Should in-game chat-moderation rules be adjusted?

[LillyRaccune]

Sort of an opinion poll...

Seen some ppl banned temporary or more because of bad words in region chat. A few minutes ago it was someone who claimed they made a misspelling, a few months ago a different guy said he always uses racial slurs when angry and was under the delusion that it was socially acceptable.

Is hate speech acceptable? Never. Is moderation a necessity? Absolutely. Could the rules of detection and/or triggering of false-positives use a little improvement? Perhaps.

I don't usually think about censorship and moderation, but then DE showed they promote circumventing their own weapon-name-censorship algorithms.

This is a friendly discussion. Lets keep it clean.

[(PSN)DoctorWho_90250]

Mods will likely lock this thread. They don't want us discussing this.

[vanaukas]

I wish they just get rid of that #*!%ing policy to be honest. It's just wrong and we shouldn't be deactivating chats to avoid any miserable mistake or typo to not lost a hard earned account.

I would be devastated to loose my account before the game ends (one way or another, the game will end someday), so I just did that, deactivating any chat and just not talking on missions unless I'm asked something, then wrote very calmly and slow to avoid any typo (which I have very frequently because I write insanely fast). That S#&$ is not normal, at all.

[Tesseract7777]

I think there are a lot of things that could be improved. 

Contextual filters and bot algorithms could be made more complex. And in some cases I have heard of, zero tolerance is a bit harsh.

For example, I heard of someone who usually says to his friend, hey "n word with the a at the end" and he accidentally posted it in the cetus hub instead of his friends chat. Permanent ban with no appeal. Some people who use the greeting with the a at the end are black themselves and it is cultural. Using their own vernacular can get them banned and who knows how many hundreds or thousands of hours thrown away with no appeal at all. 

I'm gay and I would get a chat suspension if I said "I'm gay" in chat. 

However, despite all these negatives, apart from maybe giving people ONE warning at least before a permanent suspension and improving algorithms, I think this is a particularly thorny issue because the only way to improve it beyond that is to have all human moderators.

But then you have one of two major issues:

1) You pay a ton of money to full time DE employees who have no previous relationship with players to avoid bias and to always have professionalism. With how many players Warframe has this is a load of paid employees and would be more than enough to cut into development funds in a significant way. 

2) Use volunteer moderators and we are back to the problems and drama that ultimately got the GOTL program permanently disbanded. 

Also, I do think that another issue that can be solved is consistency. 

I know they may not want to police themselves like this, but if you can't say it in the game chat, you shouldn't be able to say it in a devstream either. I really mean this in the kindest way, but the players should not be expected to hold themselves to a higher standard in game than the developers do while doing a development stream on their game that is live and recorded for posterity for all to see. 

And there are some seriously bad names slipping through the weapon naming filter, while some innocent ones like Cassowary are tripping the filter because it has "ass" in the middle. Also ass is censored in game weapon naming but I can say it on the forums. Again, inconsistent. 

The filters in general need a lot of fine tuning for being a bit overly picky, having pretty much no AI for context whatsoever, and weapon naming is way too easy to circumvent as opposed to chat and put some really racist stuff in there, as recent posts have suggested. 
 

[Oreades]

Not sure if things should be adjusted I'd need to immerse myself in more of the current standards BUT what I truely believe needs to be added as policy and to my understanding is currently not. Is have a reason listed for bans/suspensions that is issued to the recipient so they in no uncertain terms know WHY they where banned. 

For a chat ban, send them an in game mail note that lists what they said and why it is unacceptable so they can correct their behavior. 

[PublikDomain]

I just wish the rules were more transparent, and the punishments less all-or-nothing.

