Comment by mattbillenstein
6 years ago
I've fought this feature in products for years - the product ppl always wanna ban bad words and I'm like - you can't, it literally never works, it just becomes a stupid arms race and it's not worth our time. I always lose this argument for some reason.
Here’s a good article to show people:
http://habitatchronicles.com/2007/03/the-untold-history-of-t...
Rocket League's approach to this is very good.
The D-pad is bound to several predefined words and phrases that are useful such as "Nice shot!" or "Great pass!". Because of the fast paced nature of the game it's pretty tough to try to abuse this system (maybe by spelling words with the first letters of allowed phrases?) but no one does that.
To appease the folks who wanted to express that they were using a curse word, you can also send "$#@%!". It's really satisfying to be able to express a curse when you accidentally send the ball flying towards your own team's goal, for instance.
Of course they also have straight up text chat where they asterisk out curse words and anything that might look like personal info such as phone numbers. If you're on a console, it's unlikely you even have a keyboard hooked up. And the text input system for controllers is just too slow to type anything worthwhile in the limited time you have during goal-replays. Typing anything more than a few words means you're not helping your team which is naturally shamed and can lead to a server kick.
It drastically reduces the toxic bigotry that usually pops up on extremely popular multiplayer games. The only exception is that people sometimes have bigoted usernames which are tougher to censor for the reasons mentioned in the article.
Anyway, while I do think it's an arms race of sorts, Rocket League has gotten about as close to possible to solving the issue.
> That reminds me of Rocket League's approach. The D-pad is bound to several predefined words and phrases that are useful such as "Nice shot!" or "Great pass!". Because of the fast paced nature of the game it's pretty tough to try to abuse this system (maybe by spelling words with the first letters of allowed phrases?) but no one does that.
Dota has that, and it didn't work.
People just used the nice phrases sarcastically, and repeatadly.
When you miss an actions for the 3rd time and your team mate congrats you everytime with a "nice one", it's equally infuruating. Even more, because it cost so little to be an ass.
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> Rocket League has gotten about as close to possible to solving the issue.
To be fair, it was Tribes that solved that issue, and Rocket League just implemented it.
I was just about to post this! It's such a good set of examples.
Ha, that's pretty great.
In apps targeted to kids I've found it to be often a useful deterrent. And can even shift the culture a bit; it makes it very clear what is "ok" and what is not.
Yes because kids don't have a strong opinion on anything, so as long as you don't prevent them to have fun, they won't try to find work around.
Try the same a few years later, with teens, and it's a whole different story.
It's like the button at traffic lights that does nothing: it's not about actually working, it's about giving the user a feeling of control.
And gradually you learn to stop pushing the button. Then when you are in a new neighbourhood you wonder why the green never comes. That's learned helplessness. You have been taught that any control was illusory and that nothing you do helps, so you don't even try.
So it does something.
When you push it, the electrical signal goes from finger to brain, inducing a change, instead from button to traffic light.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo_button