I then got INSTANTLY kicked from the game, within 5 seconds of them saying that, and received a 10-day suspension.
I get bombed with “Behavior Warning” messages when I post my guild recruitment, but I’ve always assumed that surely someone looks at these reports and decides whether or not it’s actually something they need to follow up on or not. I guess I was wrong.
Can a GM or Customer Support rep please look more into this?
Very rarely has a suspension come from something that moment. And I do mean extremely rarely. While I do not condone the actions of said person, your best course of action should have been to report and ignore. Cursing them out is, in fact, punishable. Just like if you reported them, they would eventually be punished for it.
As an aside coming here with masked cursing is also very much against the rules, so I strongly suggest editing that out.
What’s in question here is where and how often they are advertising. Regardless of what the guild supports/stands for/etc, advertising for a guild is still subject to posting the advertisements in the correct place and not spamming the ad.
You cannot post these in LFG chat, and while this is a bit murkier, I would advise against doing it in Trade chat. There is a guild recruitment channel for these, plus the Guild Finder interface. It’s also subject to spamming rules, so I wouldn’t advertise for it more than once every half hour or hour. Most players have guilds, and those who don’t aren’t going to join if you spam it constantly.
Post the ad, then move on with gaming for a while. It doesn’t do any good to post every 30 seconds, because you’re only going to get it seen by the same people as the last time, and it’s going to annoy them.
Report them, place them on Ignore, and DO. NOT. RESPOND. IN. ANY. WAY.
For example:
This is a chat violation. There is no profanity allowed, especially masked profanity.
What someone else is saying does not absolve you from following the rules. Report them and move on.
A thorough invetigation doesn’t take long when it’s a chat violation. Did you break the rules, yes or no? Yep, you did, so the investigation is done.
You can file an appeal until they tell you the decision is final, but based on what you posted, this isn’t likely to be overturned at all. Rules were broken, and these are the consequences.
It doesn’t matter how long it takes or doesn’t take. They broke the rules, so they were punished in accordance with the Terms of Use.
If you mean the 10 days, it’s based on the history of the account. First violation is a silence, then a suspension. This would likely be the their violation, so that’s what informs the length of the suspension.
It continues to get bigger and will land at a permanent ban if changes are not made.
It has been reviewed but since it’s not your account I cannot go into any more details - they need to check their email.
A few things.
If language is not appropriate in the game, it is not appropriate on the forums, as evidenced by the forums stopping you from spelling out the profanity. Additionally, misspelling it so that you can post it is also not allowed in game or on the forums.
Regardless of what anyone else does/says, it doesn’t give others license to also break the rules. So in this case, the focus is only on the individual’s use of inappropriate language, hence the penalty.
Like mentioned above, what one is doing at the moment their account is actioned is rarely the direct reason. Meaning, the “lengthy investigation” was an investigation of the behavior over a period of time. In other words, of the chat history.
The behavior warnings are simply automated messages that have no consequences associated with them. They are simply warnings. They are not tracked by the system so there isn’t anything left behind for Bliz to investigate. Thus, no consequences can’t be interpreted as Bliz condoning the behavior. If one is getting many of these, that is meant to inform them that the behavior needs to be curbed before it results in consequences.
Thank you very much. I’ve tried to remove the post so not as to clog up the forums, and I apologize for the disruption.
It’s fine, Lunavoir - I cleaned it up bit for you, no need for it to be deleted now.
Hi Orlyia!
First, I want to thank you for taking the time to look into this for me, I very much appreciate it.
I would like to ask, since this seems the most appropriate time and place to do so, what is and is not ideal for guild recruitment in Classic? I missed the 2019 boat, and have been a retail player for a while now, leading the same guild on Moon Guard. There, in the entirety of our tenure, guild recruitment has been done in Trade. I’m learning now that this may not be the best way to do so, and I want to make sure that my guild follows any guidelines in place for future posting.
I will avoid trade from this point forward, do you also recommend that I do not post in the general chat of the zones? I am looking for an easy way to recruit like-minded folks, and I understand that in doing so, it’s prone to backlash as we’ve seen here. I accept this, and moving forward, I just want to do it “by the book,” so to speak.
Thank you again for your time, this has restored my faith in Blizzard customer support and shown me that the horror stories that folks like to perpetuate online are not the always true.
General should be safe.
Just try to avoid being ‘spammy’. That’s a nebulous criteria, but generally spacing things out 5-10 min apart is safe.