Appeal for Account Suspension - Inappropriate Communication (Xitearith-Ragnaros)

Support Customer Support
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We are writing to you on behalf of my husband, whose account has been suspended for 7 days for “Inappropriate Communication.” We believe this sanction is unjust, as he did not intentionally commit any such offense. Even if there was a violation, we find this penalty disproportionate and arbitrary. We recall a recent incident where a player instigated multiple reports against him during an “RBG Blitz” simply because he was from the Ragnaros realm and of Latin American origin. We suspect this situation may have generated a large number of unjustified reports.

Therefore, we earnestly request that you reconsider this penalty and cancel it entirely. Should you consider that an offense did occur, we ask that the sanction be reduced, or alternatively, a 7-day chat silence be imposed instead of the account suspension.

However, our primary request is the complete annulment of the sanction. We thank you in advance for your time and consideration.

P.S.: I, Vamkari-Ragnaros, certify that my husband has not engaged in any inappropriate communication. I am a direct witness to the problem we had with the aforementioned player. My husband and I are a couple in real life. We met in this game, and he moved to Mexico to live with me. Due to my work, I live in another city from Monday to Friday, and we can only share time together on weekends. For this reason, Azeroth has become a very important space for us, where we can spend time together daily. He has always been very careful with his vocabulary and communication, precisely because of the value this space holds for our relationship; furthermore, it is worth noting that my husband uses an old addon called “KillShot” that triggers emotes when defeating other players, and it is possible that some reports originated from this.

Xitearith-Ragnaros is the affected account.

Thank you very much for your time.

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It’s noble your Attempting to appeal for a family member, but not warranted. Blizzard can’t discuss account appeals or penalties with a third party. Your spouse will have to submit a ticket to appeal directly. Yes, even an addon can spam, sentences can be used that might be consistent toxic.

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The addon could have been considered as spamming. That in itself is a chat violation. I see vrak it patrolling he can shed some light perhaps. Also I pray you are not account sharing. And playing on separate computers.

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While I appreciate that you wish to appeal on behalf of your husband. The only person who is able to appeal would be your husband. Additionally, that appeal can only be done via an appeal ticket. With that said, let’s get into some clarification.

Intentionally or not, if a violation is found a person may be penalized for it.

First, a penalty isn’t arbitrary. A penalty the consequence for violating our policies and there to serve as a deterrent for future violations.

Second, the duration for most social penalties is fairly standard. The first warning for a violation is usually a one week silence. Additional violations move to a one week suspension and then escalate from there until finally the license is closed.

It is important to understand outside of some very specific situations, any “unjustified reports” that a player may receive result in zero action. Meaning, if there wasn’t any verified violations in the chat that was reported, nothing would have happened. So that a report is unjustified or not is entirely irrelevant and of no consequence.

If you wish to provide feedback about how our penalties work you are welcome to submit a suggestion through the option in-game under the Support menu.

We do not reduce or alter a penalty that has been verified. If the penalty is appealed and a mistake was found it would be overturned, but if you earn a 1 week silence, that is the penalty you serve. If you earn a 1 week suspension, it will not be reduced to the previous category of a silence.

While we do not generally discuss any penalties with any account that is not registered to that user. However, since I was able to verify that the account you referenced does log in from the same location I will say this…

Again, I appreciate that you are willing to vouch for your husband, but you simply cannot certify anything of the kind. Unless you are standing over his shoulder every moment that he is playing and watching what he is typing, your point of view is limited.

I can absolutely confirm that the reports were not at all unjustified. Over several days I see reports of inappropriate and toxic language that had been verified at the time, and I can verify it once more. This was not a mistake.

This was also not the first penalty, therefore they would not have received a silence because they already have. The penalty will continue to escalate from there, so I would urge changing the way they speak to others and what language that is used.

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Good morning Vrakthris, thank you very much for your response. I’m not very good with forums, but regarding:

“I can absolutely confirm that the reports were not at all unjustified.” As you correctly state, not all of them are unjustified, and there might be some anger involved, but is the sanction appropriate?
Yes, he has only been silenced on one occasion.

Regarding: “Intentionally or not, if a violation is found a person may be penalized for it.”, I believe that even with evidence, the sanction should be proportional to the actual impact, especially if the majority are false reports or reports based on “emotes” and things like that, or often based on a lack of understanding of the language (in this case, English). Someone might unintentionally offend by using a language that is not their own.

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First offense is a one week silence, second is a one week suspension.

Seems appropriate if he’s already been silenced.

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“Should” is not a useful word here. No one here, not even the actual Blizzard employees, are empowered or authorized to accept suggestions or entertain discussions of anything other than the status quo.

