Players mass-reporting other players

#1 - Sept. 27, 2014, 11:52 a.m.

Hi guys. Ever since I started helping a guildie out with her living story I have noticed something disturbing. There is a trend of players encouraging others to “mass report” other players in order to try and get them banned.

My guildie is relatively new to this game. The level of abuse she got recently really upset her, as did players telling her she was going to be banned because them and their friends were all reporting her. Unfortunately, she didn’t take any screenshots – but another guild member did.

Enclosed is a screenshot showing some players threatening to “mass-report” other players. What I’d like from Anet is a confirmation: can you get banned just because lots of other players report you, even if you’re just playing the game as intended (e.g completing an event that others are trying to exploit?) Or can players be banned for reporting maliciously – that is, using the report function as a weapon because they dislike another player/what that player is doing?

I think someone needs to clear things up because no new player should be made to feel awful just for playing the game as it was intended to be played. And players threatening to get other players banned through mass reporting (getting their friends/guild members/the whole map to report one person) seems like very disturbing behavior.

Here’s the collection of screens: [Image Redacted. Do not “name and shame” in posts or in screenshots.]]

How does the community feel about this?

Gaile Gray

#66 - Sept. 29, 2014, 3:52 p.m.

warduke.1780:
I’d also like to hear Anet’s input. Is this true – do you ban players just because dozens/hundreds of other players report them?

Nope. You can rest assured, if 100 players report Fred, but Fred’s not doing anything wrong, he’s going to be just fine. The 100 false reporters? Not so fine, if they start abusing the report system. (And we may not use the exact message as expressed above, but that’s pretty much how it works. )

That bit that someone said in the OP’s screenshot about “1,000 posts and the player is auto-banned” is ridiculously untrue.

What category do you think these people are choosing? Here are the categories:

Botting
Inappropriate Character Name
Spamming
Verbal Abuse
Scamming
Selling Gold
LFG System Abuse.

I will check with CS to see if there’s a trend of false reporting, and ask them if they may want to increase tracking reporting players to check for signs of abuse.

Thanks for this discussion. It’s good to be able to set the record straight.

EDIT: We’ve removed the hosted image, as it contained the names of players and forum policy prohibits “naming and shaming” in posts or in screenshots.

Gaile Gray

#73 - Sept. 29, 2014, 6:35 p.m.

Malediktus.9250:
Dwaynas Avatar.1562:
Gaile Gray.6029:
You can rest assured, if 100 players report Fred, but Fred’s not doing anything wrong, he’s going to be just fine. The 100 false reporters? Not so fine, if they start abusing the report system. (And we may not use the exact message as expressed above, but that’s pretty much how it works. )

I remember a livestream months ago (maybe half a year or so) where someone did a fake giveaway of a legendary (he did the drawing off camera and a friend of him won) – people got upset and massreported him, around 500 people where watching. On stream you could see 3-4 min after people started to report him he was kicked out of the game, he tried to log in again but he got a error massage, that he was banned – but he did nothing wrong ingame, it was only on twitch.
(Don’t ask who he was, I was only watching it because of the giveaway xD)

Yes, I am not entirely convinced mass reporting does nothing.

I don’t have enough information to answer your claims substantially. Things like exact character name, date, time and time zone, server, etc. Right now, and no offense intended, it’s a rather vague “I saw this thing happen” story and nothing more. Maybe the player was reported and, based on his in-game activities and not the out-of-game prize distribution, he earned himself a suspension or a termination. Maybe this is one of those urban legends, where everyone knows someone who knows someone to whom something happened, but no evidence exists that anything happened at all.

I don’t know about the story.

What I do know is this: There is no numeric bar or magic number after which someone is automatically “banned.” Each report goes into a flowing report system, and every report is reviewed individually. If an agent saw 100 reports of a player in the same hour, s/he would probably review several times, but not each of 100 times. Because after a few reviews it would be pretty clear if there was an actionable offense or if some report abuse was going on. (And you know what? Game logs would confirm a case of requested spam reporting.)

I talked to the lead of the CS team today to ask how we monitor flooded reports, and he’s going to get some data on that. But the outcome of someone reporting 100 players once each, or one player 100 times is the same: The player is reviewed and is actioned only based on his or her breach of the UA or the RoC, and not as a result of crowd request.

Gaile Gray

#107 - Sept. 30, 2014, 4:28 p.m.

Lots of posts, but I’m sure this thread has served its purpose and was answered back months… well, ok, days ago.

Do mass reports work? No.
Could someone get suspended for fake reports? Yes.
Could a group get nabbed for intentional griefing through false reports? Yes.
Do you guarantee you’ll nab each and every person or group submitting a false or mob report? Probably not.

Bottom line: Report reasonable, play reasonably, and all is well.