Originally Posted by
Zany
Sorry in advance for the long post. I know I talk a lot lol
Typically, what'll happen is the filter is programmed to censor the short cut versions of curse words. This is why you'll be saying something normal and it'll tell you to "stop using rude words"; an example would be anything ending in "-ing" followed by "a". It, being a system that is only as smart as what it is programmed to do, only sees the "...ng a" and that's that. There's dozens of examples extremely similar to that for any assortment of curse words. I'm for the idea of censoring just the word rather than the entire message but I don't think that the solution should be deleting is completely.
I get that more than half the players are old enough to understand and not care about vulgar words, and say them all the time. I think the main thing is the fact that Era is a universal game, meaning that players from many countries, many religions, and many cultures play. While to you, your entire gang, all your buds, whatever excuse it is, it is perfectly okay with calling each other the homophobic/racist slurs or cursing, there may be people of certain communities that consider it extremely offensive. You can't assume that every single person finds it okay, and the community has a lot more people than you think that are part of said "certain communities" that find those words against what they believe in.
Although some (which I'm sure some of you will voice) may find that silly or unfair, it's just as unfair to completely dis-consider those who really find those words offensive. Quite often there's the argument of "first amendment rights", however if you using your first amendment right limits another person's rights or freedoms, that's when things become weird, although I completely understand the point of that argument. I think that it's also very contextual; if you're using curse words in a light way, or without using it to directly offend another person, that's one thing. However, if you're saying them in order to insult, degrade, or talk about somebody else or something else - whether you realize it or not - , that's a whole other story (and generally, those who curse freely as is typically won't shy away from their colorful language when angry or when they have ill-intentions).
I don't mind, but it's a personal thing, and we need to be a bit less "it's my right, and I'm going to do whatever I want, and I don't care what anybody says, and everybody else can screw off" and more considerate of everybody who plays the game, whether you know those who are affected by the words you say or not. Most the time, they won't speak up about it, because they risk getting full out attacked and harassed for being offended. The intention isn't to limit people, rather protect the entire base in a way that doesn't hurt anybody (I know that it "hurts" when your pm gets cut off because the filter is messed up, I mean generally speaking, and not with our current system).
TL;DR: I'm all for censoring individual words the system picks up. Let's be nice woo