bleeped out words in alliance chat

B

Bonita Clement

Banned
People are using bleeped out words in alliance chat, which I thought was not allowed. When a word that is bleeped out is brought to the attention of the person in a nice, calm manner, there is not need to laugh or mock the person who pointed out the word. A perfect example is what happened today in alliance chat. My filter blocked out a certain word, that is controversial: some people think it is ok to use, and some don't think it is ok to use. I pointed it out gently in ally chat, and got teased and made fun of. In fact, one of the members said it twice, to tease me about it. I do not think that is how Christians should respond when an err is pointed out in a nice, calm manner. We should respond with sorry I didn't know (or somehting along those lines) or just don't do it again. Christians should NEVER tease, mock, or irritate someone on purpose.
 
what is your filter level at? If it's at the highest, I believe it bleeps out very small things that we wouldn't normally consider "swearing", correct me if I am wrong though
 
Gosh - I hardly ever tune in to the local stuff - too much spamming - but with team, guild or alliance - I have never heard anything objectionable.

Sorry that happened to you.

Yet, I will say - fun natured teasing is a big part of friendship and fellowship - even for Christians.
 
Ok, well I wasn't on when this incident happened, so I do not know what was said and therefore I'm not taking sides.

Bonnie is correct in that normally bleeped words are not allowed in Alliance chat. I know that this has been debated before. I think everyone reading this can agree that stuff like the F word will never be tolerated, but stuff like "This is crap" or "Wow! My pug sucks!" is a grey area.

Arena net bleeps out those terms on the highest chat filter. I'm guilty of using those words from time to time. (I really do find some awful pugs), but also have Christian friends that don't care for them. We also have some young kids in the alliance who's parents also don't care for them. For that reason the alliance leaders have decided that if Anet filters it, we won't use it.

That said, there are also times when the chat filter will bleep perfectly innocent words. Chat filters are stupid. You just gotta use common sense. I played a game once that consistently bleeped the words "Dragon" and "how". (don't ask)
 
Bonita Clement said:
People are using bleeped out words in alliance chat, which I thought was not allowed. When a word that is bleeped out is brought to the attention of the person in a nice, calm manner, there is not need to laugh or mock the person who pointed out the word. A perfect example is what happened today in alliance chat. My filter blocked out a certain word, that is controversial: some people think it is ok to use, and some don't think it is ok to use. I pointed it out gently in ally chat, and got teased and made fun of. In fact, one of the members said it twice, to tease me about it. I do not think that is how Christians should respond when an err is pointed out in a nice, calm manner. We should respond with sorry I didn't know (or somehting along those lines) or just don't do it again. Christians should NEVER tease, mock, or irritate someone on purpose.
Click to expand...

Instead of making vague blanket accusations do the biblical thing..first take it to that person in private..if that doesn't work get another witness(in this case an officer) involved..but DON'T DO THIS IN PUBLIC. Let the officers handle it in their forum that is how this is setup and that is also the biblical way of doing it.
 
I agree with you Bonita... However what Hescominsoon is pointing out is the proper Biblical way to handle a situation like this.

If you know the names of the people involved or screen shots of the conversations. I suggest following Hescominsoons advice. Go to the people and tell them the problem. However it has been made clear to some of us in the alliance what is going on. Please be sure and contact your Alliance leader as well so they can be your advocate.
 
hi my name is rick and i'm an officer of lion. i have children who watch me play guild wars at times when i play it. i have to keep alliance chat off along with local chat off due to things i've seen in the past that i don't want them seeing. i personally think anything that is caught by the filter shouldn't be said in alliance no matter what it is. guild wars has one of the better filters i've seen as in online games and is one reason why i play this games above others. i have admonished members of the alliance in the past about things they have said mainly the language and begging. i wasn't on when this particular incident happened but feel alliance chat needs to have some rules for it and those rules enforced. if some of the events were to happen in lion i'd take screenshots and bring this to the other officers in lion and request that someone else speak to this person about such language and let this know it wont be tolerated and if it were to escalate i may even request removal of such person. thank you kindly for listening and feel bad because my first post here had to be on such a sad subject
 
Unfortunately, the language issue has reared its ugly head WAY too often lately. It is my personal opinion that it should not be left to individual members to enforce, but the leaders and officers of each guild. I have scheduled a leadership meeting with this as one of the topics for 10pm eastern time on Wednesday on TeamSpeak. I realize that not all may be able to attend, but ask that I am at a MINIMUM contacted ahead of time if no officer from your guild is able to attend.

