Tam you!

Anketam

I enjoy playing games on my smart phone and one such game I like to play is called Farm Story and I found a wtf, which I have been having some fun with. In this game every player has message boards where you and other players can post comments. Also you can become friends with other players by sending the other player your storm8 id. In my case both my player name and my storm8 id is anketam. It is common for players to post their storm id on peoples wall including their own inorder to get friends. Yesterday I deleted my old comment on my wall that had my id and was recreating it so it would be at the top of my board, but for some reason I was getting this popup saying that my 'message contained inappropriate word(s)' (also the popup had a title of 'HOORAY!' [yes all caps]). Confused I did some tests removing different words until I found out it was my own id that was causing the issue. Then after testing partials of my id I figured out it was the 'tam' part of my id it no longer liked.

Annoyed by this I googled tam to try and find what kind of bad word or accryonm it was, and found nothing tangible, if anyone happens to know how this is a bad word, please enlighten me. Since I could not find any reason why it was flagged as bad and it was poorly implement (like in those games and forums that censor grass) I went onto their forums and posted about it. In said post I cited a number of everyday words that contain tam that the filter was also failing like: tame, vitamin, and stamp, and generally complained that it was a bug that needs to be looked into. Not surprisingly a moderator saw my post discussing profanity rules (which you are not supposed to do) and locked down the thread, but (s)he failed miserably at trying to censor my post, only censoring two of my references to the word tam and none of the words containing it (nor my name). The fun part began when I emailed their support team. Here is my initial email (which was almost identical to my forum post), their response, and my response back. I personally cannot wait to see what they have to say to my second email.

My initial email:

In farm story I just discovered that any word containing the word tam is
being treated as an inappropriate word and thus cannot be posted on
people's in game message boards. This is a big problem for me since my id
is anketam and so I cannot post my id on any board including my own (and I
know of a fellow player who's name is Tams). Not to mention this also
affects the 300+ english words that contain tam. Examples include:
Tame, vitamin, contament, histamine, metamorphosis, stamp, and Potamic.
Please remove the business rule causing this. I put this in the category of
filters that end up censoring grass.

This is occuring in the android version and my id is anketam

Anketam

Their response:

Hi,

Thank you for your email. We are not able to discuss our language filter for security reasons. Thank you for understanding.

If you answer the following questions, I will be able to help you change your Storm8 ID:

What is the last Storm8, TeamLava, or FireMocha game you played, along with the name of your Character or Story?
In the same game, what is your current Points or Gems/CC balance?
In the same game, what is your level?
What is your current Storm8 ID?
What is your desired Storm8 ID? (First, second, and third choices, in case the ID's are already taken)

We need this information to validate your identity. Once you reply I will be happy to change your Storm8 ID. Thanks.

Regards,
Support Agent Fox

My response:

TeamLava Rep,

There is no need to discuss your language filters, as a software developer I already have a good grasp on several different ways you could have implimented it and how you generate the rules. No matter whether you think tam is a bad word or not there is a bug that needs fixing. The issue is that one of the profanity rules you have is incorrectly implemented or is missing exception cases. For the lols and giggles I did a quick check in game for more evidence of the bug. I found that there is a tree called 'tamarind tree' and it fails your profanity check too! So you either have to admit that you are willfully and intentionaly exposing little kids to a tree named after a naughty word or you have a bug. <sarcasm> Just imagine if a person bought a ton of these and smeared them all across their farm the horror </ sarcasm>. If you do not have the development resources to fix it, I am ok with that, atleast acknowledge you have a problem (remember acknoweldging you have an issue is the first step in recovery).

Find a developer and tell them this: They need to check the logical operator (contains vs equal), regular expression, or for wild cards in their profanity rules for farm story for the term 'tam'. How the rule is currently implemented it is catching legit english words including: tame, stamp, vitamin, and an in game tree called tamarind tree. They need to either add exception cases for the legit 300+ english words (and the tree) it is failing or update the rule so that it does not fail them. If you have a third party company managing this instead pass this along to them.

Also if any of your developers like TheDailyWTF tell them to keep an eye on the sidebar, since odds are I am going to post a story about this there.

Sincerely,

AnkeTAM

ochrist

What a tame story.... No, sorry :-)

Have you checked the Urban Dictionary:

Urban Dictionary: Tam

Severity_One

Seriously, who gives a tam?

Anketam

@ochrist said:

What a tame story.... No, sorry :-)
Have you checked the Urban Dictionary:

Urban Dictionary: Tam

I normally dont trust urban dictionary, And none of the bad definitions even have a 2/3 majority thumbs up, but still thank you for enlightening me. I will be sure to plant a tam tree on my farm in your honor.

RaceProUK

@Anketam said:

Confused I did some tests removing different words until I found out it was my own id that was causing the issue. Then after testing partials of my id I figured out it was the 'tam' part of my id it no longer liked.

Sounds like the XBL word filter, which filters out such heinous words as 'engineering'. I'm so glad MS implemented/outsourced the filter so I could be protected against such offensive words! [:S]

Gurth

I take it these guys are not Firefly fans.

OhNoDevelopment

Guess it's called a clbuttic mistake for a reason [link]http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-Clbuttic-Mistake-.aspx[/link]

@Anketam said:

What is the last Storm8, TeamLava, or FireMocha game you played, along with the name of your Character or Story?
In the same game, what is your current Points or Gems/CC balance?
In the same game, what is your level?
What is your current Storm8 ID?
What is your desired Storm8 ID? (First, second, and third choices, in case the ID's are already taken)

Those questions "to validate your identity" are TRWTF

da_Doctah

@Anketam said:

Not to mention this also
affects the 300+ english words that contain tam. Examples include:
Tame, vitamin, contament, histamine, metamorphosis, stamp, and Potamic.

Your complaint might have been better received if you hadn't made up bogus words.

Contament?

Anketam

@da Doctah said:

@Anketam said:
Not to mention this also
affects the 300+ english words that contain tam. Examples include:
Tame, vitamin, contament, histamine, metamorphosis, stamp, and Potamic.

Your complaint might have been better received if you hadn't made up bogus words.

Contament?

In my defense the email was typed up on my phone which does not have spell check so it is very easy for me to mispell words. [sic]

C_Octothorpe

@Anketam said:

Filed under: <FONT color=#698d73>misspelled mispell</FONT>

*and then the universe imploded*

Way to go, douchebag.

SenTree

@Gurth said:

I take it these guys are not Firefly fans.

She would be why it's unsuitable for minors!

Damn - concentration ruined for the rest of the day.