If every squelch is manually reviewed, as some claim, then the GM’s should already by doing all of those things you mentioned.
Removing the auto squelch and using that exact same “trigger” number of reports to trigger a flag for manual review should not, therefore, add any additional workload for the GM’s. It would, however, help to ensure that no one is punished, even with a squelch, unless Blizzard determines that punishment is warranted.
The other option, IMO, is to leave the auto squelch in place, but punish (silence, with escalating duration based upon past silences) every one that submits a report that contributes to a squelch which is subsequently overturned upon manual review.
Realistically, silencing is the preferred method. Sticks and stones, and all of that. RCR ignores, so no issues there. If the person is spamming or saying really objectionable stuff, then a squelch hurts them as well since they theoretically cannot get groups, sell/buy in trade, ask for help when getting camped, etc.
Everything in the woodwork and between the lines suggests that Blizz is running Classic on a skeleton crew- layered servers, open loot trading, RCR, etc. Any suggestions to add more live support seem doomed for failure, so it’s a better investment of time to suggest fixes to the automated systems, imo.
IF, as proponents of the auto squelch claim, each and every squelch is manually reviewed, it should not be necessary to add more live support if the trigger for manual review required the same number of reports that the auto squelch currently requires, right?
The same number of manual reviews would take place. The only real difference would be that no punishment (including a squelch) would be handed out without a manual review first.
This presumes a live body reviewing all of the auto-squelch triggers. Live bodies cost money, and the wisdom indicates Classic is a low-cost project. The system can be automated out of the realm of concern by removing the ban/auto-kick feature altogether, and just keeping the remedies fixed at ignore/auto-squelch. I don’t think opponents of the system are worried about ignores or squelches, just that players are unfairly and abusively being kicked/suspended from the game.
As someone who works in IT and does work with Workforce and software that enables ideas like “right click report”.
Blizzard “GM’s” have little involvement in 99% of reported cases from “right click report” The software would be designed to grab snippets of information “what the user said, where they were, and what they were doing (using metadata not a screen shot)” When an influx is reports come in the software would then look at this data and compare it to a data-table where it tries to find flags. Did this person says XXXXXX (.)com/ goldfarm or do they have a max level character?
The cost of having someone manually read and make choices on everything would be very time consuming and hard to keep a standard. Many people might think different things? How could you tell if a gm was a Trump fan or an Anti-Trump fan and keep you silenced because something you said? Where a piece of software would look at it and decide based on logic and code that political talk is fine.
Its easier to have software updated with new logical arguments to help reports then it is to hire multiple people train them for weeks, pay them for their time and promise them work (if this a persons full time for for 8 years?).
Classic is a low budget love project. there WILL be minimal staffing for traditional GM’s. Technology has advanced and the number of players has increased to where staffing report tickets would be astronomical.
The problem with LFD/Cross Realm is that they’re great if you view the game as a toy to be played with and put down when you’re done with it, but bad for the game if you view it as a community and social experience.
Explain to me how being able to squelch/report people you ALREADY hate enough to never want to speak to them again, as evidenced by the fact that you’re squelching them, worsens your community experience when compared with having to listen to some Trogg be a jerk to you or log out?
Counterpoint: no
Counterpoint 2: there is no auto silence
Alternate counterpoint: They probably had good reason for deleting the last thread on this subject earlier today.
Without saying anything that will get this thread axed too, does anyone know what happened to the other 200+ post thread on this that was really active today? There was a weird mix of reasonable takes and flame wars going on and now it’s gone.
Which is it? Is the system completely automated and players can impose their own form of vigilante punishment with little or no fear of repercussion if squelches are not manually reviewed or are those who abuse the system punished because all squelches are manually reviewed?
IMO, it cannot work both ways.
As for your other claim, I can tell you that at least one opponent of the system is concerned about squelches.
IMO, the RCR system should be tied to a temp ignore for almost everything, with a flag for manual review being generated once a target report number is reached. IMO, there should be a system to escalate review priority of flagged accounts based upon additional reports received. If a substantially higher target report number (IMO, 10X the target number that generates a flag for manual review)
Is reached, an auto squelch should be triggered at that point.
As an example, 5 reports generates a flag for manual review, each additional 5 reports raises the priority for review, with an auto triggering if 50 reports are received. These numbers can be adjusted, of course.
IMO, there should be another category added to the RCR menu for “illegal service advertisement”. This would cover SPAM advertisements for things like gold selling, paid leveling services, etc. This, IMO, is the only option in the RCR system that should be tied to an auto squelch at the first level.
The two biggest concerns you see are [Group] RCR’s a rival guild’s main tank to prevent PvE progression; or [Group] RCR’s a person to prevent competition for things like farming nodes, etc. These concerns more or less become mooted if all it does is trigger an ignore for the RCR people, and maybe auto-squelch the person if enough reports are received in a certain time span. 5 is way too low, as the whole rival guild thing could hit that threshold easily, as could any competing 5-man group going for a rare spawn, etc. You want auto-ignore on RCR for the individual reporting, and auto-squelch in the realm of 100+. This way, it has a much better chance of being legit due to the only method of RCR either being chat (you right-click the name) or personal presence (you right-click the portrait). If you said something in chat that gets you RCR’d by 100+ people, chances are they are not all part of [Group] and you probably deserve the squelch.
Having 100+ people in your physical presence is also a stretch, so no abusive potential there.
The point is you can have an automated system, while still having safeguards. Best believe that Blizz is opting for this as opposed to paying someone to sit in a cubicle and go monitor-blind for 8 hours a day.
Speaking only for myself, I would consider an auto squelch requiring a minimum of 100 reports, each from a different account, acceptable. As you say, that would remove much, if not almost all, of the potential for abuse.
Bet. Guild competition was fierce in Vanilla. Not just for server-firsts, but in a lot of things. If we got beat to a world dragon, we used to go stand on the corpse during loot distro to try to skin the corpse as soon as it was looted, just to steal the mats from the other guild (this was acceptable as we were on a PvP server, thus there was a PvP solution). I could not imagine RCR having too much of a chance of kicking/suspending people through an automated system.
Have you followed any news lately? We have a veritable politburo nowadays where anything other than party-line groupthink can get you kicked off of just about any medium in existence.
To be clear, I agree with you. But for real, the Care Police are out in full force, nowadays.