Policy Updates

Red Sonya is a movie made by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1980's. Therefore, your name is copyright infringement. Enjoy your report.

Man Regina, in addition to making it illegal to champ farm + leech, you could also have made it illegal to sync RA ...

First Part:
on a lighter side:
what if someone's name is Jesus? or Hitler. It is a name after all and i am just wandering.

On other stuffs, I need clarification/answer:
I think now is a good time to ask.

"The whole reason for having a Rules of Conduct is to make sure that the game world is a pleasant place to be."

I find players syncing RA to be extremely unpleasant, its exactly the same as the above issue, Jesus is a name given to many male child around the world. while I don't find it offensive that someone would name their character Jesus, I am sure a lot of other players would think its a blasphemes of a Joke directed towards the related religion and find it offensive. So ArenaNet take action because a part of its players base find that offensive because it makes the game world an unpleasant place to be, right, so the name issue has seen so much attention.

Now, what about me? am I not your customer, am I not a Guild Wars player? don't I also deserve some attention because I find the Game World to be unpleasant when other players sync in area where you are not suppose to form a group before entering? Are my idea of "an unpleasent game world to be" disregard by ArenaNet?

Second part:
Now I ask you ArenaNet:
How do you translate this: "Engaging in PvP match manipulation, disrupting a PvP match by not actively playing in good faith, or any other form of PvP griefing, exploitation, or abuse."

what area is the game is consider PvP
what is mean by "not actively playing in good faith
what is other form of PvP griefing? exploitation and abuse?

if you say Random Arena is PvP and that sync in griefing and exploitation and abuse, then please disregard the first part of this post and proceed to the next part to receive my bear hugs and thanks

you should see a bear huggy someone here. but i dont' want to steal anyones pictures. anyway.

thanks for reading.

For HB, the solution is as easy as removing the /roll and /Rock /Papper /Sccissors emotes from there.

For the 'not report' problem, there should be a way to detect inactivity, and a message would show in a dialog box with a sound: "<character name> seems to be inactive, consider reporting his behavior with the /report <character name> command."

- I can't stop laughing.

Ur Mommas Pen0r becomes Sir Elmcmor McKnight

Okay so here's the ultimate way to grief someone. Just find some PvE'r who's bragging with all the titles he's got, report his name as offensive - after all who's to say you couldn't be offended by something - then he might be forced to get some lame and his years of "work" will be in vain.

I was just about to say that lol. Thanks Stargazer, and thanks Arduinna for your reply too. Some people are just complete... well you know.
A person spending his/her pasttime reporting others just for fun are exactly the kind of people that make me feel like never ever PUGging again in GW. Who the hell gets kicks out of reporting others just for the heck of it? Is that your idea of fun Red Sonya? That's really... sad...

But it proves my point on this whole policy thing.
"Hey, this guy pissed me off on a public community forum! I'm gonna look him up ingame and report his ass hahahaha!". Well good luck. Have a blast. :\

Fun is what the individual finds as fun. SO, yes it's FUN to me and I'm doin it I already reported two names this morning. If you don't like it oh well Anet has approved it and I'm not doing anything wrong and btw my ingame name is never names I use on forums. Do you really think it bothers me that you don't like my type of FUN? hahaha it just makes it MORE FUN to me that it bothers YOU!

that is so sad. but I thank you for making my point so clear.

A lot of people fail to realize that this is how the LAW works in real life.

Negligence actions, for example, are not based on your subjective views. Courts look at things objectively, with a "reasonable person" standard. Just because you subjectively "thought you could drive well while drunk," doesn't make that a defense to your actions.

Authorities look instead at what a reasonably prudent person would consider negligent behavior. A reasonable person would say it is negligent to drive drunk.

A reasonable person would find your names to be offensive. Just because it isn't offensive to you, doesn't change the fact that it is.


