This is a refreshed sticky. The original sticky had become full and is now being used for feedback purposes.
Rants about the censor appear to be one of the most commonly duplicated thread topics, so we have created this sticky for you to post your censor rants on.
Before you rant please remember one thing, the censor is currently being reviewed, so please try and make your rants helpful to us. We will never knowingly allow inappropriate language, so there is no need to say the censor should be removed altogether.
There is no need to type any offensive words, if you say it yourself you are not helping to resolve anything.
Please also be assured that we are fully aware of the issues regarding the letter ‘s’, contractions (can’t, isn’t, wasn’t etc), usernames, ‘plz’ as well as ‘nfs’ are all currently being worked on to find a resolution.
Happy ranting (if that’s possible).
脗聽
I am writing this response to address some of your concerns regarding the censor.
In no way am I trying to belittle your concerns or deny that there was a problem. In fact I can sympathise with you completely.
When the new censor was introduced it was overly sensitive; a number of words that should not have been blocked out, were.
Many common complaints were ‘thats’, ‘whats’, ‘energy’ and ‘dont’. All these words have now been lifted from the censor. The word ‘Gah’ was also requested to be uncensored. (Is that even a proper word?) People are now free to say Gah as much as they like.
Another complaint was about a couple of words that should have been censored which were not. One of these was a shortened down version of a swear word (which ended in an ‘ing’ and was mentioned in an earlier post) which has now been added to the censor.
The other word was ‘cracker’. Whilst we are aware that ‘cracker’ is an insult, it also has two very common uses in England. For example, ‘Christmas Cracker’ and ‘crackers with cheese’. For this reason it was felt unwise to add the word to the censor.
Another complaint has been that a number of foreign words are censored out. A number of these words have also been removed from the censor. Initially these problems came up as RuneScape is a game produced in England and is an English language game, only at this time. However, there is also some really big updates planned to improve foreign communication in RuneScape.
Another post that I read complained about not being able to say the ‘a’ word that means ‘donkey’. This is because as I am sure you know it has another curse meaning which is far more common that it’s ‘donkey’ counterpart.
People also complained that we were actually banning people for saying ‘thats’. This is not true, as we have the facility to look around the censor when looking at abuse reports and would not take action against people for writing ‘thats’, ‘whats’ ‘cant’ etc. For as you rightly pointed out yourselves, bad grammar is not a crime. People now also can review the evidence from reports made against them and see why they were banned. They can also appeal the decisions made against them.
The proper spelling of the word ‘fone’ is still censored, as there would be no real reason to use the word. As asking for personal details is against the rules, people should not be asking for fone numbers or people to fone them in the game anyway.
Finally, the complaint that I can relate to the most was about character names in game being censored out. The reason I can relate to this is because until very recently my Mod name was also starred out in game. A conversation between me and a player with a name similar to ‘Assan’ went along the lines of: “Mod *****ock”, “Yes ****n?” “***** not fair! *** censored out my name!” “I know, ****n. Mine too!” This did not make my in game sessions very easy, especially with the number of players who decided to report abuse against me. Thankfully, this has also been improved. If your name is still blocked unfairly, then add it here and let us know.
We will continually monitor this thread and try and ensure that words that should not be censored are taken of the censor. Rather than solely ranting, you could just write a single word enclosed by apostrophes to bring the word to our attention. We will then ensure that these words are removed from the censor. Likewise if you believe a certain word should be added to the censor then you can make us aware of it.
In terms of the arguement for ‘freedom of speech’, in the Code of Conduct it also states that Jagex reserves the right to decide what is allowed or not on the Forums. The same is said of what can be used in game.
Whilst we recognise that a few older players may have or may want to leave RuneScape due to the censor, we receive far more complaints everyday regarding people being abused in game and actually asking for us to make the censor stronger, including a number from concerned parents. We can never please everybody and believe it or not most players are actually in favour of there being a censor.
I will continue to monitor this thread and take on board constructive criticism given and ensure that the department who deals with the censor is made aware of wrongfully censored words.
Thank you.
Tags: Rants About The Censor
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
