so i’ve had a couple experiences with support recently, neither of which have been great,
1: what’s the point of being able to appeal an action against your account if the people who review them are going to take 8 days to skim over it and give you a boilerplate copy-pasted response and they’re going to uphold a mass-report against your account because you said one inappropriate thing(in a clearly untargeted joke) out of about 40 reported comments that consited largely of “inc SHB” and "could use more at SHB.
and when you are utterly convinced that the person who reviewed your case has just decided to checkbox-FU and not even asses the situation in the slightest, likely in part because after 8 days of waiting for a response, the 7 day chat suspension that also locks you from the forums gives you zero chance to state your case when your case itself is obviously just players utterly abusing the report system…
2: how appropriate is it that the gm responding to my report of a ninja-looting event during the WotLK prepatch event who was provided a screenshot of the rolls and looting results (a player hosted a group, declared that arcanite ripper was free-roll then ML’d it to himself and logged off)… How appropriate is it for that individual to turn around and recommend i go play in raid finder or a version of the game that uses personal loot. are you kidding me? those aren’t even in WotLK… and even when raid finder was introduced, it was still a phase of the game that was using group loot and not personal loot.
was this honestly just a subtle-not-so-subtle complaint from the gm that they had to put up with people playing older versions of the game that actually require effort on the part of GMs?
sorry if i come off particularly negative here, but it’s been a frustrating couple of weeks with WoW and dealing with support in general, like… honestly the way the report system is currently set up it’s ripe for easy consequence-free abuse and the way the ToS/social contract is worded is so vague it could mean anything, there really needs to be better clarification on what constitutes offensive when the chat filter is enabled by default, so like… i realize one should not just spam expletives and i typically don’t, however most of the playerbase are adults and the occasional profanity is literally just a part of most people’s casual/relaxed vocabulary, especially when pvping… and even then in my case it was hardly an affecting factor in the mass-reporting of every inoffensive and possibly-offensive comment that was reported.
legitimately there are times i worry about the mental health of the GMs managing this game, not because i doubt their ability to do their job, or think they’re particularly fragile, but because i feel there are not nearly enough of you and that they expect too much of the few of you that exist. if 8 day ticket wait times don’t indicate that you implemented a bad system with the way this community has historically behaved… y’all need to take a serious look at the reporting system and policies again. you might have made things too easy for the trolls who now stack ticket after ticket after ticket overwhelming you with stupid BS that doesn’t realistically apply and probably might include a comment or 2 deliberately baited out of someone by the reporting individual.
First off, you admit you typed something inappropriate, so it will be upheld for your rules violation. You are not special so they will hold you to the same standard they hold everyone else to who agreed to the same rules that you did.
Secondly, inappropriate acronyms are also against the rules including on the forum so there is another reason to uphold the account action.
Thirdly, there is no such thing as ninja looting as whoever got the item had to be tagged to the mob in order to loot it. Just because they got it and you didn’t doesn’t mean they stole it from you. If they stated everything in a game chat channel, then open a ticket for scam and they will be dealt with, but you wont receive the loot as it will just be destroyed if they are found to have scammed others.
inappropriate acronyms? i mean i could see it being used as a reason, but it’s not something i did. and i guess dropping 2 profanities in one reported post constitutes some level of violation, but really a 7 day chat ban for one “FtS i guess i’ll get parried more” followed by a literal mountain of inoffensive battleground calls is a clear abuse of the system.
as for the ninja looting thing, yes they had to be tagged to it, they were the group leader, at the beginning of the group it was stated that the item would be free-rolled when it dropped and when a different group member won the roll, the individual in question master looted the item to themselves and logged off while we were congratulating the intended winner. i did not personally win the item and the hope of myself and the group in general was that the person who wound up with the ill-gotten gains would simply have it removed on principle.
Before I start in on the whole of your post, I do sincerely hope you posted this to the survey you would have received when the ticket was closed out (or when it is closed out). Posting here on CS is only posting to us, your fellow players, and we can’t do anything about it any more than you can. But the survey does get looked over by the appropriate staff who collects feedback. Or you could also type up something similar to post in one of the GD, just with less emphasis on discussing your sanction. Technically it’s not supposed to be up for discussion, but we get a little more leeway here in CS for the sake of clarity and education.
