Hello I just have a quick question about how silences work. Say there’s an account that has no infractions and they receive a silence of say, a week. Would the next silence be double the length as I have read on previous threads, or would it result in a suspension as I have heard from other places (though I’d imagine if the infraction was bad enough it would be a suspension anyway)? Also, from what I understand, silences are handed down from actual GMs who review chat logs and aren’t automated right?
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Silences usually start at 24 hours, and then double for each offense after, with no limits.
Depending on history though penalties can also include temporary suspensions, or even account closure.
What we call squelching is an automatic event based on a number of reports, they are not a penalty and mainly there to shut down gold spammers until a GM can review the reports.
All penalties, silences or suspensions, are reviewed by GM staff, all appeals are reviewed by a different GM.
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This was a first infraction whatsoever (according to the GM, not me) so I’m just making sure that what I read was true because a week silence made me think there were previous infractions. I read from a guildmate that someone had gotten banned after their first silence for 8 days so I’m just trying to check which is true.
The policies for penalties can change over time. Back in the day, all chat infractions resulted in a Suspension. Silence was introduced during Legion in 2016, but the penalty has always still included suspensions or even an account ban.
Past policy started a Silence at 24 hours, but that is not always the case depending on current policy and the nature of the infraction. GMs will also consider other past violations on the account.
I don’t think Blizz is going to outright tell us exactly what the current policy is - people tend to try to use that to argue/game the system when they don’t like what penalty they got.
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Yeah, I imagined that since silences are handed down from GMs that it would be up to their discretion somewhat and that they won’t disclose policy, it was just surprising that the first infraction I’ve had resulted in a week silence. I had a chat with a GM that explained everything to me yesterday but I forgot to ask about this, I wish I could send myself the chat log between us because they did mention something about policy. In any case, no more references to silly memes in BG chat for me (especially in raid warning in a full 40 man AV, that probably did me in). Thanks for the insight Mirasol.
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I should not laugh, but yeah, that likely is what did it. Keep the colorful stuff to private groups with friends. Public chats, groups, BGs, etc. you need to be aware of what you are typing.
Thankfully my fingers don’t type what might accidentally come out of my mouth so that keeps me out of trouble.
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Yup, lesson learned. Probably didn’t help that my friend jokingly said in RW after to report me lol. I’ll just keep BG chat to asking for water/buffs & calling out incomings from now on.
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Here’s support articles that are going to be about as much of an official word as you’re going to get, which explains penalties and a very high-level overview of the silencing system:
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Yeah I saw this. I remember reading somewhere on the forums that previously you couldn’t even whisper to friends on bnet which is awful, because in classic that wipes out literally any chance of group content since you can’t invite non friends to groups. Definitely harder to do content in classic compared to retail when silenced that’s for sure.
Keep in mind that a squelch, which is essentially an automated “silence” without being an “official” penalty, has the exact same effects as well. Squelching tends to happen after x number of players report you (the number isn’t exactly known).
When you’re squelched, a GM then reviews the squelch to determine if it should be removed (no violation) or if it should be converted into an official silence (violation), but while someone is squelched, they receive the same punishing effects as a silence. It’s subject to abuse as you can imagine.
Just another thing to keep in mind. Lots of fun things involved!
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I will clarify that this is no longer the case. When silences were introduced, we adjusted our chat specific penalties to be the ‘ever doubling’ silence. Unfortunately, we found that this did not serve as a sufficient deterent to inappropriate language.
We’ve reintroduced suspensions for chat penalties, so silences no longer double indefinitely. You’ll receive silences initially as a warning, but continued chat related infractions can lead to suspension and even account closure. This is more of the standard “Penalty Volcano” that folks may be aware of from the past and other Blizzard games.
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Thanks for the clarification Kalviery. I will ask this, not sure if you can answer it however. Is 1 week for a first offense standard now, or like said earlier it depends on the amount of reports and is up to the GM’s discretion? Also since this is 2 years old, does this article still hold true? https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/72214
1 week is standard for most first offenses, however Game Masters do have some discretion in regards to increasing severity should the chat violation be more egregious (ex: racial slurs).
Yes, the mechanics of the reporting system itself remain much the same as when it was added. What has changed is the policy for how those reports are handled once they reach a Game Master.
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Glad to see this.
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Got it. Thank you and thank @Mirasol (not sure if you can mention people on forums, I’m not on here too often) for providing clarification as to how this system works. I greatly appreciate it, especially with everyone’s fast responses early morning on a weekday. Have a good day everyone.
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Is this the case only for WoW, or are the other Blizzard games also using the same penalty system now? I would think it is standardized but an curious.
Also, my understanding of a Silence is that it is Bnet account wide, not just a single game. Is that still true?
I assume Suspensions are still from a single game and not account wide. True?
I just want to ensure info I give across the forums for other games is also still accurate.
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The game teams each ultimately decide how their individual games should be moderated, though Customer Support does make recommendations/offer guidance. So there are slight variations game to game - but overall the they do follow a philosophy of increasing in severity with each infraction.
No, this is not the case. Silences and suspensions are currently game account specific by default. Though, again, Game Masters do have some discretion for exceptional cases (ex: attempting to use an alternate account to avoid getting in trouble on a main account)
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Are you aware that if a person is Silenced in any Blizzard game, they can’t create a game in D3 until that Silence expires? (unless they fixed that bug). This started in October of 2019. We also see people saying they can’t talk in D2R due to a Silence in another Blizzard game.
The change to have a Silence have a Bnet wide impact was made in 2019 I think… I just don’t understand all the details of it.
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I can check if I can make a game in Diablo 3 for you right now, but I don’t have D2R so I can’t test it.
That would be awesome! You should be able to start the game and get to the char screen, but when you try to create a game you will get an error - if the restriction is still in effect.
I have never been Silenced so I can’t test it myself.