Anets naming policy

Falcon Dance and I are neighbors in the same small town. Our personal views and interests are extremely varried on practically every political and religious issue above our city level. Both of us have lived overseas as members of the armed forces. Both of us have studied other languages and cultures extensively from historical, philosophical, anthropological, religious, and social contexts. What we are firmly aware of is that "Politically Correct" isn't.

It is a shame that Guild Wars has assigned to itself moral highground on naming conventions and language when language by its nature is arbitrary. "Sick" now means "Nifty-neato," while "goodie" is a sarcastic and poisonous term for the undesirable.

Further, I know a great deal about alphabets and transliteration. There is a wonderful Korean term which I might write in English using any number of letters. The ones I was originally trained in by the Military are not the acceptable ones used in accademic discourse. What I write as Pyeong-hwa is not the same as how it would transliterate. Further, which Hanja/Kanji do I mean when I write it? Merely placing in the English letters does not tell anyone what Chinese character qualifies the syllables. I could mean: 1. Universal Peace, 2. Universal Contentment, or 3. Universal Rage. I believe the Pinyon for it is something like Ping-he. Which tone is applied? I don't know, nor in representing it in my native literacy is it incumbent upon me to tell you what concepts provide me with entertainment and interests.

All of my characters are named in other languages. Even Fitz Rinley means "the Bastard of Rin Valley". I so named him because in my personal role playing story for him he is the illegitimate and only surviving son of a local and unimportant noble. One of my charactes is named in an aincient langauge Chanting Sickle-king, that language is no longer spoken - but is used for religious purposes by a few hundred thousand survivors of the Islamic expansion. From Neo-paganism thru Platonic thought, all conceptualizations are living sacred entities, per the newly imposed ban concepts we must then ban all names which have meaning because they are sacred or demonic terms.

I am one of the first to require businesses to take and maintain a moral position and action in relating to and dealing with their customers. Further, because GW, and like video games, have an inordinate influence on the development of young minds I also require they act with an awareness of their responsibility to lead. However, demanding through punishment that people learn every language in the world or lose references to things that for them hold meaning in their personal lives and entertainment is farcical.

The only accurate and acceptable requirements for the naming convention are that within a jurisdiction of culture and law, no name violate the legal standards of that jurisdiction. In other words, in the United States of American you many not use those words prohibited by the Federal Communications Commision (FCC). These words are popularly known as the Sacred Seven and may be ascertained by looking them up on-line or a request for information from the FCC. To hold United States citizens liable to social restraints greater than their national ethic and law require is immoral and challengeable under law.

By suppressing personal expressions which are lawful expressions of one's beliefs the staff of Guild Wars violates basic tenants and freedoms guaranteed by the United States Constitution. When my friends, of any religion or philosophy, are denied the use of names which they hold sacred or of value, their freedom of religion and expression are under assault by Guild Wars. Guild Wars needs to back up, back down, and completely overhaul their policy post-haste. Regina is currently failing to do her job. As someone degreed in public relations, I can state this with authority.

Hear Hear!

Lines that has been Underlined are the ones I 100% agree with and couldn't in any way have said better myself.

Line that I've made Underlined and Italic are the one that I find cool because I do so myself. It's just more fun to have a role for your character :P

Lines that has been written in Bold, however, I think you should be careful with. GW is an international game so the US constitution does not have a full authority. Stating it with authority is kind of hard on an online forum since people will start questioning that authority and you will have no way to prove it.

But well said indeed ^^

Fitz,

For the most part I agree with you. But...

... the above is not true at all in terms of law, even within the US. Yes, we do indeed have a legal right to freedom of speech but using the 7 dirty words are NOT violations of the first amendment. There's one case where the supreme court has ruled that "F___ the Draft", printed on a t-shirt and worn in public was perfectly legal. Further, Guild Wars is a private space where freedom of speech does not apply. Anet's private resources can be ruled by Anet in any way they see fit and for nearly any reason they choose. Of course, IANAL but I did go to law school.

That said, I agree with you on the grounds of ethics. Anet should be fair with their policy but they do not have a legal requirement to do so.

Its about time they are doing something about this,

I am going to turn 13 soon and the only way I can play is if my mom is in the room with me, and she makes me log out if anyone swears or has an offensive name, I CANT literally CANT PvP because at least someone has a bad name, I cant give examples because my mom would take away my computer if she knew that I typed it out.

