Profanity filter

#1 - Sept. 16, 2014, 3:37 a.m.
Blizzard Post

I’m not entirely sure this is the right place to post this but here goes:

I’d like Anet’s forum staff to consider adding the word “cancer” to their profanity filter. Such illness is truly terrible and everyone who ever suffered through it or had someone close to them suffer from it knows how bad it is.

Why this word, and not every other disease?

Because other diseases haven’t been made into a “trend” word such as “toxic”, “scrub”, “pug” and whatnot. If they had it would be just as compelling, probably.

Before someone argues it: yes, i am a bit oversensitive about it because reasons, as it stands however the word is used all too often (“this X is a cancer to the game”, “that Y was so bad it gave me cancer”) and i cannot think of a single way to use it constructively on a game forum discussion.

#2 - Sept. 30, 2014, 6:41 p.m.
Blizzard Post

Hi adozu.

I understand your concerns and have actually expressed similar thoughts in the past. However, there are valid reasons to allow the use of the word, such as Proud Cancer Survivor; Fundraising for Childhood Cancer; Breast Cancer Awareness; and many others.

I really dislike the fact we have to filter perfectly reasonable words, but in some cases, we do because they are misused so often. I spoke with a member of my team about “cancer” and we’ve made a modest change to the filter that may censor the more objectionable uses. If we find that misuse is rampant we’ll review the filter options again.

In the meantime, please do feel free to report (flag in lower right) a post in which you believe the word is used objectionably and we’ll take a look.