Guild Wars 2

How is using an English word on a North American server equivalent to going to France and saying something offensive in French?

We could just request an option of “Click this checkbox to allow any and all name choices (Unless already taken). I hereby understand that should I create a name that would normally be filtered and someone reports the name as offensive, my account will be permanently terminated.”

Hard mode engaged.

Shroom Mage.9410:

How is using an English word on a North American server equivalent to going to France and saying something offensive in French?

It’s equivalent to going to France and saying an English word that is offensive in French >.< Are you being purposefully obtuse? Regardless of the server (particularly NA ones) All languages are important. Remember that all countries not denoted a specific region are automatically set to play in the NA servers…

Kumu Honua.2751:

We could just request an option of “Click this checkbox to allow any and all name choices (Unless already taken). I hereby understand that should I create a name that would normally be filtered and someone reports the name as offensive, my account will be permanently terminated.”

Hard mode engaged.

Or they just remove ambiguous words such as “bite” from the list and issue name changes and/or bans when appropriate, as they do for countless other names.

Shroom Mage.9410:

Or they just remove ambiguous words such as “bite” from the list and issue name changes and/or bans when appropriate, as they do for countless other names.

If they removed all the ambiguous words from the filter, there wouldn’t be a filter. Refer to the Anus as a name statement earlier. It’s certainly not offensive in some languages…therefore it has multiple interpretations and is ambiguous. Just because your interpretation of it is fine, does not mean that it is not offensive.

There is one thing that you will never change and that is the fact that printed words are not the same as the spoken word. Therein lies the problem.

Bite in English will not be pronounced the same as Bite in French.

No matter how clever the internet is, it can’t dissect your pronunciation from a typed word.

Same goes for feelings, some things typed in a jocular fashion by one person can be completely misinterpreted by another.

As has been suggested many times before, if you can’t have the ‘spellalike’ use the ‘soundalike’. Problem solved!

zaxziakohl.5243:

Shroom Mage.9410:

How is using an English word on a North American server equivalent to going to France and saying something offensive in French?

It’s equivalent to going to France and saying an English word that is offensive in French >.< Are you being purposefully obtuse? Regardless of the server (particularly NA ones) All languages are important. Remember that all countries not denoted a specific region are automatically set to play in the NA servers…

So you’re talking about going to France and saying something offensive in English. That would certainly exclude “bite”. In any case, going to France is analogous to playing on a French server. If you’re French and you come to the US, not many are going to care if you’re offended by something that Americans say casually.

zaxziakohl.5243:

If they removed all the ambiguous words from the filter, there wouldn’t be a filter. Refer to the Anus as a name statement earlier. It’s certainly not offensive in some languages…therefore it has multiple interpretations and is ambiguous. Just because your interpretation of it is fine, does not mean that it is not offensive.

And the problem with this is what? So Anus doesn’t get blocked right away. The guy is still going to get his name changed and a 3-day ban for taking an offensive name, assuming he’s playing on a server where his name is offensive in the designated language. If I go to a foreign server and see a guy named Anus, I don’t have a lot of room to complain.

Most “offensive” words aren’t blocked at all, and players who chose to use them anyway got slapped with name changes and, in most cases, 3-day bans.

And as I posted on the first page, the filter isn’t even working as intended: https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/15649/a_substring_of_your_name_is_offensive_in_a_foreign_language.png

I’m fine with censoring swears and racial slurs, understand not wanting people to use the n word for example. Censoring stuff like Bite or Jewel is just silly though, especially considering there’s jewels and skills with bite in them in game.

I’m not quite sure how I feel about this subject, part of me understands why seemingly harmless things like “Frostbite” being censored would be kind of annoying (as well as the previous argument regarding romaji), but I’m also annoyed with the “You carebears are offended by EVERYTHING” argument, because that’s not the point.

I think the point is context. Like Shinzan mentioned, the game itself uses words that are normally censored. I think this is because the story stuff is in a controlled context, but those words outside of that context could potentially be used to, you know, offend people. I can certainly see how “bite” and “jewel” could be used in an inappropriate context.

