Does the most active and semi-official Minecraft forum really want to allow and not treat some of the bad language that is going on in here? Now even on thread titles?
As a father of two, and a Minecraft player, I do very much enjoy teaching and following my daughters progress in the game. But I cannot really agree to their presence in here with this type of language being allowed and slowly becoming a staple of these forums.
While not official, these forums have grown to a size that actually have an impact on people's perception of the game, the one behind it, and the ones playing it. I want to believe this is an oversight and will be remedied very soon.
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I was trying to think of a signature and this is what came up.
Well, what do you want, a swearfilter? You can report posts if you feel they are insulting you or anybody else, but swearing in general is, as far as i know, "accepted" by the moderators, as long as people dont refer to petty insults or namecalling.
Well, what do you want, a swearfilter? You can report posts if you feel they are insulting you or anybody else, but swearing in general is, as far as i know, "accepted" by the moderators, as long as people dont refer to petty insults or namecalling.
Using swear words is accepted, yes, I think that's what hte original poster is complaining about. I see where he's coming from, but, personally, I think the swearing is sortof the least of a parent's concerns when it comes to the behavior around the forums. Even if swearing was dissalowed, I still wouldn't really feel comfortable letting a kid onto these forums if they were too young to be exposed to profanity. Maybe that's just me, though.
Well, if swearing is accepted there's not much else to this discussion. I'll just have to accept it and move on... accepting the fact, or to another place. Unfortunately however that does mean that I'm forced to filter out these forums from my daughters.
Posters attitudes are also a problem, generally speaking. I will indeed agree. But that's a lot harder to moderate and definitely a source of passionate debate by itself. I was just thinking that something more easily identifiable such as the use of bad language was not permitted. I know better now.
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I was trying to think of a signature and this is what came up.
Well, if swearing is accepted there's not much else to this discussion. I'll just have to accept it and move on... accepting the fact, or to another place. Unfortunately however that does mean that I'm forced to filter out these forums from my daughters.
Posters attitudes are also a problem, generally speaking. I will indeed agree. But that's a lot harder to moderate and definitely a source of passionate debate by itself. I was just thinking that something more easily identifiable such as the use of bad language was not permitted. I know better now.
I really do agree with you, I would love if this place could be free from swearing and I make an effort to not swear myself, however I think at the same time it would be difficult to stop it here. It's definitely an issue, Minecraft is a game directed at many ages, I know of 7 year olds who play the game and of 50 year olds who play the game, it's such a diverse audience.
There is an optional censor that you can enable via the account preferences (although I'm not sure what it censors, I can take a look if you like) but the issue then is "what if someone says "sh1t" or "fvck you"? Are your daughters members of any other communities like this? I'd love to see how they handle this issue, because I'd love to make this place accessible for all ages but I've only ever had bad experiences with a censor, because the people who love to swear are, normally, the same people who will go out of their way to avoid the censor. I guess if we made it optional (and a choice on the registration page?) those who want to swear would have no problem, but those who didn't wouldn't have to see it, but there are the issues of discussion regarding mature content ("boobs" isn't swearing, but I doubt "I love boobs, here are some pictures:" is stuff you want your kids to see) and how we could work around that...
It's a tough decision though, we risk alienating the older users (teenagers who love to swear) for the sake of younger users, this would be a decision we'd have to consider a lot. I'd love to hear your input though, how do you think we should approach the issue? If we can work something out that would be awesome, you're free to PM me at any time if you want to discuss it privately or something :smile.gif:
Quote from marfig »
While not official, these forums have grown to a size that actually have an impact on people's perception of the game, the one behind it, and the ones playing it. I want to believe this is an oversight and will be remedied very soon.
We are "official", we're "Notch sanctioned" and exist as the forums Notch would refer to if he said "The minecraft forum". We really want to cater to as much of the community as possible, any feedback on how we can do this non-intrusively would be great.
I think ultimately the result will be "Please do not swear" with an optional filter in case people do, how much of a tolerance towards swearing do you have? Would ANY swearing be bad, or would it being here and there matter? I don't have kids (I'm barely not a kid myself) so I'm not sure of how to approach this :-(
Alright so I talked about it with aera and global censoring is not an option, so that leaves opt-in censoring (that will miss a lot of words) or another potential idea: a forum section dedicated to younger users with a section wide censor, maybe even with pre-moderated posts or something. We could potentially go as far as blocking all sections beside the younger user section for users who choose it, so you can register your kids accounts and tick the "younger user" or something (doesn't exist yet, just an idea)...
