New Reporting System Feedback

Community WoW Community Council
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Evening Council,

I wanted to create a thread for us to provide some feedback on the new reporting changes made this last patch. Unfortunately, I am rather displeased. Simply from reporting an “Advertisement” bot, I now I have to rightclick, report group prompt, figure out the selection (inappropriate communication in this instance), then select “Advertisement”, and then include any details within. Previously, we would just right click “Report Group - advertisement” to remove it from our Looking for Group queues. The current system requires too much effort to remove all of these bots from our LFG system. I would prefer a report function which is more streamlined. Perhaps we can right click - report, with a list of options, and if our option isn’t there, Blizzard can include “other” which prompts a text box for us to explain. I further suggest that after clicking the “report - ‘x’” THEN it provides a prompt “Do you want to include details?” so the player can click “yes” or “no” before another text prompt is added. I’ll admit the current system is actually dissuading me from reporting people due to the amount of time it takes to report a single thing. I believe this can be tailored better to customers.

What are your thoughts?

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I agree, I had the same experience yesterday. Jumped into group finder to find a mythic+ group and did first what I usually do upon opening the group finder: reported the 4-5 people advertising carry sales. Except instead of simply right-clicking and selecting the option to report for Advertisement, I had to go through several dialogue boxes. After doing it once, it felt like too much trouble for something I have to do repeatedly every time I open group finder, and I didn’t report the rest of them.

Advertisements are so common and have to be reported so frequently that we need a quick option for them.

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Experiencing the same situation when going to report groups in the Group Finder. Had to go thru numerous dialog boxes just to report groups that were advertising websites for services in-game.

I’m not sure why the reporting system was changed, But I did prefer it the way it was before. I personally found it a lot simpler to just right-click to select “Report” and then select “Advertising”.

Now report for the same offense, You need to right-click “Report Group”, Then select “Inappropriate Communication”, And then click on “Advertisement”

Hoping this system is changed a little bit more. In order to make reporting players / groups easier and simpler.

Edit: I also took note that any groups you report now will not be automatically removed from the Group Finder like before when you reported them. In order to remove groups you report for advertising - You now need to refresh the Group Finder after reporting said groups.

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Another aspect to this is that there is a big conflict in Blizzard’s own Social Contract that was added with this last patch. Recently, boosting communities as a whole were banned, which I believe most people can agree was for the best, and the ToS was updated to reflect that communities are no longer allowed, but regular advertising for in game items for in game currency still is.

However, in the Social Contract you must now agree to with this patch in order to play, it says “Spamming, advertising, or other destructive behaviors,” which, unfortunately, leaves things up to the whims of those reporting. Advertising your pets for sale? That could be reported. Selling Torghast, AOTC, or anything else? Reported. Obviously, trade chat has become the catch-all chat channel for many of those who use the game, we have all seen political discussions, Thunderfury spam, and oftentimes just generally no “trade” in trade chat.

But when you can be reported, and silenced, just for posting an actual FOR SALE message, it’s very disheartening to even try to talk there. I know many people who have received chat suspensions or silences for up to a week even though they followed the (MANY) requirements told to them by GMs or in the community guidelines, only to still get silenced and then have to appeal.

Please, provide us with strict, clear guidelines that are publicly available.

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Advertising has always been against the rules in WoW. Advertising is defined as promoting out of game websites, products, etc.

Spam is also against the rules. Spam is defined by how often you post it - if you annoy enough of the community and they report it, it can get actioned by a GM.

Advertising a trade skill is fine and won’t get anyone reported or banned - unless they are spamming it.

Advertising a twitch stream, product, gold selling website, boosting site, etc is against the rules.

Again, no, that won’t get you in trouble unless it is spammed.

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Just to point out, the “Social Contract” is essentially just the same Code of Conduct we all agreed to when we made our accounts, summarized for people. I assume it’s to cut down on people claiming ignorance because no one reads long ToUs.

Though, for future reference, Advertising is defined here:

Likewise, it explains what “destructive behaviors” would be here:

AKA Hate Speech, Discriminatory or Obscene Language, Threatening, or Harassing.

It’s not really up for interpretation any moreso than it was in the past - GMs use their own discretion to action people, and if you disagree you can appeal. I’ve had friends appeal who had it upheld by a higher up, and I’ve had friends who appealed and had the action overturned. Because some people may see something as obscene that others don’t.

For instance, my dwarf monk is named Brewfist - I’ve had quite a few people whisper me in the years since MoP that they’re reporting my name because it’s inappropriate (they’re associating a part of the name with something… else.) instead of the pun on Brewfest, a Dwarf event, that it is. Nothing has happened obviously, cause either it didn’t reach the GMs, or the GMs realized the pun.

Likewise, I’ve had threats of reports on my Mechagnome Monk, named Assimilate, for the first 3 letters. Same deal. I assume the GMs (if it reached GMs) understood it was an actual word associated with robots. Lol.

As for the new reporting system - I echo the above sentiments that there’s no quick access to reporting advertising.

It’s also annoying that groups you report in the LFG system no longer disappear for you after you report them. It’s very aggravating.

Also, a byproduct of this new system is the Vote to Kick Interface is bugged - creating troll problems in LFR. We’ve learned you can bypass the bug by targeting the player and typing /kick, but fixing the interface would be appreciated.

I would also like to ask that in 10.0 or such, an option to report someone for trolling a group be added. There was one on the PTR according to wowhead’s article back then, but it is not on live, if it did indeed exist.

I had a very unfortunate experience last night I won’t get into details about - but someone was trolling the LFR hard and convincing the group that the people calling them out were the ones actually doing it. If that’s not harassment, I don’t know what is. But there’s no actual option for that in the reporting menu. I reported it as language cause that was the closest thing I could, and included an explanation. But having a harassment/troll option would be nice.

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Blizzard added a new right click “Report Advertisement” to remove the advertisements from queue. Our voices have been heard :smiley: Thanks Blizzard!

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Evening Blizzard,

There is an issue in Rated Solo Shuffle where we are unable to report someone “AFK”. I’ve played a few games where a player accepted a Rated Solo Shuffle game and then just afk at the start, but we are unable to report them. Please give us some reprieve to end the match with an AFKer or remove them from the game and insta-queue.

Thank you

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2nding this

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