The Word Filter: Making a Case for Jagex
You and I are civilised people, right? For the most part, we pay for membership each month so, for God’s sake, why can’t we say “phone”? We’re sensible people, are we not? We’re not going to get ourselves abducted by some internet stalker for giving our address out and our mothers aren’t going to come chasing after us with a bar of soap if we swear. Why doesn’t Jagex trust us to make our own decisions?
Let me ask you this.. are you ten or twelve years old? No? Neither am I. In fact, I’m 20 years old and I’m quite capable of knowing that giving personal information out on the internet is a bad idea and swearing at people isn’t that nice of a thing to do to people you don’t know. But the fact is, Jagex isn’t censoring words for us. They’re doing it for the thousands of players who have not reached the age when their judgment is fully developed.
Why do Jagex care if a bunch of children swear at each other anyway? Well, in order to understand this, you have to sort of assume the fact that Andrew and Paul probably grew up in a household where children didn’t say things like “L0L FAUCK OFF U NOOB”. There’s been a censor in both RSC and RS2, but nobody really understands the big picture of why it’s there. Maintaining this word filter isn’t as much of a lockdown on free speech as people make it out to be, though there are exceptions. Jagex maintain somewhat of a social responsibility to their younger members by doing their best to protect them from vulgar and predatory people.
If you don’t swear and you don’t break the rules, then is the filter really that bad? Sure, there are those briefly annoying time where your words are falsely turned into asterisks, but you get past it eventually. My point is that we older and more mature people need to realise that swearing isn’t the means to get things done. The only reason we ever talk rudely to people on games is because the internet gives us that veil of anonymity.
To sum it up, I think that the benefit of the filter outweighs the drawbacks. Yes, it screws up. But.. I’ve always felt like an older sibling to some of the kids who play. I wouldn’t want them to be sworn at, I wouldn’t want perverted people saying nasty things to them, and I wouldn’t want someone giving them a link to a site which keylogs them. Considering that most of the people who play RuneScape are little more than children, is having a word filter a bad idea? I don’t think it is. Jagex are doing more than most companies in ensuring that children have a safe environment to play their game.
Tags: Runescape |
April 11th, 2007 at 6:43 am
I agree with you! But it’s really hard to come up with a comment so I suppose I have something to add on.
I’ve always liked the idea of a chat filter on/off button, as i was discussing earlier with you. But like you said, many of the typical 12 year olds won’t respect the fact that their parent’s may not want them to be subjective to such language.
Although it is not in the spirit of the game to swear consistently, it is “common practice” in this day and age for the occasional “for ****s sake”, or “screw you”. So in my opinion it is not a bad thing to have a filter with the option to turn it on or off.
Also, it is in the terms and conditions of Runescape that children of 13 years and younger are unable to play, it also blocks people from selecting 12 years when they sign up! So in theory, no-one could complain if bad language or PG13 content was released into the game.
Nevertheless, I agree with what you’ve said, I just wanted to have a decent sized comment. Rather than “COOL LAWL”.
April 11th, 2007 at 6:51 am
I’ve always thought the idea of a filter is a good idea. But Jagex’s problem is that their filter seems to be rather, for want of a better phrase, “over the top”. It seems to block out words or names that are completely harmless and can’t even be connected to anything unsuitable.
April 11th, 2007 at 8:32 am
Yeah, Brad, I think Jagex uses some sort of 3rd party software which doesn’t really get it right when censoring words. I think that all Jagex wanted to do was censor out all offensive words, plus all variations of these words (fuick, fauck, fak, fuk) and it ended up messing up normally spellt words.
April 11th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Yer its stupid, I asked one of my friends what his phone number was and it came up with ***** number, they should filter swear words out but not phone numbers and e-mail/ MSN addresses!
April 11th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
I WANT TO BE ABL 2 SAY PHONE SO I CAN ASK FOR PHONE SEX OFF 11 YEAR OLD BOYS PERTENDING 2 B HOT WOMEN
April 11th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
kjth2003, the reason why they block “phone” is because they don’t want people giving out personal information since it’s against the rules. It’d be a little bit pointless for them to make a rule against asking for personal info, but allowing phone numbers and stuff to be posted.
And, shush, Creepy.
April 11th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
I’ve never really cared about the word filter. In general I don’t swear, but if I ever do I don’t care that it comes up as “****!”, it still expresses my feelings a lot more strongly than “Darn!”.
April 12th, 2007 at 1:19 am
Another fabulous post from MQ where she hits the nail on the head (although there was that weird picture inbetween…wtf was up with those dogs anyway?). I agree with you completely. The fact that Jagex does not allow anyone younger then 13 years of age refers to a law passed in the U.S. I believe where minors cannot sign contracts…the same statute exists for many services provided on the internet. Jagex had to do it to protect themselves and continue selling their product to their biggest market. Still I would doubt they wouldn’t turn a blind eye to someone they knew was less 13.
Awesome topic MQ…thought provoking to say the least. I hope Runescape continues to make the game accessible while trying to make it fair for all.
April 12th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Hah, Meesekiller. I’m sorry that the dog picture traumatised you so much.
Someone had to explain procreation between animals to you sooner or later.
!
April 14th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
The only thing I dislike about the censor is that they block very minor curses like “damn.” I think the average 13+ year-old can use these words without thinking “LOL SWEAR WURDS IM TELIN MOM.”
April 15th, 2007 at 2:14 am
Jay…you said damn…I”m telling mom on you…
LOL, ya MQ…being a 20 year old male…I’ve just never seen anything like it. The trauma is just too much for my peon sized mind to take.
Actually, everytime I look at that the funnier it gets…I think tha tis pretty messed up…maybe I should stop looking.
Awe screw it…It is way too much fun to give you **** about it.
April 16th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
Well look at World of Warcraft, there are up to 10 words censored and even so in Interface options of the game you are allowed to turn on/off the chat filter so you are taking the whole responsibility by reading it. It isn’t against the rules in WoW to use “bad language” while it’s not really being offensive to anybody. Avoiding or mistyping the world filter for a person is a different kind of situation.
I fully understand your pain, I only found out less then a week ago that I couldn’t say phone. Do you think I am some crazy 40 year old maniac sitting at my mom’s basement trying to get kid’s personal information by playing some online Java game? If so, I am speechless.
April 16th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
I have decided that comparing WoW and RS is like comparing a duck and a turtle…they both paddle on occation and that is about the only similiarity.
Oh, and Alexandr…if I think that will you stop posting on RSB&B permanently?
April 17th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Probably sp meesekiller >.