Board Game Arena

Hi!

I really hope this doesn't count as challenging a moderation, but rather understanding how it works and discuss what words are reasonable to put warnings on.

I quite frequently get warnings when I chat with friends in Swedish. Some are obvious like an adequate use of the word "*", perceiving the word "*" as inappropriate when it is in fact the Swedish spelling of "six".

We usually ignore the warnings and noone of us would file a report, rather we get kinda amused. But is there a risk to it? It seems so on the text sometimes, that we are at risk even if not reported. That seems like a vicious function.

It doesn't feel right to vacuum the text for possible misunderstandings or overprotective targeting of sort of innocent words, words that are widely used in non-provocative ways. So we just ignore the warnings.

Is there a risk to this?

My second question - is there any possibility of feedbacking on those warnings? Since other languages (at least Swedish and also Norwegian) often are misinterpreted. Or should we waste time try to figure out where we stepped "wrong" and edit?

My reason for writing now is that I got a warning on a text that I at first could not for my life understand why. Then I figured maybe it is the word "l*st". In Swedish this does not necesserily have sexual implications but is an extremely common way of expressing a good feeling, wanting to do something. This was the text. Or was it something else?

"Ciao! Såg att du loggade in. Har du särskilda planer de kommande timmarna? Jag har varit magsjuk och ligger helt utslagen, kan inte följa med på spelkväll :O. Har du lust att spela något, typ mellan 18 o 19? Något vi kan, eller kanske är du sugen på backgammon?"

Thanks for reading and reacting!
/Fruity

*Moderator edit: please refrain from swearing on BGA, this is a family-friendly platform.

At least you didn't say anything about "end"

Funny that "Willy" is banned word, especially in game Colt Express where Willy the Kid is a major character but can't mention his name.

You probably want to vote for this report: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=9903

I agree that the chat warning comes across as a bit much - I also wondered if I was going to be automatically reported for using fairly mild curse language with some of my RL friends (who would not care, and did not report me). I am more moderated in my chat with strangers obviously.

But to answer the OPs question, my understanding is that you will only experience consequences if someone reports you, so if you are playing with friends, you should be fine.

I also can't see anything in your Swedish that would trigger the sensor apart from the word you've pointed out (which I would argue isn't a swear word, and had many legitimately non-offensive contexts).

Fruktstund wrote: ↑29 April 2025, 16:10 *Moderator edit: please refrain from swearing on BGA, this is a family-friendly platform.

Once again mods, I will say that CONTEXT matters when you are moderating words on a forum post. This user was not swearing, but using a perfectly legitimate word in their language to explain their point.

nik592 wrote: ↑29 April 2025, 22:48 Once again mods, I will say that CONTEXT matters when you are moderating words on a forum post. This user was not swearing, but using a perfectly legitimate word in their language to explain their point.

It wouldn't surprise me if there were a script to flag "bad" language in the forums which is then just blindly applied by moderators.

Meeplelowda wrote: ↑29 April 2025, 23:00

nik592 wrote: ↑29 April 2025, 22:48 Once again mods, I will say that CONTEXT matters when you are moderating words on a forum post. This user was not swearing, but using a perfectly legitimate word in their language to explain their point.

It wouldn't surprise me if there were a script to flag "bad" language in the forums which is then just blindly applied by moderators.

Then what is the point of employing humans for the job? Surely it could just be automated if that were the approach (I know it's not necessarily as easy as that, but if you have humans, I feel like they should be applying judgement).

Personally (and as a parent to two kids who I have to teach about "bad words"), I think censorship is ridiculous, except in the case where it's used excessively and/or to offend or insult others. I don't really attempt to hide "bad words" from my kids - in fact, I mostly ignore them, as I feel like drawing attention to them just makes the kid more likely to want to say it. 90% of the time, they won't notice the bad word that's been said until an adult (*cough*my husband*cough*) points it out to them by reacting or commenting ("ooops, don't listen to that kids" = children who desperately want to know what they shouldn't be listening to). If they use the words, I explain they're grown up words and they need to understand what they mean to use them, they're not to be used to make other people feel bad, and that they need to be aware of the judgement of other people if they choose to use them. But that's my personal opinion, and I accept that a place like this might choose to censor instead. If you're going to do that though, make it make sense.

nik592 wrote: ↑30 April 2025, 02:04

Meeplelowda wrote: ↑29 April 2025, 23:00

nik592 wrote: ↑29 April 2025, 22:48 Once again mods, I will say that CONTEXT matters when you are moderating words on a forum post. This user was not swearing, but using a perfectly legitimate word in their language to explain their point.

