You just hit the nail on the head my friend. If you choose to read it that way. It seems you’re looking to view something negatively or perceive it as negative. I’m not saying it is or isn’t but try reading it another way. Stop looking for the worst in people.
Its the WoW forums. You kinda need to.
Non participation to tank rating then boosting is quite toxic imo.
This is called a strawman fallacy. Of course other cultures have value systems. The dominant value system in America is white corporate capitalism and, presumably, those are the values Blizzard is going to enforce in game. And no I’m not suggesting some sort of cultural relativistic argument like: “well, what about taliban players, they don’t think women should be allowed out in public without men, so we should allow them to call women in wow harlots.” I’m saying that language is descriptive not prescriptive, and that a term that may offend white sensibilities is not intended to offend (nor offensive) to others, and I don’t see any indication that Blizzard will attempt to account for those cultural differences.
One example I saw in another thread is that people in Australia use the “see you next tuesday” word in a friendly, jovial manner to refer to their friends. So does it matter that the word was used with no offensive intent or not? If not, why not just publish the list of banned words and lets take a look at it and debate them rather than just hide behind the vague “could be offensive” nonsense? Because Blizzard doesn’t want to be held accountable for selective enforcement that elevates white cultural sensibilities over all others.
(Leaving aside that the first response to this is most recognized for their trolling…)
On one hand I want people to be able to be adults and say and do adult things. On the other it’s clear there are too many people now who believe “adult things” includes abusing total strangers, generally treating people like garbage, and silently accepting that behavior while you or someone in your group is receiving.
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As far as I can tell that is Battleground oriented and would be related to someone intentionally causing the team to lose with sabotage. Also raid situation where someone is repeatedly pulling the boss to wipe the raid, or pulling trash on purpose to wipe. Things like that. You can already ticket for raid disruption like that, but it has to be done manually. This seems to make that easier.
Correct. The game is held to a T standard and is rated by the ESRB for that. The game content is static - pre-programmed - and can use mild profanity suitable for teens. Same with some mild innuendo and poop jokes.
Player content (names and chat) is not rated because it is created on the fly. Player content has to follow the Policies of the game company. For Blizzard, no matter which game or rating, their policy is the same and it is quite family friendly. Always has been.
I realize that having one set of rules for programmed content and one for player content is a bit confusing, but it makes more sense when you look at the nature of real time social contact vs programmed content that is reviewed ahead of time.
I have thought some about this. I realize people might use categories incorrectly, esp at first. If Blizzard finds that the categories are not working well, and they are getting a ton of false reports, they can review the system and make adjustments to better educate players on what to use and when.
If you would not say something in your local court house, business office, etc, don’t say it in public chats. There is a time and a place for everything. I am sure you know the difference.
Same goes for being offensive. Most people are aware of what is generally offensive in public settings. If they don’t know, the first warning in game, or Silence, will give them an idea. If they don’t stop them penalty can escalate.
Those are for parents to protect kids from people who can’t follow the rules. The rules have ALWASYS prohibited profanity and offensive speech in WoW. The existence of a filter or Ignore does not mean you get to break the rules you agreed to.
Masked profanity his not allowed in game or on the forums. So if reported then yes, a person can get penalized for it.
Mature Language Filter (aka The Profanity Filter)
- This can be activated within your Interface Options: Main menu (ESC key by default) Click Interface > Social and check - Mature Language Filter.Once enabled, all inappropriate words in our profanity database will be filtered and masked to appear as jumbled characters, such as ‘*##@&’.
Note: The filter does not excuse the language used. The filter serves as a temporary shield, to help parents of minors and others who do not wish to see it, to block it. Our policies prohibit the use of both clear and masked inappropriate language.
The player base has always been pretty bad in online games in general. Blizzard also has issues. Cleaning up both is good. One does not negate or excuse the other.
Not really. We agreed not to use profanity or masked profanity in game or forums starting back in 2004. That is the only side Blizz cares about.
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This.
I stopped talking in Public Chat Channels LONG before this Social Contract came into play.
It’s another reason I play Solo and Guildless.
Little bit of advice. There are 360 degrees in a circle. Half of a circle is 180 degrees. I hope that helps.
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It was bait. You took it.
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Yeah it was an old joke about the xbox 360 that i still use all the time. Edit: because I’m old now I guess.
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When players are given more power to ban others based upon their feelings, reporting systems become abused. The great reckoning is nearly upon us. Delete your in-game chats now before you make a mistake in game based upon your own feelings and risk being banned by others. Don’t slip up and lose all of those years you invested into WoW just because you hurt someone else’s.
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I’m not even white and I reflexively roll my eyes at comments like these.
What. Are you talking. About.
If we all know what these words are, why not just publish the list and have a hard and fast rule that you can’t use these banned words/terms/phrases? Why not just eliminate any ambiguity “may offend” entails? Notice that when you’re driving, the speed limit signs don’t say “don’t drive too fast.” They explicitly tell you that if you go past a certain speed you’re breaking the law and are subject to getting a ticket. We don’t want traffic cops enforcing their arbitrary individual notions of fastness on us, so why do we want to allow individual CS reps to enforce their individual notions of offense?
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Um…wow.
I’ve never reported anyone for foul language. I have the filter on so the little children who can’t control themselves by typing obscenities, breaking the rules just look very very silly.
But your obnoxious attitude about this topic kind of makes me want to report people who have no consideration for others and for the agreement they signed.
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I feel like the term “Social Contract” is what bothers me the most here, what is this “Social Contract” covering that the ToS doesn’t. Also this “Just the start” like what’s next? What sort of topics are you looking to police? I don’t like F bombs being dropped anymore than the next adult and maybe it’s just the wording but it does make me perk up in apprehensive curiosity. Is this going to be used to protect Role Players who get harassed by people throwing down loads of toys or those eye burning biolumincent fish?
- language and player creativity constantly evolves
- there is no way a list could cover everything that is considered profanity, hateful, racist, etc.
- people try to rules lawyer and argue their way out of things
At the end of the day it is Blizzard’s house and Blizzard’s rule and the GMs need to be able to make their decisions. They don’t give us a list of all the bot programs that you can be banned for either… heh
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Wow, so players are going to get reported and risk being banned for typing symbols in the place of words where you don’t even know what words they are replacing for symbols are in the first place. This is insane. 
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oh stop. you know perfectly well from context what the words are intended to be.
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Yes. That has been the rule since 2004.
https://web.archive.org/web/20041217101250/http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.shtml
- (i) Transmit or post sexually explicit images or other content or language which in the sole discretion of Blizzard Entertainment is deemed to be offensive; nor shall you transmit any unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable content or language, nor may you use a misspelling or an alternative spelling to circumvent the content and language restrictions listed above;
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Would be funny if we had to take a multiple choice question exam first. lol
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