Or, you know, you could just follow the social contract that has been in the game since forever and stop trying to be offensive because you think it’s “edgy” and “cool” to be a complete jerk while hiding behind an anonymous avatar.
Reminding you not to be a complete tool doesn’t mean I’m a snowflake. It just means you’re a tool, and maybe you should rethink your life choices.
The rules have not changed, in any material way, since 2004. Reporting has changed from tickets to right click which captures a lot more data and the logs. Penalties have changed from suspensions to Silence and back to suspensions.
Don’t be mean.
Especially don’t be mean then cry about it when you get the penalties you agreed to. You agreed to the rules… you broke them. Deal with the consequences.
Edit
I get that the internet, and sometimes culture in general, tends to push “edgelord” mean things as cool. They are not. While friends may joke around, strangers don’t know that you might be joking so you don’t do that.
There is a time and a place for things. If I tried saying things in front of parents or grandparents that I said around friends I would have gotten smacked and sent to my room. Also soap.
It is never ever ok to just be mean to strangers. Don’t do that. If you can’t stand someone in game put them on ignore and never group with them again.
Certainly was though…
Those are much longer for exploits and cheating. They are back to permas for botting just like they used to be. Rare exceptions are 6 months for a first in some cases.
Blizz realized the lighter penalties did not work. So, we are back to the originals.
Are you sure it was only suspensions for chat infractions? If my memory serves me right I remember getting a warning from a GM in whisper about 15-16 years ago for a chat infraction. That was a very long time ago though.
Are you talking in the “if” context or are you implying I did because my account is fine.
Your definition of “mean” and someone else’s definition of mean could be entirely different and that is the problem here. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying its Ok to go around and just be toxic to people. What I’m saying is there’s a line to be drawn between humans being humans, and people being blatantly mean to someone and especially unprovoked.
It most certainly was not. I was there. I know exactly how things were back in that time. Trust me. People had a lot thicker skin back then.
Funnily enough, it’s no different to clicking “I AGREE” to things when first installing the game or after major patches/expansion releases…
Many of us were there too.
Doesn’t matter if we have thick or thin skin back then or now. YOU still agreed to abide by the rules.
I’ve been playing WoW on the same account for 17 years. I think I’ve done a pretty good job abiding by the rules. 
I am not saying you could not get a warning back then. If they issued a penalty though it was a suspension.
They recently added some automated warnings into game to let you know if people are reporting you so you can tone it down. That is mostly for advertising and stuff, but can be smaller groups too. If more reports don’t go in, nothing more happens. If they do, a GM reviews it and makes a call.
They consider the EULA the warning, and if your account ever had a silence before, it now gets a Suspension.
I have no idea what you said. I was only going by your own statement that you were mean. That is not a good thing to do.
Even if provoked, never let a troll bait you into saying something that gets you in trouble. Just report them and put them on ignore.
Not saying you haven’t - merely pointing out that trying to point the finger and claiming thinner skin as a reason for anyone getting offended and reporting doesn’t matter. We don’t get to choose who or what someone might be offended by.
No, they really did not. They just left. The internet back in the early days was largely un-moderated. It was a sub culture where the edgey mean things were cool. Where people pushed boundaries. Where Something Awful was the standard.
I think of it a bit like the wild west.
These days everyone in all society is online. From great grandma to Kinder care. Games are as popular now as books were, then radio, then TV. Games cross all aspects of society. You are not interacting with a tiny sub group anymore.
Just, be polite around strangers. Save the colorful stuff for your friends in private groups.
Now THAT is something I think is a great idea. Letting players know they’re getting reported for something seems like a good way to deter the behavior before a penalty happens. I like it. I hope they continue to do that.
The good old days. I do miss those times. 
I agree. The game is so much more fun when everyone is just nice to each other. I try to live by the old “do unto others” even when I’m playing a game.
It sounds like we have reached a pretty good agreement point here. I am sorry you got a bit of a harsh reminder of the “be nice” part, but it sounds like you really do understand.
Use the report and ignore when others are jerks so you are never grouped with them again and don’t let them bait you!
I don’t know what time it is where you are but please do something relaxing, sleep if it is night (a bit after 6am here).
Oh its fine. I’m a pretty hardened soul because of my experiences in life. I had to be often. Life is different for us all. I’m the type of person that would stand between a bully and the person they’re bullying. It takes a lot to get under my skin but I know thats not the same for everyone. That is why I think discernment is the key in all this. People will always be themselves, and we are all different. We’re also not all perfect, and no one should ever be held to that standard. We don’t have to be perfect though to just simply be respectful to each other. I think in the 17 years I’ve played WoW and over 22 years I’ve played online games I’ve done that well for the most part.
I really like playing WoW and Overwatch. 
I decided to make a night elf druid on one of the new WOTLK servers since it had been many years since I play alliance and wanted to have some characters ready for when WOTLK went live. When I got to level 10 I thought about going to sleep, but I had Overwatch up and well… here I am at 5:30am wondering if I should sleep or level my druid some more. 
It looks like a moderator closed this one last night so I’m not going to reopen it, but I did want to provide what clarifications I could.
You should have received an email about a chat violation, Mortisxamor. Based on what I can see, this chat isn’t really what I think a lot of people would consider banter. Seems more like comments specifically intended to get a rise out of people, to cause strife.
Something we have been focusing on is toxic behavior.
Yes and no. Yes, it sometimes took some doing to earn a silence for a chat violation, but that was mostly based on community reports. Some communities simply do not report when they should, so some behavior goes mostly unreported.
That has changed somewhat since we introduced the “social contract”, which just is our standard Code of Conduct, but reminding people that it exists has in some way reminded them to report behavior that they believe goes against those policies.
It is also important to touch on the silence vs suspension. We used to silence for social policy violations, allowing you to continue playing with only impacting your ability to impact others. That has changed because we found that it wasn’t a very effective deterrent and that really is the point of penalties, to discourage people from violating policy.
It would be if it were the first penalty the account has received, or even the second, but there is a fairly extensive history here.
For clarification. The policy is that if the violation is verified, which it had in this case, the only way we would overturned that verified action would be if we found that the account was compromised at the time of the violation. Meaning, while ultimately the registered user on the account is responsible for all activity that takes place on it, we try not to punish someone for activities that may have taken place when they were not in control of their account.
As with everything else, it depends on the violation. Botting and other means of more severe exploitation often receive a 6 month suspension or account closure. There are lesser penalties that usually depend on the circumstances.
For perspective though, our silence penalties would usually double. If the penalty system were the same, and didn’t reset when we started adding suspensions to the mix, your current penalty would have been over 12,000 hours.
As it stands, the new penalties still stack, and you are a few deep. I would highly recommend you avoid participating in the same “banter” as you have been going forward.