There are a lot of things you can google that will return results. This doesn’t make them correct. We often see players claim they were ‘mass reported’ in a Battleground resulting in a PVP Non-Participation suspension. In reality, PVP Non-Participation suspensions are the result of manual reviews of multiple BGs worth of information. This is a case where just because they said it was a mass report doesn’t make it true.
We also see cases where users claim they were mass reported for 1 activity, when the suspension they received is for something completely different.
Sometimes users ARE mass reported, and that’s because they have extremely poor behavior that others playing with or around them do not tolerate. If you are violating chat rules, for example, and you are “mass reported” it just means a lot of people saw your chat and reported it. The chat was reviewed, and the penalty applied to the account. That’s how the system is inteded to work.
On the topic of “automation”: We’ve held GDC talks, and BlizzCon panels, there’s even a Heroes of the Storm post (linking to an article here because the post was on the old forums). We use machine learning across our games social channels to identify chat violations in player reports (someone still has to right-click and report it) allowing them to be actioned more quickly.
Admittedly, when it comes to cheating/abuse of game systems - we do not disclose the specific details of what we detect, or when it was detected. This results in a lot of speculation and misinformation about account penalties. This is, somewhat, by design. We do not want folks to learn how to avoid being caught - which cheat developers will frequently attempt to do.
If you’ve come into the conversation with an already established perception that Blizzard is lying to you about something, then I don’t know what to tell you. I hope we can demonstrate through information and actions that it’s not quite as clear cut as some players who have been suspended for inappropriate behavior would have you believe.
Again, this is a perception issue. Game Masters, as I mentioned above, generally do not share the specifics regarding data that leads to bans/suspensions. So for consistency and efficiency, they do use templates. This doesn’t mean that the issue isn’t reviewed, it means that the Game Master doesn’t need to rewrite the same response multiple times a day.
When I was a Game Master, I had a library of ticket responses to save me time. If you talked to the 20 people I helped in 1 day with Item Restorations, and they all compared their replies then they might think it was automated. Account penatly appeals are one of the more visible topics which allows the responses to be compared like this and where you can see the use of templates very clearly. But again, this does not indicate automation.
The post you linked from Orlyia is 2 years old and is about a specific incident. Our processes are constantly changing and improving if/when we find situations that would allow for abuse.
If we were to offer a generalized blanket response to the hypothetical question you propose in your title, it would be ‘abuse of any game systems is not permitted’ but saying you’re going to abuse something is not the same as actually abusing/being able to abuse something.
And this bit is for anyone who may find this thread as the result of a search later on:
If you believe you have received a penalty incorrectly, you can use the established appeals process to have it reviewed.
Enjoy! I hope the loot tables favor you 