Mass reporting and giving out 7 day bans for CHAT issues is a major problem. There is no warnings you are not given a reason as to why without multi tickets… BLIZZARD you can do better and I expect better… What action is taking before banning or silencing an account? I would like an answer.
3 Likes
To begin with, investigation of the reports (“mass” or singular) by a human GM.
Then, if the GM determines the reported communications violated Terms of Service, a penalty is applied to the account. The “first offense” penalty for the lifetime of an account is a one-week silence. A further separate instance of improper communications will result in a one-week suspension of the WoW license from being able to play. If there are more, suspensions increase in length until potentially culminating in a permanent ban for the WoW license.
Again, this is for the lifetime of the account, so the penalty stacking doesn’t fall off just because the player hasn’t been penalized lately. Blizzard isn’t in the business of allowing players to violate the Terms of Service “once in a while”.
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Generally you’re given a social contract reminder in simplified form of what kind of conduct is expected in the game.
If you get reported by your peers, you may receive an automated warning popup in the corner of your game. This is not a Blizzard account action however.
Generally, penalties are accompanied with a reason. Such as “abusive chat”.
Mass reporting only leads either to getting temp squelched upon which a GM will review the action or being placed in the mod queue until a GM reviews whether if the reports are justified or not.
The first tier is 7 days silence without losing access to the game. That is quite mild and a nice reminder of what could follow if you keep up problematic behaviour.
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Mass reports never equal silences at most a squelch the fact that u got a silence means the reports were valid.
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I’m not sure why you believe mass reports may have caused you to receive a penalty, they usually don’t exist. One report can lead to a silence or suspension.
You’re following the chat rules, outlined by the eula and social contract? Not just foul language, but spam and toxic chat are simply not allowed.
Blizzard is doing better by enforcement of the games rules that have existed since release.
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Doesn’t have the effect you want it to have, thankfully.
This was done by a Blizzard employee and tells us it isn’t your first chat violation. Silences come before suspensions.
There are multiple versions of warnings. Namely the Social Contract.
They look at the report and review the claimed offensive chat log. And then they take action accordingly.
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To a theoretical?
Do you have a license that has been actioned?
I’m seeing nothing on this one.
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The chat wasnt being spammed and it was a matter of them just not knowing it was against ToS. This is something that could be cleared up quickly and easily with a warning. They didnt get that. Some got a 7 day silence as punishment, others received a 7 day ban for doing the same thing… Is it their fault that blizzard is using this new mass report option instead of having GMs to review and actually provide customer service? A warning and explanation of what ToS is being broken would be enough.
So you are speaking on behalf of someone else?
We don’t discuss account actions with third parties.
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I have not recieved a ban or silence. This post is because several of my friends have recieved either a 7 day chat suspension or 7 day ban. Honestly none of them and myself included understand the why or reasoning. Im scared to offer services or use trade chat.
1 Like
Mass reporting doesn’t issue a penalty. It’s still a GM who does so after reviewing the logs.
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Feedback is not taken on the support forums. However, if your “friends” do the same thing and have received 7 days silence previously, they will get 7 days suspension next. So nothing weird is happening.
Very rarely can it skip up the penalties for abusive chat behaviour but even in those cases it is not strange.
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Not reading the rules you agreed to in order to play the game doesn’t make you exempt from them.
Again, this does not happen. The most any other player can do to another is squelch them for 24 hours, and it only happens when multiple spam reports are lodged in a short window of time. Mostly it’s used to combat gold sellers.
Do other people sometimes get wrongly flagged? Yes, but when their reports come up in queue they’re wiped clean. No silences or suspensions.
Also as mentioned before, this is exactly what did happen. Penalties above squelches can ONLY be doled out by Blizzard employees.
7 Likes
Advertise in the correct channel - and don’t spam.
That’s pretty much all the rules advertising specific in a nutshell.
Spam falls under language type infractions.
The first penalty for that is usually a 7 day silence, if the license has previous infractions - things go onto varying levels of suspensions.
A ban may ultimately result if the behavior is repeated, that is typically after a few account actions.
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Why isnt there a warning being issued? The instances im talking about it was a simple mistake of not knowing about the services channel. I had to dig to find the ToS that specified what they did wrong. Its a game that is paid for and the customer service isnt there.
Warnings:
You are warned at least twice that misusing the chat system can result in penalties, up to, and including closure of your license. You have already read and agreed to follow the rules. That is the warning you get.
- EULA - which references the game Code of Conduct
- Easy summary of that called the Social Contract that pops up and you agree to.
- You may SOMETIMES get an in-game pop up if you are being reported by many players at once. That is a tool that can be triggered to help people stop whatever they are doing - such as maybe advertising a guild too often. It is not something that always shows up so can’t be counted on as a guideline to stop you from getting a penalty.
Penalties:
Penalties stack. The more penalties on the license, the longer the next will be. While some infractions are egregious enough to skip to severe penalties, most follow a standard progression. Right now the current penalty system works as follows:
- 1st offense = week Silence in-game
- 2nd offense = week Suspension
- 3rd offense = 2 week Suspension
- 4th offense = longer. Pattern repeats up to license closure.
Some things to consider:
- It does not matter how mild a violation is. If it is confirmed by a GM they will apply whichever penalty matches the number of violations on the license.
- The penalty records do NOT age out or drop off. If you got a week Suspension then the license already had a previous chat penalty.
- The system used to have some snippets of the penalized text included in the email you get. However, that is currently broken and was grabbing incorrect text portions. It is currently discontinued until it is fixed. Asking here can usually get some clarity on the nature of your chat violation though.
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Well, to put it simply; the warming is the agreement and the week silent. Beyond that, they won’t be giving anymore warnings.
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I’m quite sure they did warn in advance too specifically about the classic services channel?
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Knowledge of the rules falls on the player, just like in real life. Paying customers reported that the advertising was in the wrong channel. Those customers, and there had to have been several, also pay to have the rules enforced.
A GM DOES review the reports. No actual penalty is applied to the account until a GM has approved it based on the chat logs attached to the reports.
It is not the automated system you seem to think it is. The only think “mass reporting” can do is squelch an account pending GM review. It was put in well over a decade ago for gold spammers and their ilk.
This policy on advertising was put in place in 2022. It is pinned to the top of General Discussion and is in the Support Knowledge base as well.
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offering a service in the trade channel and not in the services channel is not malicious. Im not saying it was correct. ALL of us has accepted that big long EULA/code of conduct without reading it. This is a game that is paid for… and should be enjoyable for everyone. Not being familiar with all the RULES should be expected. My friends that got silenced and banned without warning is poor customer service.
Yes its a change they did in 2022, I came back after quitting in the first TBC fresh years ago… I didnt know… I wouldnt have found out there was a service channel if someone else didnt receive a 7 day chat ban… The crime doesnt fit the punishment. Thats my argument.