William
First off, we would like to say congrats to "Cow Moolester" for being on the Xbox Spotlight on Xbox.com. When we first saw the name, we couldn’t help but laugh at the GamerTag. However, due to the new popularity, it seems that all is not well…
While we don’t usually post Spotlights here on the site, we decided to make a special exception for Cow since we feel that he is being treated unfairly. After recieving the spotlight, someone actually complained that his gamertag had "moolester" in it, which he claims means "to disturb, interfere with, or annoy." Whether he is telling the truth, we don’t really care, since what kind of reward is to be spotlighted and then told to change his name?
So, 360Sync is standing up for Cow, and hoping that the fine folks at Xbox can undo this mistake from happening.
Read the full story here.
March 26, 2008
If he made it this long without any complaints, then he should get to keep it.
March 26, 2008
Cow doesn’t deserve this bull. This is seriously f-ed up.
March 26, 2008
Wow, Microsoft just shafted you Cow. I’m sorry to hear this and I would personally slap my way through the MS HQ to whoever made you change your name. The rest can’t be said without cursing but you get the point.
March 26, 2008
Serves him right,i dont think anyone would like GT Child molester either lol
March 26, 2008
This is sad, I knew about Cow for a while, but never knew him like I do now. I can also vouch for everyone at ATC that we are behind him!
March 26, 2008
The main reason why I posted this, is not that I agree with his name primarily, but because I don’t think its fair to be rewarded, and then punished at the same time.
March 26, 2008
While I agree that getting rewarded and then immediately punished is lame - I have to stand up for my bovine brethren. Radioactive or not.
March 26, 2008
I just think it’s wrong that he has to change his name AFTER plenty of people on the xboxlive team seen it and obviously didn’t have a problem with it. It would be different if they made him change it before he got the spotlight, I just think it’s a little messed up on their part.
March 26, 2008
what goes for one, goes for all. the GT got complaints and should be changed. the name suggests beastiality and that’s a big no-no.
March 26, 2008
I read his interview when they made him Ambassador and sent him a friend request because I laughed through the whole thing. Some people need to just need to grow the hell up. and its MOOlester not Molester as in coordination with COW duh! So get over it and leave him alone!
March 26, 2008
Since M$ facist mods locked Cow’s thread, I thought I’d post my reply here as well as on a couple of other forums:
I have to say I saw this coming when Cow was in the spotlight. I knew some jack arse would complain about the tag. Wasn’t sure if Ms would be stupid enough to listen to the complaint though.
Some helpful facts.
Everyone is offended by something and if we ban everything offensive then there will be no available gamertags left.
Cow Molesting can mean to bother Cows and does not automatically mean that it is a sexual reference. How can Cow be blamed if somebody assumes that this is what he meant and got offended by it. He can’t be held responsible for people picking up on things the wrong way and then getting offended by it. Basically that person may have just offended themselves.
Cow Moolesting isn’t Cow Molesting. It is therefore not a tag containing the word molesting or about molesting directly and is not strictly against the terms of use, same as the hundreds of other tags that play on words like this. This is similar to the use of the word baxtard on an Irish tv show. I’m sure the broadcaster got complaints about it but they didn’t take action because the word only sounds like another word, it isn’t that word. You can’t make people change their gamer tags because they sound like offensive terms, otherwise I could go around complaining about half the gamertags on Live.
Ms have not given Cow reasonable notice about this. I think if they had notified him within 30 days of his gamertag creation then that would be fair enough but now everyone knows him with this tag and he has built relationships and is known to many people as Cow Moolester. To force him to change for just sounding like something offensive is ridiculous and over the top. Surely Ms have a system in place that checks gamertags as they are being created or soon after. Even if they didn’t, Cow has been participating on Live for ages with this tag with little or no complaints. In addition, Ms allowing Cow to use this gamertag and highlighting it in their gamer spotlight and on the front page of Xbox.com is recognition that they do not feel his gamertag is offensive and that the only reason he is being made change it is because a user complained.
How do we know this user just doesn’t like Cow? If someone doesn’t like me, can they complain about my gamertag and then I’ll be forced to change it? It doesn’t make any sense to listen to a few complaints when there is no real premise for the complaint in the first place as can be seen by the huge support here for Cow, the fact that he has been using this tag for 2 years without incident or other users reporting it that he has gamed with and the fact that Ms felt it was okay to highlight it in the spotlight.
I am very disappointed in Ms decision and the decision of the team that makes these judgments. To make this fair, they should perform a regular expresssion search for every gamertag containing words with an 89% similarity to a potentially offensive word and force all these users to change their gamertag too.
March 26, 2008
Its just wrong for him to have to do this. Cow Moolester, thats suppose to be a funny name. People are just way to serious about things, video games are suppose to be a great way to entertain.
I just feel real bad for the guy
March 26, 2008
To people who defend.
Since molest dont seem to be sexual by nature,how about word GAY in GT.
GAY means HAPPY not homoseuxal..
This is how the modern world works..Think people..Think
March 26, 2008
I’m fully behind Cow on this…and I don’t find it offensive, but I do see how some IDIOTS could. This being said, there’s really nothing you can do to stop MS from forcing you to change your gamertag.
March 26, 2008
@DjDATZ
Do you find lets say GT “child molester” bad?
March 26, 2008
I had something similar. My tag was BigFrknIndian, and I was forced to change it after 2.5 years. After calling MS I was told by the customer service that it was flagged because of feedback complaint(s) from other gamers that it was offensive. I AM NATIVE AMERICAN and have been all 27 years of my life, funny how I didn’t find it offensive. Anyway, I had to change it but was not charged for the trouble and changed it for free. I guess that’s freedom of speech does not exist anymore
Mac (DevilTiger34)
March 26, 2008
@ Tapio
but it’s not Child molester, it’s Cow moolester,
moolester isn’t even a word FFS
March 27, 2008
If I remember my highschool latin correctly, molest comes from the Latin “molestere”, to annoy or to bother. So hearing a roman say “Puella mollesta” would be “bothersome girl” (please forgive any declention errors, it has been nearly 10 years
!).
March 27, 2008
[...] spotlight, he pobably thought it was pretty cool. After recieving the spotlight, someone actually complained that his gamertag had “moolester” in it, and he received a notice to change his name. [...]
March 27, 2008
we all wub you cow
March 28, 2008
Noooo!!!