HOMO=obscene, HETERO=ok?

I read the op's comment and didn't bother to read the rest.

I'd have agreed to some extent with the silliness of banning the word if op hadn't gone onto a weird tangent about promoting homophobia.

Op, you fail. Hard.

Also, Ryker is in the thread so it's about to close, I imagine.

It just goes to show you how people get offended at any thing. Are people really that insecure?

If someone insulted me, my family, my planet, my shoes, my clothes SO WHAT! At the end of the day everyone should be entitled to their own opinion, even if that opinion is racist, hateful or what-not.

If I came across a character or a real person for that matter whose name was I hate "X" or Homos R Us or Hitler is Gr8 or Kill this and that, I mean who cares? In fact those people are doing the rest of us a huge favour by showing their mindset.

Sometimes it makes me giggle that a string of letters numbers or sounds can tick people of, lol.

Anyway, thats my penny's worth...

Pyrea, people aren't as thick skinned as you.
Some people easily get offended.

Cause if those words are allowed people are going to abuse it, that is why. And "the hetero words" are allowed cause people don't abuse it.

No, they shouldn't. Not in a commercial product.

ANET's bottom line is all that should matter to ANET in making the decision, and if ANET thinks that ANET will lose more money by allowing certain types of speech than by banning it, then ANET should ban those types of speech.

Hi dude

I agree with you. I suppose looking back years, I used to get offended at stuff, although now the only opinion that really counts is my own, as I cannot speak for anyone else ^ ^

At the same time, I've seen the same horizontal version used by a Nazi who ran around with those symbols saying 'Jews die in the gas chamber' in HA ID1.

A bunch of us from the American servers gathered together and spammed 'Nazis die at Normandy' back at him, since there wasn't really anything else we could do.

You could have put him on ignore instead of giving him exactly what he wanted...

We were actually mildly suspicious it was either a bot or asian, since it simply repeated the same thing over and over without actually doing anything else. It was more for the benefit of the general population there.

I don't close every thread, you wound me with your accusations. This is actually a good discussion and I have no plans of closing. I will however delete non-contributing, idiotic comments.

Exactly. It's anet's property and they can do what ever they want.

That made you no better than them. You sank to their level. They do it to get a reaction. If you don't react, they quit because it's no fun.

Yah you what Ryker is saying is, you just fed the trolls :/

...and the cretins who implemented this pathetic attempt at censorship won't allow me to name my pet Tiger "Bagpuss" after one of the greatest childrens TV characters ever!

The reason? Apparently it's an obscene name! What sort of complete moron deems Bagpuss to be obscene?

It is actually a swastika, theres variations of the symbol and meaning, but its called a swastika.

My point wasnt the fact that they are allowed to use the symbol itself, i couldnt care less about that, but they can have names without spaces and contain numbers and unicode symbols. but we have to stick to the Latin alphabet, which seems unfair, especially for Europeans as a lot of countries have their own alphabets.

I, for the most part, agree with the OP.

It's a stretch to say "promoting" homophobia, but...they are. By banning certain words, they confirm the negative connotation they've come to have. In this case, ANET is saying "HOMO" or "GAY" is a bad word, and in turn, they only further the cycle of discrimination.

I think I'll start making characters now like...a Ritualist: "Heteros are Gross" or a Warrior: "Garth Straight Basher"

Homo is a derogatory word, bro. It is being blocked because it is coded to be blocked. Why create a thread knowing this? There wasn't some guy at anet that thought, hey, let's block homo sapient because it has the word homo in it. They code it so retards don't try to shock you with their racy wit... Homo Erectus, Homo Momo, Leet Homo, I M Homo, etc...

Blame the retarded people out there who use a derogatory word and try to incite people. They are the same people that work at your local McDonalds in their later years and still smell their own farts.

Keep the name blocked and move on. I have better things to be pissed at anet for.

Here's hoping GW2 is 100% instanced (or offers a 100% instanced option). Then no one will be around to offend or be offended by anything.

Truthfully, Anet has every right to censor as they please; they are doing their level best (within reason) to keep players from being offensive to one another. As for the OP's original post, had it not ended with such a silly conclusion, your point would have been much stronger.

I think Anet did -- and has done -- the best thing in this situation.

Heck, I think "Hetero Sapiens" is a funnier name anyway!

There are too many things that are counted as unacceptable in GW names i bet if you called yourself The Black Snake people would say your racist, every1 person would reports someones name for being unacceptable as that person would.If you cant get the name you want just think up another.

I think the name thing really needs updating I mean you can't use names like mindburner but I've seen people with full on something to the effect of "mohammed muslim jihad" and that is offensive to more than just a few people so other than make words usable I think they should get around to updating it.