How would you feel about this? I sorta think it's questionable, but it's a possibility!
hmmm...
as somone who needs to break a habbit, thses sound appealing.
Citricsquid, why would you want a "young players forum." that would be hell, i can think of about thirty reasons why.
Also, younger players are also flamed usually, and are sometimes a bit steriotyped. Also, if a whole family doesn't play minecraft, say just the kid, the kid WILL NOT check the "kid" option. They'll be like This could be a problem. The opt in censor, however, sounds like a great idea, maybe choose the words you want to senseor(?).
Marfig: just find another forum or tell them what they want to know. Maybe join another forum.
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Quote from Bowserking64 »
Quote from Andeh6 »
What? So when pigs get hit by lighting, they suddenly develop into bipeds and receive brown leather skirts and golden swords from nowhere?
Citricsquid, why would you want a "young players forum." that would be hell, i can think of about thirty reasons why.
It would be heavily moderated and geared towards users like the OPs children, for sharing pictures and the like, it would not be a place for 13 year olds to shout about their penis, or whatever goes on here. Anyway it's just an idea, it may be wholly impractical.
Quote from lowerthanlow »
Also, younger players are also flamed usually, and are sometimes a bit steriotyped. Also, if a whole family doesn't play minecraft, say just the kid, the kid WILL NOT check the "kid" option. They'll be like This could be a problem. The opt in censor, however, sounds like a great idea, maybe choose the words you want to senseor(?).
The second would be for children like the OPs, where they're young enough that they're either supervised all the time or quite often, so that they're not sneaking off around the forum and doing stuff they shouldn't.
Quote from lowerthanlow »
Marfig: just find another forum or tell them what they want to know. Maybe join another forum.
This forum is for everyone, not just you. If we cater to more users without ruining the experience for current users we will.
I'd love to hear your input though, how do you think we should approach the issue? If we can work something out that would be awesome, you're free to PM me at any time if you want to discuss it privately or something :smile.gif:
I don't pretend to have all the answers so I'd rather take it public and subject the discussion to others' views :smile.gif:
I do however have an extensive experience of online communities, predating even the internet as we know it today; well since the days of Newsgroups and BBS in the 80s. And while that doesn't qualify me for anything other than the right to flaunt it, I did (and still do) experienced places where language is successfully and unsuccessfully moderated and the methods used for just that.
Three Problems to Tackle
The first problem is the grade of moderation. Personally I don't believe in the success of methods that employ a "Allow it sometimes" rule. Whatever that "sometimes" is, it means that moderators will be asked to exert their critical analysis every time they see a post they feel might break the rule, or are warned by someone flagging a post. Some moderators will excel at this, but most won't. And all will experience the problem of users perceiving certain actions as "unfair on them, while others got away". A rule that is clear doesn't plant that seed on users, because the only reason that "other got away" was because the moderator wasn't looking, but they are now and that thread will be closed, or the post edited, or what action is deemed appropriate.
But more, this creates a burden on the moderator since they are the ones left to judge user actions. While this will always be necessary on quite a few types of moderation on a forum like this, the general rule of thumb is however that it should always be minimized. Instead of judges of actions, moderators should be enforcers of rules as much as it is possible. So, if a rule can be written that clearly states "You can do it", or "You can't do it", instead of the more problematic "Allow it sometimes", the problem is greatly simplified.
The second problem, while recurrent, is actually easily solvable; The cultural impact of language moderation. An example will help me explain it better: Since English is not my primary language, certain less common words have less of an impact on me than they may have on English speaking users. I use the word "damn" quite liberally in informal speech. However, this is a common word in language filters. It always surprised me why would that be. But I've learned to accept it as a cultural thing. The word is, in my Mediterranean culture, quite innocuous. But I've come to realize in the Anglo-Saxon culture it has more significance. The natural way to solve this is to implement the rule as it respects to the board origins. This board is located in the USA, and I believe you are an American. The rules should be that of yours.
Both problems above leads us to the third problem; What to put in a filter/ban word list? Ultimately you wish to remove from moderators as much discretionary ruling as possible, on the other hand you no doubt wish for sensible rules that don't turn your forums into a language sanitizer. It's just not compatible with users expectations and even can get in the way of a user way of expressing themselves, but it does introduce discretionary ruling to your moderators.
Well, this is mostly a personal choice. It's your forum, your rules. In the sub-culture of swearing there are however words that are easily recognizable as good candidates. "****" and its derivatives, as well as "****". Care should however be taken with words like "ass" because there's different contexts where it can be used as a normal word without any swearing intentions. Essentially, good filters add words that clearly are used in a swearing context, but don't add words that can be used in vulgar, coarse, speech. The first are clearly "don't do it" rules, the latter are "You should avoid it" rules, with moderators given discretionary abilities over this group. In any case, you define what goes and what doesn't go into that filter. And it's your final word on the matter.
