Can all forms of swear words get you banned?

Kikirino·7/27/2014, 7:54:21 PM·1 votes·764 views

I am not asking if all forms of swearing will get you reported because we all know that you can be reported for anything if the person reporting is upset/petty enough. I am asking if Riot differentiates between the different types of swearing when issuing punishments to players.

Steven Pinks lists five different forms of swearing.

Abusive: Swearing used with the intent to hurt others. Insult. Humiliate. Objectify. Emphatic: Swearing used to convey that your current emotions matter more to you than proper social conduct. Dysphemism: Swearing to convey how unpleasant an experience was. Idiomatic: Swearing used in a casual manner to show that it is fine to swear because I am not offended by it. Cathartic: Swearing to provide relief from pain.

Examples: Abusive: You fucking suck. Feeder piece of shit. Emphatic: Holy shit I suck so bad. Dysphemism: Instead of saying "We lost by a very large margin" you might say "We got fucking wrecked" Idiomatic: I fucked up... forgot to buy a trinket :P Cathartic: Make a stupid mistake and die. "FUCK!!!" Nothing is really said but it helps you feel better.

I swear in games as I view swear words as just regular words and are not bad unless intended to be. I use idiomatic swearing a lot and occasional cathartic swearing. I have never received a warning or ban for my language but I want to know what Riot thinks about this. When someone is reported for the offense "Offensive Language" how does Riot decide if it is worthy of a ban? Is all swearing bad or does Riot use something like this as a guideline to what offensive language really is?

2 Comments

Worgslarg7/27/2014, 7:55:57 PM3 votes

Only Abusive swearing will get you banned, but the line between abusive and non abusive is up to the people that would report you.

NinetyNineTails7/27/2014, 8:56:47 PM2 votes

I almost never punish for any of those except for Abusive. Maybe for Dyspemism, if it's part of a larger pattern of being abusive to their team, but an isolated 'OMG we got fucking rekt in that teamfight' isn't going to spur a punish vote from me.

There are individual words that are triggers for automatic Punish votes for me (mostly racial and sexual prejudicial terms), but outside of those, I don't punish for... vigorous language absent of abusive contexts.