I'm gay, and I'm more likely to be offended at the N-word being used negatively than "gay" or "homo". I'll just get annoyed, tell you that I'm far from being stupid and move on with whatever I was doing. Hell, every now and then I get someone apologizing to me... which, TBH, is surprising.

I'll get offended if you knew me before, learn I'm gay and start hating me because of it. And I've had it happen a couple times. If I was Black, I'd react the same if someone suddenly hated me for being Black... because I don't feel the need to hate anyone because they belong to whichever country/religion/sexual orientation/etc etc. The person in front of me hasn't changed in 2 seconds from "team member" to "evil <insert what you want here> guy/gal", therefore no need for it.

If I "hate" you, it's not because of anything along the lines of your personal life. If you're an idiot, no matter if you're gay, straight, bisexual, Black, Asian... I'll still view you as an idiot.

EDIT: on topic now... after my huge rant... lol...

It'd depend of the use IMHO, take case by case as it's been done already I guess. Problem is you can never really tell someone's intention behind their monitor. "I M Gay" for me would just be telling the truth. For the next guy, it might mean that I'm gonna act like an idiot just to give gays a bad name. "The Black Snake"... sounds to me it's a black snake. I don't think about "Black" based on skin color - but the color itself.

Such things really of someone's cultural background, when you think of it. Can't make exceptions for everything. "Dupek" means "a-hole" in Polish, and I've seen a couple "offensive"/childish IGNs in French that makes me think "if they ban the English version of it, why in French or any other language". But it's rather hard to control, I can understand that.

Are you ignorant, willfully ignorant, or just pretending your ignorant? You have to not be paying attention if you don't see the enormous rash of homophobia and anti-homosexual thought plaguing the USA right now. Yeah, you can combine most words to make something offensive, but I assure you that 90% of the people who would actually put the word "homo" into their character name would be doing so in an offensive manner. The other 10% would, of course, be the butt of endless anti-gay jokes. There's just no need to have such an inflammatory word available, period. It's not worth letting the handful of people who would use it properly, to let the masses of people who would use it harmfully abuse it.

hehe... although I get where you are coming from, both the words HOMO and GAY are now derogatory words.... just like CRACKER and MONKEY... or even the word JEW (which are all actual words meaning something totally different)... and when I capitalize them... they are even more blatantly derogatory. And I don't know about you, but people stopped using the word gay as a synonym for "happy" a long time ago.

People need to stop using the "gay" means "happy" argument because no one says that was a "gay" time for me. That party had a really "gay" atmosphere.

If by right now you mean since well ALWAYS then you'd be right.

Unfortunately, "gay" "homo" and other similar words already are considered derogatory words. In fact, I'd say they're by far the most common insult with the 13 year-old online gaming mentality. Whether or not that connotation is ok is a seperate issue - Anet alone can't hope to change this, and merely has to react to the current environment.

I beg to differ I met this like some super happy ubeat guy and i described him as big ol gay camper.

My experiences are limited by age, as I'm only 20, but it definitely seems like the past...oh, 7 or so years have just seen an ever-increasing amount of it. It was ignored or suppressed before afaik; now it's outright hated.

Can't imagine what it is about the past 7 years that would make this so...hmm...

Related parents?

When I ask you, are you gay? How do you answer me?

When I ask you, are you happy? How do you answer me?

Now I ask you, do you modify your answers for each?

Gay doesn't mean happy anymore, it is related to your sexual preference.

Gay is a derogatory word now, and has been for a long time. Stop playing the devil's advocate and just move on to a more important subject.

To be fair I think they should keep it blocked. It could be used far too easily in an offensive or inflamatory way. We don't need more people running around taking the piss out of the GBLT community by using their names to incite hatred and mocking. It already happens enough as it is in these kinds of games.

I'm already sick of the word gay - in its 'homosexual' context - being used to define things as retarded or stupid, or wrong. Lets not give these idiots more ammunition for their sad little existences.

It's not Anet that are homophobic, it's most of the USA as a whole, and that mindset is indoctrinated into young people by society allowing 'kids' to carry on using the term in such a defamatory way. The use of the word gay in that way should be as tolerated as the N word...in other words, not at all.

It's about time gay people stopped being the butt of retard's jokes. We're people, not things for others to mock and abuse, it's 2008 for crap's sake...surely it's about time evolution gave the stupid people a brain. I'm thankful Anet are doing their part in stopping idiots making offensive names designed to stir trouble.

I suggest this thread be closed as anet clearly does not promote homophobia, they are simply blocking names which could be considered offensive. If the OP cannot deal with this then he should play something else.

You mean like this thread is gay? I agree. I get tired of hearing it, too!

Since this thread is no longer even ABOUT guild wars. Time to close it.