Oooh, he’s mad. I was the first person here to lay out irrefutable evidence that contradicted the commonly held belief that the auto-squelch was implemented in 2016 in the Legion pre-patch. It was in fact introduced in May of 2007.
I have been correct on nearly every issue I’ve posted about because I care about facts, not feelings.
Who are you then? I’m fairly confident that Twiinkedd is the only person I make this angry. I take it your silence means I was correct in my assumptions (again).
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Okay then, Mystery fan.
Did you ever come to the forums in vanilla? People got reported for trolling just for disagreeing and were infracted as such.
I’m fine with being able to squelch someone who is obnoxious.
So really you just want a consequence free environment to troll in.
Didn’t take long once I thought about it.
At the very least they need to remove auto squelch from right click reporting.
Nah.
The auto-squelch is the best part. It annoys people that have attacked me on these forums, therefore it needs to remain.
Or else what? Your virgin fingers can find the way to the report button but not the ignore one?
One of the issues we run into on this nicely thought out list, is that Blizz keeps cutting out support staff pretty regularly and as a result, such a system would likely not work out too well if it requires a live support rep to review the RCR.
I remember back around 2008/2009 when they did what was known as the “great purge” of in-game support staff, as they got rid of something like 600+ reps. (most of them being in Austin, TX)
There have been a few other big purges the company has gone through over time, the last big one was shortly after their stock plummeted after announcing at Blizzcon their “mobile only” Diablo game which the community crucified them for doing (and rightfully so) as it showed us that the decision makers are completely out of tune with their community.
If you check for their current posting of customer service position globally, they currently only have posting for French CS reps in their territory.
The newer facility they built or purchases in Austin TX some years ago use to house their US based in-game support, but I think over time that was shut down or converted into space for other parts of their business.
At the end of the day, they rely heavily on automated systems for most of their support needs and I don’t see them changing that anytime soon.
The squelch and potentially longer silence if t GM agrees with it is motivation for people to not troll in the first place. Ignore does not accomplish that.
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I overlooked that then on my part, if GM’s are actually reviewing or supposed to be reviewing RCR prior to any action taking place.
The reason I feel it’s not happening that way is due to the many examples that have been given and seen in some YouTube vids were players are getting squelched that frankly shouldn’t be.
Squelch requests must be reviewed by a GM. Maybe not immediately, but eventually. They must verify that the person requesting another person being silenced is making a valid request. Being silenced in a MMORPG, when you want to talk, is bad for the game and the community, especially if you didn’t say anything wrong.
You have to remember 2006, youtube just came out and the comments there were another level toxic. Wow chat had comments in 2006 that wouldn’t be considered appropriate today. I can only imagine how much of a nightmare reviewing wow chat in 2019 could be, and making sure everybody is PC to one another.
Player A: “I hate trees.”
Player B: “I identify as a tree.” [reported player A]
Player C: “You’re right, we need to stand up for trees.” [reported player A]
Player D: “Yea man. I love smoking trees.” [reported player A]
Player A,C: [reported player D for hinting at using drugs]
Player B: [reported Player D for hinting at murdering Player B]
If you right click report a player, you automatically mute that player and a report is sent to a GM’s queue to verify. If the report is valid, a punishment is issued, if the report is invalid, a punishment to the reporting player is issued.
So I’m not 100% on how the auto-squelch functions, but I assume it’s ‘X person gets Y number of reports and it causes them to be muted.’ . Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
If that’s the case, I can imagine better systems. Realistically how it should work is that after someone is mass reported, a GM should review the player. After that’s done if they’re guilty, they should be ‘tagged’. Any player who is tagged should then be auto squelched whenever they’re mass reported. It’s a better system that removes the player element as a means of artificial censorship and removes the need for repeated GM intervention.
I’m pretty sure that people who do that sorta stuff are repeat offenders anyway. No reason to punish the rare occurrence where someone bothered just the right amount of people by chance with an innocent joke or someone who is disliked, but not saying anything bad. In addition it would help repeat offenders be squelched quicker since you could lower the required number of reports.
That’s correct.
If someone is squelched, and a GM determines the reports to be legitimately rule breaking then the system has done its job. If someone is the innocent victim of a mob of false mass reporting, then the reporters in that case are the ones that get punished. It’s a simple and effective system, and I am totally fine with it.
I personally suspect the ones most railing against it are the ones who will find themselves more on the former side than the latter, but I could be wrong.
This. Really great post, Murrkz.
I read earlier it could take up to 12 hours for a GM to verify. Make one change. No more auto-squelching, instead have the reporters also auto-ignoring the offender that they reported. The squelch should only occur once verified by a GM, only GM’s should have the power to squelch AKA banning a person from using wow chat.
They do that already, that’s called a Silence, and it doubles for each infraction.