Profile: Farohar
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• • 72-Hour Tempban! For....

  • @ Greek_Matt
    
    

    Sorry to burst your idealistic utopian bubble,

    It is neither idealistic nor utopian ... so no need to be sorry. In many other countries swearing is widely accepted. Now I am german, and no one will look at me twice if I choose to use swear words in public as long as I am not targetting someone with those.

    but the fact is that every society judges its inhabitants and determines their social status at least to some extent based on their words and their actions.

    I never said society does not. I made a distinction between swearing and swearing AT someone. Merely using a swear-word to make clear that I dislike the current situation as opposed to hurting some person is a big difference. So basically I am saying that the intention of the words used matter, not the word itself. Steven Pinker distinguishes 5 different kinds of swearing (just check wikipedia) only one kind actually insulting others.

    Get angry or indignant about it all you like, it's not going to change the way human beings interact with each other.

    Please use proper arguments and stop telling me what to do or not to do, will you? Also, if you dont believe that the oppinion of a single person can change things, why do you post at all :P Appart from that, there are others with similar arguments, read that for an example: link

    Behaviour codes are enforced especially strictly amongst younger people (like swearing in schools) because it is widely believed (rightly or wrongly) that one kind of antisocial behaviour can lead to more serious forms, especially with young people who don't yet have a fully formed understanding of social consequences. Not learning lessons about behavioural propriety early on often can cause far bigger problems for the individual later in life... better to get a 'tardie' (whatever that is) now than get fired for abusing your coworkers later.

    Theoretically right, practically wrong - for the same reasons as stated above. What really should be made clear to kids is the stated distiction - do not use words (or fists) to hurt other people. Also your argument aint quite right as, again as stated before, that "that one kind of antisocial behaviour" is not seen as antisocial in many countries. Again here in germany, I never had problems when using swear words in school. Would maybe in kindergarden, dunno, but then again the reason WHY is seldom made clear to kids, mainly because grown ups (such as you I guess) dont know themselves.

    It certainly is better to get a tardy for swearing and miss school in a society which will fire people for swearing at work, so in that respect your argument would be valid. Problem is you are generalizing. It is certainly worse to miss school for swearing if you wont loose your job if you swore. Which I believe wont be a problem for most employes in the U.S. (depends really, but still one cant generalize that one would loose ones job just for swearing). So practically your argument is absolutely right, it just does not apply to swearing, or not to all kinds of swearing anyway. Oh and a tardy is, uh well, do something bad you get a tardy, get three of em and you get a day off of school.

    But moral questions aside, it is the legal privilege of any private arena to set and enforce rules of conduct on their `premises'. Whether it's a sports stadium, an exclusive restaurant or an online game, pretty much everywhere you go will have some explicit or implied contract of behaviour... dress code, code of conduct etc. So long as these rules don't discriminate against only one part of society, they are perfectly acceptable. Moreover, it's entirely your choice as to whether or not you want to enter these places, and hence be bound by their rules.

    This is right in nowadays society. Nevertheless there is the question where to draw the line when talking about discrimination. I feel discriminated as non-christian if I am not allowed to use swearwords (not addressing other persons ofc). Now I am a minority and therefore it dont matter apparently. Its discriminating nevertheless. Not getting into a club because one is not wearing designer clothes is discriminating too.

    In this case Disney have chosen to enforce a language code. That is neither amoral nor sinister, it's merely a marketing decision they've made and one which players agree to by accepting the EULA. Nor is it likely to be found illegal in any country where this game is sold. I'm guessing it's a completely automated function with a list of keywords that trigger an alert, not (as you imagine) an army of shadowy masterminds fingering through private conversations searching for conspiracies or titillating gossip.

    The enforcement of language code itself aint amoral. Amoral is to listen in on private conversations and enforcing it even if all parties involved not having a problem with swear words. It might very well be illegal to censor peoples language in a private channel in a democratic country. There are laws prohibiting certain products showing violence and profanity to be sold to underaged. Those do not apply to single persons (ofc there are laws against perfoming violence against someone ...). There is no law against swearing, not even in the states as far as I know. So censoring in a private chat is actually violating my right of free speech.