Again, this is how the court system actually works. Of course it may not seem "fair" to apply someone else's standard to your behavior, but that makes people act with caution.

does this mean the names i researched so i could name my gals in another language could get banned?! i looked up langauges the selected names with non offensives english translation, some name which are rather cute. does this mean i could get reported for them? i know one langauge word can have other meanings in other langauges. grrr anet! this will suck if i have to do that i spent to much money and time on my gals. As for the leeching yeah right anet. as the saying goes "Actions speak Louder then Words" when i see known leechers gone from fa/jq then i will believe you!

LOL does that include NPC character names?

I got banned for ghost farter,( a spirit spamming rit)

but theres a NPC named deep root.....

Can I report deep root? He is in props...lol

Your no. 1. just completely misses the point I was trying to make, but I was kinda expecting someone to come up with this fairly quickly

Your no. 2. altho gets the point and this is what I'm trying to figure out here. As God is major figure in some religions in this world, would it be bannable name full stop and if so why it is ok to have it displaying as a title under you character name?

If God as a word is not bannable, but only if it is attached to a nasty context, then it's all clear and happy-hanki-doori.

Some clarification from Anet would be nice.

Lotta guys from Catholic countries named Jesus.

As for the "reasonable person" standard - it works fine when there is well-defined historical case law to guide the judge and society on behavior, but ANet is basically trying to enforce censorship here. This is private property and they have the right, but there isn't any set of historical guidelines to educate people on expected behavior. Codifying the rules is a step in the right direction, but this set of rules may prove too restrictive. You could attack a lot of names that have been kicking around for years under these rules.

Similarly, the match manipulation rules will prove difficult and costly to enforce. A literal reading suggests that this bans ganking in Halls matches. That's a lot of matches to have to sift through and administer.

Writing statutes broadly often seems like the appropriate way to deter, but the problem is that broad statutes are costly to enforce. My suspicion is that either these new rules will either need to be rewritten, or ANet will prove unwilling to bear the costs necessary to enforce all of these rules and we'll land back where we started with unclear standards.

