General Rules on Screen Names

[digger]

Hello BFM Officers, I was wondering what is the rules on whats allowed for a player's screen name outside the alphabet?   I heard it is a fairly new one. When will the rule section be updated with it?  Thank you

[BFM_JANE]

Hi digger, welcome to the forums.

We have added a new part to our names policy for in the servers. You sound like you're familiar with the old parts (no profanity, religious names, racist names, etc), so no need to get into that.

For names that are in the server, we ask that they be "real" names, meaning something we can pronounce and/or quickly type in game. It's hard to talk to someone when their name is (o!o) or fdjkslada.


So, we'll ask people to change their name if:

1) it's nonsense letters or just numbers

2) it's all symbols or non-alpha characters


If they have a bunch of symbols in their name, we just need to be able to read some part of it, like -=#(bob)#=- or $n@ke is fine, !#$%& is not fine. The same goes for names with alt codes, as long as we can read the name in it, it's fine.


We're working on adding it to the full detailed rules, should be there sometime soon!

[digger]

Hi BFM_Jane, Thank you for the terrific and  thorough answer to my question. I wanted to ask for all the players who were unaware of this topic covering names. It really diminishes the fun for all when it is discussed during game play in the server. I tend to pay less attention to chat when it is not about the game itself

[digger]

If they have a bunch of symbols in their name, we just need to be able to read some part of it, like -=#(bob)#=- or $n@ke is fine, !#$%& is not fine. The same goes for names with alt codes, as long as we can read the name in it, it's fine.


BFM_JANE, I have a follow up question. While Racing in a BFM Server, Sometimes a player using symbols will not respond to the QWERTY/alphabet keyboard spelling of their name in symbols. Should a player in a Bfm Server be prepared to respond to their name as it would be spelled out without using symbols? It could add a sense of uniformity, response, control, and easier compliance for a BFM Administrator to control guest players while they observe the BFM Server rules. As I have read elsewhere and have experienced first hand myself, guest players using undecipherable symbols in their names, not available to the chat keyboard, are almost always are intent on causing trouble, disrupting the fun other players wish to enjoy racing.

[BFM_JANE]

That's kind of a two-parter, and you're getting into the details we only wanted to bore the admins with (keep it simple for the guests). But you asked for it! I've highlighted the simple answers to your questions.


The reason we've put this policy in place is so that we can identify and address players in game.

It's always been that, if we can't get their attention with the chat "warnings", the next step is to kick - can't miss that.  We want to give everyone a chance to learn the rules and we have to use the chat feature quite a bit for this. If New001 isn't reading the chat, there's not much we can do but get his attention some other way.

If d(o_0)b is doing something wrong, it would take a while to type his name like that, finding the characters. Most names get shortened, but that is a name that can't be shortened. "face" doesn't do it justice and db or o0 or "symbols" isn't clear enough either, we can't be sure he knows we're talking to him. It wouldn't be fair for three different admins to call him three different things ( face, o0, d(o ) then kick him when he doesn't reply.

So anyway, we need something we can type out. We'll use $n@ke as the example.

Just like we can't expect the admins to take the time to find all the characters for d(o_0)b, we won't have them looking for the $#@! ones either. The point of making it a "real" name is so that we can type it quickly and we all call him the same thing. In this case, we'd call the player "snake". This is the best we can reasonably be expected to do when addressing a guest with special characters in their name. It's not wrong for the admin to spell it out ($n@ke) but it's not required.

They should definitely be prepared to respond to "snake". $n@ke is obviously pronounced "snake" and it's a name they intentionally chose and carefully typed out (as opposed to ahmdfjdakl). Admins switching between "snake" and $n@ke shouldn't throw poor $n@ke off too much.

I've honestly never had a problem getting a $n@ke-like person recognizing that I'm talking to them when I call them "snake". If they're missing it when we call them "snake", they're probably not reading the chat or missing it if the chat is scrolling quickly.


And the second part of your question, regarding players with special characters acting up:

The players with lots of alt-codes (characters not available on most keyboards), as long as they have a name we can "pronounce" (type or say in our voice chat), we can take care of them. Some with lots of alt-codes will misbehave, just like New001 will misbehave. They're both easy enough to find and quick to deal with.

It's the players with names like jfdaojfdoa or one letter/symbol, the ones who don't care enough to come up with a real word and are just filling in the Name field, are the ones who are more likely to cause trouble. And with a name like fjdkoafjd, we have a hard time "catching" (identifying and addressing) them. The face people are probably just being too creative with the Name field, not a trouble maker, but we need to be as consistent as possible without going crazy with it. It's a fine line and we do the best we can.

And THAT is the nitty-gritty of our new policy on names. Phew!

[digger]

Thanks BFM_Jane, It is crystal clear for me and a great explanation for all BFM and guests who read it as well.