Yea… expect I could say some horrible and offensive thing without using a single banned or offensive word.. and hopefully earn a rightful ban, as should be the case for those who use bite inappropriately, but if someone wants to call their warrior frostbite just let them.

@Red Falcon

So I am not allowed to use my real name because I am a political person?

For some reason I can’t quote a post from the 1st page (buttons won’t show up).

Anyway, I find Shroom Mage’s quoted example very interesting . Apparently the filter is too aggressive. It is hilarious that the word ‘arbiter’ becomes filtered because somewhere inside that word, the word ‘bite’ can be found. I don’t believe for a second that any French person would be offended by the word arbiter because of this and it just shows how flawed the filtering system is. If the filter really works like, it will rule out many harmless words.

Well if they were using conventional programming they could just use regular expressions for the name filters which would avoid any of these silly mix-ups.

yes, i have the same problem with the quote button not being available…

i also wanted to quote Shroom Mage’s excellent found example of the bizarre naming convention/filter,
highlighting this fault was the entire point of me starting this thread.

as i said in my edited original post,
i have tested and proven that names containing the word “a*s*s” were allowed
but names containing the word “bite” were not.

disallowing the name “arbiter” is exactly why Anet need to correct this naming restriction.

it is bizarre.

i would also like to read of any other normal words that are restricted when included in names.

please post some here.

hmm, posting the last reply has suddenly allowed me to quote again…

Shroom Mage.9410:

In case anyone is still wondering at why the OP wasn’t allowed his name, here is a post from just a few days after launch.

It also answers people’s concerns much better than our… ahem… CC has managed.

i have typed out the conversation he posted as i cannot quote that (or maybe i can and i dont know how to):

“SojakFA:

It’s not letting me use my main character from GW1’s name.
Name was Arbiter of Light
From what I can tell it’s because it has the word Biter in it, which seems a little overzealous.

ArenaNetSupportTeam:

No, it’s “bite” which is offensive in French, but is inoffensive in English (and even forms a skill name!).
We’re aware of this and will be making adjustments to the filter.
Ideally, it will be blocked in FR and not in EN, DE or ES.
Thanks for the report and your understanding."

So, in short, because this promised “adjusment” has not been implented yet, the entire world has to adhere to the FR server “bite” restriction.

Anet, please “adjust” as soon as possible.

Um, rather than involving France, wouldn’t it be more the case the you can’t use the word on NA servers because you might offend French Canadians?

Some folks are arguing that this is about a lack of creativity on the parts of the player. It’s not. It really isn’t. From a software development standpoint, the developers must satisfy a legal requirement to ensure that the game’s T rating is met by providing as broad a language filter they can.

What is suspect here is the implementation of that filter. As an earlier post showed, they should be able to filter words and phrases by language and culture. What seems evident is either a lack of ability or a lack of willingness to do so. And therein lies the problem. Because they either can’t or won’t, players must perform mental gymnastics and settle for less than optimal names because the existing filter system is too hamfisted.

This isn’t the fault of the players. It doesn’t reflect on the creativity of the players. And whether or not the desired names would be snatched up instantly is irrelevant. What is under discussion here is the implementation of the naming system. It’s too restrictive. And that’s why players can’t have the names they want.

A possible workaround is to remove the restriction altogether when creating the character, but to add a new toggle in your Settings dialog that operates exactly like the profanity filter. Its default state should be Checked. While this setting is checked, player names appear “censored” in the game. But there is nothing preventing you from creating the name you want, so long as it is free. If you uncheck the setting, you can see the names exactly as they were created.

The caveat here, of course, is that by unchecking the box, you agree that you will not report anyone for an offensive name. You agreed to view the names, just like you agreed to turn off the profanity filter.

In my mind, this solution opens the creativity door, while still allowing ANet to filter names with a reasonable degree of “hamfistedness.”

Well if the filter is only English then at least the reporting of other languages need to be possible. I have seen names that in other languages that clearly have only 1 meaning and they go above and beyond any name with bite. I can’t give examples, because I ll get infractions.

Kana.6793:

Um, rather than involving France, wouldn’t it be more the case the you can’t use the word on NA servers because you might offend French Canadians?