God can be used as a noun or a proper noun. Lyssa, Melandru, Grenth etc. are gods and the father of Christ is a god who we often refer to as God.

~~~

Is it only me who finds General Kumtash pornographic?

Nice try but you fail. The movie is Red Sonja. No "y" in it.

Responsible parents would check the age limit BEFORE buying it for their kids!

Responsible parents would also get on the game themselves and see what the game is all about. Or at least sit with there kid awhile to check it out.

There seems to be some confusion about the update to the Naming Policy, which was provided more detail based upon existing guidelines in the User Agreement, and the enforcement of our policies.

People here seem to think that we're going to be even more strict than we were in the past because we published the Naming Policy. That's not the case. We put into writing what we have already been enforcing. The only thing that has changed about enforcement of the acceptable names policy is on the second offense.

Nope, just Spain.

It's Jesus only there. Other countries, while have Jesus as a name, don't name kids like that because... well, people might make fun of them. That's a common name only in Spain and Spanish-speaking countries.

In short, I think what Regina is saying that ANET just wanted the policies in actual black and white so if there is an issue, its something to turn to and say "here is the reason, you violated it" instead of... "well... we said somthing about it 2-3 years ago, but we cant really back that up because we dont have physical proof of the rule that you voilated". And that this is not an actual global change to the rules, or increased policing (although I feel an increase is much needed)...

Its basicully to cover their "booty" for the betterment of the community.

Clarity is good; especially regarding enforcement of policies...

Hey, isn't GW rated teen?

If someone can't handle a bit of rough language or a joke, maybe they're underageB& and perhaps they should be the one getting banned. 10 years old is too young to be on an online game.

So, will my name (Ele) be banned? Its GW-related, although it didnt come from GW tho.

Good to hear, that pvp play and report system are taken into account on "to improve" list

Regina, the reason that you're likely to catch some additional /report traffic with an explicit policy is that players will know with relative certainty what they can get other players banned for.

Given known power, certain segments of your audience (eg: Red Sonya) will use it. Extra /reports are costly to administer, so you end up compelled (in the short run) to either assign more people to deal with the problem, run backlogged, or enforce the policy loosely.

- Yes, but have you considered that maybe there isn't a proficient judge with 10 years of experience on the other side of the table? Which of the three people working on GW1 is going to sit there evaluating if the reported name indeed had offensive insinuations on foreign language, or that the person's actual name indeed wasn't "Jesus"?

No, it's based on automated system. Ten people report, account gets mark. Whine on support system, then you might get actual person handling your issue. I wouldn't bet my money on that though. This silliness isn't worth wages. Laws work in such way that threat of punishment makes individual inhibit the action. Just like words "we will carefully check our logs for every report" is supposed to take care of the brunt of abusers. It doesn't mean that they will do as they say. Companies lie all the time when it's to their benefit.

Regina,

perhaps this might inspire anet in deciding how best to deal with leechers.

Thanks for the info.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...light=leeching

Not quite, though we're pretty off topic here. But the objective, reasonable person standard you mention is strictly for negligence actions, by which I mean a civil action seeking damages due to some accident, etc. The issue with criminal violations such as drunk driving is simply whether you did the crime, in this case driving over the legal limit. That a reasonable person would or would not say it is negligent to drive drunk does not matter. Also, subjective thought does matter sometimes, like in some forms of murder. As for how all this compares to anet's updated naming policy, I would say: bad analogy.

Not if you're Pagan.

That's not the point anyway, I think we all understand that it's the context of the religious reference that may be inappropriate. Jesus Loves You = OK. Isis Has Nice Hooters = Not OK.

As long as they investigate ALL reports as they say they will, it shouldn't be much of a problem. You know if your name is blatantly offensive to some (even if not to you), or you bypassed the filter in some way. Reporting your friends' characters just cause they don't like the name anymore is lame. Leave the reporting/banning to those deserving it.

The court system isn't retroactive with their laws. If they passed a law legalizing marijuana today, everyone in prison for it would still be there. Not that this is the case here, but assuming a four year character name gets banned as a result of the policy change (which it shouldn't), then it would be the case.

This offends my religion because this assumes Jesus exists. Therefore, it claims my religion is incorrect.

Ban please.

* Have offensive racial, ethnic, or national connotations.
* Reference sexual acts or real life violence.
* Are pornographic.
* Make inappropriate references to human anatomy or bodily functions.
* Reference illegal drugs or activities.
* Reference major religious figures.
* Reference certain real-life people that may cause distress (e.g. Hitler).

I am glad that they are implementing these. However, I see they fail to mention names that are offensive on account of sexuality. Fighting a "Gay Wars" in Fort Aspenwood was hardly amusing...

