i take it she stayed out of trade chat (my guess is shes only talking about group chat)

I swore I read it as "Better censorship though WOW".....

Gore,Violence,Sexauilty,Fear,Emotion these are but modes of transportation of story and thought, to take them from society you create a society of children and nannys, since adults are not required.

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I agree with the biased comment. Who is back this study I wonder. Not to be overly paranoid, but honestly. This must be a bit of a stretch. From my personal experience studies need to be evaluated from a credibility perspective before they can be considered viable. I mean, I wish video gaming was going to make society a better place, but let's be honest. Well, perhaps the Wii is going to improve our world, but that isn't really a gaming machine. Is it???

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She apparently hasn't been to the Barrens Chat...or Trade chat.  I mentioned on a previous article the anal epidemic that struck the trade chat (and thus trading stopped...not that there wasn't much trading going on in the first place).

there's also the amount of people complaining about being nerfed or nerfing other classes, the amount of people calling each other names and the amount of useless chat that goes on.

This is why i stick to my guild chat.  Much more awesome and fun.

I can't agree that the official WoW message boards are that hospitable.  It's filled with trolls, flamers and flamebaiters- just like any loosely moderated forum on the Internet.

I also think her analysis is flawed.  She is taking her numbers only from the people who actively participate in discussions- thus, she sees a lot of people willing to talk and listen: the evaluatives, with the only absolutists and relativists she's seeing and using in her study being the vocal ones.

She has to consider that those two latter viewpoints are likely to simply not say anything, especially on Internet forums.  For her study to be accurate, she has to follow up on those who only read through threads without posting anything and try to get their actual opinions.

Furthermore, an MMO like WoW is a naturally evaluative environment.  Most of the discussion is about gameply, strategy, tactics- what works and what doesn't in the game.  Most of the dissent can easily be empirically tested out in the game.  And since it's a computer game, there's also math that can be checked and followed to prove or disprove one's point.

This is a far cry from the full range of human opinion, which includes religion, politics, morality, etc. where such things cannot be determined by experimentation and objective analysis.

As a PC gamer and WoW player, it's nice to hear good news, but even that should be taken with a grain of salt.

As for Barrens and Trade Chat, I just ignore it as much as I can, trying to focus only on stuff that's relevant- helpful info or opportunities for commerce.  But it can be pretty hard not to notice the crap that usually goes on in there.  Even the serious discussions can be painful.