That is too far. I’m a dutchie on an english speaking server. I understand that when I see someone use “lul” or “lulz” (instead of “lol”), he does not mean the dutch word “lul” – which is a very rude word for male genitalia- but actually just means “lol” (unless of course, he is a dutch person trolling, but that can be determined by context :p)

If you are a frenchie on an english server, you should be able to understand that the average english person does not understand your meaning of the word “bite” and that it’s highly likely that he didn’t mean it like that.
Frenchies on a french server – that is a different matter.

I, and I guess most other players as well, am grown up enough that I can understand the difference between a deliberate insult and simple miscommunication or language barrier.

If you’re going to have a strict enough filter to limit “bite”, why is there also the option to report someone for their name? I’m serious. If you don’t like someone’s actions, their name, typing habits, whatever, we can block them. I understand AreaNet’s filter reasoning, as they’d like some control. BUT “Online interactions not rated by the ESRB.” translation " We can’t control what other people say and do." If you don’t like it, ignore it.

I have had one of my character’s names forcibly renamed. No email, no notification what-so-ever. Just try to select character and hit Play, bam! prompt that I have to change the name to continue playing. If such a name wasn’t allowed, why was I able to create it in the first place?

To people mentioning getting creative with varying the spelling of whatever name: last I checked circumventing a filter was a bigger offence then just typing the offending text.

Kana.6793:

Um, rather than involving France, wouldn’t it be more the case the you can’t use the word on NA servers because you might offend French Canadians?

The English server has other language groups playing on there that have no server. Is there a NA server or is it an International Server with language English? If the latter, then some of the worst words need to be filtered out.

Yes because frostbite, i quote wikipedia; a medical condition involving damage to skin and tissues due to extreme cold, is sooo offensive.. lets go spread the word toast as a vulgar word and get it banned from using it in names too.

@ Tosha Daydreamer & @ beren

I was just responding to this:

How is using an English word on a North American server equivalent to going to France and saying something offensive in French?

I have no idea if there’s any localisation on the filter based on server grouping or not, but it seems logical to have it to me. NA servers would be sort of international, but mostly in terms of Oceanic players I would have thought? So French Canadians are the only reason I can think of to censor bite there.

If all the censor filters are global and the word is censored on NA servers because it needs to be censored on the French servers then that’s pretty silly. I can’t imagine there would be many French people playing on an NA server.

French censoring should just apply to French servers since they have dedicated servers.

@ beren, there are a lot of people on the EU English servers who don’t have their own language server so I agree that some of the worst words in Scandinavian languages / Dutch etc should probably be filtered there.

@ Tosha, yes adults would likely ignore it, as you say. Anet probably need to cover their bases in case they get complaints from parents though, given the rating on the game.

I had a similar problem when I wanted to use swagman as my characters name.
Swag man was accepted but swagman tripped the filter. I found this out during the bwe’s so I emailed their support with the definition and asked if it be bypassed and upon release I was able to name my character swagman.

Still not sure what was stopping it before but my suggestion would be to email support and see if they can clear it for you.

I agree with others in this thread who state that rather than complain about your right to offend others in a global, privately-owned game (i.e. you have no right), why not just be more creative in your name creation? As others have pointed out in other threads, given the naming rules there are something on the order of millions or billions of possible names per player (and that’s after assuming 99.9% of random letter combinations are gibberish).

Peakitten is a bird with large colorful feathers.

Now that I know Bite is an offensive word. I demand that ANET censor every mob/pet attack that uses that heinous foul word. My kid plays this game for christ’s sake!! I don’t want him exposed to so much foul language! The word bite is everywhere in GW2!! I’m disgusted, and disappointed.

/end sarcasm

Try to please everyone, and you will please no-one.

I’m all for getting rid of filters entirely. Screw polite sensibilities.

