Java Introducing: The Worst Chat Filter... Ever!

[SanCookie]

Hello there!

This thread will be all about one thing: the chat filter, because in my, and many others opinion, it's in a very bad state as it is right now.

1) 'Ghost' messages​

If you send a message with a blocked word, it would look like you sent the message but the receiver would never receive the message.

An example

I want to inform my friend SanCookie, who asked where Pewdiepie went, about the certain subject so I type a message and press enter to send it.

Little did I know that the word "Hypixel" (which is another Minecraft server) was blocked.

SanCookie wouldn't see this message at all.

At this point, SanCookie thinks that I am ignoring him, which could lead to confusion or in worse cases, an argument.
How am I going to tell him that I sent a message with a blocked word? I didn't know that he didn't see it.

This is an obvious example, but it can get worse in long conversations with long text messages. You would miss on huge parts of the message, which is quite disturbing for an important conversation.

This doesn't only affect private messages, but also public chat, party chat and private friend messages.

An easy fix would be to go back to the original system where you would get a server generated message that tells you that your message didn't get sent because it contained a blocked word. This system wasn't perfect either because sometimes the chat filter would make a little mistake, so you would have to search for every word that could possibly be blocked.


You might ask why this old system was removed.
The simple answer has been given several times: to prevent spam bots from spamming the network.

"A spam bot is a bot that sends messages through multiple users, mostly owned by one person, to send the same message(s) over and over again, which leads to spam."​

Like it said, "multiple users", so user A can send a test message in chat to see if user B would receive it. If not, user A can trial and error that message until user B sees the message in chat. If user B sees the message, the owner of the spam bot fills this message in and happily spams the chat with that specific message.

The solution that I have seen quite a lot on the forums would be to remove the chat filter in party chat and/or private friend messages.

There is a thread to suggest some words to be unblocked but how would we possibly know what words are(n't) blocked by the chat filter if we don't get any clues of a message not being delivered?

1.1) Ping problems​

This problem has to do with the previous problem. When you send a message to a user who enabled the option to receive a ping when they receive a private message they will, obviously, receive a ping on every received private message.

Spoiler: Ping setting

The problem with this feature is that in the past, when you receive a blocked private message (so you wouldn't see the message), you would still hear a ping that indicates that someone sent a blocked private message to you. Recently, they fixed this useful bug. Now you won't even hear a ping sound anymore when someone sends a blocked private message to you.

This makes the first problem even worse, because now you won't even know that someone sent you a private message.

Solution: bring the ping sound back, or same solution as mentioned in the first problem.

2) Management treating the chat filter suggestion wrong.​

On December 24th, 2018, @BringMeZPeanutButter posted a thread about the chat filter. There was a poll with seventeen positive votes, which is a reasonable amount, considering some ideas with less positive votes have been implemented.

@Quetzi replied with an answer that didn't totally explain his opinion.

If there are words you feel should or shouldn't be in the chat filter, or excluded from party chat then this thread is the place to make your requests.

After a little while, the suggestion died until @Spuuuni bumped it because the thread was 'ignored'.

Quetzi replied again with the following response.

We're quite happy with where the chat filter is right now and have no plans to do anything other than the regular filter updates that we already do.

@Nikoshka replied to that response with the following reply.

Honestly, how pathetic.
you literally accept 0 criticism.
You've literally adressed nothing, zilch, nada of the points within the thread and act as if your decision is the absolute supreme decision which is always right. You've also done the same with many other threads tbh.
Then y'all act dillusional about why the server is loosing players.
No it's not because minecraft is dying. It's because Cubecraft has awful management.

He is not the only one who thinks like this. There are a lot of people who want a better chat filter, yet, because some of the people in the management team think the chat filter is fine as it is, we don't get a change or even a decent reply to ideas.


Going through a conversation on Discord, between @Camezonda , @Quetzi , @Blank and @BringMeZPeanutButter , talking about the fact that you don't know which words are blocked by the chat filter and which words aren't blocked.

The thing Camezonda said is true, but also quite naive. Maybe your message contains a word that got falsely blocked by the chat filter? You wouldn't even know it got falsely blocked and your chat buddy wouldn't receive your message.

Camezonda - "You're only noticing this now because I confirmed it does this. You wouldn't have known or noticed overwise."
Of course we noticed it, proven by this thread's first picture. (the thread BringMeTheHorizon was referring to in the conversation.)

Quetzi - "it isn't going to change, there are good reasons for it behaving the way it does currently"
Could you share a reason that isn't "to prevent spam bots from spamming the server"? Because I don't see any other positive reason about it.

Quetzi - "the benefits in this case far outweigh the negatives"
Again, how so? What are all of those 'benefits'?

