Censor Bypass Policy Change

For nearly a decade, GameSpot has had a censor bypass policy that has not always made sense to newcomers. Once the ropes were learned, things became easier for some users, but we often noticed confusion about two things: GameSpot news didn’t use the same censor bypass policy and the way we allowed a letter dash word format.

How come GameSpot’s news articles could censor bypass but the community had a different rule set? The logic here never made much sense, but once it’s made concrete in the Terms of Use agreement, the mods and staff over the years pretty much followed. Additionally, GameSpot content found in the news, videos, features, and reviews does not need to comply with the Terms of Use agreement because it’s intended for registered user content, although that’s another story you don’t need to be reminded about right now.

The other question was how come a user could use s-word or S, but they were moderated if they used s***. Well, as much as I would like to avoid ridiculing the Terms of Use of the past, the idea that there might have been logic at the time isn’t clearly understood.

What we have here is a change to GameSpot’s ever-growing community, and it’s about time for an update to censor bypass content, which will be similar to the way our editorial news staff deals with profanity.

Here are some basics about the changes:

- GameSpot members that have been moderated for censor bypassing will not have their moderations reversed.
- GameSpot members should heavily rely on the censor bypass system, which often alerts users about a censored word and automatically masks it.
- If GameSpot members would like to go through the trouble to use the first letter and mask the rest of the word format, they can do this based on the new rules.
- The rule about allowing acronyms (WTF and other related ones) has been added, but this has been a policy we have used over the past few years if the acronym was not offensive, flaming, or trolling.
- GameSpot members may now use some phrases that might have been moderated for censor bypassing over the years. For instance, what the frack (widely used among Battlestar Galactic fans) will be overlooked, but if the replacement word looks like the actual censored word, the content may likely be moderated.
- We have also added some additional examples about what kinds of words are not allowed; these include but are not limited to: g-r-i-s, gr*s, g**s, -grizzle, 9|-1$, gr1s, ***s, girs, gryeeeas.

If you report abuse, please make sure you understand the following:

- If you make a mistake, we won’t mark you for falsely reporting to the queue. The rules will take some time for everyone to figure out.
- If a GameSpot moderator or admin moderates you for the old rules, it means that they are at fault and the moderation is eligible to be reversed. Make sure you let the mods know by politely asking what you did wrong in the Ask the Moderators forum.
- If an admin believes that an acronym or phrase is inappropriate for the site, don’t be too surprised that the content is removed. You can also ask about why it was moderated for clarification.

Actual changes to the Terms of Use page have been outlined in the Ask the Moderator forum. Feel free to share if you appreciate the changes!