Racist Filter!

*sighs* You're the one who came into this thread hurling insults and name calling like a child throwing a tantrum. So if you want to call people morons that's fine... but it's really not going to help your argument either way. You're just coming across like a juvenile.

its pretty impossible to stop any kind of written hatred from occuring. for example, the swear filter can either be

a) turned off
b) avoided by simply spelling swear words wrong: fukk, shiet, biatch.

it sucks, but whatever

You find one spelling error so I'm unable to call out your bs stats? You've resorted to picking out typos to support your argument.

Wow. That's helpful. Again, you don't like my opinion, so I must be ignorant. Have you demonstrated what I'm ignorant of? Do fill me in on this amazing knowledge you possess, since I'm clearly ignorant in the ways of the world.

Does "carrying the torch" mean using a spell checker? Did you even read the link you provided? It says 28%, not 41%.

Anyhow, I'll continue to ignore/avoid racist idiots on the internet but I'll always support their right to be racist idiots. You guys can start your informer campaign if you choose to be activists. Good luck to ya, I just think you will be disappointed with the results.

First I'm going to admit I did not read every single post in this thread. However I basically get the whole idea. I agree and disagree. Fact remains that there will always be stupid kids making stupid racists comments, you can't make them stop only hope. Maybe Anet would take action on those players but I doubt they want to waste the man power even with screenshots. I think it is completely stupid and immature that kids 10-25 use racist slurs even if it's in good nature (ie. What's up my nigga). It's all dumb and all lame but in America you can say what you want "Freedom of Speech."
However it is complete ignorance on those who think other countries or nationalities aren't racists towards us. If you played FFXI you will know what I'm talking about. Anyone can be racists and to simply blame Americans is stupid. I'm American and I'M NOT RACIST and I NEVER make stupid comments (but I'm also not 12). I will admit though it is a sad fact that majority of Americans only speak English. It is my belief that our education system should be focusing on making sure that our students learn a second language like many other countries where a lot of people are learning their native language as well as English or another language. If you want to keep it simple in a perfect world it would be nice to not have morons, not have AAIP's in games, racists, murderers, etc. Except we don't live in a perfect world and we can't change people who don't want to change. We have to learn to deal with these people accordingly, wether it's leaving the party, asking them to stop or something else we do have alternatives. It sucks but there is only so much we can do.

In a videogame, you are essentially dealing with society in general - and racism is a part of it. You see it everywhere, and its simply part of life. No one who made those comments mean it truly racist context, for the game promotes competitiveness between players, and indeed, countries. I am jewish/chinese myself, and when people say down with the jews or chinks or something, people should really look beyond the surface and see that it is mostly in good fun.

Strange that the people who are coming in here and telling people that they're too sensitive and to just "ignore" the racist comments are making such a big fuss about people even reporting these comments.

So the "live and let live" philosophy doesn't apply to these people? What a bunch of hyprocrites.

There may have been when I installed the game, but from this quote:

I assumed you were referring to going into the game, as in every single time.

Some of the things from the screenshot you posted really just sound like trash talk to me. The kind of things that fans say about their rival in a sport, or players say about their enemy in a video game. Unfortunately the teams have been specifically named after real groups of people, and any trash talking could be seen as racist if you take it out of context or too seriously.

By the way, how do you ignore in this game? That has been the only problem I have with people saying things I don't want to hear...I can't seem to locate the ignore button.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with reporting someone who violates the Terms of Service agreement, especially if it has a sliver of a chance of even slightly, minutely, incrementally decreasing the amount of racism in this world.

Many of the remarks I've read here remind me of things I used to hear -- from cultural and political figures, as well as the general public -- "back in the day," such as: There's nothing you can do about it. Just ignore it. The world will always have ignorance, bigotry, etc. It's hypocritical to even criticize it.

It's frightening and disturbing to see those attitudes still thrive.

Report it, shun the player by putting him/her on the ignore list or by leaving the party/district, whisper a protest to the player, shout your protest for all to hear -- do something. If racism offends you (as it should), fight it.

One can pretty much guarantee that the world won't improve one miota by doing nothing.

As for myself, I repeat what I posted last week: racial slurs are unacceptable. Period.