Camezonda - "You have asked for it to be removed and you have made the suggestion for it to be removed. We have accepted the suggestion exists and we are kindly not considering it. Sounds okay?"
It doesn't sound okay, who considered it? The few people on the management team? This shows once again how the managements treats suggestions from players not in a good way.

This is just not okay.

Camezonda - "There is no data to prove that "a lot of people feel ignored". Most of the time the chat filter is a correct, I have not seen any issues with false blocking lately, I've only seen new things to block."
We can't see those 'issues' that won't even be delivered so we can't tell you that there's something wrong about a word.

Keep in mind what Kevinn said in the screenshot above: "also another thing people sometimes send many messages while we are in cages and i just receive the ping sound and they think that i saw the message"

Camezonda - "About the ping thing, I have made an issue and forwarded it."
Taking away our only possibility to know that someone tried to contact us is not the way to go (see 1.2).

Keep in mind what BringMeTheHorizon said: "You make changes to the chat filter without warning the entire community of it"

Camezonda - "We don't really need to. Do you remind you of everything we change on the network?"
Actually, there are a lot of things that were less important and got into a news thread. But this is the chat, it is a main part of the server, it should be announced that the chat filter and the way it behaves got changed, it actually is very important.
Thanks to @BringMeZPeanutButter for the screenshots. To see the full conversation, click here.


I expect a decent answer from the management on this thread. A lot of people feel ignored. I don't think the people of the management still play a lot on the server, so they don't experience how annoying this can be for other users.

Thank you for reading and understanding this major problem.

 

[Nikoshka]

I expect a decent answer from the management on this thread. A lot of people feel ignored. I don't think the people of the management still play a lot on the server, so they don't experience how annoying this can be for other users.

Management will never understand how frustrating it is for players since:

1) Most management barely play on the server, interacting with players.
2) Staff have permission to bypass the chat filter

The fact that they can't relate to player frustration is a major part in why Cubecraft isn't doing so well.
Take @Tacosbefriends for an example. As an admin, he never experienced the forum post cooldown and most likely supported keeping it in order to "prevent spambots". The first thing he posts as he becomes a member is literally a complaint about the cooldown.
Ik this example is from ages ago but it feels like Management just don't understand the player's point of view at all in these situations.

 

[SanCookie]

Management will never understand how frustrating it is for players since:

1) Most management barely play on the server, interacting with players.
2) Staff have permission to bypass the chat filter

The fact that they can't relate to player frustration is a major part in why Cubecraft isn't doing so well.
Take @Tacosbefriends for an example. As an admin, he never experienced the forum post cooldown and most likely supported keeping it in order to "prevent spambots". The first thing he posts as he becomes a member is literally a complaint about the cooldown.
Ik this example is from ages ago but it feels like Management just don't understand the player's point of view at all in these situations.

Exactly, I said that in a little point in the thread. One of them just needs to get an alt account to play and chat normal for a week.

Yup, agreed. This is so confusing, sometimes I hear the sound of a msg but I don't get the message. Or I send a msg and the person says he hears the sound but doesn't get a message. Even at this point, you can at least hear if someone sends you a message. But in friend msg or public/party chat you can indeed not know if a message is sent or not. It was better to just get a message that you are not able to say that word as it was in the past. And I also agree to @Nikoshka at least moderators play on the server and get a little bit of the player's experience so they can know what the frustrations are of players. Not all, because they also have bypass permission for some things.

I tested if people still heard the ping or saw the message and they didn’t, I hope it’s still there.

Moderators don’t have the last touch on stuff and if they did, it would for sure be a lot easier to get your suggestion noticed.
Plus, yeah, they are allowed to pretty much say what ever they want.

 

[BringMeTheHorizon ♠]

"You're only noticing this now because I confirmed it does this. You wouldn't have known or noticed overwise."

"You have asked for it to be removed and you have made the suggestion for it to be removed. We have accepted the suggestion exists and we are kindly not considering it. Sounds okay?"

Quite the proof that he didn't even know I made that thread. omegalul

 

[coralines]

Making it a toggable option or censoring the message with stars instead would be easier from a community member point of view. The auto removal of a message is meh. You just don’t know what is going through and what isn’t unless you’re double checking with someone, which is absurd.

There is a thread to suggest some words to be unblocked but how would we possibly know what words are(n't) blocked by the chat filter if we don't get any clues of a message not being delivered?

This is something important that management should seriously address though. Asking for a “bug report” when you cannot experience the bug is just a never-ending loop of nothing getting fixed.

 

[Nikoshka]

As a suggestion for the filter, perhaps only spam detections are blanked out? Swearing and anything else would display a message "You are not allowed to say this!"

