I’m sorry that you’re having trouble with another player and their guild. Looking over your account though, I do not see any tickets created regarding this matter. While we can offer advice and guidance over the forums, this is not a channel to submit reports about other players.
Some of the things you mention aren’t going to be things the Game Masters intervene in. I think Mirasol covered that very well:
If they’re saying inappropriate things to you or your other guild members in chat then you and your guild members need to right-click and report those inappropriate messages. You all then need to place the characters on ignore to prevent further communications. It is not considered “On-going Harassment” if these folks aren’t being placed on ignore or if you engage with them in arguments.
I don’t know which character you’re referring to, but if “acted out of character” indicates that they said inappropriate things in chat then this should demonstrate that we do take action against that type of behavior - regardless of the situation that led to it (the old saying, “Two wrongs don’t make a right”).
If you do open an on-going harassment ticket about this, please include the following:
The character that is harassing you with inappropriate messages (reminder, saying they are a better guild is not considered harassment)
When this started, when it was last experienced
Any other characters they’ve used to bypass being ignored
I do want to make sure we set some expectations though -
The Game Masters are not there to arbitrate between guild disputes. We’re not able to control where other players move in the game world, or if they are attempting to recruit members from your guild. Poaching members is not against the rules as each player has the right to decide who they want to play with and may join/leave guilds at will.
The Game Masters are there to, in part, moderate. If inappropriate chat (vulgarity, racism/bigotry) is found in reports then we do take action from those reports.
I know this article was already shared but I’ll add it here at the end for anyone that comes to this thread/reply in a search:
For obvious Code of Conduct violations like that it can only take one report for Blizzard to act. First offense is 24-hour Silence. Second offense is 48-hour Silence. Third offense is 96-hour Silence. We have also seen players on the forum recently that seemed to have received two-week suspensions from the game for inappropriate language.
I just wanted to add that as of a month or two ago, the ongoing harassment ticket option was plagued by the submission errors that others have mentioned on this sub-forum recently. I had tried over the course of a week to submit. I was instructed to include the details typically submitted in the harassment ticket in the body of my response to the generic ticket I had opened regarding the web error. It may be fixed now, but in case the OP encounters this issue or has encountered that issue, which prevented them from submitting one previously, they can still open a generic ticket.
We do have a bug report open for that issue, the one where specific terms/phrases are causing ticket creation errors. So, thanks for mentioning that Marwenna.
I would definitely recommend that if you encounter that, the just put a placeholder ticket description in such as “Test” and then adding to the ticket once it has been created. It’s the best workaround we have at the moment but the bug is actively being looked into.
The OP has no submitted tickets. They may be referencing information given to another guild member.
It is correct information that was given. Before someone can pursue an Ongoing Harassment ticket they MUST put the person on Ignore. Circumventing Ignore is a key factor that has to be proven for the GMs to take action.
I forgot to address this last night. If someone gets Suspended then it means they have previous violations on the account and had been Silenced. They did not learn from the Silence and continued to escalate. That is how a Suspension can be given. It is not a first step in the penalty structure.
Sure, I just didn’t want someone to read that and think they could go on a racist tirade for a first offense without getting a well-deserved suspension, as an example. That’s all and why I mentioned severity.
It has all been addressed OP, pretty clearly, but here is my 2 copper anyway.
You, as well as anyone in your guild being harassed has two options as I see it.
First option, place them on ignore, never respond, and if and when said ignore is circumvented(such as using other guild.members to contact anyone e that has them on ignore), place an ongoing harassment ticket.
We had a thread one time where a friend asked a friend to message somebody. Both offenders got suspensions. Itnis taken seriously. However, please note the list of what is NOT considered harassment above
Second, do not place them on ignore, and RCR every single chat violation you and your guild sees. If their language is indeed off color and worse, have a nice little chuckle known g they will get silenced, which doubles each time, and possibly suspended as well.
Best of luck to you and your guild in all of this.