The Repeal of Prohibition
Curating our Word Lists, Part 2
Or... no "Ifs", "Ands", or "Butts"
After creating some good base lists that met our needs (see part 1), we had to decide what words should not appear in the game on account of adult subject matter. The game isn’t specifically geared toward kids, but we do want it to be appropriate for a broad audience.
SCOWL has a few basic lists of offensive and profane words, which were a good starting point but not comprehensive for our game – for example, the lists contain things like the "f" word but not words like "condom" or "cocaine." We also wanted to remove some words relating to sensitive topics like warfare, politics, and illness/death. Finding and making decisions about these words was a painstakingly manual and subjective process.
Some words evoke bad feels. Others don't... unless they appear alongside other specific words. It was tricky to decide what to exclude. I started removing a pretty broad swath of words, ones that seemed even remotely fraught or "adult" – including those relating to alcohol. But I started feeling that I was going too far.
A turning point came for me when I got to the "S" section of the list and ran into sherry. I couldn't bring myself to remove it. We had recently watched Season 2 of Good Omens, and it made me think of Crowley ordering a sherry for Aziraphale at the pub – a scene that fills me with warm fuzzies. And if I wasn't going to remove sherry, why remove the other alcohol words? We created a ticket in GitHub specifically for putting alcohol back on the lists.
Labor unions hold anti-prohibition meeting. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Other categories also got more leniency in the end. Words I'd initially removed on the grounds of "sexuality" included pretty mild content, like wiggle, sausage, and saucy. While revisiting the lists, I realized this was kind of silly and reinstated the overly cautious removals.
That said, language is so subjective. We can't curate our lists in a way that pleases everyone. Even if we could, our puzzle generator code selects words at random, so it's impossible to avoid certain awkward combinations. And of course, when working with thousands of words, it's easy to overlook something. So, if you come across a word in the game that you don't think should be there, please let us know!
Ultimately, I'm pretty happy with our results, and I feel like we reached a reasonable balance – a balance that includes wine. Cheers! 🍷
Have you made word lists for a game? Feel free to reach out with your thoughts or questions!