Frostbite is not banned because it means something else in french, it’s because names are reviewed at character creation using a database of ‘dirty’ words. It’s automatic, not done by an employee. Ofcourse it can be disappointing and maybe they should allow all names and ban offensive names afterwards but the game is news and 1000’s of names are or were created every day. I can understand the way it ‘s done now is more efficient.
I justed wanted to respond to this whole french server/american server/Eu server thing. It has nothing to do with that. It’s not about english speaking players who might offend eu-players by accident. Just because some people find it funny to translate certain things to another language. Just like some use an elven name generator. An american player might name himself Monsieur Bite. Honestly I don’t care, it’s an example, but I could be offended by other things.
As for lul. I’m dutch speaking and not offended by lulz or lullaby or whatever, nobody is. But that’s not the deal here.
Frostbite not banned because it’s a disease, but because it had bite in in. A word that is just like lul and whor a parameter used for reviewing names.

I’m American, and wasn’t aware that the word bite meant anything but…an act directly followed by chewing… or a chill in the air.

More likely the database contains sicknesses, as very often they are used to offend. E.g. Megabite probably is no problem. As for foreign words, I think the database should contain only English words on a English server. All other names should be banned when reported (and proven).

Ageia.5843:

I’m American, and wasn’t aware that the word bite meant anything but…an act directly followed by chewing… or a chill in the air.

It is either because it is an sickness in the database of sicknesses they probably added to the ‘bad words’ .

it’s an ncsoft game. there are always these really really weird words in their filters.

aion was full of them.

l2 went as far as to filter the word “nickelback” though let’s be real here, that one was justified though hilarious.

Mimizu.7340:

I wanted a norn character named “Frost Bite” and because of the american useage of the word “bite” it was disallowed.

Neither can I use “Frostbite”, “Frost Biter” or “Frostbiter”.

This restriction caused some vampires from GW to have their monster text censored,
and now perfectly reasonable names are censored in GW2.

I am not american and I can only view this censorship as bizarre.

I am American and I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about. Besides there’s plenty of hunter pets and probably mobs that have “bite” as one of their attacks.

This reminds me of a game I remember someone complaining about before that was overzealous in censoring of monsters’ names (and it was single player too). Some examples he gave were that he couldn’t name his tree “Woody” or his ghost “Boo Berry”

Now I can understand names disallowing words widely accepted as cuss words and other words widely accepted as offensive (such as words associated with unwilling sexual acts), but to try and get every word that someone somewhere might find offensive is just ludicrous and counter-productive.

That Other Guy.7351:

Mimizu.7340:

I wanted a norn character named “Frost Bite” and because of the american useage of the word “bite” it was disallowed.

Neither can I use “Frostbite”, “Frost Biter” or “Frostbiter”.

This restriction caused some vampires from GW to have their monster text censored,
and now perfectly reasonable names are censored in GW2.

I am not american and I can only view this censorship as bizarre.

I am American and I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about. Besides there’s plenty of hunter pets and probably mobs that have “bite” as one of their attacks.

This reminds me of a game I remember someone complaining about before that was overzealous in censoring of monsters’ names (and it was single player too). Some examples he gave were that he couldn’t name his tree “Woody” or his ghost “Boo Berry”

Now I can understand names disallowing words widely accepted as cuss words and other words widely accepted as offensive (such as words associated with unwilling sexual acts), but to try and get every word that someone somewhere might find offensive is just ludicrous and counter-productive.

yes, i can see reading my original post may be confusing, but try reading the rest of the thread before chiming in with your two cents.
i shall edit my orginal post to reflect the threads progress.

OJ Simpson is also blocked. OJ was found innocent so….whats the deal?

Mimizu.7340:

yes, i can see reading my original post may be confusing, but try reading the rest of the thread before chiming in with your two cents.

I was agreeing with you in my post and I was saying that I’ve never even heard of “bite” being considered offensive or vulgar and therefore I also am perplexed that it would be blocked. After all if I’ve never even heard of it and my attempt to research it turned up nothing, then it clearly isn’t widely accepted as vulgar.

beam.6841:

OJ Simpson is also blocked. OJ was found innocent so….whats the deal?

If I recall, that’s an entirely different thing. You can’t use the names of actual/famous people, places, or things because of the slightest chance that they could sue.

That Other Guy,
cannot edit anything at the moment, this forum likes to hide icons after every post…

the upshot is:
“bite” is offensive in french,
Anet know and admit that every other server but the FR ones do not need this restriction,
but have yet to do anything about it.

when my editing button comes back, i will alter my original post to reflect this ( i had assumed it was caused by americans saying “bite me” etc).

edit: yay, my button came back.

