Abuse of reporting feature

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Hello,

I’m seeing numerous reports in gold-making forums and discord servers about people being reported for advertising in trade chat. These reports fall into one of two categories. Either the person reporting doesn’t want to see advertisements in trade chat, which is a bit perplexing, or, more alarmingly, people are themselves and having their guilds report other crafters that are the “competition”.

In either case, people are effectively being banned from advertising their crafting in trade chat, or receiving outright bans, because of abuse of the reporting feature. These players have tried putting in tickets, but the tickets are not accepted for this.

What’s the solution here? Are the abusive players allowed to ban anyone they want from trade chat so they can profit themselves from crafting?

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First thing, the “info” you see in these places are very likely not the reality of the situation. Lots of rumors, hearsay, speculation, etc.

So take all this with a grain of salt. But onto the rest of your post:

Advertising your crafting skills is allowed in Trade chat, but it’s still subject to spamming rules. If someone thinks another person is posting too often, they are allowed to report them for spam.

Blizzard does not require players to be “right” when reporting. People are supposed to report the behavior to Blizzard, who will then investigate the situation.

Again, players are allowed to report what they feel are violations. Their intent is irrelevant. Blizzard is the sole arbiter of what is a violation. Someone can report a player a million times, and if there is no rules violation, then nothing comes from it.

Now when discussing squelches, there can be a threshold where a squelch is applied. If Blizzard sees a pattern of the same group causing squelches, then they can take action against them. But this is a pretty rare situation, as the threshold to reach a squelch is relatively high, and it’s unlikely that one group can reach that threshold themselves. Not impossible, but very unlikely.

No. Players are not banned because of “abuse”. If they are suspended/banned, then Blizzard found that they were violating the rules. No player can apply an actual suspension or ban to another player. The only thing that another player (group of players) can effect is a squelch.

If people are getting suspension and bans for spamming, then the solution is to stop spamming. Again, this is not a player squabble. It’s Blizzard saying to stop it.

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People only get actioned if they violate the rules! All reports are reviewed and if rules were not violated nothing happens.

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No, it sounds like I am communicating the reality of the situation. It would seem that you have your own agenda, and wish to believe the rumors and speculation.

Actually, what you are “dismissing” is the fact that players don’t like to admit that they did something wrong, or that their realmmates don’t want to see their four-line advertisements filling up the chat box every 15 seconds. That’s the essence of spamming violations.

Blizzard makes the decision about suspensions or bans. Everyone could report you constantly, and the only thing that would happen is a squelch. While that is understandably frustrating, that doesn’t automatically make it some kind of sinister plot against you.

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That is completely false, and spreading this kind of misinformation is not tolerated around here.

There are NO automated account actions, especially suspensions. ALL account actions, especially suspensions, are only applied by a Blizzard GM after reviewing the reports.

The only thing that is automated is a squelch, which is then removed if the review finds they did nothing wrong.

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It is not. The only thing that is “automated” is the squelch. It’s designed to quickly shut down gold sellers until Blizzard gets to the reports for review.

Yeah, it’s crazy. For some thankless reason, I enjoy helping people. Sucks that those people dump all over you, but hey, life isn’t always fair.

Yes it is. A place where you can get answers on current policy, and direction on where to go if you want to see a change. It’s not the “Get The Answer You Want” Forum.

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No they don’t. That is not how the system works. And it has been pointed out numerous times by Blizzard. There is no account action taken without a GM doing it. Period.

The only automated system is a squelch, which is NOT an account action and is looked into by a GM before any action is taken on an account.

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You’re still ignoring that fact that there is organized reporting of players for posting in trade. This DOES happen, and people are getting warnings over it.

So it seems you’re in favor of this. Bans are infrequent, because most rational players will then stop posting in trade chat for fear of loosing their accounts, so the reporting guild wins.

So is the reporting feature now allowed for PVP?