Use a non-Support forum like General Discussion to forward your “should” to the people who make the rules.

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Just for the sake of making it clear: If he was silenced before, that’d be his warning to knock something off. The 2nd time around, it’d be a week long temp. ban. After that, it’d be two weeks, then a month. The fact this would be an 2nd account action for the same thing would line up on this.

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But you are not considering that maybe that person is having an issue with the language (English), may some words are usually used on spanish and when you translate them to english are an insult or something similar.

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Doesnt matter if he has to get angry do it off screen without typing those who fail to learn from there mistakes are doomed to repeat them.

Masked language derogitory remarks insulting ones intelegence have alway been reportable and actionable.

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The reports that might have been unjustified, meaning there were no violations found, wouldn’t have resulted in any penalty nor in any way contributed to a penalty or the duration of such.

Why someone may report a policy violation is not a factor, only if what was reported violated policy. So first we look at… did the thing that was reported violate policy? If yes, move to the penalty.

So the first question is answered yes, it did violate policy.

Now, what is the penalty? The penalty duration is fairly standard across the board for all users. Unless there are mitigating circumstances, the first penalty received on an account for a social violation is a 1 week silence. The second time an account receives a social violation the penalty is a one week suspension.

Customer Support doesn’t determine the penalty structure, we just enforce it. So yes, the penalty absolutely was appropriate based on our current policies.

The “impact” to those reporting is not a factor. The penalty/sanction is based on the policies that govern those kinds of violations.

You reference false reports, but it’s important to note that they hold no weight. Invalid reports are promptly dismissed and have no bearing on any outcomes.

I’m not sure what emotes you might be referring to, but no emotes were reported or at all involved in this action. This penalty was based on words clearly stated, across multiple days. It is clear that the chat is used with an understanding of the language used.

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It does not look like they are having an issue at all. Their command of the language looks good. The language used wasn’t simply insults that might be confused. Profanity, both clearly stated and used in various abbreviations, were used, with the proper syntax. There has been no mistake.

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Could you please share some examples of such messages?

And, if you give me permission, I could give you some examples of words that are not insults in Spanish, although they could be used as such, etc., and that in English, when translated directly, might be more offensive.

Also, the use of online translators often doesn’t filter words, and it’s known that they only translate literally, without any filter for words that perhaps were not intended to offend at all.

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Examples are the blatant use of profanity, 4-letter S word. Using acronyms that contain the F-word. Using disparaging terms like Moron and similar that start with an R to mean mentally disabled.

That isn’t necessary. The fact is, it doesn’t matter if the language would be acceptable in Spanish or not. Our policies are against the use of inappropriate and toxic language. It doesn’t make it okay because “Where I’m from that isn’t offensive”.

I understand you are trying to help and justify, Cempasuchil, but there is no confusion here. There is no evidence of a translator being used here, as they usually don’t translate common inappropriate acronyms along with gamer speak and abbreviations. The chat evidence shows zero indication that the person using it did not understand exactly what they were saying.

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The “S word” is used very often in Spanish without being an insult, and we don’t take it as an insult in Latin America.
The “F word” isn’t either; we really take it as a “way of speaking” or a “reaction,” not an insult. That’s why it’s so normal for it to be used.
“Moron” is an expression, not an offense, at least in the way we see it in Latin America.
“R to mean mentally disabled” is used in his country without being an insult. (Even the President of Argentina uses it in public speeches, and note that my husband is Argentinian; it’s in his vocabulary and he uses it without malice.)

In short, I come back to the same point: intentional or unintentional, the sanction is not proportional because the words mentioned were not used with malice or intent to harm, but rather are expressions used regularly and are not offensive in Latin America. Therefore, I hope you consider this and re-evaluate the sanction. In any case, now that you have been more specific about the words, I will tell my partner so that it doesn’t happen again.

I’d like to add: Please note that I’m not referring to just one person, but rather I’m talking about an entire region.

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It’s not that it’s specifically insulting. Even in English, it doesn’t have to be directed at anyone.

It’s the fact that it is prima facie profanity, and forbidden with absolutely zero exceptions.

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Does not matter. *f you cannot say it in a church, to your grandmother, or in a public space with children. Don’t say it… As an aside, I have quite a few friends down in south/Latin America, and you are being a bit less than truthful with the “It is not an insult here”.

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It really doesn’t matter if you think it’s fine because you’re from part of the world - Blizzard has rules on not using such. There isn’t any ‘unless from those places’ statements that allow it. There isn’t anything that allows it because they’re part from another world. All that matters that it was used and that it’s against the rules. Everything else isn’t a factor.

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Completely irrelevant. Profanity is not allowed. It doesn’t matter if it’s directed at anyone or not, or if someone finds it offensive or not.

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