Yes but it is disabled more often than it is enabled, therefor it would save more people time by having it disabled by default than it would to have it enabled by default.
I'll refer you to the option to display BLIDs in the player list and the option to press up to repeat yourself in the chat, which are off by default under the philosophy that if you can't figure out how to change them, then you probably shouldn't be using them in the first place.
It still gets the same message across, and if people want to seem less intelligent that is their own problem, not yours or the games to solve.
I disagree. I, and presumably others who disagree with you, find shorthand drivel in the chat to be an eyesore, similar to chat spam. The e-tard filter prevents that, improving the game.
Calling it barbaric, is like calling the original native american tribes savages (though much more offensive), just because they do thing different does not make it barbaric/savage.
I didn't call them barbaric because they communicate differently, I called them barbaric because they communicate in a dumb and unsophisticated way that people who don't abuse their own language have every reason to look down upon. Also, I'm not sure if you're saying it's more offensive to call dumbasses on the internet barbarians than it is to call Native Americans savages, but I suppose it doesn't matter too much because I'm well aware the latter would be offensive and I don't care whether or not the former is.
By the logic for one who wants to sell something, majority rules, and the majority disables the E-tard filter, so it would make more sense to have it disabled by default.
And that's where this entire thing falls apart, isn't it? Because in case you haven't noticed, the majority doesn't rule here, the game developer does, you know, Badspot, the guy who put it in the game to begin with? Since he has it on for his server, I can't imagine his opinion has changed too far from when he said this -
The "Learn how to type" filter is the single greatest thing ever released on the internet.
The filter in question being the early incarnation when it was implemented in an earlier game, Age of Time. "Learn how to type" was the original text it threw in your face for typing the things that set off the e-tard filter in Blockland. Given what's been done with flood control in the past, I don't find it too hard to imagine him responding to an abundance of filthy barbaric e-tard savages by removing the option completely and having it be permanently on.