The Filter IS a Rule
Users are instructed that, on attempting to make a post they realize a word was filtered, that word is not allowed. And not being allowed means they can't use it. And them not being able to use it, means they CAN'T USE IT. Which includes trying to defeat the filter by changing the word ever so slightly while retaining its obvious meaning.
Users caught doing that are doubly "guilty"; They used a word that is not accepted and they purposely broke the mechanism that tries to enforce that rule to facilitate moderator work. It's up to moderators to catch these situations and deal with them in accordance to whatever instructions they have for these matters.
The Filter is not the only Rule
The rule is that swearing is not allowed. And anyone can understand this simple concept. Just because the filter may not include a word, doesn't mean that word is accepted. It's the action of swearing that is not allowed, not just a bunch of random words listed on a word filter. The filter exists to facilitate the moderators work since it automates the process of indicating to the user a certain word isn't accepted. It defines a rule and tries to enforce it, but by no means it can list everything that is deemed inappropriate. Moderators are free to enforce discretionary ruling on any hazy situations. So, users should understand the core rule: Swearing is not allowed.
Coarse, vulgar language may be accepted
Usually, vulgar words like "ass", "damn", or many of the innocuous words used in a vulgar context are entirely subject to moderator discretion. They may be frowned upon, generally accepted or linearly rejected. Users should probably avoid an excessive use of vulgar language for this very reason. But it can't be said there is a rule about it, or a desire to ever create one. Vulgar language is on most cases of cultural significance and a common form of expression that shouldn't be inhibited in its entirety. But that fact doesn't remove from moderators their power to decide for themselves what is and what is not accepted on a case by case basis. Users must keep that in mind. For one, it can be guaranteed that excessive use, or misplaced use, of vulgar language will almost certainly not be accepted.
Rule Target
One of the most interesting methods for language moderation, I witnessed in places that included it on a forum by forum basis. Certain areas of the forum were language moderated, others weren't. But truth be told, the most common method is just to not allow it all around and I haven't seen many problems with that either.
If you do a careful analysis of the Minecraft forum, it's easy to observe that language is usually delimited to a small group of users that exert that "right" on a constant basis. On most all other cases, the incidents are almost entirely made of the user who occasionally swears because... well, because they can.
Even for the first smaller group, there's an implicit acceptance that swearing in a public place where the age groups are so varied, is not within the realm of accepted behavior. They do it mostly to put those teen testosterones to good use and as a social dominance attempt. Generally speaking, rules that impose the end of swearing and try to curb the use of bad language are well accepted by vast communities, even if the latter group doesn't readily admit it. It's a bit like getting a new "No more eating in you room!" rule. It annoys them because a certain level of freedom was removed from them. But they comply because intimately everyone knows the difference between right and wrong.
...
I've wrote too much I guess... But you did ask me my opinion. Don't ever ask me my opinion :smile.gif:
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I was trying to think of a signature and this is what came up.
Alright so I talked about it with aera and global censoring is not an option, so that leaves opt-in censoring (that will miss a lot of words)
Weird. I use phpBB and it has a global filter.
Quote from citricsquid »
Or another potential idea: a forum section dedicated to younger users with a section wide censor [..]
How would you feel about this? I sorta think it's questionable, but it's a possibility!
Yes. You are probably thinking the same as I am: They'll be missing on valuable input that could come from other forums, while at the same time turning their forum into a kind of age-group social gathering. Something that it's probably not quite what you envisioned for the Minecraft Forums to eventually turn into. That's what the social web is for :smile.gif:
It's my humble guess (and please do not be offended. It's not my intention), that at some point you will have to tackle this problem head on, hurting who it may. This because, being this the official Minecraft forums, Notch isn't exactly sitting idle making a game in a garage. He's building a business. And businesses aren't exactly friendly to the possibility of having sanctioned discussion forums where their product can be easily associated with frowned upon social practices, simply because nothing was made about it. I do understand you know this. I'm just making it clearer to anyone else who may be reading, or who you may have talked to.
In any case, It's not like you are taking the life's sustenance of anyone. No revolution occurs. Just a few complaints and life goes on. But I would certainly agree with anyone that supports the idea of a general rule of "no swearing" along with a "swearing is allowed here" on certain forums like Off-Topic and other similar ones.