Dalia

The way i see it, im an 18 year old who hears these kids, yelling about beating these forigners, but the thing is, it wouldent be so bad, if they knew what they where talking about. its one thing for adults to joke, i still wouldent like it, in fact i would still be here posting, its worse when kid are spaming this.

All they want to do is bother you, yes, this is true, VERY true; However, raceisim isnt based entirely on skin color. Were talking about someone hating you just because your a korean, or an american, or canadian etc. etc. etc.

yes, racisim comes in all forms, including nationality. Jokes about Woking the dog are distasteful and inappropriate and should be delt with. Ban a few, and a few of the others will learn, the ones that dont will also be banned, this is how it works in the gaming world, just as it does in the real world. How swiftly a company deals with such reports is just as important as creating a fanbase for the game. If one 'race' feels that the game is too biased twords thier group the company loses all (or at least a good portion there of) of that section of the worlds money, because most of them will not want to deal with it all the time; and the game dies faster.

Seriously if you see a truly racial slur you should report it. Not kill the koreans or kill the americans since that is an intrical part of PvP competitevness, but rather somthing that has nothing to do with the game and is hateful or offensive to the other nationality. Only real example i can come up with is that the japanese find the shortened term of "Jap" to be extreamly offensive, since americans used it derogitivly during ww2 ~remember that the next time you come accross a japanese player, dont shorten it to jap, its as bad as calling a black person a certain "N" word. its incredibly distastfull and extreamly offensive~

In short you ALL know what a real slur is; and not reporting it will only hurt the game more; since less money for a.net = less content for us. You keep your fellow man happy and life will be a little easier. It's that simple. Theres no place for that stuff in a game. At all. Anywhere. EVER.

I don't like it when people start trying to put limits on my freedom of speech.
If they want to be hateful and stupid, let them.

Censorship is never the answer.

But leaving this disgraceful behavior uncensored would just lead to more of it, and in the end, GW will be a racist hate fest. I agree that you should have a freedom of speech, as in swearing if you want. But heck, racism should not be tolerated in the least.

Freedom of Speech

Freedom of Speech is not an excuse to the individules right not to be slandered.

EDIT: Fixed the bold print to exclude "Although speech is freer in the United States than in many societies..." Added italics and smilies to bring out the most important part.

While I wrote a message agreeing that racist rules need to be enforced (although keep in mind there has to be a balance struck between all the things the administrators need to spend their time on), I completely disagree with the point and click "agreements"

I bet not one person out of 100 reads them.

And they are pointless anyway. After you buy a game the store will not take it back, and unless you want to go through all the trouble of arguing with the company directly and then waiting and waiting for a refund if you don't like the agreement, you are pretty much forced to click yes anyway unless you want the money you spent on the program to be thrown away.

That the courts have shown they are willing to take some of them seriously is a disturbing trend.

I remember that a friend and I were thinking about setting up a webpage with an "agreement to enter" page that included a promise to tithe wages to us for the rest of their lives, just to show how silly and unenforcable these "contracts" should be.

Even worse are messages in boxes that say, "by opening this box you have agreed to..." I might as well walk up to a person on the street and say, "By scratching your chin you have agreed to..."




Poppin

Oh, and saying "Although speech is freer in the United States than in many societies" is highly misleading if you are compaing the US with other western industrialized nations. We are not #1, nor #2, or 3.... We are way down on the freedom index. I think it was in the double digits.

Mearly making a point from a link I found which was posted above the quote. The important part is in bold text, the actual comparison of U.S. freedom to the freedom of other contries has no bearing, freedom of speech simply isnt an excuse.

Well I'm American, I have been all my life, and I'm Korean, although not the most informed Korean, I don't speak much Korean.

First of all, any idiots who think that Koreans are racist towards us are ignorant, excluding North Koreans, South Koreans were literally raised by the U.S. after WW2, they adopted our Government and much of our culture. As for North Koreans, I know very little of, but you will most likely never see any North Koreans playing online, because North Korea is a third world country. Furthermore, the VAST MAJORITY of Koreans (South) understand english, they can right it pretty easily as well, they just have a hard time speaking and understanding verbal english, because of simular words. Almost all prominent cultures of the world understand english, because it is the language of buisness, and anyone whos ranting on other cultures thinking they don't understand them are idiots, if they carry any racism towards Americans, it is because of your foul behavior, not because they are pompass or ignorant.

