Short Version: I'd like to suggest removing the profanity filter because it's both inneffective and bothersome to everyone, especially the well-behaved users.
The longer version:
1. Currently the profanity filter is overzealous and filters things that are not profanities at all (or to be precise finds profanities in wrong context), and does it alarmingly often, which makes regular conversation rather difficult. Just to provide a few examples (with filered out fragments marked in bold, mostly from my own conversations, but some found on world chat):
- "you can always do ..."
- "less hassle than all the ..."
- "everything is explained"
- "can u sell stuff" (obviously not proper English, but very common internet speak)
Obviously somebody was trying to smuggle some naughty content in. Apparently you also can't talk about analyzing the game, eating shitake mushrooms, the planet Uranus or living in the beautiful county of Essex.
Even more inexplicable is the fact that the letters "gm" are also filtered out, which results in filters such as "attacking me", and the strangest one: "GMT"... Yes, you can't even say the timezone the server is on (not to mention topics concerning dogmas, enigmas or magma).
2. The filter can be easily bypassed. I won't really go into details how to do it, as it's not really the point here. The point is, if somebody wants to utter profanities, he's able to anyway.
Already those two points contradict each other - point #1 requires lightening of the filter, so it doesn't get in the way of regular chat, while point #2 expects the filter to be tightened, so it's not possible to bypass it that easily. In my opinion, this is already enough to render it useless, but there's more.
3. The profanity filter includes English profanities only (except "gm" which I have no idea whatsoever why it's there). With "Worg's Lair" being a GMT server it attracted a very multi-national, and by extension multi-lingual player base (and not only Europe, but I've seen player from USA, Canada, Thailand or Vientam too). While I'm aware that English is the modern lingua franca, and thus used the most, still, with the sheer amount of other languages used, the filter is rather inneffective.
4. Also a result of the multi-nationality of the game is the fact that what is a profanity in one language might be a regular word (or a part of one) in another language. Which is basically even more of what I already explained in point #1.
While these two apply mostly to the Worg's Lair GMT server, I think they're still quite valid on other servers as well. Just like #1 and number #2 these two points are mostly mutually exclusive. The solution to #3 would be to include other languages in the filter, which would not only be nigh impossible, it would multiply problems described in #1 and #4 several times, which are already beyond reasonable.
To summarize: The filter, as it is right now, is hardly as effective as anybody would expect it, easy to bypass and not including the multitude of languages used, while on the other hand it is already a big nuisance to regular users. As a result, I don't see a feasible way to fix it (as is the case with any profanity filter, really), as strengthening it makes it become an even bigger problem for well-behaved users, while loosening it will make it even more useless than it is now.
From my own experience I can say that the only reasonable and feasible way to implement a working profanity filter is to include the human element - i.e. assign a moderator.
The longer version:
1. Currently the profanity filter is overzealous and filters things that are not profanities at all (or to be precise finds profanities in wrong context), and does it alarmingly often, which makes regular conversation rather difficult. Just to provide a few examples (with filered out fragments marked in bold, mostly from my own conversations, but some found on world chat):
- "you can always do ..."
- "less hassle than all the ..."
- "everything is explained"
- "can u sell stuff" (obviously not proper English, but very common internet speak)
Obviously somebody was trying to smuggle some naughty content in. Apparently you also can't talk about analyzing the game, eating shitake mushrooms, the planet Uranus or living in the beautiful county of Essex.
Even more inexplicable is the fact that the letters "gm" are also filtered out, which results in filters such as "attacking me", and the strangest one: "GMT"... Yes, you can't even say the timezone the server is on (not to mention topics concerning dogmas, enigmas or magma).
2. The filter can be easily bypassed. I won't really go into details how to do it, as it's not really the point here. The point is, if somebody wants to utter profanities, he's able to anyway.
Already those two points contradict each other - point #1 requires lightening of the filter, so it doesn't get in the way of regular chat, while point #2 expects the filter to be tightened, so it's not possible to bypass it that easily. In my opinion, this is already enough to render it useless, but there's more.
3. The profanity filter includes English profanities only (except "gm" which I have no idea whatsoever why it's there). With "Worg's Lair" being a GMT server it attracted a very multi-national, and by extension multi-lingual player base (and not only Europe, but I've seen player from USA, Canada, Thailand or Vientam too). While I'm aware that English is the modern lingua franca, and thus used the most, still, with the sheer amount of other languages used, the filter is rather inneffective.
4. Also a result of the multi-nationality of the game is the fact that what is a profanity in one language might be a regular word (or a part of one) in another language. Which is basically even more of what I already explained in point #1.
While these two apply mostly to the Worg's Lair GMT server, I think they're still quite valid on other servers as well. Just like #1 and number #2 these two points are mostly mutually exclusive. The solution to #3 would be to include other languages in the filter, which would not only be nigh impossible, it would multiply problems described in #1 and #4 several times, which are already beyond reasonable.
To summarize: The filter, as it is right now, is hardly as effective as anybody would expect it, easy to bypass and not including the multitude of languages used, while on the other hand it is already a big nuisance to regular users. As a result, I don't see a feasible way to fix it (as is the case with any profanity filter, really), as strengthening it makes it become an even bigger problem for well-behaved users, while loosening it will make it even more useless than it is now.
From my own experience I can say that the only reasonable and feasible way to implement a working profanity filter is to include the human element - i.e. assign a moderator.
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