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This is a bit of a side tangent - but…I see this said a lot, and wanted to touch on it.

It’s less that we can’t and more about Scope. Scope is the defined responsibilities of a role. Those of us on the forum team also oversee our Support twitter accounts, we monitor Reddit and keep an eye on Wowhead for Customer Service related discussions. Our purpose is not to act as Game Masters in those spaces but to provide information/guidance.

Anyone who has worked in project management will understand. “Scope creep” is real and you have to be really careful about it! Otherwise, your current workload spirals out into something unwieldy.

Players report a LOT of things, and if the forums were known as an avenue where that could be done then it would quickly become all that we see here.

As an example of this:
A few years ago, we did not have a way for players to remove Starter WOW accounts from their Blizzard account. It required players to submit a ticket and wait for a Game Master to do that for them.
At the time, a member here on the forums answered a post from someone asking for that service. It was easy enough for that forum agent to do - so they did.
That thread became very popular! And that forum agent spent a lot of time doing that one thing because they had already established that they would. While not initially “in scope” it became part of the role because of that decision.

The developers worked with our support website team, and now players can do that themselves. But that’s an example of how scope creep can sneak up on you.

The WOW team spent time and resources on building the in-game reporting system and they continue committing time to improving it. So, we want to make sure players feel confident in using it. It allows us to track language, trends, and repeat offenses for individuals/accounts. It’s doing a lot of work on the back end after you right-click.

I have the same tools at my disposal that a Game Master does. I started as a Game Master almost 13 yrs ago, and I’m trained up on all the work. :slight_smile:

But my job here on the forums is different. I’m here to provide guidance, information, and to help keep conversations moving in a helpful direction. It’s important to keep that line clear.

Thank you for coming to my KalvTalk :laughing: Sorry for the tangent!

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I like this clarity alot of people take you guys for granted and assume u can do everything so even us regulars could use this knowledge.

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Nothing against you or the other blues, I know you’re not implying it, but I just hope folks don’t troll through the blue post saying something like this to use say the blues can and should do X because another said y in another post.

Again, not trying to start anything with you or the other blues, just wish to point this out and hope I’m making myself clear on the matter.

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Totally understand, and I was hesitant to elaborate because I know “can’t” is often used as shorthand for “out of the scope of support offered by this role”. The concept of scope is not always super intuitive.

That said, we are always looking for opportunities to serve more efficiently. Whether that means expanding scope or introducing game services/features to make that process better. (ex: Starter Account removal, Item Restoration, Character Undelete, Mail Return)

So if someone does dig through Blue posts and sees this - we can accept feedback for what they think should be added to our scope :slight_smile: It doesn’t mean we’ll always be able to do what they’re suggesting, but the feedback is helpful regardless.

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And the feedback would belong in General Discussion?

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It’ll depend on the aim of the feedback.

Suggesting game system changes?

  • In-game form, or related forums (Think rogues should get a new ability? Post in the rogue forum)

Suggesting Customer Support services?

  • In-game form, or related forums (Think CS should be able to reset raid bosses? Post in the Raid forum)

Providing feedback on how we respond to topics here in the CS Forum?

  • As long as the feedback is constructive, I don’t mind it being posted here. However, that can be a little intimidating for some so there are other avenues:

Edit: I’ll add, feedback can be positive or critical. If you like what we’re doing, feel free to share. If you have thoughts on things we could do better - we like to hear that as well.

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I want to touch on this too.

I work in an IT department. We have a lot of duties. These duties include helping people experiencing problems.

We have had major issues with people contacting us directly outside of the appropriate methods. It’s just an easy question, they say. It’ll take a moment. There are major problems with this:

  1. It’s almost never a 1 minute question. 1 minute turns into 15 minutes. People hear that I’m happy to help them and suddenly I have five people bothering me for 5x1 minute issues and it turns into 75 minutes of my time. PLUS even if it is a 1 minute question, this interrupts what I was already thinking about and now I have to get back into the zone.
  2. Someone contacts me outside the proper channels AND requests help through other channels. I already completed the work but now some other person is going to spend half an hour to research the topic, contact the appropriate parties, and find out they wasted all their time.
  3. Because I don’t actually have a paper trail, now management thinks I’m slacking off for 75 minutes of my day. Instead of having (for example) ten people slacking off for a combined 750 minutes a day, we can just fire one person and the rest can spend a little more time working.
  4. I get asked “out of scope” questions all the time. Yes, I can go on Google, spend ten minutes looking up the solution, and help you. Or, you can contact the people who are expert resources and whom will do a better job because they see the same questions day-in and day-out.
  5. While I’m working on this out-of-scope issue, I’m not actually doing my real job. This means people who’re depending on me need to wait longer. Theoretically I’m supposed to be fixing issues my helpdesk can’t. If I’m doing basic helpdesk work, does that mean the helpdesk is going to come help me do tier 2 work? No, it does not.
  6. Because there’s no paper trail, there’s no trends to report. This is a major problem because then management doesn’t realise that we have a dozen people with issue X.
  7. When you try to queue-jump, you’re basically saying your issue is more important than everyone else’s issues.

Specific to this forum, if it turns into another queue (which won’t work - see #2), it stops being a resource people can come to to ask questions. Even in the best case scenario, that’s extra time the support agent is going to need to waste just searching all of someone’s accounts for any recent posts to see whether they’d posted regarding their issue, then integrating all that information.

We’d need a whole new forum just to handle the communication which is in here right now.

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I think I derailed the topic, so just to nudge us back on track :bullettrain_front:

Thank you, Ehiztari, for using the right-click reporting system :slight_smile: And thank you to those of you that hang out on the customer support forum and help lend confidence to those methods.