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I was trying to think of a signature and this is what came up.
It's a very tough issue to approach. At a personal level I would love to ban swearing as you outlined, I would love to be a member (and administrator) of a community that allowed for anyone of any age to join in without the chance of seeing something they "don't like" but unfortunately this can't happen without a huge backlash and the potential to actually lose what we've built.
I'm not sure how familiar you are with the wiki, but there was a recent issue surrounding the naming of a new item, some users thought it would be hilarious to call it "aspergite" (a joke about how everyone who enjoys Minecraft has aspergers) and the main wiki editor quatroking didn't agree with this (rightly so) so it was banned, the response to this was "screw you guys!!" and then a group of users create their own "spin off" wiki. While in this example the spinoff wasn't successful, we do risk someone doing this if we were to censor and losing our position.
Ultimately we can't disallow swearing, if it was just me in charge it'd be banned permanently and anyone doing it would suffer warnings, but now we're the "official" forum, with multiple administrators and hundreds of thousands of users it's no longer my decision, it's a community decision. As such the only possible solutions I see are as I mentioned above, we either have a basic word censor (that won't work too well because people will want to swear) or have an age restricted forum, where swearing isn't allowed.
I agree entirely with your comments, a community built around the idea of being polite and avoiding swearing would be fantastic and I wish we could have one, but the diverse nature of this forum means it's incredibly unlikely to ever happen, we'd have the inevitable 14 year olds (and whatever other ages) who think swearing is their "right" and they "deserve" freedom of speech who would proceed to swear as much as possible and avoid the filter as much as possible just to "stick it to us" for not letting them swear.
Your comments regarding Notch and us being "official" don't really fit, Notch isn't against swearing and I can't see why it'd be disallowed on an official forum, go to any other game forum (Facepunch, EA forums) and they all allow it, it's all about how it's handled. While we can definitely take a line of "excessive bad and abusive language will result in warnings" (we already do this) but saying "no swearing" won't benefit us, at all.
I wish we could ban it, I would absolutely love to have a polite and friendly community that didn't feel the need to swear (although I have to admit I do swear sometimes, I try to avoid it though) but it just wouldn't work here, it depresses me that we can't cater to your children because of the selfishness of other users, so unless a separate section for them would work (unlikely) it'll just be the case that a rudimentary not very good word filter will have to work, but it's unlikely.
Sorry, it's a decision I'd love to make but I don't have a choice. If you want to discuss it further with the other people who work on the forum (Aera and WedTM) please join #rsw on irc.esper.net, they're against banning of swearing too so you'd have to persuade them first, then the entire userbase.
Nah. It's alright, citricsquid. If things are as you say, and I believe they are (it also makes sense they are), I see no reason to pursue this further or try to engage on a lonely crusade for this matter.
I like Minecraft. A lot actually. Since the days of the ZX Spectrum and the Commodore 64, as well as the early DOS games, I didn't have so much fun with a game (I'm certainly exaggerating, but allow me). And I immediately recognized the game potential as an educational and mind exercising tool for my daughters. But neither is this swearing issue such a big deal that would warrant all that effort, nor is this anything more than just a simple game. Were we talking about something else more essential in everyday life and I would consider the possibility. But being this a computer game, there's other things that should deserve our focus. :smile.gif:
Thanks anyway for the nice chat. Cheers.
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I was trying to think of a signature and this is what came up.
Yeah, I'd love for it to happen and if we could cater to anyone of any age (It would be awesome to have young children able to come here, look at pictures and learn about the game) I would love it, but unfortunately the problems incurred would make it a lot of trouble. However if at any point in the future we're able to somehow make this place welcoming for everyone we sure will!
Also heh, I'm pretty young so I'd never played any games before the Playstation, but I agree that Minecraft is good fun :-D
Citricsquid, why would you want a "young players forum." that would be hell, i can think of about thirty reasons why.
It would be heavily moderated and geared towards users like the OPs children, for sharing pictures and the like, it would not be a place for 13 year olds to shout about their penis, or whatever goes on here. Anyway it's just an idea, it may be wholly impractical.
Quote from lowerthanlow »
Also, younger players are also flamed usually, and are sometimes a bit steriotyped. Also, if a whole family doesn't play minecraft, say just the kid, the kid WILL NOT check the "kid" option. They'll be like This could be a problem. The opt in censor, however, sounds like a great idea, maybe choose the words you want to senseor(?).
The second would be for children like the OPs, where they're young enough that they're either supervised all the time or quite often, so that they're not sneaking off around the forum and doing stuff they shouldn't.
