faces) to F1 (sharing cocaine straws and sluts.) I'm not saying you can't be civil in rugby, but its more about violence than politics -- that is a fact. The same goes here on the internet. We all have huge e-weiners and I'm going to make damn sure you smell my huge stinky one.

Now Ive read my post 4 times already. Where am I illogical? Am I missing a comma or added one too many?

Im saying E-sports will never be accepted until such times that the Gamer community grows up. I know what to expect of the interwebs, I live and work here. When you see something you don't like do you shrug and say "Hey thats life" and grin and bear it or should you try to change it?

Picking certain words to censor... don't like.

It's about context and meaning, not semantics. Bots can't moderate.

This. So strongly this. The garden is filled with bullflowers.

Trash talking isn't an e-sports thing, it's a competition thing. Imagine if a professional athlete had a microphone attached to him during every minute of every practice session and competition. I bet you're going to hear a lot of things you don't like. It's more apparent in competitive gaming because the players are watched more closely, and interact more closely with their communities. They also have less contractual obligations in the way of the communities and their opinions.

I appreciate that you want things to improve, but you're going about it in the wrong way.

So, I help admin a very popular (think it's like top 3%) battlefield 4 server and we run a language filter to help keep things polite and civil. In real life I curse all the time but it's not that hard for me to restrain myself in game for the sake of good sportsmanship but it kind of blows my mind how hard it is for so many gamers. We get a ton of pushback on it from non regulars that first join the server.

There seem to be two main types of malcontents when it comes to the filter: those that don't like being censored and question it at first but usually apologize and abide by the rules when they learn its for the sake of focusing on the game without constant trash talk; and those that are just truly toxic players who will constantly try and circumvent the filter and continue to insult people in ways they think the can get away with. The filter helps save our admins a headache but for the second type of player, you still need active adminning.

It's kind of a sad commentary on modern gaming honestly.

Trash talking isn't an e-sports thing, it's a competition thing. Imagine if a professional athlete had a microphone attached to him during every minute of every practice session and competition. I bet you're going to hear a lot of things you don't like. It's more apparent in competitive gaming because the players are watched more closely, and interact more closely with their communities. They also have less contractual obligations in the way of the communities and their opinions.

I appreciate that you want things to improve, but you're going about it in the wrong way.

If you get mad and start cussing during a competition you loose. Plain and simple. Any drop in focus and that's it. IF you get mad you start to tense up and that is it, you can't catch that puck, strike that drive, clear the bar. you see it all the time in youth competitions.

Friendly banter is trying to get the guy you are competing against to loose his cool while you keep yours, cussing is horrible for this (and also while avoiding any technical fouls.). Don't know why but cursing at someone gets you mad, often madder than the other guy.


Athletes train hard not to get mad but to live in the second and just shrug it off. When you see someone rage you don't see them competing anymore for a while. They need to cool off and refocus.


The myth that "regular" sportsmen are just as bad as gamers is a nothing but a myth used to excuse the horrible behaviour of gamers.

On a lighter note athletes and gamers have more or less the same diets. Though athlets, atleast in the world of T&R do drink more than gamers.

If you get mad and start cussing during a competition you loose. Plain and simple. Any drop in focus and that's it. IF you get mad you start to tense up and that is it, you can't catch that puck, strike that drive, clear the bar. you see it all the time in youth competitions.

Friendly banter is trying to get the guy you are competing against to loose his cool while you keep yours, cussing is horrible for this (and also while avoiding any technical fouls.). Don't know why but cursing at someone gets you mad, often madder than the other guy.


Athletes train hard not to get mad but to live in the second and just shrug it off. When you see someone rage you don't see them competing anymore for a while. They need to cool off and refocus.


The myth that "regular" sportsmen are just as bad as gamers is a nothing but a myth used to excuse the horrible behaviour of gamers.

On a lighter note athletes and gamers have more or less the same diets. Though athlets, atleast in the world of T&R do drink more than gamers.

I agree with most of what you said, but what I don't understand is why you then think that enforcing good behaviour is necessary. Censorship isn't going to prevent displays of anger, but it is going to frustrate people who happen to use censored words in regular conversations. I curse all the time, but I learned years ago to control anger and emotion during competition. I still curse. It's just a byproduct of my upbringing and environment. Cursing doesn't "get you mad", as you put it. Words are words, and there's nothing inherently different about one that would make its user feel differently than using another. You choose words based on your emotional state, but your emotional state is not in turn influenced by your choice of words. It's a one-way street. I curse all the time, talking to friends, talking to strangers, talking online and talking in my daily life. I understand that some people don't like listening to that kind of thing, and for those people I adapt. But I don't want to be forced to do this at all times, because with some people I'd much rather interact in a way that's most comfortable to me.

I'll give you an example. I'm part of a chat group on Twitch that I hang out in when I'm watching Twitch streams. It has a word filter because of some config screwup, and it's the most infuriating thing in the world. I'm not the only one who feels that way either. These are people I'm comfortable talking with, and I know they're not offended by my conversational habits. But the conversation is limited by the system's filter, and that's extremely annoying. Am I being harmful by using words that some may find offensive around a group of people who aren't offended by them at all?