I think they should just get rid of character names entirely, and just give each character a unique numeric identifier. That way, no one can ever be offended by character names. Problem solved.

“Hey 32898345273, we’re going to group for Plinx, you in?”
“Nah, that’s okay 72379423, I’m going to take a break.”

Edit: On second thought, given how hyper-sensitive people in this game seem to be, I’m sure someone would decide to be offended by numeric character identifiers.

After the endless variations of A dolf C ritler the first few days, including the actual correct name on an Asura, I’m starting to think its just an overly forced attempt to look like they have a handle on everything.

Apply a translation filter, which has existed in mmos for over a decade and the problem gets severely lessened.

Mimizu.7340:

That Other Guy,
cannot edit anything at the moment, this forum likes to hide icons after every post…

the upshot is:
“bite” is offensive in french,
Anet know and admit that every other server but the FR ones do not need this restriction,
but have yet to do anything about it.

when my editing button comes back, i will alter my original post to reflect this ( i had assumed it was caused by americans saying “bite me” etc).

kk I understand now, and yes I also find the forum’s habit of withholding edit/quote/etc. frustrating

Censoring every offensive and possibly offensive word in every language leaves the entire world silent.

“OJ Simpson is also blocked. OJ was found innocent so….whats the deal?”

Nothing to do with him, Homer’s lawyers are particularly nasty…

The restrictions and censoring around words and names boggle me too.

Sure its a worldwide game, but how bizarre can it get.

Is the nickname for say Richard i.e kitten censored? kittencat maybe? And as someone mentioned Peakitten… Common real names on people/thingsthat have no vulgar meaning.

Still the game have things in it that can cause giggles, like Hard Wood, Seasoned Wood, Ancient Wood and Soft Wood.

Why restrict thing that are vulgar in just one language and not others. I bet many swedish or heck scandinavian vulgar slang words arent censored.

And regarding Hell, I understand why its not censored, its a descriptive term, a curseword (according to some), a place of myth (positive to some, negative to others), aswell as the swedish word for hail, an old greeting word.

@meinke
actually yeah, if something is offensive simply toss it into the word filter. It’s optional to us whether it’s on or not.

or better yet, simply create different filters for different languages.

1, Descriptive of a female body part (in particular) in the UK and used to call some one useless or an idiot. In the US it is used for the ‘rear end’ I’m told – anyone’s rear end!

I can only think of one word here and I can’t imagine it being used, the way you describe, “to call somoene useless or an idiot”, especially given the frequent use of “the C-word” in some parts of the UK. Fanny is a girl’s name.

2, Shortened version(s) of old description a type of cerebral palsy and used, freely and casually it seems, stateside. I get called it from time to time as do others with disabilities in the UK. The word(s) in question are extremely offencive to a disabled person in the UK.

An extremely good example. While I disagree that it is offensive, it is in very poor taste, but get this… the French word (which starts with “R” and is removed altogether, rather than being replaced with “kitten”) means late/delayed. It’s usage in English is actually entirely correct to describe people with developmental delays. It’s in a similar position to the word kitten, however, in that it is correct in use but burdened by some negative connotations. So… that would mean French people couldn’t say “I’m going to be late”. That just goes to show the ridiculous situation we have here.

Hello everyone,

it’s quite interesting how you wonder why words/ shorts aren’t edited by the filter while others are. Does that mean you want those words to be filtered, too? Feel free to suggest some, then.

Greetings

As for this barely comprehensible response…

In Australia we can shorten almost any word, or name, and add an O (or Y). Robert becomes Robbo, Wayne becomes Wayno, bottle shop becomes bottle-o. Some of these shortened words are considered mildly to moderately offensive – refugee and Aboriginal are not offensive, but refo and Abo are.

Boong is extremely offensive in Australia. As already mentioned, it is worse than “the N-word”. While it is arguably the most offensive possible racial slur, and has no other meaning, in Australia, I believe it is the “normal” word in parts of Indonesia for brother.

