For the past few weeks, a bad actor has been actively creating free accounts with offensive pet names and then earning high scores in specific games so that those pet names are shown to all players. We have been removing these names as fast as we can find them. Unfortunately, this person refuses to stop and at this time we have been forced to take more drastic steps.
We have now reduced the number of letters shown in our high score lists and high score displays in the arcade for pet names down to three, matching the Usernames. This is not a long-term solution, as we know that players work hard to get onto these lists and enjoy seeing their pets displayed, but it will effectively stop the problem.
Our pet name system relies on a bad word filter, aka a blacklist. We block hundreds of bad words and words that we don’t want to see in pet names. And for over twenty years, this has worked. The vast majority of players give their pets fun names that expresses their creativity and love for their pet. Unfortunately, people can say very bad things with common words that are not bad words by themselves.
We are looking into longer term solutions that will maintain our players ability to use fun and creative names, while preventing the abuse we are seeing here. We hope to roll these out in the new year.
We do apologize to all players who have had to view these offensive names. We value all our incredible players and see Webkinz World as an inclusive, welcoming space for everyone.
The Webkinz Team
Thank you!
I’m glad to see something is being done about this. So unfortunate. Hopefully there’s a solution that is fair to everyone!
Thanks for taking steps to address this. FYI, I was playing via the browser and still see some of the long offensive names, though the same ones are shortened in the desktop app. Thought you should know.
I appreciate the action being taken here! Its so unfortunate someone could be so bored. I thought of a potential fix here could be to only display high score of the day of players whose accounts have been created for a minimum of 30/60/however many days? to curb the instant remake of a free account with a new offensive name. I hope you’re able to find a permanent solution!
Thank you Ganz for addressing this issue. I have found myself offended almost daily by someone using our Webkinz for their political agenda. This is supposed to be fun for all not a place for putting people down.
Thank you for addressing this! I’m glad this isn’t a long term solution though because I love seeing my pet’s name in the high score panel and it stinks that one person had to ruin it for everyone. I hope you can come up with a solution so we can see our pet’s names again but at the same time, filter out or block out names that are totally unecessary in Webkinz World.
Thanks for keeping WebKinz world safe!
Thanks for your diligence. Many pet names have made me smile when I needed one. Isn’t it sad that someone would spend so much time and energy to be mean?
Thank you for this! For now this seems like a a great resolution, it won’t penalize any innocent free accounts but should hopefully stop the offender once and for all.
When the lights went off in webkinz the other day, it froze my computer. I’m on my back up now & the site is back up here, but my main computer is still froze in the vacation wheel :( Can the tech team throw me out so I can restart my computer or did it fry it?? Computer challenged I am, so any help is greatly welcome ;)
Our servers would have booted you off after a set amount of inactivity. If your computer is frozen, you should hold down the power button until it shuts off.
Thanks much sally it worked! Hold was the key word, I’m back to my desktop, however it will not let me any go anywhere LOL Still locked out of my own computer :(