To the moderators of this forum - On the use of language

[Gargon667]

Now since the other post is closed can we start a somewhat more serious discussion of this?

Are you moderators (not calling names here) serious about this? Is it indeed impossible to have a non-english name here of this forum?

I am perfectly fine with speaking english here, but names? using a non-english name is not even the same as speaking a language different from English! So I don´t see it even falling under the forum rules at all! How do you feel about immigrants in real life? They speak perferctly good english but may have an Indian (or whatever non-english ethnicity) name? Is that worth censoring in your eyes?

Where do you draw the line? As has been pointed out half our names are non-english words, no matter if the language is made-up or an actual non-english language!
The same goes for FS names of course. All of them have clearly passed Innos filter (and game mods) in the game, why do you feel the need to beat down harder than Inno on a name, based on it´s language?
If a name is offensive then sure by all means delete it. But you can´t delete every word you don´t know just because it might be offensive! Lots of strings of letters are english words and still mean something offensive in another language btw. this action is so far blown out of proportion I have trouble knowing where to start!

I know there are forum rules, and you want them to be followed, but there is a difference between following the letter of a rule and following its intention. And btw, I think you have to bend the rule farther to make a name fit the rule than one has to bend it to not fit it.

By deleting the name of that FS from the post you have backed yourself into a corner, which it is hard to come out of without losing face, so I understand it won´t be easy for you, but I suggest you have an honest talk among yourselves on how you want it to be. Do you want to delete every foreign name forever? And much more importantly, do you really want to create a place where every little thing gets censored for whatever tiniest scratch on a rule? or can you instead of hiding behind rules use a brain to judge if something is actually causing trouble? yes that is harder, but I honestly believe there is no alternative to this. What do you think how many people will feel welcome here if their name gets deleted for not being English?

One more example: if any of you are sports fans: Which referee would you prefer in the EuroCup or in your own match with some friends? The one whose whistle never leaves his mouth, because there is always an idiot player who doesn´t know how to perform a throw-in according to the rule book or a referee who reads a game and uses his whistle as little as possible as in cases when it´s about a goal being scored falsely due to an offside? Now I can tell you from an amateur point of view which game is more fun to play, as well as which game is more fun to watch on the EuroCup, but I am sure you can figure it out yourself.

Now it really isn´t my place to tell all of you guys what your job is, I just hope you think about it. And then you come up with a plan on how to handle names on this forum and let us know, so we know how to behave, because right now I have not the slightest idea. I purposefully didn´t use my FS name as an example, so as not to cause you to delete this post. And I don´t even know if this is now smart to do or considered a joke.

 

[Silmaril]

To be honest Gargon667 there was more than one issue happening on the earlier thread that I did indeed close seeing as some players were making a point of deliberately doing their best to inflame the situation.
The word in question was by the players own admission not English but Afrikaans. Its meaning was then translated by a fluent member of the moderation team and found to be deemed offensive.
So not only was there a language issue here, as our first Forum Rule makes a point of asking for English only, but also then we had to take into consideration our second rule: Be polite and Constructive followed by rule eight: Inappropriate material and language.
At this point several players had posted underneath the initial post and were also beginning to breach rules 2 and 8.
Therefore it made sense to remove the one word that was creating such havoc and reach out to the player to explain why the action had been taken.
Even by doing this is caused several further breaches, by different players which then also had to be removed for various rule violations.
Had the Fellowship name not been deemed to be offensive, in all probability we would not have stepped in to moderate as the odd words here and there are not seen as much of an issue on the Forum.
Fellowship names as you know are permitted in any language, although Fellowship descriptions must be in English.
We should perhaps add that the reason we do in fact ask for English on the Forum is due to the game version we represent. As our International servers are all based in English, this is why we have this also here. In the same way as our other Forums also mirror the language of their game.

 

[Pauly7]

Good post @Gargon667 and if you didn't say something I would have.

The problem here, and in previous situations, is the interpretation of rules and how to handle them. This situation was blown completely out of proportion. You have basically told a member who came here to make his first ever post that he can't promote the name of his fellowship in posts. Even if that name was translated into English it wouldn't have been seen as offensive. So posts have been edited. Posts have been deleted. Do you think he or his team mates will ever be back to this forum? Doubtful. Do you think he will pass on to other people he knows that this isn't a friendly place to come? Likely.

You've backtracked a little in your reply above, but in the other forum post you essentially said that no foreign name can be used. That's not a good precedent to set.

