Many people throw the question of "Why is it necessary to have swearing or inappropriate references in game? Can't a game be enjoyed without the constant need of swearing etc?". People who agree with the idea of having a filter don't just want to have fun and goof around. Having the filter makes chat feel so dull and almost limited. Chat doesn't need to have swearing to be fun, but it's not just that. Politics, religion, and other topics are excluded for many reasons. One of the reasons is someone may get offended, or hurt and toxicity can break out. Sure, if there is toxicity and people are getting offended I'm all for staff steering the chat in a different direction. It's just that the moment someone get's uncomfortable, the conversation must automatically shut down. I feel as if people should be able to take things better and shouldn't get hurt at the most benign things. I know that everyone is different, and that one thing may offend someone greatly and the next person could really care less. It's just that people really shouldn't really take the smallest things in a horrible way. Another reason why these topics are excluded is because the focus of meep is to achieve an atmosphere where it's family friendly and welcoming to a younger audience. That's not a bad thing, but there's a solution to avoid it getting to younger ages. An idea was thought of where you can disable the filter, and put it back into place. Here are some ideas of what the filter would potentially do.
1) Delete words:
If someone happened to be swearing in chat, all it would do is just wipe any of those bad words. All though the sentence may not make sense, it deletes any possible curse.
Example: Example12345: Go home you son of a *****! (Note: this is an example username that I made up, and if it exists I'm not targeting that person).
What the filter would do is just take that word out. *Pop!*
Example: Example12345 Go home you son of a
Now you see, the sentence doesn't make sense, but it removes any language or harmful content. Now there is a flaw with this, because even if you remove the swear, someone can easily guess what someone said. If a parent sees this, they can definitely assume what the person was trying to say and could close down the device.
2) Edit words:
Here's another idea. What this would do is just change the word into something more harmless.
Example:
Example12345: Oh ****
Example67890: He's such a ****** like am I right or what?
What the filter would do is just change that word. *Bloop!*
Example12345: Oh fudge
Example67890: He's such a jerk/goof like am I right or what?
For some words, it would be challenging to make a replacement. With the last example, a word that shows the same idea but is better is "jerk". But sometimes, the word jerk can still be not approved by many audiences. So beside that I said "goof". Even though it's not that accurate, it's more benign then the two words.
Another idea that was thought of was if there's a conversation in shout that appeals and relates more to adults and older teens, the filter would remove all the language or words that are inappropriate to a younger age. However, what would happen is if there is a large grouping of these words, a message would pop up in chat saying:
The conversations in global contain plenty of topics and words that aren't very appropriate. We suggest that you do /gtoggle just in case.
The message would definitely be different, but that's basically the point. The message would warn you to /gtoggle just in case.
In the end, I think that a command should be implanted and that it should be allowed under circumstances. These aren't really my ideas, but I thought I would clump some ideas in a post. I don't really remember anyone who whipped these up, but you probably know who you are. Too-la-do~
