Was it a lot of people or just one or two? I’m an outlier in that I believe that if it’s a few individuals, you should use the mute/block tools provided to you graciously by the developers. I don’t see why this game should make the same mistakes as Warframe and hire a bunch of moderators with chips on their shoulders to turn the chat into a series of bans and eggshells. Case in point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNfC7Bgq9ig
For groups I think the implementation of a growing filter that can be turned on and off and customized by individuals is an excellent solution.
Moderation is a good thing in… well, moderation. I’m sure there have been cases where a ban was given for something said out of context, or a harmless ‘joke’, but I believe the vast majority of all bans given have been justified. When people first load up the game, global chat is what they see, so it should definitely be a welcoming environment.
As long as the moderation we do use is more or less harmless (ie, only ban from global chat, and still allow people to play the game and use local chat), there isn’t much risk of the power being abused. Furthermore, I think Pixeltail has been pretty lenient by giving progressive bans instead of just a flat out “Oh you said something bad, get out of my global chat forever”.
That said, a growing filter for certain flagged terms would be good. Having a way to request certain words be blacklisted might be a nice middle ground, though I believe for global chat some words are inexcusable to begin with.
Anything can be justified, that doesn’t mean the justification is necessarily good. The authority on bans is only going to debate their own reasoning to a point; if they want you gone, you’re gone. End of.
Yeah if they keep to the “Global Chat is Moderated Exclusively” rule then there isn’t too much to be lost if some little authoritarian gets their rocks off on banning anything that hits their nerves. At least then for any flaws their might be in the system, people are at least getting ample warning without consequences that spread beyond the chat where supposed offenses took place.
Well as far as having certain words being inexcusable for global chat; what’s inexcusable is subjective. I excuse things that other people wouldn’t. Some people excuse things that I wouldn’t. If everyone starts with a filter on then disables it by choice on a case by base basis, I don’t see who you’re protecting by making certain words universally banned. Because surely people who are offended by those words would just keep the filter on? Especially if it can be customized.
If the day comes when some authoritarian moderator decides to go on a banning spree, I’m sure the developers will have methods in place to track such activity and review bans to see if there were warranted. I’m sure an appeal system might also be a good way to negate this issue.
Now back to the filter thing. Yes, it is subjective as to what is inexcusable, and personally I do not mind seeing vulgarity nor do I get offended when I see people using slurs. But just because I am okay with it, doesn’t mean I think that a public community should be exposed to it.
I’m of the mind that global chat can be treated just as any public sector would. Whether we like it or not, if you’re out for dinner with your friends or at school or whatever, it is socially unacceptable for you to say certain words, but at home however, you can say what you want without anybody to tell you not to. This is how I see the separation between global chat and local chat. When I’m sitting in my condo with friends, I don’t feel like I’ll need to censor anything because it’s private. In global chat, anybody can see the dumb stuff I want to say, and in fact, people have already been thrown off of the game by reading some inappropriate stuff there.
Simply telling these people to set their filters isn’t ideal. In a perfect world, nobody will ever be offended, and everybody will know about these features, but we don’t live in a perfect world. There are gonna be children who load into the game for the first time and see all sorts of slurs, just as there are gonna be people who don’t realize they can set filters and will end up being subjected to it anyways.
This post came out way longer than I intended, so apologies for the long read
First point: I don’t have the same faith that you do on that front. If there’s anything we can learn from the DE fiasco, it’s that even people in the higher echelons are human and have biases, and they will protect their ilk. Ideally, I’d rather not take the risk and trust moderation over to someone eagerly seeking to push their political idealism onto a chatroom. It seems like in the long run it will drive Tower Unite down a politicized slope that runs counter-intuitively towards the idea of a game that provides escapism and expression to everyone who plays it.
Exposed to what? How people act on the internet? This doesn’t stop at Tower Unite, the online culture of edginess is reactionary, and to create an environment that screams “say this and you’re banned” “you can’t have this viewpoint” “you can’t say this word” pretty much begs people to react with edginess. My suggestion is that everyone starts with the filter on by default. That way, only the people who don’t care for the filter aren’t seeing it in action. Don’t ban for messages that are caught in the filter, simply erase them from view of anyone with the filter on. Have each message checked against keywords in the filter before it is sent, and if the message is flagged by the filter, only show it to those who have willingly disabled it.
Tower Unite will not stop that, and often it is children using those slurs. It is not Tower Unite’s or any games place to try and manipulate internet culture. Tower Unite is escapism like many other games, played from the home environment. However, so that everyone has access to the experience they want, I do encourage a (default: on) regularly updated filter that can be toggled, along with mute/block features. Everyone wins when everyone has a say in the kind of social experience they want to have.
I think the problem here is that a filter can only do so much. (still agreeing with most of what TENTACLE_BOSS is saying though, it’s a complicated situation) - It’s not going to handle every single situation. And honestly, the global chat is supposed to be a pleasant experience and a friendly place, that’s not too much to ask.
imagine a social game where people can’t socialise in global chat without being told that they’re stupid or that they shouldn’t be here (look back to when the germans joined us recently).
at the end of the day, this is a game for socialising and if there are some bad eggs ruining the experience for a large group of people (and pushing them away from the game) then there’s an issue.
I have trust in the developers that they’ll make the right decision.
I think a combination between a customizable filter and moderators across a variety of time zones should help to make everyone feel comfortable using global chat.
As others have suggested, allowing moderators to issue global chat bans exclusively should negate the likelihood of their powers being abused. It also doesn’t actually prevent the user from playing the game. An appeals system may also be prudent.
On a personal note, I don’t really tend to pay attention to global chat when I’m playing; and even when I do, I don’t tend to get offended by “edgy” jokes or by the things people say. But I definitely agree that maybe some more precautionary measures should be put into place to ensure that new players aren’t scared away from the game by the vocal minority.
As much as a chat filter helps, there are those who just negate it by T y p i n g like that. On top of that you can still be racist, or homophobic without using said words. A report system that screen captures the current screen and or copies the last 5 min or so of the chat would help.