Also Steve Irwin was my hero and I couldnt log in to guild wars for a month after he was murdered by that fish because every other player in the game had a name that said Steve Irwin Needs Rez Signet or Fish Protection Jacket or something it made me cry and my mother also wasnt too happy about it either. I dont personally know Anna Nicole but I think they did some bad things about her name too.

And I just want to wish to Anet that they fix it so you cant even type out bad things or swears because my mom makes me log out. If you type something it should have to get checked by a game moderator and this would make sure that no bad swears or things like that can go to local chat because it makes me get logged out.

Thank you for your time and when I turn 13 I will be allowed to use swears so you can fix it for this year but let it go back to normal next year because I plan to cuss everyone out on this entire planet.

best post ever.

No offense to you as you sound like a good kid that listens to their parents... I have 2 myself but this game is rated TEEN

Titles rated T (Teen) have content that may be suitable for ages 13 and older. Titles in this category may contain violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, minimal blood, simulated gambling, and/or infrequent use of strong language.

If you use the chat filter then you shouldn't see any swear words. I'm not saying it's right to swear or have names that are slightly offensive but going by the teen rating you should expect these things can and will happen i'm afraid.

Anet should stop the auto ban on the say so of 1 troll that seems to make it their right to grief other players. They need to personally look into it BEFORE placing a ban, maybe give a warning ingame/email and ONLY ban someone if they don't change their name IF it really is offensive. I'm sure it can't be that hard to do instead of alienating players or whole guilds.

and totally unbelievable when I saw this:

axe
Krytan Explorer



Join Date: Sep 2005

Character: For Sale By Pwner
Guild: SPARTAN [WARZ]
Profession: W/

Great well written post.

Regina answered on the other forum: http://guildwars.incgamers.com/showp...&postcount=224

So to sum it up, guilds like shat will continue to be banned, the fewer the reports the better chance a guild will be banned(which is part of the problem). Since we have no idea how anet and ncsoft interprets their own rules policy it's a toss up on which grounds the rules will be put into action. Very poor response indeed.
Considering the track record in the past, anything and everything if interpreted offensive by the reporter will be banned.

Axe, I am sorry you feel that way. It is that exact kind of behavior that leads ANet, and other companies, to these kinds of oppressive rules. You intend to attack and make other people suffer because you disagree with your mother. That is bad behavior. You know it.

, Rowdog,

I did not say that the use of the 7 words was illegal. I stated they were the only "accurate and acceptable requirements" and limited it to this jurisdiction. They represent the restrictions upon which there is a national consensus sufficient enough to be codified. They are prohibited for broadcast in communications under FCC policy. They are not a matter of law, but carry the force of law as policy authorized to be enforced by Congress.

You are also confusing issues. What the Supreme Court ruled was on a right to freedom of speech in a political context. They did not rule as legal that charging into a playground to scream obscenities at the underaged was a legitimate and socially acceptable behavior. Guild Wars is a private park in which social rules of decorum are acceptable, but not at the expense of peoples' choices in religious, ethnic, philosophical, and political expression. Nor should a private park order those who come there to be fully conversant with the slang in languages they do not speak, do not care about speaking, and which cannot be learned from any standard cross-linguistics dictionary.

The few negative Korean words I know were learned in the classroom as members of my unit would accidently mispronounce a foreign lettering system we had roughly three days to learn. I remember when one of those words was the name of a lead character in a TV show spin-off from Happy Days. The Koreans in the LA region had a fit because a common everyday Hispanic name was derogatory in their language and wanted the show yanked from the air because of it. It ultimately failed because the writers could not make it develop any momentum - not because one group of people were incapable of tolerating a different heritage use of sound from their own. Guild Wars has now entered that territory. If a word means "Good" in one langauge and the same string of sounds means "Disgusting" in another, GW is going to ban the good word. Where I live this is exactly what is meant by the term Liberal Nazi.