The reason I highlighted these words is because games have a specifically American point of view. Words that are offensive in America can be meaningless or harmless in other parts of the English speaking world, but words that are offensive in the rest of the world are perfectly acceptable in America. And then there’s words that are in a grey area – most Americans probably don’t even know the word bugger, but if they do know it’s meaning (same as sodomy) they would probably think it highly offensive… but here is an ad that was widely broadcast in Australia and New Zealand a few years ago.

In most of the English speaking world, an kitten is a kind of donkey while an kitten is a piece of anatomy… kitten is almost always censored, but kitten rarely is. And just to point out how amusing linguistic differences can be, when an American says the word “Aussie”, it usually sounds to Australian ears as if they are saying “arsey”… and what makes this even funnier is that former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating once described Australia as “the kitten end of the world”. Americans also seem to get defensive when Commonwealth people call the “Yanks” because they use the word “Yankee” in a specifically American Civil War context, while the word “Yank” (no “-ee”) is used in much of the Commonwealth to mean “American”, in the same way that “Aussie” or “Kiwi” are used to describe someone from Australia or New Zealand.

Someone mentioned that if you turn off the word filter then you are accepting that you will see swearing. It would be great if this were the case, but sadly it isn’t. LotRO has a word filter which is on by default and the option to turn it off is quite hard to find. The LotRO forums have many, many, examples of people that turn off the filter and then complain about the unfiltered language. Some people even pride themselves on the fact that they have the filter turned off so that they can report people for swearing. You can’t win. This is why I disagree with word filters, because people are going to complain about the language anyway. Even if there is a permanent filter in place, you can tell what the censored word is 90% of the time anyway and your mind fills in the blanks – even when you’re not actually seeing the word it is still being “read” by the brain. Just look at these forums, where people find the use of the word kitten so hilarious that they actually type it in and restructure their sentences to fit it in a lot of the time. I think that all words should be acceptable for names and that those names are banned on a case-by-case basis if reported.

what needs to be done is make exceptions to the word parser. It seems to ignore letters on either side and spaces.

This will fix the age old issue with every “shi” and a “t” in asian languages!

“Boo Berry” is one example because its just parsing text to filter. Remove the parsing function and you have less erroneous filtering.

im thinking you all got trolled by arena.net.

lol <3

‘I can only think of one word here and I can’t imagine it being used, the way you describe, “to call somoene useless or an idiot”, especially given the frequent use of “the C-word” in some parts of the UK. Fanny is a girl’s name.’

‘An extremely good example. While I disagree that it is offensive, it is in very poor taste, but get this…’

Yeah, the girls name is, in the most part, much less offencive and more of a naughty word than a bad word compared to the ‘C’ word. It is used in the region I live in in the ways I described though. The main difference, I suppose, is in the context and regarding the age of the user or receiver of the ‘taunt’ – the ‘f’ word in a rude or derogatory context will likely be mildly offencive to younger people but very offencive to some older folk whereas the ‘c’ word is likely to be much more offencive regardless of age or locality / region (and could result in cut knuckles and broken teeth!).

As for the second word, all I can say is that it depends again on the user and receiver! Imagine the user being (outwardly) fully able / mobile and the receiver being in a wheelchair or mobility scooter because of disability.

I think you hit the nail on the head so to say with your paragraph starting ‘The reason I highlighted these words is because games have a specifically American point of view.’

It’s all about perspective in a way.

AN has to have an active filter for reasons suggested in this thread already and more – as do other developers. The difficulty is in trying to use a generic filter that may seem fine locally or even nationally with an international audience – in game or in forums.

Onto the video link – my did I laugh! I had not seen that video previously.

On a note as to why I posted the previously in this thread; AN baited me! That is, the AN representative baited us all. In the forums for another game, there is a representative that does pretty much the same and when challenged about it becomes very arrogant to the point of being rude to posters. This type of behaviour from any ‘mod’ is flippant at best and unacceptable at worse – even if meant jovially. Had I used such an attitude or behaviour when I player moderated a game and forums some years ago, I would have been reprimanded. That said, though it is plain to see from the responses herein that the post in question caused some upset, I do not think any harm was intended.

Note: forum messing up quoting again for some reason!