Thin Skinned: Language Filter and How it Could be Improved

Gunpoint·Nov 4, 2015·2 votes·722 views

For all those who complain about things being offensive there IS a language filter you can turn on. It does not block certain words that the frailest of souls might find offensive such as people saying "retarded" and "cancer" in game. Therefore, instead of some of the... less practical or reasonable solutions... Riot should just allow players to add words to the filter. This way even the most unreasonably mild words couldn't be offensive to someone. Ex: Current Chat Filter: (Jax): +++++++ Swain so broken, this game sucks.

(Zed): My entire family got SUCKED INTO A WHIRLPOOL AND DROWNED NOW IM UPSET.

Enhanced Chat Filter: (Jax): ++ Swain so broken, this game ++

(Zed): I will gank when my ignite is up.

I changed the asteriks to + signs because I couldn't get them to show up as they only italicized other asteriks.

11 Comments

EvilDustManNov 4, 20152 votes

If you wanted to make an actual serious suggestion, why don't you delete this post and rewrite it without the phrases 'frailest of souls' and other sarcastic parts of it.

GunpointNov 4, 20151 votes

{quoted}

If you wanted to make an actual serious suggestion, why don't you delete this post and rewrite it without the phrases 'frailest of souls' and other sarcastic parts of it.

Oh I'm sorry, was that too offensive for you? I'll make sure to fix that right away.

EvilDustManNov 4, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Oh I'm sorry, was that too offensive for you? I'll make sure to fix that right away.

So it's not a serious suggestion, then, you are just upset and crying out in general rather than trying to make a helpful contribution to the community?

GunpointNov 4, 20151 votes

{quoted}

So it's not a serious suggestion, then, you are just upset and crying out in general rather than trying to make a helpful contribution to the community?

This is a real suggestion and it's pretty logical too if you just see past the passive aggression. I'm not removing the passive aggressive parts of it because this topic typically does get me heated as I hate having to censor myself for things that shouldn't even have to be just so some kid doesn't get offended. This game isn't G rated and people in real life aern't either.

EvilDustManNov 4, 20152 votes

{quoted}

This is a real suggestion and it's pretty logical too if you just see past the passive aggression. I'm not removing the passive aggressive parts of it because this topic typically does get me heated as I hate having to censor myself for things that shouldn't even have to be just so some kid doesn't get offended. This game isn't G rated and people in real life aern't either.

That's true, however, people in real life expect you to present a topic eloquently and without passive aggression or you simply sound petty. If you brought a suggestion like this into a boardroom with the same tone, you'd be packing up the next day. It's not a matter of G-Rated, it's a matter of not sounding petty and little childish.

GunpointNov 4, 20151 votes

{quoted}

That's true, however, people in real life expect you to present a topic eloquently and without passive aggression or you simply sound petty. If you brought a suggestion like this into a boardroom with the same tone, you'd be packing up the next day. It's not a matter of G-Rated, it's a matter of not sounding petty and little childish.

The main point of that reply is to assure that it IS a real suggestion and you SHOULD see past the passive aggression. You do not need to revise the attitude of the post. I'm honestly fine with the way the game is now because Riot HAS NOT implemented anything that changes the way I have to speak in game, even though believe it or not I don't really complain a lot in game (except vs Yasuo ). I'm just trying to offer some suggestion that might actually help people who are very thin skinned.

ZielmannNov 4, 20151 votes

I know you could do this a long time ago, but I haven't explored into it in a while. Way back when, the word filter was just a long listing of words in a text file that you could find in the Riot Games folder somewhere. So you could go an add whatever you wanted to it and it would filter those out for you as well. I know they've modified the LoL file structure since then, so maybe the file isn't accessible anymore.

But yeah, also obligatory statement of how chat filters aren't an excuse to harass people.

GunpointNov 4, 20151 votes

{quoted}

I know you could do this a long time ago, but I haven't explored into it in a while. Way back when, the word filter was just a long listing of words in a text file that you could find in the Riot Games folder somewhere. So you could go an add whatever you wanted to it and it would filter those out for you as well. I know they've modified the LoL file structure since then, so maybe the file isn't accessible anymore.

But yeah, also obligatory statement of how chat filters aren't an excuse to harass people.

It's got nothing to do with harassment. Posts pop up all the time of how they get easily offended and report people for saying things like "this game mechanic is cancer" because it offends them. The person who said "this game mechanic is cancer" had know way of knowing that one of their teammates is going to throw a fit because it "offends" them. This is a possible solution to those people being offended in the first place.

ZielmannNov 4, 20152 votes

My point is that it makes no difference if you know what they were saying to begin with. How is "Teemo is such ******" any different than "Teemo is such cancer"? If you intentionally added 'cancer' to your filter list, then you know exactly what that statement is trying to say. And it's the intent of the phrase that matters, not whether the word physically appears on the screen as opposed to being censored with a bunch if **'s.

Aside: you can use a \ to cancel markdown. So to get all the asterisks to show up, I typed "\*" to get each one to show.

GunpointNov 4, 20151 votes

{quoted}

My point is that it makes no difference if you know what they were saying to begin with. How is "Teemo is such ******" any different than "Teemo is such cancer"? If you intentionally added 'cancer' to your filter list, then you know exactly what that statement is trying to say. And it's the intent of the phrase that matters, not whether the word physically appears on the screen as opposed to being censored with a bunch if **'s.

Aside: you can use a \ to cancel markdown. So to get all the asterisks to show up, I typed "\*" to get each one to show.

That's why I made it always two asteriks because it could go with any other censored word since the defaults would still be there. I had that in the original post but I accidently deleted it and didn't bother retyping it. "Teemo is such shit" = "Teemo is such **" similarly, "Teemo is such cancer" = "Teemo is such **"

ZielmannNov 4, 20152 votes

If a person is to the point of being that offended by things like that, then I'd guess that they'll probably default to assuming that their trigger word was used any time they see the **.

I do agree with you that people are getting too sensitive to things like this. Or really... sometimes I don't actually buy that they're truly sensitive to it. I think they're more just wanting to complain about something. But by and large, I think the amount of people who would truly be offended by such things is pretty low. Low enough that it's not worth adding a feature to let people build custom word filters just so they can avoid things like that.