My neighbors husband is commonly called Budha (One seeking Enlightenment, as opposed to One who is Enlightened - Buddha). He has lost the right to use the name and term of endearment that he is normally called in our community. That is more than an assault upon his right to expression, but a condemnation of his wife, his children, his neighbors, and his religious choices. Further, Abaddon is a god in Neo-pagan circles. He is also called Typhon, Tsephown, and Sethu-uluns, Sethluns, Seth. Why has Guild Wars failed to purge their violations of their own policy from their own work?

While GW has a right to offend all of their clients to the point that their games will cease to be purchased and the company cease to be viable, they should avoid that result. Ceasing to be hypocrits would be a good start.

Regina is failing to do her job in public relations because she is failing to coordinate tolerance between customers for the best interest of the product. For NC West and/or associates and affiliates to come out and state that our expressions, beliefs, and ethical practices must be suppressed in order to sanitize us to an atheistic bland baby cereal for their convenience is wrong. It is even more wrong when they are themselves guilty of the offences for which they punish others.

Actually, what you are saying is exactly the opposite of what Regina was saying.

This as well is a statement that has no substance.
We do follow this discussion, and there were a couple of good arguments already. We take those discussions to the appropriate people and discuss with them.
I am pretty sure I do not have to emphazise again that not posting != not reading here.
If we would all be living in a perfect world, naming policies would not be necessary at all, because everybody would be sensible and nice to each other.
As we all now, this is utopia.
I also recommend having a look at the naming policies other companies have put in place. There is an interesting link in this thread. You will find that we are way more liberal than you actually might think.

It was only a matter of time before things like this would start to happen. I'm surprised though it started so soon.

I think a sophisticated program and database needs to be developed that can be added to engines. Ofcourse this would be a complex task and would involve smart and wicked testers, programmers, data base admins and translators. Price tag is something for NCSoft to worry about. They can use it in their other mmo's too and if it doesn't exist yet, they can sell licenses to other companies.

Would be an interesting tool for gw2 too.

Anet are a bunch of corprate dicks, I can understand if a name is blantent like using the f word or a racial slur, but bitch is not a curse no more, they use it on TV, and it's meaning is female dog. So someone at the top is being an over zelious prude. This zero tolorence towords names has got to stop, yes draw lines at the ovious, but not the mondane, IMO.

But if they feel that it's there company and they will do as they want, send them a message by not buying their products, that is your right. Trust me when sales fall short because of their policies, you will watch how fast they change their minds and what they will suddently allow.

In fact customers would have more power if they did charge a fee, because you would just not renew. Maybe Anet understands that, they start out being open, and powerful to suck you into buying their product, then once a certain amount of sales have been made, they clam up on the consumer and their product, what do they care, they got your money already, while all you can do is curse under your breath, then they do it all over again. Most consumers will fall for gimmicks all the time, corprations know this, that's how they make money.

Anet's policy is just fine. This thread isn't about the actual rules (thread title might be confusing) but about the way it is enforced.

This will only work in a mature community aswell (just like the "karma"-system). People might start to mod out certain insightful posts that contradict them. Like JR said, the majority isn't always right, so a post can be completely wrong, and still get a lot of replies.

A heavily moderated feedback forum might indeed be the most "foolproof" way, if you manage to find enough people capable of doing such a job in a good way. And people that qualify for that are pretty hard to find, specially since it's a timeconsuming job.

I got a reply from Gaile confirming GMs indeed have final say in any banning, and apparently do think about every case, and act accordingly.
If "acting accordingly" includes considering every possible slang/dialect/... in any language supported by GW, they're doing it wrong (and tbh, that's what it looks like right now).

Plain obvious swear words or profanity should be filtered.
A word which secondary or tertiary meaning might just be tagged as offensive by puritans is another story...

When ANet chose to cross the third barrier they established my foundation, Sir. When one reviews the setting, scene, action, act, and actors, then there is automatically a new mode of rhetoric involved. You are free to return to the cowardly position of hiding behind walls and shields of bureaucratic red tape and isolationism practiced by other companies. But in doing so you will allow someone with the chutzpah to push the envelope to surpass any achievements you have made in interactive developer/community coordination. At the point where you recognized the community as something other than a target market to shoot at for money, but accepted their responsive input into your actions the isolationism was lost and the playing field became three-dimensional. Once that occured, the duties of the liaison officers/public relations officers ceased to be merely control of the public perception for best company profit, but they changed to something a communications specialist should relish and enjoy: the facilitation of interaction which brings improved creativity and community tolerance of differences within that community.