BY NO MEANS in this group of Christians should ANY form of harassment be tolerated. Christ called us to build each other up. If any of you is feeling attacked by another member, take screenshots and send them or link to them in a PM to an officer in your guild so that someone in a position of authority can step into the situation. In the meantime, remove yourself from the situation (Do Not Disturb status or use the ignore list, possibly as far as turning off alliance chat temporarily) and don't do anything to feed the situation.
 
Good advice Derk. I hope your leadership meeting is successful.

One of the main problems I see with the alliance is a lack of officers. I know it's impossible for there to be an officer on at all times. The solution is to promote more officers, but you also don't want to promote someone you are unsure of. I feel very very very strongly about that issue. I've seen guilds destroyed because the wrong person was put in a position they shouldn't have ever been given.

Concerning language, this is an issue mainly because of inconsistancy (yes, I know i mangled that word). Let's say you have a new member, Joe Rocket in the [XYZ] guild in our Alliance. Joe is a Christian, but he isn't used to controlling his mouth. He would never dream of using God's name in vain or using the F-bomb, but he uses some of the milder cuss words regularly. He's new and enjoys AB battles so he goes with other alliance members on missions and battles. He uses his cuss words and nobody ever says anything to him. He uses the terms in Alliance chat and again, no one says anything. An Officer of [XYZ] is online and these particular words don't bother him so never says anything.

One day, Joe uses one of his cuss words and an Officer in [SOE] is online. This officer tells Joe not to use that term. Joe doesn't get it. "What?? Huh?? I've been saying <bleep> all week!!!! What's your problem? Lighten Up Dude!" Unfortunately it usually escalates from there. Some people agree with the officer and some with Joe. What I hope will be accomplished Wednesday in Derk's meeting is that all the different guilds can agree on a set of rules and consistency (dang I need a dictionary) in enforcing them and then post them someplace where the members can see. As a member, if you don't agree with one of the rules, then discuss it with your leader. Perhaps he or she can explain to you why the rule is there or possibly have it changed.

Derk has said in the past that he doesn't want the alliance to feel restrictive and unwelcome which a bunch of rules tend to do. It's a fine line. We don't want to be language Nazis but at the same time we want alliance chat to feel welcoming and like a safe haven from all the garbage you see in local chat.

Personally, I'm not an officer so I've taken the position that if a particular term does not offend me personally, I will not say anything. However if an officer does speak up, I'll publicly back up the officer even if I don't find the term offensive myself.

For all members, I'd recommend that we keep alliance chat civil. If you don't like something that someone said, or if you feel an officer is picking on you for no good reason then discuss it with him privately instead of arguing with him in Ally chat. If necessary discuss it with your guild leader or with the guild leader of the officer involved.

Thanks for reading. Just my 2 cents. If Dwzart disagrees with anything I've written, well listen to him insteaed.
 
Raven, I'm pretty sure that is how we all feel. We (the leadership of SoE and the Alliance) are working on improvements to the Alliance, but as you have noticed, its slow. Mainly due to real life stuff and the lack of communication. But we are working on it!
 
I agree with TheRaven on this. We watch ourselves - we accept direction from the officers - if we have a probem we address it personally.

I'd rather not see a bunch of rules. How many would it take to make our guild absolutely "safe"? Where do you draw the line for someone being offensive or for someone taking offense (a subtle but real difference)? Wherever you draw it there will be people who think you didn't go far enough or you went too far.

There are Christians who do not think we should have any involvement with non-Christians. They think that will keep us from being offended by worldly ways. If one of our goals is to win people to Christ we have to be prepared to be offended from time to time - they are not Christians. Whenever you mix Christians and non-Christians or new Christians there are going to be occasions when someone is offended. Mature Christians are careful not to offend and are slow to take offense.

Rather than rules, what we need is a process for sharing a concern and for offering correction when there is a need.

I deal with this kind of thing all the time at the church. People are always wanting to make a rule or build something into the bylaws - when really, all it takes is taking a little responsibility for our behavior and accepting correction when it is given.

God be with you guys as you sort this out at your meeting. Many of us will be praying for you.
 
I am a member of a large non-christian guild that is fairly family orientated. Language is a big issue which we are firm on given the diversity of out members. The way it is done in my guild is an officer generally takes ppl to task but in a very lighthearted manner. This generally does wonders as the messages is put across but the relaxed way it is mentioned basically nullifies all anger or defiance. We tend only to see some language problems in new members and only briefly, which isn't bad for a non-christian guild.

Sometimes it is a quick wit that is most important for keeping a guild in order rather than a set of rules. Just a random thought.

BTW I miss you all and if i ever move to a more reasonable time zone i will be back before you can say "who were you again".
 
Imagine that - non-Christians being non-legalistic and it works out fine.

Thanks for the good advice ppar3566. Take care down-under.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top