Wasn’t sure whether to post in BGs or General chat but the report system is highly abused and it’s problematic. I had a behavior warning, and I haven’t abused anyone. I had someone whisper me constant abuse on 7 different accounts the other day, not to mention all the other whisper abuse I get after BGBs and even during.
Heck, I got booped into the cap area whilst carrying the flag, and we scored points but apparently lost the game because I caught the flag. (Eye of the storm)
Someone in the chat said "REPORT THAT MAGE (was on my Mage) because of capping a flag, which I didn’t even intentionally cap?
That is not the only example, several games I see this behavior “report X” whether it be aimed at me or someone else, and people blindfully listen without actually finding out why.
People simply abuse the report system because it’s so easy to do so. I never swear at people, I never tell people to “KYS.” Granted I reply to trolls (bad mistake on my part) but the report system is an absolute joke, and you literally need to be on your tip toes whilst playing. You can even get reported for calling someone a cat.
This is not considered a written warning on your record or a penalty given by GM’s. It’s a reminder that you’ve been reported recently and should review your recent behaviour.
Report and block. If they are from the same identifiable person, then they are circumventing the block, continue blocking and make a notepad with when this keeps occuring + make an ongoing harassment ticket.
Don’t reply back.
From the given examples, no penalty occured. Players reported you likely in both good and bad faith. The former which is allowed, the latter which isn’t.
Yes I learned that from the first time. Even after watching my behavior, I still get it. The system is a joke. People can simply exploit the report system, same for other Blizz games. Lazy system.
Your previous thread was from Nov 5 a timespan of 9 weeks:
And in the meantime, you did not create another thread with an actual penalty. That means, the players were unable to “abuse” the report system against you as the false reports were discarded in progress already.
This was already explained. No penalty was given to you.
I get it sometimes too when I had no interaction at all with other players, because people dislike what I write on the forums so they tend to report me ingame. But nothing happens.
i mean, we called it when it was made, and in prob a few years or a little more ppl will rly learn how harmful this is to the game… and the best part, it rly doesn’t eliminate toxcicty, league trried it, game is as toxic as ever, it only cripled the game more
can we all agree that this has nothing to do with WHAT you write, and more to HOW MANY reports u get ? because thats exactly the main problem
tho, i wouldn’t care regardless of what gets dm to me for the most part
The way out of this mess in this wonderful Social Contract-era that this virtue signaling company pushed down our throats is to never broadcast messages in PVP, only engage in 1:1 talks with people through /w , that way you can only be chat reported by the troll itself which is not enough to trigger a behavior warning
Behavior warnings are NOT harmless to your account, enough warnings will queue your account for a GM review, and they will WANT to find anything to use against you to action your account, including ONE unfortunate slur you may have written that has nothing to do with the chat line that triggered the behavior warning.
I know how you feel. It is annoying to get warnings even though you didnt do anything. The same thing happened to me one week ago. I used the emote /laugh at a DK for I thought it was funny he missed his kicks all the time which gave me precog on my priest. What happened next is all his other team mates including him began to spam /laugh back at me in the battleground (they were a premade).
After the battleground was over I received a warning. I thought it was weird because I didnt write anything in chat that day. I began to reflect how it is possible and came to the conclusion that it was that premade that reported me for no other reason than using /laugh on their friend. I think it is very salty of them to do that over an emote.
Even if you dont write anything on the chat they can still report you for chat if you are in the same community (or guild) with them as they will just right click you on the member list and report you for chat through there.
I have been getting warnings for a week straight, everyday, because they continue to report. Though nothing has happened to me it still is tremendously annoying to receive those warnings everyday.
And what evidence is needed to apply such penalties on someone for breaking chat violations?
When player x reports player z for saying “xxx” - Do Blizzard actually see hard proof of what was written, or do they punish based on xx number of reports and xx number of previously penalties?
As OP states, players in BGBs get reported for just playing bad, or if someone thinks someone is playing bad or wrong.