So, I have been informed. But my experience so far, even with ANet, is not one that produces uncondtional trust.

Ou Topia, is a Hellenic concept meaning "No Where," "Does not exist." The problem is GW is catering to Utopianist ideals which are now and have never been possible. The "perfect world" is not some hallucinated idealistic dream where there are only Saturday fishing trips, long naps, and no conflict. The perfection comes in not being offended by those things which have no power over you and properly offended by those things which have inappropriate power to enforce unjust authority. GW has crossed that line. While they may not be costing lives by doing so, a lack of intensity does not make it less a violation. And as those who have lost GvG standing, hours upon hours of effort and work, reaccess their wasted effort and punishment by a supplier of entertainment - perhaps they will also reaccess their patronage, and recommendation to purchase. Where is the reward for skill and effort, the Mercedes/Mercy, which was the hallmark of GW intention?
Why should we or you hold you to the limitations of conventions of backwards looking corporations? Further, declaring yourselves liberal does not increase your reputation. Being licentious until someone becomes a nuisance from excessive reporting by the intolerant and then slaming the reported around with running chainsaws and meat cleavers once you decide you should take action does not count as justifiable, though it certainly covers my perception of liberal.

While I do not subscribe to cultural relativism for the determination of what is ultimately real and ultimately ethical, I do insist upon it for what is culturally acceptable in a given place and time. While the internet is negotiating out the boundaries of that convention it is incumbant upon those working across traditional and internation boundaries to apply concepts according to cultural jurisdiction. Begin insisting that women be kept as third class citizens valued beneath the horse in the US because someone will complain about it from a nation outside our borders, and you will have a very difficult ride here. It is no less absurd to insist upon a political correctness that manufactures fear and repression of expression. "I dont know if I can call my character Red Thumper because that might offend someone if it is transliterated into Zulu or crosses some conceptual boundary for Condomble religionists. Oh no, I can't even just use a bunch of numbers because someone might be offended if they turn those numbers into letters and find a word in a language I don't know or a culture I have once heard about in a National Geographic issue and report me for being a bad person." You are not far from that.

some people should embrace reality...

he has a job to do, don't have a go at Martin or Regina for doing it

Lonesamurai,

I am in the world but not of it. Nor is anything I stated correct merely because I say so, there is no self-righteousness, because to start with there is no proof of self. Self-dom is an existential idea, a comfortable one, for which I find no evidence. I do not concern myself with being comfortable nor do I hide data in the deceptive veil of tact.

Nor do i...

Unless its work, then unfortunately,for the betterment of work, it has to be done and as that is the mans job, thats it

The naming policy is good in theory. Its execution is what fails.

Nonsense. US Constitution has nothing whatsoever to do with this. There is no right to free speech or expression on their network. It's private property. Their rules. Anyone who dislikes it is welcome to leave.

The first amendment says that ''Congress shall make no law..." ANet, NCSoft =/= Congress.

Guild Wars Guru denies total freedom of expression and "speech," too, which is also their right. It's in the rules. You do not have universal freedom of speech or expression anywhere you please.

Way to go Martin. I'm witcha man. I turned in about 10 more names today of characters and guild tags. Keep up the good work. You can't get rid of the riffraff on forums, but, you can give them a nice boot in your game and I'm all for that. for this is the real truth of it all. It's YOUR game, YOUR world and YOUR decisions of what is proper and what isn't. People that obey the rules and they KNOW they rules when they are breaking them deserve what they are getting. Of course they can rush to websites and cry foul and boo hoo and how innocent they are but you and me both know they aren't. Politically correct doesn't matter. Your rules and your decisions are what matters. I'll keep doing my part to help you out too.

Yes I would call that a full sign of socialism when you cull all those that don't agree with your policy or agenda. Lol so you've got only posters who agree with you that solves nothing and doesn't give any diverse responses to any topics. Only the same mind you could be called the BORG of cyberspace. lol

Well concerning the policies...

we all agreed to the Terms and Conditions and it does say on the box:
"Gameplay experience may change"

So as above, their game, their rules... deal with it or leave

That seems shortsighted. You know, the wolf is sacred to my ancestors. Somewhat of a religious figure you might say. Your guild profile under your username has the word wolf in it.

