Revert the "ban" on boosting communities

[Amarlly-azuremyst (Amarlly)]

@Moriarty-chogall

Trade for services

That’s /7, not /5, and on my server at least it’s never used.

[anon59086671]

@Sendryn-sentinels

There’s no such thing as a “blanket ban.” There are “'ban waves,” which is not the same thing. If those communities were banned, then they were banned for breaking the rules. If someone was banned wrongly and they didn’t appeal it… then that’s kind of on them. But appeals do work. And if they did appeal and they didn’t break the rules, then they would be unbanned and still selling legitimately.

I’m going to disregard the rest of your post temporarily because it sounds like you don’t understand what is being discussed. I want to make sure you actually understand what is being discussed before going further.

Boosting communities were blanket-banned. That is indisputable. I encourage you to read the thread regarding it, which is still stickied on this forum a year and a half later:

Policy Update for Organized In-Game Services -- January 2022

As the conditions change by which various entities operate in World of Warcraft, we are compelled to update our policies to further our goal of making the gameplay experience as fair and welcoming as possible. Since we last updated our policies, we have found that an increasing disturbance of the gameplay experience has been caused by organizations excessively advertising various non-traditional services in-game. As of today, we will now prohibit organizations who offer boosting, matchmaking, e…

[Varian-draka]

@Moriarty-chogall

All that the ban did was make it so that the ones who are really trying to RMT or even steal your account are the vast majority

Sounds like it did good work, then - now you know with certainty that those advertising are not legitimate, and you won’t be tricked!

[Sendryn-sentinels]

@anon59086671

Boosting communities were blanket-banned. That is indisputable.

Except they weren’t.

@Kaivax

As of today, we will now prohibit organizations who offer boosting, matchmaking, escrow, or other non-traditional services, including those offered for gold. World of Warcraft accounts found to be in violation of this policy are subject to account actions. These actions can include warnings, account suspensions and, if necessary, permanent closure of the disruptive World of Warcraft account(s).

That says they are subject to action. Not that every single one was suddenly blanket banned.

And as I said, it’s breaking the rules:

@Kaivax

Organizations operating across multiple realms and excessively advertising non-traditional in-game sales are contrary to the terms and conditions of the Blizzard End-User License Agreement (EULA).

[Varian-draka]

They are banned

@Sendryn-sentinels

And as I said, it’s breaking the rules:

Sort of like it’s banned, then?

[anon59086671]

@Sendryn-sentinels

@anon59086671

Boosting communities were blanket-banned. That is indisputable.

Except they weren’t.

Yes, they were.

@Kaivax

However, “boosting communities”, especially those who operate across multiple realms, are no longer permitted.

Those words are pretty clear.

[Sendryn-sentinels]

@anon59086671

Yes, they were.

You literally ignored what I quoted you in that same article and cherry picked at sentence without reading the details.

I think we’re done. There’s certainly an incorrect bias on your end and there’s really no reason to continue with what is a circular conversation that you’re not understanding, because you want to see them as victims, instead of what the EULA states.

[Kennie-malganis]

Just find a reputable player or guild.

[anon59086671]

@Sendryn-sentinels

I think we’re done.

I realized when you started talking about banwaves and appeals that you weren’t tracking what the thread was about. I can understand why you aren’t understanding the purpose of the thread.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

[Kaleberry-kul-tiras]

Bliz spells out different rules for different types of advertising. A GROUP is not allowed to sell services, even for in game gold. An individual is, following their spelled out rules (only in trade services, poster must participate in the run, etc.).

My biggest issue is not that Bliz allows these, but I’ve known plenty of people that watch the trade services channel just to report valid runs as “spam”, hoping to silence them, or even get them banned. If you don’t like what’s being offered on that channel, don’t watch it. Sure, some of the spam reports are quite valid. But enough people bragging about reporting it to make it go away completely makes me wish Bliz had a more firm definition of ‘spam’ instead of only letting the server community decide. Some of them think once is too many.

Edit: Forgot link: https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/000187406

[Sendryn-sentinels]

@Kaleberry-kul-tiras

I’ve known plenty of people that watch the trade services channel just to report valid runs as “spam”, hoping to silence them, or even get them banned.

