The long and the short of it is that we pay our money to HTC to play a MMOL WW2 combat flight sim. There are plenty of places that insults can be hurled at each other, many of them don't even charge for the privelege. If y'want to behave like a mindless boor, go right ahead and use 'em. If you decide to upset folks with impoliteness in AH, go whine somewhere else if you get booted.
Personally I agree that there SHOULD be the facility to permanently squelch any individual or channel until such time as you wish to unsquelch them, if ever. Such a feature wouldnt be hurting the community because anyone upset enough by someone to squelch them isn't going to "commune" with them any way. The current system simply allows the small number of childish idiots to make things unpleasant for the better-behaved majority for longer than would otherwise be the case. Put the onus on individuals to be well-behaved, HTC; not on everyone else to have to squelch them. There's far too much bigotry and otherwise unpleasant chat seen in the arenas, IMO.
As for possible problems with moderators; if it isn't already so (I don't know; I wasn't even aware that there were such aside from the HTC folks themselves!) perhaps it could be made such that a record is automatically made of all censorial acts made by moderators in the arenas? That way if there is any argument over what has happened, it can be inspected and if need be amends made later.
It isn't just the bizarre gameplay of the MA that tends to keep me from messing around in there very often; it's also the huge amount of unpleasantly childish beahviour (I don't mean silly and inoffensive stuff, for all the nit-pickers out there...). The point about what are newcomers likely to think - and do - if they come up against some of the bigoted bad-mothing minority is a damned good one. Offensive language equates to potential lost revenue for HTC. Less revenue means less development, or taken to an extreme, no game at all.
Think about it before whining about HTC taking a firm line on the matter.
Esme
PS: as for changing ID's/handles... why? Why should one be expected to have to change from a perfectly innocuous handle that happens to be a female name to something else, simply because a few morons will tend to pick on women? Think very carefully before responding if you think you can justify a reason...
No-one should HAVE to hide their gender, race or creed because of malcontents. Its the malcontents who should be hiding, or better yet, be kicked out at high speed.