Don't worry, I wouldn't waste my time reporting your guild. However, that does show that their policy doesn't necessarily protect you either. Anything could be construed as offensive if you think hard enough. That is the point.

Its also sacred to me, HENCE the guild name

1. Rebel Rising: Innuendo of rebellious teenagers with rising erections.

2. Bruderschaft Der Verdammnis: (Translated) Brotherhood of the Damned. i'm offended by "Verdammnis"

3. Delta Formation: Reference to formation of fighter jets. fighter jets kill people. offensive.

4. The Cape Is a Lie: Lying about your cape is a form of ladder manipulation.

5. You Failed: Detrimental to my self confidence =(

6. Strait Outta Kamadan: they were born in Lions Arch, tsk tsk

7. Vroom Rulez: vroom(urbandictionay) is a drinking game that young children who play the game should not be subjected to

8. Xxx Final Thrust Xxx: reference to a sexual act in which the male comes to fruition.

9. I Disposable Heros I: suggests that they are using their heros in sexually inappropriate ways and then disposing of them when they are no longer attractive.

10. Edible Granit Pencil: may lead people to eat granite pencils which could be hazardous to their health.

etc etc etc....

If the personal self does not exist, then why have you previously included a story about your neighbor and his need to be called ‘budha’? Titles are markers of personal identity, authority, and importance. If titles are essential to one’s being, then selves are in existence; and self-righteousness is possible as well.

Selves do exist, but they exist between the personal and the universal. To have an experience as a universal self would lead to non-existence. To experience a fully personal self leads to insignificance; which might be considered non-existence as well.

This is correct. However, an argument could be made that a-net **should** model their speech restrictions on US First Amendment jurisprudence, not because they have to, but because it's a good policy.

Martin, when a notorious troll agrees with you, it means you should reconsider your position.

I find the whole thing a little too constricting.
I get the whole wanting to appease to all people thing but it has put quite a deadlock on everyone.

i couldn't make a character because his name was Good Old War, a homage to one of my favorite bands. [don't believe me, myspace.com/goodoldwar]

and it sucked, yet on the other side of the fence I can see how war would be an obvious offensive name.

damn doubled bladed swords.

Let's start with some real English, and yes I spelled out the wrong word. I typed 'tenant' instead of tenet. What I stated holds. Nor did I contradict ANet's authority as a private property owner. They may throw their party anyway they want. They will soon have very few attendees at that party. And the reason will be a violation of those "tenets" which are customary practice among free peoples. As they assault people for their expressions they violate those tenets. These tenets do have legal standing and social standing in many free countries. The social standing is more important than the legal standing. It is the social standing that will have greater influence and brings greater challenge to their inclusion as members of those societies whom they assail and bannish. Attacking people for expressions which the national authority does not hold inappropriate moves GW outside of the national consensus of ethics. Attacking people for using naming conventions which they themselves practice ingame is incredibly hypocritical.

Excellent argument. Applauded.

I do not find titles essential to being. I find them essential to navigation. The ship/vehicle is merely an onion carrier of the active principle reacting to experience through biological programming. The reaction is not the self. The programming is biological, and external to what would be the self. The travel, plotting, planning - performed by the programming - are not the self. Remove the layers of the onion and you have the empty - what you called 'non-existence' and 'insignificance'.

However, in the navigation of these seas the onion called ANet has smashed into the many onions with titles upon the same seas. The purpose for this is the lack of perspective by those who feel they have some self of significance which must impose itself upon the passage of other onions. Afterall, all onions must look, taste, smell, and feel the same or we cannot possibly consider them onions.

Titles are a part of personal identity, which is still an essential part to being. However, full self-awareness increases as one becomes more aware of both the universal and personal selves at the same time. Enough evidence exists to indicate to people where only following either the universal or the personal self leads.

The crowd mentality is the experience of the universal self. To fall into the emotions and thoughts of the crowd is to cease to exist. To completely lose one’s label/identity and become part of the crowd is a moment where a person loses sense of the personal self.

The against-the-crowd mentality is the experience of the full personal self. To fall purely into one’s own thoughts and emotions is to take on the viewpoint that the rest of everything ceases to exist. By taking on the opinions that others don’t exist; a person will cease to exist in the minds of those others, losing his own connection with the universal.