Now Japanese may not be quite the same, and many players from other games with Japanese players might know that they are racist, I say this from a Korean perspective more so then an American perspective. But this game hasn't been officially released to Japanese players, if there are any, they are playing in english most likely.

Because most Americans are far to immature to restrain thier language in many, or all of thier conversation, I doubt that they will be "restrained". Many Americans sling foul comments and racial insults at eachother naturally (culturally verbal depravity). Don't expect them to change. As for removing them, because this game functions on multi-layered enviroments (districts), it is very difficult for Monitors to catch them. You can inform them of names of certain players, but the most they can do is watch them, Screenshots can be edited.

The most effective way to avoid this is to start working your ignore list, they arn't going to change, but if many players are proactive with thier ingnore list, you can subvertently remove thier ability to communicate with a vast proportion of the population, ergo hampering thier ability to progress because of lack of resources.

Personally, I'm not offended, simply because I'm too busy exploring and discovering to even read what my Guild has to say, let alone the average player, I never even glance at those comments unless im looking for a party or trades.

I've also noticed that Anet has made a very subtle mistake in spliting the worlds between different nations, making the game a direct competition between cultures. This is probably the most instigating device in the game that reverts competition to racism. Sure this is better for connectivity, but I think Anet might want either combine some of the worlds or split them further. As I see it, they have pitted America, Europe and Asia(Korea) against eachother, this instigates racisim. I'm not sure, but I'm betting that most of the players are American as well, this is kind of unfair. I think they should split American Players into 2 or 3 worlds (West, East, and if there are enough players, Centeral as well) in order to redirect competition/aggresion away from other nations, and circulated it more evenly. If European and Korean players make up a legitimately smaller number of players, then Anet should combine thier efforts together for the time being, simply at the ranking level (EurAsia has won favor in the Hall of Heros).

There are alot of things that can be done to avert prejudices from the game, I think your overlooking the more passive/subconcious means to remove the bias from the game.

I didn't mean to insult you. I just felt I would point that out because I hear so often from people who know nothing about the political sytems of other countries say that the US is the most free place on the planet. But it simply isn't true, and it has progressively become less true over the last 5 years or so.

My reply was to you simply because that is where I saw the statement, not because I didn't realize you were quoting somebody else.

Anyway, my apologies for the confusion.

Pop

No offense was taken poppy, my defensive nature drives me to explain things i've said that dont always need explaining. No apology is neccesary, although I thank you for the consideration.

It is a real connundrum though. How much should tolerant people tolerate intolerance?

Even though I posted my agreement with the person who began this thread, my opinion on the matter keeps going back and forth. It would be an enormous task to police GW, and the ignore filter is already there. On the other hand this is a private game and the creators should want to keep it fun for everyone. Imagine how angry everyone would be if somebody logged on and starting using the channels to sell timeshares, advertise their websites, ask people to switch their phone companies...

But I think I have modified my position. The racism isn't SO out of hand that it is always in ones face, and the company needs to spend most of its energy adding new features that are needed to improve the gaming experience.

Perhaps if a character is caught making racist remarks, instead of kicking him off he or she should be automatically put on everybody's ignore list with a message that says to people the next time they log on something to the effect that that, "So and so has been automatically placed on your ignore list for making remarks that were perceived as racist (or advertising, or sexual harassment or whatever), but that players are free to remove this person from their ignore lists if they like.

Or perhaps it could just give a user an option when he or she logs on, saying something like: "So and so has been accused of racist (or whatever) speech by ___ number of people supported by ____ screenshots and seen by ____ moderators and _____ witnesses. Would you like to place this person on your ignore list? Ok/Cancel".

This way each individual can make up his or her own mind given the current amount of evidence.

The witnesses would be easy to find with the screenshots if one holds down control before taking the snap and this way the administrators do not have to waste so much time policing the net---they could just leave a question for the witness to answer the next time he or she logs on. Do you remember this? (Then present the screenshot, or describe the situation.)

