Squadron name profanity filter needs to be more robust/improved.

Kurakil

Kurakil
Simply looking for a string of letters that are found in a list without any other criteria is too barebones. Too many words that are clearly not profane are flagged as such. I can't even use words in other languages without it thinking it found something. And when it finds something, half the time it isn't profanity in ANY language. I had a name for a squadron I was going to use but it thinks the string of letters G-E-L-L within a longer word is profanity (I entered just those 4 letters and it was flagged). Can anyone explain this to me or am I just not keeping up with modern slang? I've seen other obscure ones too but this is the one that is currently my roadblock. The word was in Latin but I know the filter doesn't distinguish that.
If it won't get changed or improved, at least provide a list so we know beforehand what is allowed and what is not. I do not enjoy wasting my time trying to be creative only to find out the product of my efforts is not allowed.
 

Jack Schitt

Jack Schitt
It's by no means an academically robust resource, or even a consistent one, but sometimes Urban Dictionary can point you in the right direction when you suddenly realise what an out-of-touch crusty you've become (about three times a day for me). Among a handful of unrelated definitions for GELL there are a couple that might be in whatever filter database FD are using. There have certainly been many examples over the years to suggest that it errs on the side of caution when it comes to potentially offensive strings, but ultimately only FD could give an authoritative answer and they've rarely engaged on the subject other than to occasionally whitelist a ship name manually when asked.
 

Kurakil

Kurakil
Apparently I am out of touch when it comes to vulgar slang, but it is not the developer's responsibility to shelter kids from potentially hurtful things. The game rating information is so parents have an idea of what their kids are playing, so if they are playing it then either the parents have allowed it (in which case no filter is needed) or they are playing it without parental knowledge/approval (which is not under the purview of a business), but whatever. I know they hear/say much worse just going to school. I feel all filtering should be managed client-side, that way everyone can have whatever level of filtering they think they need. As is, the filtering isn't even consistent for chat, ship names, squadron names. Even if the names appear on in-game assets, just disable displaying the name for those who have a filter set. (I'm not trying to come across as angry so please don't read it that way. Just stating things like I see them with as much logic and reason as possible.)
 

Codger

Codger
The profanity filter is...shall we say...poor. It filters out Assault Ship, for example, because of the first 3 letters. I think they just put it in to say they had one. It's never done a good job.
 

Jack Schitt

Jack Schitt
I'm old enough to remember when the surnames of both Professor Brian Cox and a certain author beginning with Philip K. (whose full name I still can't type here) were in the pRNG naming database for space stations. Both were removed for reasons but only after those reasons were pointed out, among guffaws and giggles, by the community.

Frontier were wildly inconsistent on this stuff in the early days, pre-emptively censoring forum posts -- and later ship names -- with an almost puritanical zeal while allowing absolute filth like the space station below in the actual game because they were too clean-minded to think of the combinations when populating the databases.

The in-game stuff was addressed in a heavy-handed way by removing the problematic names entirely rather than blacklisting certain combinations, which meant Mr. Cox and Mr. Phil were denied their place in future history, while the forum and ship filters still have their Victorian sensibilities largely intact. After eight years, I'm not expecting any radical changes.

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Codger

Codger
I remember another game I played some time ago. One of the monsters in the game was a Cockatrice. The name of the monster got asterisked by the profanity filter, which I found rather amusing at the time. I guess nothing has improved since then :)
 

ethelred

ethelred
Jack Schitt said:
I'm old enough to remember when the surnames of both Professor Brian Cox and a certain author beginning with Philip K. (whose full name I still can't type here) were in the pRNG naming database for space stations. Both were removed for reasons but only after those reasons were pointed out, among guffaws and giggles, by the community.

Frontier were wildly inconsistent on this stuff in the early days, pre-emptively censoring forum posts -- and later ship names -- with an almost puritanical zeal while allowing absolute filth like the space station below in the actual game because they were too clean-minded to think of the combinations when populating the databases.

The in-game stuff was addressed in a heavy-handed way by removing the problematic names entirely rather than blacklisting certain combinations, which meant Mr. Cox and Mr. Phil were denied their place in future history, while the forum and ship filters still have their Victorian sensibilities largely intact. After eight years, I'm not expecting any radical changes.

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Early on in the forum they were so puritanical about the swears that I got sanctioned for using euphemisms for swears.

As a self proclaimed linguistics bore I was indicates with fingers THAT close to writing an open letter to complain, but thankfully my inherent lazyiess kicked in and I didn't.

Thought they were absolute (wait for it) BAR STEWARDS for that though.
 

Saltyseadog

Saltyseadog
Not just on ED either, a few weeks back on a Facebook forum I am a member of I got a warning for racist language. It was on a fishing boat forum I am a member of and in order to compliment the photographer on a photo he posted of the latest Norwegian pelagic supertrawler I commented the following, "wow that is a cracker of a picture Kaj, thanks for posting". Apparently in "certain" parts of the world the word "cracker" has racial meaning. Once the forum mod stepped in it was all sorted out in no time but yes some of these algorythms certainly need to go back to school and learn that American english is only one version.
 
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