And sweet mercy I do apologize for the length of this to any who brave reading it all. Also, at no point in all of the rambling to come, am I placing blame or making assumptions. I don’t know the ins and outs of this situation beyond what is typed here, but I’m speaking in black and white terms and arguments based on the ToS/CoC/rules in general or how systems work as has been seen over the years through posts here on CS. And again I am really, really sorry for this bloody novel I just did to try and respectfully answer your inquiry here.
Because regardless of all the reddit rhetoric, Blizzard knows they’re not perfect and that mistakes can happen. That is the point of having an appeals system. Checks and balances. We have seen overturns here on CS with enough regularity to prove that appeals do work.
Normally it does not take this long. Most of the time things are responded to in 24 hours or less. The current wait times are as unacceptable to the staff as they are to us players. They are trying their best to whittle down the queues. It’s just been a perfect storm of events that is a perfect headache for pretty much all involved.
While it may have been a templated response, it was not automated. Mind you, I know you didn’t say automated, but a lot of people lean on all of this automation which isn’t true. Template though it may be, a real live person chose that particular one to send to you manually.
While the sensationalism of mass reporting is pretty wide-spread, the fact of the matter is that it would have literally only needed one report to flag your language/behavior for GM review. While yes, there may be cases of mass reporting here or there, nearly every case brought here to CS has not shown that to be the case for so many claiming to have been mass reported.
One inappropriate thing is still against the CoC.
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It doesn’t have to be targeting a single person or group. PvP trash talk should have been cracked down on long ago, but they’re working now to clean it up. There is a severe emphasis on trying to purge as much toxicity from the game these days as they can, especially in PvP. Warnings and silences have done very little to curb that behavior, so they’ve been slapping down hard with a full 7 days suspension to try and really get the point across.
Context does not matter. If it broke the CoC, that’s it. And rarely is it from one instance. I can easily dredge up half a dozen threads right off the top of my head where our SFAs have completely eviscerated the “only one thing” argument.
At no part of the appeals process is there a chance to state your case. Appeals are a fresh pair of eyes overlooking the data. It is not for someone to explain why they shouldn’t be sanctioned because of X reason. This is again where context does not matter. Whether in the heat of PvP or someone bickering with you in trade - if you drop a vulgarity or have something disparaging to say, if you say it, that is it. Cut and dry, period.
But it’s not, when you have already admitted you said something inappropriate. Even if you were mass-reported as you believe you were - if you hadn’t broken the rules? Nothing would have happened to you.
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And for sake of being thorough - yes. A mass-report might earn someone a temporary squelch. If that someone did not break the rules, the squelch would be lifted upon GM review. If that someone DID, however, break the rules, then that squelch would turn into a silence and a black mark against the account. Out of all of the reports and all of the things people claim - the only automated system is the squelch system. But no matter how many reports one might get, sanctions will not be imposed if the rules were not broken to begin with.
I’m not going to comment on the decision-making or thought processes of the GM(s) who answered your ticket(s), but just to touch on something here. GMs sometimes are not necessarily strictly WoW GMs.
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They can answer tickets from any property under the Blizzard umbrella. Unfortunately, they may not know the full ins and outs of what retail may have that the Classic iterations don’t. It is situations such as these that are prime example why normally there is a button on your ticket that will allow you to reopen it for someone else to look it over if the answer isn’t one that applies or makes sense to your situation. That being said, there has been an issue cropping up since this backlog of tickets began where that option hasn’t been there - requiring people to open a fresh ticket. It’s not the ideal way for the process to work, but the way to resolving your issue is an open one.
Au contraire. If someone is found to be abusing the system, sanctions can cut both ways. While people can report anyone for anything really, if there is a clear sign of abuse? They can easily find themselves in time-out just as easily.
That is because we, as players, are a creative lot. And that creativity shines brightest when we try and be clever about skirting this or that. Times change, and players will always find ways to twist this or that to maneuver things. The rules have to be vague or fluid to some extent to be able to keep up.
