We have received a great amount of feedback from the first round of Beta testers and thanks to your help, we have nearly fixed all the bugs reported from the community! This doesn't mean we are bug free, so continue testing and keep that feedback coming in. We listen to every request and are constantly working hard to ensure everything is in tip top shape. As you may know, we have been spending a large amount of time working on platform monetization which covers a wide range of tasks. Everything from abusive behavior, foul language, preventative maintenance, spam, trolls, harassment and so forth.. This is actually a very large undertaking. Not only do we have to clean up all the years of tension and disarray but we must also implement rules and regulations that prevents and detours this future behavior. We don't deny it, the data and statistics doesn't lie. There has been a tremendous amount of spam, abuse, profanity and bots running rampant on GameMaps for the past few years and we are definitely taking this matter very seriously. As we've mentioned in some prior discussions, there is no "quick fix" to solving a problem. Every situation must be thought out, and planned in a way that doesn't just fix a current problem, but to prevent future problems from re-occurring. Some of the problems we have to resolve are on such a large scale there's no way to avoid collateral damage or undesired results. For example, there might be 30,000 usernames containing profanity out of 1.2 million members. This is actually a very large and complex issue to resolve. We must write a script that can find, detect and remove this profanity from usernames without affecting innocent bystanders. To have a 100% accuracy rate is literally impossible and therefore some undesired results may occur. This is the same situation when we are removing profanity or spam from profiles, comments, reviews, etc.. on such a large scale. There is no task big or small we can't accomplish or resolve. We have a great team and we put our very best efforts in building a reliable and solid platform you can trust. As we evolve things continue to get better with improvements, new features, a safer atmosphere and a more easily accessible platform. Our mission is to help you build your dreams. As always we appreciate your support, patience and understanding. - The GameMaps Team Let's now take a look at some recent updates below. --- Platform Updates --- - When adding content, favorite games will be suggested in game select. - When editing content there is now a 'Update' 'button instead of 'Save/Next'. - Adding user tags with special characters is now fixed. - Updated phrase 'Finished; but not released..' to 'Finished, but..' - Clicking the edit change-log or settings will retain the correct design. - Time display for messages, forums and comments will use "1 hour ago" format. - Users who abandon content on live site will be taken to the GameMaps beta. This is the first feature that allows users to access the Beta without a direct invite. - [NEW] The Credits shop now has its first item 'Update Username' for 25 credits. This option can only be used once so pick your usernames carefully! This is particularly useful for those who have their usernames censored or made a mistake during the registration process. To access the credits shop click the credits balance at the members area. --- New Profanity Filter --- The following locations will now be censored when a profanity word has been detected. (Feedback, comments, reviews, descriptions, profile messages, forum discussions, change-logs, and private messages) This will now prevent and detour any future profanity from appearing on the platform. Users who attempt to bypass this profanity filter will be restricted or banned. - Usernames when registering a new account can no longer contain profanity and the registration attempt will be denied. - Existing usernames that contained profanity have been renamed with asterisks ***. (This may affect a handful of innocent accounts as the accuracy rate is not 100%.) You may visit the new credits shop to update your username. - Existing profile messages that contained profanity have been cleared. (This may affect a handful of innocent accounts as the accuracy rate is not 100%.) If your profile message was cleared, simply create a new message. - Existing comments and reviews that contained profanity have been deleted. (This may affect a handful of innocent messages as the accuracy rate is not 100%.) --- Monetization Progress --- - Profanity filter function to prevent and detour abuse. (100% Complete) - Enforce profanity filter on new files, descriptions, change-logs. (100% Complete) - Enforce profanity filter on new content. (100% Complete) - Enforce profanity filter on new comments and feedback. (100% Complete) - Purge old deleted comments 'Comment removed by...' (100% Complete) - Remove orphaned replies from a removed parent comment. (100% Complete) - Remove prior comments flagged with new profanity filter. (100% Complete) - Remove prior reviews flagged with new profanity filter. (100% Complete) - Disable guests from