Report Appeal System Needs to Be Changed

Community General Discussion
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ah yes look at the logs. thats like gms reading your ticket when you have a problem. i highly doubt they even read anything they just see it and copy and paste the i agree with whatever was done. if they did read you wouldnt have people having to make and keep opening up the same ticket because problems dont get fixed. back in the early days you appealed your ban and in my case 9/10 times they undid it because i wasnt wrong. i also didnt have to wait a day for my ticket to be answered by someone who didnt read any of it and have to re open it saying do your job. blizzards customer service has gone down hill drastically

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I wasn’t even talking about that. I was talking about making posts about fixing the report system.

That’s patently false. It was EXACTLY that way years ago. Probably before you started playing, I’d imagine or you were too young to remember. But the appeal system DID let you argue your case, and it DID sometimes cause Blizzard to overturn a wrongful punishment. Maybe not go around correcting people when you don’t know what you’re talking about?

But let’s suppose that it is currently that way, which it seems to be. Then what, pray-tell is the text box for that is available when you follow certain channels in appealing actions against your account? There is literally no logical reason to have such a box if the appeal system is not for defending yourself. But I’m sure you’ll try to make up some reason that it’s for that isn’t to defend your case. But I assure you there isn’t one that doesn’t fall under defending yourself.

That’s ridiculous. “Essentially trolling” isn’t against the code of conduct. I don’t even think trolling is against the code of conduct. Flaming, maybe, trolling no. But I guess I wouldn’t be too surprised if the word “trolling” actually is in there. And even if it is, “essentially trolling” isn’t trolling. If people want to talk about politics or religion in trade chat then they shouldn’t be punished for it. And it happens all the time.

And if they SHOULD be punished then at worst they should get a warning and then an extremely short mute. The draconian punishment system Blizzard currently has is out of control and needs to be changed immediately. Any rational person can see that.

Feel free to show me any official Blizzard documentation or agreements that say you can’t talk about religion or politics in game though.

You just as well could say talking about sports is trolling because it’s divisive. Or talking about any bit of WoW lore that people don’t agree on. What’s that? Arguing about lore in your guild chat? Banned for 10 days for “trolling.” Get real with your legalistic “technically trolling.” By your ridiculous definition, disagreeing about ANYTHING is trolling. Talking about ANYTHING would be trolling because it might be deemed, inflammatory or divisive. So I suppose we better just stop talking about anything because Blizzard can just arbitrarily decide to mute or suspend you for anything that anyone gets mad about. That is what you are suggesting is a good system to advocate.

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I thought you’ve played since Vanilla?
They used to quite literally whisper you in-game like a concerned parent before dishing out punishment fairly frequently, back in the days when GMs required an actual character to interact with players.

You don’t remember the bluerobes and the chat icon?

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One GM said that that was never the case several times on the forums over the last few years so all other Blues, Forums Blizzard Defense Force members and yellow/green/whatever posters quote that all the time like scripture. Do they have any proof that what he says is remotely accurate? No ofc not.

And what is the text box that you get (sometimes) when you try to appeal action against your account? Morheim only knows.

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I do find it VERY interesting when supposed veteran accounts that have played longer than I have don’t remember things that were still going on in Wrath of the Lich King. It’s very telling of what’s really going on here.

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I can only assume they either forgot or were like 10 years old back then (I think i was 13 or so back in wrath idk) so I give them the benefit of the doubt that they’re not intentionally lying to push against people saying the report system is broken. But I wouldn’t put it past them either.

And don’t worry… people who actually played a decent amount of time and got reported back then do in fact remember how the appeal system ACTUALLY used to be. I’m pretty sure even in cataclysm, the appeal system was designed to inject fairness into the report system.

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You really should not assume. I am old and retired. I have been playing since Beta. Do not try to tell me how the system is supposed to work. Yes, you could call in and argue an appeal, however that is NOT what the phone system was supposed to be for. It was for Billing, Account access, and some tech support issues. Same as Live chat or phone callback are now (when they have them open). Part of the reason they removed the call in number was because people were calling it for things it was not supposed to be used for, like appeals.

Yes it is, and maybe you really need to go look at the rules. Start with the forum Code of Conduct. https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/000256989 That has most of it laid out. If you want I can give you the 2004 rules…which were even more strict than the current ones.

Original User Manual from 2004 https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/template_resource/LO0VQ46XB1281555957773363.pdf - which has the EULA at the end. It points to the requirements for accepting Terms of Use with the website for it. I selected the first archived Wayback Machine TOU for WoW from 2004. I have copied out the relevant sections for you.

https://web.archive.org/web/20041217101250/http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.shtml

  1. World of Warcraft Rules of Conduct.

As with all things, World of Warcraft is governed by certain rules of conduct that must be adhered to by all users of World of Warcraft. It is your responsibility to know, understand and abide by these rules of conduct. The following rules are not meant to be “exhaustive,” and Blizzard Entertainment reserves the right to determine what conduct it considers to be outside the spirit of the game and to take such disciplinary measures as it sees fit. Blizzard Entertainment reserves the right to add to or amend this list of rules at any time, and you are responsible for checking these Terms of Use for any newly amended or posted rules each time that you log on.