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And you know this how ? Oh that’s right they told you they did how silly of me to forget that if it’s on the internet then it must be true because they’re not allowed to put false information on the internet.

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I have seen numerous reports of players receiving warnings over this, and the only thing they were posting in trade was the "Crafting this… " messages, which Blizzard WANTS them to do.

But now the reporting tool is a PVP function.

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And you automatically assume all the people who reported it are lying?

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No he did not, he got a squelch and it was then investigated by a GM, he did not get any kind of account action for it. His account was actually actioned for abusing the report system for having a bunch of people wrongly report his account for saying “I love Blizzard”. This has been disproven a thousand times. They originally banned the account but allowed him to come back after he appealed it. Blizzard should have kept his account permanently banned since his little lying stunt is what seems to have started all of this.

By the way the squelch system he “tested” had been in place for years before his little stunt, and no one seemed to even notice.

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Have you even known a politician to be honest ?

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No it is full of people who know what the truth is, and have seen this lie way too much. A blue will eventually be in soon to lock this thread and explain how the system actually works. What you are stomping your feet and yelling about simply isn’t something that actually is true. No actual account action is taken automatically without a GM looking into it. Again the ONLY thing that a number of reports from separate accounts in a short period of time can even effect would be a warning (which has no effect on an account at all) or a squelch (which just gets it in front of a GM to look into faster. Neither of those things is an account action.

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Unlike politicians, I’ve been around these players long enough in discord that I know a bit about them. And these reports are consistent, lots of competition in high population server trade chat.

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I’m not the one ignoring what’s being told. We’ve seen this complaint numerous times, and it’s been debunked numerous times.

Yes, groups TRY to get together and do this. It’s rarer than you think but yes, it could be their plan. It is extremely unlikely, not impossible, but unlikely, that one group can effect a squelch. If they do, Blizzard sees it when the investigate the squelch they effected.

What YOU are ignoring is that if Blizzard applies a suspension or ban, it has NOTHING to do with the group that reported. It’s because Blizzard looked at the situation, and found the player was violating the rules. Period.

Oh did he? We hadn’t heard. :roll_eyes:

What he proved was the SQUELCH system works. And the fact that he was given a suspension by Blizzard for abusing the report system (because he had all his little lemmings report the line “I love WoW”) shows that they police what you are complaining about.

You really need to read the whole post.

Please do. And let us know if you find yourself with a suspension for it. As stated numerous times, they do look for this kind of abuse.

What you are ignoring (ironic, since you’re accuse anyone who doesn’t agree with you of the same thing), is that it’s not a very common thing, and anyone who caught a suspension or ban was judged BY BLIZZARD to have violated the rules.

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And you completely dismiss the idea that this could be organized reporting. Even if only warnings are issues, that warning is very chilling, and dissuades people from trying to do their professions on their servers.

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Right, And they’re totally telling the truth when they say they reported X because Y was curb stomping them in arena’s or BG’s and they totally got banned the first time around.

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I’m dismissing the idea because it isn’t a thing. You aren’t going to listen though, and when a Blizzard employee comes in and tells you that you are wrong you aren’t going to believe them either, so why exactly are you here?

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No one is “dismissing” anything. It’s been said numerous times that yes, it COULD happen. A squelch, while frustrating, is not an account action. It’s in the game for a very specific reason, and it’s not going away for that specific reason. Players that abuse this will find themselves actioned, just like the now-infamous and dead horse Asmongold video.

What you are dismissing is that Blizzard actions players when they break the rules. People with account actions (silences, suspension, even bans) try to justify their actions by saying “well, those people don’t like me, so they reported me”. Maybe they did report them because they don’t like them. But they were ALSO violating the rules, which is the real reason they got the account action.

It’s not about dissuading players from doing their professions. It’s about dissuading them from SPAMMING their professions. Get it yet? If players are catching suspension for spamming, then they need to post their advertisements less.

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