I don't mean to cause any offense, but in recent times at least two of the most helpful posters in this forum have left, vowing to never come back, for exactly these sorts of reasons. Me, I won't do that. I'm too addicted, or too invested in a community for the last four years of my life. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for moderation. It would be a hateful place to come without the rules and having them upheld, but sometimes this is all way too much. If you think that a conversation is over the line, then by all means shut it down, but I don't ever find it appropriate for people's posts to be randomly edited, which often completely misrepresents what they were talking about. This does not sit well with me.

 

[SkyRider99]

The game moderators are an essential part of the forum, and for the most part do a good job. It's human nature to make an occasional mistake or error of judgement. As stated by the honourable Silmaril, there are usually a number of reasons why any particular post may be censored or notified to the sender.

 

[Stucon]

not English but Afrikaans. Its meaning was then translated by a fluent member of the moderation team and found to be deemed offensive.

This makes sense.
The original problem 'seemed' to be 'no foreign words, grrr.'
A tiny bit more info may have stopped a lot of angry forum followers.

 

[Silmaril]

We can confirm that no offense was meant by any of our actions, as we do try to make sure we keep the Forum a kind place to be.
Unfortunately with many translations across to English some of the meaning can be lost literally in translation. This is why we have native speakers across the world in Team Elvenar, which extends across the whole game, not just International.
We should with hindsight of elaborated on the original post, but we try not to embarrass players, so generally keep to a minimum information where possible., but hindsight is a wonderful thing.
All I can say is the team will of course be looking at this today and will be older and wiser for it.

 

[Stucon]

I accept your apology.

 

[Laurelin]

Well, drat! I missed it all! Boo to that - my life is really, really boring, and some controversy always livens things up a bit (*waves to Matt Hancock*... )

I remember the pre-Social Media (for which read: still almost entirely sane) Internet of long ago, when the only Forums which were moderated by anyone were those frequented by sub-12-year-olds - who in my ideal Universe wouldn't even be allowed online (by their parents, I hasten to add, not by the dreaded and burgeoning Nanny State), and not because they might read the occasional word which Society happens to deem 'offensive', either (playground chatter would make most adults blush!), but because it's become an unstable, peculiar, and bizarrely unreal, not to say downright dangerous, La-La Land with so many flaws that I can't even begin to list them when it comes to the development of the minds, opinions, and especially social behaviour of children (and far too many adults, too, for that matter).

The Internet (which many people now sadly understand to mean nothing but vacuous, PC-throttled Anti-Social Meeja, Big-Tech-sanctioned so-called 'Safe Spaces', and sterile, impersonal, online-only 'social interaction' (my opinion of all of which is unprintable) was once optimistically called The Information Superhighway, which was going to lead us all into the much-anticipated rebirth of formerly separate societies and cultures as one great Global Village, where knowledge was the common currency, and discourse and debate ran wide and free (and how those once-common 80s and 90s terms have aged, or even become so passé that many post-Millennials don't recognise either of them) - and it still could, with no more than common sense, a normal degree of maturity, and the same kind of perfectly standard and traditional inter-personal courtesy which most people offer each other in reality... but not if Facebook, Twitter, and [believe it or not] even more monstrous modern children of those ageing Social Engineering tools, such as the horror that is Tik Tok (it's mostly a youngster thing, but I'd advise literally all human beings to avoid it like the Plague) have anything to do with it.

We just need to get a grip and behave online as we would in Real Life - a term which really shouldn't exist, when you think about it, since the Internet is, of course, no more NOR LESS than an enormously useful (when properly and sensibly used...) means of communication and a place to store endless information, not some kind of 'otherworld' where life's ordinary and long-tested rules - for some unknown reason? - are considered not to apply.

And my signature says exactly what I think about Free Speech vs censorship, but I don't think most of the modern Woke World would agree with me... where IS our new Voltaire, I wonder, now that it appears we increasingly need him or her...?!

 

[BlueBlou]

@Silmaril, I am glad you used the word ‘deemed’ as I am a mother tongue Afrikaans speaker and when I saw that word in question, I did not see the word as an offensive word. I can think of three things that word can mean and you are absolutely right in that translations may end up with the wrong result. Consulting a fluent speaker may help clarify things, but now I wonder if that is enough.

I don’t want to inflame any situation as that is not me. If you want to hear my take on it, you are welcome to PM me.

