Microsoft bans gay-sounding names from Xbox Live

What about people called Dick?
Or Gaylord?

Dorks at Microsoft :-)

Political correctness gone mad, only in the US this time. 

Oh save the children, save the children. But it's ok for them to release the most violent video games, but god forbid you have a name that includes the letters g, a and y in that order. 

In the instance of Gaywood as a real surname (ignoring the fact that a man's "wood" is often seen as his nether region) this is crazy. 

Surely MS should set a threshold of complaint volume before caring. I doubt more then one person complained about this surname and whoever that was clearly is an ignorant fool. Although this is the States. MS will need to learn they are operating on a global stage at some point with LIVE and we're not all religious prudes.

I live in Whitley Bay, on the northeast coast of England. Yes they have blocked that name, even spacing the letters is not accepted.

I emailed Microshaft months ago about this and very strangely never got a reply.

Its just about par for the course these days in this insane politically correct world

The "administrators"... aka the bit of VB script that runs the servers.

At least he doesn't live in Scunthorpe.

As a slight aside, one of my friends regularly plays online games as "People's front of Judea"... He finds he gets kicked from most German servers as the filters detect his name as some kind of antisemitic insult, and not Monty Python inspired.

I was banned from World of Warcraft for having the username "gayboy-ds" - I have never returned since.

I sold my Xbox 360 and I had the gamertag "gayboy-ds". I wonder if it is still active?

What happens to those who are living in Middlesex. Eg: Alex middlesex ? :D

Stupid step, Microsoft.

Microsoft can't help that Mr. Gaywood isn't gay. :-)

http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&q=Intercourse,+PA,+USA&um=1&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&resnum=1&ct=title

M$, it's time you move 100% into game development and get out of the OS business anyway. Open Source and competition, along with your lack of innovation has numbered your days.

This is why automated tools need human handlers.

Obviously they are a bunch of computer users needing training.



Well, that is just gay...


What about the people in Dildo, Newfoundland Canada

Guess it's better to be Mr. Dick Gaywood than Mr. Dick Microsoft.

So, if I were from Dildo, Newfoundland... I wouldn't be able to use my town's name on Xbox live...

there are other words that are banned, not just gay sounding ones, like "problem" , I still don't get why that was banned but oh well, I just used a different word.

if a word in your user name/ slogan/bio is not allowed, no biggie, just come up with something else, is that so hard to do? where is the creativity? 

I think it is a legit action to ban certain word/phrases. if users are left free as the wind they'll run a mock of your service; that is why so many forums have moderators to moderate. 

I say it is better to be paranoid than to get caught. if they had let users use what ever they want we would all see articles talking about how bad is "microsoft's lack of professionalism in their online service" because of the lack of moderation and the allowing of all sorts of user names like "I f** your mama" or "suck my ****" or some sort of anti-jews/anti-christian/anti-gay/anti-you fill in the blank user name. 

"keep it clean and simple", I believe thats the motto.

I guess this confirms what was an open secret in the past elections: Micro$oft is Republican!

Muff is in Co. Derry, not Donegal and for some reason, since changing from a farming village to a commuter town, it has changed its name to Eglinton.

One good thing about living in the land of litigation is that companies can easily be held accountable for their discriminatory actions. Microsoft is implicitly saying that it does not want openly gay people purchasing it's live product. That's straight up discrimination or in this case gay up discrimination.

'Balmer'

It means a misogynistic, sadistic, masochistic man who regularly performs various oral acts on mentally retarded men who have married their own mothers.

So, a new swear word for all then. Everyone get using it as often as possible. Let's see what happens when the M$ profanity list catches up.

you can please all of the people some of the time
you can please some of the people all the time
you'll NEVER please all of the people all of the time
Half of the consumers demand that microsoft take responsibility for there product, the other half demand to be left alone.
Which side is more likely to take legal action and cost MS more money?
So that's who they will protect themselves from first. Then after enough people complain they'll open up the names. Sorry first group, we tried. Sorry second group, better late then never right?
Both groups are appeased.
Its just business, kinda simplified.

I'm a Xbox live member and my gamer tag is "Cruntjammer".... those imperialistic b$#tards at MS forced me to include an "r".....such oppression....

... try and register as 'TheMOREHOMOSEXUALgamer'?

(Cf. 'Babcock' - not allowed; 'Babpenis' and 'Babdildo' - no problem.)

Hate to break this to you but Political correctness didn't start with republicans it started with the Clintons who last i checked were democrats.

Remember that day you went woohoo for political correctness? Yeah, coming back to bite ya now isn't it.

I just love how you all invent this crap then turn around and blame us for it. lol

Dweebs. :)



(not 'Balmer').

Doh! I'm such a Ballmer!

Microsoft itself makes a point of greasing the palms of politicians in both parties.

As for the individual employees, well, if you're not politically liberal, it's best not to let your coworkers find out--if you care about career advancement, anyway.

Perhaps they should simple include a box of 'chill pills' with the xbox, for who cares about names really? Seriously.
Or alternatively they can use humans and only react after a number of complaints have been logged, but that would of course be too sane and reasonable, and not modern and current, and would still fail due to actiongroups and scriptkiddies faking complaints, but it would be better anyway.
Well I hope someone uses the anti-discrimination laws and has MS banned and censored for their banning and censoring, let's see how they like it.
All this still doesn't surpass pirate sites now doing extreme (stronger than the FCC does TV or the BBC does before 9) censorship of words, freaking pirate sites..

Go Microsoft!!!