A. Rules Related to User Names.

Each user will select a user name for his or her character, or allow the World of Warcraft software to select the name for him or her. Additionally, users may form “guilds” and such guilds will be required to choose a name for the guild. When you choose a user name, create a guild, or otherwise create a label that can be seen by other players of World of Warcraft, you must abide by the following guidelines as well as the rules of common decency. If Blizzard Entertainment, in its sole discretion, finds such a label to be offensive, it reserves the right to change the name, remove the label and corresponding chat room, and/or suspend your use of World of Warcraft.

In particular, you may not use:

  1. Names of another person with the intent to impersonate that person;
  2. Names which incorporate ‘swear’ words or which are otherwise offensive, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;
  3. Names subject to the rights of any other person without authorization;
  4. Names of popular culture or media personalities;
  5. Names that are trademarks, or registered trademarks of Blizzard Entertainment or other companies);
  6. Names of religious deities or figures;
  7. Names of characters from Blizzard Entertainment’s Warcraft products, including character names from the Warcraft series of novels; or
  8. Names related to drugs, narcotics, or criminal activity, including references to drug substances; or
  9. Name comprised of partial or complete sentences (e.g., “Inyourface”, “Welovebeef”, etc);
  10. Names comprised of pure gibberish (eg, “Asdfasdf”, “Jjxccm”, “Hvlldrm”);
  11. Names that refer to pop culture icons or personas (e.g. “Britneyspears”, “Austinpowers”, “Batman”)
  12. Names that utilize “Leet” or “Dudespeak” (e.g., “Roflcopter”, “xxnewbxx”, “Roxxoryou”)
  13. Name that incorporate titles. The term “Titles” as used herein shall include ‘rank’ titles (e.g. , “CorporalTed,” or “GeneralVlad”) and/or fantasy titles (e.g., “KingMike”, “LordSanchez”)
    Additionally, you may not use a misspelling or an alternative spelling to circumvent the name restrictions listed above, nor can you have a “first” and “last” name that, when combined, violate the above name restrictions.

B. Rules Related to “Chat” and Interaction With Other Users.

Communicating with other Users and Blizzard Entertainment representatives is an integral part of World of Warcraft and is referred to in this document as “Chat.” Your Chats may be subject to review, modification, and deletion without notice by Blizzard Entertainment. Additionally, you hereby acknowledge that Blizzard Entertainment is under no obligation to monitor Chat and you engage in Chat at your own risk. When engaging in Chat in World of Warcraft, or otherwise utilizing World of Warcraft, you may not:

  • (i) Transmit or post sexually explicit images or other content or language which in the sole discretion of Blizzard Entertainment is deemed to be offensive; nor shall you transmit any unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable content or language, nor may you use a misspelling or an alternative spelling to circumvent the content and language restrictions listed above;
  • (ii) Carry out any action with a disruptive effect, such as cause the Chat screen to “scroll” faster than other users are able to type to it, including setting up macros with large amounts of text that, when used, can have a disruptive effect on the normal flow of Chat;
  • (iii) Disrupt the normal flow of dialogue in Chat or otherwise act in a manner that negatively affects other users, individuals or entities, including, but not limited to, posting “Spam” messages on World of Warcraft (“Spam” messages as used in this document include, but are not limited to, any effort to use a computer or other electronic device to post an unauthorized and/or unsolicited advertisement to World of Warcraft);
  • (iv) “Spam” by posting or sending more than one unsolicited message or piece of mail to a single address or in a chat area;
  • (v) Communicate or post any user’s personal information in or on the World of Warcraft, or websites or forums related to World of Warcraft;
  • (vi) Use bots or other automated techniques to collect information or communicate or post any user’s personal information in or on World of Warcraft, or websites or forums related to World of Warcraft or Blizzard Entertainment
  • (vii) Harass, threaten, stalk, embarrass or cause distress, unwanted attention or discomfort to another user of World of Warcraft or other person or entity; or
  • (viii) Cheat during game play, including but not limited to modification of the game program files.
  • (ix) Participate in any action that, in the opinion of Blizzard Entertainment results in an authorized user of World of Warcraft being "scammed " or ‘defrauded’ out of gold, weapons, armor, or any other items that he/she has earned through authorized game play in World of Warcraft.

Now can we please agree that these rules have always been in place for WoW and that updates may refine phrasing, but not core content? If anything the rules are more lax now than that were then.

