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Suggestion - Chat and Posts Censoring

AmrTheGreat··1 votes·1,496 views

Hello Riot Employees and Community, I know that there are already a couple of posts on this topic but the ones I saw were handled by people going about with an attacking perspective, and although this topic is hard to stay detached from I think some level of detachment is needed to actually understand the problem. The problem here is to do with Profanity and insults not only on the board but in Game. The reason this post is on the "boards feedback" section is because most of the ideas apply to the community boards. Essentially, the problem here is with people who, whether for trolling, entertainment or rage use swearwords and insults which ruin form posts and in game experiences for others. Flaming is a huge problem and while riot does some things to try to solve this problem my opinion is that there is still more to be done. Being on the PBE, I know about the system in development about ranked restrictions however what I propose is to go to another level designed to give peace of mind to the people who are the victims of these abuses.

There are a number of things I propose. First, for the forums:

  1. There should be comment and post censoring on major swear words and abbreviations such as the f word or "fing".
  2. There should be a notification if someone uses excessive Astrixes, for if someone goes inserts "**** ****" in their comment, chances are they are hinting at profanity. Even if not complete censoring, their should be an algorithm that checks for these and warns people before they comment/ post of the risk their post might have if they include excessive swearing.
  3. Even though for 90% of the people its obvious, the rules should state for the other 10% that swear words are against the "don't be a jerk policy" just so they don't quote you word for word.

Second, For in game:

  1. There should be complete censoring, or at least checking for blatant swear words, and the repeated offense in a single game should first garner a warning followed by an auto-report by the game.
  2. There should be a way to report characters outside of the "end game stats" section. I know some people might say, why should you randomly be able to report people. The answer is simple, the server crashes alot. I had a, not even a ranked or normal game, but a PBE game with 2 rage quitters, 1 rage afk and 1 toxic, as well as constant insults and fighting for roles. This is bad enough, but then the servers screw up and I never see the end game stats screen so I can't report anything about them.

Finally, and I think this is the most important for the peace of mind of many members of the community, the ability to track whomever you report. The reason for this is that it's all good and well that I report someone, but when someone calls me a "cocksucker", which was the lightest insult they use, for defending my friend when they start harassing them, I want to know that the person actually gets the restrictions they deserve. The fact that I can't play a game where I don't have a party of 5 ( I say this because even in parties of 4 I draw toxic people) without getting at least one Flamer, Troll, Ragequitter, etc. Makes me lose faith in the system I know that riot is working hard to improve on. Knowing the progress of tribunal cases would allow me and maybe others peace of mind that people who RUIN the game are punished.

To all members of the community, I encourage you to lend your voices, whether for or against these restrictions, I will gladly hear what you have to say. If you want more or different or less restrictions, please post. If you think these are too harsh, by all means say so. But I do implore two things:

  1. Up vote this just so that this discussion is taken into prominence amongst the community.
  2. While I know some of the groups of people I mentioned above, such as flamers, will down vote this, I hope that there are enough people willing to see and support improvements to the system that their votes will outnumber the negative votes.

4 Comments

Daen2 votes

Forums

  1. There should be comment and post censoring on major swear words and abbreviations such as the f word or "fing".
  2. There should be a notification if someone uses excessive Astrixes, for if someone goes inserts " " in their comment, chances are they are hinting at profanity. Even if not complete censoring, their should be an algorithm that checks for these and warns people before they comment/ post of the risk their post might have if they include excessive swearing.
  3. Even though for 90% of the people its obvious, the rules should state for the other 10% that swear words are against the "don't be a jerk policy" just so they don't quote you word for word.
  1. Personally, I don't like the idea of permanent censorship on the forums. It can be relevant or cathartic to use curse words in textual speech, as long as they aren't directed at someone.

  2. I'm not sure what you're referring to here.

  3. As far as I'm aware, swearing as an innate concept isn't against the "don't be a jerk" policy. If I were to say "Shit I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to offend you", is that me being a jerk?

Ingame

  1. There should be complete censoring, or at least checking for blatant swear words, and the repeated offense in a single game should first garner a warning followed by an auto-report by the game.
  2. There should be a way to report characters outside of the "end game stats" section. I know some people might say, why should you randomly be able to report people. The answer is simple, the server crashes alot. I had a, not even a ranked or normal game, but a PBE game with 2 rage quitters, 1 rage afk and 1 toxic, as well as constant insults and fighting for roles. This is bad enough, but then the servers screw up and I never see the end game stats screen so I can't report anything about them.
  1. In a stressful situation, curse words are a natural response for many people. Should I be reportable for saying something like "Gahh sonofabitch I screwed that up, sorry"?

  2. To an extent I agree, but this can also be abused.

Finally, and I think this is the most important for the peace of mind of many members of the community, the ability to track whomever you report.

Yes and no. I think that being able to see when people you reported are punished could be healthy as it shows you are making an impact, but I don't think that we should be able to track individual players. It becomes a bit vindictive at that point, and revenge is not as good a motivation as the desire to help.

AmrTheGreat1 votes

I definately agree with many of your ideas and perhaps your right with the idea that censorship would limit people's ability to use swear words almost "positively", such as in your example where you were apologizing. 2. I'm talking about when people say "f*** you" , etc. 3. Swear words inately, no, but my problem is used against others, so perhaps that should be specifically outlined, that they shouldn't be used to belittle or insult others.

About the ingame stuff:

  1. I see your point about stress and I think one major problem, not with you but about others, is they turn their stress into frustration at other people, which is why I believe that a private chat message saying "Hey Warning" might help them realize that.

  2. I know what you mean about it being abused, but if implemented properly it can work:

  3. You would have to link it to your match history, maybe even only your most recent game.

  4. It would stack with the regular tracker which makes abused reports ineffectual.

About my final comment, perhaps I phrased it wrong, what I meant was not track the person but the report itself. To know when the report has been reviewed and when action was or was not taken upon it would allow people to realize that they might have helped clean up the community.

I'm really glad you lended your voice to the conversation and I think your posts helped me see some of the weaknesses in my propositions. I hope you help support this discussion through to the end.

Amr

Daen3 votes
  1. Swear words inately, no, but my problem is used against others, so perhaps that should be specifically outlined, that they shouldn't be used to belittle or insult others.

Generally speaking, belittling or insulting others is against the rules regardless of the words used to do so. Saying "stop being so f*cking bad at this game" is punished very similarly to "stop sucking, baddie".

  1. I see your point about stress and I think one major problem, not with you but about others, is they turn their stress into frustration at other people, which is why I believe that a private chat message saying "Hey Warning" might help them realize that.

This is true, though once that stress and frustration reaches a certain level it results in punishment. I don't think it would be healthy to be much more strict than the system is now, because any time someone ever had a bad game they would immediately be warned or punished.

AmrTheGreat1 votes

I understand what you mean about it might not being healthy if the system was more strict, however:

  1. The system really does not some changes because I can attest to drawing at least 1 flamer every single game, whether at me or a teammate that I'm in que with or a teammate I've never met before nor will ever see again. I would gladly have more faith in the system if I saw the actual effects of it. For example, when chat restrictions was first implemented there were a decent amount of people with limited chat. However, it clearly isn't cutting it if I can't go a game without someone insulting someone else. I personally think riot really should take some measures to further clean up but you are entitled to your opinion. Also, I'm not saying immediatly, I'm talking about if someone posts like 3 or 4 swear words/ insults they get a warning then 2-3 later they get auto reported. It's not like instaban for having a bad game

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