 

[Blocky]

Just '****' the words that nobody holds a pass for.

 

[GalacticAC]

And blocking hypixel is just pathetic....

 

[SanCookie]

Quite the proof that he didn't even know I made that thread. omegalul

They replied with an asnwer that didn’t even had to do anything with it, which is not how a management team is supposed to act.

Making it a toggable option or censoring the message with stars instead would be easier from a community member point of view. The auto removal of a message is meh. You just don’t know what is going through and what isn’t unless you’re double checking with someone, which is absurd.

This is something important that management should seriously address though. Asking for a “bug report” when you cannot experience the bug is just a never-ending loop of nothing getting fixed.

A toggable thing wouldn’t be the solution because it would still allow people to swear but if you look at if from another perspective: you decide if you see the rude words or not. (If that is what you meant.)

Also, exactly, I’ve had loads of trouble finding words that would get blocked for no reason at all.

As a suggestion for the filter, perhaps only spam detections are blanked out? Swearing and anything else would display a message "You are not allowed to say this!"

Sounds like a reasonable solution, that would prevent all of the spam, but then the question would be: what is considered spam? Ttt? Or 3 messages in a row? Or both? Or something else?

Just '****' the words that nobody holds a pass for.

I do agree but their reply would be “it would be too easy for the person who sent the message to change their word so it would bypass the chatfilter and would be visible in chat.

And blocking hypixel is just pathetic....

I get that it is an opponent, I wouldn’t like people on my server to talk about other servers either. But I also get what you mean.

 

[Snivy Films]

Im going to jump straight to the point here, Fix the dang filter, and while at that, fix it so the staff can relate to us, seems like a good idea right, mainly because it is, but lets be honest here, if you are going to try to bypass the filter on Cubecraft, you are better off using Discord or Steam, its much easier and there is no filters built in unless you add them yourself, which is why I use Discord in a private group to play with friends, much easier

 

[MagnificentSpam]

I don't know if the spam bot argument is the actual reason for this, but if it is, someone should publish a script that spams and also checks if messages are received with a second account. Once spammers start using that it can be changed back, right?

 

[Dohaa]

I don't understand why there is a chat filter in party and Fmsg, that defeats the purpose of having a private party chat and private messages. I believe that it should just turn filtered words into (*)s, and remove the filter in private chats.

Ghost messages are so bad and cause a lot of problems, I completely agree with that. That's why what I said above matters, relating to this issue and to be honest I wouldn't mind a message that says: "Message can't be said" or something like that instead of just doing nothing.

I completely disagree on naming another server though. It's very understandable to block the name of another server that's essentially a competitor and being able to promote them in the chat should not be allowed, even if everyone knows it. However, there should be an error message or (*) instead of just keeping us in the dark.

Also, not to mention there are words that shouldn't be filtered but are sometimes gets very annoying when you are trying to type. I have seen certain cases where an appropriate name of a user is blocked for no reason at all. I think that there are simply way too many words in that filter, they really need to relook the entire filter system.

 

[SanCookie]

Im going to jump straight to the point here, Fix the dang filter, and while at that, fix it so the staff can relate to us, seems like a good idea right, mainly because it is, but lets be honest here, if you are going to try to bypass the filter on Cubecraft, you are better off using Discord or Steam, its much easier and there is no filters built in unless you add them yourself, which is why I use Discord in a private group to play with friends, much easier

I’ve always wondered why staff members are allowed to say pretty much anything in chat. They could say “don’t say swearword” but if they say that, they said it themselves.
Not everyone has Discord or Steam though.

I don't know if the spam bot argument is the actual reason for this, but if it is, someone should publish a script that spams and also checks if messages are received with a second account. Once spammers start using that it can be changed back, right?

That would be a simple solution, and if that wasn’t the only reason, I don’t know what else would be. Still waiting for a response from the management team.

I don't understand why there is a chat filter in party and Fmsg, that defeats the purpose of having a private party chat and private messages. I believe that it shoukd just turn filtered words into (*)s, and remove the filter in private chats.

Yep, there shouldn’t really be a chatfilter in the chat ways you mentioned. I don’t think they should replace the words with * but just tell us that we can’t send a message.

I completely disagree on naming another server though. It's very understandable to block the name of another server that's essentially a competitor and being able to promote them in the chat should not be allowed, even if everyone knows it. However, there should be an error message or (*) instead of just keeping us in the dark.

Same, but that wasn’t the big problem, it was just an example and I didn’t want to use a swearword. The error idea would be good.

Also, not to mention there are words that shouldn't be filtered but are sometimes gets very annoying when you are trying to type. I have seen certain cases where an appropriate name of a user is blocked for no reason at all. I think that there are simply way too many words in that filter, they really need to relook the entire filter system.

