The new systems that are supposed to handle the chat spam are not working, are flawed, are easy to abuse and are getting people muted and banned by the RMT mafia.
I suggest an easy solution to fix those issues and to create a smoother game experience for all those complaining over abusive bans, chat spam and so on.
*** Create an easy chat filter system ***
Make the filter have X amount of blacklisted keywords such as “WTS, WTB, recruiting, boosting”
Make the filter check every message for those keywords and if keyword is detected, don’t display it when filter is on just like the profanity filter does it, or simply remove it with a small delay.
Make the filter toggle in the options for on/off and add a list of blacklisted keywords there.
Optional : Make the filter able to toggle in each chat window, individually.
I am pretty sure that there are addons around that are able to do this, either combined or even as stand-alone, I bet this could easily be implemented in game as well.
There already exists an ingame filter that auto hides the message, it’s just spammers/goldsellers circumvent it with special characters. It’s been suggested before.
You can try out the filter addon yourself but the words “WTS/WTB and Recruiting” are also used for regular trading and guild recruitment and would seriously hamper regular play if they were added to the Blizzard filter.
Then come up with better, more constructive solutions, maybe. I would not worry about this, if the system they’ve implemented recently didn’t get people banned for no reason.
I am not against addons, it’s just no the most optimal solution for everyone. Even if I get addon and it’s all good and dandy for me, I can still get mass reported and banned for no reason.
My guildie got banned twice for selling boosts on /services, it’s been over 10 days and he didn’t even receive a ticket answer for the first ban (1st was silence, 2nd is a ban). This mass report abusing is the issue. You can do nothing wrong and get mass reported/banned.
Mass reports is not a thing. All penalties comes with a reason and a link to appeal.
The ticket queue is way shorter then that. I doubt that he has not received an answer. Has he appealed using a ticket on the support site? Some make the mistake to reply to the noreply email address in the penalty mail then claim Blizzard support is unresponsive.
And the first penalty wasn’t even a ban but a silence as you noted, this only limits chat but enables them to play in game.
There’s quite a few contradictions in your own post.
You can try to call me a liar and what not, but I doubt there’s a campaign around the internet and people are just making this stuff up on every platform there is.
Sadly I cannot post links here, but maybe a single youtube search for “wow mass report ban” would suffice to at least make you reconsider that statement, if not, reddit, X and few other platforms are full with such claims, granted not all of them full of argumentation and proof, but there are plenty with. There are also cases of people getting banned for same thing, in same group, some having luck at appeal while others remain permanently banned.
Might also want to consider using google for “Automated bans are out of control”.
Those are just few examples, I can probably give you hundreds of links in less than 10 minutes of searching for similar issues. I would bet that at least few of the hundreds are legit claims.
He said he made a ticket on the website, I would gladly verify it but he is taking a break from game since he can’t log and play or do anything about it, he paid a 2nd subscription but doesn’t feel like leveling again. He is M.I.A, unsure if he will even return to game after this experience.
Ah this one came back again, almost all refer to this video which blatantly proves that the streamer in question asked his viewers to report spam him and he got Squelched as a result. There is no contradiction in that, as that is a temporary measure against goldseller/advertisment spammers until a GM reviews what’s up.
They got penalised for abuse of the reporting system later on. But the video is still up ofcourse, farming people like you for clicks and generating interaction everytime someone gets referred to this.
All of which, are debunked over at the US CS forums. There’s quite a few players there who claim they got “mass reported” only to be not.
Or you could continue to read through the claims, without proof, as only Blizzard knows how many times a player has been reported.
It is not possible to be permanent banned from mere reports only in the social chat category, to reach a permanent ban you must be first penalised atleast 4 times prior before you can.
For cheating and other, they would need convincing proof. Like you’re using some bot, some cheat, something else.
So you would bet that the grand majority is incorrect? That sounds a lot like the false positive bans, luckily Blizzard has an appeal system.
So what’s the next measure if you don’t contest that “silence” ? is your account not flagged and won’t the next time you get reported turn into a ban instead of a silence ?
I was not referring to a specific case. I will trust that their claim about punishing those involved is true, because I trust Blizzard is a serious company.
I must admit that the topic doesn’t specifically claim they got banned for mass report, but rather for being boosted. I was referring to the topic titled " [UPDATE] Automated bans are out of control. Blizzard Customer Service continues to hit new lows (with screenshots)"
I was referring that even if you claim would be true, and the majority would be incorrect, at least some claims would be legit. It was a hypothetical.
That here is the issue. You know about it, you admit it exists but yet you claim that everyone is wrong and that those bans don’t exist.
Hey, I want to whiteknight for Blizzard as well. Would have just at least expected a simple message from them saying they are aware of the issue and are looking into it, to put our worries at rest. Instead, all we got is people defending them, saying such issues don’t exist.
Don’t get me wrong - Blizzard is needed, policing is required, punishing those who deserve to be punished is satisfying and just. But say I’m right and people do get muted for false reports en-masse, would blizzard start looking into those issues if people getting silenced wouldn’t appeal ? Would be investigated “ex officio” ?