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Sorry Kalviery. Just an issue that’s always plaguing my team. Makes us a little grouchy. :slight_smile:

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FWIW - I got a response to a ticket I opened on this in 40 minutes - a record for Blizzard as far as anything they’ve ever done with me before - and a Senior GM said they’d investigate the issue but would not notify me of any action taken.

I take the prompt response as a good sign that they’re going to do something about this.

I will say that the reporting process is woefully inadequate. There ought to be a way to link a screenshot or put more of an explanation (or quote) in than the very short allowance of characters in the current system.

If they can do it for bugs and other issues, they can do it for this.

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Screenshots can be falsified.

When you right-click and report, it will bring up everything that person is saying. If you believe that a GM will not understand the nuance you’re reporting, then I’m not sure what to tell you, they’re pretty good about these sorts of things.

But I’m glad you received a swift response that pleased you. If you would like to make those suggestions though, please feel free to post them in the General Discussion forum or use the in-game suggestion interface, as the people who need to see the suggestions will not see them posted here. Those two methods are the only way to offer them up to the proper folks.

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There are three sides to every story: yours, the person you’re reporting, and the logs.

Blizzard checks the logs.

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Just to clarify, this doesn’t indicate anything more or less than the normal “we will investigate and take appropriate action”.

It may indicate a certain ticket queue is currently running at less than an hour for a response, but it’s o indication whether that guild name will be affected.

Honestly, the only inadequacy is that you are not seeing the results you wish to see. Using right-click report gives Blizzard all the info they need to investigate. It is more than adequate.

I haven’t reported a guild name in a while, but I know there a comment box for reporting a character name. I could be crazy, but I thought there was one for a guild name too (same box, but you choose character name or guild name above the box).

If not, I think it’s a fair suggestion to add a box for any necessary explanation.

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Right click report captures the name, date, time, servers, chat channel, and text logs associated with the report. They do not accept screenshots because those can be modified AND they already have that information. The logs captured are more than the single line of text that you report. It also captures more than that so the GMs do have the ability to look at context.

Rarely, when it comes to chat violations, is an explanation needed unless it is a very obscure reference or brand new meme.

Ongoing harassment where the player evades ignore, or uses other methods, to harass a particular player ARE reportable via ticket though - because those usually require documentation and an explanation.

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That’s good to know, Mirasol.

The thing about the reporting system is that it seems to be more concerned with what I perceive as attacks on myself when most of what I report are attacks on others.

It actually HIDES the attacker and blocks further posts from him or her so I can’t see if what I’ve done has had any effect at all.

I’d really like that aspect of it to be a user choice, but I doubt blizzard would do anything about it.

I’ve worked with the disabled on and off most of my life as a volunteer and I don’t WANT some jerk out there making fun of them in guild ads hidden from me. I want to know who they are and what they’re saying and the context of their words because that’s the only way that I can contribute to having them sanctioned.

I don’t care if I see the sanctions or not.

I don’t trust Blizzard with a lot of things, but generally in this regard - dealing with cyber-harassment - they’re pretty good if the GM responding to it isn’t just phoning it int.

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Simply log out of the character you were on when reporting and then log back in.

All that happens when you report them is put that character on a temporary, session-long ignore.

Just understand that reports are not answered to immediately-- it can sometimes take days before action is taken, if any at all. And also bear in mind that you don’t need to report every line they send that violates the rules-- Blizzard looks at a chunk of text around the timestamp for severity in addition to the context.

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Says something about the amount of time I spend playing that I never noticed that.

I need a life.

I think it does.

In the decade and a half I’ve been playing I’ve never seen a GM response in less than an hour before.

Their own estimate was nine days for a response.

I suspect that whoever triaged this saw the ugliness for what it was and decided to jump the queue with it.

A 40-minute response was astonishingly quick given the history I have with them.

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The system, and really any GM who look at your report, doesn’t care if it’s against you or others. Breaking the rules is breaking the rules.

The thinking is that if someone is breaking the rules enough to move you to report them, then you aren’t likely going to want to see more of them. There’s also the possibility that they don’t want someone reporting every single line of chat. Blizzard looks at the context of the report, so things surrounding it are included.

No, you are not likely to see if your report had any effect. Those “effects” are between Blizzard and that player. Not to mention that Blizzard likes to educate first before nuking someone like you seem to want. And often, that education may not work, as some players work up to weeks worth of silences, or keep renaming their character the same thing.

The closest thing to knowing any effects was when they started messaging reporters, saying their report resulted in an account action. However, I have not seen this for a while, so I’m not sure if they are still doing it.

You never know. Put your thoughts into a suggestion, and Blizzard could consider it. Many things in this game have come from player suggestions

Nah. Your heart is definitely in the right place, and I understand wanting to keep the game clean. I feel the same. But you just can’t get caught up in pressing the issue non-stop. Report and move on.

If you want to continue seeing that player’s comments, then like Ekon said, log out and back in.

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It’s an indication that you were far from the only player submitting reports. One player submitting a report will result in a GM taking a look. A lot of players submitting reports will result in a GM taking a look quicker. The idea being that if more people are reporting it, it’s likely to be a fairly obvious violation.

The fact that it was addressed so quickly doesn’t mean the Hammer of Justice came down. If my name’s reported, yet is inoffensive and well within the rules, nothing will happen. Doesn’t matter if you’re the only person reporting it, or if the entire server reports. it.

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Teufelgott is obviously the sentence To feel good. You’re not allowed to tell me how I should feel. Reported!

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