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Remove LGBT Censorship in In-Game chat
Ok, so... I know that way back in the day, before people started being decent and tolerable folks, would use words like 'gay' and 'lesbian' or such things as a go to insult to describe a thing or person they didn't like which is obviously wrong and stupid... so the words were censored and you can't use them in game. (...At least I'm hoping that's why the words were taken out and not that someone at Nexon was homophobic and took the words out as soon as they realized they could, but I trust y'all to be better than that, right?)
I'm suggesting the ban be removed because there's no reason to have such a ban in place, especially with the sort of world we live in today. Heck, I'm surprised that when I came back to this game, gay marriage wasn't a thing. Talk about disappointing. Additionally, they are words that people use to express an identity, and I've been in and witnessed many situations (on other communities) where people who realized that they were both part of the LGBT+ community would bond over that and discuss those experiences together... and it's much easier to do that sort of thing when you dont have to watch your spelling to make sure you don't get asterisked and risk misunderstandings.
I was partially inspired to make this suggesting since another thread was made requesting to remove certain gender related things, at some point someone brought up they'd like an implementation for gay marriage... at which point I remembered that you can't even talk about that sort of thing in game without going out of your way to avoid the censorship. So I know this sort of thing wouldn't be high on the priority list, but just something I'd like to be acknowledged. And an answer from someone on the possibility.
Comments
In addition to no longer censoring words such as "gay" and "lesbian" we'll be going through the list of words that are censored and white listed.
We do know that the in-game chat filter makes chatting difficult at times.
Perhaps we could have a list of words that are censored which players would like to see lifted?
Arwoooo~
There's also phrases like "my first time", that are completely censored, making it impossible to say that it's your first time doing anything, bosses, PQs, whatever.
Then parts of words, like "uncomfortable/uncommon", only reason I can find for it being censored is that unco/unko would be poop in Japanese.
Another thing that would really help is to have whatever words are censored be indicated as *****'s for the person who wrote it as well. Someone else made a thread on that I believe.
And if you're able to read the old forums, there were quite a few threads on the subject there as well, with more examples of words and phrases that are needlessly censored.
In my opinion, the problem is less with the words themselves, and more with the fact that they're censored even when they "appear" accidentally in other words or phrases. For example, take the "s" word. Clearly, if we're to have a censor at all, it should be censored. But when people say stuff like "these mobs hit me for 5k" or "I'm in cpq but I'll join after I finish it," it shouldn't be censored. Things get even worse because the list contains "alternative spellings" of bad words, which greatly increases the number of innocent sentences that get censored.
Ironically, when a "bad word" inside good words gets ****'ed out, it causes people to try to figure out what was said, and think of all the bad words they know that could fit in there. And if it turns out to be non of them - well, to the google! Why did this word get censored? We learn bad words in so many languages this way, racial slurs nobody's used in decades, and the names of questionable sites...
So it's not a question of whitelisting some words or combinations of words, it's a matter of completely changing the string matching algorithm used, so it will be able to tell when a "bad word" is on its own in a way humans would notice it, and when it is accidental in an innocent phrase and nobody would even notice it there.
But if you really want a list of words that get censored and shouldn't, here are a few off the top of my head:
blow - too many skills in the game contain that word. Whose dirty mind decided it was necessarily lewd?
bite
an alliance
can always
can also
if u can
if u could
if u know
pianus - I mean, seriously, it's a monster in the game!
finish it
boss hit
mobs hit
beat me
but it's
hit its
my first time - (as in, "it's my first time fighting this boss")
nplay - going by google, this is some f2p game portal? I guess it's censored because it's a competitor of Nexon's in a way? But it really appears too often in the form of "can play" "been playing" etc, and drawing attention to the "nplay" in there only causes people to go check it out. "ncsoft" is also censored, but whatever, it doesn't show up that often.
best girl - (or just uncensor "tgirl", it's so obscure there's no point teaching people it exists. In fact, just uncensor all obscure "bad words". )
That one was whitelisted a while back.
joke
but yea some sentances/few words mentioned above are good to be lifted from censored list
also why words are only censored for other, makes more trouble to figureout what other person in chat wasnt able to see becaues of censore
As a side note, before I add in my two cents, I'd like to say how I found out 'gay', 'lesbian' and 'homosexuality' were censored words. I asked my sister if I could whisper her some things and tell me if she would get results. When put into a visual perspective of our characters interacting, it's pretty funny in hindsight, hence:
...Anyway, as far as my thoughts for the censorship upheaval, I do agree that with some words being whitelisted would be fantastic, but for ones that aren't, maybe it'd be best that we don't make the spaces in between words string together as swears, like some of the examples listed above.
I mean, obviously slurs are out. Any words that exist purely for the reason of being derogatory.
But then... there's so many obscure things that don't need the censorship for reasons others explained above. I think we're on a good path here.
Also, I'm pretty sure "gay" is still widely used as a way to voice discontent/as an insult lol. Not that it should be censored because of that, especially since we're more open to that sort of thing nowadays.
And yeah, same-sex marriage would be nice. Mainly because there are gender-locked classes (*cough* AB) (no one plays Mihile, let's be real) that are, ironically, forced to marry someone of their same irl gender lol.
Isn't it there for the younger players or something? O_o
Many newer MMOs have a toggle option and I would posit that the average age of a Maplestory player is higher then the average age of a newer MMO. I don't see any value in filtering words that children use with their friends in School.
Support for either a toggle for disabling the filter or the removal of many of the words from it.
Should most likely keep a few of the especially bad words on it I suppose.