Like, here's an idea: Kickbot is able to detect certain keywords and scrub the message from chat, right? Does it all the time. So why not just do that and stop there? If the message hasn't been sent, and no one has seen it, then why issue chat bans? If you accidentally trigger some unknown trap in one of the chats, why not have Kickbot warn you a few times before it goes nuclear? Especially since context doesn't matter and there's a "zero tolerance" policy. Maybe it already does this nowadays, but how would anyone know when there are no rules posted anywhere and the only way to find out is to risk your account? So instead I just turn off region chat and pretend it doesn't exist.

And when bans do end up getting doled out, which they sometimes need to be, a 2035 is #*!%in' harsh, man. Why not start with lower bans first and escalate? Say someone gets dinged for accidentally leaving CheatEngine running, which happens all the time. Maybe give them a 1-day ban for the first offense and go up from there, instead of "see you in 14 years lol".

As for improving the filters, it's kind of an unwinnable battle. No matter how complex a filter you create or throw money at, people are still gonna find a way around it. Like, how do you even make a filter smart enough to understand what the "crumb" in "crumbguzzler" is a stand-in for? Some sort of neural net? How do you make that performant? And work on multiple languages? It's not an easy problem to solve. Blocking the obvious (which we have) and having a robust player reporting system (which we don't) and appropriate punishments (which we also don't) is the way to go.

[ReddyDisco]

Its a bad look for a game where players are terrified that their account might get banned because of a temporary lapse of judgement or misspelling and disable chat altogether, but zero tolerence policy is just that and the maple syrup overlords have deemed it fit to keep chat as a minefield.

[SkyDarkbomber]

I was the guy who got suspended because of misspelling

I thought the censorship/moderation discussion would end there in my thread but here it comes again

Personally i think the punishment system is way too harsh, people will make mistake and they need to make mistake to learn from it, i hate how people said "do stupid stuff, get stupid prize" when in reality some of these people (like me) aren't even aware that the term gay or any sexual orientation is deemed "offensive", the EULA and guidelines are very vague, again, i'm all for banning/suspending people that are actually harassing people, but this just seemed too much, i wouldn't bother if DE keeps censoring these words, all i ask is for them to give out a verbal warning first, along the lines of "hey, you shouldn't be saying these stuff, you are violating the guidelines" or something like that, outright suspending people for their first offense they did is like having a student get expelled because they come late to class once, of course, the punishment should be more severe for repeated offender. And as a final note for DE. Please don't a hypocrite on stream, if you want to enforce a rule, then you must be the example, it goes both ways.

[Tesseract7777]

1 minute ago, SkyDarkbomber said:

I was the guy who got suspended because of misspelling

I thought the censorship/moderation discussion would end there in my thread but here it comes again

Personally i think the punishment system is way too harsh, people will make mistake and they need to make mistake to learn from it, i hate how people said "do stupid stuff, get stupid prize" when in reality some of these people (like me) aren't even aware that the term gay or any sexual orientation is deemed "offensive", the EULA and guidelines are very vague, again, i'm all for banning/suspending people that are actually harassing people, but this just seemed too much, i wouldn't bother if DE keeps censoring these words, all i ask is for them to give out a verbal warning first, along the lines of "hey, you shouldn't be saying these stuff, you are violating the guidelines" or something like that, outright suspending people for their first offense they did is like having a student get expelled because they come late to class once, of course, the punishment should be more severe for repeated offender. And as a final note for DE. Please don't a hypocrite on stream, if you want to enforce a rule, then you must be the example, it goes both ways.

For me being gay it is a little weird that if I say the word gay I get a chat suspension. I understand the reasoning, I just don't AGREE with it. And that doesn't mean I have resentment about it per say, I just feel weird about it. The reasoning is that most of the time it is used in an immature way to demean people or insult gay people. I get that. But it DOES still feel weird to me as a gay guy that there is no context applied and if I was an unknowing gay Tenno in region chat who was naive and new to the game I would get suspended from chat with little to no explanation because someone tricked me into saying "I'm gay". 

