Reports work to help identify those who are consistently disruptive in games. It is important to remember that only a small percentage is consistently disruptive, and some players are having a bad day. In fact nearly every single player will eventually get reported at least once for one thing or another. If a player is being reported frequently, they will receive a warning that looks like this:
In many cases this is enough to convince players that they need to change their behavior. However if they continue to violate the Blizzard Code-of-Conduct, they will be reviewed by Blizzard Customer Service and will determine if their behavior needs to be corrected by silence or suspension.
so… likely the person being racist is doing it infrequently enough that they’re getting a couple reports.
However I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess your “Kid, ur bad” comments were not isolated.
It’s a numbers game and while I’ll agree racism and hate is worse than being a jerk (you are being a jerk btw with that comment) , if you do it more… you’ll get actioned faster.
It works BIG TIME. I had an account perma banned ONLY for being abusive in chat. Nothing else, this also consisted of 0 homophobic or racist remarks. Purley swear words at people. it works alright
the report system does function, however it does not always function “properly” or how we might hope for it to function.
i know for a 100% fact that on these forums, the flag post option will automatically hide/remove a user’s post if it reaches enough flags, whether or not it is actually offensive/trolling/whatever, if it is legit it will still get removed because the “community” deemed it flag-worthy. for instance, back in 2017 there was a really big thread in the Looking for Group section of the forums which was designed for girl gamers to meet other girl gamers and play overwatch together, but it got flagged and taken down because “the community” (i think we all know who) flagged the thread and posts within it. it was a completely legitimate group too, and it got removed. this same thing happened with multiple LGBTQ+ group threads as well. we saw them get taken down for no apparent reason.
however, i do also know that today in 2020 the moderators on this forum have been stepping in more frequently regarding community flagged posts. i got a post removed the other day for saying i disagree that doomfist needs to be buffed. apparently that was trolling. so the community flagged and it was removed, but the next day it was restored because a moderator stepped in and deemed the post wasn’t trolling.
the point of all my anecdotal experience is to suggest that this forum has a very crooked report function which removes posts, suspends users, bans users entirely, silences them for long durations, etc. and i do believe that this forum and the game report functions work differently, because i have not had quite the same experience in-game. but then again there is no way for us common players to truly know
this is also true. i used to be extremely toxic a couple years ago, i incurred over 150 days worth of silence & temp. bans on this very account i’m using right now.
and all of it was for using common household cuss words in the text chat. all of it for abusive chat. never anything else.
Blizzard in the past does give some insights, most first time actions are designed to get the attention of the player and make them realize their behavior, start relatively small (like 24 hours, 3 days, etc.). For the most part, this works, however if a player continues to be disruptive after their first action, Blizzard may choose to increase penalties as needed.
The only real exception is cheating, if you are caught cheating through the use of unauthorized software, expect a permanent ban on that account.
The report system is a double edge sword. It works.
Reports are kept on the account. Once they reach certain thresholds of reports, they get the appropriate suspension automatically: 1 day, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month, 2 months, Permaban
The threshold after 2 months is permaban.
I mention it’s a double edge sword:
Reports always work and will add up.
Reports always add up, whether true or not.
The report system is 100% biased towards the reporter.
Sure someone’s a racist? Report
Inting? report
No switching? Report
Playing badly? report
For no reason? Report.
It works.
I’ve contacted support about this under “Account Suspension/Bans” about someone falsely reporting me and if it could be investigated. I received the normal automated/scripted response as if I was submitting an actual suspension appeal.
This goes to show that no one is actually looking at these reports.
It’s only if you’ve reached a threshold, then maybe someone is looking at your case. Even still, they only see the numbers of reports and does not go into case by case.
I believe the only exception is cheating.
I know because my account of 4 years as a sym main being constantly reported for valid and invalid reason. I must have reached the 2000+ report threshold. LOL I got my last suspension on that account was 2 months for abusive chat. and that’s what I got permabanned for too. Granted, I was never a racist or cursed at my teammates.
Wait so you saying there is no “permanent ban” if you are reported for abusive chat? That is what I am reading only longer silence and ONLY get perm ban if you are cheating?
That is what Your statement is saying, so why did I get perm ban when I didn’t cheat?!
In most first case instances, abusive chat often results in a starting silence duration (how long can vary), but penalties will increase if you don’t take the action seriously. You can be banned permanently if you continue to violate the Code of Conduct. There have been instances where players who repeatedly violate the rules do in fact get banned, and in some cases get embarrassed to the whole world by Jeff Kaplan himself…
In any case, if you ever find that you have been actioned for any reason change your behavior immediately! Take a hard look at what you are doing, and correct any behavior that you think is getting you in trouble. It really isn’t that hard to do.
I am sorry most of it doesn’t even read that toxic… but hey if Jeff wants to listen to kids that is his choice.
Why can’t he just Perm silence players? how hard is it to perm silence players accounts instead of banning them.
haha seriously this is 2021 now you really think this generations knows what the meaning of “look hard at yourself” I mean look at how the system works now because it doesn’t you think you listening to your community but all you listening to is crying kids who can’t handle a little “DO YOUR JOB! right” oh wait reported for abusive chat. sigh.
Really think that perm silence should be the last option not perm ban.
Silences are starting steps, but if you can’t demonstrate good behavior, Blizzard will suspend or ban your access to the game. I will also say that Blizzard is taking harder steps to crack down on abusive chat and other forms of disruptive gameplay.
What you may perceive as abusive or not is not as important as knowing how you treat other players. If you have to say anything negative to another player then chances are you should probably take a break from playing. Granted it’s okay to provide strong, positive constructive criticism to others and it’s easy to do so without trash-talking them.
Sorry, there are so many people I have spoken to that were perm ban for stupid reason’s and blizzard didn’t have any back ups. All they did was send links to the code of conduct and basically told us to go away because it won’t happen. I still disagree with the punishment system.
Put perm silence instead of perm ban that is all I have to say now.
