Censorship?

[kattboots]

I was chatting with another player in a game of Hold'em at Bovada Poker and just happened to realize that the chat had an automatic censoring program...

The other player typed a sentence with the word WHOLE in it. It came out in chat as W**** and set us to testing it while playing the game. Sure enough it was automatically censoring the words typed in chat.

Now, I don't like these people that cuss and call names when they lose a hand or some just are nasty to other players as a general thing, but I don't think I like the censoring either... This is a place for adults only and the ones that just need to say this stuff trick the censors with spelling or other tricks anyway.

I don't know... what do you guys think?

katt

[blueday]

I agree with you Katt - I find the censorship annoying particularly when it's not the word that you typed that gets censored.   

I recall saying "scraping the barrell there"  to a player and I had to spell it "s c r a ping".  I think it was at Sky Poker.

You're so right about being an adult and the censorship being pathetic.

blue

[kattboots]

Yeah and censoring the word HOLE is going way overboard! How can you say I had Aces in the hole? And how silly to censor hole out of the word whole... And then there's your example... where did they come up with this list of taboo words?

katt

[blueday]

"Hole" is crazy Katt.  Absolutely ridiculous.

blue

[kattboots]

I guess I can call it "pocket" instead of "hole" as long as it has ACES in it!

Really, makes me want to type all the words that just might be construed as "naughty" to see if they are also censored!


katt

[blueday]

That would definitely be fun finding out Katt. 

blue

[kattboots]

I have an additional question along this line. I mentioned in an earlier post that people just spell things differently and get their nasty words understood simply enough, even with censoring software.

Well, tonight I was playing in a 9 player Hold'em SnG and one player was being really rank and saying things I will not even quote here. I am not easily offended or bothered by what people say. But this was extremely offensive and did bother me.

So, that set me to wondering if I should report this person to support? I did take screen shots with hand numbers and the words he was typing. And I am sure that even though we are just a number to each other as players, management knows which player each number actually is during a certain game at a certain table.

I am undecided and would like some input please.

katt

EDIT: I should have said that no one at the table responded to him in any way and eventually he quit doing it...

[blueday]

I would certainly report him and hopefully they would take away his chat rights.  There is no need to put up with bad language or offensive chat when playing poker. 

I have had experience of this and I generally will say "if you continue with your being rude and offensive, I'm going to report you".  I won't enter into any other conversation with them and I do report them if it continues.  Some actually do stop there and then because they know they could face a ban.  He's probably underage too.

What is the saddest and makes me angry is when they start talking about your Mother - that does wind me up.

Go report him Katt.  Do you want to meet up with that barrage of foul and offensive language again? No.  Don't give him another opportunity.

blue

[kattboots]

Thanks blue... I know I am sometimes too accepting of such things just because I don't like confrontation and strife. I think I will do that!

katt

[blueday]

I certainly wouldn't worry about it Katt.  I'm sure the player won't care.

I have a poker playing friend and he got an 8 week chat ban from one site for bad language.  I asked him if he deserved it and he said that he did.  I have no doubt that he will do it again too but not for a while.  Let's hope your complaint has the desired effect.

blue

[kattboots]

I went straight away to chat and explained what happened and have emailed them screenshots. They said that once they review the screenshots they will be able to address the other player. That is all good with me. Childish petulance and whining when someone loses a hand is one thing, but abusive nastiness is another.

Thanks for your input... I feel better having done this. It made me stop playing at the time because I did not want to chance sitting at another table with him and since Bovada uses numbers I can't avoid him by name...

One good note in the whole thing is that I played the hand with him that put him out of the game! And I finished in the money!
 
katt

[blueday]

Ahhh...how sweet that must have been Katt.  Well done for that. 

Glad you made the right decision to let them know.  It is unacceptable behaviour and really does not have to be tolerated.

blue

[kattboots]

I have another good one for the censorship library. As I mentioned before the chat censor chooses some odd words to censor... The word "hole" was bad enough, but tonight it was topped by the word "O"

I realized another player had said nh to me and since it was belated when I answered I typed, "O ty" and sure enough it came out " * ty" 

Now we know that an "O" is naughty somehow...

katt

[blueday]

Totally absurd.  How can O be a "word" that needs to be censored.  That is absolutely ridiculous.

blue

[kattboots]

Totally absurd.  How can O be a "word" that needs to be censored.  That is absolutely ridiculous.

blue

I have got it! Ok, so they have censored the word "hole" and an "O" looks like a hole, therefore you must censor the "O" 

katt