One thing we DON'T want is for people to be accused of racism and get punished just because they beat out another guild or player in pvp who is a sore loser.

Perhaps the first couple of times being put on the ignore list could be temporary even. The game would become much less enjoyable if only a handful of people could see what one said, and would likely improve ones behavior in the game without actually kicking them off and saying they can't play OR limiting what they can say to willing listeners.

This might be a good compromise.

Pop

Also to clear up my position generally, I almost always favor free speech in public areas---GW is a private game however. While I think racists, homophobes, and other bigots are suffer from real psychological defects, they have every right to publish pamphlets, have parades in areas that others are allowed to as well, wear T-shirts to that effect, speak loudly and to protest against whatever they want. But they can't do it in a private store if the owner objects. I even agreed with the controversial ACLU decision to defend the KKK's right to protest while wearing masks. I believe they lost, but I think they should have won, because people who are are fearful of retaliation should be able to protest anonymously so long as it is peaceful.
The only speech issues that, in public areas, should be restricted is speech that causes harm not because of the words themselves or their meanings but because the words direct people to take a harmful or illegal action. Eg. "Kill that man!" or "Let's plant a bomb in this building", or slander, blackmail, or the famous example of yelling "fire" in a crowded area in order to cause a panic (since this is really a direction to evacuate).

People are taking the freedom of speech thing too literally and too far. It's like the freedom in the pursuit of happiness does NOT mean you can do whatever you want in the pursuit of happiness. If that was the case then the world would be in total chaos and no one would ever be safe.

There are such things as limits. I can't believe people can't see beyond black and white. Feel free to say anything you want, but some things shouldnt be said. Is it so hard for you to refrain from using racist remarks? Why use them anyway? Good grief.

The problem is this game and many games like it with PvP, attract these teenage kids. They see this kind of crap on TV, etc. so they think they are tough, etc using slurs.

It amazes me the amount of teenagers these days who are morons. I am 31, and the difference from when I was 16 is astounding.

I've already said it, though apparelty it needs to be once more, the Freedom of Speech, does not extend to ArenaNET's Sphere of Influence on internet based "regions", the United States legal system can only enforce laws which ArenaNET has specific intent to break. As well, nevermind what your Rights and Freedoms are, considering they do not extend by and large to those who attempt to merely use them as opposed to uphold them, it is up to ArenaNET to say how far anything goes within its SoI, and whether or not you read the Terms of Service is not their problem, for one ignorance has never been an excuse, especially when it is accessible, but also everyone who wants to have any kind of debate should already understand that Terms of Service contain wordings that acceptance of the Terms of Service means an agreement to comply with the actions and regulations of ArenaNET, else I would say being ill-equipped as you are, do not talk.

Plus, I don't seem to believe a filter is going in as in a system, so much as the filter being people obviously, in other words, we see blatant racism and hatreds, we'll attempt to report it one way or another.

A company's fanbase is its livelihood, if anyone wants to say how horrible the removal of their freedoms is and leave Guild Wars, try any other MMO which probably has even stiffer punishments, people have gotten warnings (which amount to sort of a 3 strikes your out system), 3-day, week long, and month long bannings for being racist and so forth since the beginning of any of them practically, I'm surprised ArenaNET hasn't already stepped in when it creates a "singular" field with which to play on from many markets.

Plus Thorburn, say children, we all understand what you are meaning, I would divide the current generation of teenagers into two seperate entities, those currently drawn as you say, and those drawn in a complete opposite, I also have a far better grasp of this being 18 myself, I'm surprised at the amount of immorality that comes from most of them, yet you'd probably be in inverse to the amount of morality from the others, and a less double-standard effect I must say than previous generations.

I know this won't have much bearing on the racism in discussion, but I do honestly believe that part of the problem is in how ANet divided the world into REAL countries.

What they could have done would have been to divide the real world into districts with fantasy names. These districts would have been either several several countries banded together ... ie.. several European countries.. or in the case of the Americas, clumps of states or countries with parts of the US, Canada, and wherever else they have provided the game into large geographical areas. The only difference in doing things this way would have been to either drop or at least significantly raise the migration limit which is cuttently 5 times per account. The only thing that the people would need to know about the "country" they were going into would be if the primary language was English, Spanish, or in teh cases of Europe or Asia.