Quote from lowerthanlow »
Marfig: just find another forum or tell them what they want to know. Maybe join another forum.
This forum is for everyone, not just you. If we cater to more users without ruining the experience for current users we will.
Obviously not only for me, but you just explained that this forum is for everyone, so EVERYONE (probably false generilization) curses. That is why i suggested it, because until we find a solution, and he doesn't want his kids on, he will have to find an alternative. Just saying.
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Quote from Bowserking64 »
Quote from Andeh6 »
What? So when pigs get hit by lighting, they suddenly develop into bipeds and receive brown leather skirts and golden swords from nowhere?
There's no alternative actually. I've been looking around and these forums are pretty much it. The IRC channel is much, much, worse (as IRC historically always was. Not so much an actual problem of language but general population behavior).
I don't think I need to expose them to any of it however. The forums are blocked from their computers and they'll have the wiki as well as myself for any other help. Rita is 13 years old and I promised her coming her anniversary I'll open it up for her... as long as she behaves and makes me proud. Which I'm sure she will. Anne is 10 and she must wait.
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I was trying to think of a signature and this is what came up.
When we get new forum software would it be a possibility to have an optional swear filter? Something one can change on their profile that changes the common problem words to more innocent ones. Being optional it doesn't hurt the regular users and provides a bit of parental help for the youngin's. We just need word on the feasibility by the forum administrators.
When we get new forum software would it be a possibility to have an optional swear filter? Something one can change on their profile that changes the common problem words to more innocent ones. Being optional it doesn't hurt the regular users and provides a bit of parental help for the youngin's. We just need word on the feasibility by the forum administrators.
This makes total sense :3
I couldn't agree more :biggrin.gif:
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Do not wallow do not stall
Time waits for none at all
Your allowance may crawl,
It may fly or even vanish
But none will seem more lavished
Than time lost to all.
When we get new forum software would it be a possibility to have an optional swear filter? Something one can change on their profile that changes the common problem words to more innocent ones. Being optional it doesn't hurt the regular users and provides a bit of parental help for the youngin's. We just need word on the feasibility by the forum administrators.
as I said we can do that right now, the issue is extent of filtering. How do we ensure that people don't add extra letters as a "typing style" or something?
Someone saying "fuuuuck you!" as an expression won't be caught by the filter and because we have no rules against it, nothing can be done.
as I said we can do that right now, the issue is extent of filtering. How do we ensure that people don't add extra letters as a "typing style" or something?
Someone saying "fuuuuck you!" as an expression won't be caught by the filter and because we have no rules against it, nothing can be done.
But it would still help without actually censoring the messages for those who don't mind. Can't you add something along the lines of fu*uck where any word beginning with fu and ending with uck would get censored? Just because there are no rules against it doesn't mean their shouldn't be an option to have a censor since it hinders nobody.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Do not wallow do not stall
Time waits for none at all
Your allowance may crawl,
It may fly or even vanish
But none will seem more lavished
Than time lost to all.
As a father of two, and a Minecraft player, I do very much enjoy teaching and following my daughters progress in the game. But I cannot really agree to their presence in here with this type of language being allowed and slowly becoming a staple of these forums.
While not official, these forums have grown to a size that actually have an impact on people's perception of the game, the one behind it, and the ones playing it. I want to believe this is an oversight and will be remedied very soon.
Using swear words is accepted, yes, I think that's what hte original poster is complaining about. I see where he's coming from, but, personally, I think the swearing is sortof the least of a parent's concerns when it comes to the behavior around the forums. Even if swearing was dissalowed, I still wouldn't really feel comfortable letting a kid onto these forums if they were too young to be exposed to profanity. Maybe that's just me, though.
Posters attitudes are also a problem, generally speaking. I will indeed agree. But that's a lot harder to moderate and definitely a source of passionate debate by itself. I was just thinking that something more easily identifiable such as the use of bad language was not permitted. I know better now.
MineScience - viewtopic.php?f=25&t=166560
Dragonator - viewtopic.php?f=25&t=141803
Sand Skiffs - viewtopic.php?f=25&t=233346
I really do agree with you, I would love if this place could be free from swearing and I make an effort to not swear myself, however I think at the same time it would be difficult to stop it here. It's definitely an issue, Minecraft is a game directed at many ages, I know of 7 year olds who play the game and of 50 year olds who play the game, it's such a diverse audience.