posting new comments. (beta) (100% Complete) - Restrict/change usernames that contain profanity. (100% Complete) - The ability to allow users to update/correct their username. (100% Complete) - Prevent usernames and profiles from containing profanity. (100% Complete) - Clear profile messages that contain profanity. (100% Complete) - Prevent profanity from being used as tags for content. (100% Complete) - New profanity filter applied to private messages. (beta) (100% Complete) - Add a captcha to registration to block bots/spam. (100% Complete) - The ability to archive content. (100% Complete) - The ability to outsource content. (100% Complete) - All unreleased content has been screened and verified. (100% Complete) - All abandoned content has been screened and resolved. (100% Complete) Estimated Monetization Progress: 27% For more details visit the monetization topic below. https://beta.gamemaps.com/discussions/28 --- Forward looking updates. --- Our forward looking updates remain unchanged as we are currently working on the following tasks... - Content monetization and member administration. - The ability to add and manage new games to the platform. - Fixing the bugs and completing requests from the community. - Improving your browsing experience to show top content, trending content, and adding more ways to discover content. We appreciate your feedback and patience. Thanks for supporting GameMaps! - The GameMaps Team
GameMaps (System) 
Great updates. Also I found few things. While adding new content. STEP 1 Before choosing game in Game field the empty thumbnail on the left have that edit icon moved a bit to the right overlapping the frame. After choosing game that thumbnail expands so the edit icon don't overlap the frame anymore. I'm not sure if this is a bug. When I add custom image to that thumbnail and then choose game in Game field, thumbnail image don't change like it does when choosing between games. Also if I refresh the page or return from another page to add new mod that image in thumbnail is still there. However this can be fixed when I press Cancel at the bottom. Credits shop. What happens if I search for a mod by old username? Mod page. In Tags. Should the names like "Time of day", "Difficulty", "Player Mode" be considered as tags? The same for "Region", "Seasonal", "Weather"? For example in: https://beta.gamemaps.com/details/19677
"I'm not sure if this is a bug. When I add custom image to that thumbnail and then choose game in Game field, thumbnail image don't change like it does when choosing between games. Also if I refresh the page or return from another page to add new mod that image in thumbnail is still there. However this can be fixed when I press Cancel at the bottom." This is not a bug, actually when you are creating a game it applies the game thumbnail (which can be used as a thumbnail if your doing an audio mod) If you begin the adding process but navigate away, next time you go to add a new mod it will resume where you left off. That's why you see the thumbnail still in there, pressing cancel would cancel the adding process. --- "What happens if I search for a mod by old username?" There would be no way to search for content using an old username, however we are going to add a rule that allows old usernames to be prohibited from another user taking them. So if you change your name, you don't need to worry about someone else taking your prior name. Your profile url and user ID will remain the same. --- In Tags. Should the names like "Time of day", "Difficulty", "Player Mode" be considered as tags? The same for "Region", "Seasonal", "Weather"? These are technically tags, but they are considered or treated more like 'filters'. We still have work planned ahead of us in the near future when it comes to tags and filters... We will know more information once we dive into tags with more detail. The tagging system will continue to improve which will also improve the players browsing experience. Regards!
The name of one of my mods has been censored and it should not have been. I assume this was a mistake but I would like it corrected. The mod is an old one and NOT a Mature mod- it is a simple script mod. I've never done anything but script mods and there is no profanity in the name of the mod. The mod is called *** Change Operation because it changes the *** of the guy in the Church in Death Toll. Bascially, instead of one of the 3 types of male special that can spawn in the Church, you'll always get a Witch. So there was a *** change and therefore the name makes perfect sense. The word *** is not a vulgarity in the first place, and certainly not in the context that it is being used here. If you look at the description of the mod you'll find no profanity whatsoever. I understand your desire to clean up profanity on the website because though it doesn't usually bother me much I realize some people have an issue with it. But I've already had dozens of my reviews removed (and I don't even know if they had profanity in them or not), and I think this latest act of censorship is going too far. Thanks for reading this and have a wonderful day.