I'm not exactly very comfortable with that. I think in an effort to make things a safe space for minorities like me, they sometimes overly restrict us at the same time without realizing it, which makes it the opposite of a safe space (how safe do you feel if you were gay, for instance, new to the game, and someone tricks you in region chat into saying "im gay" and the next thing you know YOU are the one suspended? What kind of safe space is that?) . Speech restrictions can be a double edged sword...

[SkyDarkbomber]

9 minutes ago, Tesseract7777 said:

For me being gay it is a little weird that if I say the word gay I get a chat suspension. I understand the reasoning, I just don't AGREE with it. And that doesn't mean I have resentment about it per say, I just feel weird about it. The reasoning is that most of the time it is used in an immature way to demean people or insult gay people. I get that. But it DOES still feel weird to me as a gay guy that there is no context applied and if I was an unknowing gay Tenno in region chat who was naive and new to the game I would get suspended from chat with little to no explanation because someone tricked me into saying "I'm gay". 

I'm not exactly very comfortable with that. I think in an effort to make things a safe space for minorities like me, they sometimes overly restrict us at the same time without realizing it, which makes it the opposite of a safe space (how safe do you feel if you were gay, for instance, new to the game, and someone tricks you in region chat into saying "im gay" and the next thing you know YOU are the one suspended? What kind of safe space is that?) . Speech restrictions can be a double edged sword...

True, i personally think "safe space" could be dangerous if left unchecked, where people would perpetuate their ideas and their ideas only, which is kinda what's been happening regarding censorship/moderation, i do agree on having a "safe space" where people would not get attacked/harassed regardless of their identity

[-Kittens-]

Imagine ever using chat.

 

ever.

 

for anything other than trades.

 

ever.

[SpicyDinosaur]

1 hour ago, LillyRaccune said:

Sort of an opinion poll...

Seen some ppl banned temporary or more because of bad words in region chat. A few minutes ago it was someone who claimed they made a misspelling, a few months ago a different guy said he always uses racial slurs when angry and was under the delusion that it was socially acceptable.

Is hate speech acceptable? Never. Is moderation a necessity? Absolutely. Could the rules of detection and/or triggering of false-positives use a little improvement? Perhaps.

I don't usually think about censorship and moderation, but then DE showed they promote circumventing their own weapon-name-censorship algorithms.

This is a friendly discussion. Lets keep it clean.

Not going to read the whole thread because "the boys" might get me to say something that will get me warned, but I remember a guy on reddit who posted about his weapon (I think he said it was someone else, but yea, sure,) being named "Jew Cleanser." Then he had the nerve to get hostile and indignant when I made it clear I didn't find it funny at all. He even doubled down on finding it funny.

[Butterfly85]

If your "spelling" is falling foul of the mod bots, that's on you. 🤷‍♀️

Yeah, you conveniently managed to spell something that looks like the N word but with an extra character. Suuuuure. Seen that kinda bs way too many times on my travels.

And no, free speech doesn't give you the right to post slurs or hateful stuff. That can straight up get in the bin.

[vanaukas]

Just now, Butterfly85 said:

If your "spelling" is falling foul of the mod bots, that's on you. 🤷‍♀️

Yeah, you conveniently managed to spell something that looks like the N word but with an extra character. Suuuuure. Seen that kinda bs way too many times on my travels.

And no, free speech doesn't give you the right to post slurs or hateful stuff. That can straight up get in the bin.

How to spot someone that doesn't read the OP 101

[Butterfly85]

1 minute ago, vanaukas said:

How to spot someone that doesn't read the OP 101

I read it. I gave my opinion. That's generally how forums work last time I checked.

[vanaukas]

2 minutes ago, Butterfly85 said:

I read it. I gave my opinion. That's generally how forums work last time I checked.

OP wasn't banned, didn't say anything bad, unless you are ranting against an invisible bad BAAAD person

[Butterfly85]

3 minutes ago, PatrioticEagle said:

have you actually read the first amendment? its free speech, you can say what you like, you dont have to like it or approve it but you can say it. theres a lot of things i dont like hearing mostly when people have this delusion you can change biology on the fly and call yourself something else lol. but i can just ignore it like anyone else can. more censorship always ends badly. 