It wouldn't surprise me if there were a script to flag "bad" language in the forums which is then just blindly applied by moderators.

Then what is the point of employing humans for the job? Surely it could just be automated if that were the approach (I know it's not necessarily as easy as that, but if you have humans, I feel like they should be applying judgement).

Personally (and as a parent to two kids who I have to teach about "bad words"), I think censorship is ridiculous, except in the case where it's used excessively and/or to offend or insult others. I don't really attempt to hide "bad words" from my kids - in fact, I mostly ignore them, as I feel like drawing attention to them just makes the kid more likely to want to say it. 90% of the time, they won't notice the bad word that's been said until an adult (*cough*my husband*cough*) points it out to them by reacting or commenting ("ooops, don't listen to that kids" = children who desperately want to know what they shouldn't be listening to). If they use the words, I explain they're grown up words and they need to understand what they mean to use them, they're not to be used to make other people feel bad, and that they need to be aware of the judgement of other people if they choose to use them. But that's my personal opinion, and I accept that a place like this might choose to censor instead. If you're going to do that though, make it make sense.

From the intensity of this reaction, it seems like you think I was defending this behavior. I used "blindly" as a pejorative. If I used even stronger language then I would be edging closer to the line of moderation.

Meeplelowda wrote: ↑30 April 2025, 05:11 From the intensity of this reaction, it seems like you think I was defending this behavior. I used "blindly" as a pejorative. If I used even stronger language then I would be edging closer to the line of moderation.

No, I didn't think you were defending the behaviour, and apologies if that's how it came off. I was tempted to say more originally, and the idea that mods might not be applying their own judgement kind of set me off again. So it wasn't directed at you, but just about the policy in general. I can accept it when it makes sense, when it becomes non-sensical, it's a bit of a bug bear for me.

Firstly, I agree that it is a bit ridiculous that this bot is having an opinion on the private conversation people have with their friends. Now, the general messages chat or table chats are a different issue. I personally also think there is a huge difference between insults (not ok) and swear words that are not directed at anyone specific (fine in my book).
That being said, I wonder how difficult it would be to have the bot detect the language the conversation is in and then apply a language specific list of "bad words" that get flagged. This would not only help to stop flagging innocent words in languages other than English but also flag actually offensive words as well, since apparently I can use insults in chat as long as they are German.

nik592 wrote: ↑29 April 2025, 22:48 You probably want to vote for this report: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=9903

I agree that the chat warning comes across as a bit much - I also wondered if I was going to be automatically reported for using fairly mild curse language with some of my RL friends (who would not care, and did not report me). I am more moderated in my chat with strangers obviously.

But to answer the OPs question, my understanding is that you will only experience consequences if someone reports you, so if you are playing with friends, you should be fine.

I also can't see anything in your Swedish that would trigger the sensor apart from the word you've pointed out (which I would argue isn't a swear word, and had many legitimately non-offensive contexts).

Fruktstund wrote: ↑29 April 2025, 16:10 *Moderator edit: please refrain from swearing on BGA, this is a family-friendly platform.

Once again mods, I will say that CONTEXT matters when you are moderating words on a forum post. This user was not swearing, but using a perfectly legitimate word in their language to explain their point.

Thanks for the link and all the response. Reading the thread it is scary how ignored this matter has been. Already 2020 it had been 2 years and a building frustration cause the lack of response. And now six years and nothing happened. Though so many described exactly the same problems with this and also suggestions for solutions.

Not really any loud voices that are satisfyed with the censor bot system either...

Feels like someone wrote, not so good paying for this and being treated like a child. BGA is less fun now. What the h*** are they doing?