There is an optional censor that you can enable via the account preferences (although I'm not sure what it censors, I can take a look if you like) but the issue then is "what if someone says "sh1t" or "fvck you"? Are your daughters members of any other communities like this? I'd love to see how they handle this issue, because I'd love to make this place accessible for all ages but I've only ever had bad experiences with a censor, because the people who love to swear are, normally, the same people who will go out of their way to avoid the censor. I guess if we made it optional (and a choice on the registration page?) those who want to swear would have no problem, but those who didn't wouldn't have to see it, but there are the issues of discussion regarding mature content ("boobs" isn't swearing, but I doubt "I love boobs, here are some pictures:" is stuff you want your kids to see) and how we could work around that...
It's a tough decision though, we risk alienating the older users (teenagers who love to swear) for the sake of younger users, this would be a decision we'd have to consider a lot. I'd love to hear your input though, how do you think we should approach the issue? If we can work something out that would be awesome, you're free to PM me at any time if you want to discuss it privately or something :smile.gif:
We are "official", we're "Notch sanctioned" and exist as the forums Notch would refer to if he said "The minecraft forum". We really want to cater to as much of the community as possible, any feedback on how we can do this non-intrusively would be great.
I think ultimately the result will be "Please do not swear" with an optional filter in case people do, how much of a tolerance towards swearing do you have? Would ANY swearing be bad, or would it being here and there matter? I don't have kids (I'm barely not a kid myself) so I'm not sure of how to approach this :-(
How would you feel about this? I sorta think it's questionable, but it's a possibility!
as somone who needs to break a habbit, thses sound appealing.
Citricsquid, why would you want a "young players forum." that would be hell, i can think of about thirty reasons why.
Also, younger players are also flamed usually, and are sometimes a bit steriotyped. Also, if a whole family doesn't play minecraft, say just the kid, the kid WILL NOT check the "kid" option. They'll be like This could be a problem. The opt in censor, however, sounds like a great idea, maybe choose the words you want to senseor(?).
Marfig: just find another forum or tell them what they want to know. Maybe join another forum.
It would be heavily moderated and geared towards users like the OPs children, for sharing pictures and the like, it would not be a place for 13 year olds to shout about their penis, or whatever goes on here. Anyway it's just an idea, it may be wholly impractical.
The second would be for children like the OPs, where they're young enough that they're either supervised all the time or quite often, so that they're not sneaking off around the forum and doing stuff they shouldn't.
This forum is for everyone, not just you. If we cater to more users without ruining the experience for current users we will.
I don't pretend to have all the answers so I'd rather take it public and subject the discussion to others' views :smile.gif:
I do however have an extensive experience of online communities, predating even the internet as we know it today; well since the days of Newsgroups and BBS in the 80s. And while that doesn't qualify me for anything other than the right to flaunt it, I did (and still do) experienced places where language is successfully and unsuccessfully moderated and the methods used for just that.
Three Problems to Tackle
The first problem is the grade of moderation. Personally I don't believe in the success of methods that employ a "Allow it sometimes" rule. Whatever that "sometimes" is, it means that moderators will be asked to exert their critical analysis every time they see a post they feel might break the rule, or are warned by someone flagging a post. Some moderators will excel at this, but most won't. And all will experience the problem of users perceiving certain actions as "unfair on them, while others got away". A rule that is clear doesn't plant that seed on users, because the only reason that "other got away" was because the moderator wasn't looking, but they are now and that thread will be closed, or the post edited, or what action is deemed appropriate.
But more, this creates a burden on the moderator since they are the ones left to judge user actions. While this will always be necessary on quite a few types of moderation on a forum like this, the general rule of thumb is however that it should always be minimized. Instead of judges of actions, moderators should be enforcers of rules as much as it is possible. So, if a rule can be written that clearly states "You can do it", or "You can't do it", instead of the more problematic "Allow it sometimes", the problem is greatly simplified.
The second problem, while recurrent, is actually easily solvable; The cultural impact of language moderation. An example will help me explain it better: Since English is not my primary language, certain less common words have less of an impact on me than they may have on English speaking users. I use the word "damn" quite liberally in informal speech. However, this is a common word in language filters. It always surprised me why would that be. But I've learned to accept it as a cultural thing. The word is, in my Mediterranean culture, quite innocuous. But I've come to realize in the Anglo-Saxon culture it has more significance. The natural way to solve this is to implement the rule as it respects to the board origins. This board is located in the USA, and I believe you are an American. The rules should be that of yours.
Both problems above leads us to the third problem; What to put in a filter/ban word list? Ultimately you wish to remove from moderators as much discretionary ruling as possible, on the other hand you no doubt wish for sensible rules that don't turn your forums into a language sanitizer. It's just not compatible with users expectations and even can get in the way of a user way of expressing themselves, but it does introduce discretionary ruling to your moderators.