I’ve seen this comparison made often here. Just because I’m wearing a bulletproof vest does not mean that I’m inviting anyone to start shooting at me. The chat filter is in place for parents to shield their minor children, or people who just don’t want to see that trash on their screens. It is not an invitation for people to go ham because the filter exists.
That may be. But that isn’t an excuse to circumvent the rules we all agree to that have been in place since the game began.
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It is absolutely possible to play this game without ever needing to type something vulgar or offensive - even in PvP. The onus is on us as players to filter our vocabulary. When I’m speaking to people in Discord or voice chat or my day-to-day, it is a great deal more colorful than you will see me typing here or in-game. But I know what is and what isn’t appropriate for me to transmit from my brain to the fingers dancing across these lettered keys.
As a closer, the rest of your concern and your feedback again really needs to be included in the survey you receive when the ticket is closed out, or in one of the General Discussion forums (again, done so so that it’s not brushing the rule against discussing sanctions), or through the in-game suggestions and feedback interface. Posting here will not get it seen by the staff who would need to see it.
honestly don’t even disagree with most of what you’ve said, i think i’m really just baffled as to how little it took to get me on a 7 day chat suspension and how the VAST majority of listed reported comments of mine (because they absolutely give you a list of reported comments) had literally nothing to do with the punishment doled out. like yeah sure if i had 1-3 or 4 posts reported and that was what was listed up and given as the reason i was getting a suspension, but to bundle that in with 30+ generic inoffensive comments about nothing and/or battleground “inc” calls just muddles the problem. okay i dropped a couple of profanities in a public chat in a single line of text, joking about how all the orc death knights were picking the pvp sword instead of the axe and losing out on free expertise points. yeah it’s their call to make but i can still laugh about trying to find logic behind it.
in addition while yeah maybe i earned the chat suspension based on that alone, i feel like at least on some level the people who did a language report on obvious non-infractions should all have been actioned as well for abusing the system.
sorry i know my wall of text was a bit… all over the place, i get a bit like that when i’m frustrated, it still baffles me that after about 16 years of playing this game this is the first time and only time that i can recall that i’ve ever had something like this happen to my account. and while not previously mentioned, i’d love to know why it says in game to check my e-mail for details on what went on and why my account is being actioned, but i never recieved any such e-mail. even checked my spam inbox to be sure.
Truth be told, we have seen it come across now and again where the snippet provided to a sanctioned player doesn’t contain what should be the pertinent snippet - or was even left blank mistakenly. If you’re feeling brave, you absolutely could submit a ticket asking for clarification of what you said, that the small sampling provided didn’t really make sense?
As a general rule, they don’t elaborate specifics behind a sanction, as that is what people will try and arm-chair lawyer their way around things. But there is a difference between wanting to be more aware of what not to do and wanting to skirt around things. It may be that one of our SFAs may pop in here and help to clarify, but you can submit a fresh ticket to see if they can’t give a better idea of what got you. I would also make mention that you never received the email either.
And pffft, please do not apologize after my great wall 'o text. I am sorry for the jumble of things, and I do wish you all the best with the days to come.
Reporting you for spam (and it does sound like you were spamming) is also a language report. If you were reported, and subsequently sanctioned, it seems like the report feature was used appropriately and for legitimate reasons.
Others have addressed your post quite clearly and well. I will just address the profanity filter again. Blizzard does not allow profanity, or masked profanity, in game or on the forums. Never has. The filter protects kids from people who can’t follow rules. The blues even had a copy paste response to that complaint going back to game release.
if dropping a single “Incoming SHB” per game as the alliance descends on a lightly guarded bunker is considered spam, just shut down battleground chat. i was playing a lot of games in a short period of time, guiding people on the standard strategy once at the beginning of the game when we had at least 35 people present in AV and giving reasonable bunker warnings and timers on request.
It doesn’t matter, that’s what you aren’t understanding. That you may normally use chat for fantastic purposes does not negate that you broke the rules. You even know you broke the rules:
Quite frankly, you are exactly the reason why the social contract is so vague and why they don’t want to have conversations with players appealing account actions.
This wall of text where you use nearly a dozen excuses to try and obfuscate the truth: you said something inappropriate.