  • Posted: 5/06/08 1:48 PM
    Pirates of the Caribbean Online
• • 72-Hour Tempban! For....

  • Theres nothing really wrong with your arguments. My point though was a different one, namely that it is not a moral question at all weather a person uses swear-words (if not actually intending to hurt another person). It does become a moral question if marking certain words as "bad" will affect peoples social status. For example giving tardies to kids at school for using "bad" language (and consequently, after 3 tardies, expelling them from school). This will actually hurt the kid and therefore is immoral imho. Half the grown-ups in america use "bad" language at times - the president does. But kids get tardies at school if they do.

    The other point is, and that is where I do disagree to an extend, that I dont think it is OK for a GM to monitor private chat and ban anyone just for the use of certain words. If you consider that I am coming from a country with a formerly communistic and controlling government you might guess why. I do agree though, even considering my first point, that it would be ok to ban people if swearing in public channels. Also, people are also saying stuff like "Its their rule.. its in the EULA!" So what? An EULA is a contract, and as any other contract can have points which are not binding (i.e. the paragraph against reverse engineering in many EULAs is not valid in several countries which have laws that explicitly allow reverse engineering).

    And yes, absolutely, its my choice to play this game - or not. And I choose not to.

  • Posted: 4/29/08 5:15 PM
    Pirates of the Caribbean Online
• • is this game really tht bad ?

  • The screenshot aint looking too bad, neither does their web-page. Nevertheless theres no chance that I am paying 10 bucks up front for some game I cannot test and I think that many other potential customers think the same. Gamers had to cope with too many crap releases in the past years (not only MMOs ofc) and the common practice of offering free trials also played a role in people wanting to know what they pay for beforehand.

    If I consider they want me to pay 10 bucks before I even know if it is worth it, and also considering the "option" to buy ingame sesterces for rl money, i couldnt care less about this title and just move on to the next one - its not like RV is the only MMO out there. I wouldnt buy a car without a test drive, no matter how good it looks.

  • Posted: 4/28/08 3:58 PM
    Roma Victor
• • 72-Hour Tempban! For....

  • I dont understand how half of you people take this so lightly. Who is Disney to tell anyone how to talk as long as the channel is private? Even if it was not private - there should be a feature called chat-filter to filter out "bad" words. And as long as noone is reporting sb else no action should be taken anyway, except in extreme cases (what is extreme could be open to discussion tho, spamming "bad" language on some open channel for example).

    Tbh, imho, if above mentioned tools are available (i.e. chat-filter), it would be the responsibility of the parent to set up the game in a way their kids wont be able to read "bad" language. I remember some MMORPGs, including WoW, whose chat-filter settings filtered half of the words any normal human uses on a day-by-day basis, like "dog" and similar words .... even in npc-chat xD

    Last but not least: What is "bad" language? As long as I dont use words to attack another person, I should be able to use any word I want to. Its not the word which is "bad", but the intention I might have by using certain words. If that intention is left out the word itself is absolutely harmless. Im sick of having to watch what I am writing, only because some overzelous christians decided to censor language at some point in the past. Im no christian, so why do I have to watch my language? Because thou shalt not swear? Or because I shall not use the name of the lord in vain? Now excuse me if I feel that I as a non-christian dont want to abide to those rules. After all, many readers here wouldnt want to have to abide to certain rules other religions set up in the past.

    Im also asking myself what is worse: having kids use or hear(read) censored words or try to manipulate kids into manipulating their parents to pay for a service. Or weather killing zombies and destroying ships is morally any better than using certain words.

    For all I care Disney can go and *censored* themselves. The game is crap, it would not motivate me to spend my time grinding for more than 2-3 days if it was - even if they allowed me to swear all day.

  • Posted: 4/28/08 1:00 PM
    Pirates of the Caribbean Online