I played baseball competitively for over 15 years. I played in high school leagues and university leagues, with players who would go on to play professionally and with players who were good for amateurs but never good enough to make it pro. Cursing was just how you spoke. There were angry players and relaxed players, but everyone cursed, because it was just what you did. You hit the shit out of that ball, you fucked up your arm, you pissed on it, you and your buddies were bitches and pussies and fuck-ups and shitheads and everything in between. That was the culture I grew up in, and while I understand that some may be more sensitive than me, I would've been furious if I was forced to change how I spoke around others who spoke the same way. There is nothing inherently wrong with cursing; it's just words.

Now, once you get to publicly-viewed levels of competition things change a bit. I had teammates who were good enough to play baseball professionally but were looked over because of their temperaments. The same is true in competitive gaming. Once sponsors are involved, a player who is unable to control his speech in public is going to have less success that a player who knows how to act professionally with a sponsor's name attached to his. In that way, the system works entirely as expected.

Now this is all a very round-about way of addressing the problem of mandated censorship. Your argument, as I read it, boils down to "cursing makes you made, and competitive players shouldn't be mad because it negatively impacts play, so removing cursing from in-game communications makes sense". If I'm incorrect in that assessment then please correct me, because perhaps I'm just misinterpreting what you say. But I disagree with this stance because I think the notion that cursing causes anger is absurd, and because I think that censoring speech without letting users opt in or out of the censorship will do nothing to reduce the amount of flaming and trash talking in games. Instead, it will simply frustrate the segment of the playerbase that isn't offending by cursing while placating the segment that finds it offensive. At that point, why not just give people the choice?

Word filters are pointless, even for those that are opting in to it. So easy to circumvent. If you change the letters up slightly and you're still putting the intended word in the other persons head, that is all that matters. Its not about how you spell a certain word, its about the thought or context. If I called a Jewish person a *insert curse free racist tirade* that would be much more offensive than calling someone a dick sucking shitface. Ignore user button is needed.

PS: Meanwhile Relics unofficial spokesperson (Dane) is calling people cunts on his livestream.

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Great post!

And I agree with you, and the Bears will tell you, I also curse alot in my regular speech. More so when it comes down to my native language.

But I think we are not really talking about the same thing here. I think I'm more on about the concept of bad mouthing opponents, namecalling and the like, than the actual words.

Thats what I meant about the cursing gets you mad thing. I've found people are more likely to loose focus once they start railing, sure you can scream "GARDEN!!!" at the top of your lungs and it will be just as bad as screaming "FUUUUCCCK!!!" the word is secondary the feeling and focus is what matters. Unless you drop what gets you right away I've found it is really hard to regain that focus.

In competitions (been pole vaulting for some 15 years now) I too call mates and opponents a number of names. But all in good fun because they know I'm ironic. And just like you say thats is how we talk, it is ironic not meant to be in anger.

Here is the catch tough, when you are ironic it is confirmed by the volume and tone of your voice and your general posture. Irony doesn't work in text, or atleast work crappy in text. (big up to this fellow: )

Irony is also one of the hardest parts of humor there is, and should be reserved for people who you feel that you know well enough.
I guess what my crazy brain is trying to write is that I believe that if you can't write it people are less likely to care about bad-mouthing their opponents and play the game instead.

Yes I do realise how naive that sounds, I'm more on about the general lack of friendliness among gamers than a wordfilter. (My brain is probably wired weird. I read a thread it gets me thinking and *Bam* Im off-topic )

Good stuff, thanks for the clarification.

A mute this player/all players options would be better. As the nanny won't stop someone who really want to be an ashbole...

Limiting the map pinging to 5-6 per 30 sec would be nice too.

Thanks

People are actually getting upset because others don't have to read their useless garbage in the chat anymore?

I would have preferred a sound clip of Imperial Dane saying 'Mind your bloody manners' like he says in his casts.

Please. oh God YES. PLEASE

People are actually getting upset because others don't have to read their useless garbage in the chat anymore?

Nope, the problem is you're not given an option.

saying fuck shit or whatever isn't against the rules. being disrepectful to other users is.

pretend i said nothing i thought it was pertaining to .org anyways yea its kinda stupid i wish they added an option for those w ho didn't wish to see certain words. i mean cmon the game is rated M! that said the problem they are trying to solve won't be solved by this as being abusive to people doesn't require "cuss-words". you can on the flip side say all those words without being abusive towards someone as well so it doesn't really make sense.

+1

Just a little context

To help ensure all players are having an enjoyable in-game experience, we have rolled out the first phase of an in-game chat moderation feature. This feature can potentially replace certain banned words with new text, remove a word entirely and/or send a ‘whisper’ coaching message to the offending party. This feature will see further roll-out as we receive new reports.

So clearly this isn't their final solution. I think they're just playing with it and we'll see it fleshed out with options or configurability or whatever in the future.