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Hello, For the moment I have removed this item from the profanity list of words and corrected your title. We will evaluate the future occurrences using this word and if it's used inappropriately too many times moving forward we will consider censoring it again. GameMaps has been widely known for its freedom of speech/expression and we never censored anything before. The freedom of expression is what allows people to agree, disagree, debate and allows love and hate to be freely expressed. However, with the rise in complaints of harassment, inappropriate behavior, and hatred... We need to ensure everyone can feel safe and comfortable at GameMaps. The internet has grown over the past 10-20 years tremendously and the trolls, haters and negative users came with it. Many people are also sensitive to vulgar language, provocative topics, taboo and especially harassment. It doesn't matter if people are 5,000 miles away from each other, the world has given birth to a new generation of internet users. These users demand action, and (in some countries) there are even laws prohibiting offensive social behavior. These concerns have even spilled into the Beta requests... It has forced us to adapt in this new age we are living in, and thus content must be censored. Although we are advocates of free speech, the emotional and physical safety of our members is always #1. We will do our best to ensure people feel comfortable and enjoy a clean friendly service. In addition to providing tools for members to avoid offensive content, we will do our best to detour the content from entering the platform to begin with. Once the site has been 100% completely cleaned from any existing profanity, there will be no more reason to remove old comments, reviews, tags etc... because they are prohibited from entering the system and are censored now. It's just the initial cleaning of the hundreds of thousands of past items that has to be done once with an automated algorithm, which ends up with some undesired results. Thanks for understanding. Regards
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Thanks for responding, and I have no intention of using profanity or THAT word in future mods (I intend to release at least 6 next month.) But you know, the rules were very different back when that mod was released. I've been a member since 2015 and started modding since 2017, and many of my mods are from 2017 (and many of my reviews go all the way back to 2015.) Back then, things were different even though it wasn't so long ago in the grand scheme of things. Sincerely, AlfredENeuman
Btw, I'm sorry if I put my comment on wrong place. I just wanted to ask about that profanity thing. Is there a way to uncensor the censored words? On some sites I visited, there were settings to remove the censorship & show the real words. I've been keeping looking for that one here, but I still can't find it. I checked the beta & original version of gamemaps, & didn't find a setting to do that. & somehow some usernames are completely censored though I have no idea if the username contains profanity or not. For example, the username "Rec tus31_" (it was shown "******31_" on the site. I split the name because the profanity filter might censor that name). Probably the profanity filter had a false detection on that name. For some certain reasons I want to be able to read the censored words on some comments because I think some words are still detected by mistake, & that makes me wonder what people were trying to tell on their comments. That also relates to people's usernames. I wish I could uncensor the usernames in my account settings, because some members I know here in gamemaps currently have their usernames censored. Well in short, I just want to know if there's a setting to remove the censorship filter from account settings. If there isn't yet, probably it would be a good idea to put one.
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Hello kurochama, There is no way to turn on/off the censor and there is no plan to have this option because our goal is to also detour foul language and not just censor it. We want users to think about a better choice of words and think twice about potential harassment against other users. Although as mentioned in some previous news updates, the accuracy rate is not 100% and therefore some undesired results may occur. To circumvent this situation we have released an update that allows users to update their username at the credits shop. This will allow users to correct names that have been censored, registration mistakes and those who are registering through facebook. We plan to launch the beta to a much larger audience next week and also prompt users who have censored usernames with a recommendation to update their names. Hope this helps answer your questions and concerns! Regards
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"There is no way to turn on/off the censor and there is no plan to have this option because our goal is to also detour foul language and not just censor it. We want users to think about a better choice of words and think twice about potential harassment against other users. " Btw how about "early detection of inappropriate words before posting"? Is that feature implemented here already? I have some thinking about some ideas, if the "uncensoring feature" is not possible. Maybe "early detection of inappropriate words" would be effective. Like for example, if a comment contains some bad words, once the member clicks "post comment" or "send", there would be error with highlighted bad words. That way, the member writing the comment could see what's wrong in his comment & then edits the bad words in order to be able to post the comment. "We plan to launch the beta to a much larger audience next week and also prompt users who have censored usernames with a recommendation to update their names. Hope this helps answer your questions and concerns!" Thanks, this info is really helpful. I hope that most members with their usernames censored will change their usernames soon after they get the notification.
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kurochama has a fine idea there, why not prevent the posting of unacceptable comments in the first place? That way no person is going to complain later about the censorship as much if at all, because they knew it would happen beforehand. Some people hate surprises after all.
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The example kurochama provided is good but can be used in a different way. Someone could use it to bypass profanity filter for example add dot or space inside bad word.
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"The example kurochama provided is good but can be used in a different way. Someone could use it to bypass profanity filter for example add dot or space inside bad word." Well, you got the point, greenhood. This kind of thing is also possible. However, I think this can also be solved by collaboration of manual inspection & member's reports. As we know, using bad word is prohibited, & the profanity filter is like the 1st layer to filter the bad words & warn member about bad words they shouldn't use. So if someone still insist on bypassing the profanity filter by using special letters or symbols, it indirectly shows that the person breaks the rules on purpose. That way, any members can report his comment & then the admin can give direct punishment for breaking the rules on purpose.