 

[Gargon667]

To be honest Gargon667 there was more than one issue happening on the earlier thread that I did indeed close seeing as some players were making a point of deliberately doing their best to inflame the situation.
The word in question was by the players own admission not English but Afrikaans. Its meaning was then translated by a fluent member of the moderation team and found to be deemed offensive.
So not only was there a language issue here, as our first Forum Rule makes a point of asking for English only, but also then we had to take into consideration our second rule: Be polite and Constructive followed by rule eight: Inappropriate material and language.
At this point several players had posted underneath the initial post and were also beginning to breach rules 2 and 8.
Therefore it made sense to remove the one word that was creating such havoc and reach out to the player to explain why the action had been taken.
Even by doing this is caused several further breaches, by different players which then also had to be removed for various rule violations.
Had the Fellowship name not been deemed to be offensive, in all probability we would not have stepped in to moderate as the odd words here and there are not seen as much of an issue on the Forum.
Fellowship names as you know are permitted in any language, although Fellowship descriptions must be in English.
We should perhaps add that the reason we do in fact ask for English on the Forum is due to the game version we represent. As our International servers are all based in English, this is why we have this also here. In the same way as our other Forums also mirror the language of their game.

I am talking about the removal of the name of a FS, not the ensuing comments (yes those were offensive and I don´t mind them being deleted). Not to justify anything, but the fact stays true: Had the initial name not been deleted, none of the offending comments would ever have been posted. So if you analyze the situation and think about future action take this into account. You are not making this forum a better place by inciting people to hurl insults, even though your intention is to make it a better place by removing something offensive. This is not a free pass for any kind of offensive content, it is just trying to point out that sometimes the smaller evil is certainly the better way to go.

As @BlueBlou states the offensiveness of the word is at best debatable. What I can say for sure is that nobody was actually offended.
So the discussion is about a name, that as its worst could be considered mildly offensive? But possibly is not at all?

So let´s say the offensiveness was the reason for censoring.

The word in question was by the players own admission not English but Afrikaans. Its meaning was then translated by a fluent member of the moderation team and found to be deemed offensive.

This part though?

So not only was there a language issue here, as our first Forum Rule makes a point of asking for English only, but also then we had to take into consideration our second rule: Be polite and Constructive followed by rule eight: Inappropriate material and language.

What language issue? Are foreign language names OK or are they not? If they are OK, then there IS NO language issue! There can only be a language issue if foreign language names are NOT OK.


here comes the very worst bit:

Had the Fellowship name not been deemed to be offensive, in all probability we would not have stepped in to moderate as the odd words here and there are not seen as much of an issue on the Forum.

In all probability??? Are you saying there is a chance bigger than zero that you will delete a foreign language name even if it is not deemed offensive???
not seen as much of an issue??? Are you saying it actually is an issue? No matter how small or big?

A not offensive non-english name should be ABSOLUTELY no issue and have a 100% guarantee to NEVER be deleted!

How are you going to handle anything less than this? Who is going to decide on which non-offensive non-english name will get occasionally deleted? based on what grounds? and much more important what idea could possibly make anyone think the forum would be a better place for it? To have non-offensive and non-english names rarely but randomly deleted?

So can you please update the above statement?

The game moderators are an essential part of the forum, and for the most part do a good job. It's human nature to make an occasional mistake or error of judgement. As stated by the honourable Silmaril, there are usually a number of reasons why any particular post may be censored or notified to the sender.

I do fully agree with your sentiment, and I do not point this out to shame the mods in any way. What I am trying to do is exactly what you say: I am pointing out a mistake that has been made and from the replies by @Silmaril I am getting a strong feeling that the real mistake hasn´t even dawned on them yet.

The one thing I want out of this is: To not get a repeat of this mistake in the future.

 

[Silmaril]

So are we @Gargon667 as the Fellowship name was deemed to be offensive, the fact that this was masked by the use of a language other than English, made it no less so.
Had the Fellowship name in question not been seen as offensive, no action would have been taken.
Forum Rules as you know ask for English only to be spoken here, this is why any posts that are made in any other language are removed and the player posting asked to remake them to adhere to this rule. We do get very few of these, but they do occasionally occur. In certain circumstances other language words are not moderated, if they enhance the post.
It seems that you are interested in the Game Rules than perhaps the Forum on this regarding 'names' Player names and Fellowship names can be in any languages, as long as they follow the Game Rules and our General Terms and Conditions, which ultimately means they are not or cannot be deemed to be offensive to others.
Please bear in mind that on the International market we have players from across the world, different backgrounds and cultures. What may not be offensive to many may be appalling to many others too.
From a point of view of Game Rules, players are able to have a name in any language. Fellowship names can also in any language, however the description of the Fellowship must be in English. If they have a Fellowship motto, this can also be in any language, but if this is in anything that is not English, it also has to have the translated version to English with it to aid all players.

 

[Morning Town]

It seems that you are interested in the Game Rules than perhaps the Forum on this regarding 'names' Player names and Fellowship names can be in any languages, as long as they follow the Game Rules and our General Terms and Conditions, which ultimately means they are not or cannot be deemed to be offensive to others.