Yes, GMs used to appear in game. Nobody ever said that they did not.

What they did not do was actively monitor realms in real time, with one exception. They did a trial on an RP realm in Goldshire. It resulted in worse behavior as people tried to push limits, and others stopped reporting because they thought a GM would get it. Blizzard stopped that pretty fast. They always have, and still do, rely on player reports.

Now if a GM was in game for something else and saw behavior that was amiss? Maybe? That was not something they were supposed to be doing though.

Fun fact, there is also a white room with a chair in game that a GM could send people to. They ended up not really using it.

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Unfortunately for them, people who are very critical of Blizzard, like me, are slowly figuring out how to play their game.

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291

This is a non-sequitur. Thromnabular didn’t mention the phone-in system.
What expansion had a two year delta between its release in two different markets?
:melting_face:

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This is why there is barely any social aspect to the game anymore. No one wants to speak because a great deal many people find it fun to report people and get them banned for no good reason at all.

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I’m not telling you how it is SUPPOSED to work (implying current/future tense) I am telling you how it SHOULD work and how it DID work. You deny the latter but I dispute your version of events.

I’m not talking about the phone system. I am talking about the old ticket system and the channels you had to dispute suspensions, mute, or any actions against your account. And they WERE in fact designed to allow you to defend yourself. So don’t give me that “it was never intended to be to let you defend yourself” nonsense. Because that is patently false.

They removed the customer service numbers, because like any large corporation they don’t want to waste money on paying people to deal with customers in a human way. They want automated systems to handle everything. Because that saves them money and time.

I’m not suggesting that they changed the rules. I’m not sure why you felt it necessary to try and point out these rules. I said that the word “trolling” isn’t in the rules and according to the rules you showed me, it isn’t. Neither is talking about religion or politics or “divisive” issues against the rule. So we can throw out the idea that people should be punished for doing so. I appreciate you bringing up the rules though. This makes things easier.

This also is not what I’m talking about. I am talking about the report appeal system, what it currently does and is currently intended to do, and what it used to do and used to be intended to do.

Thank you for pointing that out. I’m not sure where they are getting that from.

It’s really a sad state of affairs. And I think not only is the poorly designed report system inviting people to abuse it, I think that Americans in general are for more likely to WANT to abuse it due to “cancel culture” and the appeal of abusing the system to silence people in general on the internet or getting people fired in real life for saying things. They love the idea of having the power to punish people for saying things and the current rampant abuse of the report system in WoW is a symptom of this.

But I digress, I also don’t wish to get too much into politics in this thread, the point is that report abuse is more prevalent than ever

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The Forum Code of Conduct has it. That is the best place to find the details on what the Mods feel is not appropriate and are likely to take action on. Same applies to in game and the Forum Mods are part of the GM team now, although they were not always.

Spamming or Trolling

This category includes:

  • Excessively communicating the same phrase, similar phrases, or pure gibberish
  • Creating threads for the sole purpose of causing unrest on the forums
  • Causing disturbances in forum threads, such as picking fights, making off topic posts that ruin the thread, insulting other posters
  • Making non-constructive posts
  • Abusing the Reported Post feature by sending false alarms or nonsensical messages
  • Numbering a thread, IBTL, TLDR, or any other fad statements

If a player is found to have participated in such actions, they will:

  • Be given a temporary or permanent ban from the forums, depending upon severity

It is intended that you ask a GM to take another look at the logs. You are free to politely ask that. What they won’t do is get into a back and forth with you and let you argue your case. Either the logs back the reports, or they don’t. Pretty cut and dry.

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Wasn’t so cut and dry when I had to appeal a certain unfortunate typo…
There was, in fact, a back and forth, and I had to invoke a lot of personal details about myself to explain why their read of the situation was off-base.

Seems you speak more from theory than experience or practice. I prefer the streets to the books.

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Correct me if I’m wrong but is the forum code of conduct not a completely different, and isolated system from your in-game actions and the reports that may or may not relate to your WoW account? As far as I know, if I get banned from the forums for “trolling” too much, that would not have any affect on my WoW account and would not result in any punishments that would affect my playing WoW. Such as getting muted in-game or suspended from playing. From my understanding those two things are completely isolated from each other.

If my understanding is correct, then Trolling being against the forum code of conduct doesn’t mean that “trolling” is part of the agreements we abide by for in-game conduct. Maybe it’s my fault for using the wrong terms. I meant to say the terms of use not the code of conduct.

But as I said before, even if it was, against the terms of service or any official Blizzard documentation that “trolling” was against the rules, then that doesn’t therefore mean that talking about politics or religion or any divisive subject (in-game) is “trolling” until Blizzard specifies that it is trolling, or that political discussion is in fact against the rules. And if that were to happen, I would imagine there would be a mass exodus leaving WoW’s censorship haven.