Would it stop hatred or racism, or immature ignorance.. Not a chance.. Given half a chance, people prefer to never change. What it would do would be to mitigate it into a more gamely context. Instead of Americans talking trash to Koreans.. "Boffins" would talk trash to "Ooga Boogans" or somesuch.

I'm not sure how many of you have every heard of The Society of Creative Anachronism, but it is a midievil(sp?) recreation group that is worldwide and is divided along these lines. It works out pretty well that way.

Try as any of us might, none of us can force people to behave in anything pproaching a decent manner. True, ANet and NCSoft can ban them and eventually make the GW environment a bit more pleasant for those that remain, but it is an unfortunate fact that that won't remove the true "inner idiot" from a single person.

Vangor had a nice thought out reply that I agree with.

I have been playing online games since '98. Using fansite forums OR in these games there have always been pricks (just like real life). They spew racist comments, threaten to beat people up, etc. I really take it all with a grain of salt now. I still say most of these people are 13yr old kids doing it to annoy, and "shock" people.

Again, not all 13 yr olds are like this, so dont misconstrue what I am saying. As long as the game companies are getting their money, I dont think they really care. Unless its a monthly fee type game.

Just ignore these people and enjoy the game.

In the end it all boils down to the fact that this game is rated TEEN, therefore a TEEN may get a hold of it. A TEEN ESRB rating basically means that there is no sex in the game, nudity, excessive violence/blood, or "dirty language". Maybe if the game was rated M for MATURE then there would not be such a major deal about such derogatory language, it is much like a music CD. When you go and buy a CD that says EXPLICIT lyrics you expect it to have foul language so you accept that and get over it because you put your money towards it but when I went to buy Guild Wars I was looking to bring my mind away from reality for atleast just a little bit and play a nice wholesome competitive ORPG.

By the way there is a difference between Freedom of Speech and breaking the ToS in a game. If you truely believe calling people racial slurs, etc. is practicing Freedom of Speech when you have obviously broken the ToS in a game or on a forum then you obviously have no clue what you are talking about.

Anways, lets all finish up this darn forum and go have a drink or two and play some Guild Wars.... I need my fix.

Sheesh, lets NOT start blaming teens and TV.

There are probably fewer racist teens than adults because teens are growing up in a world where many racist laws of the recent past have been abolished.

Further, if anything, television would help because racists tend to be people who have very little exposure to other races, and television can make somebody in an all-white little town see minorities shown in a positive light. It is true that TV has some clating---minorities are not always given the access to roles they should have, but overall I think it is better than no exposure at all.

If you want to look at teh source of racism you need to look at the PARENTS. How many racist teens come from tolerant families? My bet is not many. Find a young racist and there is almost certainly some adult in his or her life---parent, grandparent, step-parent, grandparent, or aunt/uncle who has fed him that or her that crapola.

Though I am in my thirties, the tendency for adults to falsely glorify/beautify the past and blame societal ills on "Kids today..." or technology is very disturbing. And even though things have primarily improved for mankind it seems like every generation has a large share of people who see the seeds of doom and destruction in the next.

I would also point out that one does not necessarily know the age of somebody when one chats with him or her in teh game. Computer games like this most likely draw their shair of gifted teens, and I have been surprised to find that several people who I have met who seem well spoken and knowledgeable, even for an adult, were in fact still in highschool.

Now that I think of it, thsi might be one of the reasons why racists act up on here. INside the game they have no way of telling who is an acceptable rance and who might be one of THEM... The fact that they can not tell threatens their belief that different races are fundamentally different and scares them.


Poppinjay


BTW: Please ignore typos as I am writing this without my contacts and can not easily see what I am typing in order to make corrections.

Thorburn and Poppin'Jay have the right idea. Maybe peoples should stop blaming it on others...and go play the game? Yeah, I think that sounds like a damn good idea. Lets go play the game.

Wow now that is Blatantly racist, How do you know that ALL of the Racial remarks are spoken by WHITE kids????
You do realize that just every nationality has some kind of derogitory frase or slur for people NOT of their peticular national origin.
For example.....