Silmaril, I am some what confused - so for clarity could you confirm, that a Fellowship name being deemed to be in breach of forum rule (as offensive) - that such a Fellowship name is de facto in breach of the matching game rule. In such a situation would such a Fellowship be required / instructed to change its name?

Regards MT

 

[Silmaril]

@Morning Town Unfortunately we cannot discuss this specific case further than what has been already seen her on the Forum, due to player confidentiality.

As you no doubt know, our Support Team investigates all accusations of rule breaking, regardless of what they may be. At the end of the investigation/s action may or may not be taken depending on what (if anything) has been found to substantiate any rule breaking claims.

 

[Morning Town]

@Morning Town Unfortunately we cannot discuss this specific case further than what has been already seen her on the Forum, due to player confidentiality.

As you no doubt know, our Support Team investigates all accusations of rule breaking, regardless of what they may be. At the end of the investigation/s action may or may not be taken depending on what (if anything) has been found to substantiate any rule breaking claims.

Thanks Silmaril, however it was not a specific reference to any case in particular (I am unaware from this post of the case in question) - it was to request clarity, "in general" that the game rules and forum rules are to be taken as being interpreted and applied, both , substantive and procedurally in common.

postscript: I have edited my use of "case" in the original post to differentiate my intended meaning a "situation" as opposed to a "specific complaint case"

 

[DeletedUser501]

And my signature says exactly what I think about Free Speech vs censorship, but I don't think most of the modern Woke World would agree with me... where IS our new Voltaire, I wonder, now that it appears we increasingly need him or her...?!

It is not a "woke world", they are more submissive and asleep than anything in the history of mankind. I´m really tired of the forced inclusiveness, the vague and impersonal (as you said) monotonous monologues of today social media, the "safe spaces" ( more than a manner to force you to accept morbidity and stupidity ) which don´t admit arguments against it at all, intelligence and free criteria is forced to shut up to please suppose "sensible people", but they sacrifice all manners of freedom of thought, freedom of speech and all routes to get a final truth for that exact reason, it is madness.

It´s not only this forum, and this forum moderation is not the problem, it is more a sign of the actual general decease, a hint in the whole panorama.
But hey, you can´t say nothing cause insults, threats, bans, violence or even prison awaits for you. Sad my dear friend Laurelin.

 

[kimkimkim]

out of curiosity....Why would the creators of Elvenar (InnoGames) allow a fellowship name to be accepted if it is considered offensive to Team Elvenar?
something needs to change about this....if InnoGames allowed it to be used, then Team Elvenar should also allow it to be used

 

[Silmaril]

@Morning Town They are indeed and we do our best to make sure that Elvenar is moderated across the board if and when it needs to be.
@kimkimkim If we were to 'blacklist' every word sequence that could be deemed offensive in every language of the world, we would be left with very little for players to choose from. Given that every player signs up to agree to our Terms and Conditions, which makes reference to this situation, it should in essence already be covered.

 

[Laurelin]

@DunkelSaturn : All so true, my friend, and it is precisely because there is such a large-scale problem at hand that I even make so much fuss about small-scale examples of the same problem - namely the truly strange, and tragic, fact that many even supposedly sensible people, as you rightly say, do nothing but look on - or even give their approval! - as their (OUR!) essential freedoms, so hard-won in the past, are dismantled one at a time. If ever there were a time to say that 'You don't know what you have until it's gone', it is now. And although my views rarely make me popular, silence in the face of encroaching tyranny (since it is no less than that, in truth) is the one sure way to welcome it in. Quite genuinely SMH, as they say... :/

 

[Verde]

A little confused ...
So, a fellowship name on EN server (and presumably also a game name) can be in a language other than English and be happily used both in game and in the forum, as long as it is not deemed offensive in the language used; it need not necessarily be in English?

 

[Gargon667]

A little confused ...
So, a fellowship name on EN server (and presumably also a game name) can be in a language other than English and be happily used both in game and in the forum, as long as it is not deemed offensive in the language used; it need not necessarily be in English?

Now I am not the expert, but from what I have learned in this thread it is OK to have a non-english name, as long as you never talk about it in in a language other than English.

So you call your FS "Brot" (bread in German), but you´re not allowed to list all your favorite baked German goods in the description of your FS. Instead you would have to translate all those baked goods into English.
Also you would be allowed to say "I love Brot" here on this Forum, but you would not be allowed to translate this sentence into German, which is why I am not doing it right now and here, so as not to risk my post being deleted.