I'm aware of it. I'm not from the States by the way. Still doesn't give people the right to say hateful stuff about others because of who they are in my book. But, you do you, *shrugs*

[Butterfly85]

4 minutes ago, vanaukas said:

OP wasn't banned, didn't say anything bad, unless you are ranting against an invisible bad BAAAD person

Did I say or assume they had been? No. I made a general statement. 

[Zimzala]

4 minutes ago, PatrioticEagle said:

you can not like it all you want, but its their right to speak not yours to decide "no right to say hateful stuff".  if people get their feelings hurt that easily online, i can only imagine their social skills outside of the game, being coddled like a newborn child xD

The only right the first amendment gives is that the US government will not make certain laws over speech, it has nothing at all to do with private company chat systems, certainly not Canadian ones.

[Butterfly85]

1 minute ago, PatrioticEagle said:

you can not like it all you want, but its their right to speak not yours to decide "no right to say hateful stuff".  if people get their feelings hurt that easily online, i can only imagine their social skills outside of the game, being coddled like a newborn child xD

Words have power, they also have consequences, whether used online, or irl.

Some of us are evidently more mindful of this than others. 🤷‍♀️

[MqToasty]

Wait, are puns / innuendo bannable?  That is, am I not able to name my weapon "Crumbguzzler"?  As of right now, there is no good way to effectively catch something like this with a bot (you can try to train a DNN that will catch some, but it will likely have too many false positives and false negatives to be acceptable), but do mods actively look for these names and ban them?

I may have some questionable weapon names, and while the system has prevented me from including some banned words ("Bumguzzler" didn't go through), no one's come and ban the ones that I named successfully.

To be clear, if a mod notified me that someone was actually offended by my "Hentai Tentacles" Vermisplicer then I would gladly change its name, but is naming stuff this way actually circumventing censorship?

[vanaukas]

9 minutes ago, Butterfly85 said:

Did I say or assume they had been? No. I made a general statement. 

Then I misinterpreted like you talking to someone specific, probably due the wording

[SkyDarkbomber]

52 minutes ago, Butterfly85 said:

If your "spelling" is falling foul of the mod bots, that's on you. 🤷‍♀️

Yeah, you conveniently managed to spell something that looks like the N word but with an extra character. Suuuuure. Seen that kinda bs way too many times on my travels.

And no, free speech doesn't give you the right to post slurs or hateful stuff. That can straight up get in the bin.

I said "gey everyone" instead of "hey everyone", if you ever look at a keyboard before you'd notice the letter G and H are spaced closely, if the bot give out a mystery duration chat suspension for that then there's bound to be something wrong with it. Might i add this was not intentional in the slightest bit, which makes me even more surprised.

[L3512]

1 hour ago, Tesseract7777 said:

I'm not exactly very comfortable with that. I think in an effort to make things a safe space for minorities like me, they sometimes overly restrict us at the same time without realizing it, which makes it the opposite of a safe space (how safe do you feel if you were gay, for instance, new to the game, and someone tricks you in region chat into saying "im gay" and the next thing you know YOU are the one suspended? What kind of safe space is that?) . Speech restrictions can be a double edged sword...

Well that's because the idea of safe spaces is bullS#&$, as people will get offended by anything a safe space needs to be totally sterile which causes no one to what to interact with it.

What people really want is an echo chamber where their thoughts and ideas are repeated back to them.

 

48 minutes ago, PatrioticEagle said:

have you actually read the first amendment?

With DE being a Canadian company the first amendment really is a null point.

[L3512]

1 hour ago, -Kittens- said:

Imagine ever using chat.

 

ever.

 

for anything other than trades.

 

ever.

This really is the best advice on this thread.