The Chinese call NON-chinese people GUI-LO's (Goo-Why-Low), And the Japanese call NON-Japanese GY-GING's

Just as the rest of the non Asian countries call Most Asians SLOPES, Or CHINK.

There realy is no need to get upset of hot under the collar about all of this.
Just do what most MATURE People do and ignor the derogitory remarks and move on with your life.

If I got upset everytime I was called SPIC, or GREASE-BALL, I would have an ulcer right now.

Look I really don't care what anybody says about me or my Race/Nationality/Religion Its all just words and they can not do any real harm to you. Just maintane the thought that the individuals who say those words would never attemp to say it to anyone face if they were alone in a room with them .

Just because other people are using such degrading terms doesn't mean it should be accepted. I don't get how your points make it acceptable. So people all around the globe do bad thngs, so that makes it okay? Ummm yeah makes sense...

And no one is saying that you should blow a gasket everytime you hear a racial slur. No in fact you should remain calm about it. But you do something about it. Maybe just a polite request asking the person to stop using it. But doing nothing just condones it. You're giving up and basically accepting it.

The only time you should ignore this stuff is if confronting it will lead to violence. But to say ignore this stuff? Geez, people have no balls nowdays... and don't take the initiative to make things better.

A good many people with past experience in the matter who've been playing games and hearing such things for a long time will tell you that more times than not, asking them to stop only increases the amount of words coming from them, which will then lead you to put them on your ignore list anyways. How is putting them on your ignore list turning away from the problem? Seems to me it's fixing it, what matters of it anyway.

As you've all just stated, it happens AROUND THE GLOBE. Do you really think you can just -BAM!- stop it like that? A filter wouldn't do anything becuase there's no way efficient way to define such things, and you're always going to have people, monthly subscription fee or not, who do things like that.

The best thing to do IS ignore them, because you can't do anything about it.

I hate stupid hippies that think they can stop racism or get Anet to ban people for being "racist" more then the koreans that get my party whiped in a mission because they dont understand "hold". Now close that floppy vagina that apparently took the place of your mouth and play the damn game.

And yea...what Kaos the Korruptor said should have ended this thread.

Did I say all racist remarks are spoken by whites? It was just an example, or do you expect me to list every single possible alternative? We could be here a long time if you want me to list every single race and nationality...

Everyone has to remember, this "racism" is very good. It makes these little "Ignorant Americans" feel all big and cool. you know all the "cool" kids are like this. Personally if anyone starts mouthing off racial slurs, the first thing I'm doing is asking them to stop. then if it continues, writing down their name and using the map to leave the group and emailing area net.

One thing I can't stand is racism. *GAH* they all need a good smack upside the head.

and I don't like being grouped with "american" district either. They need a Canadian district.

Long live the King and Queen of Canada! *read Rick Mercer-you either get it or don't*

It doesnt surprise me that you'd defend the use of racial slurs with a vocabulary like that. And frankly I'm surprised you even know what a vagina is.

Oh and I love people's attitudes nowdays. "There's nothing you can do, you can't stop it" Man you people have no balls. The same people who cower and do nothing when someone's in trouble.

Well then by all means, GnomeSmasher, go out and stop racism and let us know when the wars over and racism has ceased to exist. We'll even erect a giant statue in your honor, and give it a nice engraving that reads "His balls kept you out of trouble."

I guess we could all go around, grow some "balls", and beat everyone who throws out a comment that some person somewhere in the world takes offense to, we'll even label the metal rod we do it with "beating stick" if it makes you happy, whatever means we've got balls!

Seriously mate, racism is always going to be amongst us, so long as differences in people exist so will the insults that point out such things. If you've lived so long and have not yet figured that out I don't know what to tell you, that's reality.

Yeah, we know it sucks, but honestly, I've yet to see you give any suggestions that would make it possible to eliminate any and all forms of racism without pissing other people off because of how strict it would need to be. I mean I guess you could just put forth the suggestion of "ban racists", but...well lets face it, the arguments that would arise from such a thing would be enough to tear apart the community as a whole.

The devs know that they won't be able to just "get rid of racism and racist comments" because people always find away around filters, and other such things. This is why they put the IGNORE feature in the game, incase there's someone doing something and saying things you don't want to hear.

