For the record my silence didn’t have anything to do with naughty words, spamming, selling anything, or threatening anyone. I play on a RP server and in the LFG chat channel a lot of people were having a heated debate discussing politics and I made the mistake of asking “What is wrong with ________ ________?” (could be a persons name or political ideology in the blanks…it doesn’t matter). I’m sure people went down the list reporting every name that said anything in that debate. So was what I did HORRIBLE? No. Did it violate RP server rules…I’m sure it did. So not here to debate that.
I want to be very clear to anyone reading this that I’m not posting this to dispute the silence. This post has NOTHING to do with why my account was silenced. All I want to discuss in this post going forward is the punishment phase, nothing else.
Do flags for silences eventually fall off your account or are they permanent and the punishments keep growing?
I’m asking because I played WoW Classic for a year now. At some point during WoW Classic I received a 24 hour silence. I didn’t think much of it because my account rarely received any punishments in the 15 so years I played World of Warcraft. I just assumed this was a one time thing…and the flag would eventually fall off. Well it’s been SEVERAL months since I received that 24 hour silence near the beginning (or possibly middle) of WoW Classic…and this week I received a 48 hour silence.
If you don’t know what a silence is it keeps you from talking in all of the chat channels…making it impossible to find groups/guilds/raids, etc.
My question is this…do these flags (for the silences) EVER fall off the account or do I have to worry about getting a 96+ hour silence over a year from now because it will be added on top of the punishment I received for something I said in the year 2020?
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I know they compound…I’m just curious if they compound “forever”. Forever is a very long time. That means if I slip up 6 months or a year from now I could get a 96+ hour ban or even worse. I would hope that the flags would fall off over time if the player didn’t do anything wrong for a long time. I mean we all make mistakes sometimes.
First thing to clarify is whether or not you received a ‘Squelch’ or were given a ‘Silence’ by a GM.
A squelch is temporary and is reviewed by a GM (or upon appeal). The squelch is a result of multiple reports from the community (which must be unique players/accounts too).
A silence is a permanent mark (unless successfully appealed) applied by a GM and it doubles every time you receive one. And no, they do not fall off or expire.
They do. It doesn’t matter if it was five minute or five years, breaking the rules will have the next step in the time off from the chat will kick in. This isn’t jail or whatever where good behavior will lesson the punishment.
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" The first time a player is silenced, their chat will be restricted for 24 hours. This duration will double for each silence penalty received after the first, and there is no maximum. This means that players who receive multiple silence penalties may find themselves unable to chat for a very, very long time."
They do not fall off, unless something has changed and I missed it. You’re the only one to blame for when a mistake happens, so if your silence doubles and doubles again? The punishment is enforced so that you will ideally learn how to keep to the ToS and learn from your mistakes.
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Not a “ban”, just a silence. A ban implies that you cannot access the game and usually means a permanent closure 
Silences still let you access the game and play.
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Yea, sorry I meant 96+ hour silence. I was thinking ban in my head if they compound forever and Blizzard eventually thinks that you’ve had too many silences. I think compounding people’s punishments forever is more than a little extreme…I mean people make mistakes. I could send something more than once in LFG chat like “Looking for Guild” and get a 96+ hour ban for spamming 6 months to a year from now.
Keep in mind, it’s not an automatic silence and it would require that multiple people report you too. Even then, a GM would have to decide if it met the criteria for a silence and you still get an opportunity to appeal it if you believe it was a mistake.
The hope from Blizzard is that people will learn from their mistakes before their silences really start to grow.
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Blizzard has a similar policy for forum disciplinary action where a user can lose a trust level, however, the penalty ages off after some period of time and the user can regain their old trust level by again meeting the requirements for it.
Their stated preference is to penalize in order to educate as a
means of preventing bad behavior rather than just penalize the behavior forever. It’s one of the reasons why some types of bans that used to be lifetime bans are now 6-month bans.
I would not be surprised if, at some point, the penalty for a silence was allowed to age off due to good behavior but it hasn’t happened yet to my knowledge.