Censorship + ban penalties isn't the answer

Look up this article on the website “dexerto”. Titled “WoW players urge Blizzard to combat toxicity instead of censoring game content”.

Please read the article, Blizzard. Heavy censorship isn’t the answer. Immediate bans without warnings, without escalating penalties, and without explanations for both won’t improve the game or end the toxicity. Giving someone a warning or penalty without an explanation is bad communication at best.
People like playing WoW. We simply don’t like it when someone thinks it is ok to bully, harass, stalk, use hate speech, and/or threaten fellow players. People deserve a chance to change. People deserve second chances too.

" Blizzard’s ongoing censorship of seemingly inappropriate World of Warcraft content in response to the lawsuit against the company is overshadowing what some players really want… An end to toxicity in WoW.

In the wake of the [lawsuit against Activision Blizzard] for fostering a “pervasive frat boy culture” within the workplace, the company has actively set about [removing explicit content from their games].

Overwatch will see the hero [formerly known as Jesse McCree] receive a new name in future updates, while Diablo 2 Resurrected also saw the gladiator-esque to a point where fans claimed she looked like legendary actor Willem Defoe.

World of Warcraft has also had [heavily sexualized images toned down], but a lot of WoW fans aren’t interested in the removal of offensive in-game content: they’d rather Blizzard actively dealt with the ongoing toxicity issues instead."

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While I do agree that the issue of Toxicity in WoW does need to be addressed, the removal of those things is also something Blizzard had to do, not so much for the players but for the workers who stayed behind, who were victims of the culture Blizzard was sued over.

But, as someone who was a victim of a stalker from this game years ago, I agree that the toxicity needs to be addressed.

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Nope. See ya.

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Usually when someone claims this they like to leave out the fact they have several marks on their record already.

People will come to the CS forums, complaining about their “bans” (which are usually just suspensions but they don’t know the difference), claiming they “did nuffin wrong” so I blue comes in and says “well ackually this isn’t your first offense. It’s not even your second.”

Seems like they do this to combat articles and claims like this.

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What are you yappin about? People do get warnings

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Article is bait from start to finish. It’s also from over 2 years ago.

I’ll just address the immediate framing issue in the article:

Blizzard’s ongoing censorship of seemingly inappropriate World of Warcraft content in response to the lawsuit against the company is overshadowing what some players really want…

I’m already chuckling at “censorship” as it’s not even appropriate to use in this case.

The second italicized portion is a weasel-worded subjective assessment of phrases, items and descriptions that existed in the game. Their loss is only beneficial to promoting a new atmosphere of inclusion and respect.

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It doesn’t really affect me either way but I do think that the changing of and removal of some things is just plain dumb, and only serves as an illusion that they are doing anything about, well, anything.

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Myself and others I’ve read who got a 2 month (some others got 6 months) for giving constructive feedback in another Blizzard forum, first offense. Appeal ticket, they even admitted what I said was not against the rules, they just “don’t like it very much”.

Of course the CMs are going to say that. They don’t have to tell the truth and they know sycophants (who most are just each others alts) will hop on it. Those same people claim that robot replies are a myth but those comments have been proven to be a lie.

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Except every time I’ve seen a blue do this the OP starts sputtering.

I know Blizzard gives out false bans (not just suspensions) because I’ve seen it happen twice. However, what I’ve seen more is the scenario I’ve described so I think it’s extremely rare when it happens and I wouldn’t consider it a “huge problem.”

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What does that even mean? I’ve read a lot of these and the CMs usually tell their bias side then lock the thread or delete it.

They do give out false suspensions.

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How would a player prove that a system Blizzard uses doesn’t show multiple infractions?

My statement was that Blizzard claimed more than once that robot replies are a myth, which that, in itself, is a myth.

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No, the blues usually lock the threads when their pets start getting into pointless arguments with the OP.

This is what usually happens:
OP: “I DID NUFFIN WRONG!”
Blue: “Well yeah you actually did on this and this date.”
OP: “Oh but but but I didn’t think those would count.”

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Not all the time. I’ve watched dozens of them where they’ll let it go for days on end, letting them get their digs in before locking it.

Yes, there are several cases where the OP claims they did nothing wrong but did. I never denied this. My point being that there are cases where the OP will claim this and they’re right. Mods in many forums do not like to admit when they make mistakes like this. It shows a lack of integrity for them and their system, so they lie.

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But that’s kind of required to prove they are lying about a situation involving infractions. You can say “they lied about commenting automation” but that doesn’t prove that the allegations of multiple infractions is false.

They’re not robot replies, it’s employees copying and pasting the wrong template they’re supposed to use because they either don’t understand or care what the problem is.

Back when you could talk to GMs I got to chatting with one that admitted they didn’t even play WoW. So I bet when someone submits a ticket with a bunch of WoW jargon, their eyes probably go cross and they just pick the template they think matches the problem.

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That’s not what I said. I said the mod can lie about them having a history as a way to safe face. I’ve been on tons of forums over several decades and I’ve seen it many times. The best ones are where you have unbias admins who will call out the mods for doing this. The sad ones are where the admins are “hands-off”.

It’s a robot. If the employee didn’t care, that’s even more of a “shame on you” to the company for letting them stay there.

They should have stuck to this. I never had an issue go un-resolved this way. Today… “beep boop”.

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I have a feeling a robot would do better addressing your problem.

That will all depend on the quality of the code.

My all time favorite was a ticket a couple years back. I was having issues logging in, kept getting some weird code. Submitted a ticket, reply was “We see you want to appeal your ban, etc” We conducted a thorough investigation (I love when they say this when you know they didn’t) and the ban was right, yadda yadda"… marked resolved. Open a new ticket, explaining I wasn’t banned, it’s a connection error. Got the same reply back along with "If you keep submitting tickets, we’ll sanction your account. Called the bluff, made another one, same reply. Made a 4th and you could tell this was an actual person. They apologized, said my issue was a known error and they were working on it. Few days later, I was able to log back in.

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This is what I’m talking about: Siri would have been more help than whomever you were talking to.