This is an issue and Blizz needs to crack down on false reports and mass reporting to get people squelched.

[anon59086671]

I have seen people “brag” about that too. It’s a shame that people try to get others punished for using a chat channel as intended. Now, I can understand excessive messages, but I have seen people say they report anything and everything that smells like “boost” to them, regardless of where it’s posted.

Going back to the boosting community ban: The justification given back then was:

@Kaivax

we have found that an increasing disturbance of the gameplay experience has been caused by organizations excessively advertising various non-traditional services in-game

This was before the Trade (Services) channel existed. I think a few months after the boosting community ban is when they decided to create the separate chat channel. Since that chat channel now exists, the original issue should no longer exist.

[Perl-anetheron (Perl)]

Boosting was not banned. Boosting for real-life money was ALWAYS against the rules. Boosting for in-game gold was ALWAYS unsupported and continues to be so today. Details on the Advertising policy can be found HERE

As long as the boosting group follows those rules, they can continue boosting for gold.

I want to remind people to right-click and report spam in the Trade channel and recommend they do so frequently. This accomplishes two key things:

1. It helps lead the poster’s account to a squelch and later a silence affecting the entire battle.net account. This forces these elicit sellers (for real-life money) to move to another account.
2. It helps Blizzard to detect hacked accounts as these ads tend to be done on stolen accounts.

Lastly, I don’t see how allowing legitimate boosting posts (for gold by a person participating in the run) to be in the trade channel will help reduce spam. If anything, it would increase it.

[anon59086671]

@Perl-anetheron

Boosting was not banned.

Great post, but I want to be sure you’re aware that the subject of the thread is boosting communities and not boosting in general. Boosting communities were banned January 2022.

[Lkatmahbeard-sargeras]

Communities? I thought it was still peachy to purchase things like a raid boss kill or whatever from guilds as long as it’s done with in game gold. Did these communities get banned? A lot of people I know bought their immortal runs from guilds.

[anon59086671]

@Lkatmahbeard-sargeras

Communities? I thought it was still peachy to purchase things like a raid boss kill or whatever from guilds as long as it’s done with in game gold. Did these communities get banned?

The OP is referring to this:

Policy Update for Organized In-Game Services -- January 2022

As the conditions change by which various entities operate in World of Warcraft, we are compelled to update our policies to further our goal of making the gameplay experience as fair and welcoming as possible. Since we last updated our policies, we have found that an increasing disturbance of the gameplay experience has been caused by organizations excessively advertising various non-traditional services in-game. As of today, we will now prohibit organizations who offer boosting, matchmaking, e…

These communities, such as Weekly Disappointment and Starlight Boosting, could no longer operate in-game when this announcement was made.

This was before we had the Trade (Services) channel.

The OP is simply requesting the blanket ban on boosting communities be removed.

[Moriarty-chogall (Moriarty)]

Not banned, hence the quotes around the word “ban”. But heavily discouraged since you cannot simply have a few people taking care of the logistics while others do the actual run.

This was supposed to reduce things like trade spam but the channel they created to advertise such services is almost entirely level 1s or 10s telling you to go to an external website, so a good chance of being straight up scams. And of course since Blizzard can’t keep up with the bans, it doesn’t matter how much it’s against the TOS.

[Lkatmahbeard-sargeras]

So, legit in game services by guilds or friends is allowed, but they were trying to remove the sketchy third party boosting services or RMT? See I did notice that, trade and services are both filled with sketchy level 10’s spamming third parties and I do report what I can for that. The frustrating part is with me for example, I want the black proto drake but I missed the opportunity to obtain it with random groups. No one is doing it anymore so I am worried the only way to get it now is to have to pay for a guild run.

[Varian-draka]

@Lkatmahbeard-sargeras

I thought it was still peachy to purchase things like a raid boss kill or whatever from guilds as long as it’s done with in game gold.

Single-realm guilds are fine. The details are in the blue posts linked here, but what was banned were cross-realm consortiums advertising, providing middle-man services, etc.

[anon59086671]

@Varian-draka

what was banned were cross-realm consortiums advertising, providing middle-man services, etc.

This also includes such communities that played within the rules, were gold-only, etc. It was a flat ban on boosting communities as a whole, regardless of whether a given community was following the rules prior to that policy change.