Well, this is mostly a personal choice. It's your forum, your rules. In the sub-culture of swearing there are however words that are easily recognizable as good candidates. "****" and its derivatives, as well as "****". Care should however be taken with words like "ass" because there's different contexts where it can be used as a normal word without any swearing intentions. Essentially, good filters add words that clearly are used in a swearing context, but don't add words that can be used in vulgar, coarse, speech. The first are clearly "don't do it" rules, the latter are "You should avoid it" rules, with moderators given discretionary abilities over this group. In any case, you define what goes and what doesn't go into that filter. And it's your final word on the matter.
The Filter IS a Rule
Users are instructed that, on attempting to make a post they realize a word was filtered, that word is not allowed. And not being allowed means they can't use it. And them not being able to use it, means they CAN'T USE IT. Which includes trying to defeat the filter by changing the word ever so slightly while retaining its obvious meaning.
Users caught doing that are doubly "guilty"; They used a word that is not accepted and they purposely broke the mechanism that tries to enforce that rule to facilitate moderator work. It's up to moderators to catch these situations and deal with them in accordance to whatever instructions they have for these matters.
The Filter is not the only Rule
The rule is that swearing is not allowed. And anyone can understand this simple concept. Just because the filter may not include a word, doesn't mean that word is accepted. It's the action of swearing that is not allowed, not just a bunch of random words listed on a word filter. The filter exists to facilitate the moderators work since it automates the process of indicating to the user a certain word isn't accepted. It defines a rule and tries to enforce it, but by no means it can list everything that is deemed inappropriate. Moderators are free to enforce discretionary ruling on any hazy situations. So, users should understand the core rule: Swearing is not allowed.
Coarse, vulgar language may be accepted
Usually, vulgar words like "ass", "damn", or many of the innocuous words used in a vulgar context are entirely subject to moderator discretion. They may be frowned upon, generally accepted or linearly rejected. Users should probably avoid an excessive use of vulgar language for this very reason. But it can't be said there is a rule about it, or a desire to ever create one. Vulgar language is on most cases of cultural significance and a common form of expression that shouldn't be inhibited in its entirety. But that fact doesn't remove from moderators their power to decide for themselves what is and what is not accepted on a case by case basis. Users must keep that in mind. For one, it can be guaranteed that excessive use, or misplaced use, of vulgar language will almost certainly not be accepted.
Rule Target
One of the most interesting methods for language moderation, I witnessed in places that included it on a forum by forum basis. Certain areas of the forum were language moderated, others weren't. But truth be told, the most common method is just to not allow it all around and I haven't seen many problems with that either.
If you do a careful analysis of the Minecraft forum, it's easy to observe that language is usually delimited to a small group of users that exert that "right" on a constant basis. On most all other cases, the incidents are almost entirely made of the user who occasionally swears because... well, because they can.
Even for the first smaller group, there's an implicit acceptance that swearing in a public place where the age groups are so varied, is not within the realm of accepted behavior. They do it mostly to put those teen testosterones to good use and as a social dominance attempt. Generally speaking, rules that impose the end of swearing and try to curb the use of bad language are well accepted by vast communities, even if the latter group doesn't readily admit it. It's a bit like getting a new "No more eating in you room!" rule. It annoys them because a certain level of freedom was removed from them. But they comply because intimately everyone knows the difference between right and wrong.
...
I've wrote too much I guess... But you did ask me my opinion. Don't ever ask me my opinion :smile.gif:
Weird. I use phpBB and it has a global filter.
Yes. You are probably thinking the same as I am: They'll be missing on valuable input that could come from other forums, while at the same time turning their forum into a kind of age-group social gathering. Something that it's probably not quite what you envisioned for the Minecraft Forums to eventually turn into. That's what the social web is for :smile.gif:
It's my humble guess (and please do not be offended. It's not my intention), that at some point you will have to tackle this problem head on, hurting who it may. This because, being this the official Minecraft forums, Notch isn't exactly sitting idle making a game in a garage. He's building a business. And businesses aren't exactly friendly to the possibility of having sanctioned discussion forums where their product can be easily associated with frowned upon social practices, simply because nothing was made about it. I do understand you know this. I'm just making it clearer to anyone else who may be reading, or who you may have talked to.
In any case, It's not like you are taking the life's sustenance of anyone. No revolution occurs. Just a few complaints and life goes on. But I would certainly agree with anyone that supports the idea of a general rule of "no swearing" along with a "swearing is allowed here" on certain forums like Off-Topic and other similar ones.