The User Agreement actually fails to mention homophobic behaviour...

Illegal activities: time to name a character Tax Evasion ;p.

It's his phychopathic daughter I'm more worried about!

But it's all good, they've been banned from the United Kingdom ^_^.

Jesus can love me all he wants, doesn't mean I believe in him either. Would you be offended if I named my next character Santa Loves You ? (Oops, spoiler!!!)

S H I T T E R Euros
O Yeah Fck Me
J E W C I F E R
He Ro In
Babyz For Breakfast
Fat Kids Are Hard To Kid[Nap]
Mum Says I Am Special[tard]
Iron Chefs of Pounding[vag]
Drugz Dealer
We Love Children With[Salt]
Dead Girls Dont Say[No]
Real Men Hunt Kids BYO[Boy]
Cheesus Crust[God]
Germanys Next Cocckmodel

The above list of names came from the GVG and 1v1 Ladder and from Tolkano while observing tournaments.

While there are those that may find these names clever and unoffensive, I'm sure that others would disagree. Anet doesn't object to clever names. But they try to keep objectionable names out of their game. And what might not offend you could well offend others somewhere around the world. I do think that you should have to change your name but I think the 3 day ban shouldn't apply until the 2nd offense.

I know of a few people that had names that lasted for years, were not really offensive, yet someone had an issue with them and got a few people to report the name and it was banned and had to be remade. Lousy system imo.

Also think it is silly to bring up comments about how young kids get the game and the parents might be offended by some names. I work retail and I have had several parents that were buying games that were EXTREMELY offensive for their 10-15 y/o kids. Very few actually asked, and I said "no, these are not games for that age group"; most did not even bother to check it out.

"Reference...real life violence" Hmmm...a game in which nearly every major objective is acomplished through killing is worried about acts of violence?

So, no names with hack, slash, stab, hit, strike, beat, punch, kick, bomb, explode, shoot, shot, blast, burn, raze, thrash, pummel, bang, crush, trounce, punish, whack, smack, pop, axe or hammer (as a verb), brass knuckles, fight, clash, scrape, smash, pound, wallop, knock, slap, puncture, cut, strangle, choke, terrorize, decapitate, behead, dismember, riot, push, trip, uppercut, tackle, elbow and knee (as verbs), jab, backhand, gouge, headbutt, hang, pinch, lash, whip, poke, prod, cattleprod, knife (as a verb), stomp, raid, rebel, revolt, rob, ruin, shank, armbar, headlock, wrestle, box, hijack, fisticuff, kung fu, karate chop, strike, break, broke, murder, homocide, one eight seven, drill, armagedon and poke...plus hundreds of others and all thier variation and nuance....like Smashy Smasherstein...are off limits because they depict "real world" violence? Perhaps this new rule is not specific enough? Perhaps, this is a good place to let common sense take a turn...the rest makes sense, kinda...but this is just...well...stupid.

The problem is still going to be in the /report feature. Always a person out there gonna be offended by something silly. Honestly, according to the rules Buddhist Monk, Saolin Monk or Spunky Monk can be banned because someone may see Buddha as a major religious figure within their community. A Chinese Communist may take offense because of their feeling toward Tibet...Athiests can claim ANY reference to religion as offensive and therefor claim all names with "monk" as offensive, even though it is the name of a class...perhaps, the review process for names reported should have a greater depth to them instead of more specific (and somewhat nonsensical) rules to what others may find offensive.

I applaud the attempt at clarification, but in terms of letting players determine what is offensive though the /report feature (maybe 10-20 reports...each from a seperate account before reviewing the name?) and banning names with depictions of violence in a game which has violence as its primary mechanism to acheive goals is just rediculous...

...unless, by "real world violence" they clarify further by stating specific acts of violence perpetrated against individuals or groups in either historical or contemporary context where a viewer of said name is likely to have a negative emotional response because of the social significance of said act. i.e. refernces to the holocaust, 911, South Africa, or any major terror event or tragedy in which people suffered and died at the hands of others...in which case, these have already been covered by religious, national and racial contingencies in improper name selection, making the "real world violence" stipulation redundant and not needed.

- Removed a reference to deleted material.
- Sun Fired Blank

Lutz: What religion (if you dont mind) are you?

Jewcifer... No one unless they are a satanist which Jewish People (both culturally and religious) are not do not want to be compared to the Devil.

I agree that any religous name could be offensive to someone, but it goes back to context of how the name is used.

The title (GWAMM) isnt refering to the Christian "God" just using its as someone of a higher figure. Hince accomplished 30 titles.

Not just Spain. It is also common in Portugal and portuguese-speaking countries.

Unless you actually think that Portugal and Spain are the same thing, which would auto-ban you :|

The only difference is the pronounication of Hey Zeus and Geez Us.

What about referencing an extremely old person? I like naming some of my characters after Roman historical figures like Caesar, Augustus, Caligula and Messalina. I do hope some idiot who doesn't know how to spell the freaking names (and probably doesn't know the last two from public school; I'm a history freak) doesn't get their panties in a wad over it.

(I'm thinking about naming future children Caligula and Messalina, definitely better than Quasar)