Every other game that does not end well i see players arguing whos fault the loss is, and then “report xyz” “report zzy” spam the rest of the game in chat.
Nice to know if you can get suspended/silenced/banned for playing the game whilst enough people report you just because,.
We see it happen quite often that players claim they were false banned due “AI/automation” or equivalent, I invite you to take a look at the various US CS banned threads.
Sometimes they post a fraction of what landed them the bans or circumstances.
This is not possible, the farthest one can get is “Squelched” (Removal of social functions) until a GM determines to overturn or apply an actual penalty in that row.
But what evidence is needed? Do they actually see that someone wrote this or that? Or do they just look at a given number of reports?
Sometimes, sure, and then there are other times, where people actually innocent get banned and are totally helpless in even getting their case heard.
Players seems encouraged by this policy aswell. Anyone and everyone who get some kind of penalty are guilty until they can prove their own innocence.
Any post by someone explaining the circumstances around their penalty gets shut down with “lol git gut u did something wroung good riddance xox” - its not in any players interest that people get wrongfully suspended or banned.
Situation in real time are that people are afraid to join m+ keys or participating in rated pvp - For example they never clearly defined what a “griefer” in a key was. Stuff like that should be clear as daylight with no room for interpretation wich can encourage some doubtful creativity like “omg he left the key lets get revenge”
Good.
Personally im a fan of the “Innocent until proven guilty” principe.
Adversing that policy, is not going to make the playerbase grow. If penalties are going to be put upon someone, especially the permanent / long therm ones - There needs to be solid proof - not just indications and / or claims.
Yes, generally a GM looks at the type report made (e.g. is this chat abuse report or cheating?) And then goes up from there. They rely on their own logs.
More reports may prioritise it for an investigation. If a report contains supplementary evidence e.g. “player was doing x at y and z” or even more detailed info “player is using certain botting program because he said so in discord” they may compare with the current botting footprints.
I have personally seen quite a few unbanned too due false positives. Especially during the very big banwaves. Now don’t get me wrong, they shouldn’t have been banned in the first place and spend time to appeal but that’s what happens when it gets really big.
Generally this isn’t defined (just like most of the ToS) due to legalese and to prevent “armchair lawyering” - I’ve seen this myself as moderator of communities where people pretended not to know they were implying racist remarks, by swapping two letters. Repeatedly, and posting an image that was very suggestively racist right below it.
This is only for the actual players who have been banned righteously but mispresent their case by ommitting details. The other people who are innocent just usually return to us with “I have been unbanned, thank you!” kind of messages. Do take another longer look at the US CS forums.
This is exactly the problem. Whether you get unbanned or not is not the point. It’s the fact one can get falsely banned in the first place. As you stated, many have been unbanned after investigating. So we’re dealing with a very lazy report system where Blizzard don’t even look into it, that gets heavily abused by the playerbase.
I have never read an “I have been wrongfully banned”-post where the majority of repliers didnt go full “Youre guilty period”
The legal certainty in all this seems to be at a very low point. I am under the impression that people who gets accused of something with and sanctioned in accordance to that, are basically free game.
Of actually innocent players, some get lucky, but some dont.
Obsiously Blizzard is not a state, and we are not talking about jailtime or murder - But the social mechanisms in work are quite the same when it comes to the legal aspects, ToS, penalties and all that.
As a private company they can make the ToS they want, they dont have to answer to anyone, if they want to start banning people they think have the ugliest transmogs they are absolutely free to do so, no one is denying that, but then they wouldnt have any customers left so that is obv not going to happen.
The consequences of the subject here though, are potentially something of the same calibre, ofc. not in that scale - People will eventually leave. Both blizz and customers are better off with a ToS that is crystal clear, and a penalty system that is the same - and totally evidence-based.
People are clearly abusing the report system, and its no coincidence that something like this comes in the aftermath of blizzard publishing that they have starting to ban players for something yet to be defined other than being related to leaving mythic+ keys amongst other things that would be for the first: very hard to prove. and for the second: even harder to prove when the violation havent event been clearly defined.