Personally, I do agree that some words being censored makes it difficult to have a normal conversation in chat, and it definitely can be frustrating if you’re trying to let someone know they can AFK on “an alt”, or if you’re discussing prices and you want to say “mil for”.
But, I do see both sides and in my opinion, these things aren’t censored to make it difficult for genuine players who want to have harmless conversations, the filter is the way it is to prevent people who try to push the boundaries of the filter and evade punishments by editing the word(s) into "normal conversations", so they can then argue that they “weren’t breaking the rules”, even when context is provided.
As both staff, and just a member of the community in general, I’m well aware of the different ‘types’ of players that Minecraft servers inhabit, and unfortunately, people who do just want to spend their time breaking rules on servers “for fun” are a rather large part of this. With it being a game advertised towards a younger demographic, we are partially responsible for what they’re exposed to (at least on ManaCube) and this is why the filter was introduced - Staff can’t be there at all times, so the filter does it’s part by preventing topics we deem as ‘inappropriate’ to the best of its ability.
We want everyone to feel comfortable on the server, and discussions about inappropriate topics can make that very difficult.