I spend time watching this forum as I find it interesting and informative. I’ll also admiit to a certain pleasure in seeing ‘innocent report victims’ being revealed as not so innocent after all. Anyway, I am familiar with how the system works because of this. My understanding is as follows.
There is an automated in game warning:
-get enough reports and a warning is sent. No one (GM’s etc) can see this as it is automated. It appears in the upper right of the UI the same place as the Thank yous (above the ‘Buff Frame’).
There are squelches:
-get enough reports in a short period, and maybe some trigger words used and u get a squelch until it is reviewed by a GM and determined to be possibly worth an action or not.
Then there is the reports which end up being actioned. It generally goes: warning, possibly silences, stacking suspensions, and then ban. Very bad offenses can jump the usual chain.
My question is how are those warnings for a first time account actions sent? Are they sent in game, much the same as the automated one above, appearing above the ‘Buff Frame’ or is an email sent? If they are sent in game, how is the wording different?
That is all, pretty simple question, soley for my curiousity. Thanks!
From my understanding Lorethon, they basically work like this:
Language/spam “Warning”, is done in-game on the character you are currently active on, though it may have been received due to actions on another character. As you mentioned, those cannot be seen by GMs and are just a warning to the player.
Squelches happen in-game and you are notified basically that you are not able to chat etc. due to a current squelch. If that turns into a silence or account action beyond the squelch, then an email goes out.
Any other sort of suspension or ban receives an email with the necessary info in it. These will also be seen when a player attempts to log in to the game on an account that is temporarily suspended or banned via a pop-up on the login screen.
That’s what I understand as well, Perl. But, there is an occassional post by a Blue that says a warning was delivered the first time. Not a silence or suspension or ban, a warning.
So the automated warnings are just that and cannot be seen by GM’s, therefore it seems logical those are not the ones sent.
But, if a GM does send a warning for a first time action, how is it sent? In game, at Battle net log in (forgot that possibiliy), or via email?
I have never received one and so I also do not know. Well, I certainly don’t think I have. Was curious where those would be sent.
“Warnings” like for chat (language/spam) are not sent by GMs. Only account actions are sent by GMs. If it’s a warning to curb your behavior, then it’s automated and no email. If it’s an account action such as a suspension or ban, that’s e-mail and at login.
I think an automatic warning is sent as a pop-up in the upper right that you have to click on, like when accepting a message from a GM when they’re ready to talk to you, or a message that says “thank you for reporting” when someone is actioned as a result of one of your reports.
EDIT: Thinking about it, if you receive an actual, not automated warning, you’d most likely get an e-mail that says ‘Notice of account action: Warning’, and maybe a GM contacting you in-game [via the “A GM is ready to talk with you!” prompt in the upper right mentioned earlier, not through a normal chat window] to say as such, too.
I accidentally dumped something into chat once (a save string for an addon). I got the warning. It appears on your screen like a raid warning. I think it posts in your chat window as well.
The old saying around here is that Blizzard never warns you. They simply take action.
The “warning” we get is the EULA/policies and the Social Contract that reminded us of that.
If it gets to a GM they will either dismiss it or action it with a penalty. No warning at all.
The only warnings are the new automated ones.
You have a great grasp of the system though.
Forums are another thing entirely. Blues here do warn folks to cool down a bit before something happens. But that is exclusive to this forum and the Forum Support Agents. They try to understand frustration and direct folks in a more constructive direction. Of course, they don’t have to do that, and sometimes don’t, but they will if it is reasonable and only a minor edit.
o.0 So a raid warning? Was this recent Rufflebootm?
I am looking through Vrak’s post history trying to find something about warnings, and let me just say, there is a lot of Vrak posts to sift through lol!
I don’t think this is exactly true. Your first account action can be a warning you receive via email, as a precursor to a suspension. Or at least it’s always been that way for mild first time offenses, unless they’ve gotten rid of that due to the new warning system.
The simply takes action makes sense to me. As I said above, maybe I am mis-remembering. I’ll look a bit more and prolly just drop it as what I understand is enough.
On the forums, perhaps. I had a post back in December (I probably should have put in a ticket to appeal it come to think) where I got a warning on the forums about a perfectly fine post of mine. I had legitimately broken no rules and it was a helpful post for the OP really. But that showed up in my avatar pic on the forums as a new alert/like/reply/etc.
“That is entirely up to you, Refrigerated, but for a clearer picture… We usually do provide a warning for the first offense. As the others pointed out, if you have been suspended this is likely not your first.”
That’s at bottom. I have not spent enough time to figure out how to post cut off sections. But that is from Vrak and it does say “We usually do provide a warning for the first offense…” So how is this warning sent? Email?
Edit: also, this was 21 days ago or so not an ancient post.
There is nothing to appeal. The forums have an automated system that pops up a Notification letting you know that one of your posts was reported by other users enough to cause it to “grey out”. That is not something a GM did to you, it is an automated forum feature. If a GM reviews it, they will either remove the flag, or uphold it and do something with the post. That might be as simple as editing it, deleting it, or maybe the thread gets nuked.
The only time you ever need to appeal on the forums is if you get an actual forum action that suspends you. They will send you an email about it with a sample of the reported post. You also can’t post at all.
Just ignore the people who get report happy if you did nothing wrong. Those auto warnings don’t stay on your account or anything.
That is VERY specific to name infractions. The “warning” in this case is that on a first offense you get a forced name change for free. However, no suspension goes with it. It shows up the same as any other account infraction and it has an in-game requirement to change the name in order to play it. Players can consider that a “warning” so to speak and are encouraged to self report any other bad names.
Further name offenses are a forced name change and a suspension.
I got one, ages ago, but for language. It was just an email that said cut it out basically. The original penalty volcano was something like warning, 3 hr suspension, 24 hours, 72, ban. Of course over the years penalties have changed a dozen times but I can’t remember exactly when the volcano was removed, or explicitly hearing that warnings were no longer a thing, though they might not be.