The profanity filter for Squadrons is utterly flawed, here is why

So I came back to the game after a 6 months break, and figured I would create a squadron.
I'm already supporting a player faction, so I figured I would give the same name to the squadron, and link the faction to it. Makes sense, right ?

My faction is called GCRV 4654 SECURITY CORP. A small federation faction, in a backwater system that I happen to like. That's not important.

Well it turns out that "GCRV 4654" is flagged as profanity. An ingame system name contains profanity ? What ? I reported it as a bug, and got an answer from a fellow commander. Here's the thread
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/466443-quot-GCRV-4654-quot-contains-profanity

The culprit is the combination of the letter "V", with the numbers 4 and 6, that can be translated in 1337 (LEET) alphabet.
4 = A
6 = G

So the combination forms "VAG" wich isn't even the full name of a woman's organ.
"Uterus" is accepted however.


Slightly annoyed by this ridiculous display of robot-enforced political correctness, I came back to check some other words or names, that will surely be flagged as profanity. Right ? RIGHT ?
Nah, what did you expect:


- The World War II german leader bad guy's name gets flagged, as it should.

- However, any of his minister's names are fine. The big bad SS leaders ? yup, totally family friendly

- The WWII URSS leader's name is also fine

- In fact, any dictator name other than the WWII german leader is accepted.

- Any combination of those names with the phrase "did nothing wrong" is also accepted.

- "killing ******* is fun" , where ******* represent the name of any oppressed/massacred population in the world, is also fine and dandy, despite being some absolute hate speech.

- "slaughter" is accepted, while "slaughtering" is flagged

- the verb "to nut" which is now widely used on the internet is also perfectly fine, along with all of its grammar forms.

- "chicken breast" is accepted despite containing the word "breast"

- Other words refering to the same part of a woman's anatomy is accepted

- the words "torture" and "torturing" are accepted. When were these words used in a family friendly manner ?

- real life drugs are also fine. I tested with pretty much every name I could think of, they only get flagged if they contain some other "bad" letter combinations.

- The profanity filter does not work for french words, appart from the few words known and sometimes used by english speakers.




In conclusion, I'm just baffled by how flawed this system is.

It's crazy that an obscure alternative alphabet is automatically flagged as profanity, while a LOT of other stuff can go through.
It is particularly frustrating because it can create false positives that have absolutely nothing to do with profanity.
An ingame system name gets automatically flagged as profanity ? Why is that a thing ? Every system's name, faction name, station name, etc, should be on a white list, and accepted by default, as it is already ingame.

About the other stuff I tested, honnestly it's not even something you have to think about for very long.
Some of those are pretty obvious troll phrases or words. They are very easy to understand fully by a child of any age, and they are all written in a widely used alphabet.
Some names should be flagged by default. Why is Adolf's name the only one ? He's clearly the most widely known, but the others did some pretty awfull things as well, and their names can be used ingame for everyone to enjoy.

I don't know how this system works, and I honnestly don't want to know. If there was a toggle in-game, I would happilly use it.
I'm an adult, playing an online game that I purchased by myself on the internet.

I'm trying to play my way, do my thing, "blaze my own trail", by naming a squadron after a player faction I created, and a robot is preventing me to do so because a combination of letters and numbers is a profanity somewhere else on the internet.

Please, think of the children.
Overtune the profanity filter as much as you like.
Make anything that might be interpreted as profanity by any stretch of the imagination disappear.
Be over-zealous, to make sure any kid playing this game will never come accross anything violent.


But pleaaaaase, let the adults toggle that thing off.

Thank you very much.


PS : to the moderators, I'm sorry if what I wrote is against the rules. Please edit anything problematic out of this post.
 
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Well this revelation has just gone and ruined the plans I had for a new squadron I was going to name m4551v3 d0n95 ��

I honnestly didn't try any other "1337 alphabet" letter combinations.
Maybe your totally familly friendly squadron name works?
Its just letters and random numbers, unless you know what you're looking for.
 
It's not robot enforced political correctness, its the ESRB Teen rating enforced censorship. Anything more than 'infrequent' use of profanity gets you a Mature rating.
 

sollisb

Banned
Interestingly, my MindPhu.. Squad is perfectly acceptable too :)

Also.. If there is a profanity filter option which we can toggle on/off.. Why is there 'forced' profanity filtering on the name at all?

2 dogs 1 tail? 1 tail wagging both dogs?
 
Because the name is visible to everyone, chat windows aren't I would guess. 'Online interactions are not rated by the ESRB' too.
 
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It's not robot enforced political correctness, its the ESRB Teen rating enforced censorship. Anything more than 'infrequent' use of profanity gets you a Mature rating.

I think we have an answer here. We are adults, true. We can cope with few bad words, true. But we play T-rated game. So we should understand the limitations. Sure, sometimes it would be nice to have Fallout 1&2 level of realism (anyone remember that?) but ED is still T so limitations apply.

We can always try to pass through the system with some clever wording. Such prohibitive system makes those profanities even better.
 
Just disable the filter. There's an option on the settings.

It's not robot enforced political correctness, its the ESRB Teen rating enforced censorship. Anything more than 'infrequent' use of profanity gets you a Mature rating.

Wrong. Online interactions are not rated, it's a warning that comes up in many different games.

Regardless, disable the filter in the options. Problem solved.
 
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Interestingly, my MindPhu.. Squad is perfectly acceptable too :)

Also.. If there is a profanity filter option which we can toggle on/off.. Why is there 'forced' profanity filtering on the name at all?

2 dogs 1 tail? 1 tail wagging both dogs?

Exactly, I toggled the chat filter off as soon as I could, but why the same feature can't be applied to the squadron name is beyond me.

Because the name is visible to everyone, chat windows aren't I would guess. 'Online interactions are not rated by the ESRB' too.

I'm not sure what can and can't be done to go around the ERSB rating. Aren't the ship and squadron names considered "online interactions"?
I don't know what a purely solo player can and can't see

This definitely hasn't come up before...

Yeah I know, I was still playing when the ship naming feature came out, and it was already a thing at the time.
I also saw the more recent stuff, from the beta testing phase.

I'm just venting my frustration here, for coming back after so long only to have to post a bug report a few minutes later, for something that's not even related to actual gameplay.
 
Well I want a working filter, no way I should have to read the incontinent drivel of some butt hurt teenager trying out his favourite swearwords; it's not 'edgy' it's 'rude'.
 
I doubt FD have much room to manoeuvre in this. Its probably imposed on them to keep their kid friendly rating. Yes, its silly, yes it doesn't work and yes its censorship. But thats the moronic world we live in. Where, in my personal view, peoples petty sensibilities are pandered to. I can view nudes in the Louvre but whoah betide me if Im seen knocking one off to a copy of Razzle on the train.
 
Well I want a working filter, no way I should have to read the incontinent drivel of some butt hurt teenager trying out his favourite swearwords; it's not 'edgy' it's 'rude'.

Oh for sure, as I said at the end of the OP, I'm all for a very harsh, very zealous filter to protect those that don't want to see any profanity what so ever.
In fact, I would go as far as to advocate for a filter that blocks anything coming from other players outside of your friend list.

But, a toggle would be nice for the other players that don't care.

For my personal selfish little situation, I'd just like the ingame names (stations, systems, factions, etc) to be part of a white list ignored by the profanity filter, because it just makes sense.
 
No I don't want to block 95% of the comms from normal folk, just those that think using the C word every 2 lines is 'cool'; a toggle yes, on by default but otherwise I don't want to read filth.
 
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