I'm not sure how familiar you are with the wiki, but there was a recent issue surrounding the naming of a new item, some users thought it would be hilarious to call it "aspergite" (a joke about how everyone who enjoys Minecraft has aspergers) and the main wiki editor quatroking didn't agree with this (rightly so) so it was banned, the response to this was "screw you guys!!" and then a group of users create their own "spin off" wiki. While in this example the spinoff wasn't successful, we do risk someone doing this if we were to censor and losing our position.
Ultimately we can't disallow swearing, if it was just me in charge it'd be banned permanently and anyone doing it would suffer warnings, but now we're the "official" forum, with multiple administrators and hundreds of thousands of users it's no longer my decision, it's a community decision. As such the only possible solutions I see are as I mentioned above, we either have a basic word censor (that won't work too well because people will want to swear) or have an age restricted forum, where swearing isn't allowed.
I agree entirely with your comments, a community built around the idea of being polite and avoiding swearing would be fantastic and I wish we could have one, but the diverse nature of this forum means it's incredibly unlikely to ever happen, we'd have the inevitable 14 year olds (and whatever other ages) who think swearing is their "right" and they "deserve" freedom of speech who would proceed to swear as much as possible and avoid the filter as much as possible just to "stick it to us" for not letting them swear.
Your comments regarding Notch and us being "official" don't really fit, Notch isn't against swearing and I can't see why it'd be disallowed on an official forum, go to any other game forum (Facepunch, EA forums) and they all allow it, it's all about how it's handled. While we can definitely take a line of "excessive bad and abusive language will result in warnings" (we already do this) but saying "no swearing" won't benefit us, at all.
I wish we could ban it, I would absolutely love to have a polite and friendly community that didn't feel the need to swear (although I have to admit I do swear sometimes, I try to avoid it though) but it just wouldn't work here, it depresses me that we can't cater to your children because of the selfishness of other users, so unless a separate section for them would work (unlikely) it'll just be the case that a rudimentary not very good word filter will have to work, but it's unlikely.
Sorry, it's a decision I'd love to make but I don't have a choice. If you want to discuss it further with the other people who work on the forum (Aera and WedTM) please join #rsw on irc.esper.net, they're against banning of swearing too so you'd have to persuade them first, then the entire userbase.
:sad.gif:
I like Minecraft. A lot actually. Since the days of the ZX Spectrum and the Commodore 64, as well as the early DOS games, I didn't have so much fun with a game (I'm certainly exaggerating, but allow me). And I immediately recognized the game potential as an educational and mind exercising tool for my daughters. But neither is this swearing issue such a big deal that would warrant all that effort, nor is this anything more than just a simple game. Were we talking about something else more essential in everyday life and I would consider the possibility. But being this a computer game, there's other things that should deserve our focus. :smile.gif:
Thanks anyway for the nice chat. Cheers.
Also heh, I'm pretty young so I'd never played any games before the Playstation, but I agree that Minecraft is good fun :-D
Obviously not only for me, but you just explained that this forum is for everyone, so EVERYONE (probably false generilization) curses. That is why i suggested it, because until we find a solution, and he doesn't want his kids on, he will have to find an alternative. Just saying.
There's no alternative actually. I've been looking around and these forums are pretty much it. The IRC channel is much, much, worse (as IRC historically always was. Not so much an actual problem of language but general population behavior).
I don't think I need to expose them to any of it however. The forums are blocked from their computers and they'll have the wiki as well as myself for any other help. Rita is 13 years old and I promised her coming her anniversary I'll open it up for her... as long as she behaves and makes me proud. Which I'm sure she will. Anne is 10 and she must wait.
This makes total sense :3
I couldn't agree more :biggrin.gif:
Do not wallow do not stall
Time waits for none at all
Your allowance may crawl,
It may fly or even vanish
But none will seem more lavished
Than time lost to all.
as I said we can do that right now, the issue is extent of filtering. How do we ensure that people don't add extra letters as a "typing style" or something?
Someone saying "fuuuuck you!" as an expression won't be caught by the filter and because we have no rules against it, nothing can be done.
But it would still help without actually censoring the messages for those who don't mind. Can't you add something along the lines of fu*uck where any word beginning with fu and ending with uck would get censored? Just because there are no rules against it doesn't mean their shouldn't be an option to have a censor since it hinders nobody.
Do not wallow do not stall
Time waits for none at all
Your allowance may crawl,
It may fly or even vanish
But none will seem more lavished
Than time lost to all.