I believe they do look at the system, but not enough. I have a feeling that it would be a great idea to relook at it BUT with the help of the community.

 

[_The13thDoctor_]

Yesterday I kept got spam pinged and I couldn’t figure out what’s going on. Defiantly agree with everything and especially that area.

 

[SanCookie]

Yesterday I kept got spam pinged and I couldn’t figure out what’s going on. Defiantly agree with everything and especially that area.

I didn’t know it was still in the game, tested it with a friend but they didn’t get a ping. It wasn’t a clear experiment though.

They are planning to remove it anyways so this thread would still count.

 

[Snivy Films]

Here is the overall issue in my opinion, the staff is always out of the loop, always, when was the last time you saw a manager on the server, playing the mini games, I would like to bet you haven't seen them or if you did, it was in the main lobby standing around. They dont play their own games, It is why something like lvl 4 skeleton spam in TD is so common, they are cheep and hard to defend against, they haven't done jack diddly **** to pay attention to all of the suggestions that can be so benifital to TD, and when Camezonda said place your suggestions here for it, we are regurgitating what we have been saying for the past months, sorry for that bit of a rant but it is true, they dont pay attention to big issues, and instead prioritize coming out with maps for Skywars and Eggwars, because that will totally fix the issues that is plaguing everything else in Cubecraft, case in point, Management doesn't pay attention

 

[Blocky]

Tbh i'm happy that the filter isn't affecting me so i don't have to deal with this crap since i never bother to talk ingame.

 

[Dohaa]

What do you think of a public list that is viewable, not on the forms obviously, but shows all the list of the words that are blocked. This has been recently implemented in the chat filter for Minecraft: Bedrock Edition, where the list is viewable and you're able to discuss the words, this will help management deal with these type of fake blocks that happen, and it also gets the community involved which is essential for the server.

 

[SanCookie]

Here is the overall issue in my opinion, the staff is always out of the loop, always, when was the last time you saw a manager on the server, playing the mini games, I would like to bet you haven't seen them or if you did, it was in the main lobby standing around. They dont play their own games, It is why something like lvl 4 skeleton spam in TD is so common, they are cheep and hard to defend against, they haven't done jack diddly **** to pay attention to all of the suggestions that can be so benifital to TD, and when Camezonda said place your suggestions here for it, we are regurgitating what we have been saying for the past months, sorry for that bit of a rant but it is true, they dont pay attention to big issues, and instead prioritize coming out with maps for Skywars and Eggwars, because that will totally fix the issues that is plaguing everything else in Cubecraft, case in point, Management doesn't pay attention

The last time I saw them, they were still streaming. And yes, they did ask the community about what they should change on the TD and SW gamemode, so I am hoping those gamemodes will get improved very soon.

What do you think of a public list that is viewable, not on the forms obviously, but shows all the list of the words that are blocked. This has been recently implemented in the chat filter for Minecraft: Bedrock Edition, where the list is viewable and you're able to discuss the words, this will help management deal with these type of fake blocks that happen, and it also gets the community involved which is essential for the server.

Wouldn’t solve everything, I don’t want to remember a full list of words that I can’t say, it also would make the spambot argument even worse because spambot owners can just take a look at the list. Also a list isn’t enough, some things are blocked on their context, for example, if you say “ttt”, it would get blocked, but I believe that when you say “Hey I like ttto dance” it wouldn’t get blocked.

Also, where would the full list get released? On the forums? Because only about 5-10% looks at the forums.

 

[Camezonda]

Hey, thanks for making this suggestion. But at this time, the chat filter will be staying as it is currently. I also understand that your suggestion isn't to remove the chat filter, but your suggestion is to remove the silent blocking mainly. My reply is explaining why we are going to keep it. We understand the possible problems it brings to some members of the community and we're sorry for the inconvenience. The chat filter as it is now, we feel brings a bigger positive than it does negative. The chat filter, blocks an incredible amount of words, sentence and other possible phrases/abbreviations, which helps protect and keep the community safe from spam bots and inappropriate and malicious users. With the chat filter, we can decide what is blocked and where it is blocked, such as in global chat, team chat, parties or private messages. There are some cases were you can say a word in a party or private message, but not in the main global chat.

With every chat filter, there are always the chances of false blocking words/sentences. If you ever feel like that something has been falsely blocked, feel free to report it at bugs.cubecraft.net. As for the ping issue, it is considered a bug, and it will be fixed regardless. Once again, thank you for taking your time to create this suggestion thread. If you have any other issues or questions, feel free to private message myself or another member of management.

Thank you,
locked.