All of the problems involved between community and company are related to both of these. The company and the community have often taken a stance as either the crowd mentality or the against-the-crowd mentality. From these simple statements alone you can infer whether either of the two would continue to exist on this path.

Such decisions are up to individuals to make. I only believe that they need to understand where the decisions lead them. Anyone who makes a choice with full understanding of the results is making their own personal right choice; for which they intend to accept the consequences.

For the sake of this thread's survival, I just want to point out one fact (many may have seen it already but just in case...):

s/he's not "agreeing", s/he's "trolling", knowing that each of his/er statements will contribute to more heated debated, instead of the quite nice discussion there's been so far. And Martin talking here is a testament to that.

WoW's naming policy:
http://www.wow-europe.com/en/policy/namingp1.html

''... we want World of Warcraft to be a fun and safe environment for all players...''


Maybe we should put a condom on our fingers when we create a name and play in an mmo

I've been given permission to re-post this with editing done from its original form.

So long as we're speaking in psuedocode:
As far as the people you're providing this game for are concerned, not posting == not reading here.

There are dozens of threads on this website with thousands of posts. Unless you reply to one, people will just assume it's unread. It's not fair, but that is reality. Not to say I expect you to reply to every thread or post, but if you would like it to be known that you have read a thread you may want to consider posting something.

As for Fritz's posts. I fully agree with him on all but one point he brought up. This is ArenaNet's game, we have purchased a license to play it. Therefore, they are legally allowed to police names and whatever else they like on their property. That, by no means gives justification to these asinine policies Martin. Re-evaluate this broken portion of your EULA, and threads like this will disappear.

I think it's a rather different rule:

not replied = not important or we don't have anything to say (either because there's not enough information or we don't want to start discussing it)

replied = important or we have something to say

From Gaile's experience, they know how harsh (if not unfair) Guru can be. So better stay on the safe side, both for them and for us.

I was speaking for the forum browser's perspective. Whether they have something important to say or not, we really don't know if they're reading the thread unless they post. That is just the way it is. Like I said, it's not a fair assumption, but it happens anyway.

Aside from the few exceptional cases, I am beginning to think that the biggest issue here is communication. As much as I don't like strict naming policies, it is the industry standard for MMOs.

Perhaps a little more obvious communication of the policy and more transparency in its enforcement would help? Maybe it's the logging in to be banned that people object to? Or being left to assume why they are being targeted?

Perhaps an automated email notification with a quick one line reason from the CS rep would solve some of these issues? I assume there is a database where these things are tracked, and CS staff have to enter a reason for taking action. It wouldn't be too much work to have a script which merges that into an automated email and sends it to the registered account email address.

Another solution could be having the naming policy pop up the first time you create a character, in a short bullet point format so people actually read it.

I can't agree more with this statement, we did agree to their open ended terms, so we are stuck with their rules and changed that they feel is benifical to the community at large, even know it puts a damper on consumer confidence in their product.

So send them a message, boycott Guild Wars 2. Perhaps after they lose 10's of millons in sales they will rethink their rules and policies.

They always tell us that they're reading. Some of them have even been spotted in real-time (you can see at the bottom of the thread the nicknames of people reading the thread at the time when you clicked its link in the forum). What more do you need?

The time when Gaile was very active on Guru is long gone (I seem to recall she said somewhere how much stress being on fansites put on her job, but I can't find the quote anywhere).

2 great ideas, already mentioned on Guru a while ago, which sort of suggest that they don't have the resources to do it (it's probably not as simple as it seems, I've seen many big software where you couldn't add tiny frontend features due to the complexity of the backend).

Btw, the "karma" system does work, when people use it and use it "wisely" (which doesn't mean much by the way, you should have at least enough positive moderations/metamoderations to ensure that the whole system doesn't collapse under the trolling/manipulation pressure). The tool works when the people know how to use it.

The email is a good idea except for one thing: there are many of us who have played the game for a long while whose original email (login) is no longer valid or functional. PitA sometimes and Support is absolutely useless and inept when trying to change it (as in, it doesn't seem possible or it requires a complete recoding of the game, to hear them tell it. I know, I've tried now for over two years!) But an email, appreciated though it would be, would also be absolutely useless.