Merely pressing the appeal button does this already. What purpose is there for me to add dialogue into the appeal if it is only intended to inform a GM that I want it to be looked at again, which the appeal button already suits the purpose of. If we were not meant to be allowed to defend ourselves with words, then there logically wouldn’t be a text box at all.

Is there any official documentation stating that this is the case besides a few errant blue posters on the forums? I would think that there would be more than the words of a single forum moderator on the matter.

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In-game suspensions can remove your posting rights, or they used to anyway. The new forum software is a bit funny on that.

Forum suspensions don’t currently remove your in-game access.

The rules though are the same across the board - the forum code of conduct just does a better job of spelling out what the Mods care about.

Besides the Customer Support Forum agents? I don’t think so. They are there to answer questions about how the support system works, provide guidance on policies, explain various services in the shop, etc. Vrakthris and Orylia have each been there between 10 and 15 years - maybe longer. They are not new and have senior level knowledge of the systems. They are senior to the GMs and mods, and both started in GM level years ago, I think.

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Interesting. I wasn’t aware of this. Well that would suggest, at least, that it is (or more likely was) a one-way stream. And that my actions on the forums doesn’t affect my actions in the game. Which is more what I’m concerned with. Because that would clearly mean that the forum code of conduct is not relevant to in-game conduct.

I strongly disagree. The forum code of conduct is designed for the forums only. Because the forums leave a near-permanent record of what you say where anyone can easily access this, it makes sense that Blizzard would want the forums to be much more regulated than in-game conduct which is far more difficult to monitor. You could certainly argue that the SPIRIT of the forums code of conduct can give us insight into how Blizzard officials want us to act, it does not however mean that the rules of forum conduct are rules for in-game conduct or that they can be used to justify actions against someone’s WoW account that result in restrictions on gameplay.

Them making blue posts is far less official than it being codified into an official description of what the appeal system is designed to do. I take it more of their personal opinion of how they think the appeal system is designed. Not Blizzard’s official stance on what you are or are not supposed to do with the appeal system. You may disagree, but as long as the text box is there, there really isn’t any logical reason that can suggest the appeal system is not designed for you to “plead your case”

And as I’ve stated before, IF it was the way you claim it to be, then clearly it SHOULDN’T be that way and would need to be fixed. Even the way it currently is, with the appeal system only giving you a text box if you go down certain channels, and often times not giving it to you at all (is this a mistake or intentional?). Even that needs to be fixed.

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You can certainly use it to “plead” that your account action be lifted in that you can ask them to review. What the Blues mean though when they say you can’t plead your case is that you don’t get to try to argue and try justify why you used X words. They don’t really care why. They just care that the logs show you did. They won’t really consider that sort of argument even if you put it in the text box.

If you want them to take away the chat box so people don’t mistakenly think they get to rationalize it? I guess that is a valid suggestion?

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Appeals behave like an HR department trying to manufacture a way to fire you. Bureaucratic wagon circling, code of blue type behavior.

Was told my minor language violation in trying to explain that some people are just jerks, obviously not trying to be vulgar, trying to be helpful, in fact I was trying not to be vulgar by using a letter instead of the three letter word that Sancho rides on or you might sit on, was actually harassment because, and I quote, "A direct reply to a post/thread can be considered harassment. "

Wait?
What?

Everything on the forums is either a new thread or a direct reply. That sure isn’t in the code of conduct they always suggest you read.

Probably a bad internal metrics problem that creates an atmosphere of admit no guilt. Over turned decision effect your performance review. So everyone protects everyone.

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That’s one way to look at what they said. But I don’t agree with that interpretation. I feel like it’s common sense that you shouldn’t try to tell the Blizzard staff why you should be allowed to break the rules, what he actually said differs from that slightly. And what I believe they intended when they said that, was that the appeal system isn’t for you to defend yourself at all and that you don’t need to be allowed to use words to argue why you believe you didn’t break any rules or explain why the report was misguided.

Why would the blue poster say that? To me it seems like, that particular Blizzard employee, thinks that everyone who tries to appeal actions against their account is automatically guilty and doesn’t deserve to defend themselves, and/or that the report and report appeal system is perfect and that Blizzard’s system (including actual employees looking at appeals) will never make a mistake.

I’m here to say that they are wrong.

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I’m sorry, but I have direct personal experience to the contrary within the past 6 months. It took effort, but they’re actually much more reasonable than you portray them to be if the user is sincere.

You’re not a Blizzard employee. Do not speak as if you are. Yellow text does not authority make. You are actively damaging the impressions of this company by portraying your own draconian preferences as a matter of fact rather than a matter of highly variable interpretation that varies case by case.

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