Sucks 'eh? Yeah, I know. Sorry I had to be so blunt, but when you go and say nobody's got any balls because they've thought the situation over as a whole, well I felt the need to say something, especially when you didn't give any backing to your statements other than "You people've got no balls, you're the sort of people that would..." You didn't mention how YOU'RE stopping anything, or suggest any way in which we SHOULD go about it. At least, a way that works.

Anyways I need a drink, then guess I'll go do my latest quests. I've seen one guy in-game toss out some racist comments and they were hitler-related, not towards the Koreans or Europeans of today. So I don't see how the issue has gotten so out of hand that it needs to be addressed in such a way anyway. I guess now I'm questioning why I took the time to post this, but I guess since I've already done all the work I'll just hit the submit button.

Cheers.

Blah blah blah. It's ridiculous of you to say that because it exists everywhere that nothing should be done about it. Also ridiculous to say that I gave no suggestions to elimate all forms of racism, there is no such thing. I mean, come on. Be logical here.

We can report anyone who gets out of line. There's your suggestion. Saying that we shouldnt do anything is like saying we should let all crimes go unpunished since there will always be crime.

And I wasn't talking about filters. I never did once mention filters. Go read my posts and show me where I mentioned anything about them. My point was that ignoring a problem doesnt make it go away, "mate"

Where did I defend it? Thanks...
O SNAP!! I got BUUUUUUUURRRRRNNNNNNNNNNNED....nice one...no really...it was...

Gnome that's just my point, how do you intend to "report" it? Screenshots can EASILY be edited, with instanced zones you can't have GMs watching all chat lines or anything like that, and by the time you DID report it, you would've moved on and keep in mind that multiple people play on some accounts, you can't just ban the entire account because of what COULD be a one-time instance by someone. There isn't a way to just "report and get rid of" racists and those who make such comments. And often times you'd have people saying the simplest of things that someone would "report" in an attempt to screw them over.

Lets put some thought into our posts before submitting "blah blah blah". If you put as much effort into searching for racists as you did submitting posts which often amount to nothing but..."blah blah blah", we just might stand a chance afterall.

Anyways, back to the discussion. Can you tell me, just why putting them on your ignore list is a problem? I don't remember you commenting on that suggestion, or pointing out what's wrong with it. Is it because it doesn't get rid of them all? Is that what's wrong with simply putting them on your ignore list? Tell me, will ANYTHING get rid of them all? Filters will do nothing, reporting such instances is a complicated matter and from such a thing could arise many false accusations and reports, you can't have gamemasters constantly in-game watching over everything because of the way the zones/instances are set up. And the simple possibility of having "gamemasters" or "moderators" looming over every bit of the game is ridiculous as that creates more spam than anything else.

Also, did I mention that the instances of such racist remarks are so rare, and so isolated that it's not worth changing ANY part of the current game system because of it?

Put them on your ignore list if they don't stop when you first ask them to, go enjoy yourself elsewhere in the game, because any other means won't do anything but complicate things, I've TRIED it in the past and have seen such things in many different betas/games in the past. So don't use "you aren't doing anything about it" as something to fall back on this time.

The fact that this thread is still going, without purpose or decent backing, is amazing to me. Why not lock it? Since it's obviously not going to turn into anything of good-nature.

PieXags, the purpose of reporting someone is to inform the higher-ups that the individual bears some watching. If they get enough reports on the same person, they go monitor the actions of that person. And when/if they catch him then they ban him. That's how the system works.

Everything takes babysteps. Just saying something is "too hard to monitor" is not an excuse to ignore the problem. My problem isn't that you chose to ignore these people but because a few of you, maybe not you specifically, PieXags, a few of you people came into this thread telling others that it was wrong to report people. That racist remarks aren't enough to be reported. That's what bothered me about some of the comments in this thread.

And why lock this thread? Because you don't like it? Sure there are immature idiots like Nad just trolling and not adding anything to it but it's still a valid discussion going on here.

Also it's ironic that so many of you come in here to tell us to "ignore" something that we have issues with, yet you come in here in this thread to argue about it. Whatever happend to just ignoring and leaving things alone?